Heron Lake Plateau Coo coo for cocoa puffs

@Owen or anyone wanting to be weirded out by a spazzing bird

Mimic fucking loved freedom. She didn't have to hear her humans coo at her, she didn't have to stay inside a cage and she didn't have to hear the question "Polly wanna cracker?" twenty four seven. It never mattered that she actually did in fact, want the cracker what mattered was they asked it all the damned time like she was supposed to stare them in the eye and be like "Why yes my good human owner, I would indeed like that cracker"

 So she'd flown the coop at the earliest opportunity and was now in some weird type of wilderness surrounded by howling dog beasts. She was tired though and so she flew down to the ground and scraped at it uncovering some real juicy larva and slurping them up. In about three seconds one managed to get hooked on the pointy part of her beak and instesd of lifting her foot and wiping it off, she began to flail her head back and forth, side to side and screech in a panicked fashion.

Tagging mainly for reference!  :)  The "hybrid" Owen is talking about is once again @Towhee (and X, sorta  ;D  ).

Owen had been very leery of confronting the earthy edge of the mysterious portal that was the den's exit. Very leery indeed, for last time he had attempted to investigate, the obdurate wall had bitten him, right on his poor little nose which he could practically still feel the sting in if he thought about it overmuch. But no matter how much he enjoyed the bountiful supply found at @Raven's belly and the warmth and safety of the den, he found to his distress that Momma Raven had been spending increasing time away from home and growing less cooperative with this whole nursing thing as her frantic brood attacked her teats with growing strength and newfound teeth both. Owen couldn't understand it. He was hungry, just about all the time, and now he had to contend with not just his recalcitrant siblings but also his mommy's frequent absences? It was not fair, not in the least, and he'd spent the better part of a day curled up in a far corner of the den sulking about it.

But even as the milkman's delivery schedule grew less dependable, even as he stalwartly tried to ignore that strange bright circle at the end of the tunnel whence came so many strange sights and smells, he found himself feeling more and more drawn to some of the exotic smorgasboard the world out there kept trying to serve up to him. Some of the scents were even beginning to smell strangely delicious, despite their whole identity crisis of plainly not being a proper serving of the milk he had always craved. It was really weird, and Owen wasn't at all certain he liked it.

But today he at last caught a scent that tickled his nose and niggled at his little brain until he found himself gradually wobbling his way upward and outward. It was a smell that reminded him of that one very strange creature who had been poking her nose into the den throughout most of his brief life, the one who had shed that strange bit of downy fluff and didn't smell quite like any of the other handful of wolves the pup had thus far encountered—the one Owen was convinced must actually be some sort of strange monstrous hybrid in a wolf costume trying to invade the den site. She had always been quite a nice monster, however, so once he passed that first tricky corner it was with more curiosity than fear that Owen toddled his way out into the shafts of strong sunlight to have a better sniff at what was going on out here. His ears still weren't the best, as was perhaps fortunate, and his eyes were dazzled by the fiery star hanging unimaginably high in the sky above. Owen had to stand there and blink the sunspots from his vision for a minute, and then had to keep blinking at the fluttering, squawking, utterly bizarre white creature that was dancing about a short distance away. Its head whipped side to side in such a fashion that Owen had to wonder if its neck was broken, or if perhaps it was simply distressed at the prospect of having only two small stick-like legs. Owen had thought his limbs were teeny compared to all the treetrunks the bigger wolves walked around on, but this creature really took the cake. He bobbled another step forward and ventured, Araraah?

The damned larva was just stuck on there so good, even when she shook her head hard enough to make a metalhead jealous it stayed put. Ironically when she heard the adorable baby coo from behind her and threw her head backwards, the larva flew off her beak and smacked the puppy in the face. "Well Araaaaraah to you too small howly beast" she cooed and turned herself right side around. She walked in that high step weird cockatoo way over to him and leaned in real close, turning her face to the side and looking him in the eye with one of her own beady black ones. "Ya look like a baby doggy" she said and then because it was one of her "of the meds" days sang "How much is that doggyyyy in the window" while slowly reaching toward the pups ears and squawking "RUFF RUFF" and bursting into a bunch of laughter.

