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Birds of a Feather

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Artoochu

Nick leant back in his armchair, frowning lightly. He'd never had all that much trouble with the Zelda games before but there was one particular puzzle that wasn't seeming to come together for him. It was in the Rito village, the area with bird-people, and he shook his head, propping his cheek up on one hand so that the flesh of his face squashed in lightly. Although it was not the most comfortable position to be in, it was, somehow, something that enabled him to think a little more clearly. No, Nick had never understood that for himself either.

"Where am I supposed to go?"

Late at night with the light from the TV screen the only thing from which Nick could see by was a time when it was him and him alone. There was nothing else in the world to distract his attention on a Friday night, winding down when the change and shift in the world had become too much for him. Not everyone understood how it was to recharge, how much he needed to recharge, but it was as it was and it was not as if he could simply not do what he needed. The rest of his friends could wait until the next weekend to see him and he was sure that would be enough for them.

He was still wearing his clothes from work, the casual Friday attire that was some of his most comfortable. The check shirt was smart enough for an office, even if he had meetings, and the jeans said, "hey, man, it's Friday", though he didn't want to appear too casual, even then. That made things more difficult when they didn't need to be and, as much as people tried to say otherwise, appearances mattered.

Nick was, however, glad that he had managed to get away with having a goatee there, kept neatly trimmed, and smiled as he directed his character through some meadows, although he had traipsed Link through them for what seemed like hours already. No, maybe he was wrong there, he thought, the light of the screen and the bright, colourful world reflecting off his glasses. Maybe it was up with the Rito and their village that he needed to be investigating. It was time to wrap up this quest chain and get on with the main story.

"Welcome, traveller!"

Wasn't it funny after saving Hyrule what seemed like umpteen times that no one there still didn't know who Link was? That was a bit of a running joke to those that played the Zelda universe games but not something that Nick was about to worry about then. The hour was getting on, his fingers tired, eyelids heavy. But he just wanted to find the next bit of the story, what would push him to the next level in the game, and set himself up to carry on from there. That would be enough for the night then.

"Buy, sell, ask about the fledglings," he said out loud, reading the options from the screen. "Finally! That's got to be it!"

Grinning, he popped another crisp in his mouth, crunching noisily as salt and vinegar exploded on his tongue. But it was a moment of triumph and revelation too to finally move on in the game, for there were so many side-quests in the open-world adventure of the Nintendo Switch version, newly released, that one could spend hours on hours exploring without tapping into the main story even. There was, however, a little bit of a "completionist" edge and streak in Nick that had to, at least somewhat, be satisfied.

"Accept quest?"

The Rito squawked, resplendent in blue feathers, though Nick blinked and sat back. Had his outfit changed since he'd last looked at the screen? That didn't seem right, didn't seem right at all, but he put it down to being tired, the hour getting on. Maybe he should have called it a night a little earlier but it was good to feel tired from staying up late, for once, rather than simply being exhausted from the stress of the day. That was why he was so obsessed with finding the next chapter in his main quest, all so he could feel like he had actually accomplished something with his day other than getting wound up and anxious about things that, truly, he could not control.

They weren't worth it.

To hell with it...

_ _

Although he had not read what the quest was, he selected "yes" on the screen to take the offer. It shouldn't matter all that much whether he accepted the offer before knowing what it was or not as it would all be logged from the main menu screen for his saved game anyway, the quest log coming in handy, but that was the first mistake, the biggest mistake, of Nick's day.

"Excellent!" The Rito squawked, a chirp in his voice that seemed to hint at amusement even though the words that he spoke appeared on the screen while his voice was merely a sound effect. "I'll get that set up for you right away!"

What?

_ _

Yet Nick had no time to ask any further questions as he gasped, something feeling "off" inside him, almost the same as the sensation when one was about to lose their stomach unpleasantly but not quite. There was something wrong, not right, very wrong, and he groaned, leaning back in his bean bag chair as he shakily brought his hand to his stomach. His shirt shifted, buttoned-up but looser around the collar and neck, though it suddenly felt too tight, much more constricting than it had been before, all that he was used to.

