Steve the postman. No. Barbacoa. Nah. Pantene. Nope. Brienne, their landlady. Maybe. He might have gone on forever without another person to bounce ideas off of. Fortunately, the sirens decided to help him on that front.
Also, unfortunately... the same.
He awoke on a gloomy Thursday morning as he had since his return: to birdsong. The sirens serenaded Ashdown no matter how desolate the day, soft chirps and trills pulling Rabbit out of the deepest slumber. It wasn't all that surprising, considered they were always right next to his head when they began. Generally he scooped them up after that, transporting them to the window ledge to finish their concert while he went to take a shower.
Something was off today. He knew it before he even opened his eyes. Where there were usually two voices intertwining in a harmonious melody, this morning there was only one. If that wasn't enough of a clue that something was amiss, his bedroom door was open just a crack, wide enough for a squeep to escape.
Rabbit lurched out of bed, still half asleep, and after making sure the remaining siren was singing safely in p***k's vicinity, he burst from his room as quietly as one could burst, listening for distressed scratching or cheeping. He hurried down the hall, past the bathroom and the kitchen, eyes wide as his sister's form came into view. She was sitting in front of the television, and as soon as Rabbit circled her, he noticed the siren in her lap. Its dark eyes darted almost fitfully, taking in every nuanced movement of the fuzzy pink muppet flailing across the screen.
"I've never let them watch TV." He leaned over to gently retrieve the bird and tuck it into the crook of his arm. "It'll rot his brain." Rabbit's nerves jangled like he'd been caught stealing or defacing property or, well, lying. Which he had.
"Another present from the otherworld?" Olivia backed up and gracefully spun her chair until she was facing him. She didn't seem mad, but there was a faint touch of disappointment to the curve of her mouth that only he would have noticed. It reminded him of a face almost twenty years gone, the one she had worn when he and Vic had shared a joke with each other but not with her.
"Yeah. I found these eggs over there long before the whole kidnapping thing."
"I saw them in your room once. I thought you were just being weird. They only hatched recently though, right?"
He nodded.
"I've heard them singing."
"Sorry I didn't tell you, but..." He looked down at the one in his arms.
"How do you open a conversation about people-birds. I know, Rabbit."
He held the siren out to Liv once more and she took it, placing it back in her lap. A minute later, the second one had joined them. It continued to sing as Rabbit carried it down the hall from his room, waving its arms at its sibling when it got there.
"So. What are their names?"
He fixed his gaze at the TV and the pink muppet still stationed there. She was teaching a small child with bright, actor's eyes how to count.
"I can't think of any. Or maybe I'm really thinking of all the names ever and I can't narrow them down."
"Then let's start simpler. What are they, exactly?" She reached down and gently stuck her fingers under the squeep's forearms. It obligingly raised them in the air with a burbling chirp.
"Sirens. Shapeshifting bird people. And they really will be as big as people someday. Smart too. They warn that the world's collapsing or something." He looked up at nothing, trying to access his brain. "They prevent the world's demise." He deliberately left out the 'other' part. Olivia was definitely one of the people he hoped he might save if it ever looked like this side was really going under.
"Heavy stuff for such little guys. But you can't call them World's End or Apocalypse Bane if they're going to have to go on job interviews or get driver's licenses someday."
"You're taking this... really well."
"I always do. You're the one who had a pair of living alarm clocks in your room for almost a month and somehow thought I wouldn't notice. What I imagine is happening with you is always way worse than reality, so..."
Rabbit snorted. "Fine. Sorry. I just... Look at them."
"They're cute." She lowered her fingers then raised them again, making the siren slowly flap.
"Only because they're yours. Or mine. Whatever."
"No, they're just cute. Regardless of who their father is."
He groaned. In his arms, the rowdier siren did the same, clearly trying for imitation even if its attempt was several octaves higher. "Please call me their guardian or something instead. That word makes me cringe." Sometimes it also made him smile a little, but today wasn't one of those days.
