Chapter Text
It was... weird, having all these animals being near their home.
Brightbill wasn’t really sure what to think when he heard almost the entire forest stayed in their house during a winter storm- which he is fascinated that everyone managed to fit but Roz has always been good at figuring stuff like that out- but he really isn’t sure how to feel now. All the other animals usually kept a large berth away from this place and them, barring Pinktail and her kids and sometimes Paddler. Brightbill feels like he should be more grateful that everyone cares about Roz so much now that they’re willing to help rebuild his home and he knows he should be happy because the other animals like them now but...
But Roz was leaving for who knows how long soon. So he wasn’t sure how to feel about anything anymore.
Brightbill felt the shuffle of the warm tail that surrounded him, before Fink lifted his head up and yawned, flashing all his teeth on display. He licked his maw idly, watching as the animals gathered with fresh logs, Paddler calling them in different directions about how to perfectly construct the house, the one they had apparently, stolen the design from.
“Roz still not back?” Fink asked, pulling Brightbill from his thoughts. When Brightbill shook his head, Fink made a humming noise, laying his head down near Brightbill’s front, surrounding him. “Bummer.”
“...Where do you think she went?” he asked when Fink closed his eyes again and his breathing started to become steadier.
“Hmmm?”
“Roz,” Brightbill swallowed, ignoring the prickling fear that was telling him she might’ve left already. “Where do you think she went?”
“Dunno,” Fink’s voice was more subdued these days, quiet, as if he was already mourning something since Roz made her announcement. “But I know she won’t up and leave without telling us kid. Y’know that’s not how your mom works.”
Brightbill nodded but still did a whole-body shake, shuddering, trying to get rid of the sinking dread building up inside him. He did it again when it didn’t work, before he lifted his wing to his tongue.
Immediately, as he hoped, Fink slapped his wing away from his mouth, staring at him with an unimpressed glare. Brightbill made a show at looking frustrated, bringing his wing closer to his mouth before Fink sighed and rolled away from him.
“And right at the start of my nap kid, it’s like you have no respect for your elders,” Fink grumbled, sitting up. “C’mere and tell me about... oh I don’t know how was the summer nesting grounds? Or something cool you saw or did or whatever you want to talk about.”
Brightbill smiled, sitting in front of Fink as the fox began working on grooming him, taking long broad strokes with his thick tongue. “Actually, I wanted to tell you some geese showed me the proper way to groom feathers! They clean by pulling each feather one by one, using the ridges on their mandibles! I got to try it.”
Fink’s tongue stopped, before Brightbill felt him pulling away. “...Huh. I guess spending winter with actual geese would teach you how to do this properly yourself. But then why’d you try it with your tongue again, you know you don’t clean yourself right that way.”
Because I missed you. I missed you listening to Roz and I talk as you groomed me. I miss Roz asking you every night to do it.
I missed you.
“I wanted you to do it,” he said truthfully, leaning back a little as he watched Thorn amble by, a giant tree trunk in his mouth. “This is the easiest way to do it.”
“By what, making me mad?”
Brightbill exhaled, fluttering his wings. His shoulder didn’t pull anymore, and it didn’t really hurt and he really wanted Fink to just groom him already, because he knows he has no robot or fox in him it’s just.
(Someone did groom him, this kind elderly goose called Shinywing. And he appreciated the time and careful effort she took, the care she showed, but he hated the pity in her eyes. As if Roz and Fink weren’t enough, as if they failed, when he still didn’t feel clean when she finished. When he had to hide to scratch and clean himself or evaluate the outcome of the day like him and Roz always did, because he was too much robot-fox-goose for anyone that wasn’t Longneck.
He missed him so much.)
“Not mad,” he settled on, the weird chirp-purr thing that only he ever did (“He was raised by the monster and a predator.”) bubbling out of his beak. “But like. Super annoyed.”
Fink chuckled, nothing like the boisterous laughter Brightbill’s associated him with before, but his tongue did return to Brightbill’s neck so he’ll take whatever victory he can get. “You just want to ramble about something don’t you?”
