Rythica chirped happily as she watched the wooden blocks fly across the room. The small cubes ricocheted off the walls with a loud clatter. She rushed across the space and kicked one of the helpless building materials, watching as it resumed flight once more. The large, talon-like digits on her feet made the angle awkward and probably left another good scratch on the oak surface, but Rythica neither realized nor cared.

  With her most recent shedding, she finally had a bit of conscious control over her wings as well. Not that they were very useful at the moment, but it felt nice to move them around. They were very delicate and were sensitive to the movement of the air as she scampered around. Moving them, even if only slightly, stretched her back muscles in a pleasant way. Like stretching her arms out after lying in a stiff position for a long time.

  As she ran (ish) to the next target, she held her wings out as wide as she could manage to catch the wind. She felt the air resistance and chittered with mirth.

  She distantly heard the sound of the doorway closing, signaling Randell's departure. But she had already forgotten his existence by this point. Not that she saw the man in too high regard after putting that weird thing against her hand. It made her feel weird, and she very much did not like it.

  Standing imperiously above the next block, she picked it up and looked at it. Then bit down. Her teeth sunk into the hard wood, but failed to produce the satisfaction of eating something bloody and filling, or in the very least, something that squeaked back. A part of Rythica missed her older toys. The soft ones that were fun to rip apart. But the mean human took them all away after their insides fell out. These new toys were fun, but just failed to scratch that itch.

  She wished the toys could run or fight back. That would've made hunting them so much more enjoyable, and the meal would be that much more rewarding. She salivated at the tantalizing thoughts.

  The girl was faintly aware of the human woman making angry sounds for some reason as she chewed on the cube, but dismissed the annoyance. That human really had some anger issues, huh? She continued gnawing on the object as Julia rapped on the vitresteel to little effect.

  "Hey! If it's not food, keep it out of your mouth!"

  Food? She recognized that word! It was one of her favorite words. The other one being "treat." But glancing over and seeing the woman was not holding said food, Rythica quickly lost interest in the lying trickster.

  Rythica bit down hard on the block, trying to see if she could chomp all the way through. She only succeeded in making her teeth hurt a little. The toy was putting up far more of defense than she had expected.

  When she noticed the terrifying cylindrical water maker being raised out of the corner of her eye, she dropped the makeshift prey and took a step back, hissing. The fact that they were still in separate rooms failed to occur to the little vex.

  The two locked gazes, their usual standoff commencing for several moments before Julia relented and lowered the weapon of mass destruction.

  "Stop chewing on everything. Okay?"

  Rythica eyed her wearily, the nonsense words flying over her head without even ruffling her hair. When she was convinced her life was no longer in mortal peril, she loosened her stance.

  She huffed, satisfied in her victory over... whatever it was that the human was mad about this time.

  The adventurous child went back to playing with her blocks. She started stacking them up. She paused for a moment, considering. What if she just... kept going up? How high could she stack them? She chirped, eager to find out.

  Five blocks became ten, then fifteen, then twenty before the structure began to wobble precariously. The vex moved slowly to avoid bumping the tower down too early. If she wanted to knock it down, she needed to do it right.

  By this point, it was already getting harder to reach the top to place more blocks on. The structure of her feet didn't allow her to balance very well on her toes, so she was denied those last few centimeters.

  An idea hit her. One guided by her instincts. What if she used her wings to jump higher? She was eager for the excuse to use the newly achieved mobility of the appendages. What could go wrong?

  Rythica took the block in hand, bent her knees, and prepared to flap her wings as fast as she could. She tensed her muscles and...

  Somehow launched herself straight into the tower, knocking it over with a loud crash of sound. The girl hit the ground with a thud, and whined at the sudden pain. She had landed on the rebellious cubes and they poked her! Hard!

  The human was already standing and peering through the window with a concerned expression. She moved from side to side, trying to get a better view as Rythica whimpered and held the areas that hurt. There were a few, so she needed to use three hands to hold the areas she bumped.

  Pain turned to fury as Rythica grabbed one of the toys that attacked her and threw it across the room, relentlessly. She grabbed another and threw it at another wall. She repeated this until the pain finally faded and she vented all her anger.

  After the exertion, she felt a different kind of discomfort in her stomach. A far more familiar discomfort. She was hungry.

  She looked back towards the food bringer through the window. Rythica's uncooperative servant had gone back to sitting there and staring at the colorful square thing with all those white square things inside. Unlike the other human, she never tried to scribble in these colorful squares, only stare at them, while occasionally making quiet sounds or weird expressions.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  She slammed her hand against the window, trying to get her attention. The woman looked at her, curiously.

  When she failed in her duty of immediately bringing the girl her food, Rythica slammed the window again, harder. Julia raised one eyebrow at Rythica and frowned. She stood, slowly, and the suddenly not-so-confident princess hesitated.

  Those were the eyes of a predator.

  Rythica panicked as the monster reached for the water weapon again. Wait! She didn't do anything wrong, yet! She just wanted food! Why was this human not getting that?! She made noise and everything! How was she not completely aware of Rythica's mild hunger all of a sudden? What else did she think the tapping meant?

  The girl withered under the nanny's gaze.

  "F-foo...?"

  Julia paused. She tilted her head to the side in confusion at the sound. Her eyebrows knit together as she focused on what sounded a lot like... a word.

  Noticing the nanny was taken off guard, the vex quickly realized something had changed. It was an act of desperation to avoid the water more than anything else. She just tried making the human sound back more as a distraction than anything else. Did that actually work? She tried again.