"Can they still call me their aunt?"
"Sure."
Liv's grin lit up the room. "Okay. So names. What are other people named over there? I never really thought about it, but my guess is there probably aren't a lot of Steves and Janes."
"I thought about Steve, actually!" he said, sobering again at his sister's raised brow. "Fine. There are Paxes and Melanys and Noehs and Ezras and Mynns and Orohs."
"Some of those are normal."
He shrugged. "I know their parents' names?" Rabbit sighed through his nose, crossing to take a seat. Liv turned again to face him, still in her chair. Once he was settled, his siren wiggled until it was set free to roam the couch, pressing its hands into the cushions every few inches and squeeping at each new bit of squish it discovered. "Their mother was Shininover, their father was Watersring, and their uncle was Alwise."
"So, water. Sunlight. Wisdom. Do those sound like good places to start?"
They did. He suddenly regretted not telling her sooner.
"Weather and... human qualities, I guess? So... sun, snow, hail, sleet, rainbows, tornadoes, rain."
"Rain's good, since it's always doing it around here these days."
"Sure. Rain."
"No Rain, maybe?"
"The Blind Melon song?"
"It was a good song."
Olivia snorted, her attention on the exploring siren. "Crafty Rain."
"It sounds like Martha Stewart's rap name."
"Busy Rain. Rain Hands. Crazy Rain. Drizzle Baby. Couch Sprinkles." She rattled off a string of monikers, all the while staring at the squeep that chirped at the sofa, hands splayed.
"I don't think that one should be the rain one."
"Do you know if they're boys or girls?"
Rabbit shook his head. "I mean, they could change their names later if we get them wrong, I don't care. I just want them to know we tried to do a tribute thing."
"But we should still try for names anyone could have."
"Like... Drizzle Baby."
"You know what I mean."
"Hm." While the great Couch Conqueror continued its brave territorial acquisition, Rabbit watched the squeep on his sister's lap as it watched everything else. He had been worried about it in the beginning, thinking its personality should have mirrored its more lively sibling's, but now he appreciated its stillness. Its caution and calm.
"Never Rain," he said softly. "Neverain."
It looked at him. He smiled.
Olivia noted the exchange and smirked at her brother. "Guess that's one down."
The other siren grew noticeably silent as it reached the end of the sofa, bouncing and grasping for the arm so that it might climb to greater heights. Rabbit circled his fingers around its middle and pulled it back to him, ignoring the three note song of objection it piped as he did.
"This one's Drizzle Baby, then?" He really wasn't letting it go.
"No." Liv shook her head. "Come on. We're going off 'wise' here now. No more rain." She was smiling readily enough, but Rabbit was surprised at how invested she was in all of this, like she had nothing better to do with her day than name a couple of weirdo satan birds.
Rabbit sighed. "Crafty, you said? I like that. It fits." The siren hadn't stopped chirping, even when he'd offered delicious human fingers to chew.
"Cunning."
"Clever."
"Astute."
"Shrewd."
"Wily."
He had run out of suggestions, but that didn't matter. Olivia seemed quite taken with her own.
"Sigh, wily."
"That's not a name. It's two words next to each other."
"So was the one you came up with. So were theirs. Watersring, right? Just... smoosh them together and throw in some Ys or something." She frowned a little when he sighed again. "See? You're even doing it to me."
Rabbit paused, considering. The siren was wily. And he did sigh at it constantly. "I don't know."
"Here." She reached into a pouch that hung from the arm of her chair, pulling a small tablet and pen out of its depths. She spent a second scribbling down a single word, then turned the pad to face him.
"Like that."
It looked... kind of like a name. It also looked like the sort of thing kindergarten teachers would take half of the school year to learn to pronounce. It was practically perfect.
"Sywyly," he said, drawing the squeeping bird closer to his face and receiving a foot to his cheek for the trouble. "Sounds good."
