"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.

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

"Incredible! Your mind really is from someone else." The first thing Maggie heard upon regaining consciousness was a shrill, keening whistle. "Your breathing changes in an instant, just like the Guardian said."

"I'll bite you in an instant if you don't shut up." Maggie grumbled, opening her eyes to find herself outside, one eye staring at the sky, the other obscured by short grasses.

"Aggressive, too!" Another, slightly larger bird with impressive reddish-gold plumage leaned over her prone form and tilted its head to line up one of its eyes with hers. "Though, that is to be expected. I would also be irritated if I became something else incompatible with my instincts. Or rather, something I did not choose."

"Sorry." The myna peeped sheepishly as she rolled back onto her talons and stood up, wobbling a bit as she did so, still somewhat lightheaded. She was standing in a courtyard or garden of sorts, still walled-in on all sides, but open to the sky and with a ton of room for various creatures to gather or relax in. The space almost certainly took up a significant portion of the College's floor plan, given the size and length of the hallways she had just been traversing. "Irritated is certainly an apt description of how I've been feeling. I usually do a better job of hiding it, though."

"As I said, it is to be expected," the golden raptor nodded. "Also, please do not restrain your vocalizations for my sake! I was actually hoping to hear the full breadth of them."

"Ooookay?" Maggie stared at the other bird in confusion. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Seeker Sunny-Plume, here to help!" It awkwardly waved a wing at her in a manner that somehow seemed familiar. "I have volunteered for the duty of watching over you in your travels around Darksoil. However, I would also be happy to guide you and answer any questions as well!"

"Volunteered? Golden-Streak made it seem like people were being assigned."

"That is true. I am the only volunteer, as far as I know."

"Why would you-" Maggie froze as she realized what was going on here. "You were watching us when we arrived yesterday. I waved at you the same way you just did to me. We... fascinate you."

"Yes!" Sunny-Plume hopped in place before beginning to pace back and forth. "I have not been able to stop thinking about all of you since we were informed what had happened! Your experience and perspectives are so unique! Other worlds! Other bodies! Other modes of communication! You are incredible! You must have-" It paused mid-strut before pivoting to face Maggie again, it's demeanor changing rather suddenly. "I am truly sorry. This is all so presumptive and invasive, as well as inappropriate for someone in my role. I will stop."

"Look, Sunny... Can I call you Sunny?" Maggie shuffled awkwardly as she tried to sort out her conflicting feelings on the sudden interest.

"You are still calling me by my name, but with a casual, friendly layer to the context. That is... interesting." Being introduced to the concept of a nickname only seemed to further fascinate the raptor, and it was doing a poor job of hiding that.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Sunny. I appreciate your enthusiasm, it's a refreshing change of pace from the pity, confusion, and suspicion we've been getting so far. Just... slow the pace down. I don't think I can easily answer most of the questions you may have, and I was hoping to..." Maggie trailed off. She wasn't sure at all what she was hoping to accomplish wandering around today, just that she couldn't stand to be idle. "I was hoping to stop thinking about it for a bit. Have a day where I do what I would normally do."

"Of course," Sunny chirped, its disappointment palpable. "Though, before we go anywhere, I was asked by Lead Physician Pensive-Pace to try and help you correct your breathing. It would like to prevent any future incidents."

The idea was pretty simple, all things considered. Sunny would lead her through taking natural breaths using itself as an example, and hopefully having done it properly would allow her to draw upon that knowledge should she need to again, rather than struggle and fail like she did before. It certainly felt patronizing, needing to be taught to breathe, but apparently Ink-Talon had needed to be taught to sleep and Quiet-Dream had just been taught how to bathe himself the night before. This was just the reality of things, it seemed. Not all that different from getting physical therapy after a head or back injury.

The primary thing Maggie had been doing wrong with regards to her breathing is that she was forcing all of the air out of her lungs with every exhale, like a mammal would. Bird lungs were designed for efficiency in flight, therefore she just needed to relax and let a more natural exhale occur. It felt strange when she did it, as if she were somehow breathing in halves, keeping some air in reserve at all times. For all she knew she was. Sunny certainly wasn't able to give any good answers. Turns out the average animal didn't have that much better an idea of the mechanical workings of their own body than the average human did, she would likely have to ask Ink-Talon for information on that. Still it was good enough. She was moderately confident she could fix her breathing should she ever need to again. Having it come without conscious effort, though, was a bit less likely for now.

"Where would you like to go, Pearl?" Sunny-Plume asked, once it was satisfied with Maggie's progress for the moment.

"Huh?"

"You wanted to 'spend a day performing typical activities,'" the raptor chirped, differences in Understanding somewhat mangling the intended quote. "Where would you like to go for them? I can lead you to whichever facilities you need."

“Oh, well.” She did actually have a vague idea, but she needed to frame how she asked about it carefully. “What do you actually do around here for… entertainment?”

“Recreational activities? That depends on one’s preferences. Perhaps you could describe something you liked to do, and I could show you something similar?” Sunny looked at her intently, clearly eager to hear any scraps of information about the myna’s previous life, but providing an example would certainly be expedient…

“Well, I really enjoyed… games. But not physical contests. More like games of skill and reactions and strategy. Does that make sense?” Trying to describe a video game to a creature who had no concept of anything beyond the “game” part was not a simple task. Hell, she didn’t even know if they even knew what “games” were. But Maggie hoped that there was some manner of board game or similar out there.