  "Foo."

  Julia was clearly stumped now, her entire demeanor shifted and her eyes widened to saucers. The weapon in her hand was completely forgotten.

  Rythica inwardly cheered at the overwhelming success of her master plan. She hadn't realized how impactful the human would react to her mimicking their sounds.

  "Did you just try to say 'food'? Are... are you hungry?"

  "Foo."

  Realizing that the sound was absolutely intentional, and not just some kind of strange coincidence, the human nodded slowly. Her expression remained stunned. As if her entire world view had been shattered.

  "Well, okay then... I'll be right back."

  Rythica was confused when the woman left the room. She just wanted food, not for the human to run away. How was she supposed to be fed now?

  She huffed in annoyance and slumped down. Apparently the human sounds were just as meaningless as she believed. Stupid humans not bringing her something to eat. And taking away her fluffy toys. And putting this stupid skin thing on her.

  Why was everything so difficult? She tugged at the clothing idly as she pouted, failing to tear the durable fabric.

  It was only a short time later when Julia returned holding a plate of fresh, bloody meat.

  Completely shocked and very pleasantly surprised at the sudden turn of events, the vex leapt to her feet. Finally! Meal time! The girl raced to the feeding area, already anticipating the sensation of the savory meat against her tongue.

  But the nanny didn't immediately put the food inside the enclosure. She gave the vex an odd look. Keeping her focus on the girl, she pointed at the bloody meat.

  "Food?"

  Rythica blinked slowly, clearly confused at her minion's intentions.

  She tried again. "Food?"

  Hesitating, Rythica cautiously copied her. "Foo?"

  The nanny beamed with pride! "Yes! Food!"

  Apparently she passed some sort of test?

  Finally, after the useless distraction and whatever that exchange was, the human slid the bowl of meat into the enclosure. The hungry girl didn't hesitate to dig in. Maybe that weird human sound wasn't completely worthless after all.

  She devoured the fine cuisine with gusto, emptying the bowl in record time. She licked the bowl clean with a comfortable smile. She flapped her wings in contentment, just because she could do that now.

  The human was now crouching before her for some reason, watching her intently. Rythica tried to ignore it, but the single-minded focus she was putting on Rythica made her skin crawl. It felt like the predator was getting ready to pounce on her. She backed up a bit, putting some more space between them.

  The woman suddenly pointed at her. "You are Rythica."

  The vex tilted her head, confused and weary. She looked at the finger through the window, wondering if the woman was offering her dessert. She wasn't wearing that weird second skin, today, so it was possible. She clacked her teeth a few times in consideration.

  The finger jabbed forward. "Rythica."

  When the vex leaned forward to take a nibble of the offered appendage, her head bumped the glass.

  She grumbled, rubbing her head. She was careful to avoid cutting herself this time. She only had to make that mistake once. It was not a pleasant memory. She had whined and chittered and was in a lot of pain until the human poured some weird liquid on the cut to make the pain go away.

  The nanny mercilessly ignored Rythica's current plight and wiggled her finger a few more times, repeating the odd sound over and over at different speeds and tones. Her efforts only succeeded in further annoying the thoroughly unamused girl.

  Rolling her eyes, the annoying creature tried a different tact to get Rythica's attention. This attempt proved a lot more fruitful. She pulled out a familiar looking object.

  She pointed at it. "Treat."

  The suddenly motivated student knew what that word meant and sat forward in excitement. She opened her mouth and panted, making grasping motions at the woman.

  Rythica's new teacher repeated the word slower and exaggerated the finger motion, pointing at the meat stick. "Treat." She dangled the snack in front of the girl's face, the small window forever preventing access to the sacred goodness.

  The girl wasn't quite sure what the woman expected of her for a moment, but eventually caught on. The finger pointing at the empty bowl and repeating the word "food" was an essential hint that make everything click. She looked at the treat and tried her luck.

  "Tree...?"

  The human beamed with pride at the approximation of the word, and giggled slightly, almost hopping on her toes. She dropped the treat into the feeding enclosure and did a small happy dance.

  "I knew it! I knew you were smarter than Randell implied. He doesn't see it, but you act way too intelligent for a monster. He said any primate could stack blocks and match shapes, "

  Rythica did her own happy dance as she ate the snack. She was more than ready when the human pulled out another treat.

  She pointed. "Rythica."

  That sound was harder for the vex to reproduce. She wasn't sure how to move her mouth the right way and fumbled it a bit. She didn't even think her mouth move the right way. It was a slightly different shape than the human's mouth. A little stiffer from the chitin and a little wider, so she could swallow large chunks of food at once. Not that the six-month-old actually had the mental capacity to make such a deduction.

  Despite the impossible difficulty, she tried her best to make the sound.

  "... Ra... Ca...?"

  Apparently that was good enough, and she got her second treat. Rythica liked this game! This was fun, even if there was a massive jump in difficulty between "treat" and "Rythica". She had already forgotten the lengthy word as she chewed on her victory prize.

  The human smiled again, looking to be having just as much fun as she was. This time, the human pointed at herself. "Julia."

  Dang, another difficult sound.

  "... u... la...?"

  Another treat received! Success! She hoped they could play this game more often. This was great!

  The entire time, Julia watched the young vex, a gleam in her eye that promised the future would be a lot more exciting for both of them. She didn't expect the child to remember any of these words day one, obviously. But it was only a matter of time. And they both had a lot of time to spend together.

  She was determined to make sure the girl was able to hold a conversation within the year.