Nixis Training Entry - Trust: Trust Training

It had been a few days since Nixis had been brought to this new and weird place by some weird bipedal creature. She remembered being hatched at some other bipedal's place before being brought to a place filled with other stryxes of varying ages. The young tyto had spent a little while there before being picked up by the stranger and brought to this new place. Nixis didn't trust this new thing, everything in this place was new and she didn't know where she was. She had no idea what was a threat and what wasn't a threat so she treated everything as a potential threat. That included the creature that had brought her here, while they hadn't done anything yet that didn't mean they weren't planning something. There didn't appear to be any other stryxes around and Nixis didn't know if that relieved or worried her. At least she didn't have to think of potentially aggressive and territorial stryxes. But she also wondered if there had been others here before her and that something had happened to them. If that was the case she wasn't going to let whatever happened to those before her happen to her. Nixis had tried her best to scout out this new area and had learned that a lot of things in here were quite fragile. Especially the weird clear things that held stuff, those completely shattered when knocked over. Though the creature that had brought her here didn't seem angry about it, she guessed that they weren't very valuable then. This ended up in almost all of the weird clear things being broken from her clumsy attempts of exploration, the breaking of these clear things ended up with a ground filled with scattered oddities. There were weird looking rocks, feathers, leaves, and other collectables all over the floor within her first few days here. By now all of those things had been cleaned up and the creature took a bunch of stuff out of the place that Nixis was staying in.

Nixis was sniffing around the ground when she heard footsteps approaching, without a moment of hesitation she darted under a weird thing made out of wood. It was a rectangular slab of wood placed on rounded pieces of wood that were located under each corner. It seemed sturdy enough and that creature never tried getting under it so Nixis had come to the solution that they couldn't get under it. With that thought in her head she deemed it a "safe zone", she had a few of these "safe zones" which were basically places she could go that that creature couldn't. Nixis tilted her head slightly as the creature peered under the weird wooden structure and sighed. They then said something that she couldn't understand and went and grabbed some weird rectangular thing. Nixis just watched as they then sat down against the wall facing her and opened the rectangular thing? It seemed to be made out of leather and really thin sheets of white stuff that crinkled whenever the creature moved them. The young tyto had no idea what it was the creature was holding but they seemed pretty focused on it. Nixis stayed in her "safe zone" and waited for the creature to leave so she could go back to exploring and finding new "safe zones" and escape routes. However the creature didn't move, they just keep staring at the thing in their hands and every few moments they moved the thin sheet over. Nixis just stared at them and willed them to move along for what seemed like an eternity, yet the creature stayed there. They didn't look up at Nixis or try to get closer, they just sat there. Nixis was both confused and annoyed by the creature's actions, she needed it to leave already! She didn't want to stay in her "safe zone" forever!

After what felt like another eternity of waiting Nixis decided to test if the creature was truly not paying attention to her. So she shifted slightly, her talons clicking against the wooden flooring as she took a step forward. The creature didn't seem to react at all so she would cautiously take another step forwards. Nothing. Another step. Nothing. Another. Nothing. Before Nixis knew it she was closer to the creature than she had ever been before, though she was still a few feet away from them. Now Nixis would turn and try to sneak past the creature, her wobbly and clumsy steps were far from stealthy. The creature only looked up once Nixis was fully out from inside her "safe zone". Nixis froze as she heard a clicking noise, she looked over curiously to see the creature clicking their tongue and patting a spot beside it. She didn't quite know what it wanted, but it just smiled and called for her in it's weird language. Nixis would chirp back and took a step away, the creature kept a reassuring smile as it pulled something out from it's pocket. It was a dried piece of fish, Nixis stared at the piece of dried meat for a long moment before turning her gaze to the creature. They still had that reassuring smile. Nixis did really want that meat but they couldn't bring themselves to walk over and take it. After all she didn't know if it was some sort of trap! What if the creature was just trying to lure her in! No way was she falling for that, she knew better than to approach a potential threat! After all she had all the food she needed, the creature left food out for her and she would eat it after they would leave. However she always made sure that her food didn't smell weird, she didn't know if that creature wanted to poison her or something. But they had never poisoned her before.

Nixis would take a cautious step forward, a low chirping and almost purr-like noise rumbled from her throat. The creature called for her again in it's weird language but Nixis couldn't muster up the courage to get any closer. So instead she shifted her weight from leg to leg impatiently and stared at the dried piece of meat that the creature was holding. It looked so good and smelt tasty as well, she really did want it! The young tyto was surprised when the creature raised it's hand and gently tossed the meat towards her. She jumped back at the sudden motion before realising the meat was right in front of where she had been standing before. She would quickly scurry over and grab the meat in her beak before quickly and clumsily hurrying back to her "safe zone" under the weird wooden structure. Now back in her "safe zone" Nixis would grab the meat with one of her talons and gnawed on it curiously with her beak. She tore off a small chunk and swallowed it, she perked up in surprise at how good it tasted. It was better than anything else she had tried! The styrx would excitedly devour the rest of the dried fish, she didn't even take the time to savour the flavour. When she was finished she looked up to see the creature watching her with a gentle smile. Nixis watched them both curiously and cautiously, her head perked up as they pulled out another piece of dried meat. They held it out again and this time Nixis cautiously approached, once she was close enough she quickly snatched it out of their grip and hurried back to her "safe zone". She ate this one as quickly as the last and again the creature watched her, they seemed happy that she was taking their food. Maybe they weren't as bad as she initially thought they were.

After that day the creature would sit down with it's weird rectangular object and just sit in the room with Nixis. Now and again they would offer her some sort of treat, it seemed every day they had something new. Slowly but surely Nixis would get bolder and bolder with each of these little sessions. She had gotten used to the creature's presence by now, however that didn't mean she had stopped wreaking havoc on the room. If something was low enough for her to reach then she would find a way to knock it over, yet despite her tendency to break things the creature always just cleaned it up and moved on. Days went by and Nixis slowly began to trust this creature more and more, after all they gave her these super tasty treats and didn't hurt her. However while she was beginning to trust this creature she still wasn't able to be touched at all, any movement towards her would cause her to dart away. It took weeks of this repetitive trust building before Nox was actually able to touch Nixis. At first it was just a soft hand gliding down her tail which caused her to flinch but she didn't move away. After a few weeks of this they would move up to her back and slowly got the young tyto desensitized to their touch. After months of trust building and desensitization they were finally able to pay Nixis on the head, to which she leaned into their touch. It was only a week or so later when Nixis approached them sitting down and curled up on their lap. She made a soft purring noise as she cuddled up to them, once they had introduced her to physical affection and had gained her trust she turned into a total lap cat. Nixis was all over them, cuddling up with them, riding them. She just truly enjoyed touching them, she would even playfully nip at them. Which was quite painful at first until she learned how to be gentle with her nipping, but once she learned how to be gentle it was more like a tickle than anything.