#halfstack stories

Kelpies don't deal in children.

Too tender. Too bony. Too small. Such pitiful meat for all too much effort that would be better spared on a full sized drowned. Besides, children- and their parents- make for very sore losers.

It's just bad sport.

But this particular kelpie, it seems, doesn't care much for sport. Not enough to keep refusing Lynel's request to substitute their mother's life with their own after she wagered too much to walk away from.

That’s how it always starts. A wager- a wager of a waterhorse, and whatever dumb motherfucker is desperate enough to bet their own living meat for coin.

(Like Mother did.)

It’s- it’s a fair trade, is what it is. One life for another. Their little brothers still need Mother to come back home tomorrow, and she'll have one less mouth to feed. It's not like Lynel really regrets the whole thing. They just hope they'll at least get to go to bed first. Or have some food. Dead people are supposed to get last meals, or something like that.

(Lynel isn’t counting on it.)

It's nightfall now, and it seems like this kelpie isn’t interested in making an easy meal out of the night creatures that’ll be crawling out of the woodwork soon. Lynel supposes that’s fair. If they had a choice between eating zombies and literally anything else, they’d go for the latter. Besides, the kelpie had been kicking up that big fuss earlier about not wanting to get their nice clothes ruined. They’re barely even willing to touch Lynel at all. In the growing darkness, their presence is reduced to nothing but a clawed hand digging into Lynel’s shirt.

The kelpie’s grip spasms. They turn around, an irritated snarl pulling against their too-long lips as they pull Lynel closer. “Business is closed. There are no more refunds.”

“Na?” A figure steps out into the fading light. “What refund do y’ think I might be de-mandin’? That’s no child o’ mine.”

It’s a man, or something like one. A small tengu in dark wings and a darker coat that gives its body a round, soft shape. Pipe smoke rolls out in sparks of color, the sunset fade of its clothes and hat-tassels stark against the encroaching night.

The kelpie snorts disdainfully. “There’s always some bleeding heart that wants to beg for my debtors.” Their clawed hand clenches down on Lynel’s shoulder. “This whole night has been a waste of time. Let me pass before the locals think I have a taste for bad meat.”

The tengu’s smile turns sharp, flat. “Oh, I don’t plan to beg, le. I’ll trade you fair and square.”

The tengu takes off its coat, arms rolling with the movement of its wings as it shrugs the fabric off its body. But the soft bright hues of its shirt does fuck all to hide its full chest, broad shoulders, and powerful arms- there’s a lithe, practiced ease to its movements, and the stark black feathers around its wings and face glint like copper and gold, the warm tones singing with a soft richness of magic.

The kelpie’s defensive sneer shifts with perked ears and a sickeningly curious head tilt. The disdainful curl of their mouth warps into this leering softness, frightening and hungry, and for some reason, it feels like that's exactly what the tengu wants.

“Shuai ge, here’s what’s gonna happen.” The tengu’s head jerks to the dock. “We’re takin' that last ride outta town, and you an’ I are gonna play an ea-sy game o’ cards. Hao le ma?”

“In exchange for the child, I imagine,” the kelpie teases.

The tengu lets out a coy hum. “I think you wouldn’t mind too terr-i-bly if we let ‘em go either way.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Lynel hears the click of the tengu’s cane as they walk up to the incoming ship. It’s an odd thing to have. The tengu sounds… not young, really, but not quite old enough to be needing a cane, especially with that all too literal skip in its bouncing step.

It's hard to keep track of the details after that. Lynel never really had time to play those kind of games, and it's not like they can see what the two are playing anyways.

What's so special about kelpie games, anyway? The only two endings are getting a boatload of money or just dying. Why did Mother even need money so bad in the first place? Everything was fine before she got so paranoid. But no, she'd packed off while all Lynel's little brothers were out for school, and Lynel had been stupid enough to follow her.

Stupid enough to take her place. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If only they'd been a little less tired, a little less hungry. What was even the last thing Lynel ate? A corn chip. Their last meal on this godforsaken earth is a corn chip. That's what they'll be dying for, a single corn chip-

“Oh, you thieving little MAGPIE-”

Lynel barely has time to flinch as the kelpie surges across the table, clawed arms lunging forward to pin the tengu against the wall. But it’s the kelpie that looks threatened, not the tengu- the kelpie’s fine suit is disheveled with rage, while the tengu limply leans against the wooden surface with a languid smile and laughs. The motion pulls against the red markings on the edge of its eyes like a delighted, blood-tinged squint.

Sightmarks. The tengu’s an honest-to-Ortet diviner.

“Y’ really didn’t see what was on my face from the be-ginning?” The tengu tilts its shadowed head, letting out a coy sound. “Ke ai, le.”

“Most people who want to try their luck know better than to cheat,” the kelpie growls.

“I said it’d be easy,” the tengu laboriously articulates. “I didn’t say it’d be easy for you.” Its eyes flick back to Lynel, the first hint of nervousness it’s dared to show this entire round. “An’ I know you ain’t fixin’ t’ keep the child an-y-ways. Y’know what happens to kelpies that start puttin’ young meat on their ledgers.”

The kelpie relinquishes their hold, like the touch of the tengu’s body burns. “Bloody fucking fortune tellers.”

The kelpie starts to leave the room. Lynel shakily gets up to their feet. “Wait, wait-” They trail after the kelpie uneasily, following them onto the deck. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“What do I care?” the kelpie rhetorically asks as they walk off the edge of the boat. “Have a life, human child.”

