Things stayed normal—normal for them, at least—for what they called a week. I didn’t know what a week was, only that it meant many cycles of light and dark, many naps, many feedings, and many opportunities to bite fingers. I had gotten all ten of them during that time. Some twice. One three times. That one was my favorite.

  It was on the eighth day that I noticed something new. The white fluff covering me was changing. Tiny shapes were pushing through—thin, soft, delicate things my parents called feathers. Mine were much smaller than theirs, but they weren’t white. They had color. Blue and silver, shimmering faintly when the light hit them. I liked them immediately.

  My mother’s feathers were grey and white. My father’s were brown and white. Both had a soft metallic sheen that caught the light when they moved. I stared at them often, wondering how mine would look when they grew in. My parents stared too, but with confusion instead of curiosity.

  “No one in our species has feathers like that,” my mother murmured, brushing a fingertip over my wing. “Not that I’ve ever seen.”

  “Maybe it’s a mutation,” my father said, leaning closer. “Or a sign.”

  “A sign of what?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “How should I know? I’m not a feather?seer.”

  They kept talking, and I kept listening. And somewhere in the middle of their confusion, I decided it was time to speak.

  I pointed at myself with one tiny hand. “Lumae?” I asked. Then, because I had heard it once and needed to be sure, “Bad lumae?”

  The room froze.

  My parents stared at me with identical expressions of shock. My father’s eyes widened so far I thought they might fall out. Then, right there in the middle of the living room, he pooped.

  Inside the house.

  Surely he knew where the restroom was. Even I had tried it. My mother had held me over the hole and everything. I didn’t like it, but I tried.

  My mother blinked once, twice, then slowly turned her head toward him. “Tovan,” she said, voice flat. “The restroom exists.”

  “I—she—she talked,” he stammered, pointing at me as if I had committed a crime.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “And you pooped.”

  He made a strangled noise and fled to clean it up.

  After a few minutes, they sat me down and explained that I didn’t have a name yet. That lumae wasn’t a name at all. It meant an unhatched egg. This confused me even more, because they had used it for me many times after I hatched.

  “So am I bad?” I asked.

  My father nodded.

  My mother smacked the back of his head so hard he nearly pooped again.

  “She is not bad,” she snapped.

  He rubbed his head. “She bit me well over ten times.”

  “She bit you because you deserved it.”

  “I did not deserve all of them!”

  “You deserved at least eight.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Fair.”

  At that moment, the sitter and her husband walked in. My father, who was apparently having a very difficult day, pooped inside the house again.

  The two women burst into laughter as he scrambled to clean it up. The sitter’s husband stared at him. “What is wrong with you?”

  “She spoke,” Tovan said, pointing at me again. “She’s talking like she’s three weeks old!”

  The sitter’s husband looked at me, then back at him. “She’s not talking.”

  “She was talking!”

  “She’s not talking now.”

  “She asked if her name was lumae!”

  He looked at me again. I stared back, silent and innocent.

  He sighed. “Tovan, you need sleep.”

  My father sputtered helplessly, trying to explain, floundering like a fish on dry land. I liked the way he struggled, so I stayed quiet.

  Everyone settled in the living room once the mess was cleaned—again—and the air finally stopped smelling like panic. The sitter’s husband stretched his newly bandaged fingers and said to my father, “There’s a bonus posted this morning for Veska hunters. Extra shares for anyone who brings in more than the quota.”

  My father perked up immediately. “A bonus? Why?”

  “Some of the elders can’t hunt anymore,” he said. “And a few widows too. They’re short on fish.”

  Elders. Widows. I didn’t know those words, but the tone told me they were something sad. Something about losing strength. Something about losing someone. I tucked the meanings away, building them from the way the adults spoke.

  Across from them, the two females exchanged a look. A very specific look. Then they leaned toward each other and whispered, “They’ll spend the bonus on alcohol.”

  Alcohol. Another new word. Their voices dipped low and sharp when they said it, like it was something sour. Something unwanted.

  “No female likes that stuff,” the sitter murmured.

  “But the males can’t refuse it,” my mother whispered back.

  A drug the males couldn’t refuse. Something bad. Something allowed anyway. I didn’t understand why. If it was so terrible, why didn’t they stop it? Why didn’t they forbid it? Why did the males want it?

  I didn’t know the answer, but I knew one thing: if it was bad for the widows and elders, and the males were chasing it instead of helping, then I would bite them both for their lack of proper motivation.

  Within minutes, the females were proven right. Both males stood up at the same time.

  “We’ll go hunt,” my father said.

  “Bring back extra,” the sitter’s husband added.

  They said the word alcohol three more times before leaving, and each time I understood a little more. It wasn’t about helping the old or the widowed. It was about the bonus. The drink. The thing the females hated.

  My vow solidified. I would bite them for this.