“...Maybe?” he said, shooting Fink a little half smile that the fox returned with a smirk. Fink turned him around and returned to his grooming, and he doesn’t care what any of the other geese said he knows Fink is being careful, applying pressure to the different spots in just the way he liked it because Fink knew him. A cloud of tension he didn’t even know he had slipped off his shoulders as he slumped slightly, humming happily. He wanted to tell Fink something, anything really, but the Rozzums he met, the journey he took, (the things the other geese said), all of it seemed insignificant to what happened here.
To what’s happening now.
“Scanning, scanning. Why are they still helping?” he manages to not snap, staring at the way the animals working together. “Why are they helping now?”
“We told you why kid.”
“No I mean, why now,” he emphasizes. “They didn’t- none of them- Fink they never-”
“Cared,” Fink finished, nuzzling him gently before continuing grooming. “Yeah kid I know. I know. But they do now.”
“We don’t need them to now.”
“We kinda do.”
“No we don’t.”
“Kid.”
Brightbill swallowed his protest, his anger, and stared at the ground between his feet. Fink’s tongue returned to his back now, and Brightbill relaxed when he didn’t say anything. That was the good thing about Fink- he actually noticed when Brightbill was starting to get overwhelmed and didn’t want to keep talking about something.
Unlike the other geese.
Even if talking about Longneck would probably make him feel better in the long run.
But he didn’t want to then.
Brightbill tried to not physically shake his head, tried not to say ‘storing information away for later analyzing’ because that made the other geese look at him weird, and focused on the only thing that mattered until his mom came back, and opened his wings at Fink’s tap. He took a deep breath in and out as Fink’s tongue darted under his feathers, making him feel cleaner than he has since he left the island for migration at all.
“So... is our house like a safe zone for preys now?”
Fink snorted, shoving Brightbill’s head forward. “Of course not I live here. They’re helping rebuild Roz’s house, Thorn reinstated the truce while they’re working on it.”
“Oh,” Brightbill trailed off again, closing his eyes.
“Y’know you don’t have to clamp up around me.”
Brightbill froze, a stutter escaping him.
“Listen, I know you have something you want to tell me, so you might as well say it,” Fink turned him around to his front, inspecting his feathers before his tongue darted out to the ones on his chest. “It's grooming time, you always talk about something, even if it’s counting how many logs Roz used to built that place in the first place.”
“Yeah, but...” the other goose would get annoyed when he talked too much. When he made robotic sounds. When he acted like he did around Roz and Fink. “I don’t want to annoy you.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
Brightbill didn’t know how to respond to that and thankfully, he didn’t have to. He watched Fink’s ears perk up as a familiar set of footsteps came closer before Roz’s head appeared behind the tree line.
“Hello you two,” she called, walking towards them, slowly easing herself to the ground. And Brightbill doesn’t think he’ll ever get over how beautiful she looks now with all the moss and flowers covering her. Roz has always been smooth edges and shiny surfaces and that was okay because that was his mom but now?
She looks like she’s home.
(And they’re going to take out her memories and change the softness back to slick and shiny and that Rozzum wasn’t his mom-)
“Hey,” Fink called back, walking over to her and nuzzling her side, scampering up to sit on her shoulder blades. “The pity brigade are still working on the place.”
“Do not call them that,” Mom said, reaching her hands out so he can hop on them. “Are your wings feeling satisfactory this morning Brightbill?”
“Satisfactorily indeed!” he puffed his chest out a little, waving his wing up and down in the air. “All thanks to you! It doesn’t hurt much anymore, even when I flap it!” To demonstrate, he flapped both of his wings, and his right one didn’t make him grimace in pain. His mom watched him carefully, her eye lens shifting to have better focus, before she nodded.
“I’m glad,” she said as she straightened, stumbling for just a moment before standing up. Fink had that look in his eyes where he was going to tell her to take a break and adjust something- she adjusted before she left- but Mom beat him to it.
“I twisted it a bit Fink,” she said, turning around and heading back the way she came, slipping away from the construction and the noise. “I needed to gather some things to show you both.”