“But-”

The water splashes. Lynel and the tengu watch the damp shadow of the kelpie disappear.

After a moment, the tengu lets out a loud wheezing sound, chest suddenly heaving with clicking, rattling breaths.

“Aiyo.” A sturdy, red-taloned arm braces across its chest. “Kiasi le.” It looks down at Lynel with a worn smile. “Good t’ see that one leave, eh? Big man with their big words.”

“Why are you acting so scared all the sudden?” Lynel sputters. “I’m the one that was gonna get eaten!”

The tengu frowns. “Gin na, I don’t want you to be eaten le. Wo hui ben si le, ma? Whole time, I’m tryin’ to get that one away from you. Why else d’ya reckon I’d get so close to a water horse?”

Lynel can barely understand half the words coming out of the tengu’s mouth, and maybe it shows, because the tengu freezes in place a little bit and slows its next words. It’s a nice thought, probably, but it really just points out that the guy is barely moving its mouth when it talks, and it’s kind of creepy.

“You gave yourself away, yes?” the tengu slowly asks. Lynel nods, and the tengu mirrors the motion. “That okay, le. You are not in trou-ble. Too young. Is there someone I can give you back to?”

“My- my mother brought me here,” Lynel haltingly answers.

The tengu closes its eyes and takes a deep breath. “If I take you t’ your mother, she wants you back?”

“Of course she does!” Lynel shouts. “It weren’t her fault!”

The tengu raises its hands. “Okay le! Okay. Then I take you home, okay?”

Lynel nods. It’ll be fine. They’ll go home and be done with it and be fine.

=[]=

It was not, in fact, fine.

Things were so not-fine, in fact, that Lynel ended up never really going home at all. Because they didn’t want to go home anymore, ever again.

That’s how not-fine it is.

Fadir Ravenslove perches on the train seat next to Lynel. Fadir Ravenslove- this is the name of the tengu that saved Lynel’s life, and Lynel’s starting to think that maybe it’s not quite a tengu at all. Not with that shadow over its face and the odd lilt of its sentences, like speech was some kind of novelty it doesn’t quite understand.

They’re sitting close enough to touch. Neither of them do.

Lynel looks up to find the larger… raven… thing staring directly into their eyes. Lynel startles, just a bit, and Fadir draws back slightly, eyes turning away. 

“Paisei,” Fadir mutters. “Paisei.” It clicks to itself. “Ah- ni- ni hui-” 

It stumbles and stutters over its words, mouth opening and closing out of sync with its odd little sounds. 

“D’you want t’ talk about it?” it finally manages.

“No,” Lynel lies. “Why did you give my mother all that money?” they ask instead.

“She don’t deserve t’ go hungry on ac-count of coins,” Fadir easily answers. “An’ she has kids to feed, besides.”

“You need to eat, too,” Lynel quietly insists.

Fadir chuckles. “I don’t need money t’ do that. Besides, I can just get more, le.”

A silence passes.

“It’s cus she stopped,” Lynel suddenly says. “She- she waited- she-”

“Hes-i-tate.”

“That. You showed up in that house with me and a bunch of coins spillin’ out your sleeves like broken jug, and she- she hesitated.” Lynel’s voice turns small. “Like she wasn’t sure she wanted me back, even if you paid her for it.”

Fadir tilts its head. “I think she is very stressed all the time. Only her in that house to take care o’ y’all.” It gestures with its fingers. “Y’leave anybody alone like that too long, their brains get cruel, le. Makes ‘em think things they don’t want to. It ain’t her fault.”

“I don’t care.” Lynel curls up against themself in the seat. “She still thought it. I just- how am I supposed to back home, if I’m always gonna know she did that?”

Fadir’s smile gains a sad tilt.

“I don’t care if she didn’t mean it,” Lynel shakily whispers. “I don’t care if she loves me. It wasn’t enough.” Their eyes start to flood with tears. “I wasn’t enough.”

Fadir stares at Lynel for a bit and lets out a sigh. “I’m not tellin’ you t’ go back home for anything, am I?”

“I’m not going,” Lynel insists. “I don’t care where you put me, just not there.”

“Okay, le.” A taloned hand hesitantly rests in Lynel’s hair. “I know somewhere you can stay.”

“Just for a little bit,” Lynel promises. “And then I’ll- I’ll leave. I promise.”

(And they never did.)

=[]=

There’s a routine falling into place at Ravenslove Tower, and it goes something like this.

Lynel wakes up in a room they don’t share with anyone else, in a clean bed with a blanket that doesn’t have holes in it. The window does have holes, but they’re like… on purpose holes. Lattice? Something.

There’s also a full staircase of chests and drawers that Fadir said they could use. A full staircase! It doesn’t have a lot of stuff in it, but Fadir said they could work on that. Lynel’s… almost counting on that, actually.

(Almost.)

They go down their staircase, past the workroom and towards the hearth. Fadir passes a quick bowl of fruit towards them across the table and asks them to check if the chickens have any eggs.

“Alright, just this once,” Lynel allows. “You can’t make me do it again.”

And it never did. (It never does.) Fadir never really gives Lynel chores, just… things to do if they have the time. There’s a lot of things to do around the house. Fetch the eggs, fill the trough, turn the chickens out, check the garden hasn’t done anything odd, see if the sniffer’s brought anything in for the pantry.

Fadir absolutely doesn’t ask Lynel to do much more in the house than keep their own room clean or wash up their dishes if they aren’t busy. In fact, Fadir seems pretty insistent on Lynel not fussing around with anything inside, especially not the work room.

