My mother proceeded to cough up the questionable substance for my other two siblings, each of whom happily complied.

When the three small birds were satisfied, my mother, (who really could have been my father, I didn’t know the difference), turned to glare at me. Once again, I cowered deep into the nest and tried to avoid the yellow gaze, but it found me nonetheless.

As it stalked over towards me, I started to panic again, I mean there was no way I was eating that thing’s regurgitated lunch! My parent seemed to understand my intentions of avoiding mealtime, and fixed a glare on me that sent shivers up my spine.

I tried to turn to scramble away, but I found that none of my tiny limbs would coordinate, or even move at all. Trapped by the stare, I faintly trembled as it coerced me into lifting my head and opening my beak to the sky. Still meeting my eyes, my parent started to gag and dropped the meat into my waiting jaws.

However, it wasn’t over, as good ol’ bird-parent watched me swallow the meal, and only set me free of his stare once he was sure that I had eaten it. The moment he turned away, I collapsed shaking on the floor, unable to keep strength in my legs.

The thoughts raced through my head; what in the world was that? I was completely immobilized by a simple stare. A terrifying stare, of course, but still just a stare. Also what slop was I just forced to eat? From the texture I could make out, it was most likely chewed meat. If so, I should look into vegetarian options for birds.

As the trembling stopped, the food settled in my stomach and I could finally appreciate the taste, as I nearly gagged it all back out. I glanced over to the rest of my siblings, to see if they had found the meal any less disgusting, to see them all out of their eggs and frolicking about, unaware of the nature of the food they had been fed.

As I looked more closely, it seemed that all three had darker fur than mine, and the same yellow eyes as our parent. Speaking of the devil, he was perched on the side of the nest, back on the rock he had landed on. He alternated looking over the frolicking younglings and out over the side of the nest.

Before he came back to focus on me, I decided to hobble over to the opposite side of the nest. I started the climb the nettles, using my beak as leverage to pull myself up. As I neared the top, the soft sound of wind whistled around me getting louder the closer I reached. When I finally reached the edge, I quickly glanced back to see my parent watching me very intently with his burning yellow eyes.

Turning back before I had a repeat performance full of force-feeding and trembling, I looked out over the edge of the nest and nearly fell back into it as I saw our surroundings.

The air seemed to fight its way toward me, leaving behind an endless expanse of snowcapped trees, all far below the nest. The forest stretched all the way to the horizon, reaching the curve of the world, where it melded with a grey-blue sky clear of clouds. To my left and right the trees stood together, seeming to support and shield each other from the harsh elements, and behind me a great mountain rose higher than I could see, its peak reaching into the heavens.

As I gazed over the beautiful scene laid out before me, I felt a firm grip around my neck, and I was pulled back into the nest. Shocked, I looked up to meet my parent’s eyes for a brief moment, where they almost seemed to laugh at my reaction. I quickly scrambled back up, only to be tackled to the ground by one of my black-furred siblings.

All three of my siblings began to tackle each other and use their stubby wings to wrestle around the nest. I tried to sneak back up and out of their grasp, but I felt the shadow of my parent over me and thought better of my foolish actions.

Fine. If I had to play with them, then I’ll go all out. I’ll take them down quickly so they get discouraged from playing with me again. I set my targets on the smallest of my siblings, who was distracted by the others, and tried to ram into him.

I made contact, using my right wing and shoulder to hit him with as much force as possible. He went down, and my momentum carried me over him, and we rolled into a heap on the nettles. He immediately sprang up, seemingly both angry and elated at my attack. I attempted to stand up as well, but couldn’t get leverage in time with my stunted wing. He retaliated, pushing me back on the ground and falling on top of me.

I struggled under his tiny weight, but found that it was still enough to keep me down. My sibling found out that by putting weight on my good wing, I couldn’t get even halfway up. After struggling for a while, our two other siblings stopped playing and noticed us, immediately charging the smaller sibling on top of me.

They catapulted over me, launching my enemy onto the floor, allowing me to scurry back to an upright position.

As I stood up, I realized suddenly that my breathing was heavy, and my wings and legs were growing tired. A quick look at the wrestling birds showed that they were starting to slow down as well. Soon the three were done playing, and proceeding to collapse next to me, panting and letting out tired “kaaks”. I gladly joined them, feeling that I had run a marathon, whatever that was, and needed to recuperate my strength. I glanced around for my parent, and spotted him looking over in satisfaction, with gleaming yellow eyes that didn’t seem as frightening as at first.

Just as I was falling asleep on the bed of nettles under me, I heard flapping sounds from beyond our nest. My three siblings and I all shot up with varying degrees of interest and fear, but our black feathered parent moved past us to meet this new arrival.

A dark grey bird landed in the nest in a flurry of feathers. At first glance this creature was slightly smaller than my black-feathered parent, but it more than made up for this in its gracefulness. The dark grey feathers, which I now realized were similar in color to my fur, shone elegantly in the sunlight, and its razor-sharp talons matched its counterpart’s in both size and lethality.

As it made its way toward my parent, the two large birds brushed up against each other’s feathers in familiarity, as some sort of greeting. Well, I suppose that answers the question of parent number two. Parent number two then shifted its focus to the baby birds, including myself.

What I saw were familiar yellow eyes, not unlike those of my first parent and siblings, but instead of the playfulness of the other babies or the kind authority of parent one, I saw disdain and scorn. This dislike, I realized, seemed to be mostly directed at me. For what reason, I had no idea, but the gaze that parent number two set on me froze me in my tracks regardless, along with my three siblings. It stalked up to me, ignoring the “caaws” of its partner, and grabbed me in its beak, lifting me into the air.

As I dangled above my siblings, who stared in fear at their monstrous grey parent, I heard calls from my black feathered parent that almost seemed pleading. Parent number two stopped, as if considering something, and then briskly walked to the end of the nest, hopping onto the edge.

I hung over the same view of the trees as early, this time more confused and scared than the first.

I was still just as confused when the beak holding onto my fuzz loosened, and I started falling.