Chapter 1: The Feathered Curse

  I sighed.

  Well, at least, I think I sighed. I wasn’t exactly sure how a dodo bird sighed, but I imagined it involved a puff of feathers and a pitiful look at the ground. Or, in my case, the still waters of the lake.

  The past few days had been a nightmare, and the worst part? I wasn’t waking up. I stared at the distorted reflection rippling in front of me, a round, wide-eyed, awkward little creature with a beak too big for its face.

  It was definitely a dodo.

  Of course, I knew it could only be a dodo. I had painted and drawn a few back in art school for some end-of-semester project on extinct animals. I remembered using soft, rounded strokes for the feathers, trying to give them a whimsical, slightly tragic look.

  Still… why?

  Just why?

  "My last memory," I muttered aloud, my beak clicking awkwardly as I spoke to the wind, "was getting crushed by a vending machine. Seriously?"

  It had been dumb luck. The machine teetered when I gave it a gentle kick for not giving me my change back. I hadn’t expected it to fall.

  And then… darkness. Then feathers. And this stupid beak.

  I shook my head, waddling back from the edge of the lake, ruffling my feathers with a frustrated shiver. Bits and pieces of my old life clung to me like a dream I couldn’t quite grasp. I could remember Earth. I knew I’d had parents… somewhere, once. But their faces? Blurry. Like old water-damaged photographs. I remembered warmth, laughter, the smell of coffee in the morning. But no names. No details.

  The emotional pull was gone, too. It was like someone had clipped the strings that tethered me to that life. The logical side of my brain screamed at the injustice. Earth had rules. Reason. Hot showers.

  And opposable thumbs.

  "At least back there," I grumbled, poking at the ground with my beak, "I wasn’t this."

  My round belly flopped slightly as I leaned over the water again, squinting at the shadows beneath. A fish darted past… mocking me, I swear.

  I pecked.

  Missed.

  "Ugh! Come back here, you slippery little—"

  I pecked again, nearly falling into the water this time.

  The fish flicked its tail and disappeared into the depths.

  "I just want meat," I whined. "A nice grilled fish. A roasted chicken. Hell, I’d even take a greasy hamburger at this point. I am so sick of berries I might start hallucinating steak-shaped clouds."

  I collapsed on the grassy shore with an undignified thump, flapping my stubby wings in useless frustration.

  Somewhere in the scrambled leftovers of my human brain, there was a memory. A vague image of slurping hot soup handed to me by a wrinkled, smiling grandma. Her eyes had twinkled like she knew something I didn’t.

  "She probably cursed me," I muttered. "Old women with cryptic smiles are always bad news."

  Another peck. Another miss. The lake mocked me with gentle ripples.

  I must’ve had bad luck in my past life. Like, historically bad. If karma kept score, I would probably be somewhere near the bottom of the leaderboard, just below that guy who laughed during funerals.

  "Maybe I ran over a shaman’s cat," I pondered aloud. "Or maybe I made fun of birds too much."

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  Because, honestly, what else could explain this?

  Reincarnated. As a dodo.

  A dodo, of all things. The famously extinct bird. The poster child for “too dumb to survive.” I remembered the lectures… how they were hunted to extinction, too trusting, too slow, and too… well, dodo.

  "I get it," I growled, throwing a berry into the lake like a dramatic insult. "I get the joke, Universe. You can stop laughing now."

  But the sky didn’t answer. The breeze just rustled the grass. Somewhere in the distance, a weird, honking birdcall echoed through the trees. I wasn’t alone in this world, but I didn’t know if that was a comfort or a threat.

  "I am going to catch that fish," I muttered through my beak, rising to my feet with clumsy determination. "I will have meat if it’s the last thing I do."

  And given my luck?

  It very well might be.

  The habit of talking to myself had become my only lifeline.

  It started as a small thing, just murmurs and complaints to the wind. But over time, it became my shield and my sanity filter. Of course, these days, my voice came out thick and warbly, drenched in whatever squawking accent dodos naturally had. Still, despite the nasally honks and chirps, it comforted me. The sound filled the silence. Kept the madness away.