“Well then just take a minute-”
“Mom,” he asked, because he knows she’ll adjust her leg when she gets to the ‘surprise’ (“Is it still a surprise if it might not be a good thing?”) and he was curious as to why she told them to wait there. “Why don’t you want any of the others seeing this yet?”
Because the spot Roz had left them in was a bit further away, hidden away unless someone went looking for them. And it had taken Brightbill a second to realize that someone besides Pinktail might’ve that time.
(A friend was the one thing he wanted last summer.
But now, one of the only animals he wanted was leaving.
Why didn’t he just appreciate what he had with Roz and Fink and the few others?)
“I wanted you both to be the first to know,” Mom said, ducking under foliage and weaving through trees as natural as any other animal (and not like the Rozzums that tried grabbing him and the other geese, awkward and weird as if they had no idea that they couldn’t just grab at a bird like that if they weren’t Fink and weren’t careful and he barely understood them). “The otters are probably well aware of what I’m about to show you, but Vontra gathered them when she came for me, and I wanted to check on one of them.”
“One of them?” Fink asked, turning to face Roz. “Who’s Vontra?”
“The robot that was directing the destroyer units,” he felt his mom’s hands tighten around him, and he leaned forward to nuzzle under her head. She nuzzled him back and her thumb traced circles in his stomach, and she crooned at him, her little beep-chirp. “You’ll see what I’m talking about momentarily.”
“...Alright?” Fink said, settling back on Roz’s shoulder. And this was comfortable and familiar, the three of them like this- sometimes he was in her hands and sometimes he was on his spot on her left shoulder- going through the forest like this, gathering food for breakfast, lunch, dinner, storage, his ventures, him and her- mother and son- getting more familiar with the island Fink had spent his whole life on. This, this was what he was missing, this was what he wanted. The summer nesting grounds were interesting and exciting and new and fun but he missed the taste of the air and the views and them, because this was his family and he knows Roz needs to go for her migration, but he missed her for months he didn’t want-
“Brightbill?” Brightbill shook his thoughts off, shuddering and he felt Roz’s grip tighten, becoming more secure, reminding him she’s still here. “Are you alright?”
She was staring at him, her lenses dilating as she took him in, probably scanning him to see if he was lying about being in pain. He felt his throat constrict, his words choking him as a burning grew behind his eyes.
“Brightbill?!”
“Kid?!”
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered, the tears bubbling and slipping down his face. And this was stupid he hasn’t cried like this since he was a gosling, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t-
Things were supposed to be better after he apologized! He got a second chance, one he probably didn’t deserve because he was a stupid brat, and-and the other geese only started liking him because he wasn’t afraid of the other Rozzums and it was his mom that taught him to stay calm in dangerous situations and he got a second chance and she was leaving-
He heard the click of her chest plate as Roz opened it for him, lifting his head so she could motion for him to get in. Then he ran in, the plate closing behind him and it was dark and safe and right and he leaned against the cold metal on the inside of her stomach-
And started crying.
His sobs echoed in the space around him, his tears sliding down faster than he could wipe them away, and for just a moment he felt smaller, younger, hopping into his Mom’s chest for the first time when someone was chasing them and knowing he was safe.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated when he had finally calmed down, wiping his face. The space around him hummed, her voice box so close to him now he could feel the vibrations- “I’m so stupid.”
“You are not,” Mom’s voice was final, direct, and he missed the honesty he would get from her (and maybe that’s why learning the truth hurt so much, not because she had lied but because she never bothered telling him the truth). She knocked on her chest twice, and he lifted his leg to knock on it once- I'm not ready to come out yet. He felt the familiar up and down motions of Roz’s steps, even when they switched to odd skittering (crab like?). It was no time at all before she stopped and she lowered herself to the ground, before she knocked on her chest twice again.
He responded with three knocks this time- not ready but willing to talk now.
“Did something happen while you were both waiting for me Brightbill?” Roz asked.
“No,” nothing besides his thoughts and his whole world changing, but that’s happened so many times over the past year.
