The only universal language
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
Your limbs were weak as a fever shot through your feathers. You felt sticky, unclean. Your breathing sounded wrong, more laboured, whistling through your nostrils. It was too noisy, it'll wake the chicks.
Belatedly, you remembered you needed to check on the chicks, mind still hazy for details as to why you were like this. You'd been reduced down to basic instinct, intuitive thought that didn't need to consult memory.
You opened your eyes, the walls were too bright and hurt your eyes. You shook your head at the sudden stimuli, your vision was blurred with only splotches of colour to distinguish shapes. You had to rely on scent to identify who the blobs were. Just lifting your head was a huge task and you let out a chocked warble, it sounded unhealthy.
A green blob moved towards you, speaking a language that had left your understanding but as you continued to blink uselessly, snout tilted up to the ceiling with crackling breaths, more understandable twittering answered your initial warble.
A contact call from your wife, one you made back before you started calling for your children. You needed to know the chicks were alright as the memories of the previous cycle started seeping into your brain.
A pink blob got closer, your nose identifying them as one of your eldest chicks. Et-han's face became recognisable as they got closer and you reached for him.
"You're so damn lucky we got you an antidote in time," he muttered, "that venom would have killed you. What happened to letting the death worlder take the venomous hits?"
"Oh leave her be for now," Yinsin admonished, "she's in no position to argue her case. Stay with her, I'll grab the other children."
"Including the human?" Et-han asked.
"Especially the human," Yinsin said, "I think one of the other humans made a translation error when explaining Yarrow's condition. They've been stressed ever since that talk."
"Alright, but if she starts nesting, I'm out of here."
"Don't act like you don't enjoy being fussed over," YInsin called as she left.
You were only distantly aware that she had, you'd begun inspecting Et-han for injuries. You remembered the raid and while you weren't fully sure of all the details yet, you knew if there was a raid, your elder child would defend the nest alongside you.
You were right to worry. You found bandage around their arm and the coppery smell mixed with something sweet, blood laced with venom, raising your head feathers and causing you to hiss.
"I'm fine," Et-han said, "you already know I have a hefty poison tolerance and even then, we're in the med-bay. We've dealt with it." Et-han's hand grabbed your hand and squeezed, the action seemed to clear your vision if only for a second. "You, on the other hand, are gonna have to stay here to recover. You lost a lot of blood and your body isn't handling the venom as well as mine. That tail swipe you took also bruised your sternum so, you're probably going to struggle breathing easy."
You tilted your head up to the ceiling again. You weren't sure why you kept doing it. Something about the action felt better to you, like you could breathe better or think clearer. Perhaps there is some fluid somewhere that you were trying to move.
"You're not taking any of this in, are you?"
You squeezed his hand, trying to explain that you were there, even though it was difficult to stay with him. You couldn't hope of speaking yet, thinking alone was like walking through waist high mud.
"I'll leave the rest of the scolding for when you're able to talk," Et-han said, "just know I am going to scold you."
You twittered sweetly in his direction, nudging your snout into the side of his head before tilting it back to the ceiling.
"Love you too."
You two sat like that until a flurry of shapes, colours and sounds overwhelmed you. Multiple scents of crewmates entered your nose, marking off an imaginary checklist of chicks. They ran to you, nearly tackling you as they all climbed up on your cot, voices frantic for attention and assurance.
You couldn't say anything yet but you could twitter and coo, head lowering to study their shapes, taking in their scents. Tocktin climbed up on your shoulders, Sie curled into your side and Alyr and Thistle grabbed around your body, pulling you close to them.
A memory resurfaced and you let out a chirp, taking Alyr's head and studying his face to the best of your limited vision. You couldn't see anything but a brief prod at the area around his horn made him shrink back and you cooed sadly, pulling him closer.
There was someone on your list that had not come to you. You let out more contact calls, head up and searching when you couldn't hear them. Their scent was here but you couldn't see them. Your vision was getting more blurry the longer you had your head down. You shook your head, looking around and twittering a sweet sound to lure the child out of hiding.
They likely weren't even hiding, just standing outside of your current field of view. You shook your head again as it only got heavier while you were looking around.
"Has she been doing that a lot?" Yinsin asked, also outside of your field of view.
"She's only really started doing that now." Et-han said, "but before you got here, she was tilting her head up. Maybe some fluid?"
"Of course the one who would actually know is currently mum brained."
You let out a displeased churr at the phrase. You could still understand somewhat, it was difficult but you could. And it was getting harder, the longer you spent away from tilting your head up. You twittered again, that same twitter you'd done to the human before, hoping to lure them out.
Something moved in your field of view and you turned to it, the shapes and colours were familiar and you visibly lit up on seeing them, calling for them to come closer, gesturing with your wing.
