JOURNAL OF “INK-TALON,” ENTRY 1

Mindful-Sight asked that I keep a record of my experiences, and provided a large roll of some sort of paper and an inkwell for me to do so this morning. While it was up front about this not being private, and was partly to sate its own curiosity, it told me that journaling would help me better process what has happened. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that from a medical professional.

That said, there is certainly something reassuring about writing using the English alphabet. It’s a reminder that I am still myself, still human. According to the doctor, I could be making any sort of markings I want, so long as I make them with meaning and intent. In fact, as far as I can tell these animals don’t have any concept of “writing," just “marking.” I suppose if you instantly understand what you’re looking at, standardization is pointless. Even as I write this, there is the occasional mismatch between the words I write and the meanings I read back. But I’m not about to abandon one of the only vestiges of humanity I have left just because random scribbles would technically be easier.

As for my actual writing implement, it was pretty obvious. This crow’s name was “Ink-Talon,” and sure enough, the second talon on my right foot is noticeably stained from being used this way rather frequently. It’s oddly intuitive, and certainly better than the brittle charcoal sticks I see the chameleon using for its own markings.

That’s honestly the strangest thing to have noticed this morning, things being intuitive. After my first night wandering the woods and that horrible day of sleepless delirium, suddenly everything I do makes so much more sense. And even the reason why is intuitive: Mindful-Sight helped me “Understand” this body. I have an innate sense of my own shape that I lacked before, easing much of that horrible disconnect I first woke up with. For example, I couldn’t make sense of these bird legs before. They folded in too many places and in the wrong directions. But now it’s obvious that they have all most of the same bones and joints that human legs do, just with wildly different proportions. What I thought was my shin ending at a backwards knee is actually my foot extending up to an elevated ankle. My actual knee is way farther up, mostly hidden beneath my feathers, and far closer to my hips than I would have thought. It’s weird, and it still feels wrong, but I can comprehend it now. It actually feels “real”.

It also lets me move more properly, but in a strange, roundabout way. First thing I needed to do today was hop off of the thick cushion I’d slept on the night before, and I had no idea how to make my legs do that without running the risk of busting my beak on the floor. And then the answer came to me, allowing me to perform the jumping motion flawlessly. But I didn’t “remember” how to do it, and I didn’t really “learn” either. I think I… “deduced” it? It all happened so fast. I thought about my weird legs and noticed every last joint and tendon and muscle exactly where my center of gravity was and just… intuited what I needed to do based on observation. A process that should have taken me at least several minutes thinking and a fair amount of trial and error was done in a barely a second, executed to perfection on my first try.

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I asked Mindful-Sight what happened, and it actually got cagey with the answer for a bit, explaining that what it had done for me last night would almost certainly be frowned upon. But after a little prodding, it came clean with the basics. “Understanding,” the process by which these animal minds comprehend each other, can be applied to almost anything. Physical objects, abstract concepts, or even the forces and substances that make up the world. However, if anyone were to be exposed to every object or idea “expressing its nature at once," as it was put, then they would be overwhelmed in an instant. To prevent that, their minds selectively filter all of this input. You don’t Understand something unless you focus on it and choose to, and when you do, excess stimuli are filtered out to compensate. This process is called “Attunement.”

Most of the rest went over my head, but apparently the Physician here has chosen to focus on Understanding what it called “connections,” which I think are just nerves and neurons and the like? Using that “Attunement,” it somehow knew exactly how to guide me in quickly narrowing my focus to my own body, letting me “Attune” to it so that I could intuit how to sleep.

I only barely get it, but it obviously worked, so whatever.

It explained that there were drawbacks. That many things that would be easily Understood by others would simply be lost on me now, filtered out. But right now I couldn’t care less. I’d sacrifice any amount of this magical nonsense if it meant I could sleep well, think clearly, and move freely.

So, yeah. Whenever you get around to reading this, doc, I just want to say thanks. Better this current hell than the even worse hell I just went through.

…You know, now I can’t help but wonder. How hard would it be to use this “Attunement” to figure out how to fly?