  After they left, the two women sat together and talked about punishments.

  “If they come back drunk,” my mother said, “I’m making Tovan sleep outside.”

  The sitter nodded. “Mine too. And he’s cleaning the whole house tomorrow.”

  I knew then that my vow was righteous. I would help them.

  A few hours passed. I took one nap. My mother fed me again. The house stayed warm and quiet.

  Then the door opened.

  The males stumbled in.

  They were drunk. I knew it instantly—not because I knew the word, but because the females had described the symptoms earlier. The swaying. The unfocused eyes. The way they tried to speak and failed. The way they smelled like something sharp and sour.

  I moved before anyone could stop me.

  Fast.

  I darted across the floor, found the first finger I could reach, and bit down hard. Once for my father. Once for the sitter’s husband. Two perfect bites. Two perfect yelps.

  Then I scampered back to my mother and pressed myself against her leg for protection.

  The scene that followed was glorious.

  The females burst into laughter, clapping and praising me as if I had done something heroic. The males, shocked and wobbling, both pooped inside the house again.

  Surely they knew where the restroom was.

  I watched them with wide eyes and thought, Alcohol causes male pooping.

  It was the only explanation that made sense.

  The males tended to their mess, though “tended” was a generous word for what actually happened. They moved slowly, clumsily, as if their limbs had forgotten how to be limbs. They bumped into each other, dropped the cleaning cloth twice, and argued softly about whose fault gravity was. It took a long time. A very long time. The females didn’t help them at all. They just sat together on the cushions, smiling at me like I had done something wonderful.

  My mother pulled me into her lap and began preening me with slow, gentle strokes. It was her way of saying thank you, I was sure of it. The feeling was warm and soft and perfect. I leaned into her touch, happy in a way I didn’t have words for yet.

  When the males finally finished cleaning, they sat down. Or rather, they plopped down like sacks of wet feathers. They swayed in place, blinking slowly, staring at their wives with unfocused devotion. The conversation that followed was mostly the females talking and the males nodding at the wrong times.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The sitter’s wife prepared fresh Veska fish for everyone. The smell filled the room, warm and rich, and my stomach fluttered with hunger. My mother stood to prepare mine the usual way, but I shook my head. A small, firm shake. She paused, watching me closely.

  “You don’t want it chewed?” she asked softly.

  I shook my head again.

  She seemed to understand. She cut the fish into tiny pieces and placed them on a small plate in front of me. The males immediately objected.

  “She’s too young to eat on her own,” my father slurred.

  “She’ll choke,” the sitter’s husband added.

  They were drunk, so I decided their opinions didn’t count.

  I picked up a small piece with my fingers—my tiny fingers—and put it into my mouth. I chewed. I bit my tongue. Twice. Maybe three times. But I didn’t show it. I was determined. I chewed more carefully until the texture felt right, then swallowed.

  The males stared at me as if I had just flown across the room.

  The females smiled like they expected nothing less.

  When my plate was empty, my father nodded solemnly. “She’s doing it right.”

  Then, with the confidence of a drunk male who had just been proven wrong twice in one day, he declared, “She’s old enough for her own nest now.”

  I stared at him. My mother stared at him. Even the sitter’s husband stared at him.

  My father pointed at the small nest he had built earlier. “She should sleep there tonight.”

  I looked at my mother with the most helpless expression I could manage. She understood immediately.

  “She’s not sleeping alone,” she said. “She’s still too young.”

  My father tried to argue, but the sitter and her husband stood to leave. The sitter kept telling her husband, “Don’t fly into anything this time. Keep your wings steady. No sudden turns.”

  He muttered something about “walls moving,” which only confirmed my suspicion.

  Alcohol must be banned.

  After they left, my mother scooped me up and carried me toward the main bedroom. My father followed, pleading weakly.

  “She needs her own nest,” he insisted.

  “She needs warmth,” my mother replied.

  “She needs independence.”

  “She needs not to freeze.”

  “She needs—”

  “She needs sleep, Tovan.”

  That ended it.

  She placed me on the bed between them again, and I felt a warm satisfaction settle in my chest. I didn’t know why it pleased me so much, but it did.

  My father rolled onto me nine times that night. Nine. Whether he was awake or asleep, he somehow managed to flop directly onto my tiny body. Each time, I bit him. Each time, he yelped. Each time, my mother chuckled and whispered, “Good girl.”

  I was learning the meaning of good.

  And I would have to ask her later if that was me.

  The next day began with my father complaining. He complained about his head. He complained about his fingers. He complained about both in equal measure, as if the headache and the bites were somehow competing for attention. My mother reminded him—over and over—that every bit of it was his own fault.

  He rubbed his temples dramatically. “I don’t even remember what I did to get bitten nine more times.”

  So I told him.

  Every detail.