(Lynel doesn’t know what’s inside the work room and they’re too scared to ask.)

There’s also the… guy(?) who lives in the walls. A fluffy haired imp in a crop top that swaggers around outdoors in a leather jacket, chaps, and tiny white boots, judging Lynel’s chicken related ventures with a scrutinizing black gaze. His name is Kibble. (Allegedly.) He doesn’t seem to do much more than bother chickens, bother Fadir, and steal deli meat from the ice box.

He also shows up when Fadir goes shopping, so there’s that. Shopping is…

…it’s gotta be one of the events of all time.

“Zhe ge, ne?” Fadir’s knobbly hands lift a papaya out of a cardboard box. “Gei ni hui kan.”

“Fuckin’ uhhhh-” Kibble squints at the fruit’s freckled surface. “It looks a little too green. There’s definitely some better ones in the box.”

Fadir lets out a short hum and puts the fruit back, hand hovering over the pile. Kibble hops off its shoulder, bouncing off the wood of the stall to disappear into a nearby barrel, only visible by the remnants of his long tail.

“You go pick something out,” Fadir offers suddenly. “Anythin'. I pay for you.”

Lynel points questioningly to themself.

“They’ve got nearly everythin’ ‘round here,” Fadir insists. “Bound t’ have somethin’ you like.”

Lynel ducks their head between their shoulders. “Can’t you pick it out with your…” They gesture vaguely at the black shadow covering up Fadir’s face.

Fadir’s expression seems to freeze for a moment. A statue held in place. And then its eyes stutter back into motion, and the moment is gone.

“I want t’ see what you choose.” Its hand briefly taps at Lynel’s knuckles. “What you choose. Ne?”

Anything, it said. Anything at all? That’s, uh- that’s sure a lot of thing. Lynel’s not really sure what to do with that. But… Fadir didn’t say they had to pick something out right now. (Right?) So- Lynel’s just going to look around a little bit. They don’t want to go too far away.

Just a little off to the side, there’s a candy stand, its boxes piled high with every sort of sugary thing it could manage. Candied flowers, rose jams, pumpkin slices, even candied meats. And right in the corner, nestled between some candied nuts and colorful chocolates, was a little box of marshmallows.

Lynel was never allowed to have marshmallows before. Mother bought plenty of candied fruits and meats when she could (it lasted longer than anything fresh), but never marshmallows. Large, fluffy, and devoid of substance. Fadir would never let them eat something like that, not while it fusses over how thin it thinks Lynel is. Surely not.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Lynel’s hands still end up wrapping around a little box of frog shaped marshmallows.

“Wa!” Fadir sidles up behind Lynel to stare at the candy cart. “Powder sugar le! I can sugar my basil flowers.”

“You candy your flowers?” Lynel asks. “I guess it makes them easier to sell…”

“Sometimes, le,” Fadir concedes before its smile gains a coy squint. “But! They are just good t’ have, ne? Not very good, but-” It lets out a sharp chirp. “Y’ don’t need everythin’ t’ be all well n’ good all the time-”

Its body suddenly stiffens, feathers puffing out like an angry cat’s hackles. Lynel follows its gaze to find…

…Kibble. Just standing there. Holding a single avocado and the smuggest possible grin on its face.

“No,” Fadir tersely says.

“It’s on sale, señor,” Kibble teases.

“No sale,” Fadir denies. “Only death.”

“It is in season!” Kibble insists, pushing the avocado closer. “You deny Ortet’s bounty?”

Fadir clutches its cane and hisses. “I de-ny you want to kill me! Poi-son me!”

Kibble hoists the avocado over his head. “The power of Ortet compels you!”

Fadir lightly bats Kibble away. Instead of just dropping the avocado like a normal person, Kibble decides to fly backwards into the supporting wall of the stall and ricochet directly into Fadir’s face, allowing the offending fruit to drop directly into Fadir’s hand.

A single weary golden eye looks down at Lynel as Kibble scrabbles for purchase on its hat.

“Every day I wake up,” the raventhing ominously mutters.

Lynel wheezes out a loud laugh.

“Aiiiyi, wo tai lao le,” Fadir sarcastically despairs. “No face. Children laugh at me.” It offers the avocado to Lynel. “You want my poison? Human fruit, good for you.”

Lynel simply offers up their marshmallow box like a meager shield. “Can I just have this instead?”

Instead of saying yes or no, Fadir places another marshmallow box on top of Lynel’s.

“So you don’t run out,” it offers.

“I’m not even gonna stay that long,” Lynel mutters. “I probably won’t even be here by next week.”

“And then you won’t run out while you’re gone,” Fadir simply says.

“R-right. Until it runs out.”

“Fadir!”

Lynel grumbles and turns over in their sheets, cracking open an eye to look out the window. It’s barely even twilight. Who goes out this early?

Another insistent knock rattles from outside the door.

“I know you’re home!” the voice insists. “And I know you don’t sleep!”

Lynel curls their hand into the blanket, only to meet the sudden resistance of solid muscle. There was never a blanket at all- just Fadir’s arm loosely cradling Lynel’s head with a sleeve colored like autumn leaves, and a dark wing spread across their back.

“Fadir, please,” the voice begs. “It’s almost sunrise. I’ll be stuck under your porch all day at this rate.”

Lynel frowns and looks up at the raventhing. Its eyes darting under its lids, yellow brows all furrowed as it whispers under its breath. Should they try and wake it up?

