[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Asadullah Khan]
[Level: 2]
[! Log Translated From Urdu !]
Asadullah grinned as Terry and Tench made the long journey over the vast sand plains, broken up by only channels of salty water, their trousers were soaked through up to knee-high, caked thick with sand and seaweed and salt.
Hidden as they were in this cave, the two were outlined against the yellow skies and sands, looking for all the world as if they were floating.
“Missed me?” Terry asked, his accent clumsy and syllables too sharp, but the tone was confident enough to make him understood.
“Like you have no idea.” Asadullah smiled back, patting him on the shoulder, “We have a shitton of stuff to work through, so you better sit down and get ready for a shock.”
Terry nodded along, his eyes wandering down and reading along the translation subtitles, showing that he wasn’t quite following along. Sure enough, when he spoke next, it was in English, and Asadullah had to resort to reading the translations too, “Is this about the squids? Because I’ve seen the squids. Pulled one of its legs off, too. They’re very biodegradable.”
Michael had dipped into his Exp. Points to shoot all their other members a Direct Message, pointing them towards the coordinates he had found the cave to be in. How the others were supposed to find these coordinates, he wasn’t sure.
The sun was dipping below the horizon, and the yellow sky was darkening into some shade almost resembling rich mustard. Stars twinkled above them, forming constellations that bore no resemblance to any of the three other skies he had seen. But they still seemed like they could be used to navigate this world, that seemed to be more or less the same islet, duplicated across the entire planet.
Asadullah had thought that they should have instead advised them on which stars to head towards, but it seemed that Terry and Tench had managed it just fine, which was a relief. Speaking of…
“You did what?” Asadullah asked, looking Terry over.
The boy grimaced, holding up a shaft of wood that he had been hiding behind his back, that was speared through a giant tentacle, the size of Asadullah’s forearm, it wobbled wetly, but the end which was meant to be connected to a creature was clogged by a thick layer of fuzzy green mold, allowing no blood through the wound.
“Mold cut right through.” He explained, “It was… a strange experience. It’ll take a lot to top that.”
The crow escorts that they had gotten cawed all around the room in harsh, throaty chuckles. Verity peered up at them distrustfully, making a show of reaching for her knives. This did nothing to deter them, as the one they had met first continued, “This one’s a good fighter. We must have him on the front lines.”
Terry froze, staring at it with bugged-out eyes.
“Yeah, the birds talk.” Asadullah told him.
Terry let out a shrill laugh, “Consider me surprised.” He admitted, “Talking birds, that’s- that’s something alright.” More cawing. This time, they sounded… smug?
“They’re proud that they were able to blow your mind more than the squids did.” Michael explained, “It’s considered another proof of their superiority against the many-armed, many-sized creatures of the deep.”
“Bet they need to grasp at straws normally.” Verity rolled her eyes. Everyone gasped at the misstep, and the corvids all froze, feathers fluffing up as one.
Tench laughed nervously, grabbing Verity by the shoulder to hiss something into her ear that most humans wouldn’t be able to hear, but it was possible that the crows did hear, and Asadullah with his keener feline hearing most definitely did. Not that it mattered, because the subtitles would have popped up regardless as he squinted to read their lips.
“Vera, apologize, because I damn well don’t want to know what its like to be ripped apart by pissed off birds.” Tench growled, more out of fear than any true anger.
Verity met his gaze head-on, but backed down still, casting a look around, “I guess you have your strengths.” She allowed the birds, “But… how is this a war, exactly? They have arms. And access to a world that you can’t survive in. And they can’t exactly stay up on land forever, either. What are you fighting over, exactly?”
Please don’t be fighting over nothing. They couldn’t fix it if it wasn’t over anything.
The birds all took a breath, confirming what Asadullah already was suspicious of. This would be a complicated story. Those were always the worst kinds of conflicts, with layers and layers of historical issues and bigotry and tension piled on top of each other, congealed and dripping into one another until differentiating between them was impossible and they all looked like one large wad of hatred that needed microscopes and tweezers to break apart and sort through.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A careful look at the people gathered around him, and Asadullah was not confident that any of them would have the patience for the microscopes and tweezers. Most of them were fighters, and even the ones who were not still favored the brute force method.
Still, he shouldn’t apply his own preconceived notions to this situation. The crows had yet to speak. The black bird opened its beak, and Asadullah waited feverishly for it to clear all this up.
“…It’s complicated. Nearly ten generations have passed since this bloody feud began.”
And that’s what he got for putting his faith in the logic and reasoning of animals. Surely, they would have handled this better than regular humans, right? How had they failed at breaking that cycle this badly?
“Wait, hold on, ten generations?” Tench frowned as he did the numbers in his head, “That’s… if you’re really common crows, that’s… barely seventy years.”
