Oh, they knew what Nij was. As the eyes of them all slipped to her at her arrival, they seemed to harden their resolve to resist the phylonurist and her questions, but they couldn't resist the humour of the situation. The Inarta couldn't -wouldn't- touch them. They could be shooed away, but at the cost of how many Dek and Chiet? No, something else had to be done.
Even though the other birds weren't speaking to her, a massive vulture took the liberty to speak for them. As he looked at Nij, she could feel sensations of fear, anger, loathing, and pity as well as see quick flashes of images of feathers, other birds that were displaced, and a nameless, formless mass that the bird gave the impression of loathing most strongly to. It was obviously trying to tell Nij that something was going on, but after showing her so much, any more questions she would have for him were met with even more feelings of anger and mounting frustration.
During the exchange, Vaas was walking straight across the invisible line that kept the Inarta safe from already riled birds. As he approached, a particularly ornery turkey vulture shrieked up the general cry of alarm and beat its wings in a threat at the blind man. The vulture took off, straight for Vaas's face, outstretched talons reaching for his eyes. Without warning, something struck Vaas out of the way however and the bird sailed by harmlessly, turning away for another strike should Vaas decide to continue on. As Vaas rose up, he was helped to his feet. Murmurs rose from the watching Inarta as the man that had knocked Vaas out of the way helped Vaas to his feet. Someone among the crowd cried out that he should have just let the stupid Chiet die for not paying attention, but the words were met with only a solemn glare.
Vaas couldn't see him, but the man who had saved him was an Avora. His hair was nearly black but in the sunlight it glowed the most vivid red. Upon his left ear, like some kind of fashion statement, were three highly stylised feathers of yellow, red and green banded with lighter shades of those same colours.
"All of you, stand back," the mystery man said. He began to dust Vaas off after his fall, to which the bird that had attacked Vaas seemed to find amusing. He was singing something that had the man smiling with amusement. In some way, the watchers would know he understood the birds on a seemingly deep level, as he had now stood beyond the line with Vaas and was not being harrassed for it. Unknown to them, he was but another member of the flock, come to tend to the birds and see what had gone wrong. Taking Vaas by the arm, he pulled the man out of the danger zone and towards another group of Inarta. Some of them shifted uncertainly and outright left.
"Now then, I think it would be best if you minded your surroundings. You'd almost had your eyes food for the carrion, my lucky friend, but if you stand back with the others here and stay here until I see what the problem is, you'll be safe. Understand?"
He left to cross that line again and gesture to the vulture. Vaas would find that Wind Dancer seemed to have disappeared after the confusion and heard no sound of him within the courtyard. Where had he gotten to?
As for Hess, he had watched the whole spectacle with an air of surprise. The man that had saved Vaas was none other than the one he had spoken to just ticks before. Before the whole action had gone down, his question had been answered, but the answer wasn't exactly a comforting one.
"These birds have been chased out of their homes in the Unforgiving. I don't know what did it yet, but I don't believe these are the last of the flock we will see." The man had said. He had seemed intent on saying more, but before he had the chance he ran off to the rescue of Vaas, and then returned with the blind man with only a few chiding words.
Needless to say, this was becoming an increasingly confusing day for them yet even so, they still felt the need to help out in some way.