The Brown Frizz has come into my nest and appears to be suffering from some fit. She is curled in on herself like a hedgehog and shuddering. Every few heartbeats, she heaves in this huge breath, like she’s bobbing up from a deep dive under water. Very odd.
I shall investigate.
I swoop down from my favorite high perch to my mute rock, which is the closest perch to her.
“You have woken me,” I begin. “What is wrong with you?”
The Brown Frizz tips her head up and peers at me through the thicket of her head fur. The whites of her eyes are cracked with red lines. She burbles something from her beakless maw. Great Beak—is the Brown Frizz dying?
“You must go and talk to the Gray Tail,” I squawk. “She is very good at fixing things. Perhaps also the small creature with the black head fur. She also seemed rather good with injuries.”
The Brown Frizz grumbles softly and curls her head back into her knees.
This is more serious than I thought. It appears the Brown Frizz is giving in to death.
Father said something about this. He had a hatchmate who broke a blood feather. The bird just couldn’t recover. Has the Brown Frizz broken some vital part of herself? I bob my head, listen for sounds of injury, check her over for wounds. No—the Brown Frizz is intact.
An internal injury. Mother was always going on about that. First, get off that skinny twig! You’ll fall from the tree and get an internal injury! First was like that. She’d hop onto any branch, no matter how far from the nest, just to make me feel like a dud.
If the Brown Frizz is suffering from an internal injury—to be honest, I really have no idea what that means, but Mother seemed positive that it was the first flap on the flight to death—she must get help. Intervention is necessary.
I adjust my feet on the perch and judge the distance, and with one brief flap and a hop, I land on her knee.
“Brown Frizz!” I screech directly at her head fur. “You may be suffering from an internal injury.” No need to upset her further with a clear diagnosis. “You must—I repeat, must—go and get help.”
The Brown Frizz again tips her head up and sneaks a glance at me through her fur.
“Seriously,” I squawk. “Pick up your little tail-less bottom and get help.”
The Brown Frizz lifts her head, and I see that her eyes have leaked all over her hairless cheeks. The skin around the eyes is pinkish and the eyes themselves show red still pulsing through cracks in their whites. What strange and wondrous eyes these furless creatures have.
Most bizarre is the fact that she’s wearing her Good Feelings face.
The Brown Frizz grumbles something and rubs the feathers on my foot with her little wing-toes.
“That tickles,” I twitter, and nibble her wing-toes with my beak.
The Brown Frizz grumbles again, and the Good Feelings face spreads all the way to her eyes.
Perhaps the furless creature does not have an internal injury? Perhaps she is just seriously fluffed? The Brown Frizz tickles my foot feathers again and I nibble at her and she chortles like this is the most wonderful thing. She certainly doesn’t seem midflight to death. The Brown Frizz lifts her little paw and runs her wing-toes down my chest feathers. I rouse at her touch—no one since Mother has groomed my feathers. But then again, the Brown Frizz wants to be family. Maybe this is part of the ritual?
“All right, Brown Frizz,” I chirp. “You may preen my feathers, but do be careful about the alignment of the barbs.” I’m rather particular about my barbs.
The Brown Frizz continues to run her silly wing-toes over my feathers and coo softly. Clearly, she is no longer suffering from whatever had previously ailed her, meaning she had certainly only gotten herself seriously fluffed. Furless creatures do have a dramatic way of getting fluffed, what with the leaky eyes and the shuddering and gasping like a fish dropped in the forest.
“Hey, Red,” I squawk loudly. “Look at this! I think the Brown Frizz and I have achieved this partnership you keep screeching about.”
Red flaps to the opening in the wall of her nest that looks into mine. She stares down her beak at us, weighing us like prey. “It certainly is an improvement.” She glances at the yard and the human nest. “You still can’t hunt, though.”
She had to bring that up.
“But you said the Brown Frizz will teach me,” I squawk back. “That’s the whole partnership thing.”
Red turns her yellow eyes back onto me. “One kill at a time, Hatchling.”
The Brown Frizz slides her naked wing-toes into her big paw and I hop from her knee onto the paw, which is clearly her favorite way for me to perch and the way that gets me the most mouse bits per visit.
“On that thought, where is the mouse?” I squawk, because I haven’t eaten since sunup and things are getting growly in the gizzard.
The Brown Frizz clearly understands Owlish, because she walks directly toward the human nest, begins barking loudly, and then the Gray Tail comes out bearing a pile of mice.
More owls should look into this partnership business, I think, gobbling down the first scrap she offers. But then I think of First and all her showing off and teasing, and it’s clear that certain owls would not make much of a partner for these poor furless creatures. First would have torn the head fur right off the Brown Frizz seeing her so vulnerable and fluffed earlier. No, it is truly only the Absolute Worst Owls in All of Owldom who are fit partners for furless creatures, because only the Absolute Worst Owls in All of Owldom would be desperate enough to discover how nice it is to have a thing like a partner. Only the Absolute Worst Owls would fall so low as to uncover the treasure of friendship.
When the Brown Frizz puts me on the post and whistles, I fly, silent and strong, barely riffling the blades of grass, and land on her paw. Her face is brighter than the moon on a clear night.