(He wants things to go back to how they were before he met the other geese. Before he learned his mother was ‘the monster’ and he was the ‘goose thing’.)
“Fink?”
“He was nervous about something,” he resisted the urge to say ‘snitch’ and let Fink keep talking. “He was quiet when I was grooming him Roz. Quiet. Y’know he can’t stand being quiet during grooming.”
He bobbed his head angrily, quietly hissing. “I’m fine Fink. I just didn’t have anything to talk about.”
“...Okay ignoring the fact you just tried to lie to a liar, that wasn’t even convincing Brightbill. I taught you better than that.”
He scoffed, even when it had no bite to it. He turned to lean back against the chest plate’s opening and slumped down, staring into the empty space around him. He knows Roz’s chest is thick enough to hold extra, smaller claws to grab things with so this space could be filled by her batteries, but-
(“Whoawhoawhoa! Don’t you need that?!”
Mom’s grip on him tightened, not even caring that her main power supply was disappearing into the darkness, probably forever. “I have everything I need!” and she put him in there, and he heard her body parts retracting, and he knew, he knew, he would be okay and he remembered being worried for her.)
-it was weird for it to be so empty. Even though he knew it wasn’t a very efficient power supply anymore, and he knows it hasn’t been for a long time, but still.
“Why do you think you’re stupid?”
“W-what?” he asked, listening to the little beeps and whirrs as Roz sat down.
“What made you think you’re stupid?” Roz clarified. “Something must’ve triggered that thought, and I would like to know what.”
He hesitated, letting out a cheep-purr that Roz readily answered. “It’s- it’s a stupid reason. I’m being stupid, nothing bad happened or anything, everything was fine, it’s just...”
His silence must have said something, because the sound of two paw filled claws clinking against her exterior echoed around him- not a saying beyond hunt, angry, hungry. “Who do I need to eat.”
He blinked before shooting straight up. “NO!”
“So there is someone!”
“I did not-” he groaned, shaking his head even when no one could see it. “I never said that!”
“So you’re saying no one made you feel stupid.”
“Ye-no! Yes! Stop confusing me, no one made me feel stupid!”
“There is someone there absolutely is- was it those geese again? It was those geese again!”
“What part of anything I just said made you think anyone said anything!” he snapped, honking. “NO ONE SAID ANYTHING!”
“Why do you think someone said something Fink?”
“Because he’s lying!” Fink snapped, a growl growing in the back of his throat. “He’s been lying since he came back, something changed during the winter, come on, I know you noticed it!”
“I changed??” part of him wanted to knock twice so he could yell at Fink to his face but something in him still craved darkness, safety, home. “You changed! I’m still the same old Brightbill, you’re the one not-not laughing right or telling jokes or complaining about me and my big mouth! You should be happy that I’m not annoying you isn’t-isn’t that what you always wanted?!”
“NO!” Fink roared, loud enough to make even Roz flinch, the space around him shifting. “NO NEVER, never ever, why do you care so much about annoying me when you never did before?! It was a joke, you knew it was a joke, so why do keep-keep clamming up or looking at me in a way that you want to say something, but won’t?! You’ve barely talked about your trip at all, and I was sure you’d be rambling about that for weeks! Back me up Roz, the time for waiting is over!”
Time for waiting?
Mom was quiet for a moment, the only sound Brightbill could hear was the soft click click click of her eyes. “Brightbill?” she asked, her voice that soft and deep quiet she had when she wanted him to tell the truth and he felt choked up listening to it. “I did notice this change, but I asked Fink not to ask you just yet. I wanted you to feel more... comfortable, especially after all the... tension that’s surrounded us lately. I was hoping you would come to us by yourself.”
(“That thing killed your mother!”
“You don’t feel anything! ...You’re not my mom.”)
“C-come by myself?” he felt choked up a lot lately, a haze covering his head because he was being so emotional for no reason and Roz wasn’t even leaving yet and she promised, she promised she’d find her way home, so what was wrong with him?
(And why did he have such a hard time believing it?)
