Crows are such strange animals, you know?
Throughout history they’ve been the birds of the dead, little carrion eaters that flew over battlefields, they’ve been birds of knowledge, for in the ancient norse tales they were advisers to the King of Gods, Allfather, Odin; they’ve been birds of misfortune as well, although that was only a brief phase.
In truth, I always much preferred the way the norse saw them: bringers of knowledge, little observers who brought news of the world to the god they’d decided to serve. Gossipers, in a way, the greatest of them all, for they could actually learn to talk and understood the world around them. One wonders what they must’ve seen throughout the years. One also wonders: what would happen if they decided to tell about all those things to someone?
Many would say that it is an impossible thing, and I would be led to agree if it wasn’t for one, very simple, quite forgettable, detail: Classes. And Skills. These two things make everything possible, with enough time and work.
So, in the end, it’s not the crows themselves that are strange: it’s their history.
And us humans for constantly changing their nature in our eyes. No, seriously, we should all stop and choose.
Anyways, crows was the theme for the evening: the airship flying behind them was infested by the little birds of stories, Isse was currently cuddling one as she remembered last night’ dream with tears in her eyes, both Moon and Shriya were playing with another by the ship’s wheel, chatting among themselves while their new friend jumped around on its two stick-like legs, cawing merrily as, every now and then, the [Occult Engineer] gave it bits and pieces of meat.
It was a calm evening, all things considered, and Isse could sort of appreciate it even though her heart felt like it was breaking apart all over again.
Thoughts of her soulmate and her sisters whirled around her mind, a maelstrom of memories that clung to the walls of her skull in an attempt to rip it apart and get out, escape, be free. She would’ve given everything to make that happen, to be freed of those saddening thoughts, and at the same time she could remember the emptiness from the time she’d drunk the Tea. Never again would she allow herself that sort of forgetfulness.
It was as all this was happening that, out of the blue, all the crows around them cawed up to the skies, a loud call to arms, a louder still greeting that reached to the clouds and bounced back down to the ground below as the Stars refused to answer. She looked up, watching as they appeared in the slowly darkening sky, little twinkles that merrily looked down at them. Literally. The [Old Man by the Stars] had clearly told her that the stars were, in a way, ‘The System’s Eyes’. What that entailed, she couldn’t tell. After all, [Miners] still gained Levels, and so did the dwarves who lived underground in Mountainhome: all places where the stars’ light couldn’t reach. Therefore there had to be more to it!
More that she couldn’t bring herself to care about as the crows rose up in the skies, the sound of a hundred wingbeats nearly deafening as they formed into a formless shape and dove down towards a now visible city.
All, except for the one she was holding close to her chest and the one currently being fed by Moon.
“Look! He stayed! We have a new friend!” shouted Moon as she whooped towards the sparse clouds overhead.
“You can’t keep him Moon,” of course Shriya had to ruin everything.
“Awww, come on, let’s keep him! We have the food to spare! I promise I’ll look after him and take him on plenty of walkies… flysies… whatever crows do. PLEASE!!!!!” and she used the most effective attack known to humanity as a whole: puppy dog eyes. The fact that Moon’s pupils actually enlarged a lot didn’t surprise Isse slightly.
“Don’t you dare use that Skill on me!” said Shriya as she shielded her eyes and turned away for added cover from that weapon of mass destruction.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Pleaseeeeeeeeeee! Let’s keep him.”
Isse couldn’t contain herself and snorted.
Those two could make the Acharis, you know, the criers from ‘The Neverending Story’, stop crying by just being themselves, she thought.
What are those? Oh… ooooh, well, they’re quite the pitiful creatures. Honestly, what the boy did to them is horrifying, but it’s maybe better than just living all their lives in a cave as they cry.
Couldn’t agree more, sis.
They kept on watching as Siidi used [A Minute, United], allowing her amusement to quench the crystalline flames of her sadness. Warmth pervaded Isse, a blanket of kindness surrounding her human half like… a coat.
I thought the Skill was yours alone, even while sharing, she thought, pleasantly surprised.
It was, yes. But since I last Leveled it gained a bit more power. This memory won’t protect you, but… it helps.
They smirked, now completely as one, and watched as the two girls bickered, Moon trying desperately to enter Shriya’s field of view while she begged her friend (and probably lover, she was starting to believe the crow) to let them keep the volatile as a pet.
It was a long and hard battle, one fought in ‘No’s and ‘Please’ of varying lengths all while weapons of incredible power were unleashed from both parties – namely, the puppy dog eyes, which apparently were a Skill, and a blindfold.
In the end though Moon won by sheer hardheadedness and because she utterly destroyed the birdkin’s patience with her constant begging.