Nick gasped, trying to get his feet under him, bare socks on the carpet, though he didn't seem to either have as much control over his body as he had done before, everything off-kilter, so strange. Nothing was obviously wrong, however, as far as he could tell, and that was probably what sent his stomach into twisting knots the most, searching for something wrong when it was so slight that he couldn't put his finger on it.

Water, he thought. Maybe he just needed a glass of water.

He forgot to turn off the Switch as he managed to stagger upright, his balance off as he juddered to the side, as ungainly as someone on ice skates, though he doubted that he would have managed the grace of an ice skater even at a better time. Nick laughed shakily at himself, brushing his fingers back through his hair, the lightly styled mess on top of his head slick with gel from the day. He hadn't used much, not when his hair was short, yet it had flattened down a little during the day, giving the appearance that it was shorter, again, than it actually was.

Or so he presumed. Of course, it would never have crossed Nick's mind to wonder that his hair had gone shorter, retracting tiny bit by bit back into his skull. No man in his right mind would have thought that straight away.

But that didn't make it a falsehood.

His breath came shorter and shorter, each one harder to gain as if he was running - but all he was doing was standing in his kitchen, trying to get a glass of water. Just getting the glass out of the cupboard was effort enough as he sweated, licking his lips for some desperate drop of moisture and trying to turn the tap on. His fingers shook too much for him to grasp it, however: at least, that was what Nick thought...

He gulped, eyes wide. Maybe he'd been staring at the screen for too long, maybe he'd stayed up too late - but what he was sure of was that his fingers weren't supposed to be doing that. Growing, they swelled before his very eyes even though there was also something in them that flattened out at the same time. They fanned and spread, so slowly that there was time for a shuddering cry to break free from his lips, heart pounding, head aching, not knowing or understanding what was happening.

That quest...

_ _

Had it been about change? No, that was too much, too far, too strange - too much to consider crossing the boundary into real life. Yet he could see the TV screen still from his position in the kitchen, the door opening up and through into his moderately sized living room, the Rito still on the screen. His beak was fixed but he still moved through his "inactive" or "resting" sequences, looking from side to side, spreading his wings, preening his feathers, as if the player was still there with him. Yet Link was not on the screen, most obviously, and Nick gasped for breath, dropping to his knees as the fingers of his other hand itched and ached too.

His shirt was tight, too tight, and he grunted as he tried to roll his shoulders back, down on his knees without any recollection as to how he'd gotten there. Nick was not a very large guy at all and his shirts always were a little loose on him but not anymore. That one pulled taut across his chest, exposing something that he had never thought he would see on his body, the small shirt abruptly, in the blink of an eye, too small, much too small, for his body. Nick's mouth opened and closed rapidly, the fish out of water gasping and gulping at air, yet that was not about to save him from anything as he let out a strangled whimper, shirt cutting in under his arms.

The game...

_ _

He had to try, though there was no fear in his heart. Maybe it was just like a quest, something that he had had to stop, and it was obvious, even in reality, just what he had been doing last. With all the strength left in his body, he threw himself into crawling across the floor, whimpering softly, a hacking grunt emerging from his throat that did not sound like any sort of sound that a human being should ever make. But he had to do it, had to try, crawling on his elbow and dragging himself along.

The Rito with no name on the screen flapped and jumped but did not take flight, almost as if he was trying to encourage Nick on, but that was well and truly a figment of Nick's imagination, in the sense that the NPC was just going through his "rest" motions, everything on a loop for him. Maybe that was what would happen to Nick, he thought, delirious and barely getting halfway over the threshold into the living room before giving up, wheezing. Maybe he would go through a loop and a cycle for the rest of his life too.

Yet he laid there on his back and lifted his arms, only to see them prickling with feathers, bones shifting and pushing out at the same time. Thankfully, he was not treated to a gory display of how those new bones formed, feathers lining them as they burst into wings, though there still was some muscle in there. He could feel it - and not just back at his shoulders too. In that moment, his arms were both arms and wings, as much as that simply did not make one bit of sense.

The changes came more quickly than he could keep up with them, his chest shuddering, aching for the sweetness of air filtering into his lungs. Yet such joy was not his to take, not in the moment, as Nick's glasses fell off, leaving the world around him blurry. He reached up, flinging his arm out wildly for the grasp of the kitchen counter, though not even that helped support him as he wanted it to, gasping and wheezing, his throat constricting. He could still just about get the breath that he needed into his lungs but it did not feel enough as his chest ballooned out, straining and stretching at his shirt, the buttons pulling taut on the fabric as if it was about to burst free, the very essence of his body.

