I goggled at the energy the chicklings around me seemed to possess. Ever since we walked through the door forty-five minutes ago, I don't think they've stopped to take a breath once. It was a far cry from the children I'd seen in the hospital... Actually, aside from the other children in the village, I don't think I've ever seen kids with this much energy.

"Is it because they're birds?"

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to be from a place called New... New Work, would you?" Dad asked curiously a few seconds after slurping a comically large worm into his mouth.

"Don't talk with your beak full, Tahir." Mom said tiredly

"Bleh~" Was dad's 'mature' response.

"You mean New York?" I said, emphasizing the 'Y' in York.

"That's what I said! So? Were you?"

"No, sorry. I know of New York, but I've never actually been there."

"Damn, I was hoping to finally be able to call Boris on his lies. Metal contraptions you can ride around in. Bah! Whoever heard of such fantasy."

...

"Those are real. And they're called cars."

"Oh, is that so~" Dad said sarcastically. "Well, that's not what Boris called them. So either you're lying, or he is."

"What'd he call them?"

"Some complicated word. Started with a B, I think... Benta, Benti—"

"Bently?

"Yes! That's it!" He agreed while stamping his foot on the floor.

"I think that's supposed to be a very expensive type of car. I've never seen one though, so I could be wrong."

"Oooh, I've got you now, Boris. Just you wait!" Dad said menacingly... Which, given his appearance as a fluffy green bird... Made me really uncomfortable.

Mom thwacked him with her wing and motioned to me. "Stop scaring Rage!"

"I'm not!" He protested. "So stop hitting me, you overgrown chicken!"

Mom gasped. "Chicken!? I'm not a chicken!"

"Bleh~ Chicken woman, Chicken woman!"

I was moderately surprised that he remembered to back away as he was taunting her.

"I think my dad's a bit of an idiot..."

Of course, with the chicklings being the human equivalent of toddlers, they immediately jumped onto the bandwagon.

" Chicken woman, Chicken woman~" They cheered in unison.

I, very calmly, decided to retreat to a safe distance from the dangerous looking talons currently digging into the floor.

Then the outburst came and my dad very courageously... Got out of her way and darted out of the nearby window.

"Come back here, Tahir!! I'll show you who's a chicken!"

"Is being called a chicken a bad thing?" I asked after giving her and my siblings a few minutes to calm down.

"Not exactly." She snorted. "According to Dirk—" At the tilt of my head, she explained a little further. "That's one of the re-lifers your dad works with."

"Ah."

"A chicken is supposed to be a magical bird from his homeworld."

...

"Magical?"

"That's his words, not mine." She sighed. "He said it managed to taste like almost everything... Or everything tasted like it, I can't remember. Either way, he said the only way it could do that was through magic, so it must've been a magical bird."

...

"Alright." I said, lacking any other response to such a statement.

"Have you ever eaten chicken?"

I nodded.

"What did it taste like?"

At the thought of the bland hospital 'chicken' patties I was given, I shivered.

"Not great."

"Maybe you got the non-magical kind, then?"

...

"It's possible." I said, again being unable to come up with anything to say.

That's when the tree we were in started to shake violently, and everything went mad. The chicklings started peeping at the top of their lungs, Dad burst through the window with what appeared to be a large acorn cap on his head and his little talons at the ready, and mom... Mom was just glaring at dad.

"What. Did. You. Do?" She asked semi-calmly.

"Why do you immediately assume it was me!?"

"Because, dear,"

"Uh oh."

"They don't call you bad luck Tahir for nothing."

...

"A not incorrect statement." He allowed. "But I swear, I didn't do it."

An incredibly loud knocking sound echoed throughout the small room.

"Hey! I was told there was a pick-up here!"

"Oh! That's Daisy!" Mom exclaimed.

She walked over to the door and pressed the button with one of her feet, then pushed the door open and leaned her head out.

"We'll be out in just a minute, Daisy!"

"Tawny? How ya been, girl!?"

"Just fine, Daisy. The last egg finally hatched!"

"Really!? Congrats! Can I see him?"

"Sure, he's coming out with the rest of the chicklings."

"Aww, aren't chicklings just the best?"

"They are!"

I tuned out the rest of their conversation as I turned to dad.

"What's with the hat?"

"This," he dipped his head and allowed the hat to fall to the floor. "Is a standard issue, class one helmet! Only given to the bravest and most daring flyers of the first squadron!"

"It's an acorn cap he found laying on the ground outside!" Mom called from somewhere outside the tree. "They don't give helmets to the first squadron, so don't let him fool you!"

"Stop eavesdropping on my conversations, ya bat!"

"Do you always insult her like that?"

"Nah," He responded quietly. "Only when she's feeling down. A pissed off Tawny is much better than a sad Tawny, believe me."

"Bat!? Come out here and say that to my face, you half-pint!"

"Why's she sad?"

Dad refused to take his eyes off the door, but he did give me a sideways glance for a second.

"Not all of your siblings survived this time. And truth be told, we didn't think you were going to make it either."

...

"Oh... Sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your or anyone else's fault. These things just happen sometimes."

