The chick found Jiang's warmest wound.
Burrowing beneath the feather line below his shoulder, the chick pressed its rubbed patch against the heat there. With every shiver, its beak worked deeper into the place Black-Crown had reopened.
Jiang wanted to shove it away, but another gust flattened the chick against him. Into the snow went his right flipper, braced against both wind and impulse.
The small body carried no gratitude. It pecked his neck when he shifted, fought the sling when it touched a foot, and wedged closer as soon as Jiang stopped interfering.
Warmth was the only argument it accepted.
Black-Crown came through the blowing snow with two older chicks boxed between its flank and the low drift. Both young birds tried to turn toward the huddle. Wind pushed them sideways faster than they could regain their footing.
Jiang lowered his breast.
His body made a dark ridge across the hollow. The bound left flipper remained tight against his side, so he spread the right along the snow and curled its tip toward his belly.
One chick struck the flipper and scrambled over it.
The second hit Black-Crown's breast. Black-Crown leaned into the impact, moved with the smaller body, and drove it behind Jiang's tail.
Three chicks now crowded the hollow.
Against the exposed side, Black-Crown turned its back into the wind and held its beak between Jiang and every grey head.
Emergency shelter had changed its position, not its judgment.
Trying to climb higher, the chick against Jiang's shoulder caught its claws in feathers without reaching skin. Jiang angled his body until the rubbed patch rested against his breast instead of the open wound.
The turn opened the last shelter beneath his belly. Ice sent cold straight into his feet, and he tucked one beneath his lower feathers. The unreliable left folded wrong and slid back into the snow. His right foot could hide or brace, never both.
Jiang chose the brace.
White-Nape pushed out of the colony's dark edge, Pale-Cheek tight beside it.
Parent and chick called at close range. Pale-Cheek's answer changed with the gust; White-Nape waited and changed with it. Bent-Toe's recording sounded under the ice, repeating yesterday's ending to nobody.
White-Nape kept coming.
Pale-Cheek stumbled into the hollow and pushed against the nearest older chick. White-Nape settled behind it, breast low, while its outer flank touched Black-Crown's.
No circle formed around Jiang. Adult bodies met where the wind required them.
Split-Beak appeared farther upwind with Grey-Throat.
The smaller chick slid past its parent's feet. Split-Beak caught it with one leg and shoved it back, but another pulse of wind pulled both birds away from the huddle's moving edge.
Black-Crown left Jiang's side.
Cold entered the gap at once.
Three chicks cried and pushed deeper under Jiang's right flipper. Their down trapped small pockets of air, yet the wind kept combing those pockets open.
Jiang spread the flipper farther.
Pain dragged from the bound shoulder across his chest. His working side trembled under the chicks' weight.
Black-Crown reached Grey-Throat and turned broadside. Split-Beak pressed from the other side. Together, the adults guided Grey-Throat toward the hollow while the huddle drifted beyond them.
Jiang watched the distance grow.
He could break contact now, hook the sling in his beak, and drag himself after the colony before numb feet made the choice for him. The exposed chicks would lose the only low cover within reach.
He thought of Aylin's filling footprints.
Jiang wanted her good hand back on the sling and her scraped voice naming what his body could survive. Snow had already covered her path. She had chosen people beyond the ridges; he had chosen chicks touching his feathers. Her absence was the first cost of both decisions.
Following her was already beyond him. Losing the huddle would leave sea, road, and warmth in three different directions.
Grey-Throat reached the hollow first.
The chick collided with Pale-Cheek. Both complained at close range, then pressed into the same pocket under Jiang's flank because the air there hurt less.
Split-Beak arrived behind Grey-Throat.
Black-Crown reclaimed the exposed side and turned its beak toward Jiang. If he reached for any chick, the adult would strike. If he stayed still, it allowed the shared heat to remain.
Jiang flattened his belly.
Snow packed around his breast and sealed part of the lower gap. He worked his beak through the contour feathers along his right side until their tips shed wind over the young backs instead of channeling it beneath them.