Something rattles out of the boxes by the hearth wall. A glowing blue creature with beady white eyes, papery wings flitting about, jostling the red ribbon of a bell collar. One of those freonds that always follow Fadir around- an allay, wasn’t it? As it floats closer, a thin blue frond peaks out from under a golden shawl and starts carelessly batting at Fadir’s face like a spoiled pet cat.

“It breached th’ Ore walls,” Fadir whispers, “we need t’ raise th’ bridge,  someone tell Queen-”

The allay roughly shoves Fadir’s head, practically bullying it back to its feet before dragging it towards the kitchen. Another allay, now disturbed enough to emerge from its own box, shuffles its tiny appendages over its mouth before going to pull the ribbon on the door, forcing the knob open.

“Ah. Muninn’s runnin’ the show today, then?” Heavy footsteps scuff against the welcome mat. “Can’t be helped, I suppose. I can wait.”

Lynel peeks over the back of the chair they’d accidentally napped in. There’s a tall human figure with puffy strawberry blond hair tied back into a scruffy ponytail, body swallowed up by a large green coat. Or maybe not quite human. Their nails are dark and thick, and their ears have a pointed, dog-like shape, swiveling as they turn around to lock eyes with Lynel’s scrutinizing gaze. Lynel stares back at a bearded face with white hairs, the milky pupils of green eyes squinting past a patchwork of raking scars.

…So that’s a dead guy! That’s- that’s definitely a dead guy!

“Are you… supposed to be here?” Lynel hesitantly asks, shrinking back ever so slightly.

“Ah, I’m just from up the road,” the (dead?) man dismissively says. They appraise Lynel for a moment before approaching to lean their body against the head of the chair, arm slung out the other side as if offering an awkward handshake. “Carlisle Carmilla. Cryptkeeper of Slovenguard. Someone’s gotta keep track of all those bodies they chuck int’ Pando’s guts.”

“They put bodies in there?” Lynel horrifiedly asks.

“Oh, loads!” Carlisle cheerfully answers. “Most times it’s just dead gods an’ players, but you get the odd lads ‘n the like who just walk in there ‘cus they ain’t keen to be buried the normal way.”

“Dead people in the backyard,” Lynel gravely repeats.

“Not the backyard,” Carlisle corrects. “More of th’ side yard, really. Or the front yard! I’d much rather trust a dead man to my front than my back, to be honest.” Their eyes flick to Fadir- Fadir in the kitchen, unfocused eyes staring down at a pocket watch while its allays hover nervously around its head. “Speakin’ of the dead. How long’s that whole show been goin’ on for?”

“Um- I don’t- I don’t know,” Lynel haltingly reveals. “Should… we call someone?”

Carlisle shakes their head. “It’s fine. Those episodes never last that long anyways.”

“Yi, jiu, qi, ling, yi, er, san-” A talon loudly clicks the pocket watch shut, and Fadir’s cloudy expression snaps into focus like a photograph. “Carlisle. You forgetting again your keys.”

“I did not forget my keys!” A pause. “This time.” A chubby black and white cat pops its face out of Carlisle’s bag, the white mustache pattern on its face giving its icy blue eyes a smug look. Carlisle gives it a consoling scratch on the chin. “One of your raven children walked off with the crypt keys when I went back in for my umbrella. Just snatched them right out the gate!”

“An’ you didn’t get your um-brel-la,” Fadir guesses.

“And I didn’t even get my umbrella,” Carlisle confirms.

Fadir sighs. “My children are better than that. Prob-ably one of the grandchild, le.” It roughly cracks its neck. “You stay here. Have phan-tom candy le. I steal your keys back.”

It swipes its hand at the air in front of itself, and a bamboo cane falls into its palm. It grabs at its jacket as it goes back out the door, tasseled hat left on its rack.

Carlisle snorts as they rifle through the cabinets, hand emerging with a paper bag. “Jokes on that guy, I’m takin’ its whole stash.” They offer the open bag to Lynel. “Daylight just takin’ the absolute piss outta me. Grab yourself a few before I eat you out of house an’ home.”

Lynel had never had phantom meat before staying with Fadir. Apparently avian origins eat it alot. The white wing flesh was all fatty and chewy like bacon, and when Fadir cooked it up, always pleasantly crunchy. Even drowning the stuff in sugar for storage did little to take away its filling taste.

“So you’re the new kid ‘round these parts, right?” Carlisle starts. “Lynel or summat.”

Lynel’s full cheeks puff with embarrassment. “I’m not anybody’s kid. I just live here.”

Carlisle’s teasing squint pulls at a scar tearing into one of their eyes. “If you say so.”

Lynel fidgets with their hands as Carlisle goes back to tearing into the snacks. “Um- do you, uh- do you know-”

“Don’t you dare assume I know anything on Ortet’s accursed earth,” Carlisle interrupts. “You wouldn’t believe how stupid I am.”

“That thing that happened to Fadir just now, I mean,” Lynel clarifies. “You knew what that was. What was that?”

Carlisle’s mouth flattens. “You don’t go askin’ me about that sort of thing. Mans is right there.”

Lynel sticks their tongue out. “Pbbt.”

“Think about it.” Carlisle leans towards Lynel’s seat. “You wouldn’t want me askin’ Fadir about your damage-”

“I don’t have damage-”

“You’re adopted,” Carlisle bluntly points out, “that’s damage enough. And I wouldn’t go askin’ around you for all the sordid details, now would I? Goes both ways. If you want to ask about Fadir, you’d best be gettin’ it from the old bird itself. Talkin’ around it is just mean.”

