Half Sick of Shadows

LAYER ONE: THE OUTSIDE.

name:  Thief-in-the-night-the-damndest-thing-you-ever-did-see-in-corax-notoriety-quite-persistently-dresses-in-black-and-talks-to-things-that-aren’t-there.  But you may call me....Quothe.

eye color:  Iridescent gold

hair style/color: perfectly preened black feathers

height: 1ft9 {or five foot, depending}

clothing style: immaculate.

best physical feature: strikingly majestic beak.

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE

your fears: That this meme will never end.

your guilty pleasure: triple bacon cheeseburgers

your biggest pet peeve: Luka.

your ambitions for the future: ...ruining other people’s plans.

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS

your first thoughts waking up: We meet again, Helios.

what you think about most:  little suns.

what you think about before bed: where little suns go when it is dark outside.

you think your best quality is: I am perfection. What is not to love?

LAYER FOUR: WHAT’S BETTER?

single or group dates:  vodka.

to be loved or respected: To be the seed of someone else’s mortal terror.

beauty or brains: Eyeballs.

dogs or cats: Corvids.

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU…

lie: I do not know meaning of this word. 

believe in yourself:  Of course. Who else will?

believe in love: You ask too many question.

want someone: Also you are terrible person. Learn context.

LAYER SIX: EVER BEEN…

been on stage: Stupid question. Ravens are largest songbirds.

done drugs: ~makes gagging sounds~

changed who you were to fit in: Did you not hear me first time when I mention I am perfection?

LAYER SEVEN: FAVORITES

favorite color: ...black. Until they find darker colour. Also, green.

favorite animal:  Tulukaruq

favorite movie: One with Brandon Lee as Undead Mime.

favorite game: chess.

LAYER EIGHT: AGE

day your next birthday will be: Winter

how old will you be: ...Rude.

age you lost your virginity: It is...complicated. You would say... sixteen.

does age matter: Are you carding?

LAYER NINE: IN A PERSON

best personality: Dauntless.

best eye color: Endless.

best hair color: Fire.

best thing to do with a partner: <insert sounds of judgmental nature>  

LAYER TEN: FINISH THE SENTENCE

i love: with all my being.

i feel: this has gone on too long.

i hide: my heart.

i miss: days gone by.

i wish: It doesn’t matter.

So he has had something made for her. Something special, and something unique. And no he does not care that the raven doesn’t really need it, nor really need the raven sized pool installed behind it.

He thought she should have it therefore she did. And never mind the purposefully shiny silver bow and carefully woven miniature wreath hung over the door. She can do with them as she pleases.

If any of the animal crackers like herself celebrated holidays, then those would be obscure, regional, and related to their totems and auspices and tribes, or closer to what their human kin {sometimes charges, sometimes victims} reveled in. Same with the Dream Kin, the Caern Raiders, even the spooks. She’s heard tell leeches do it to, but of all the things Quothe has mixed with, she only ever had befriended one fangy-fangy-bitey-bitey. And it had been so long ago the details are a little fuzzy beyond the reminiscence of fraying, mouldering black robes and a Romanian accent.

Luka had always been different though, hadn’t he?

And so when the winter solstice rolls around and after they’ve ~the Corax as a species~ have celebrated the rebirth of Helios, she finds the air cold and small, hollow bones desirous of warmth and light. She’s been too far gone from her seemingly eternal Siberian nights, and the frigid, lethal temperatures that clung to it.

She bypasses doors and windows and the moral fortitude to knock first and be invited in by slipping through a thinning of the Veil, leaving the spirit realm of the umbra for the more hospitable comfort of his apartment. Not that she particularly likes this one, it always seems to carry a little of the blood and dirt and foreignness of that caern raider he so loves to have torture him, which would make her nose wrinkle if beaks were capable of such things. He’s not here. She can feel that. And if experience is any teacher, she has time to change out of her feathers and into something a little more suitably kinky with which to run a hot bath for his aching bones, full of alchemical balms to soothe tired muscle.

Looking from the outside, some people would call her a devilish thorn in his side for all that she jabs and pokes at his sorest places, but that’s only to remind him of his strength. Truth is, she knows his weaknesses and rather than exploiting them, she tries to soothe them in whatever ways she can within the structure of the rules, even if that means sharing him with whatever two-legs catches his fancy out of loneliness.

But even Quothe can admit to being taken aback when he surprises her. The Birdhouse is really quite spectacular, as it is massive and she wonders where he’s been building it, and how long it’s taken. Curiosity drives her and she hops from chair to shelf to perch, examining it while her head tilts this way and that. The minaret isn’t exactly that, and it looks nothing like the homes from her youth but then again, most people didn’t exactly have more than some twigs and dirt when they were young. Eventually, the thing is approached. A series of little jumps closer and closer to the doorway. 

Green and yellow track her…all three of her…as she finds perch elsewhere. A slight sway to his frame as he processes her question and comment. And maybe it’s only a few beats to slow that the smirk becomes a sloppy kind of smile, as an off key tune comes fumbling out of him.

     “Great green globs o’ greasy, grimy gopher guts, Mu’dilated monkey meat. Dir’dy li’ddle birdie feet….”

Whatever else might have followed gets lost in an unseemly kind of of giggling. Arms tucking against him and feet switch footing to keep him upright. Though he quickly finds an alternative. Descending into his chair by way of the arm rest. Settling a little too hard into it, his laughter increasing a bit even as he’s trying to speak.

         “Ye be gettin’ i’…..ye were ba’din’….”

Her eyes roll. Wildly. Independently. In different directions. Almost into the back of her skull. Because of course he’s piss drunk AND high as fuck. Of. Course.  “Which you clearly know nozhing about. I can smell from here.” If she had nostrils they would flare, but she does rub her incredibly sharp and long beak against her breast-bone feathers, the bird equivalent of a disdainful sniff. But for all her veneer of snark and sarcasm, beneath it all there’s a very real sorrow because something’s had to happen to put him in this state where he’s mixing the things that dull his senses. Still awake...conscious, maybe a better word for it, there isn’t anything she can do without spilling the whole secret and while Raven kind love to talk, well. This secret she’s been keeping to herself for longer than the world can remember. She resents it, she’s always holding up her end of the bargain and always getting diddly-squat for it.

tracked from [x]

There may or may not be something to the smirk on his face. Which also may or may not have anything to do with the smell of liquor stuck to his lips and the greenery clinging to the very crown she stands on.

                  “H’oi.”

“...” If anyone could make silence sound like a thousand words, it was this particular corax. Who was never so far a-wing that she couldn’t hear her heart calling out to her wherever he may be.  But he’s also piss drunk. Which mean she was losing an opportunity to truly be with him by wearing her feathers rather than her monkey-skin.