chilly mornings on the way to the office🍂

moulting season (Bird Spirit! AU) [fic]

well, since my tablet pen’s broken, I figure the only thing I can do right now is write.. Here’s a lil piece from the Bird Spirit! AU! I say lil piece, but it somehow ended up being 950 words alkdhalkhshd.. treat it like an intro/prologue? there isnt any romance or whatever yet, more worldbuilding. I’m still a lil rusty with writing, o77 please bear with me

(P.S although it’s called bird spirit au, not everyone’s a bird spirit, rather it’s because You’s the bird spirit and she’s kinda the protag here bc I thirst)

Anyway, enjoy lil grumpy scruffy You!! (for clarity’s sake, she’s called Yo) I’ll write more if yall like it?

@hitomishiga ya wanted to be tagged? this is me yellin about it hehehe

(more under readmore, mobile users)

Yo feels the familiar shimmering sensation when she pulls in her wings as her sneakers touch the asphalt. It doesn’t quite get ‘pulled in’ rather than retreat to behind the Veil, seemingly disappearing from human eyes. It may be six in the morning on a weekend , but Yo figures she can’t be too safe.

She’s only here because Kanan and Chika happened to be in the area, and let’s be honest, she doesn’t really have anywhere else to go, so she might as well catch up with her childhood friends. Not like her soul searching or city-searching has turned up anything worthy. Who knows, maybe this place will be the place. To take roost, build a ‘nest’, maybe find a ‘mate’. Yo glances around the alley, grabbing the trusty dark grey cap from her backpack. Yeah, she can’t be too safe, especially during this season. Yo shakes her head vigorously, not unlike a wet dog, smoothening her hair from its wind tousled state before yanking on her cap. A silvery feather drifts to the ground, and then another, and yet another. Yo grimaces. Ah yes, the joys of moulting season.

“Boy, I never get sick of this time of the year! Absolutely pleasant!” Yo mutters to herself under her breath annoyedly, scuffing her well-worn sneaker on the ground, casually brushing the feathers to a side, making silvery owl feathers mix with the significantly duller grey pigeon feathers which were swept to the roadside. Yo resists the urge to scratch the back of her head for the fiftieth time today. She doesn't exactly want to make the entire pigeon population suddenly seem like they became shinier. Yo hunches her shoulders, casts her eyes down and starts speedwalking around the corner. Six in the morning was probably too early to meet Chika, she’d underestimated her own flying speed, but Yo heard Uchiura had a beach, and it wouldn’t be an unwelcome change of pace. But before she even makes it past the next corner, her shoulder is met with unexpected resistance and her head is forced up. Yo gasps, trying to find the words as her heart thrums with adrenaline (it’s just adrenaline) from the sudden scare (it’s just from the scare) as she sets her eyes on the girl she’s just collided with. In a dark alleyway. At six in the morning. (it’s just from the girl—oh goddammit) ‘Oh goddammit’’s the right phrase, Yo decides, as the girl sits up from the floor cradling her head in her hands, maroon strands of hair everywhere. Yo doesn’t even remember when it happened, but suddenly she’s crouching at her side, ‘sorry’s and ‘oh my god’s and ‘are you okay’s spilling out of her mouth and just generally being completely unhelpful. “Good job, Yo,” Yo grumbles to herself. Yo’s eyes settle on a crooked pale barrette in the girl’s hair, not doubt unplaced from her collision and she figures that the least she could do is to fix it for her. Yet her fingers only graze the smooth surface, before the girl suddenly jerks back, as if stung, and Yo’s kind of shocked. This has got to be a record for how fast someone has run from her, and that’s saying something. The girl scoots backwards on her butt until her back hits the wall, and there she sits, shaking like a leaf in the midst of feathers (oops) staring at her as if she’s seen a ghost. Well, at least her head’s up now? Yo raises a hand slowly, cautiously whispering, “….’Sup?” It feels like trying to approach a scared stray cat. At the simple word, the girl flinches and scrabbles further back, still shaking. Any more scrabbling and she’s gonna ascend that wall like Spiderman. Yo raises one eyebrow. Seriously, what IS her problem? Yo dips her eyes back into the Veil, checking that she’s a human. Yeah, that’s right, she shouldn’t be able to see anything, unless the stupid feathers gave away anything. Not like anyone had ever reacted to her feathers that adversely before. It wasn’t like she was a shapeshifter…  under the Veil shapeshifters took on the form they preferred most, although it was theoretically possible she was one, no shapeshifter in their right mind would spend most of their power just as a human. Shapeshifters wouldn’t have that kind of reaction anyway. Was she allergic to feathers or something? That would make sense. Yo’s probably overthinking this. Dammit, focus on the crisis at hand! Widespread panic right now wouldn’t be in your best interests. You haven’t even met Chika or Kanan yet. Yo’s eyes drift over to a small, pink luggage abandoned at a side. Not a local then. A local-to-be? …Right, back to the matter at hand. Shivering red-haired girl with pale barrettes about to scale a wall without spidey power. Gotcha. She was kind of squeaking now, doing her best impression of a gasping fish. She was trying to say something. Yo admitted she was curious as to what her voice sounded like. Well, not like humans could see through the Veil, except one in a milli— “Y-you have wings? A-and are those talons? Your eyes just changed—“ She babbles, and to anyone else it would look like the strangest accusation. Except it was kind of true. Her voice is soft, kind of high yet not unpleasant, ringing around her ears, reminding her of the gentleness and posterity of spring. (Brilliant and very appropriate observation, Watanabe. Way to read a situation.) Yo pinched the bridge of her nose, felt another silvery feather float down, cheerfully reflecting the emerging sun on its surface, and with it, the pair of golden eyes that followed it, stupefied. Really? One in a million?