It was Alicia’s turn to scout ahead that day. It was always somewhere between exciting and terrifying, to fly. At home she’d never had cause to go as high as she did while doing that, or to go for as long - the other birds, who had actually grown up among their own kind rather than with humans like she did, had been helping her refine the kinds of basics of flight that she’d gotten off of instinct before, and it meant a lot more range and flight time than she was used to. So she was making use of that increased stamina, along with the natural strength that came with being a bald eagle birdwoman, ranging far from the party to make sure the path was clear. 

    And it seemed to be plenty clear - she hadn’t seen anyone but the birds (normal sized ones, not birdpeople) and beasts (again normal sized ones) for a good long time. She settled down on a tree, taking a break while the sun set, pulling her brown feathered wings around herself like a blanket. She’d… probably pushed a bit too far, and her wings were tired enough that she needed the rest. A few minutes later, when she was ready to head back, she heard someone shouting. 

    She was on her feet quickly - a bit too quickly, she nearly fell off the branch - and before she really could think about it she was in the air again, flying off towards the voice. It resolved from vague shouting to a clear call, “Help! Someone help!”, and she tried to go faster. She burst through the trees into a clearing, and saw a human man being threatened by a few oversized crows with only a long stick to defend himself with. “Oversized” meaning, as it tends to with bird women, being basically the size of a person. It didn’t take long for Alicia to decide what to do about this - she might have been a birdwoman, and some humans didn’t like that... but she’d been raised by humans. She basically thought of herself as one. She couldn’t just leave the guy. So she transformed. 

    Alicia’s eagle form was… well, it was bigger than she was normally, and also much more dangerous than she was normally. There was a lot of bird to throw around, and a lot of talon to slash with. Alicia was generally very sweet, or at least people said she was. She didn’t like fighting and tried to avoid deaths when she could. But she was nonetheless very, very good at it when she had to be. Between the time of her screech of challenge and the crows falling unconscious and badly wounded, but alive, to the ground and reverting to their human forms, it had to have not even been a minute. 

    She landed, and made sure that the trio were down for the count, before turning to the victim. “Hey, are you alright mister? I tried to get here as soon as I heard you calling, did they manage to hurt you?” she asked, although she didn’t see any tears in the man’s big cloak. He was a rather tall one, but she’d never really been intimidated by tall people despite her own stature (or rather, her lack thereof). He did seem a bit creepy, but, well, she wasn’t one to judge. 

    “Oh, thank you miss. What are you doing all the way out here on your own?” The man asked, pacing and dragging his stick along the ground. He sounded nice enough, but there was something in his voice. She didn’t see a reason to lie to him though.

    “I’m scouting ahead of the rest of the group. I’m supposed to meet them a bit down the road if I don’t find anything.” She… honestly wasn’t sure why she elaborated to that point. It felt weird. 

    “Well, that’s just wrong, sending out a young woman like yourself all on her own. You could have been hurt.” Alicia looked at the bodies, then back at him. He continued without apparently noticing. “A few probably would have been fine - safety in numbers and all. But just one-”

    “Cut the chatter, Brent.” Said a voice from somewhere - Alicia whirled around, and saw another crow birdman smirking at her. 

    “Finally.” the man she’d saved said, and then he said something in an unintelligble language. A small circle, drawn in the ground where Brent had dragged his stick while pacing, lit up. Outside of it several more crows came out of hiding, and Brent went to meet with the one who had spoken. “You were slow, Kai.” 

    Alicia tried to fly away, not wanting to wait for whatever they were trying to do, and needing to warn the party of these probably-bandits- but when she reached the edge of the circle it was like flying into a wall, and she crashed back down. 

    “Easy girl, easy, don’t damage the goods.” The crow - Kai - said with a laugh, making a placating gesture as Alicia struggled to pass a line in the dirt that might as well have been a jail cell. The magic wall wasn’t just in the circle, it seemed to be upwards as well - she couldn’t go very high at all. “How long’s that last Bren?”