  “I swear… if I ever catch a fish, I’m naming it Steve,” I squawked under my breath, pacing near the roots of a tree. “And then I’m eating him. With vengeance. And maybe a garnish.”

  Honestly, I had no idea how long it had been since I reincarnated into this feathered body. Months? Years? Time was a blur when your memory retention was about as reliable as a leaky bucket.

  My brain—this new, limited, infuriating bird brain—struggled to keep thoughts in for more than a few days. I’d discovered that after many trials. I’d name a rock. Forget the name. Compose a song. Lose the lyrics. Even the fragments of my past life were slipping through my grasp like water between claws I didn’t even have anymore.

  But I clung to them. Desperately.

  Because I feared the day I’d wake up and simply accept this life. The day I’d stop thinking in human terms. The day I’d forget I ever had thoughts beyond berries, bugs, and running from predators.

  I didn’t want to become just another beast.

  Another mouthful in someone’s soup.

  So I kept talking.

  Kept remembering.

  Kept thinking.

  I hopped over a fallen log, beak twitching as I sniffed the air. Not literally… I didn’t think dodos could actually sniff, but the intent was there. I was looking for food, of course. Always looking. Always hungry. Stupid forager instincts.

  And then I saw them.

  A cluster of humans, drifting low and silent through the trees on their swords.

  Yes. Flying. On swords.

  I flattened myself into the tall grass, breath catching in my feathery throat. Their robes fluttered like banners in the wind, their faces serene and terrifyingly calm. Even from a distance, they emanated power. They glowed… literally. The sword tips hovered a few feet above the ground, and they moved without touching a single leaf.

  “Cultivators,” I whispered… or tried to. It came out like a panicked squeaky chirp. “Why is it always cultivators?”

  I didn’t know when exactly I figured this out, but at some point, the broken bits of my memory had pieced together enough to give the world a genre: xianxia.

  Sword-immortals. Magic herbs. Flying sects. Murderous tournaments. I couldn’t name the novels or series, but I remembered the vibe. And this world? It reeked of it. The trees looked too ancient, too dramatic. The mountains? Shaped like those misty painting scrolls. And the people? They chopped trees with their pinky fingers.

  I knew because I’d seen it.

  There’d been a village. A quiet, peaceful place nestled between two hills. I’d stumbled on it during one of my aimless food-seeking quests and thought—hey, maybe this was it. Maybe I’d get lucky and some kind-hearted old master would look into my soulful dodo eyes and say, “Ah, a rare beast with hidden potential!”

  So I tried.

  I flapped my wings. I tilted my head. I made cute noises and waddled in circles.

  And what did I get for my effort?

  A swarm of children.

  They passed me around like a toy. Pulled on my feathers. Stuck things up my beak. I nearly died from sheer terror. One of them tried to ride me.

  I could still feel the trauma in my tail feathers.

  That village taught me some hard lessons. One: there was a language barrier. Two: some kids in this world could outrun me, on foot. And three: the people here didn’t see “adorable extinct bird.” They saw “funny-looking beast to toss around.”

  Since then, I avoided humans like the plague.

  So when those sword-riding cultivators flew overhead, I dove into a nearby burrow without hesitation, trembling in the shadows like a wet chick.

  It wasn’t that I thought I was important, but I had a hunch. A dangerous one. I hadn’t seen another of my kind. Not one! No mirror-like lake reflection. No flapping silhouettes in the corner. Just me. Always just me.

  Which meant either I was some kind of lost ancient beast… or I wasn’t supposed to exist here at all.

  Neither option sounded particularly safe.

  Maybe I was hunted to extinction here too. Maybe some bird of prey would sniff me out and dive-bomb me in my sleep. Maybe one of those cultivators would decide I’d make a good pet. Or a good stew.

  But this was my life now.

  Waddling. Hiding. Pecking. Thinking. Forgetting. Remembering.

  A lone dodo in a world of flying swords and qi techniques.

  I sighed again, curling up in the burrow as the cultivators finally vanished into the horizon, their glowing swords nothing but fading stars against the blue.

  “…Please don’t let Steve be imaginary,” I whispered. “I’m… so hungry…”

  And I drifted off into a sleep filled with soup, glowing swords, and blurry memories of being human.