YIPE! Owen fell right over onto his backside, crumpling in surprise before flailing in distress at the small white thing that had just come flying over at him out of nowhere. Yyaaaah-ah-aaawwhhrrrruh! He tucked his tail deep under his creamy belly and kept making noises of horror and distress as the grub thunked unloved down to the earth while meantime Owen kept flinging his forepaws crazily about even as he looked wildly about for where that thing was and whether or not it was about to attack him again. All his uncoordinated exertions shortly sent him thudding down into the dust on his side in an even less-graceful sprawl. He sat there for a moment in confused embarassment, until he spotted the grub wriggling in distress down there on the dirt not too far from his face, which sent him scrambling upright once again. He looked up at the bigger white creature with hurt and bewilderment, and then reared all the way back in alarm and fell over again as she shoved her face right up into his. Oh shit! He'd known coming outside was a Really Bad Idea today, and yet he'd done it anyway! This was how it was all going to end, with him wallowing gracelessly in the dirt and watching his own overcurious foolishness feed him to the monster he had known must be lurking out here! He only hoped everyone else could learn from his tragic bad example.

It had been babbling some sort of nonsense at him throughout the spectacle he'd created of himself, but Owen hadn't been paying much attention; what he had heard and processed in the midst of his own noisy distress only served to confuse him further. Why was this creature repeating his own noises back at him? They made even less sense coming out of its strange gray beak than from his own freshly-toothed jaws. Owen flailed ineptly about, lying there on his back like an overturned beetle and unable to remember quite how to coordinate himself enough to haul himself back onto his feet again. He'd be easy prey for sure. He squinched his eyes shut with a final yawp of despair, and waited for the end to come. He jumped however—relatively speaking, as best he could on his back in the dirt that is, so in essence moving maybe three inches at most and only sideways at that—when out of nowhere the feathery white monster barked in his ear. What the—?! Heart pounding, Owen squeezed one blue eye open and stared at the creature in increasingly fascinated bafflement. Why was he not dead? Or were all the feathery bird-smelling creatures completely incompetent and benign mosters, not just the one that Mommy kept inviting into the den? Huh.

Mentally Owen checked himself over to make sure he was intact—maybe the thing was just very sneaky about the bites it took out of people? ...Nope. He was fine. His tail uncurled itself a bit from where it had glued itself to his belly, and he stared again at the feathery white thing in wonder. ...Although—another lightbulb went on in his head quite suddenly—perhaps that was why it was making such a mishmash of things, and why it seemed to start off only repeating everything he said. The poor thing was doubtless terribly deformed, with a jaw like that, on top of everything; Owen had felt sorry for his little sister Kite, whom he'd noticed had a lot of trouble getting around compared to the rest of them. And yet even with its obviously much more bizarrely wrong little gray stick-legs, here, this creature seemed to dance around pretty nimbly; in some ways it had learned to live with its misshapen parts quite well, obviously. Maybe Kite could learn a thing or two from it. On the other paw... it didn't seem to be able to figure out how to properly eat its puppy prey, either. Owen was torn between pity and horror, at this; he didn't really want it to learn to eat better if it meant that it was going to shortly eat him, after all, but you did have to feel at least a little sorry for a creature who had such troubles filling its belly! That was probably why it was trying to stab and eat those obviously-inedible little squirmy white things, too. Yes, it all made sense now, Owen thought as he slowly uncurled himself. —He wondered in passing if perhaps the tiny squiggly things were the birdmonster's own young; they were the same color, after all, just as most of his own parents' offspring had at least some of their coloring shared, too. It seemed a reasonable enough supposition.

Owen wriggled awkwardly onto his rolly-polly brown side and clumsily pawed an indicating set of toes at his opened mouth. Ah ah ah ah? Were you hungry, little birdthing? Were you taking off your disguise to eat me? Were your babies at all tasty, or would you possibly like to find something better to drink? All of these were great questions that were probably not actually coming across in Owen's awkward attempt at charades, he dismally realized. ...So he threw in an inept bit of the ptero @Towhee had been teaching them, as well, flicking an ear pointedly and half-shrugging a shoulder as he worked his uncooperative little body in another vague wiggle. Yeah. That should help.

Apparently flinging maggots at small children, getting all up in their space and barking at them did not equal comforting social interaction because all of a sudden the small potato boy was shrieking and flailing and just downright frightened. Mimic felt amusement and shame simultaneously and held very still, the crest on top of her head slowly rising and then falling again as she watched the baby howly beast practically piss himself.

Then the child flopped onto his back and continued to thrash around, little legs kicking at the air before he stilled. Mimic sucked in a slow breath and blinked once, still processing how the kid had gone from making cute sounds to flailing,screaming and turtling in about five seconds. "Wha...the hell did I do?" she whispered, probably coming across as a series of raspy whispery sounds to the pup who was too small to understand English. When a teeny blue eye peeked out at her she gave a small chirp, hoping the sound would at least make some of the fear dissipate. They stared at one another for a very long time, both of them unsure how the hell to continue this pleasant social time apparently. Then he began to poke his mouth and make a bunch of questioning sounds, and her crest rose again. She took a guess at what he was asking and shook her head "No, no kisses thank you. You're not my type" she said and then froze as he began to make a series of fucking strange gesgures.