“If you need my help for anything Brightbill, I can promise I will do everything in my power to help you,” she said, before her lights turned such a bright red even he could see it and she backtracked. “Not-not because you’re my task or because of a task it’s because-”
“Because her task ended when you were able to fly by fall,” Fink cut in, and Brightbill could imagine his soft eyes a small smile. “Because she stayed for you kid.”
(“Roz? Wait, she’s here?”
“You think that thing is your mother?”
“She stayed. For you.”
“MONSTER!”
“Because her task ended when you were able to fly by fall.”)
...Oh, he was so stupid.
“Do you hate me?”
“...What?”
Brightbill flinched at Roz’s heartbroken tone, the little desperate whine- no no no- that escaped Fink. “Why would I- Brightbill why would we hate you?”
He sniffed, lightly knocking two times against Roz’s plating. And it opened up, Mom’s hands waiting for him as he hopped into them and onto the sandy ground.
“The beach?” he asked, looking around. “What are we doing here?”
“I have something to show you both, but it can wait,” she leaned in closer to him, examining him carefully. “Please don’t hide away from me anymore Brightbill. What’s been on your mind?”
And all the anger at the changes, all the anger at them, the geese, the other animals, all melted away at that question and all Brightbill was left with was the twisting, heavy feelings of regret.
“You should hate me,” he whispers, ducking his head to the ground, avoiding their glances. “I made you feel like you weren’t wanted, like I didn’t love you. I did! I do, I really really do, it’s just...” he trailed off, looking up at them. Fink was staring with his ears curled back, yellow-green eyes saddened.
“What’s going on kid?” Brightbill could just barely hear the little purrs behind Fink’s voice- reassurance, safe, here.
And Roz.
Mom.
Roz was staring at him, her eye lids darting around nervously, because who cares if she doesn’t have feathers or furs or fins, she was alive and she took care of him and loved him even though he was- defective and small and she got him in the air and-
“I’m the one who made you feel like you didn’t belong, wasn’t I?” he asked, ignoring her call to him (beep-chirp) because he didn’t deserve her comfort right now. “You said, when you were trying to help me learn to fly, you said we could both go back to where we belong. And I don’t think you care too much about what the other animals think of you, and I know Fink wasn’t one who made you feel that way, so. So, I made you feel like I didn’t belong with you guys, like you didn’t belong with us Mom.”
Because none of them belonged to anything other than each other, him, Roz, and Fink. And he remembered not getting it after he learned what the other animals thought of Roz (monster-thing), why Fink stuck around for that. What the point was. And then he started paying attention to the whispers about what was said around them- and he remembered wishing he could go back to his ignorance, because he’s not sure if Roz or Fink protected him from the whispers or he just never cared- and he didn’t like their theories any better. Fink must’ve heard what they said about Roz. But.
But the things they said about Fink...
(“What was the point of playing the waiting game to have that goose be something more than a lunch if it’s the runt?”
“Getting a monster to keep him safe. Coward.”
“Did the fox make the thing his mate?” a goose asked him, staring him down as Brightbill gawked at them.)
Fink stayed. And even though he knew Fink didn’t have many other friends, (“You’re-you’re my friend. And I never had one of those before.” “No one likes me.”) even though he knew Fink didn’t really care about what most of the island thought of him, he still stayed. Even if no one liked him before, associating with Roz?
(Some of the things the other geese said about them were so mean. They ammo they had on Roz was vicious; calling her every name in the book simply for existing. And maybe it was because everything they said about her was so wrong- she wasn't a monster and she wasn't a thing and she certainly wasn't unfeeling no matter what he or anyone thought- maybe that's why it was easier to ignore it. But the things they had on Fink?
(Fink ate other geese before.)
When one of the geese made the mistake of saying one of those things near Longneck- you smell so much like a fox we thought you were one! Was he fattening you up and tasting you to make sure you were just right? - they didn’t hear the end of it. He remembered the ringing in his ears and wondered if this was just a parent thing; like how Pinktail could just get him to do what she wanted with just a glare.
They never said anything bad about him or his family after he saved them.
They didn’t apologize either.)
