Challenge #00745 - B014: Baldie

B’rka, the adventures of a goose Numidid with no feathers  (For the prompt inspiration, see Borka)

The chick had been left in her nest. It was weak and cold and hungry. Serka knew that she didn’t have the time to call emergency services. And, since it was night, there was a high likelihood that they wouldn’t turn up until morning. By which time it would be far too late for the newly-hatched keet.

She could see why her mother had abandoned her. There was no down on the tiny keet. No indication of any part of her skin that was meant to grow feathers. Not even a hint of down.

Serka loaned the trembling infant her warmth and regurgitated some of her dinner. She knew what the officials would do for this poor child. For the good of the flock. Serka could not bring herself to do that to a baby.

There was only one place that would welcome such an unusual keet. Which lead to the utterly sane decision to emigrate to Toxic Island, the definitive insane destination for a single mother with a child.

*

B'rka knew she was different. When others fledged, her human friends worked on improvements for her artificial wings.

For summer and winter, she chose clothes. And not just the typical Numidid vest and leg-wraps. She had clothes that covered all the areas where other keets had feathers. Some were bright and happy, while others were dull or matched the pattern of her Mama.

There was another difference. Other keets had as many as seven mothers. B'rka just had one. And no father. It was a lonely house in the middle of the Human city, Huatthehell, but they shared it with a dog and they had friendly neighbours and everyone knew her.

When she was smaller, B'rka would ride their dog, Harg, but now he was strictly for pulling her cart. Harg was a lot faster than even the fastest of her age-mates. And the cart was made specially to avoid any kind of accident.

But as time went by, B'rka could see, more and more, how she was different to the other Numidid. Her own name was an accidental syllable away from the word for ‘bald’, and some of the meaner keets risked expulsion from school for continuing to use it.

B'rka never let the names stop her. With the help of human intervention, she could glide just as well as any normal keet. She could glide so well that others accused her of cheating when she reached a race-point ahead of one of her feathered age-mates. And she could certainly climb faster than anyone she knew.

But her real passion was science. No other field would take her in just for the love of it. No other field welcomed her under its metaphorical wing like science did.

And, when it came down to the barest of essentials, B'rka wanted to understand why she had been born without feathers.

But her personal anomaly lead to so much other information. How heat retention worked, the genes behind hyper-plumage, how and why follicles appeared at all, the essential role of the body mite in immunity procedures… it went on an on.

Science loved her back. She learned as the humans had learned, that by studying the unusual, one gained understanding of the normal.

And because of her accomplishments, she was among the first to campaign for an end to mutation-related infanticide.

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