We came hoping for respite. Our world was long past, a ghost in the radiation, a whimper of a sun consumed by a gravitational singularity not a few dozen generations ago - such a small time, which we could pass into the dark. A few generations before, we would have died, a few after, we would have solved the conundrum by battling the pull of gravity itself. No, we lost our home in the youth of your species, first stepping out into the wider universe with our heads high, and heritage proud.

That was then. Before we lost our home.

We wandered, a collection of ships, begged, borrowed, and stolen. We wandered the wider expanse looking for worlds that we could claim, but every one we found (and we sought many) had prior claim, or if not, were stolen from us by those with more clout than we, a fledgeling looking for a home.

When we settled into the domain of the Iteeurini, they chased us away, and we had to turn to darker means that our pride would not allow us, but our survival demanded. We stole from worlds that had little to guard with, but much to take - always enough that we could go on for a ways and continue out journey to find a home.

We made an error at times. SOme ships were lost, others were damaged. Our numbers, even despite our best efforts to grow, continued to shrink and fall - from two million, to two hundred thousand, to a simple two - twenty thousand on a handful of small, cramped ships.

It was hell, those days. But we did what we could. We had little left, our technology was obsolete, our might was laughable, and we knew our generations were a few moltings shy.

When we encountered a newcomer, fresh beyond the rim of their own birth-sun, and into the dark between stars, heading for a world they hoped would have welcomed them.

I believe their ships were unexpecting of meeting someone - for they had only a few small lasers across their bow, and their means of communication were laughable - laser and short burst electromagnetism. But they sent word and they greeted us, their faces flat and their bodies hairless, in a variety of colors that felt strange to the drab blues and yellows and whites of our feathers.

It was tense, terse. They were intelligent, but their drive was nuclear - a nuclear blast riding out into the wild yonder, with mathematical precision that was juvenile, but it was with a hope to reach the stars that was naive and yet hopeful. They knew they could make it.

We managed to reply, matching pace with them. We felt pity, and saw in them ourselves, as we had become wrecks of once young and glorious and ever ready species.

We sent them the universal greeting.
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They replied.
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In the months we spent, half the ships forming an escort of sorts for them, we shared. Mathematics lead to music, to images, to artistry, to comparing, to language. In the weeks, we traded language - their gutteral tongue hard on light ears, but our sweet tongue seemed to entrance, and they welcomed us, save, they had no means to port. They had never expected to meet someone else in the void. They had never expected another life form out there, to greet them.

And when they struck home - their destination, I wept, when it exploded, as it struck the atmosphere wrong, and the hundred thousand people, the Terrans, died that day. I wept, for I had seen the death of those I might have called brother, and sang a dirge for them.

A dirge that was repeated to the stars, as we turned, and struck out for their home - to relay that they had died, and that we mourned their passing, the passing of those who did not judge us for our loss, but welcomed us for our being ourselves.

Their world was brown with hints of green, and a small wash of blue. It was a world that was in the thrall of over population, and abuse before awareness. In that world, hovering above, I broke the silence, and announced it with a song - transmitted to them in manners they might understand. I sang for them a dirge, and expressed sorrow for the loss of their transport, their colony ship fallen to error. I sang for them as I might sing for a nestmate who had embraced eternity far too soon, and I made offer of my ship, that we might transport those who wished to go, to claim a home of their own.

And in an outpouring of grief, we sent the designs of our drives, the knowledge of building ships - so that others would not know, and that we might be remembered for something good, and not the dark deeds that had plagued us in our need to survive.

It was a fortune we sent, and we did not expect anything in return. They returned a transmission, asking if we would be willing to take a new group of colonists to stake claim on the world. And we agreed, if only in memory. They sent a thousand - armed, and trained, with enough to make do with starting a new world. A thousand of their civilians went with us, and we set them to the plains near water, and waited. It felt good to be on the surface of a world for a while. Felt very good, to see a young species starting with pre-fab, with hope. And I want to take the world and live here too. And I don't want to leave, even as other ships of my kind, the Avnari, make the place to see, to hope, that we might be invited. For a bunch of thieves, bandits, we don't want to rob someone poorer than us.

Then we find out this world has been claimed already, by the Ensidia.

The Ensidia were, are, not nice folk. Neither would I find them unjustifiably cruel - but simply, pragmatic, strong, and more than willing to take what they can, if there is nothing that can rightly stop them, they will take what they desire.

One could blame it on reptilian hearts and mindsets - others blame it on a dictaiton of 'strong shall survive'. I, I believe it is because they are smart and like to stop threats from rising up in the future. I cannot blame them for that.

But putting down drones and threatening forced removal does make one less happy to have them around. These Terrans were not too happy to hear it, but neither were they going to give in. They were young and foolish.

When the infantries landed and made known it was not idle threat, but a reality. It did not matter that there were no ships to take them back, and it did not matter that we, Avnari, offered to take these Terrans anywhere they wanted.

