Bird sat in her cramped cabin, a place she normally avoided, except to toss things she had no need for. Those things really didn't take up much room, since the Changling had always believed in traveling light.
She had heard Pio's entreaty, had ignored Child pounding on her door. Perhaps everyone else on board the Lonely Star could come up with answers to hard questions on this voyage, but Bird wasn't even sure what her questions were, let alone the answer. Normally, Birdie was not a very introspective person.
As much as she wanted to help Kali, she feared and dreaded this excursion into the First Age, and wondered how much it would help the hobrim, and how much it would really be an opportunity for Pio and Child to explore their own past and their own questions.
But deep inside, Bird knew that the reason she was so troubled by the atmosphere on board the ship was the realization that others may find the answers to the mysteries of lost kin and their life's purpose, but it would never happen for Bird.
The Beorn were but one lofty branch of the odd and mysterious family of skinchangers. Settled and prosperous, with their own country that they defended zealously, they had no reason to question their role in Middle Earth.
But Bird was not a Beorn. She had been left at Carrock as an infant with a scribbled note begging, for the sake of kinship, that this changling be taken, "...for we must flee."
The Beorn were kind about such things, and told of other skin-changers that had been reared by them in the past, but they were never accepted into the family of "Bear-Men", and were cast out when they reached adulthood. And Bird had been cast out into a world where there did not seem to be another skin-changer. And she HAD looked.
But then had come the song of the Dolphin Folk. The more Bird assumed this new form, the stronger that call became. Was that what happened to her own people? Had they all found happier forms and disappeared into the worlds of badgers and birds, Ents and eagles, dolphins and dormice? The idea terrified Birdie, yet strangely appealed to her as well.
"We are a ship of orphans." Birdie muttered sadly to herself. It was all rather pathetic, actually.
She sighed and stood to leave her cabin. When she opened the door, a wreath of sea-lilies with a scribbled note fell at her feet.
Bird read the note and shook her head. "Ah, children. When will they learn that, sometimes, love is not enough?" It was a lesson Birdie would not wish on anyone.
She trudged up the stairs to the deck, and addressed the assembled crew. "I will accompany this mission in crow-form. And I will not be told 'No'."
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