Seven days, twenty hours, fifty-seven minutes, twelve seconds spent as a bat. Thirteen seconds. Fourteen seconds.

One hundred and seventy-six awkward, imbalanced steps taken down the too-large hallways of the College towards their new "home." One hundred and seventy-seven. One hundred and seventy-eight.

They had tripped over these stupid, clumsy wings eight times on this walk already. Nine times.

Stop it, stop it, stop it! Think about literally anything else, idiot! It felt like if they didn't occupy their thoughts with something at any given moment, it was back to the numbers. Literally anything could be counted or added or multiplied or otherwise calculated if you tried, and it was far, far too easy for them to try. Effortless to the point of being automatic. They had been okay at dealing with it during the first few days. The confusion and new sights and sounds and all the animals trying to convince them that they were someone else and that the life they remembered was a delusion brought on by sudden illness were more than distracting enough. But being stuck here and left to their own devices was monotonous enough for that particular coping mechanism to have quickly become useless.

Even once they were shown to their own room, they quickly found it to not be any better than the washroom in terms of stimulation, save for finally getting some natural lighting. It was also clearly built for someone with a far better command of their body, with a ramp leading up to a large window they were clearly meant to fly out from, and a ledge that they could hang from if they weren't certain they would fall and injure themselves trying. At least the boxed-in pile of blankets and easy access to fresh water was nice, but it was a small comfort in the face of everything else.

If I could just fly around, then I could at least be mobile enough to explore. They balanced on their feet, a harder task than it looked, and spread their wings wide. How is this supposed to even work? A real bat would just kinda know the angle to flap at, right? They gave an honest attempt, only succeeding in throwing themselves backwards and falling over.

They'd fallen over ten times today.

In the end, they could only think of one thing to do. They would need to ask the only one of them who seemingly had figured out flight how he did it. It was either that or go back to counting bricks.

This is pathetic. Everyone is managing just fine except you. Song is even missing a leg and she isn't struggling this much. What is Ink-Talon going to think about you showing up and begging for help? That you're just a useless kid, obviously. Just go back to your room and keep trying. Better to fail in private than humiliate yourself.

"Hello?" the bat pushed down the pessimism just long enough to awkwardly chirp in front of Ink-Talon's door, the entrance obscured only by simple cloth curtains rather than any solid barrier. "Ink-Talon, are you in there?"

"Is someone there?" the crow croaked quietly, as if he were trying to whisper. "Hold on." After an awkward twelve seconds, his beak parted the curtains as he poked his head outside. "Is something wrong?"

"I want to talk about something. Can I come in?"

"Uh..." Ink-Talon ducked back in to look at something for a little under three more seconds before poking his head back out. "Okay, just keep quiet. I've got one of the kits sleeping in here."

"Got it," the bat nodded before crawling inside. The room was laid out very similarly to their own, but with a skylight to exit from rather than from a ledge built part-way up the wall. The black-furred kit that had started talking that morning lay curled up on the bed of blankets, napping away.

"What's in your mind?" Ink-Talon tilted his head and adjusted his wings before cringing at the way that phrase came out. Accurate, but "wrong."

"I need to learn how to fly or else I am going to lose my mind," the bat said bluntly. Subtle wing and body movements were enough to communicate, though uncomfortable given their lack of coordination.

"Oh."

"Can you help? You managed to figure it out."

"I'm... not sure. I think I learned... backwards? Or cheated? I just used my Attunement to determine which muscles did what and acted on that awareness." Ink-Talon visibly sagged a bit, and the bat couldn't tell if it was out of sadness, guilt, or pity.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Oh. So that's why the other bird can't do it either?" The bat avoided using any name for the myna, as they hadn't quite wrapped their head around her "real" name just yet, and felt awkward using "Pearl" knowing that it was technically incorrect.

"Yeah. Though I was thinking of giving her lessons some time. We have the same body shape, so I should be able to provide instructions. I haven't the slightest idea how your wings work, though. They're built completely differently than a bird's." He extended his left wing and stuck his beak into the flight feathers for emphasis. The bats own wings were made of a solid, fleshy membrane rather than the nineteen rigid-but-separate feathers that fanned out to make up the bulk of its shape. They were almost certainly too different to use as an example.