And all the while the distant city kept getting closer and closer. Now, as they looked, their little crow nuzzling their chin with its head, they could see so many details: first and foremost, the city was circular. The perfect form pleased the eye and their very souls. High walls, higher even than those of Tedam, protected it, from the looks of it made from stone and, she noticed a moment later, thick enough to allow two carriages to pass side by side. The outside was smooth, although her enhanced eyes could make out here and there and everywhere little slits from which enterprising defenders could have fun pouring arrows down upon their enemies, while the more sadistic types could do the same… but with boiling oil. Or shit and piss if they were feeling funny.
The insides of the walls though? Oh, those were a sight to behold. Gone was the smoothness lacking decorations of any type, in its place there were statues, dozens, maybe even hundreds of them, and here and there she could clearly see hints of color, as if someone was trying to paint them or outright making a mural. Oh how she wished they would get closer faster so that she may see the details.
Then her eyes moved to the right, towards the center of the city, where a rather impressive castle had been built. Five towers adorned it, the fifth of which stood tallest of all, reaching higher than the walls themselves, and right smack in the very center of the building, on the edge of what appeared to be a grand patio in which she could see… well, she could see green and not much more. It was an interesting sight but… it felt so much less than the rest of the city, as if the builder had not wanted that particular building to stand out and overshadow everything else. No, instead the castle seemed to be mixing together with the rest of the city, giving off a ‘Building like all the others’ feeling, like a tall child in elementary school trying to hide the fact he was different from the others – which is to say, he was failing miserably, but the others seemed to be accepting him for how he was.
“Wonderful place, eh?” asked someone at her side. She recognized the voice as being Moon’s.
“Yep,” she agreed, not moving her eyes away from the sight below her.
They stayed like that for a while, unmoving, uncaring of the rest of the world, just watching the city beneath them slowly getting bigger and bigger, making them realize the sheer scope of the project, their thoughts turning to attempts to figure out just how much work must’ve gone into building such a massive place.
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“Could you believe that not even a decade ago this place was just endless plains in every direction?”
At that Isse blinked and turned to look at the woman, her eyebrows rising.
“Really?”
“Yup. Or so I heard. Mind you, I’m not one to listen to rumors most of the time, but it was my teacher who told me this. The King of Crows appeared one day out of the blue with a kingdom’s worth of people right here, claimed the land, and they began building this wonder.”
Isse frowned at that: “Wait, but if this place was all plains then… how in Airm did they manage to get all the materials they needed?”
Moon shrugged: “Don’t ask me. I’m an [Engineer], not an [Architect], and certainly not a [Builder]. They probably imported the stone from the dwarves and the quarries near the center of Irevia.”
“Aren’t the dwarves on another continent?”
“Yes, but they make some pretty good ships. That is, if you like unsinkable monstrosities that are slower than a snail,” a chuckle escaped her lips, “The shortfolk really don’t like swimming, that’s for sure.”
They smirked, a little quip escaping their lips: “You’re one to talk, up high in the air.”
Suddenly defensive, Moon raised her hands in a placating gesture as, with a smirk of her own, she answered: “In my defense, there ain’t many occasions to swim in the jungles. You take a dip in the rivers one time and between the Vine Fuckers –”
“Vine what?”
“ – yeah, you know, basically vines that use you to reproduce. Or animals in general, they ain’t picky. Anyways, between those, the Drowner Turtles, the flights of Dry Mosquitoes and all the rest, well, one time is enough. As we say in the jungles, put us anywhere but at sea. Jungleborn and water aren’t a winning combination.”
“So you can’t swim?”
“No, of course I can swim!”
“Badly!” shouted Shriya from the helm.
“Yeah, badly. But, in my defense, the first time I got to swim somewhere that didn’t try to kill me was in the City of Temples, and I nearly drowned.”
They chuckled, the Skill reaching its – admittedly longer than a minute now – end, dividing them anew. She felt colder now, the absence of her soul half’s Skill palpable, a reminder that they were and always would be two different beings.
Sometimes, in the dark of the night, in the safety of their Mind Palace, they wondered what it would be like to be one in a permanent way, to go to that crack in the darker depths of their souls and fill the crevasse that represented that division, the wound that had made them two. Their ideas were wild and always somewhat funny, while other times they were certain that the process would destroy them as the sadness they both harbored flooded their uniting minds. The Skill protected them (probably) from such a possibility.
“How long until we get there?” she asked after a short silence where her thoughts wandered.
“An hour at most, I think. The winds are on our side and I’m pretty sure…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, instead reaching in her bag of holding and taking out a spyglass, which she pointed downwards.
“Yup! There’s the welcome committee,” she finished with a smirk.
Again raising her eyebrows, Isse looked down. Indeed, there was… something moving steadily closer to their ship.
She wasn’t even surprised: after spending over half a year in this world and seeing just how much the line between ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ was blurred, seeing a flying person was just another tuesday. Grandmother could’ve probably done the same with added style points.
