#to.tk kido's thoughts on fambly....would've been at once more cute and less cute lsfkjldf

[flockrest]

thoughts on... / always accepting / @stygicniron

"Thoughts on” + family for Kido

     "Kido," Tulin calls from the dark, trying to be whispery-quiet and failing completely. "Hey, Kido. You awake?"

     He is. With how heavy everything feels, he really doesn't wanna be.

     "Kido. Hey, Kido. Wake uuuup. Kidooo." A pause. "Kiki, Kiiiikiiii."

     Pfft. Okay, maybe he does wanna be awake.

     Kido turns over from where he'd been staring out towards the mountains and skies to his front, lifting his head to look at his friend — who's already pushed himself halfway outta his hammock in an attempt to reach across the gap for him. He has to shove his beak into his remiges for a second to stifle the laughter he can't let out lest he wake Mr. Teba or Mrs. Saki, before he's stretching a wing of his own out to playfully nudge the tips of Tulin's.

     "Hi," he whispers — actually whispers — and settles back into his hammock without breaking eye contact, "m'awake. What is it?"

     Tulin gives him the brightest ever smile. Which isn't saying much, seeing how all his smiles are the brightest ever. Kido's gotta squint in the face of it even here, where the only real light comes from twinkling stars and a round moon. "I was just thinking, 'cause me and the others were talking 'bout you today, right—"

     Uh-oh. Tulin and the others were talking about him? Kido feels something hot curl in his belly, a lick of fear amidst the light humour. He hopes they weren't talking about him the way the grownups talk about him when they think he's not around.

     "—Since you nest with us a lot — like, a lot-a lot — doesn't that sorta make us nestlings?"

     Huh? "Huh?"

     Tulin heaves such a put upon sigh, Kido almost feels bad. But no, you can't try to make him feel like he's majorly missed something when you come outta nowhere and say hey, maybe we're nestlings and not just flocklings, Tulin!

     "You don't sleep by yourself, right?" Tulin goes on. What a way to say you can't return to an empty aerie and get a wink of rest in the cold of a loneliness you try really hard to not allow to swallow you whole, but yeah, he doesn't sleep by himself, sure. "And you're always eating with us, too."

     So what, Kido very firmly holds back on his tongue. Tulin's not saying all of this to be mean, he thinks. "Should I— not do that?"

     "Wha— no, it's great, it's so fun, you should, you should!" his friend protests, way too loudly, but it's fine 'cause Mr. Teba and Mrs. Saki somehow don't wake up through that. "What I'm tryna say is you're always with one'a us. You're always with me, or Molli, or Notts and Kotts and everyone else — even Miss Laissa and Miss Bedoli and all the other grownups."

     Tulin...

     "And, y'know, your dad's not here with you—"

     Tulin...

     "—So if you can still be nestlings with your dad who's not even here," his friend tilts his head, "don'tcha think you can be nestlings with us?"

     ( Who are here with you? )

     Kido opens his beak. Kido shuts his beak. He looks away, blinking rapidly. His chest suddenly feels fit to burst with— with something that's always been there; something that's always been layered over his heart in these aeries and these nests and this company; something he's never thought any real sense of hard about 'cause he's never had to bounce back twice as much from doubting it as he sometimes — only sometimes — does with Dad.

     "I think you should just stick to being a friend," Kido teases when he's sure his voice won't wobble from the intensity of unvoiced emotion, "but I like the sound of Uncle Teba and Auntie Saki."

     ( And Uncle Nekk, and Uncle Gesane, and Auntie Misa, and Auntie Amali, and all the uncles and aunties he could possibly want—! )

     As ever as someone who probably couldn't disappoint if he tried, Tulin squawks right on cue.

     "Children," Auntie Saki says, groggy in a way he's never heard her, also right on cue — and Kido ends up laughing after all.