"Maybe he's not as immature as I thought?"

"What's taking so long, Half-Pint!? Let's go!"

"And that's my cue. Time to round up the chicklings and get a move on."

"Do you need any help, or..." I trailed off at the glare he was giving me.

"I don't care how old you were before, Rage. But here, you're still a chick. Act like it."

"I don't know what that means, though..."

"It means, leave the bird stuff to the birds and you go wait with your mother."

"Okay?" I hesitantly agreed.

I walked out the still open door and froze in place as I laid eyes on 'daisy'.

"Who... In the world... Named that... Daisy!?"

Big would have been an understatement. Large wouldn't have done it justice. And calling her massive probably would have gotten me eaten... So I just settled for Daisy.

"Um... Hi?"

The massive brown bird with a golden crown of feathers circling its neck and head turned its attention from my mom to me and leaned way down to look me in the eye.

"Are you rage?" The massive bird asked with a twist of its head.

"Y—Yes?"

....

"Oh my god! You are just the cutest thing~" The colossal bird cooed. She huffed out a breath of air that ruffled my feathers and cooed again.

"I could just eat you up~"

Cue intense feather reaction in three... two... one... Yep, there it is. My feathers puffed out as much as they could, which only caused her to coo again.

"Stop scaring my chick, Daisy!" Mom protested.

"But he's so cute!"

"Daisy... Stop... Or I'm telling mom."

"Mom?"

"Why would you bring her into this!?"

"Because she's the only one that can handle you, that's why! Now, apologize to your nephew."

"Nephew!?"

"Alright," She huffed. "I'm sorry, little Rage. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It—It's alright. I'm— I'm not scared."

...

"Clearly."

"Why Daisy, since when were you the designated pick-up officer?"

"You're flying back on your own, Tahir. Tawny's already told me how you've been acting lately."

"What!? But it'll take me hours to fly back!"

"You should have thought about that before you started being a jerk to my big sister."

"Big... Sister!?? Which part of her is the big sister!?"

"Aww, don't be that way, Daisy."

"You'll fly or I'll squash you."

....

"It is a nice day for a flight, isn't it?"

"Alright, enough with the comedy routine, you two. Help me load the chicks into the carrier so we can get moving."

I'm not sure if it was the threat of being squished, or if it was his desire to get moving that prompted my dad to usher all of the chicklings into a large, twine-woven basket that was sitting next to Daisy's left tree— I mean leg.

"Come on, Rage. You too." Mom prodded.

I quickly followed after my siblings and walked through the small opening at the base of the basket.

"Birds and Chicklings, this is your carrier speaking. Please keep all wings, legs, and tail feathers inside the basket at all times as I will not be held responsible for feathers lost or stolen during the ride."

"Stolen?"

"You've been talking to Carol again, haven't you?"

"Yeah," Daisy laughed. "She taught me that the other day."

At my questioning look, mom explained.

"Carol is another re-lifer. She was something called a 'flight-attendant' in her past life."

"Oh..." I had no idea what that was, but it sounded important.

Daisy stretched out her massive wings and flapped once, the dirt around the basket was pushed back. She flapped twice, and everyone in the basket had to dig our talons into the basket to keep from being blown over. And then... We were off.

Daisy held the large basket with one insanely oversized foot and quickly broke through the treetops. Her massive wings continued to beat until we were high above the trees, then she held them out and allowed herself to glide on the wind.

"Where are we going!?" I yelled over the wind.

"Home!" She yelled back.

"Home!? I thought the tree was home!?"

"No! Only guards of the nesting area can live inside that forest! Since I've been replaced, we've gotta go back to our nest!" She looked out of the basket's opening and motioned with her head. "See!? That's where we were!"

I looked out the opening...

"Oh!" Was all I could think to say.

The 'forest' if that's what you wanted to call it. Was definitely the most defensible place I'd ever seen... Ya know... Since it was inside an opening at the top of a freaking mountain!

"The nesting area is inside a long-dormant volcano!" She explained. "Only birds can reach the apex, so naturally, our ancestors chose it as our nesting grounds!"

"Isn't that dangerous!?"

"Well, we've got someone looking into that! There are talks about moving the nesting grounds to somewhere closer to the central nest in case the volcano ever becomes active again, but we're waiting on our expert's findings before we do anything!"

"You have experts?!"

"Of course!" She laughed as she clutched the other chicklings closer to her breast while we rode through some particularly rough shaking.

"Sorry!" Daisy yelled over the wind.

"Anyway, yeah, we do! You re-lifers bring some interesting stuff over when you come!"

As I lacked anything to say to that, I shrugged my wings.

We flew for another thirty or so minutes before Daisy called out, "Birds and Chicklings, this is your carr—"

"Get on with it, please!"

"Sorry! The nest is in sight!"

I hurried over to the opening along with the rest of the chicklings and marveled at what I saw. Trees so tall I doubted you could see the top from the ground, with trunks so wide I don't think you could walk around one of them in twenty minutes... And there were literally thousands of them.

"Welcome home, everyone. Welcome home." Daisy announced.

"Home, huh?"