They would stand for what they had claimed. I admired that, even as I sat in the central building of their small township, over-looking fields set for harvest and work being set up from the nearby forests, and felt wistful for a chance to live on this small Eden. I admired the world and the youthful spirit, even as I knew blood would flow, and the wrath of a greater species would burn like the first moltings burned sensitive skin.

But I waited and watched, and drank tea. Why stress about impossibilities. I sat with the leadership of Terran ground forces, and offered what advice I could.

"Run."

They would have none of that. They set themselves to war with a certainty that they would die, but would mark this world as their own. Trenches were readied and buildings were erected to shield and and hide. Their arms were small, but effective - and using the primitive but effective design gave me a spark of hope.

The infantries landed from high, dropping at the outskirt to once again give warning of the threat facing them, and that they had once chance to lay down arms and leave the planet. This was replied with the pops and cracks of gunfire, of sending hard shavings into the massed armies, who fell back shocked, before replying in kind - with energy baths.

Blood flowed, the coppery red splashing before the wounds could cauterize, and the armored bodies floundering back from the painful impacts - it took three to five shots to take down each incoming soldier.

Then the traps went up - and the ground erupted in washes of flame and earth and stone - traps set and buried in the dark of the evening, that destroyed limbs.

It slowed the advance, but did not stop it. Steps were taken with more care - shots taken with slower precision, but for every one Ensidian that fell, two Terrans gave their lives.

And watching, I felt a sickly sadness cling to my breast and tighten my crop. These brave people, some I called friend, wanted only a world to call their own. I knew the feeling, and I made a decision that was suicidal, but I would not let another be forced from a home. I took up a gun - a small one, as we Avnari are hardly the biggest of creatures, and left the safety of the building, and called for any of my kind to join battle, if they felt they deserved the notice of ancestors and the song of a Dirge-Master.

And I sang of death, as my weapon became my instrument - over the vox I called upon the valor of those long past, and asked their guidance as I approached the line of death, and fired, again, again, again.

To my chagrin, I must admit, my arm ached from the recoil, but it did little to dampen my spirit. The battle lines were scorched, and the scent of death was copper and ozone. I strode into battle, no armor to shield me, and only my ribbons and ties as vestment, and my blue feathers singed as I opened up my soul to the warrior within, and struck again and again.

My brothers and sisters looked on me mad, and, I suppose I was. But madder were they when they struck from behind, into the unprotected flanks of lined soldiers. And as brilliant and powerful the technological aspect of the Ensidian Military might have been, there are few things that can survive being struck at their flanks by a surprise attack. Of my crew, of my brothers and sisters, there were only sixty, but sixty soldiers can change a war.

Sometimes.

I was wounded then, a blow taking my wing off of my back, and sending spiraling into shock. What was the memory of battle from rooms and rooftops and trenches becomes a blur of pain and haze of forgotten things. I did my ancestors proud, and I honored one of the tenants of the people - to defend the Nest.

I defended it.

What happened afterwards, I do not recall. The Terrans held fast - bolstered by the strength of their allies, and the surprise attack giving them the chance to put down their opponent until surrender was reached. Bolstered by 'The birds', the Terran populace repelled the invasion. When word came of an attack to commence of orbital bombardment, it is said they promised a retribution that would make the entire galaxy fear them. Bold words, I have heard them repeated.

The bombardments never came. They left, with the arrival of a trade ship, and the armed escort, who demanded to know why the Ensidians were so callous as to attack another colony without justification.

It made a bit of an impact, when the results of the battle were tallied - twenty Avnari dead, eight hundred human casualties, and four thousand Ensidian dead. Respectable, with smaller weapons, weaker capabilities, and being a newcomer on the scene of galactic politics.

I awoke from my shock and treatments three weeks later - to find a wing gone, and burns lingering on my feathered form. My bravery had inspired their competence, and they, in turn, had inspired my people to attack at an enemy of both of us.

But what reward could they give, to allies and friends? They knew not that we had no home - and that they, in truth, had nothing we could take that would help us. We set to leave this home, when they found out.

These Terrans had hope. They were still young and willing to try. Naive, but able to take the risk, they had fought instead of finding somewhere else. They met war with gusto and fervor and ignited a fire in an unknown ally, who risked everything.

I guess that is what they are amazing at. Making someone else find their limits, and push past it without looking back.

When I talked to one of the soldiers I have fought with, who asked of my home, and found that our world was less than dust, and barely remembered.

With so many of their colonists dead and injured, they would need help getting started. Supplies were good, but there was work to be done - too much work for so few people, and not enough time to do it.

Not enough. We, without enough time to truly matter, they without enough people. But one thing the world did have, was enough. Enough room, enough promise, enough friends to get everything ready for the next colony ship to arrive.

It had enough room for twenty thousand birds to flock, and make a new home. There was enough room, for two aliens to become close friends, and perhaps more, in time.

The world needed a name. We gave it, in honor of new friends, new home, new hope for both of us. A world called 'Amicus'.