The door swings open again, and Fadir re-emerges with several ravens on its arm. “Ai, Carlisle, are you scarin’ children again?”

“Absolutely not,” Carlisle immediately answers, like they were some kind of liar who does, in fact, scare children on a regular basis.

“Mm.” Fadir jangles around a large metal keyring in one of its knobbly hands. “They were trying to play swords with it again.”

“You’d think they’d learn by now,” Carlisle flatly notes.

“Ah, but they do,” Fadir corrects as it tosses the keys into Carlisle’s waiting hands. “And then the new ones next year start it all over, le.” It waggles its now free hand at the bin by the door. “You take one of the um-brel-la to do your things. I take back later, hao ma?”

“Fair enough.”

Carlisle slaps the bag of phantom candy back onto the counter and stretches out their arms with a horrifying full-body bone crunch.

“I’ll be off, then.” Carlisle gives Lynel an awkward pat on the head. “Don’t be a stranger! You’re always welcome at the crypt, alive or dead.”

The cat in Carlisle’s bag stares at Lynel as they leave.

Fadir sighs. “They didn’t say anything bad, ne? Carlisle is not too bad, but- ehhhh- a little bad to talk to people. Death scares people away.”

You’d best be gettin’ it from the old bird itself. Talkin’ around it is just mean.

“Just, uh, dead people in the backyard,” Lynel decides to say. “It wasn’t anything bad.”

=[]=

So anyways, it was a little bad.

It wasn’t like Carlisle said anything bad. Carlisle was nice (kind of) (sort of) (in their strange, “what’s up I’m a dead guy” way), but they did accidentally point out a thing Lynel noticed was more than just, well, Lynel being Lynel again.

Something’s a little wrong with Fadir Ravenslove.

And it’s not the way it talks, or some of the odd expressions in its smile, or the way it laughs. Pretty much all of that can be chalked up to having a shakier grasp on Anglos and a face that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself- it was a raven once, or so it insists.

But its sentences will halt and stutter, interrupted with frozen smiles and lost expressions. Its eye will catch on the most random objects and linger, hypnotized, until its allays steer it away. It hardly ever sleeps, but when it does, it wakes up with foreign sentences crawling out of its mouth like spiders, the haunted syllables of some ancient ghost asserting itself for a moment before Fadir remembers what it is again.

It doesn’t happen a lot- never for long, never enough for other people to really notice- but it happens. And it keeps happening.

And then Fadir got that package in the mail.

The houses in Slovenguard are too far apart to bother putting up a mailman to ride to all of them, so they’ve got this sort of neighborhood box by the town entrance, close to the station. Fadir’s been having Lynel take the mail on the way back from school, just to get familiar with how things work around here.

烏鴉愛, Drakon Alchemical. That first bit is Fadir’s name in Guanhua, and then… Drakon. Like that crazy drug company? 

PATIENT: 烏鴉愛 (C-PTS) JD circuit-32 (x16) SSRI antipsychotic/neuropathic (x64)

Lynel understood some of those letters individually, but none of them can be good. There’s only one course of action left.

Stealing Mr. Carmilla’s computer.

…Okay, maybe not steal it. That would be mean. But they do have the motem box they use for putting in the death records, and Lynel’s been learning how to look things up at school, and somewhere over the course of thinking this Lynel realized they could literally just look this up at school instead of crafting a weird dead people motem heist.

(They may be stupid.)

After finagling with the school machine for a bit that yes, Lynel meant C-PTS, not C-PTSD, whatever that means, they found it some directory of mental illnesses.

Prophetic Tangent Syndrome (PTS) is a disruptive set of symptoms caused by overexposure to divination magic, creating an unending “tangent” state where any external stimuli can trigger dissociative space-time perceptions (prophetic tangents). This state worsens common divination side effects like anxiety, hypervigilance, and paranoia. PTS and prophetic tangent episodes are an accepted work hazard for diviners and usually don’t last for longer than two weeks. PTS is treatable with assisted care and removing prophetic stimuli.

PTS that lasts longer than one month, or keeps coming back without exposure, is classified as Complex Prophetic Tangent Syndrome (C-PTS). It is no longer a temporary sickness, but a chronic disability that can permanently damage a person’s memory, responsiveness, and awareness of their surroundings. Without assistance or treatment, a person can lose hours or days at a time to prophetic stimuli, or unexpectedly lose consciousness to sudden violent visions. Many diagnosed persons need the assistance of service animals, and some may be unable to live on their own.

Truly understanding this condition beyond legend and hearsay did not occur until around the 1940s, but early studies suggest that C-PTS may have had a 30% indirect mortality rate per year among its numbers-

Lynel didn’t read much after that. The words kind of melted together.

30%. That’s- that’s more than one in four. A one in four chance, every day of every year, to fall down and never get back up again.

That’s not fair.

That’s- that’s not fair.

It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair IT’S NOT FAIR-

=[]=

Most of the time, Fadir doesn’t get concrete visions. That’s not really how it works, not anymore. It’s like… a thought. A sudden strong sense to be somewhere, to do a certain thing, buy a specific piece of food at a stall. Shards of arbitrary nonsense, sauntering vaguely downwards towards a better future.

Like how Fadir walks out of its work room after lunch, closes its eyes by one of the window seats for a bit, and wakes up with its foot halfway out the door holding a very pointed train map to Lynel’s school in its hand. Because apparently fate is deciding to be unsubtle today.