Was it even his body anymore? It was out of control, everything so very much out of control, as if it had never been under his control to begin with. All Nick could do was twist and writhe in horror, knocking the back of his head in the wall, as his chest expanded, bulging with muscle that he had never before seen there. His sight was not so bad that he could not see the blurry shape of his own body before him but he could feel it, how he felt stronger, more able, even thought eh rest of his body was still to catch up. His feathery fingers felt out the shape of his pecs in broken awe before his shirt finally ripped, buttons popping free and springing off in all directions as if they had never had the right to be bound to his shirt in the first place.

If there had been shock at play, the strength rippling through and riddling his body gave him something new to focus on, gasping on all fours, though even his lips no longer seemed quite right, not as they were. His chest was out of proportion to the rest of his body as he rested on his feathered hands, for they still seemed to have some dexterity and flexibility in there. The rest of his arms still prickled with the growing rise of feathers, layering the whole length thickly and plainly, a bright blue that would have caught the eye under any other circumstance. There was muscle there too as his shoulders rounded out in a fashion that would have taken months on months of work in the gym to meet otherwise, even the rear deltoid securing itself nicely behind.

Nick groaned, rolling his shoulder blades back, head twisting slowly from one side to the other, his neck thickening, fluffing up, slowly, with feathers. What was wrong felt...right. It was wrong in the shift, yes, but right in the end result, his heart lifting, something within him pushing him up and up even though he still did not know what was happening. What was important, however, was that the fear was gone, dropping away like a body from the cliff in the glory of freefall before flight, his lips parting in a grin that stretched and stretched and stretched.

Yet his smile was not to remain simply there as it was but straining out, his lips moving far more than they should naturally have done. Somehow, Nick managed to push himself up to his knees, hovering there, though that did not stop the encroach of changes in his face, lips thick and hard, unwieldy at best. There was no way to talk with lips like that as he hacked and gagged and stuttered, trying to get out something that could be considered word-like in some way and completely failing. No, he brought his feather-fingers, trembling, to his face, tracing the outline of his new, bulging beak, the curve of it rendering him some sort of bird-like creature that ate fruit, perhaps, or cracked nuts. Darwin's finches... The thought blurred in his mind as he swung his head back and forth, scrabbling for his glasses. There was something there, something about evolution, but he could not quite remember it for the life of him.

He needed his glasses and then, abruptly, his vision cleared as if he had been walking through a hazy fog for ears, clinging to his vision and obstructing it when, really, there had never been any kind of problem at all. Nick blinked as the fog dissipated, leaving him seeing as clearly as he had done in the years before he had needed those things on his face. It was a relief to not have the weight of them on the bridge of his nose, always seeming to pinch regardless of the position that he placed them in, no more sliding down his nose as he parted his beak in a strangely familiar grin. The sides of his beak could not shift to literally grin, but the muscles of his face still tightened softly around the cheekbones as his eyes shifted a little more to the sides of his head, enlarging and rounding out.

Much less only being able to see a little, he was suddenly able to see everything, his vision brilliant, sharp and contrasting. There was nothing there to hold him back as he tried to get a foot under him, but his jeans were tight even then, more changes shifting and gurgling insistently through his body. For Nick was far from done, even then, and what more that there was to come would change his life forever.

His head still was yet to become fully avian but other parts of him were due to catch up too, the magic of the mission that he had accepted, clearly racing through him at a breakneck pace. But the change and transformation had to be completed somehow and he was powerless to prevent it, shuddering as his feathers prickled to life, a ticklish sensation that could not be helped. His torso thickened with muscle to match his chest, his abdominals defined in a way that he would have loved as a human, though was strange on a body that was still yet to settle into itself as it was meant to be. He tried to run his fingers down it, as much curious as anything else, but he could not feel all that much as his fingers were still yet to gain the tactile dexterity that he had had as a human. One thing, however, was quite certain and that was that Nick _definitely_was not a human anymore. He didn't know what he was. But he should have.

