Mom bustled around the little two-room building she— Er... We called home. She'd pick up a crude wooden bowl with a metal carrying wire with her beak, walk over to an odd pipe that ran through the ceiling, and pull the lever beside it with one of her feet. Various small fruits, nuts, and a scant few pieces of dried meat would fall through the pipe and into the bowl, then she would set the now filled bowl on the table. According to her, our home, like most others in the area, were outfitted with this delivery system to make preparing meals easier on the birds.

Like the rest of the buildings carved into the group of twelve trees referred to as 'The Nest'. Our little home was situated near the rear of the Nest in tree number five, and was the nineteenth building on our row. From the outside, it looked like an upside down ice cream cone. Mom said that was because the upper area is meant to be a prep-room for dad, but they'd turned it into a room for us.

"Sorry, Rage." Mom apologized after bumping into me.

"It's alright, mom. Can I help?"

"No, dear. Why don't you go play with your siblings?"

A loud chirping sound followed her words. I looked at the ceiling of the small room and quickly shook my head.

"I'd rather stay down here with you."

"Nonsense." She scoffed. "They're your siblings! Go play with them for a while."

"No, really... I'd much rather hang out down here."

"Rage... Go play."

...

"Okay." I agreed.

I walked over to the little steps that ran around the edge of the room and began hopping up them. Now that I'd gotten a bit more comfortable with how my new body moved, I was able to jump up each stair with only a few seconds break between them. And a minute or so later, I was in the slightly smaller loft of our home. My siblings were in the process of running back and forth across the room. Obviously playing some form of tag.

I avoided them all and went to the semi-large window that faced out over the city. The sun was beginning to set over the horizon, so the residents of tree five were beginning to head home for the day. A group of birds wearing some kind of dark sash around their shoulders began to release some kind of bugs into crude glass cages atop wooden polls that were scattered around the tree.

A few seconds later, I realized the reason.

The bugs began to slowly flash with a bright red light. Every five seconds or so, the bugs would flash and the tree would be filled with a soothing red light.

"Whatcha doin?" A girlish voice asked.

I rotated my head a bit so I could see over my shoulder and saw one of my siblings standing behind me. It was the second one to start pestering mom today, and of the seven of us, this was the only chickling born with dark feathers.

I think her name was... Kali?

She'd apparently figured out what I was watching, because they stared out the window with the same intensity I imagined I had on my face before they interrupted me.

"Hey, come look at this!" The girlish chickling called to the others.

"What is it?"

"What?"

"But we're just getting to the good part!"

The girlish chickling seemed to roll her eyes at the last response.

"Rage found something pretty!"

"Pretty? I don't care about pretty!" A voice I recognized, responded. It was the voice of my largest sibling... Grios... Grion, something like that.

"I should at least try to remember their names." I berated myself.

"You wouldn't!" Kali replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gri-something demanded.

I twisted my head to get a better look at the rest of my siblings. They were alternating between looking at Kali and Gri, but wasn't stepping forward to voice their own opinion...

"Or to break it up." I noticed.

Sighing, I stood up and stepped around Kali with a murmured apology. Then I came face to chest with Gri...

"He really is big."

"What?" He demanded.

"Nothing. I'm just heading downstairs."

"Why?"

...

"Because I want to?" I didn't know what else he wanted me to say? Was he trying to pick a fight with me? Prove his dominance?

He stepped to the side and waved me by.

I cautiously stepped around him and headed for the stairs. I looked back over my shoulder several times to see if he would try something. To see if it was a trick to get me to let down my guard... But nothing happened. He started arguing with Kali almost as soon as I'd passed him, and he didn't bother looking at me as I descended the stairs.

"I was probably being over-paranoid." I realized as I hopped off the final stair without incident.

But of course, I was just being paranoid. Three lifetimes of living in a dog-eat-dog world had taught me to never trust another human. To never let my guard down or turn my back to them, or they'd used the opportunity to stick a blade in it.

But these weren't humans, were they? Sure, they may be as smart as most humans I've met. So far they'd been decent, understanding, and kind pe— birds. They aren't people. They're birds... And that's not a bad thing.

"Rage? What's wrong?" Mom asked. She was sitting at the one piece of furniture the house seemed to possess, which was a rather small wooden table in the center of the room. The walls were decorated with various pictures of mom, dad, Daisy's monstrous self, and four older looking birds.

"Guess that's grandma and grandpa bird." I realized.

"Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to see if Dr. Lynes was here yet."

"No, not yet."

A sudden knock at the door caught both of our attentions.

"I stand corrected. That's probably them now." She stood up and walked to the door. After peaking through the small glass window at the top of the door, she opened it with a cheerful, "Dr. Lynes! So nice to see you!"

"Same here, Tawny. You remember Sonny?"

"Of course! Hello, Sonny."

"Hello." A meek, but clearly masculine voice replied.

Mom ushered Dr. Lynes and a miniature version of him into the room. Then she yelled, "Chicklings! Dinner time!"

Their squawks of excitement were immediately followed by what felt like a stampede as six chicklings descended the stairs in a mad dash for food. They quickly crowded the table as they pushed and shoved each other for a place with a bowl.

Ignoring the mayhem completely, I walked over to the two ferrets and introduced myself.

"Hi, I'm Rage."

"Yes, I remember." Dr. Lynes laughed. "Say hello, Sonny."

"Hello." The quiet ferret replied.

"Wanna go see something cool?" I asked Sonny.

He looked up at his... dad? For permission, then nodded his head. The two of us began climbing the stairs as I told him about the nice view from the upstairs room.

...

I didn't know it then, but Sonny and I would become best friends not long after this meeting... And we'd be forced to watch each other's back in more than one life or death situation sooner than either of our parents would like. But, for now, we were just two kids looking at the pretty lights.