It learns to trust these sort of things. The same way it trusts to take note of the yakimochi stand by the station as it exits, as if neither it or Lynel might be back in time for dinner at home. The way it trusts to perch on top of the call box in time for someone to consider using the thing- a teacher with nervous eyes, tense body startled by a raven’s long shadow.

“You were going t’ call me,” Fadir says.

The teacher opens their beak. “Mr. Ravenslove-” (Wrong.) Don’t press it. “-we were just about to call you.” Only you. The other wanted to send Lynel home on their own. “There’s- well, nothing’s wrong, honestly,” Liar. Polite. Doesn’t want you to panic. (So don’t.) “-just-”

The teacher- tengu- tiangou- it’s the tiangou who have those dog-like ears, who wear hanfu instead of kimono- Stalling. Talk.

“Where’s Ah-lai?” Fadir softly interrupts. “Where’s Lynel?”

The teacher said something about Lynel crying during the motem class, and Fadir felt its hand tense around its cane-

-and then it was staring at the clicking mechanism of its own pocket watch in a doctor’s office. School. Not a hospital. Lynel is sitting behind the divider doing the classwork they’re about to miss. (Their lunch box still has the chips left in it.)

Fadir doesn’t search for Lynel’s distress in the past or future. It maneuvers itself around the divider, knees protesting as it kneels in front of the child of the present, and opens its arms, just a bit.

Lynel shuffles off their seat and just- just walks into Fadir’s chest. And things make a little more sense.

=[]=

“It’s a slow day,” the school doctor says. “I can give you the room for a bit if you need to talk.”

Fadir might have nodded. Or not. Lynel can’t really tell. The door closes anyway, and the office goes empty.

Neither of them seem like they’re in a hurry to talk.

“The book said you were gonna die,” Lynel finally whispers.

“Not for a long time, le,” Fadir amends. “Cer-tain-ly not me, ne? Too old.”

Lynel whimpers and shakes their head, burying into Fadir’s shirt.

“It’s not so bad,” Fadir says. “Everythin’ dies. You an’ me, too.”

“But you’re not supposed to die.” Lynel’s voice has a cracking sort of shake to it now. “It’s not fair.”

Fadir stills for a moment. Pauses. “You saw something,” it haltingly surmises. “What did you see?”

“I picked up your meds in the post office,” Lynel admits. “And I couldn’t read it right, so I looked it up and-” Fadir’s body tenses, and their words get faster and faster. “-an’ I didn’t mean anything bad, I jus’ wanted to understand, and I-” 

Their voice cracks, splinters, shatters.

“Is it true, what happens to diviners?” Lynel softly asks. “You look too far one day and then- and then you never see anything again?”

This is the part where Lynel expects Fadir to lie- lie, the way everyone else does when things go wrong and little kids aren’t meant to know about it. There’s going to be enough firewood, winter will be over soon, and Fadir Ravenslove doesn’t have a 1 in 3 chance of dying every time it closes its eyes.

But that's not what happens.

“Time is a thread,” Fadir starts. “A line that keeps things movin’. Di-vin-ation is just lettin’ go of the line a bit so y’ can see all the yarns. And if y’ too it too much, too long… your hand starts t’ slip.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Lynel dares to wonder. “Your hand slipped off the thread?”

Past the frozen smile on Fadir’s face, its brows furrow at odd angles. “I never held the thread at all, le. I-” Its pupils shrink down to almost comically small black dots in its golden eyes, and the breath it takes could have been a despairing laugh. “I barely have the hands for it.”

Its hand shakes a little when it pushes its down out of its eyes.

“When th’ uni-verse gave me this body, it gave me time that could never run out,” Fadir explains. “An’ back then, it was death. Good as dead. Ain’t denyin’ that.” Fadir tilts its head, and its smile widens coyly. “But I am a little stupid. I don’t know I should be dead. So I talk to everyone like me, collect all their words an’ I walk up to a doctor like liho, problem for you, kamsia! That’s why I have all that medicine.”

Fadir takes Lynel’s hand and brings them toward the jade disk tied to its neck with red thread. “Makes everything less loud. And when there is too much at once-” It waggles the jade handle of its pipe. “Just turns to magic smoke! It is made that way.”

“I kind of just thought you did drugs,” Lynel bluntly confesses.

“Ay! Ni shi gin na!” Fadir presses down on Lynel’s head. “I can-not do that around you. Bad for you.”

“You still take those other pills, though,” Lynel mutters.

“Ach. Even I use things like these, still leftovers. Gets me scared outta my head for no reason. The pills take care o’ that.”

Lynel’s mouth flattens. “But not all the way.”

Fadir sighs. Lynel realizes, for the first time, that the feathered ears on Fadir’s head are all crooked. The one on the right always hangs a little limp, like a puppy that’s still too soft in the bones.

It’s always the right side. The right leg’s bones that click, the right foot that has that twitch, the right tail feathers that puff out, the right hand that shakes a little more than the other when there’s nothing to hold.

“Aye,” Fadir admits. “Not all the way, le.” It clacks its cane against the ground. “I need this so I don’t walk into things.” It gestures to the allays trying to get into the doctor’s candy box. “I still need those two t’ drag me out when my head lets go.” Its eyes shift with a gentle squint as its voice softens. “So I am very, very lucky. I am very lucky that so many things work so hard to put the thread back into my hands.”

It pulls Lynel close with a stilted, hesitant hug.