“Object games?” Sunny-Plume whistled, not in confusion, but in relief. “You made that seem like it was going to be a far more fantastical concept. I know exactly where to take you, if you do not mind a short flight across the city.” It took a few seconds of Maggie staring at it in annoyance for it to remember that she couldn’t fly. “...Or a longer walk. We can join a traveler or two to take us most of the distance. I have to do it when I injure my wings.”

“Do you… hurt yourself that often?”

“...Follow me!” Sunny swiftly changed the subject and flew away, landing near an exit from the courtyard to the rest of the building. It turned around and waited patiently, in the hope that the distance would distract from how much it had just embarrassed itself. It did not, but Maggie just found it amusing. Seeing one of the animals so easily flustered like that was kinda cute. It was good to know that not all of them were so stoic or morose all the time.

Maggie was better prepared this time for the commotion of the city, though she did need to explain to Sunny-Plume just why she was bracing herself as they left the college. Rather than act like she was being unreasonable or was mentally unsound, the kestrel was sympathetic, relating a time when it had been similarly overstimulated by attempting to find someone in a crowd in a rush, opening up its Understanding to an unbearable amount of noise and accomplishing nothing but passing out on a rooftop. Turns out that it was just an adjustment that some creatures more used to living in less populated places struggled with upon coming to the city. She and the other humans just got a particularly bad case of it.

“We really aren’t all that different, huh?” Maggie remarked as the pair wandered down the gray brick road through the tangle of buildings that made up the city proper.

“We are extremely different!” Sunny flapped its wings, more excited than indignant. “Most do not think in terms of structured sounds, or express concepts with additional layers of informalness for no clear reason.”

‘Informalness?’ Maggie considered the expression. It had used “casual” to refer to her nickname for it earlier, but this clearly meant more than just that. What was she frequently saying that was specifically ‘informal?’ She certainly never tried to be explicitly formal, but she hadn’t gone out of her way to act overly familiar, either.

“I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”

“You are literally doing it right now.”

“Okay, I want to figure this out.” Maggie continued walking, but turned her head to stare at the other bird. “Can you repeat what I said back to me, and point out what parts of it were ‘informal?’” Sunny returned her gaze with an odd mix of surprise and… excitement? She could only hope she wasn’t going to regret this.

“You expressed ‘I am unsure what you meant by that,’” it explained, the translation coming back slightly altered but with the same meaning. “The manner in which you made reference to yourself explicitly placed the expression in an informal context.”

“Oh.” Maggie sighed as she finally put together what was happening. “Contractions, right.” She and all of the other humans had just been expressing words in ways that came naturally to their human speech patterns, but to the creatures of this world, contracting phrases like “I am” to “I’m” literally had no translatable meaning beyond “we are speaking informally.” No wonder it came off as strange and unnecessary. It really was just that simple, and yet they’d all been completely oblivious to it.

“I am genuinely interested in comprehending whatever it is you are referring to, but I doubt you would be able to explain it quickly.” Sunny stared at the myna hopefully. “But if you are willing to take the time, I would like to learn. Not right now, of course.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Maggie shook her head. “You really shouldn’t be.”

“Why should I not want to learn?”

“Because if I have to be the authority on any of this, then I’ll only make things worse!” The former human snapped, the entire cheerful facade she’d been maintaining for the last few days crumbling in an instant.

“Pearl-” Sunny-Plume started to express something, but Maggie didn’t give it the chance.

“I have no idea what I’m doing! I have actively made the lives of everyone who has interacted with me more complicated and aggravating since I got here! And yet I keep pushing! Keep stubbornly sticking to what I know because the alternative is acknowledging that I am a burden on everyone around me, only able to assert my independence by being loud and contrarian!” The words poured out of the myna’s beak, unable to help herself as every last frustration and guilt-ridden thought from the past week surfaced at once.

“Please let me-” The seeker once more failed to get a thought in edgewise as the rant continued.

“What could I teach you? I don’t know how any of this works! The others have done way more work, and I’m just following their lead! I only know how things don’t work, and how I can’t do anything about it! So my job is to be the cheerful and approachable one, somehow! Because if I’m not, then I’ll just drag down everyone else more than I already am!”

“Pearl! Stop!” The Seeker’s hooked beak nipped at the back of Maggie’s neck, the sharp pain finally being enough to interrupt her train of thought. “You are disrupting others…”

“Others? Who else is even…” Maggie trailed off as she looked around, only to find countless pairs of eyes staring at her from every angle. The street was full of animals, the windows all had faces poking out of them, and the beams and ropes criss-crossing overhead held a multitude of onlookers. Onlookers that she hadn’t even realized were there. “I’m sorry…” She barely managed to squawk out her apology before she sprinted towards the nearest gap between buildings, desperate to escape the crowd. The flutter of wings behind her indicated that Sunny-Plume had taken to the air to keep from losing track of her, but that didn’t matter. She just needed to get anywhere else. Somewhere she hadn’t yet made a mess of things. She wasn’t sure such a place even existed.