His shirt had not yet burst entirely over his shoulders as yet, the loose front hanging open over his chest, but it was soon to come as his back too thickened, pulling the fabric tighter and tighter. There was no way for it to hold off against such a strain as it gave up with an almighty rip down the seams, Nick grunting as the tightness was relieved with a shudder of relief. There had been no pain there but his spine too was shifting, moving, stretching in a way, rendering clothes like what he'd worn completely obsolete. Yet how far would everything go? There was only one way to tell and that was by riding it out, pushing it through to see what end could be come to.

Not in control... Out of control... Good... Very good...

The thoughts drifted in the forefront of his mind as his back prickled with feathers, itching as they laid their way all the way down his spine, legs aching, bones elongated, making him taller too, even as he gained muscle mass and bulk. His waist thickened but still remained narrower than his chest, tapering down to his hips, the bone showing through even as feathers laid down over them. He was certainly top-heavy there but his legs too had to catch up, thighs thickening up with muscle like tree-trunks, masculine and functional and every bit a bodybuilder's dream.

The feathers may have softened the effect of his legs while they laid down in shades of blue, allowing a slice of white to appear down his front to break up the singular shade, but his tail, oh... Oh, that was the strangest sensation of all. His head was completely covered with feathers by that point with the finer detail of his markings tickling into life, but his tail had to pull out from the base of his spine, a triangle of muscle allowing him to control it, twitching and pulling the feathers back and forth even as they grew.

Gulping, Nick shuddered, swallowing hard.

"Oh..."

That was his vocal cords back then and all in the nick of time as his tail plumped out thickly with luscious, blue feathers, huge and draping, the sort of tail that, surely, would have been used for communication if he had been a bird in the wild. He tried to turn to look at it but the most he could do was shuffle awkwardly on his knees, the sweep of his quads down to where they tapered to the kneecaps. It didn't matter though, not when he could feel in intricate detail how his feathers pricked to life, the sharp points of them embedded in his skin and yet so fragile at the same time. Where there was strength, there was delicacy too, and he grunted softly in the back of his throat as his hips rocked, wanting to see, wanting to know, wanting to experience every last little thing.

It was long, however, so long that he found a hold on the kitchen cupboards to pull himself up to his feet, his toes curling awkwardly, socks looking a funny shape. As his tail spilt down and down, straight towards the ground, his lower legs slimming strangely, pulling into a bird-like leg-shape. That was something that, perhaps, he should have anticipated, considering all the other changes that had taken place so far, but it still ached strangely for his skin to turn oddly scaley, the leathery skin of them sweeping down to his ankles.

One thing that Nick did have the presence of mind to do as his thick thighs bulged, straining at his jeans, was to remove his socks, though it was too late for the denim as it split down the sides, at least allowing him to tear away the shreds. That way, they would no longer get in the way, which seemed to be all he could hope for in the order of the day, the night having taken a very strange turn that not even he was sure about.

His feet re-formed slowly, though not in a way that he could recognise, toes melding together and pushing out into a foot that seemed far too large for the shape of the body that he was currently in. It fascinated him in a strange way and, standing about a foot and a half taller than he had before, spine still pulling and throbbing curiously as it settled, he managed to lean back on the counters to lift a single foot, just to inspect it a little more closely. What else was he supposed to do when such wondrous things were going on?

On the TV screen, the Rito there too jumped and flicked up a foot, showing off his talons as if he knew already what was to happen to Nick so far. And it was only at that moment in time that the blue feathers made sense, the man-bird features, how he had a beak just like that of the Rito on the screen, what the quest had actually been that he had accepted without thinking about it.

He wasn't just a bird... He was turning into one of the Rito!

Nick shook his head, though there only remained a sense of wonder in him at how buff he was. His maleness changed too but that wasn't a part of him that he thought too much about, his feathers covering his modesty nicely as it tucked back up into his body. Still being male, of course, was a blessing that he was very much thankful for as he looked down the length of his body, noting with pleasure just how his pecs were still defined even with a hefty layer of feathers over the top. He'd never before considered quite how many feathers a bird had but he was most certainly getting a sharp less in that right from the get-go as his body plumped out, able to fluff them up or soften them down pretty much as he pleased.

