"I am very curious about that, actually! I was trying to ask the people I visited questions but they did not really have the relevant technical background. Maybe I could - write up some of the ideas I had about it that I think I did not convey well enough. Can you help me do that? ....Tomorrow, maybe." 

"Of course." Wing-hug.

The next day, with Caroline's help, he gets through turning all of his miscellaneous thoughts and commentary on the search engine into reasonably well-organized words, which he is eventually willing to send.

She takes it off folded in her feet, and comes back right away.

He snuggles up against her as soon as she's back in the nest. "I am so bored of everything being very stressful even when it is unhelpful to feel that way." 

"That makes sense. Being traumatized is very tiring and boring, in a lot of ways."

"I wish it felt less as though things were just becoming harder rather than easier over time. I think I am better at noticing what my emotions are but they are mostly bad." 

"I think an overwhelming majority of people report it getting harder before it gets easier. I think - you told me about how Carissa in some ways was more stressed once she stopped thinking she should go to Hell and belong to Asmodeus? I think sometimes dismantling the thing you were using, even if it was hurting you, makes everything much harder."

"...That makes sense for Carissa but I am not sure what the thing that I dismantled would have been. I did not ever think that I ought go to Hell and belong to Asmodeus." 

"I don't think the thing is always an entire overarching worldview. But - a lot of plans, a lot of habits, a lot of ways of thinking about yourself..."

"I suppose I do feel - less sure who I am and what that means, here. Which is a very odd way to feel." Sigh. "I am sure Aroden never feels that way, but I am so small and confused and bad at everything compared to him. He is eight thousand years old." 

"Well, in eight thousand years I bet you'll be very impressive."

"Mmm." If the universe is still around, he thinks but doesn't say; he doesn't, actually, expect it not to be, there are enough people on the side of 'wanting the universe to keep existing' - including Asmodeus, even.

He misses Carissa. This is also starting to feel boring and repetitive at this point, and not worth saying out loud yet again. He misses Seerow and that's even stupider. He - wishes he could be in Carissa's head again while she talked to that one Andalite researcher who knew so much about magic artifacts... He wants a hundreds things and he makes lists of them in his head sometimes and most of them aren't things he can have in Nirvana, even though Nirvana is supposed to be the place where everything is fine. 

"I wish I could skip to the part of this where fifty years have passed and I am better at things," he says, finally, because at least that's a new thought. 

"That makes sense. I think everyone wishes that sometimes. Sometimes I wish I could skip to the part where I've been here for ten thousand years and can do anything I want."

"That makes sense." He's glad that she seems to understand, anyway. "I - think that maybe I need something different, now, because I keep feeling bored with myself. I am not sure what though." 

"Do you want to check if you can be an adult bird yet?"

"...I can try that." 

And he does his best to focus on - his internal sense of who-he-is, and the foundation he's managed to build of feeling like he's safe here, which is still a shaky one but it exists at all. And he tries to think of - how he wants to be bigger, to be able to fly further. Not because he's scared, but because he's curious, he wants to know what's beyond the horizon that he's not strong enough to reach. 

"Oh, well done!" she says, cheerfully.

He tries to look at himself. "Am I...?"

Maybe he can fly down to the river and peer at his reflection? 

He can! Flying seems less exhausting and his maneuverability is better.

He lands by the river, and tries to get a glimpse of his reflection. 

- he doesn't actually look like the same sort of bird that Caroline is, which he supposes makes sense, since this is all magic anyway. He's roughly the same size, but black, sleek-feathered. 

Caroline flutters down next to him. "That was one of the fastest first shapeshifts I've seen!"

"...Really? I was not expecting it would work." 

"It took me months! I was a tree-climbing tentacle thing and it was all right but I wanted something a bit more familiar."

"You were a tree-climbing what? - never mind, it is probably something I have not heard of. I just - I tried to think about how I wanted to be stronger and able to fly further, not because I was scared or did not feel safe as a baby bird, but because I was curious what I could find..."