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NS1.24.3.12 
kin 021 
The Parrot Raven
Once there was a baby raven who hatched in a parrot's nest and grew up living with a parrot family. It wore colorful feathers like all the other parrots, and repeated everything they said to it just like all its siblings did. It loved its family, but knew it was different, and so was lonely.
Every few days, when the raven's parrot family would visit with the other parrot families, the raven would try its best to make friends. It could start a conversation, and was pretty good at answering questions without giving away who it was. It may not have looked much like a parrot, but it believed it was a parrot, it spoke like a parrot, it even developed quick little answers to invasive questions that parrot strangers seemed to ask all the time.
But the other parrots never seemed to invest much time in getting to know the raven. Every conversation was superficial, small talk, or what one must be in order to be a good parrot. That made it increasingly hard for the raven to relate to the other parrots. Its "friends" were really more like acquaintances. Even when it had a chance to hang out with them, it still had to pretend to be a parrot.
As it got older, it was permitted to leave the nest on its own more frequently. But it never left without an honest reason. It loved going out on its own. For some reason it was more comfortable with itself out there than it was with its family. This made the raven feel guilty, but it knew being out was a good thing. It met other birds and animals, every one of them different. Neither of them seemed to judge its character based on its mangy parrot appearance! Though it kept resorting to the habitual parrot quirks of its family, the new friends made the raven feel more welcomed than the parrots ever had. And the other animals were supposed to be dangerous?
The raven still couldn't open up as much as it wanted to, but even though all the other animals had their flaws, they didn't try to hide them, and they didn't seem to judge others because of them. They were honest. And the raven liked that about them. The raven began to question why it acts like a parrot. Why was it supposed to? The hardest part for it was being honest with itself that it's not a parrot and that the laws of being a good parrot aren't universally beneficial. It began to see itself for who it was, and it liked the way it was. But it knew it wasn't acceptable in this parrot world it lived in. It couldn't be a raven in a company of parrots.
The raven subtly tried to express itself in various ways. Fortunately its family wasn't as strict as most other parrots. But when it came to what it believed, any hint of opposition was met with a firm rebuke. It assumed its parrot parents were just concerned for its life. They didn't want anything bad to happen to it, and their beliefs were the promise of safety. But the raven just couldn't believe exactly like them. Things its family thought of as essential, it saw as unnecessary and sometimes harmful. But their minds were set.
So it kept quiet.
For now, the raven continued to live like a parrot. It still loved its family of course, but it gradually began to leave the nest whenever it could. Whenever it had a good excuse. The nest became less like a home for it, and more like just a place to sleep at night.
The raven had a choice to make. It wasn't going to be easy, but at least now the raven knew what it needed to do.