Then he nodded at his other bodyguard, who instantly turned into a crow and flew at me.

I ducked and tried to cover my face from the coming attack, but the crow just landed and balanced on my head. It cawed once, shrill and sudden. I swore.

I felt the sharpness of every single curved, pointed nail, more pronounced when it flapped its wings on my head. For a moment, one claw dug and scratched my scalp. I wondered what it would do next, then I felt a sharp pain as it launched from my head. When I looked at it, it was holding a strand of my hair in its beak.

“Hey! What was that for?” I shouted at the retreating crow. “You could have asked or something!”

I knew that my words were futile and meant nothing in the eyes of the murder of crows surrounding us, but I was powerless. All I had were my words, which barely elicited a smirk from Mr. Crow-man.

The crow flew and dropped my hair strand into the crow-man's open hand.

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He grasped it and, with the same method as the bottle, the hair traveled up his arm and disappeared into his inner sleeve.

He bowed again and said, “Payment for services well done.” He turned his back to me and said as he was turning into a crow, “We have wasted precious time. Even if I enjoyed our chat, we must hurry. I wish you the best of luck in the oncoming orc battles.”

With that, his body and clothes started to shrink, much like a scrunchie folding into itself. A feather-covered body kept shrinking, and near the end of the transformation, the ruffled feathers assembled into a nice sleek crow body. The clear mask formed from his nose again, into a full beak. He was fully turned and flew into the sky, leading the other crows. They laughed in unison as they flew off away from the forest.

He was soon lost in the murder of crows and I couldn’t distinguish him from any other crow. There were so many of them, that for a moment they blocked the sun as they flew in the distance.

This surreal encounter and their exit scene were now engraved in my memory. I most certainly did not hear anything about battles. Nor was I killing any orcas. I’ve never been to the ocean and I can’t swim.

I looked at my newly fixed staff and then into the horizon, and I started to head towards Steel, towards home.