    “Hour. You didn’t pay me enough to keep one up longer.” 

    “Right you are.” He turned back to Alicia. “So, eagle girl. Nice catch, your type’s pretty strong. You’re a pretty tiny one though. Which I also like. What part of the beastlands are ya from?” 

    “Not.” Alicia muttered. “I’m from Doskan.” A modestly sized city on the edge of the beastlands, and fairly diverse in population; she’d been left there as an infant. She didn’t know why she talked. She didn’t want to answer him. 

    Kai raised an eyebrow. “And you fight like that? You’re wasted on that group. You’ll be coming with us now.” Not an offer or a question, but a statement.

    Alicia put up her fists as if she was going to fight them like that, rather than transforming. “Why the heck would I? You’re a bunch of bandits, right? This was a trap, but that ambushed cart is real right?” Honestly she wanted to be quiet, but she just wouldn’t shut up...

    “It was, and we are. But you won’t mind that all that much within the hour.” he said with a smirk. “Brent. Do the thing.” 

    Brent sighed. “Right you are, boss.” he said, approaching the circle again and taking out a tome. Alicia prepared to dodge, but, well, it was a small circle. There weren’t many places too dodge. He called up a mass of darkness, and threw it right at Alicia’s face, too fast to avoid.

    “Gah!” she cried out as she stumbled backwards - but she wasn’t hurt. She wasn’t hurt. She stood up, staggering a little, feeling a strange pressure on her head, like her head was underwater while the rest of her wasn’t. “What did you do?” she tried to say, but it sounded kinda slurred coming out. 

    “Changed your mind.” Brent said, turning to his boss and holding out a hand. Kai dumped a bag of gold into his hand - something probably hard to part with for a crow, but he did it without a thought. “You have until the shield goes down to do what you want with her. She’s strong physically, but she’s shaky on the magic defenses and has a loose hold on her identity as is, she won’t resist it all that much. She’ll be an entirely different girl when you’re done with her, if you want.” The words seemed bad. But Alicia couldn’t figure out why. 

    Brent turned away and left, while Kai looked her over, and walked up to the edge of the circle. Alicia felt like she should do something. But she couldn’t work up the motivation to do anything but stand there, dazed and confused. The man grinned at her. “My, my, you’re a cute one. But there’s plenty of work to do yet.”

    “You should… you should let me go…” Alicia mumbled. “I’m givin’ you one… one warning…” It was so hard to talk. Hard to think. 

    “Oh? Why should I do that? Is it because you’re such a strong fighter? I know you’re tough, but you’re kinda in a bad situation here.” 

“The… the others’ll be here soon… they’ll kick your butt.” Alicia said, certain it was true. They’d come for her.

    “What others are those? That adventurer group you’re with?” 

    When had she said something about that? Or had he guessed? “Mmhm. Buncha… bunch of great fighters… lemme go.”

    “You can go whenever you like. After all, you’re part of our lovely little band of brigands here, aren’t you? It’s a voluntary association.”

    Alicia blinked. That sounded… odd? But she didn’t know why. “I’m not a bandit?” she said, although it came out very unsure. She wrapped her wings around herself, a nervous gesture she often made, not noticing how some of her feathers had turned black and gray. She wasn’t a bandit, right? Bandits were bad guys, and she wasn’t a bad person, she was fairly sure.

    “No, we’re not. Bandits are so unprofessional. We’re mercenaries and nomads, doing whatever we want and getting money.” In this case a distinction without difference, but the important point was “we”. “The crow’s foot band.”

    Alicia nodded. That sounded right. She was a mercenary, getting whatever she wanted with the others. She was a Crow’s Foot, that sounded right. “Right, I’m sorry I forgot. If I can leave whenever I want, can I go now?”