“’Scuse me?” Asadullah looked up, suddenly a lot less confused. Or maybe moreso.
A seventy-year war was… a very horrific and unbelievable thing. A conflict between two parties, interspersed with frequent battles, stretched out over seventy years, on the other hand… that was nothing compared to feuds he had born witness to.
Wait, when had he born witness to any such conflict?? He knew that they happened, but he’d never seen it firsthand. But for a moment, he was absolutely convinced that he had seen all this play out in front of him in real time. Why had he thought that?
“What difference does it make?” Tench asked, “Whether it’s seventy years or seven hundred, that doesn’t change anything. The ravens and squids experienced it all the same and see it like any of our human conflicts.”
“Speak for yourself, I have no idea what these human conflicts are.” Verity grumbled, “We were all eleven or something when the world ended. Your experiences with long-winded fights aren’t universal.”
Everyone turned to look at her, but Verity did not quail, meeting them head on, “I get that you think we’re thoughtless kids, and this certainly isn’t helping your opinion of us, but this is a vital perspective that I need to understand. So, spill.”
The crow guide they had met first (whom they still had not gotten a name for) twisted its neck to look at her curiously, “I have no authority on such matters. May I refer you to the archives and- and- our… anthropologists?” It croaked out the words, looking around at its corvid companions for support, who all cawed appreciatively, giving it a boost of confidence as it continued, “Yes! That is the word! I will take you to see them once we return to our main nest!”
“Huh. Thanks.” Verity replied, looking surprised at the response she had gotten.
“When’s that going to be, by the way?” Asadullah jumped in, seeing an opportunity to get down to business finally, “Because that was where you said you would take us once we gathered up our flock, and now we’re all just sitting in this cave, waiting for something to happen.”
“Well, you have one more flockmate left, right?” Another of the crows asked, “We cannot leave without her!”
“Once we leave, there is no coming back.” All the crows warbled as one, which was not ominous at all. Asadullah felt his ears flattening, and hair puffing up out of nervousness. All the birds cooed in interest, which did not help his unease one bit.
“We must know how you do that.” Yet a third crow demanded, hopping onto his shoulder and digging claws so deep into his flesh that it felt like it was drawing blood. A growl rumbled in the back of his throat against his will. The birds surrounding them all opened their wings slightly, letting out their own volley of threatening caws. But the crow on his shoulder remained unfrazzled, the single eye staring into the depths of his soul.
“You are part feline. But from what I remember from extinct genome studies, you both should be too biologically distinct to be meshed, am I right?” It asked, “Or is this another manifestation of this ‘magic’ that consumes your being?”
“Uh… the second one.” He squeaked out through the pain.
Around them, the flock of birds chirped in curious approval.
“…Wait, what do you mean by ‘extinct genome studies’?” Tench asked, brows furrowed, “I know that humans are dead, but what happened to the felines?”
“They died.” Their guide crow replied, “Once the world was rearranged… they thought to hunt us for sustenance. The Corvids did not let that stand. We hunted them right back, until they no longer were.”
This chilling declaration hung in the air, and his arm felt like it was burning from the indignation. Wait, no. It really was burning. The red bangles were shifting from side to side, as the crimson liquid pumping through them began speeding up their cycles, sending heated blood shooting through his veins, laced with the type of magic that put his teeth on edge and made him want to scream.
Around him, the attention of the crows and the humans was changing, switching instead to focus on the mouth of cave. Asadullah would have loved nothing more than to see who had joined him, but he could not hear, rooted as he was to his spot, eyes making the trip down from the roof of the cave, to instead rest upon what had once been a suitable prison for his djinn.
The world seemed to spin and blur around him, leaving nothing but the bangles in focus, and he understood for the first time the concept of ‘iron deficiency’ that Terry had been suffering from for a good while until he found iron supplements in the Inventory to use.
In regard to the bangles, however, they looked unscathed. Normal.
What was decidedly not normal was the instinctual disgust and hatred that rose up inside him as he looked at the simple device of gold and glass and blood that had been his protector and aide for so long. He had had many conflicting feelings about his bangles over the years, and how they reflected on him and made it harder for him to pass. But never, never, had he looked at them and thought about ripping them right off. Letting cursed blood flow free and unhindered, until he was free to wreak carnage once more. How he wept for it, how he yearned it, how he tired of resisting it when clearly that was what he had wanted this entire time-
A soft touch on his knee broke his train of thought, and he found himself back on the floor, staring dazedly at Terry, who was looking back with wide eyes.
“Are- are you okay?” He asked, and Asadullah grinned at him, the lack of harsh, unfamiliar language somehow enough to soothe the pain he had just gone through.
But, oh God, that pain…
His arm throbbed and burnt to consume him all over again.
[Player Log End!]