Chapter Text
Erik thought he was doomed when the human captured him. He heard what they did to birds they caught, oh yes, he did, so when he fell out of his nest straight onto a human he clawed and thrashed and pecked them hard as he could, because they would never, ever take him alive.
“Oh goodness, look how cute it is!” the human said, holding him between two fingers. “Ow!”
Erik squawked in triumph at the taste of blood, then squawked again, in panic, when the human flailed and threw him against a tree. He hit the rough bark with his head and slid down in a daze. The forest spiralled around him, round and round and round, and the human was still there, the human was taking him prisoner and Erik was too weak to fight back.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry!” the human was babbling incoherently, and Erik thought, “this is it, the human will eat me for dinner, I will never see the forest again, I will never learn to fly,” and he let out a pitiful whine.
“Don’t cry, everything is just fine,” said the human, poking Erik’s juiciest bits, the dreadful owl-eater. How dare it! “Nothing seems broken. You fell out of your nest, yes? No worries, I’ve got you.”
Torture followed; Erik had been wrapped in a white human-fluff and tucked under its wing in total darkness, then carried for miles, far from his tree, from his home; he didn’t make a sound. No, he wasn’t going to give his captor the pleasure of seeing him beg. He huddled as best he could and bid his time, ignoring the dreadful headache. Hitting trees was ill-advised, he told himself, best to be avoided in the future.
Finally, after many, many hours of humiliating bobbing up and down under the human’s wing, Erik finally saw the sun, of sorts. It was a weird sun: very small, gave off hardly any heat at all, and the light was a weird colour. The human gave no notice to the strange hollow sun. Instead it placed Erik, still incapacitated (curse human cowardice!) on a cold slab, which went beep.
“Release me and fight like an owl, you pathetic coward!” Erik cried, struggling against his bounds, alas, human-fluff was strong. Erik had to admit, grudgingly, that his claws were no match for it. Curse nasty humans, he thought, and started pecking the slab instead.
“You are so cute,” the human said, and used a black feather to flash light into Erik’s eyes. “There. Like a little owl-burrito! Just one more thing, and I’ll unwrap. You can have a bath and some seed, won’t that be nice?”
Erik surmised the human intended to use its strange spells to kill him, but he was an owl, he wouldn’t let the spells get to him. The human picked him up then, and this was it, he was going to be eaten like all the chicks which fell from their nests, he would never see his nest again—
—and then he was free. Erik fluttered his wings and looked around. He was standing on green grass, the sun, the real run was overhead, too bright to even think of looking at it, but Erik was reasonably certain this was the sun. He could see no trees to hide under, but maybe that’s what humans did with birds they ate, just to crush their spirits. Erik sat down and fluffed himself up. Fat chance, human!
Far to the right there was a clump of something yellow, something alive, and Erik tensed, in preparation for a fight, but as the fluff waddled closer he saw that it was an owl also, a yellow owl with a deformed beak and no talons on its feet. It wouldn’t last a day in the forest. Erik fluffed his sensible brown-and-beige plumage, which was invisible against tree bark, thank you very much, even more and glared.
“Quack,” said the yellow owl. “Hello, friend. How are you on this fine morning?”
Erik glared at it. “I have been kidnapped and almost eaten by a monster. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“There’s no need to fear now. We are safe here. My name is Charles.”
Erik huffed.
“Don’t be like that,” said the yellow owl, who was called Charles, waddling even closer and putting its weird, flat beak on top of Erik’s head. Normally Erik wouldn’t tolerate this from any owl, but as it happened Charles had the fluffiest down on his throat and Erik’s head was still hurting, so he let it be. For now. “So what kind of a duck are you?” Charles asked. “I’ve never seen a duck with a beak like yours. Is it good for catching molluscs?”
Erik realised this was going to be a long, long afternoon.