  He stared at me, horrified, and then—right there in the middle of the living room—he pooped in the house again.

  I pointed toward the restroom. “Clean it up. And learn where the hole is.”

  My mother covered her mouth to hide a laugh, then smiled at me with that warm, soft look she always had when she was proud. “Good girl.”

  I tilted my head. “Is that my name?”

  She shook her head gently. “Names are given when you’re judged by the Great Stone. After you finish school.”

  School. Another new word. Another puzzle piece.

  While my father slowly, lazily cleaned up his mess—moving like someone who wished the floor would clean itself—my mother explained school to me. She said it was where young ones learned flight, hunting, and the basic subjects needed for future work. Blacksmithing. Weaving. Hunting again, because apparently that one mattered a lot. And a few rare paths she said were “uncommon.”

  The one that caught my attention was Great Stone communing. She said those who communed with the Great Stone were wise. Respected. And that each sky island had only one.

  I tucked that away carefully. I liked the idea of wisdom. I liked the idea of being one of a kind.

  I had so many questions—so many things I wanted to understand—but before I could ask, a loud thump shook the outside wall. I froze. My mother froze. My father dropped the cleaning cloth and froze.

  Then the sitter’s voice rang out, sharp and furious.

  “Why did you fly into their house? The door is right there!”

  Her husband’s voice followed, confused and offended. “It wasn’t where it should be!”

  Alcohol must be banned, I thought. It interrupted learning. It caused pooping. It caused flying into houses. It was clearly a menace.

  When they finally made it inside, they took their usual seats. My father, who had apparently forgotten how to exist sober, made a second mess during the impact and had to clean that up too. He muttered the whole time.

  We had lunch after that. I didn’t bite my tongue once. I was proud of that. My mother was proud too—I could tell by the way she watched me chew, her eyes soft and bright.

  My father, however, decided to complain.

  “She keeps asking questions,” he told the sitter and her husband. “Questions a four?week?old would ask. Not a nine?day?old.”

  The sitter’s husband blinked at him. “She’s not asking anything right now.”

  “She was asking!”

  “She’s quiet now.”

  “She asked about school!”

  “She’s not talking.”

  My father floundered, waving his hands helplessly. “She—she—she’s advanced!”

  My mother and I stayed silent. Perfectly silent. We watched him sink deeper into his own confusion. My mother enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I smiled at her. She smiled back.

  It was a good lunch.

  My mother leaned close while the others talked, her breath warm against my ear. “We should play this game from now on,” she whispered.

  A game. Another new word. I whispered back, “What is a game?”

  She paused, thinking. Her eyes narrowed, then brightened with a mischievous spark I was beginning to recognize as female planning. Instead of answering me directly, she leaned toward my babysitter and whispered something. The sitter’s eyes lit up the same way. They shared a grin that made the males shift uneasily without knowing why.

  Before I understood what was happening, a question?and?answer game began.

  I still didn’t know why this counted as a game. It looked like talking. But there was a score being kept—quietly, with glances and nods—and the males were struggling. Their hangovers made it hard for them to think, and the females took full advantage of that.

  The sitter asked, “Tovan, how many times did you actually forget to close the fish storage last week?”

  My father blinked. “Uh… twice?”

  “Four,” my mother corrected, marking something invisible in the air.

  The sitter’s husband groaned. “Why would you admit that?”

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  More questions followed. More slips. More secrets the males clearly hadn’t intended to reveal. By the end of the game—hours later—the males looked defeated, slumped over like wilted feathers. The females looked victorious.

  And the males had earned themselves extra chores. Many extra chores.

  If this was what a game was—if losing meant chores—I decided I would never lose a game. Ever.

  I learned so many new words during that game that I was sure games were more than fun. They were tools. Weapons. Opportunities.

  I leaned toward my mother and whispered, “I want Papa to do more chores. I want to play a game.”

  She grinned at me, the same grin she’d shared with the sitter earlier. She knew. She knew I would help us win.

  After dinner, the couple left. The house grew quiet. I decided it was time to play my own game.

  I looked at my mother and asked, loudly enough for my father to hear, “Why does Papa always poop in the house?”

  My father choked on air.

  My mother didn’t miss a beat. “Because males simply cannot be housebroken.”

  He sputtered. “It’s a startle reflex!”

  My mother raised an eyebrow. “Is it.”

  I didn’t know what a startle was, but I trusted my mother. And the floor supported her argument, because my father—red?faced and muttering—went to clean up yet another mess.

  I watched him go, satisfied. He had a chore to do!

  Games were powerful. And I was very good at them already.

  The small nest looked harmless enough when my father set it beside the bed, but the moment I curled into it, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t them. Still, my mother told me gently that I needed to try it, so I did.

  For one hour.

