Black-Crown went back into the water while Jiang was still coughing it out.
Black-Crown slid over the rim, dark back vanishing beneath the lead. It had waited through one recovery. Apparently Jiang's lungs were now his own private problem.
Jiang had only just dragged both feet onto rough ice. His breast still heaved against the sling, and every breath pulled at the reopened shoulder beneath it.
White-Nape moved toward the rim.
Black-Crown surfaced long enough to strike the ice between them, then dove again. That blow kept White-Nape back, but its meaning ended there. Black-Crown was starting the route. Jiang could follow or leave the only bird who knew his moving marks alone under the roof.
Pale-Cheek called from inside the huddle. Grey-Throat answered farther along its edge. Hunger brought both parents another step toward the sea.
Jiang closed his beak and drew one breath deep enough to hurt.
Waiting for comfort would mean waiting until the chicks stopped asking.
He pushed off before Black-Crown disappeared.
Cold water caught his belly. His bound left flipper dragged him into the familiar curve, but this time Jiang expected it. He opened the right flipper late, let the first turn happen, then used both feet to bring his beak behind Black-Crown's white breast.
Jiang's correction looked ugly and pointed him the right way.
Black-Crown passed the first bend without slowing.
Jiang's heart beat fast and ordinary. A cold notice from the last dive remained clear in his memory: recovery incomplete. He kept the breath he might have wasted arguing with it.
One right-flipper stroke carried him beneath a blue seam. A second sent pain along the sling as his body tried to roll. He narrowed his feet behind him, held his left side tight, and let the roof current finish the correction.
Black-Crown glanced back at him.
Jiang disliked how much satisfaction he took from being seen. Nearly drowning together had lowered his standards for companionship.
Bent-Toe called behind him.
Bent-Toe's tired note traveled from the lead toward Jiang's tail, moving through the root rather than remaining in one patch. Black-Crown heard it too. Its head turned, but its body stayed aimed at the pressure throat.
Pale-Cheek cried from ahead.
That voice drew Black-Crown's beak toward the lower branch. Jiang crossed into the adult's view and rolled his white belly toward the center opening. Black-Crown answered with a turn of its own, showing him the line beneath the pressure tongue.
They had no shared language. They had two bodies refusing to chase voices without bodies, and for the moment that was enough.
Pressure crowded close around Jiang.
Black-green light moved through the root beside his breast. Its pulse tightened the water, pushing against his face and stealing speed from each right-sided stroke. The bound flipper knocked the root once, and cold pain reached his shoulder before the vibration left the strap.
Jiang flattened himself beneath the ice.
A current along the roof touched the feathers over his crown, then slid past his back toward the feeding shelf. Following it cost less than fighting the lower water. He raised his beak until the cracked tip brushed ice and let the flow draw him after Black-Crown.
Silver filled the water beyond the throat.
Fish fed against the underside in a shifting sheet. Their bodies turned together, pale sides flashing close enough to hide Black-Crown for a beat.
Jiang opened his beak.
A lone fish slipped out of the silver mass and crossed directly in front of him. Its tail touched the edge of his lower bill. A snap would put food in his mouth before any adult above knew the route still worked.
Jiang let it pass his beak.
Jiang pressed his cracked beak against the soft seam overhead.
Pain ran through his jaw as he swam. His beak cut a pale groove beneath the ice, a continuous scrape following the roof current back toward the throat. Ice dust clouded around his face and streamed toward the return line.
Black-Crown turned away from the school to watch him.
Jiang kept scraping until the ache made his bite shake. His mark began beside the fish and bent toward the one opening both of them had used. Any adult entering after them could see which way a moving body had traveled.
Gredudande answered by tightening the root.
Black-green strands swelled around the pressure tongue. A lower branch rose. Ice shifted above Jiang's back with a deep grinding he felt through his feathers.
Behind them, the opening had begun to close.
Black-Crown drove into the school. Fish burst around its head, but the adult took none. It cut across Jiang's pale scrape and turned for the lead.
Jiang followed through the break.
Jiang felt the return current catch his crown first. He aligned his beak, spine, and tail with it, then used the right flipper to add movement instead of correcting every bend. His feet steered in smaller strokes. His failed side still dragged, yet the current made that drag predictable.
Behind him, his own call rose from the feeding shelf.
His copy sounded clear and unwounded. It offered air in the wrong direction with Jiang's voice.
He watched Black-Crown's feet.
Black-Crown slipped through the leading edge of the throat and vanished behind the lifting tongue. Jiang reached the gap as root pressed ice toward ice.
His sling touched the black-green strand.
Pressure pulled the cloth away from his breast. For one ugly instant the current had his body while the root had the binding around his failed limb.
Jiang folded his right flipper and rolled toward the trapped side. That movement took pressure off the sling but put his back against the roof. He drove both feet down. His left gave almost nothing; the right shoved his breast through the gap.
With a hard scrape, the strap came free.
Air crowded the back of his beak.
Black-Crown waited beyond the tongue, white breast visible in the murk. It held its place without touching Jiang.
That was the condition. Jiang understood it before the System spoke. A living bird could show him the exit. Current could carry part of his weight. His own breath still had to bring him back.
He opened the right flipper.
One stroke pulled his tail clear of the root. His feet found the roof current and held it. Jiang kept moving after Black-Crown while Bent-Toe called from one side and Jiang's own false voice promised safety from the other.
Grey light from the lead widened ahead.
His chest tried to breathe before water left his beak. Jiang clamped it shut, drove the right flipper once more, and kicked toward the light.
His head broke the surface.
Air came in raw enough to hurt. Jiang clawed the rim with his right foot, missed, and reached again. His left foot found ice long enough for him to swing his breast onto the ice.
Beside him, Black-Crown hauled itself clear.
Neither bird carried a fish.
Jiang lay with his beak on the ice until each breath stopped fighting the next. Water from Black-Crown's feathers ran beneath his jaw, which was the nearest thing the adult had ever offered to patience.
Only after Jiang could read did the System open.
`[REFUSED PATH EARNED: DEEP LUNG I]`
`Extends useful submersion during sustained movement and speeds breath recovery afterward.`
`Cost: hunger. Cannot overlap with Pressure Heart I.`
`[ACCEPT ADAPTATION / REFUSE ADAPTATION]`
He had seen the path once before with Aylin choking above a dark pool. Frostwake had been the tool that could reach her, and Jiang would choose it again in the same water.
Today, hungry chicks called behind him while the route closed beneath his breast.
Hunger made Jiang study the cost a second time. His stomach already cramped hard enough to make the ice beneath him smell faintly edible. Deep Lung would spend more of what the rookery lacked. Pressure Heart would remain a separate choice whenever its recovery finally ended.
Different danger. Different answer.
He fixed his attention on acceptance.
`[DEEP LUNG I ACQUIRED]`
His lungs remained sore. His shoulder stayed open, and the failed flipper lay cold inside its binding. This adaptation belonged to the next dive; the last one still hurt.
Black-Crown rose onto both feet.
Through the lead, the black-green root pulled the pressure tongue over Jiang's pale return mark. Its gap narrowed until only one adult could pass cleanly. Beneath it, silver fish crowded away from the moving ice.
White-Nape and Split-Beak came to the rim. Other hungry adults gathered behind them, each drawn by a living chick and an empty belly.
Black-Crown entered the lead first.
One group hunt would fit through the lead, and it had already begun.