They seem friendly now.

Will was utterly confused and fairly creeped out. One of the baby birds, the healthy one, hopped over next to him and rubbed its head affectionately against him with soft, thrilling cooing. Mama or papa bird, Will still didn’t know what to call it, was… preening him all of a sudden, pulling on his hair and clothes with surprising care despite the large beak. The preening didn’t last long, however, as the parent quickly went to check on the baby bird that got bit.

Watching it made Will feel sick in his stomach. The bird wasn’t making any noise. It was standing, its eyes open, and yet its left wing was clearly broken and bleeding. Would that heal? Will didn’t know much, but as far as he understood, injured wings usually mean a bird’s ****. These weren’t… normal birds by any means, so maybe it wasn’t necessarily true here, but…

‘Was that other monster poisonous, though? If it was, then…’

Yeah. That little guy probably didn’t have much longer, regardless of what killed it in the end. And that brought up the questions again. Was Will still food to these birds? Food to be saved for later? Or were these creatures smart enough to understand they’d been saved?

‘I’m betting on the latter. Aren’t ravens in your world pretty smart? And just because they can’t speak doesn’t mean these birds aren’t smarter than the average human.’

Whatever the case, Will needed to get out of here. Being here had nothing to do with his objective. He needed to find that mirrorkin that ran away, or at the very least return to his world and regroup since finding him would be almost impossible now. He tried to stand up, but found his legs would not cooperate. They felt weak, numb and… ugh, even flaccid somehow.

‘Yep, your body’s done. No sex already had us in less than ideal shape, but using all our aether without any restraint… Not that I don’t get it. Any less and we would’ve died at any point, but this means we’re not going anywhere for a while. You should be able to recover enough to move again if you rest. Let’s just hope our new host is actually friendly towards us.’

Will swallowed. With the way the birds were acting, it was hard to believe they saw him as food anymore. Even if they weren’t dramatically intelligent creatures, no animals he knew of became affectionate towards a future meal. Though the female praying mantis kills the male after sex, but he doubted that was relevant now.

‘What the fuck!? They do!?’

Will looked up at the giant bird. Would he be safe resting here? Even if the birds didn’t mean him harm anymore, it was possible they’d be attacked again by another predator. That said, the snake (could it still be called a snake if it had legs? It looked more like a snake than anything else) waited until the parent was gone to attack the babies. This bird’s size and the sharpness of its talons should make it a big enough threat for others not to fight head on, right?

The injured bird hopped over to Will as well and nuzzled close to him, pushing its head against his chest and sitting down. It was the strangest feeling to have birds the size of adult humans against him, but… He had to admit it was kind of cool. An experience you couldn’t have anywhere else.

The parent bird flapped its wings and flew off, though not far. It began to peck at the corpse of the dead snake (he decided to just call it a snake), piercing through its hide with its beak and tearing its flesh.

‘Well… If they’re gonna eat that, then I think it’s safe to say we aren’t on the menu for now, at least.’

Right.

For a while longer, Will watched the parent bird feed its babies much like many other normal birds would, regurgitating the food into their mouths. Thankfully, it didn’t try to do the same with him. And as time passed and the sense of danger lessened more and more, the exhaustion of his body and soul caught up to his relaxing mind. He could no longer keep his eyes open, and soon he found himself drifting off.

It was one of those occasions when you close your eyes, open them and suddenly hours have passed. When he had fallen asleep it was day time, now it was dark and… warm? No, the big little birds were still cuddling against him, keeping the cold of the night away. Their parent was also in the nest, sitting in front of him with its eyes closed. Will moved his toes and tensed the muscles of his legs. They responded decently enough. He opened and closed his fist, now tensing the muscles of his arms while trying not to move too much. He still felt weak, but he should be able to walk.

…

It was a good moment to make his escape. The birds were sleeping, after all. But…

‘Yeah, making a run for it in the middle of the night would be insanely risky, especially in our condition. We don’t know the way back, or even the way down from this mountain.’

They also didn’t know about what nocturnal creatures could be skulking about. If the day had fire breathing dinosaurs, what would the night hide? Without regaining the ability to fight, trying to return now was suicide. And not to mention the fact that the only reasons he wasn’t freezing to **** were the thankful birds keeping him warm.

Yeah, his escape would have to wait. Will closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep again, only this time it took a while longer. A nest made of leaves and branches wasn’t the most comfortable for a human, surprisingly. Still, it could've been worse.

…

Then something hit him. A thought.

Wasn’t… Wasn’t he with a bird, too, before coming into this world? Wasn’t Belphegor controlling a raven of his own to serve as Will’s guide?

…

Where did that raven go?