His feet though... perhaps he should not have been standing for that part of the change, grunting as he rocked back onto his heels, trying to allow the transformation to continue unhindered, excitement curdling in the pit of his stomach. Now that it was clear what was happening, he wanted to see every last bit of it and not miss out on anything, his toes melding into three, nails forming and tugging out into sharply gripping claws. Maybe those would have been more useful on his hands, for he did not know how to use his feet in such a way that that would have been useful, but it did not matter in the grand scheme of things as his gut gurgled with giddy delight.

They narrowed in a sense but there was still more than enough foot there for him to stand on, a fourth claw stretching back from his heel. It was the sort of foot that would have allowed him to grip branches and other perches if he had been much smaller than he was but there would be ways, he was sure, to find use as a Rito. Could he fly? Even as his feet laid down that scaley, leathery band of protective skin too, the feathers cutting off below his knees, he tried to jump and flap his arm-wings, though he did not succeed in getting all that far off the ground. Blue feathers, however, did fly off in all directions.

The one thing that he was sad to lose was the goatee that he had cultivated, though a tuft of strangely out of place feathers had remained there in such a way that it seemed as if the feature had been designed just for him. Stroking them thoughtfully, his wing-fingers more tactile and dextrous than they had been earlier, thankfully, he tried to smooth them into place. Surely there was something that he could do about grooming that part of his body...

However, in a flick of his long, thick tail, the changes settled over him like a cool blanket, feeling both heavier and lighter at the same time. The sensations were not ones that went together but that did not matter as the room felt more and more stable around him, spreading out first one wing and then the other.

"Whoa..."

The reach of them was incredible, even though his kitchen could not be said to be the largest. To spread them out to their fullest extent, he tottered into the living room where his TV was set up, back before the screen, spreading them together and bracing himself on legs that had not yet learned to carry his weight with a shifted centre of gravity that didn't quite seem to work as it should have anymore. But that was quite alright as something in Nick told him that he would have plenty of time to get used to his new form, smiling with a parted beak back at the Rito on the screen. They were so alike, he didn't know how he could not have seen it before and, in the grace of hindsight, laughed at his folly in not realising what the quest had been. Maybe taking on a new form had been just what he needed after that week of work, taking a break in a new body to let the troubles of his old one slip away entirely. After all, nothing that had before weighed him down before could possibly have any kind of effect on him when he was, in such a body, as light as a feather.

Flapping and waving him over, the suddenly much more active Rito on the screen called him to him, cupping his arm-wings around his beak to draw his attention.

"Well done, traveller!" He cried out, jumping and clapping his arm-wings together (or should he have called them wing-arms?). "You have done well! Are you ready for the next stage of your quest to learn how to fly?"

Nick caught his breath. Could he really? Did he dare? His tail-feathers fanned out in anticipation. The Rito villager saluted him, rocking back on his heels.

"All fledglings must learn how to fly. Traveller, are you ready? Your transformation will not yet be complete until you learn!"

His heart pounded and, although he knew, really, that he should have learned to walk and run before flying was on the cards, it was not something that could be turned down so easily. The risk of it was there, surely, but he had to try, had to push forward, throwing caution, quite literally, to the wind as he spread his wings wide, each feather standing out individual, feeling every single one.

Nick took a breath, though he didn't much feel like Nick anymore either. He was better than Nick had ever been.

"I'm ready!"

"Excellent! Traveller, your training commences now!"

And then he was on a cliff-edge in the game, teetering, looking down, though the prospect of the freefall that was still to come only served to excite him further. So high that clouds wisped by on travels of their own, the up was a soft, white-grey while the down was strewn with forests, lakes glistening like precious jewels. The Rito to his left squawked, guiding him forward, no longer any distinction remaining between Nick and the TV. When he looked down, he was not looking into the screen but seeing and feeling the cliff under his clawed feet, talons gripping the edge tenaciously, wings trying to flap, instinct taking over at the moment that he needed it most.

Nick sucked in a breath, heart pounding furiously, a drum-beat against the inside of his ribcage.

He was in that world.

"Ready?"

He nodded: there was no going back. Not from what he wanted too, so very desperately.

Nick took a breath, wings wide, and jumped.

The wind caught him, letting his wings shape it, soaring, flying - all as if it had been something that he'd already been doing for his entire life and more.

Life would never be the same again.