Each feather turn was tiny. Holding still afterward hurt more, especially as his feet cooled past pain.
Feeling withdrew from the outer toes, then from the soles pressed into ice, while the bound flipper became a heavy shape belonging to the strap.
Wherever a chick touched him, heat continued leaving his chest.
Their shivering eased from violent knocks to fine trembling. The shivering had not stopped. Jiang had only slowed the loss while spending his own warmth against it.
Black-Crown adjusted one step closer.
White-Nape followed. Split-Beak filled the other opening, and for a little while the hostile adult, the hungry family, the wary parent, and Jiang made one imperfect wall.
Shared pressure built the wall. Each bird answered only the gust touching its own body.
The huddle turned in the distance. A coordinated ripple moved through the adults at its edge as one bird yielded space and another entered. The dark mass began working back toward the hollow.
A flex traveled down Jiang's legs and died before reaching either frozen foot.
Fear entered cleanly then. The chicks might survive long enough for the huddle to reach them, and Jiang might lose the ability to leave once it did.
Breaking contact would return warmth to his feet sooner.
The worn-grey chick pushed its bare shoulder deeper against his breast.
Jiang remained completely still.
Cold light opened above the snow.
`[DANGEROUS ADAPTATION CONDITION RECORDED]`
`[COUNTERCURRENT LOCK I AVAILABLE]`
`Retains core heat during stillness.`
`Cost: heat returns to feet and flippers more slowly after release.`
`[ACCEPT ADAPTATION / REFUSE ADAPTATION]`
Jiang read the cost twice.
The ability promised no warmth for the chicks. It offered no food, healed no shoulder, and returned no strength to his left side. It would keep more of his existing heat around his heart by abandoning the edges sooner.
With the huddle still distant and his edges already gone, Jiang chose `ACCEPT` and stayed.
Cold tightened around his feet and flippers.
Blood withdrew deeper than his instincts would have allowed. His outer body cooled while warmth around his chest stopped falling so quickly. The change felt less like gaining armor and more like closing a door on his own limbs.
Chicks kept taking ordinary heat through feathers and contact.
Jiang kept producing it with a hungry body.
The lock merely stretched the time before his core joined his feet in the cold.
Black-Crown felt the change first.
Its beak struck the snow beside Jiang's eye. Jiang held his head down and stayed still, showing the adult no reach toward the chicks.
White-Nape pressed closer around Pale-Cheek. Split-Beak answered Grey-Throat's changing call. Black-Crown remained between Jiang and every young throat while its flank closed the wind gap.
The huddle arrived as pressure rather than rescue.
Outer adults pushed into the hollow, received the exposed chicks against warm breasts, and kept moving. The worn-grey youngster left Jiang last. It pecked his cheek when Black-Crown crowded it away.
Jiang almost managed a laugh.
His throat produced one scraped breath instead.
Black-Crown moved Pale-Cheek, Grey-Throat, and the other chicks into the living mass. White-Nape and Split-Beak went with their own young.
Then Black-Crown turned back.
Jiang released the lock and pulled his breast forward.
His body stayed flat.
Warm blood returned to his legs too slowly to restore feeling. Both feet remained numb under him. The failed flipper stayed cold inside its binding, and his right flipper shook without lifting his body.
Black-Crown planted itself between Jiang and the huddle after using his warmth and watching him stay still. Its defensive conclusion remained unchanged: the dangerous stranger stayed outside.
Jiang dug his beak into the sling and tried to pull.
His body shifted the width of one feather.
Behind Black-Crown, the colony closed around the chicks and moved on.
Silver fish turned below the sea lead.
From Jiang's low position, the water showed through a gap under the ice lip. Fish gathered beyond the black-green root where the pressure roof sloped down.
The food route had reopened.
Reaching it would require another dive under closing ice.
Jiang lay outside the huddle with both feet locked in the cold.