Although she was rather surprised by the person’s speed: it took them barely a minute to get halfway towards them, close enough for her to start seeing details. It was a blonde woman who, even though it was hard to tell with her angle, looked quite short. She couldn’t see her eyes, nor her face, but she could see she was wearing heavy clothing made to help her resist the cold of the higher altitudes. Hanging from her back was a longbow and a small quiver filled to the brim with arrows.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Hopefully someone friendly.”
That wasn’t reassuring in the least but, right now, she couldn’t bring herself to care that much: the woman getting steadily closer probably had Skills that would’ve allowed her to easily shoot at them from a much greater distance so either she was the kind of person who’d rather look her enemy in the eye as she killed them or she had no hostile intentions towards them. If it was the former then… well, she’d survived worse.
A minute later though she got confirmation that her second theory had been the correct one. The woman appeared beside them and, with a small bow, stepped on the bridge.
“Good evening, fine ladies. I’m [General] Tiana of the Kingdom of Occultism. You are entering our claimed air space uninvited.”
She was, indeed, a very small woman, probably no higher than a meter and thirty, practically a child. And yet, as Isse looked into the woman’s bright blue eyes, she saw a maturity forged in blood not unlike her own. The presence of a slight smile on her lips that promised violence also helped communicate that.
Isse couldn’t help herself, a smile of her own forming on her lips, only slightly less unhinged.
Moon looked around for a moment, as if the clouds could tell her what to say to this woman. Then, in a display of absolute brilliance, she shoved her hands towards Tiana, her new crow on the palms: “He invited me. And his brothers. And sisters.”
Tiana opened her mouth, then closed it, then looked both at the crow – which cawed in greeting – and Moon. Finally, she spoke: “You know, I would’ve told you that I was here to give you the permission to pass right in, but now you gave me a better reason and you also ruined my fun.”
She pouted in a most childish manner before bursting out into laughter.
“No matter. You are approved to land in the specified landing zone.”
She took a step back, her fur lined boot stepping on the air on the other side of the railing as if there was some invisible platform awaiting her. With a snap of her fingers a small area underneath them right outside the city’s walls lit up brightly.
“I’ll accompany you all the way down, as per Ravenspoken’s request.”
Both Moon and Isse frowned: “And who might that be?”
“Oh,” said the woman with nonchalance, waving her hand around as if to say it wasn’t anything important, “He’s just the King of Crows. We’re on a name to name basis. Or, well, name to surname. Says some bullshit happened and he no longer has one. Anyways, we’re pals!”
Isse, who had grown up with stories and films and fictions about how kings were dignified, lonely, men who only had a few people around them to help make decisions and few friends that could and, usually, would betray them by the end, found this concept slightly… improbable.
“You’re… pals? With the local king?”
She shrugged: “He’s an ok man. Pretty great conversationalist too. And friendly. Probably ‘cause he made himself [King] from scratch instead of inheriting the title like many other snot nosed brats.”
Far, far, away from them, in Eva, [King] Alban III felt his ears whistle for some reason.
“Anyways, he told me we’d be housing an ‘arachne’, whatever that is. Said it would look like a woman with a spider’s body attached to her ass? She hidden underneath?”
Isse’s mind took a few seconds to register what had just been said and, the moment she did, she burst out laughing. She hadn’t believed Albert when he’d told her that all information about the arachne had been suppressed (or rather, that the College had tried) but this? This proved it completely, and for some reason that was funnier than hearing the way she’d been described.
“What? Did I say something funny?” she asked with a smirk that said she knew exactly what she’d said was meant to be funny.
Instead of answering Isse tugged at her connection with the dress of Shifting Silk and, in an instant, the illusion built out of fabric, shadows and light dissipated. Her human legs, or the impression of their presence, flickered, in their place now her softly-furred spider half as a flap of fabric gently eased itself down, a simple snowflake stitched on it.
The woman took a step back upon seeing the sudden change, then smirked: “Well damn, had I known it was you I wouldn’t have made the butt comment.”
The arachne smiled back: “No offense was taken. I’m rather pleased you’re not horrified or trying to kill me on sight.”
“Kill you? Me? No thanks, I don’t kill sexy things.”
Isse choked on nothing at that, her throat overtaken by a coughing fit while in the back of her mind Siidi cackled like a madwoman: I like her already.
As for Moon, she began laughing as well. The only person who didn’t look amused was Shriya, who’d stayed silent this whole time while also never taking her eyes off Tiana.
“Could we please stop with the flirting? She’s barely legal, if at all,” she said, her tone expressing slight disgust.
At that Tiana began laughing uproariously, the sound so loud and booming – so out of place for her tiny body – it slightly deafened Isse.
“Sorry gal, I ain’t looking for any relationship. If I ever find myself someone to love it’ll be a game of survival, not one of them ‘lovey dovey smoochies everywhere’ situations.”
That was how they were introduced to Tiana.
Luckily for them, that wasn’t all that the King of Occultism had in store for them. Or unluckily. Isse would spend the years to come uncertain about which one it was.