The human paused then stepped away, making you lose sight of them, their colours seemed to blur into the background and you could no longer visibly tell what was them anymore. You called, growing a little distressed.
"Ok so their field of view is about a stride and a half away." Et-han mumbled.
"That's not good." Yinsin said, "what have the scanners said. Is there any more Aesif venom in their system?"
"No, it's all gone but her body is in a kind of shock. Her internal temperature is raised and there's still all those injuries she got from the raiders. At least one of those was a head wound."
You couldn't really focus on the conversation until you were sure where the human was and you could inspect them yourself. They had been targetted by the Aesif too and grabbed. Were they hurt? Were they scared? You were still building trust and it was shaky. Did they feel unsafe after the invasion? Was your chick unsure of your ability to protect them? Did the Aesif scare away that personality that was only starting to come out?
You twittered again in distress.
"Yarrow, it's ok. The human is here, they're ok."
Not long after, the human stepped back into your vision but not close enough for you to check them for injuries. You gestured again with your wing, more incessant, only growing distressed that they weren't safe in your arms.
Their next movements were quicker. They lunged at you and you reacted quickly, opening your arms to them to fall into and pulling your wings around all your children. The human was making noises now, whimpers and whines, sounds of distress. You twittered and nudged at them, searching them for injury and landing on the arm that had been grabbed.
You smelt the blood even if it had been bandaged. You cooed, nudging their head to lay against your chest and you pulled them tighter to you. Then you tilted your head back up to the ceiling, shaking slightly to clear your head.
"Yarrow," Yinsin said, "can you put your head down for me, I need to look at it."
As much as you wanted her to, you just needed some time to breathe and think first. This was helping you somehow.
"Yarrow please, I don't want to fight you on it."
You shook your head and cooed. You didn't exactly want to fight against them either but there were some things you couldn't articulate yet.
Hands wrapped around your snout and pulled your head down. You immediately locked eyes with your wife, struggling to pull your head out of her grasp. It wasn't until you started coughing that she let go, cooing in distress.
"I don't know how to help you," she said, "I'm not the one who has a PhD in anatomical biology."
You shook your head again, hand reaching up to scratch at the side of your head, hoping to communicate the issue. It ended up being Alyr who noticed.
"Your ears, mama said excessive head shaking could be a problem with the ears." He said.
You cooed at him, nudging the side of his head proudly.
"Ok, give me a minute." Yinsin left your side, giving you the chance to cuddle up with your children. You kept your head pointed up but your arms and wings curled more around them all. You could feel the human's little hands clinging to you, similar to how your other children did. Warm warbles and coos left you as you pulled them impossibly closer.
"You are such a mum," Et-han muttered beside you as if he hadn't literally been raised by you.
"Back," Yinsin said before you felt something poke into your ear. You initially flinched away with a chirp. "Sorry, sorry. Just worried for you," she twittered and trilled sweetly and you held yourself still as she looked in your ear again with the otoscope.
You were growing tired. As much as you tried to keep your head up and breathing steady, the pain was starting to creep in as the pain meds were being filtered out of your system. You churred, your head lowering against your will, eyes blinking slowly.
"Oh my dear, lay down, it'll help."
You shook your head again, knowing that irritation and fuzziness would follow if you were to lay down. You needed to be there for your children, they were still scared.
"Come on, let her sleep." Et-han said to the others, "we'll need to move her to check her out anyway."
"Etty," Thistle whined.
"Nope, I'm serious, she needs to recover. You can see her later."
"But she's scared," Alyr said, squeezing his arms more around you.
You paused at that. Were the children reacting to your anxiety? While there was fear around how your children had faired during the invasion, you didn't think they'd notice it over their own fear.
"Oh, she was just worried about you all. She's seen you and knows you're all safe now. It'll be ok," Yinsin said, "I'll be right here with her the whole time. She won't be alone."
While it was to reassure the children, it did a lot more to reassure you. Because you were scared. You were scared of what the venom will do to you, when would be the next time you held all of them?
"And all of you are going to be very good while she's recovering, right?" Yinsin said.
"We'll visit every day," Thistle said, "even if you're not awake."
"We love you mama," Sie said, curling his whole body around your waist.
"We love you," came the chorus afterwards. You cooed at them all.
They all gave you another big squeeze before they all peeled off you. The human was the last to peel away but they gave an extra little squeeze before also letting go.
"Et-han, lead them out. I'll stay with Yarrow. I'll need to look at her ears anyway."
"Bye, mama," they called as all of them left your field of view. You held in the distress until you were sure they were out of the room. Even then, you made sure your warble was quiet.
"My love," Yinsin stood over you, tucking your head under her snout, "you care so much, it is time you received some back. They will be fine. Let us focus on you."
You closed your eyes, leaning in to the affection.
