I woke up face-first in moss.
Soft, warm, slightly damp moss.
It smelled like sunlight, dirt, and... weirdly enough, rosemary?
I blinked groggily. Everything around me was too bright, too green. Birds chirped in the distance. The leaves above swayed gently in the breeze, casting shimmering shadows across my patch of forest floor.
It wasn't a dream.
I was still a bird.
A very soft, very small, very fluffy bird.
And honestly? That should've been terrifying.
But I felt... okay, rested, safe even.
A kind of quiet had settled into my bones, something that now had felt very foreign to me. The kind of quiet that didn't ask for anything from me.
Still, I had questions.
Like: Am I going to stay like this forever?
What do birds eat?
And most urgently: Can I fly?
Spoiler: no, I could not.
I tried hopping up onto a low root. I immediately fell off. I tried flapping my wings in rhythm. I spun sideways and face-planted into a fern.
The forest was full of gentle sounds, and among them was the unmistakable thud of a small bird failing spectacularly to lift off.
"Okay," I muttered mentally, "this is fine. I'll just… walk. Walking's good."
So I waddled. Through bushes, around mushrooms, under a fallen log that looked like it had been there for centuries. The world was so much bigger now, trees looked like towers, puddles shone like great lakes, and bugs looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Eventually, I found a low-hanging branch on a curved oak and climbed it carefully. I wobbled, adjusted my balance, and spread my wings again.
"You got this," I told myself. "You're aerodynamic. Probably. Maybe."
I flapped once. Wobbled.
Twice. Teetered.
Three times-
And suddenly the world dropped out from under me.
For half a second, I was flying.
Then I crashed, belly-first, into a bush that smelled aggressively like mint.
Progress.
After what felt like hours of bird boot camp, I finally managed a real flutter! Barely though.
Five seconds of air, WITH a solid landing and no unintentional rolling.
I puffed out my feathery chest.
"Yeah. That's right. I can fly."
I did a little victory flap.
Then the branch broke.
I face-planted. Again.
I think the tree was laughing at me.
By late afternoon, I had a working system:
Hop. Flap. Glide. Land. Repeat.
And slowly, something like joy bubbled up in me.
Not just relief. Not just a distraction.
Joy. Like, a real, feather-fluffing, sun-on-my-wings joy.
No one was watchingme. No one was grading me.
I didn't have to be productive. Or efficient. Or prove myself in some way.
I was just... being.
And that was enough.
I curled up again in my mossy spot as the forest shifted into its evening chorus. Crickets, low owl hoots, the distant rustle of foxes. The sky turned soft orange, and the air cooled.
Somewhere in the trees, a wind chime rang.
Or maybe it was birdsong.
I didn't mind either way, I had a lot of sleep to get through.