    Kai raised an eyebrow. That had been surprisingly easy. She really did have a loose grasp on her identity. “Maybe later, but you took a good hit on the head right? I need to make sure you’re all sound of mind before you go. It was kinda sudden, you talking about leaving, so I need to be sure you didn’t just get jumbled up.”

    She’d been hurt? That explained all the pressure on her head. “Ok. But I’ll leave when you’re done.”

    “Right, of course. Now, let’s start from the basics and build up, yeah?” Alicia nodded, and Kai continued. “Well, where were you born?” 

    Alicia nodded. That was easy. “The capital of Doskan, P-”

    Kai held up a hand for her to stop. “Hm, that’s not right. You’re from the Dark Wing Forest in the beastlands, same as the rest of us.” 

    Well, that didn’t seem quite right. “But, I remember-” 

    “Yeah, you remember the forests, flying around as a kid, learning to fight with us. Right? That’s where we all met.” Kai interjected. 

    Alicia nodded, satisfied. “Right. Don’t know why you keep saying I’m from Doskan.” she said. “Everyone treated me weird because of my parents. Just because I wasn’t with my birth parents…” she played with her hair nervously, not liking the memory and not noticing the locks darkening from white to black and her left wing continuing to change. She’d been raised by humans, and the other birds had mocked her for it...

    Kai nodded. “Yeah, too bad about being an orphan. But your adopted parents were good ravens, helped to toughen you up so you could deal with the bullies.”

    Alicia blinked again. Ravens? Her parents? Something was weird about that. She opened her mouth but Kai continued without waiting. “Despite the fact you weren’t the same kind of bird as them they treated you like their own daughter. A good family.”

    Right. She was an eagle, and they were ravens. She wasn’t sure how they’d come to have her - she’d been left somewhere and they’d found her, at least so far as she was aware. And they’d been very kind to her even when the other birds went after her for her species. And it definitely sounded right that they were good parents. “Mmhm. Really good parents.” Even though she was an eagle. “I don’t think I’d be just about anywhere without them…”

    “Yep. It’s rare to see another type of bird treat crows like you so well, going as far as to take you in. Everyone loves them.” Kai said, delighting in the changes he was witnessing. Already her left wing had taken a much better color, and her hair was slowly turning black - and her eyes were starting to change, too. Worth every penny.

    A crow like her? A crow like her. She was a crow. Just like the rest of the Crow’s Feet company. That made sense to her. Her memories felt all jumbled. She stared off into space as she changed, as Kai continued to talk to her. Her hair continued to darken, her eyes to redden, and her skin started to shift in tone too as her life turned into a far more active one. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t grasp it. Maybe Kai was right, she’d hit her head or something… “Right. I love them a lot. They taught me and my brother how to get by, and they taught me how to deal with all the bullies when I was a kid.” And they taught her how to be kind, and to treat people as she liked to be treated, how to be a good person. 

    “And they taught you how to be strong. How in the real world, the only one who looked out for you would be yourself. How you needed money and power to get by, and you had to look at for you and yours first, everyone else never. They taught all the kids in the forest that, but you most of all.” Kai said, rewriting Alicia’s history with every word. “And when you got sick of taking shit, you started teaching the others that yourself. You’ve always been one of the strongest of us, second only to me. Anyone that couldn’t put up a fight wasn’t worth respect.” 

    To Kai’s surprise, this was something Alicia resisted. He seemed to have tapped into what she saw as something that defined her. Whoever her parents had once been had really nailed in some values on her. Alicia frowned. “No, that’s wrong. That’s… that’s just being a bad person, because you’re scared.” she said, even as she continued to change. There wasn’t much left of Alicia now. Even her clothes had started to change, let alone the last tinges of brown in her wings, the few locks of white hair and patches of pale skin. 

    “But that’s what your parents taught you.” Kai said, pushing. He didn’t want some softy on his team. She had to be willing to fight and kill. 

    “Says you. Who knows them better, me or you?” Alicia spat back, her now red eyes bright and attentive. She wasn’t done yet, but she was almost breaking from the control.