“I lived with this for a very long time,” it whispers. “Okay? I would not- I could not let you into my house if I thought I would not be here after you were gone.”

Lynel listens to Fadir’s heart beat in the cage of its barreled chest, alive, alive, alive.

(You, you, you are alive.)

“I wanna go home,” Lynel decides. “Can we get something to eat on the way?”

“Hao le,” Fadir easily allows. It braces its hands on its knees as it stands, back stiff as it carries through the motion. “Oish. Brisk.” It holds out its arm a bit, and Lynel takes its hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

=[]=

“Oi, Ki-bo!”

“HEWWO?”

“Ki-bo, wo men zai yi ge boba naicha, ni yao ma?”

“Fuckin’ uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-”

“We are having food right now. We can wait, le.”

“Is Lynel with you? At the boba?”

“Yes, le.”

“HEY! NIÑO! DID YOU KNOW-”

“Don’t-”

“DID YOU KNOW THAT BOBA MEANS-”

Ravenslove Tower, Slovenguard, Halfstack Mountains Buildings: 3

RESIDENCE Constructed: 1951 Architect: Fadir Sunn Ravenslove Foreman: Crocket-Architect [SERIAL NUMBER EXPUNGED]

Foundation: Rock-cut cobblestone Frame: Aspen Scaffolding: Bamboo Roofing: Clay Windows: Bamboo lattiice Insulation: Wool Piping: Waxed copper Paint: Clay rice Flooring: Tiled Stairs: Step tansu Schematics: 1 hearth, 8 rooms, 1 porch, 1 cellar

COOP (2) Frame: Birch Scaffolding: Spruce Roofing: Clay Fencing: Spruce, bamboo lattice Insulation: Hay Schematics: 8 nest-boxes, 1 feeding box, 1 chicken run

GARDEN -4 beehives -wisteria, hawthorn, glowberry -Tomato, basil, thyme -potatoes, parsely, chives -peppers, scallion, garlic -rose, cloudberry, lavender -pumpkin, lemongrass, ginger -sunflower, oxeye, orchid, tulip

=[]=

Fadir Sunn Ravenslove 烏鴉愛 (it/its)

Presented Origin: Transorigin indeterminate (Raventhing?) Birth Origin: Pando Raven (Corvus fusang) Birthdate: N/A (registered 1945) Education: N/A (Literate in Script, Faelic, and Galactic) Languages: Raven-Hokkien (fluent), Anglos (mid), Guanhua (low) Professions: Prophetic divination, homesteading Outstanding Conditions: -Animal Transorigin -Medical Transorigin -Complex Prophetic Tangent Syndrome (C-PTS) (medicated) -Thoracic projectile/shrapnel injury (chronic pain and nerve damage on right side of body)

RELATION TO RESIDENCE: Head of house.

“Kibble” Maravilla-Ravenslove (unknown, will answer to any used)

Presented Origin: Transorigin imp Birth Origin: Amber Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) Birthdate: N/A (registered 1951) Education: N/A (Literate in Shorthand Script) Languages: Español Pequeño (fluent), Anglos (fluent) Professions: Farmhand Outstanding Conditions: -Fails mirror test -Animal Transorigin

RELATION TO RESIDENCE: Listed by Head of House as “kiasu xiaoren eat my entire house le”. Maintains chicken farm.

=[]=

FREOND REGISTRY

Huginn Allay Intent: Assist F. Ravenslove during C-PTS episodes.

Munnin Allay Intent: Assist F. Ravenslove during C-PTS episodes.

Ping-guo-pai (蘋果派)  Fire salamander Intent: House heating and cooking.

Da Ren (大人) Money frog Intent: “Is frog.”

Terrachelys (兒子) Dragon Turtle Teapot Intent: Hot water for tea and medication. Adopted after death of previous owner.

Ahba-bie (啊爸别) Amabie Intent: Harvest gauge for homesteaded and market produce.

=[]=

ANIMAL REGISTRY

-Chicken, Amber (2) (Dos Equis, Coronita) -Chicken, Bronzed (2) -Chicken, Fancy (2) (Dulce, Pendejo) -Chicken, Gold Crested (2) (Maria, Suegra) -Chicken, Midnight (2) (Fadir, Suegro) -Chicken, Skewbald (2) -Chicken, Stormy (2)

(The ravens are local Pando ravens. They are not owned by the Ravenslove household and thus not counted as part of the estate.)

=[]=

CENSUS CHANGES (1973) Requesting to add new resident: “Lynel Ravenslove.”

Lynel Ravenslove (they/them)

Presented Origin: Desert-Plains Human Birth Origin: No change Birthdate: 1963 Education: Level II (Year 5) Languages: Anglos Professions: N/A Outstanding Conditions: -Child abandonment/possible prior neglect

RELATION TO RESIDENCE: In need of residence after being unexpectedly ceded by previous guardian. Petitioning to ward under F. Ravenslove or eligible local resident.

=[]=

Pending Cases Mea T. Ball, Civic Reponse Office

“What do you do while I’m gone?” Lynel asks one day.

Fadir frowns.

“How am I supposed t’ know what you get up to?” Lynel defensively continues. “I go out! I do-” They gesture vaguely. “Things!”

“I don’ do anythin’ too spec-ial, le,” Fadir dismisses. “Do some house chores. See if the other gods need somethin’ looked at. Check on the time knife. Meet up with the other diviners-”

“What was that last one?”