She stared with confusion and then it dawned on her and she gave a squawk of shock. Was this his mating dance? Was he trying to woo her? How small did these howly beasts start out in the love game?! "Woah now kid. Woah. Again...
not my type" she said and waddled forward, feeling the motherly responsibility to take this horny small potato back to the cave he came out of before someone not as polite as she was accepted his mating offer and jumped his bones. Once by his side she stood on her tiptoes and extended her neck, gently grabbing his ear between her beak and tugging him toward the den "I think it's time to get back to your mother. She should learn you're trying to seduce strangers" she muttered around a beak full of ear.

Chirp? Well that told him exactly nothing. But the actual words she spoke didn't really make much sense either; she might as well have burst into full caroling birdsong as far as Owen's comprehension was concerned. Even if he'd known all the words, put together in sequence they were still so far outside his experience as to be nonsensical. Types? and kisses? and what the hell was "seduce" supposed to mean, and how could he be doing it or got in trouble with Mommy if he didn't even know what it was?! Owen suspected very strongly now that this monster had brain damage that went along with its twiggy legs and misshapen face...hmmm.

He blinked back at Mimic in perfect confusion, and then began to carefully lever himself back up again, now that the fear was subsiding and he had the brainspace to consider how best to maneuver. If he wasn't going to be immediately eaten, he didn't want to be spending the rest of his life stuck on his back here in the dirt, after all. Before he could get very far at all, however, he was interrupted by monsterbird mumbles and—horrors!—its freaky deformed gray mouth closing itself around his little red earflap.

This time Owen really did piddle as he yelped. What the hell, he thought they had at least managed to agree that there was going to be no nomming of little Owens by vicious feathery monsters today! If she was needing to eat someone she could at least pick one of the sisters, couldn't she?! Owen whined at the unfairness of it all, and thought that perhaps the birdmonster had misunderstood— maybe it thought that only taking a very small piece of him, just a single ear, would be permitted as a token payment. Ah ah ah awwrr! half-wailed Owen as he let himself be dragged along for the sake of holding on to that ear. He ineptly raised a stubby paw to swipe at the creature as he reluctantly walked along, however; he really wanted to make sure his jailer knew that he was not okay with this, not one bit. Grow your own ears, you stupid freakish featherduster! Leave mine alone! Then Owen raised his voice again even louder, stumping reluctantly back into the den entryway as he yelled for Mommy @Raven, or even Daddy @Quixote or one of his sisters or someone to come here and do something about this, before this treacherous birdbeast stole his entire ear or yanked off his skin to make itself a fresh puppycoat costume! He couldn't be allowed to lose an entire auricle before his ears had even pricked up properly; surely life wasn't going to be that unfair to him.

After treating herself to a meal, Niamh decided she’d go see what the Quivens were up to. She liked spending time with them, especially now that they were more wolf-like and less potato-like. They were still small, bumbling and chubby, but they could interact with her more now, without being too much to handle just yet. Of course, she knew that time would come- but it didn’t deter her. She’d already decided that she wanted to have as many children of her own as possible- and the Quivens hadn’t deterred her from having that feeling.

She heard Owen’s voice before she saw him, and he sounded like he was irritated, and when his voice became louder, ahe hastened her pace. Of course, maybe he was just trying to rebel against his parents because he didn’t want to do what they wanted him to do- but there was an unmistakable note of real frustration to his plea, so she felt best not to leave him to his parents.

The sight she came upon caused her to pause for just a moment. Though Niamh had seen many birds in her lifetime, and though she’d killed many of them, none had looked like this one- and it was more or less walking a less than willing Owen toward the densite. But there was the unnistakeable curve to its beak which, to Niamh, said nothing other than predator- so with a growl, she lowered her head and charged, hoping the bird would let Owen’s ear go- but be too slow to take off, so she could add its beautiful while and yellow feathers to her collection.

The bitter tang of urine reached Kite quicker than her brother’s distressed cries did; she was still hearing through earfuls of cotton, after all. She’d been playing with a few of the gifts that littered the den — a scrap of rabbit hide and a wafer-like scapula bone. She was fascinated by different textures and spent an inordinate amount of time examining her environment with her paws, teeth, and tongue.