  After that, I scampered into the main nest as fast as my tiny legs could carry me and wedged myself into the warmest spot I could find—right between my parents. My mother woke instantly, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me close. I didn’t know what true cold was until that night, and it took a long time for the shivering to stop.

  My father didn’t help. He mumbled something about “adjusting” and “building resilience,” so I bit him. I told him it was his fault I was cold. He didn’t argue. He just sighed and bandaged the new wound.

  My mother tried to tell me that not every problem was caused by males.

  I asked her for examples.

  She opened her mouth. Closed it. Thought. Tried again. Failed again.

  In the end, she gave me nothing that changed my mind.

  Later that night, when everyone was asleep, I got hungry. I knew where everything was now, so I slipped out of bed, opened the fish chest, grabbed a small piece of Veska fish, and carried it to the counter. The knife was right where my father had left it—within reach. I used it to cut the fish into tiny pieces, ate quietly, then put the knife down and returned to bed, curling into the warm space between my parents.

  The next morning, my father was scolded before he even finished stretching and the sitter couple had shown up early for some reason.

  “For leaving the chest open,” my mother said.

  “For leaving a knife where she could reach it,” the sitter added.

  “For not cleaning the plate,” the sitter’s husband chimed in.

  My father blinked at all three accusations, then at me, I looked back, he then then back at them. “But—she—how—”

  He didn’t get far. The females assigned him a new chore or four before he could finish a single excuse. He complained the entire time he worked, muttering about “unfairness” and “tiny hands” and “why is she so advanced.”

  I watched him clean, and a warm, satisfied feeling settled in my chest. This was another game. And I liked it.

  The males left to hunt after breakfast, still muttering about chores and “unfair advantages” in games. Once the door shut behind them, the house felt quieter—lighter, even. It was just me, my mother, and the babysitter sitting together in the living room.

  The babysitter stretched her wings a little and asked, “Why am I never needed at night? You’d think with a newborn, you’d want help.”

  My mother smiled. “She behaves well. Sleeps well. There’s never been a need.”

  The babysitter tilted her head, feathers shifting in a way I thought meant confusion. It was hard to tell. With only feathers and eyes to read, I was still learning what expressions meant. I decided to ask her directly, since she was a good person—she had helped my mother win the game yesterday, after all.

  “You look puzzled,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. Her feathers puffed slightly. She took on the same expression my father had worn many times lately—the expression that usually meant he was about to poop in the house.

  My mother noticed and said calmly, “She can speak.”

  The babysitter blinked at me, then at my mother, then back at me.

  Since my father always pooped when he made that face, I asked, “Do you need to clean up?”

  She burst into laughter. “No, little one. Only males have that problem.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Is it alcohol related?”

  Both females laughed even harder. My mother had to wipe her eyes. The babysitter nearly fell off the cushion.

  We talked while the males were gone—about feathers, about nests, about how many chores the males had earned from yesterday’s game. Then my mother asked, “Did you leave the fish box open last night?”

  “I couldn’t close it,” I said simply.

  She paused. Then her eyes widened as she realized the truth. “It’s too heavy for you.”

  The babysitter nodded. “Of course it is. She’s tiny.”

  My mother sighed. “Well… until she’s bigger, we’ll just keep blaming Tovan.”

  The babysitter grinned. “He deserves it.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly.

  And so it was decided: Until I grew strong enough to close the fish chest, my father would continue to be blamed for every open lid, every misplaced knife, and every unwashed plate.

  It was fair. It was just. And it was, in its own way, another game. One I was very good at.

  Before the males returned, I leaned toward the two females and asked, “Should I bite them if they’re drunk again?”

  They exchanged matching smiles—the kind that meant yes, absolutely—and nodded. “That’s a good idea,” my mother said. The babysitter added, “But they only come home drunk if they had a good catch and there was a bonus. No bonus was mentioned this morning, so we’ll just have to wait.”

  We didn’t wait long.

  A short time later, the door opened and both males stumbled in, swaying, blinking, and smelling unmistakably of alcohol. They must have sensed danger, because they immediately lifted their hands high, out of my reach, as if that would save them.

  It would not.

  I darted forward, fast as I could, and instead of fingers, I went for the next best thing—tail feathers. I grabbed a small cluster from each male and darted back to safety before they could react.

  Both males yelped, slapped their hands over their tail stumps, and stared at me in shock. “Why did she do that?” the sitter’s husband demanded, rubbing the spot where feathers used to be.

  The babysitter didn’t miss a beat. “She can’t talk yet,” she said calmly. “She doesn’t understand questions.”

  I sat there playing with the stolen feathers, pretending innocence. I understood perfectly. But this explanation worked beautifully.

  Her husband nodded, still rubbing his rump. “Right, right. Too young to understand.”

  My mother watched me with a knowing look. Then she turned to the males and said, “Maybe she doesn’t like the smell of alcohol.”

  She was right. I didn’t like it at all.