Fink stayed because he loved them. That was why, even though he’s never said it- maybe doesn’t even know how to yet, but for one reason or another Fink stayed.
“No,” Roz shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. “You were… wrong when you said I took you in because of guilt Brightbill. I-I…”
Roz trailed off, staring at the ground between them for a moment. And the distance between them has never felt so big, so-so insurmountable, even when things should have improved, be better.
Fink walked closer to him, a small purr echoing from his chest, calming him. Brightbill did his little cheep-purr as a call Roz responded with her own beep-chirp. They kept that going again, and again, a language that just existed within them, a call only they understood.
(Are you here?)
(Yes. Always.)
Roz’s hand tightened around the air, clenching something he couldn’t see as he looked out into the sea, easing upwards. Brightbill felt Fink’s tail wrap around him, warmth spreading from his back to his chest, the fox appearing over his shoulder to look up at Roz.
“I think I should show you what we came here for,” Roz said, scooping the both of them into her arms so they could hop onto her shoulders. “Just to explain my point.”
“This wasn’t the point of all this, I’m so sorry,” He just kept being stupid, just couldn’t do anything right.
Roz’s head turned to him, before she blinked twice. “Why are you so concerned over what the point was?” she asked, leaning her head closer to his. And she held it there, waiting, even though it bobbed in place- she actually wanted a nuzzle from him- so he moved closer, and met her for a nuzzle. “The point was to tell you something in order to help a little bit when I’m gone.”
And his breath hitched as Fink whined again, sound so quiet he could barely hear it, before he heard another head bonk against metal and Roz chirped at the fox, waiting for his little bark back. “That was the point Brightbill, but I also wanted an excuse to spend some time with you both alone. It has… been awhile.”
Fink chuckled, a half thing, as he looked over at Brightbill. “Remember when the only animals who talked to us were Pinktail and her kids.”
“Paddler was kind to us as well,” Roz said, her eye lids moving to glare at Fink. “He replaced my leg.”
“He also refused to give us his tree so we could put out the fires unless I called him cool. That makes his ‘nice’ sentiment garbage.”
“You weren’t really the nicest animal to him either Fink,” Brightbill said, smirking. “And besides, he was civil and didn’t ignore us!”
“And that is the lowest bar I’ve ever heard of in my life. That’s just sad,” Fink settled back down, his ears dropping in annoyance.
“And-and just look at us now! Look at all the animals who would do anything for us! Look at how many friends we’ve made!”
“They’re going to go back and try to eat me in a week.”
“They will be trying to eat Fink in a week.”
That made him startle into laughter, Fink joining in- his real laugh, one loud, airy and happy- and Roz looked between the both of them, her eye lights twinkling in what he knew was mirth.
“Most animals really did just ignore us though,” Brightbill said, watching as Roz started walking into the water, the water reaching as high up as her waist. “Even if they weren’t talking about us behind our backs, they just… never bothered with us.”
Fink hummed non-committedly, twitching an ear. “I personally liked them minding their own business more than I did them talking and making fun of us, but to each they’re own I suppose.”
“So why are you both okay with them talking to us now?” he asked, watching their faces for their reaction. Fink and Roz both tilted their heads, Fink’s ear cocked sideways. “Why are you both so okay with them- with them all being here and talking to us and-and acting like they’re our friends? Are they-” he shuffled in his spot anxiously, because he wasn’t good at understanding friends or friendships or how they worked (and maybe that’s why he was okay turning a blind eye to the geese after what they did until he got back. They were his only company, until he got back.) but he doesn’t think this is how they work. “Are they our friends now? Are we just- okay with them now?”
“…I’m not the easiest animal to be friends with kid,” Fink slowly admitted. “I’m happy you both tolerated me for this long honestly. I know you don’t- didn’t really have a choice before, but still.”
Roz opened her hands and lifted her palm as they got to a small cove, turning them around to face the ocean and not whatever surprise was in there. “I’m not something familiar to them Brightbill. The circumstances to which I arrived on the island were unfortunate. I don’t blame them for thinking I’m a monster. A Rozzum robot isn’t something they’ve met before.”
