Tunie was quivering with anticipation.

She was burbling with fear, terror and anxiety.

She was bored, she was so, so, so, so bored.

She was humming softly and bristling with potential.

Tunie was going to fly.

Leap the way all the visitor ships had told her about.

But first of all there was one last step.

Tunie needed her crew.

Some of them were long time friends. One of them had been there with her before she was her.

Before she was.

Before Tunie.

So close and together and familiar it was almost herself, almost a part of herself.

One of the smaller parts of course that trembled and buzzed in their own special joy and fear.

She felt nothing but warmth and anticipation with that one. That would make an excellent crew. In fact even if she didn't NEED a crew Tunie could have asked this friend to come.

There was no fear or concern or anxiety from ANY of herself there.

But she was afraid of some of the others.

None of the ships fully could explain to Tunie what having crew really meant. It was something that in some ways sounded very frightening. A dangerous risk that seemed unthinkable to extend to most. Some made it sound a bit like how that one friend was almost part of her in her previous thought, but without the almost and more so.

It all was terrifying and yet also something more.

Exciting of course, like trying to scoot around the obstacle course when she needed to exercise her momentum. Letting something that was not her stay within her? To guide her? Influence her? Be a part of her and yet not?

The one who had always been with her was fine for that. But the others?

Tunie ruffled her feathers.

Smaller parts of her agitated and gnashed or busied themselves in feelings and expressions appropriate.

She fretted over the individual wriggling cargo motiles all through her.

Imagining them with her retinas like she was seeing herself in a mirror except she was made of smoke and could see them all moving around inside her in all the places they actually were as each of them imagined itself onto the image.

Let their writhing slender, tiny motes of herself flex and flow and calm the vastness of her whole.

She leaned into some of the youngest parts of herself. The most newly and fresh grown and matured.

It was still rough and raw and also so tiny and small.

But it was her and herself as much as her eyes, her feathers, her motiles and her drive. It had grown last because it was the part of her for her crew.

It mused and considered and mulled in its tiny, adorable, unfathomable way. The unfathomability was a bit itchy, but would surely become more fathomable once it grew the introspecty parts properly.

It was small but important.

So much like her other friends. They were small and delicious looking but not for eating at all.

They could speak ship after a fashion, although their eyes were tiny and their feathers so small she had to nearly put one inside her eye to see the full details. But then they gave her the microscope and she'd had a lot of fun with that!

Who knew so many things could be so small! Sure the slightly less small friends had eyetalked about those things, but their eyes were so tiny they could only see a few things at once.

With the Microscope she could look at small things with one of her whole eyes!

And there was so much more to see then even they could manage with their whole bodies!

She was glad she had friends like them. It made the newest crew specific parts of her less itchy and uncomfortable.

It helped with the scratching boredom of being in too small a space for how far she could leap.

Not that she did not listen to her Mother Port.

So many good friends Tunie had which helped her along the way. Her mother port was rich and strong and full of joy and helpfulness. Caring and protecting her even when the confines of her berth made her feel so terribly cramped and cooped up.

Willing to step in when she was hurt or frightened. Able to keep away strange ships when she was shy and welcoming and encouraging when she was timid but curious.

The Mother Port had confused Tunie when she was young and much less than she was.

She had thought it was only one thing like herself. But later she had realized that while Mother Port cared for her it was also not like her.

It was instead made of Friends.

So many of Tunie’s friends as she grew and changed and became more and more and more of herself were not here anymore.

Some had left on other Ships. She remembered their courses sweeping out of her vision.

Others were not around anymore at all.

She could feel her newest addition twinge in strange uncomforting ways over how she could not rightly tell all of them apart.

Which she momentarily was very annoyed with. Parts of herself should not be full of gritty unpleasant feelings like that over things she’d never even realized she was doing.

But at the same time ever since her crew bits grew in her friends had felt so much more people shaped too!

Whereas before friends had been mostly something she thought of as very small crippled ships (which was very sad and also adorable), her crew bits could think of them as an entirely new thing that was sort of like that but very different in that related it to an ecosystem in an instancy way sort of way.

Tunie shuddered again and her cargo haulers and sterilizing agents swept up and down her hold as she remembered.

When the ecosystem parts of herself had first grown it had been terribly itchy too.

Realizing how much the Mother Port had been keeping from things growing all over and eating her?!

No friends had been allowed aboard for quite a long time after that until she had settled.

But it was so beautiful and so much better now. In some ways her ecosystem parts were her favorite parts of herself now, because of how much they could make her see things you couldn't see and were beautiful and that made her happy. Sort of like tasting but outside in.

Tunie hummed and that thought settled much of her fears.

She had been afraid before.

Tunie’s entire life so far has been nothing but one big change after another.

Things were always frightful and spooky and itchy to start with.

Crew would be much the same, she decided.

Afterall she loved friends and it already made her see her friends so she'd probably see more things about them and thus there'd be more friend-seeing in total.

She looked forward to how beautiful and strange crew seeing would be.