Graa perched on a branch so he could watch both his steed and his man. "Human Koen, what do you want to tell me? Do you want to thank me? Praise me? Share my satisfaction and relief? All of these you may do. I am generous."

Koen, pacing, fists clenched, resisted the urge to shout "Shut up!" Instead, he took Graa's advice and tried to breathe into his belly.

"I am impatient with your mammalian mental health exercises," said General Graa. "Birds have much more efficient respiratory systems, and our brains always get enough oxygen."

Koen knew what he had to do. He could see it. See himself confessing, and then of course deportation. Probably jail. The condemnation of the entire human species, which would now be on much worse footing with the Convention.

Koen paced, and General Graa followed his movements, first with one eye, then the other.

But worse, Koen could see Mark's contempt at his weakness. I thought I could rely on you. Laura's fear. I thought you would protect me. General Graa. I thought you knew right from wrong.

Koen stopped, swung his head around, fixed his eyes on the bird.

Graa's knees tensed. He pressed his feathers together and murmured, "Rack. Kwr. Krack." through his closed beak.

"I'm suddenly anxious, but trying to control it," translated Koen's bug.

But Graa shook his head. A very human gesture, as if coming back to himself. His shoulders spread, and his ears and pants fluffed out.

"I am acting macho! I don't like that wild look, Koen. Do not focus both eyes on me at once!" He gave a sharp bark. "I am dominant!"

Which makes me what, submissive? Koen could feel the muscles in his face and shoulder clench. His body trying to protect him, to take down this threat. His poor, confused body, which didn't understand why it was in danger.

Koen's hand went to his lower arm, petted the fur there. He looked away from General Graa, and with a snap of feathers and a gust of sour-smelling air, the bird was clutching his shoulder and a beak was buried in his hair.

"Huh?" said Mr. Grumbles.

The beak stroked. Temple to ear and back again.

"I am comforting you. Tell me why you're upset."

"I'm tired, Graa. Everything is so complicated and…" Koen couldn't say "hard." His throat was closed, and if he forced it open, it would start crying. The forest was too small. The city was too tangled. He closed his eyes and tried to see it from a higher perspective.

"Ooh," said Mr. Grumbles.

"He's envious," observed Graa.

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Koen snorted. "So am I. If I was just a trained pet, I wouldn't have to worry. I wouldn't think about thinking about thinking. I would just do things."

"Yes, but you wouldn't do very much." General Graa darted his beak forward as if piercing a caterpillar. "If you couldn't think, you wouldn't be able to cook, or enjoy conversations with your friends, or help me find Mr. Grumbles."

Tears came to Koen's eyes, along with a hot bubble of self-hatred. "I'm not helping you!"

"Translation error? My steed is there. I am surprised he is not hugging you."

"I can't do it." Koen leaned against a tree, trembling with the effort it took not to curl into a ball. "I can't make myself do this."

Another caw-caw. "I am excited! I see a new perspective. You have been talking too much to Fling. You mammals have such squishy, fluid-soaked relationships."

Koen sniffed. "Um. Clarify?"

"She thinks she is the parasite in her brain. She thinks the soul is like a raven who rides upon a steed, poking and pecking, hurting it until it runs in the right direction. That is not at all the useful angle from which to view the mind."

"But pecking is exactly what you did to Mr. Grumbles," Koen rubbed his ear. "And to me."

"Not only. Punishment is worthless without reward, and neither are as important as the intent behind the beak that administers them. Koen, my family has bred war-steeds for five hundred years. We know how to be compassionate riders. We peck, yes, we coax, we bribe. We have many tricks to move the human body in the right direction. I have tried to teach you those tricks, because it looked like you could use them."

Koen looked down at his hands. What would he tell them to do, if he loved them?

He brought his right hand over his lower left arm. Pressed his palm against the light hair there. He stroked down his arm.

There is a desperation that comes upon us when we know we're not doing any good. Like a driver who's forgotten to disengage the emergency break, we spin our wheels faster, terror rising as we come to realize we're going nowhere.

The solution is to disengage. Relax your fingers one by one. It was useful for a monkey to cling harder to a branch in times of stress, but your white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel is doing you no good. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Give oxygen to your prefrontal cortex, the part of you that does the hard, right thing. Look around you.

A few emotions were happening to Koen. One was fear. If General Graa figured out by himself that Koen had orchestrated this whole difficult week, he would be furious. Another was guilt at the first emotion. Koen should be afraid because what he'd done was wrong. How could he look at Graa perched on Mr. Grumbles's shoulder and not know? He'd made a colossal mistake and if he didn't speak now, it would be meaningless.

But while these passions swept back and forth across Koen's ventromedial and dorsolateral regions of his prefrontal cortex (associated with moral judgment1 and empathy2 respectively), his striatum (situated more deeply in the subcortical basal ganglia and involved in the crystallization of habit3) activated.

He'd taken a leap of faith and been rewarded once. And again. And now a third time: "I did it."

1Greene et al. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 293, 2105–2108. doi: 10.1126/science.1062872

2Fan Y, Han S. Temporal dynamic of neural mechanisms involved in empathy for pain: An event-related brain potential study. Neuropsychologia. 2008;46:160–173.

3Smith KS, Graybiel AM. A dual operator view of habitual behavior reflecting cortical and striatal dynamics. Neuron. 2013 Jul 24;79(2):361-74. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.05.038.