The acrid taste of fear in the air caused a fitful litany of whines and whimpers to cascade from Kite as she wormed furiously toward her brother, some of the wild jittering in her limbs seeming to have calmed as she gained better control of her growing body. It appeared that some of the wibbles and wobbles were due to infancy, for as she aged, she grew stronger — but it was also apparent that she was always going to be a little bit different than everyone else. A growl billowed in her tiny lungs and warbled free, her fur standing on end like an agitated cat’s, as she watched Niamh lunge at the not-wolf with fierce alacrity. She wanted to help!

Unfortunately, Kite’s condition meant that she was never going to be entirely successful at things that involved physical prowess. She meant well, but as she came in from the other side and instinctively attempted to flank the bird so it had nowhere to go but toward Niamh, she lost her balance and her hips swayed abruptly to the right instead of following in line with the rest of her. It was the first time she had experience failure, but it wouldn’t be the last. Regaining her balance, she smushed herself against Owen and began to lick lovingly at his face to comfort them both.

Why was the littke dog beast screaming now? Mimic paused and her crest rose as she released the boy, turning to give him an open beaked stare of exasperation. Just as she did so an even bigger dog beast came running at her and with a squawk and flapped and lifted into the air, not fast enough though as a tail feather was yanked out quite painfully earning a nice blob of shit to drop out as she began to shriek and flap. 

The sane thing to do would be to fly away. Instead Mimic briefly landed on Niamh's shoulders and in a quick, taunting way closed her beak around her ear before once again taking flight. She landed on a tree branch anf stared down at them, head twisting to and fro as she clucked her tongue in a scolding manner. "Really! All I wanted to do was bring the kid to his parents! He was offering kisses and trying to seduce me with weird mating gestures." she sounded downright appalled by this. "Should teach your kids some manners! How young is that boy anyway? He must be fresh outta the womb!" she continued to yammer on, her head still being tossed side to side every other word as if to emphasize how upset she was.

Owen's heart leaped gladly at the sight of Niamh barrelling her way toward the bizarre creature and him. His knight in shining armor! His vengeful spirit summoned from the fields beyond to come swooping in to his rescue, or at least to take a bite out of the monsterbird if it was going to go around trying to take bites out of him! Hurrah for the heroic babysitter of the hour! Owen's plaints trailed off, and his eyes widened as he saw Niamh's snapping teeth take a feather for their own. Oh wow—was she going to turn herself into a werebird too now, just like Towhee?!

A tinier yip of suprise escaped him as Kite came thundering out from the opposite side, though with rather worse aim. Owen was relieved: he was doubtful his tiny sister could have taken on the monster without losing an ear or a paw or who knows what. And Kite needed all her body's pieces intact if she was going to learn to walk straight, or properly charge feathery menaces for that matter. Owen let out a small Oof! as she collapsed against him instead, but gratefully accepted her thorough face-washing. He hauled a creamy paw of his own over her back to squooshed himself tighter against her, partly in glad self-reassurance and partly to make sure the birdmonster wasn't going to get a clear shot at Kite next.

As his heart rate slowed, he looked about and stared up in sick fascination past Kite's tiny pink tongue at the weird white featherduster— oh my gosh, its neck was broken again, wasn't it. His eyes bobbled back and forth as they followed the sideways flopping of the bird's head. Now that it wasn't trying to eat his ear, pity was reasserting itself as the main emotion Owen was feeling. This poor monster was screeching some more deluded nonsense of which he understood very little. But he could obviously see this monster was just not right in the head, and given its obvious difficulties—and the still-intact state of his ear when he gave it a quick mental check—Owen felt both sorry for it and curious. He started to bellycrawl closer to get a bit better look at it and see if maybe closing the distance at least some was likely to make its words any more comprehensible or clear.

Dangit- she nearly missed. All she got was one wonderfully smoothe and pure white feather- but the ruffled creature got away. She flinched and snapped as it took a moment to tease her ear, but if it chose to do such a thing, it wouldn't get away so well. She cast the bird an angry look as she moved forward, placing herself between the pups and the bird. To Niamh, a hooked beak meant that the bird was a predator. Hawks, eagles and ospreys had hooked beaks- as did this one. Owen crept toward the creature again, but Niamh cast him a stern look, warning him to keep back.

It spoke- in a language she could understand, which was odd. Most birds didn't speak- even X didn't. But she knew some could learn to speak, rather than simply using their own language. This bird was obviously an intelligent one, but she still didn't trust it. "As if." She hissed. Mating gestures? Not from one so young. "Get out. And stay away from this place- or I'll take more than just one feather next time," She said, baring her teeth. Niamh loved hunting birds- but she would just as soon never see this one again.