“Exactly!” he cried, pointing towards the island. “We needed their help before. We wanted their friendship before. They didn’t want to give it! Why now? Why after we do them a favour? Why couldn’t they just-”
He growled in frustration, a mockery of what Fink could do (the goose thing). “Why didn’t they want us before?” he repeated, staring at his wings. “Why now when you’re-you’re-”
“They had no way of knowing this was goodbye Brightbill. I do not blame them.”
“I wish you would,” he admitted and he felt horrible for doing so. “God, I’m so selfish but I wish you were more selfish. I wish you didn’t feel that we have others we can rely on, I wish you didn’t have to worry about an entire island! I just wish…”
“…Brightbill,” his Mom said, pulling him closer to nuzzle him again. “I love you.”
And those words made his heart soar, and he pushed against her forehead harder. “I love you too, Mom. So much. I just…”
“I wish you were more selfish too,” Fink quietly whispered. “I wish you weren’t so worried about what they would do to us if you didn’t return. I just wish… I wish you could stay here. Home.”
“And I know you’re going to come back,” Brightbill continued when she lit up, to reassure them, to promise, but he didn’t doubt her words. “That’s not the issue, the issue. The issue is that we don’t know when your migration will end. Or. Or.”
Brightbill laid his head of the crook of her neck, the one he used to sleep on all the time when he was a little gosling and chirped. “Or if something will go wrong and we’ll never see you again.”
He didn’t want any of the geese to respect him.
He didn’t even really want friends, not anymore.
He wanted this, the three of them, when he didn’t know it was all of them against the world. He wanted his mom, and he wanted her to be here.
He didn’t want to be safe, if safe meant she wasn’t allowed to be with them.
(He wants the quiet coolness of her chest cavity when he’s overwhelmed, he wants their talks at night as Fink is grooming him, and he wanted their practice sessions, him memorizing graphs and charts and improving with them.)
“A Rozzum will always complete it’s task.”
Brightbill looked up at her, feeling the way her hands cupped his body- and he was still small enough to fit in her grasp and this, this was safe- and she lifted him to meet her eyes, wide and flaring.
“And I will never allow them to take this from me,” one hand released him to find their way to Fink, who closed his eyes at her touch, leaning into her petting. “Never. That’s why I’m going at all. I can never risk them taking any of this from me. I don’t want to lose… this.”
Her head turned 360 degrees, facing something behind her, before she slowly turned the rest of her around.
He heard Fink’s startled gasp as claws scraped against metal before he saw it, and he felt himself freeze when he did.
“Meet the other five Rozzums that were lost in a typhoon.”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t think there was anything he could say, because he didn’t know what she had in mind when she said that this wasn’t a good surprise.
This was the worse surprise.
Despite their silence, Mom moved forward, reaching up to pick up one of the heads that were lined up on a rock formation. And there was something so…morbid about them all, because they looked just like Roz did when she was sleeping but. But.
Only one of them had a body.
Something started crawling up his throat, tasting like wrongness and bile and he swallowed it down, unable to tear his head away from the sight. And Fink was worse, his claws unable to dig into Roz’s metal but still trying to anyway, his pupils thin, horrified lines.
“Fink?”
“Uh-yes, yes?” he responded, shaking his head violently. Brightbill couldn’t even blame him, he didn’t think he would be able to muster up any response if Roz asked anything of him and she didn’t-
“Remember when you said you didn’t really want to see the sort of place I fit in?”
“…Yeah?”
She held up a head, a pink one, faded and barnacles overgrowing it, before asking, “Would you like to now?”
Fink turned to him, eyes wide and panicked, searching for something on his face. And Brightbill wasn't sure what conversation they were talking about, what context Fink said it in, but he stepped forward, swallowing the disdain in his throat because he wanted to know and nodded.
"Please," Fink finished, walking to stand by her side. And for a second, he could understand what people meant what they called them mates because Roz and Fink just fit together- best friends working to raise him- and he joined them, a family united.
Roz smacked the robot's head, once, twice, before a bright light ignited from it's eye, projecting something.
No turning back now.