    “Right, right.” Kai said, retreating from the point. She was so vehemently against that, it looked like the one part of her that wouldn’t fall - at least, not in the time they had before the circle wore out. They hadn’t talked much, but a lot of Alicia’s time had been spent staring off into space as parts of her identity were broken down and rebuilt, purged and replaced. He’d have a different tactic. “But they did teach that strength was the most important thing. To protect the ones you cared about from those who would harm them no matter what, to keep them safe and happy.” 

    Alicia paused, thinking that over. Thinking. And then thinking some more. Her eyes had clouded over again. “Right. That’s what they said. Don’t get it wrong next time.” she said, the words sharp but her tone dreamy. She was back to being wet clay, ready to be molded. 

    He hadn’t broken down that pillar of her identity, he could tell. But by pushing it from an angle of protection rather than domination, he’d managed to reform it into something more to his liking. And he had to say, that fire in her eyes had been pretty damn hot. He’d been planning to make her just another member of the gang, but, well, that hardly seemed right. And she was shaping up to be such a perfect crow… besides, she’d left his second in command unconscious on the dirt before she’d been changed. She had the strength for it. 

    “Of course. My mistake. I should know this stuff about my second in command… especially a second with benefits.” 

    “Second in command?” Alicia questioned. She hadn’t been that before, she was pretty sure.

    “Of course. You beat up the last second when he broke the rules.” 

    Alicia looked down to the birds she’d knocked out earlier. Before, she’d been regretful she had to do that. Now, she smirked and felt satisfied. “Right. Right, I’m the best choice for a second, obviously. But you’re sure you’ve got no ulterior motives?”

    “I promise that I’m not just trying to use it to get into your pants. You don’t owe me anything for it. Besides, why would I need to try to get in?” He paused, letting Alicia form her own conclusion from that.

    “Of course. You don’t need to try, when you’ve already been there.” Alicia remembered, and unconsciously licked her lips. Kai, well, he’d been with her for a while. Nothing wrong with having some fun as long as it didn’t mess with the decision process, right? And he respected her strength, and she liked that a lot. So, one thing led to another and… well, the expected. 

    She was basically done, now. Kai looked over his now-lover, unrecognizable from what and who she had been only an hour before. Only a few patches of her hair remained white, a little bit of skin stayed pale, and her clothes were finishing up. It was time to finish it. “Indeed. So what were you saying about leaving, Akari?”

    With a word, Alicia ceased to exist. She hardly resisted as she was fully replaced, rewritten. As the last of the changes finished, Akari blinked with surprise. “Did you really think I was serious about that? I’m just giving you crap ‘cause you hired that human. What did he end up actually doing anyway?”

    Kai smiled, as the magical circle faded away and he could walk into it. He approached Akari and gave her a pat on the shoulder (not the head - her new personality, he was sure, would have hurt him for that). “Right, right. Of course. You speak so confidently that I can’t help but take you seriously sometimes. I get the protest, but he did what we paid him for.” 

    Akari gave him a flat look. “Uh huh. Right.” she glanced downwards, and saw something growing. “And was getting close about taking me seriously, or was it about something else?” Men were so predictable sometimes, she thought. 

    “Well, if you want it could be.” Kai said. He stiffened a little more at the idea.

    Akari smirked. “In front of everyone? That’s bold, even for you.” she said. But her hand reached down. “I like bold.”

    “Then please, feel free.”

    She grabbed a hold of something down there, and squeezed hard. Kai gasped with sudden pain. “Mmmh, no, I think if we do something it’ll be on my terms.” she said with a smile at odds with her action, “Unless you want me to make the jump up from second in command, that is.”

    Kai was very conflicted, because that was at the same time very hot and very scary. “...Later then. We have to head back.”

    Akari relinquished her grasp, smirked, and jumped into the air without another word, flying off towards the base camp she could now remember - and away from Alicia’s friends.