#omen 5

It’s a warm day when Lyss finally sees the chickens. They’re inquisitive little balls of fluff, skidding about at less than ankle height. They swarm her and Hardit, peeping imperiously as they cluster around her feet.

They’re so small, but not remotely afraid. Lyss, however, is terrified. What if she kicks one?

“Just move slowly and watch where you’re stepping,” he tells her, seeing her stricken expression. “They are – usually! – smarter than they look. Would you like to feed them?”

Lyss steps over one speckled chick to back up. “I don’t know, maybe –” But he has already pressed something soft and sticky into her hand, and then there is nothing for it. Making a face, she stoops down and the chicks converge with single-minded focus, tiny beaks jabbing and nipping when they catch skin instead of the paste Hardit has given her.

With how quickly and intently they eat, the chicks must be mostly stomach, and watching them keeps Lyss preoccupied from looking at Omen, who is sitting there, just as before. In the daylight, xe – not he, though she sometimes stumbles over it aloud – looks admittedly much less terrifying.

Especially now, because xe has a chicken in xyr lap, and is covered in bits of fluff and dust and grime. Omen is motionless, the chicken less so, stretching and adjusting ever so often until it is somehow both fluffed up and bonelessly flat.

Birds are strange.

“They’re not... scared,” she murmurs as the chicks finish eating. Most of them promptly abandon her to scatter about the yard, but a few remaining hopefuls peck at her fingers. “Of an Exo. Or the... other thing.”

“Why would they be?” Hardit says, stooping down with a grunt. “They know what a fox means. A hawk, or eyes in the dark. Everything else – they will not understand so easily. The birds only know Omen as the best perch they have.”

“They like warmth,” Omen says, in xyr quiet but abrupt way, and Lyss all but squeaks in surprise – she had been sure she had kept her voice too low to overhear, and that xe had been asleep, or whatever passes for it among Exos. “I am not so good with channelling heat in battle, but I can make myself warmer than any sunny spot.”

“Don’t they... make a mess?” she asks, eyeing the streaks and stains on Omen’s clothes and the dark metal of xyr arms.

“Most things do, eventually,” xe says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. Behind her, she can hear Hardit sigh gustily. The chicken in xyr lap ruffles its feathers and shakes itself into a more bird-like shape before hopping down to meander among the rest.

“Oh.”

“You should hold one.”

Lyss hadn’t flinched away from stealing them – but that had been at night, knowing they would be asleep and clumsy in the dark. In the day, the hens’ claws flex as they scratch in the dirt, and their beaks look much sharper than the chicks’. For creatures meant to be eaten, they are far too assured. The one closest to her glowers up at her before it prowls past.

“I can’t heat myself up, or anything,” she says in weak protest. “They might not be happy about it.”

Omen turns, still slow and careful even when not acting as a perch. “Not the adults then. A chick.”

“That’s an idea,” Hardit says, still scattering feed for the other chickens. “Good practice to get used to handling one, if you’re taking a chicken later.”

It’s the first time anyone has mentioned her plans for the future to her since she began her stay, and it throws her more than it should. “Right,” she says, unsteady. Maybe she has gotten too comfortable with the sleepy pace of things here. That could be sign enough that it was time to move on soon. “A chick, then.”

They are all still curious and hopeful. As soon as she crouches down again, a few recognize the motion and come over in case her hand has refilled itself with food. She nudges her hand under the boldest of these, and it steps onto her palm with a prickle of claws.

various attempts at a hive-themed-ish outfit in time for tomorrow! but then I finished some challenges and could go back to using void and nezarec’s and had to change it again and forgot to take screenshots afterwards...

It’s a warm day when Lyss finally sees the chickens. They’re inquisitive little balls of fluff, skidding about at less than ankle height. They swarm her and Hardit, peeping imperiously as they cluster around her feet.

They’re so small, but not remotely afraid. Lyss, however, is terrified. What if she kicks one?

“Just move slowly and watch where you’re stepping,” he tells her, seeing her stricken expression. “They are – usually! – smarter than they look. Would you like to feed them?”

Lyss steps over one speckled chick to back up. “I don’t know, maybe –” But he has already pressed something soft and sticky into her hand, and then there is nothing for it. Making a face, she stoops down and the chicks converge with single-minded focus, tiny beaks jabbing and nipping when they catch skin instead of the paste Hardit has given her.

With how quickly and intently they eat, the chicks must be mostly stomach, and watching them keeps Lyss preoccupied from looking at Omen, who is sitting there, just as before. In the daylight, xe – not he, though she sometimes stumbles over it aloud – looks admittedly much less terrifying.

Especially now, because xe has a chicken in xyr lap, and is covered in bits of fluff and dust and grime. Omen is motionless, the chicken less so, stretching and adjusting ever so often until it is somehow both fluffed up and bonelessly flat.

Birds are strange.

“They’re not... scared,” she murmurs as the chicks finish eating. Most of them promptly abandon her to scatter about the yard, but a few remaining hopefuls peck at her fingers. “Of an Exo. Or the... other thing.”