Avis

**It is strongly recommended you read my character Iris's backstory first! Some parts of his will make more sense towards the end if you know a bit more from where she came from and helps to put some pieces together!

For most of Avis's life he lived as a happy little songbird that just went about his days doing bird things as a bird does. He was more than content soaring through the sky and visiting as many personal gardens and wide open fields as he could. Everything was wonderful when he could spread his wings and just be free! But unfortunately this life of freedom would not last. One day on a flight over to a town he came across a building a bit ways off. It had some nice oranges (his favorite) and birdseed sitting out. Of course he would never pass up a chance for a snack but unlike all the other places he had found food laying out for him this one led to a trap. He was captured by a mad scientist in order to be used for the most recent experiment the scientist had in mind.

The scientists goal was to take a bird and by using mad science mixed with a bit of black magic he'd turn that bird into a winged human! Avis was unfortunately the first test subject, the experiment was EXCRUTIATINGLY painful and inhumane do to the fact it was literally a transformation of one species to an almost complete other. So after hours and hours of nearly lethal pain and suffering the experiment was finally complete. And it was a success!!! Well, almost. Okay actually it only half worked. Avis now indeed looked a lot like a human but he was more of a broken cross between a bird and human. His hair was in between hair and feathery which was probably the best quality he recieved from the outcome. His legs were human too but when you hot to the feet he only had two large, partially bird-like toes and talons growing from each one and the back of his heal. The feathers on his wings grew in rough and tattered looking patterns and he had random tufts of orange feathers on his torso. But the worst part lied again in his wings, for their shape was deformed and rather than growing out of his back like intended, they were instead in the place of his arms and he did have hands to go with them.

The scientist tallied up all these flaws and deformaties and scratched Avis off as a failed experiment. And rather than try and reverse anything he had just done he instead kept Avis to use as a reminder of his mistakes and what to improve on next time. Not to mention since he was already deformed and a failure he figured he might as well use him to test any other chemicals or components to experiments he came up with. From that day on Avis became the scientists pet guinea pig that was kept in a cage at nearly all times and laughed at.

Eventually the scientist realized Avis was stilla living creature so using what little of a heart he still had he would ocassionally let him outside for a few hours so he could stretch, feel the sun, and just get out of the lab for a little while. Avis couldn't be more excited when he found out that he'd be able to go out and see the sky again. To jump up and go to touch it even!!! Flying was definitely the absolutely first thing he HAD to try again once he was free and that's exactly what he went out and tried to do. Immediately after taking off he crashed hard to the ground. He would repeat this a couple more times before being crushed by the realization that the physical effects of the experiment made him unable to fly. The scientist found great humor in watching him try and made sure that every time he called Avis a failure, he would tell him he'd never be able to fly again and was now just a stupid pathetic thing.

As crushing as this was to him, Avis refused to give up. Each day that the scientist let him out he would keep trying, keep leaping, keep crashing, keep picking himself back up, and doing it all again. Every single day for months and months with only the false tiny flickers of success he made himself believe were there so that he could leave that horrible place. But it was that drive to leave that eventually led him to doing what he was told and what deep down inside he had thought was impossible.

One evening when the scientist let him out Avis lept from that ground and- his wings caught the air and fell slower and with a bit more grace. Only a bit though because the suprise cause him to stumble a bit when his feet hit the groung instead of his face. He tried it again and the same things happened, so he looked around for something a little higher to jump off of, he soared down with a little wobble but made it safely. Each day on from that point he would excitedly go out and wait until the scientist was back inside and not paying attention (one he saw Avis was unable to fly he kept less of an eye on him) and build up his take off heights until he truly was able to leap up and take into the sky!

Flying again became Avis's secret pass time, every evening he'd go out and take a short fly around the area and come back before the scientist noticed a thing. He could only handle short flights anyhow due to the fact flying with those deformaties caused him a lot of joint pain after so long. He would try and push himself a little further every day or at least try to visit a new area while he was out so that there was more to do, more to experience, more to see! Then there was one time he went out and what he saw was something he would later never want to leave.

Just far enough but not too far off was an old gothic victorian mansion. When he flew overhead there below in the garden was the most beautiful being Avis had ever seen. A white skinned woman with black hair was delicately hanging the laundry on the clothes line. Well from afar she looked like a woman, when Avis braved an approach he saw that this woman was ball jointed and had eyes so black you almost couldn't tell if they were there or if it was just the void, Despite this he still found her absolutely beautiful, he wasn't much more attractive himself anyways, He introduced himself and found out that her name was Iris. Avis fell deeply in love with her INSTANTLY which just brought him back to that garden every single day to get to see her. She seemed to like him too, not in the same sense at first but she'd smile and laugh at him and each they they talked he could feel their connection growing stronger and stronger. They exchanged their stories too, Avis told her about how he had been a failed experiment and was now continuously tested on. And Iris empathetically would reply back with stories of the terrible man she worked for and how she wished she could just leave. But she was a puppet, so that was impossible. Having each other made them feel like someone out their understood and so Avis continued to visit her every evening to keep her company when he was let out from the lab,

Iris's life inside the mansion only seemed to grow worse with each passing day until one time when he arrived for his usual visit, Iris was not in any of their usual meeting places. He circled a few times to make sure and just before he was about to head home he picked up on the sound of what seemed like crying. He followed it to one of the mansion's towers and there on the ground stained with blood laying in a position that would have been painful to anyone else other than a puppet, was Iris. She was so grateful to see him and in hysteric tears told him the story of what had happened. She had grown tired of his horrible treatment and after the loss of the only other maid she worked with it all just piled up and she suddenly snapped and had killed him, the man controlling her to throw herself out the window with his last dying moments. In this sweep of chaos Avis realized Iris needed to be away from this place, and with that came the realization that he could fly now, so he could escape and run away to. So with that blur of moments it was decided that the two would take off and run frome the 'homes' that were so far from what home should be and searched for a new one together.

This search started out in the woods, and they would roam those woods for another week or two until they came across two others who were far from their homes as well. But the rest is for another story...