"...Okay. Guess that's that, then. I'll just have to figure something out on my own. Sorry to bother you." the bat sighed and awkwardly shambled out of the room. They only made it twenty-six steps back down the hallway before he heard the fluttering of wings and the rapid clicking of Ink-Talon's feet on the stone behind him as the bird rushed to catch up.

"Wait! I do have something I'd like to try! Turn around for me."

The bat attempted to do so, only to get his wings tangled and fall. Eleven times that day.

"Okay, I see what you mean. I'm going to do everything I can to help you here, because I don't think I'd be able to take it either if that was the only means I had of moving around."

"...Thanks." the bat peeped, having decided to just lay there in a heap for a bit to regain their composure. There were still approximately nine hours and twenty eight minutes until sunset, and he couldn't help but count every second. This was going to be a long day.

"And I'll help too!" The chipper and incredibly enthusiastic squeaks of the black-furred kit echoed down the hall, the commotion of Ink-Talon's swift exit likely having roused them. "What are we helping with?"

This was going to be a very long day.

----------------------------------------

"You want to go out already?" Guardian Golden-Streak stared down in disbelief at the myna at its feet. For her part, Maggie met her gaze with an outward confidence that did a good job of masking just how unnerved she felt being stared down by a predator many times her size. "You only just moved into your lodging. Do you not wish to settle in first?"

"Settle in to what?" Maggie chirped, avoiding speaking in English to keep from antagonizing the people responsible for her limited freedom. "This isn't my home, and I have no belongings to unpack. What do you expect me to do, rearrange the blankets until sundown?" She expected some snide or derisive comment from the leopard relating to her "condition" or her body's seeming origin as "feral-born." Instead, its stance relaxed and its expressions took on a more sympathetic tone.

"I apologize. You are correct, of course. I had just expected to have more time to coordinate your supervision with the Seekers."

"No, I'm the one who should apologize." Maggie finally lowered her gaze, letting out a breath she hadn't even noticed she'd been holding. "I was just prepared for a more... adversarial relationship with you? Given your role and treatment of us thus far."

"...Follow me, please. We can continue as I try and track down an escort for your outing." The Guardian turned and began walking back down the hall, out of the living spaces and into parts of the college Maggie hadn't seen yet.

Apparently the presence of her and the other humans had created a more complicated political situation than was first apparent. While much of the specifics went over Maggie's head, as she lacked context for the systems at work, she managed to glean a few details from Golden-Streak's explanation. It seemed that they posed some rather complex philosophical questions that had created multiple opposing viewpoints, or "broken the Consensus," as the Guardian put it. Opinions wildly differed on things like their status as unique people, their potential entitlement to the property of their bodies' former occupants, and even their right to participate in this "Consensus" and have a say in their own fate. Individual leaders in specific roles had been granted jurisdiction over the most pressing safety concerns, but that was all that anyone had been able to agree on, it seemed.

For its part, Golden-Streak apparently did not harbor the same suspicions as its immediate superiors. Instead, its ill-mannered temperament had been the result of mourning the loss of Ink-Talon, who it had been close friends with. They had still been frequently exchanging messages until "the incident," as the leopard had taken to calling it. To it, it had seemed like a stranger had killed the crow and taken its place. Some amount of resentment was to be expected.

All the while as the two traveled and conversed, Golden-Streak kept poking its head into different rooms to see who was there, occasionally asking if anyone had seen someone named Seeker Sunny-Plume. This went on for far longer than anticipated, to the point that Maggie was struggling to keep up.

"Is something wrong?" Golden-Streak asked, stopping suddenly after one too many stumbles from the bird.

"Wish I - could fly - but these wings - didn't come with - instructions..." Maggie's words came out in staggered gasps as she was struggling to catch her breath. Keeping up this pace was the first time she had ever really exerted herself in this body, and she was quickly discovering that something was off about how she had been breathing. It was too shallow, too slow. Too human. She was going to pass out if she didn't correct herself. She tried to take a deep breath, only for what came naturally as a deep breath to still not be deep enough, not to mention even slower. Deep and fast was counterintuitive, and she was too woozy to think it through.

"Do you need help? Stay with me, please!" The Guardian growled, a its tone becoming panicked.

"Sorry... I don't think..." The myna collapsed into a heap, having lost consciousness before she even hit the floor.

And just like that, her breathing corrected, her body's natural reflexes taking over now that her mismatched conscious mind was out of the way. Golden-Streak gently picked up the limp bird in her jaws and sprinted away to get help.