“Meet up with the other diviners,” Fadir repeats. “Very easy, le. I just go int’ my work room and activate the-”

“No, no,” Lynel interrupts. “The- the time knife thing. What’s a time knife?”

“Y’know. The time knife. It, ahh-” Fadir clicks its beak to itself a few times and curls its hands. “Imagine a blanket.”

Lynel blinks. “Al… right?”

“An’ the blanket is made up of all a bunch o’ threads and patterns. An’ y’ take a knife and sort of just-” One of Fadir’s talons pokes Lynel’s hand. “Just touch. Not enough t’ break it. But it changes the thread. Presses on a single point, le. An’ the harder you touch, the more thread y’ take along with you.”

“The thread is time, isn’t it?” Lynel asks. “That’s what you called it before. So then… a time knife is like something that pulls time?”

“Com-press,” Fadir corrects. “Be-cause the future, anything can happen, le. Lots of threads! But when there is a time knife, all those threads have to push up to the blade.”

“Is that bad?” Lynel wonders.

Fadir shrugs, its wings moving loudly across its back. “All it really means is that something is going to happen, that changes many things, an’ maybe you can’t stop it, ne? No matter what you do. An’ sometimes it is something very big. Like a flood that changes th’ future o’ all th’ people that live nearby- that is a time knife. But sometimes, it is very small. Very, very small. A right place at a right time. A wrong place at a wrong time. That is time knife, too.”

A pause, and then.

“Do you want to see the time knife?” It offers. “Y’ don’t have school t’day.”

“Alright.”

Now, of course Fadir already told Lynel that the time knife was not, in fact, an actual knife, but Lynel was still expecting something ominous. Maybe not dangerous, because Fadir doesn’t seem like the type to casually lead Lynel to danger, but still. At least something a little spooky.

As a treat.

But that’s not quite what happens. They hop the train line all the way to Aspenbone, the way they do when they want to reach the Nether market- except they cut off at an earlier stop, to a little old house with a blue butterfly on its door.

Lynel’s heard of butterfly houses before. Shelters protected by the Stargazer. Sometimes that means helping someone give birth safely, sometimes it’s a place to stay for the night, but a lot of times it means taking care of children who have nowhere else to go. There was one where Lynel used to live, but Mother was too proud to let any of them step inside. Looking back, it was probably more than pride- she was always afraid something would take her children away.

(Fat lot of good that ever did.)

It’s smaller than Lynel thought it would be. They expected a sprawling building of sad-faced orphans, not an actual house. It’s almost like a small inn with the amount of people (child or otherwise) just hanging around and talking. There’s even people in the kitchen when Fadir leads them in- a two headed wulver pup swinging their legs out of sync from the counter, a silk feathered sirin chopping up pears with a baby qilin slung across her chest. Or maybe an achlis? Achlis is the one with no scales, isn’t it?

“Hello again, Mx. Ravenslove!” the sirin sweetly chirps. “I’m just finishing up everyone’s snacks for the day. Any problems with the train today? You’re a little later than usual.”

“Some phantoms stuck on the tracks, le,” Fadir responds. “But will clear up in a few hours.”

The baby’s pearl green eyes open, cat-like dots peering out of spotted fawny hair. Their chubby body suddenly leans out of their sling, hands grabbing at the air in Fadir’s direction.

The sirin sighs. “Of course.” Her hands move away from the cutting board to heft the baby out of the sling. “Take them for a moment, will you?”

“Hao, le.” Fadir makes some kind of exaggerated noise at its arms wrap around the baby. “Aiyoo. Zui da!”

The baby happily slaps at their cheeks. “Ah-bi! Bibibibi.”

“Zhen de, ma?” Fadir indulgently asks. “Hao li hai!”

Lynel squints. “Is- is the baby the time knife?”

“Yes, le.”

“Time baby,” Lynel deadpans.

“Somethin’ like that,” Fadir allows. It resigns its hand to getting poked by the baby as it turns back to the sirin caretaker. “Any changes?”

“The doctor’s cleared Vis to start on heart medication, but you know how it is. They’re barely old enough to wrangle food, much less pills. I’ve been sneaking it into applesauce-”

“Pst.” The wulver pup(s?) wave their hands at Lynel. “Hey, why do you have freckles? I thought only the pale humans did that.”

“My dad was light skinned, I think.” Lynel stares up at the wulver. “Why do you got two heads?”

The left head sticks out their tongue. “More like why do we have to be stuck with the same body?”

“We were supposed to be twins,” the right head says. “I guess we just gave up halfway through.”

“Weird.” Lynel looks back and forth between the two heads. “Does one of you drive, or do you take turns?”

“Oh, it’s the worst,” the right head bemoans. “We each get a half.”

“How do you even walk?” Lynel sputters.

“Carefully,” the left head bluntly says. “We’re still working on it.”

Lynel hums to themself. “That’s kind of cool,” they admit. “I can’t imagine gettin’ along with one of my siblings like that.”

The two (probably three) children stare at each other in silence for a bit.

“We probably should have told each other our names at some point,” Lynel realizes. “I’ve just been callin’ you left head and right head. I think that’s mean.”

“I mean, we were just calling you freckle,” the left head admits. “Was that mean?”

Lynel thinks about it for a moment. Just lets the name sit there and marinate.

…Yeah, that sucks.

“Okay, no more of that,” they decide. “I’m, uh- Lynel.”

The wulver’s hand moves from the left head to the right. “Dotty and Lotty.”

Lynel looks back at the sirin lady still talking to Fadir. “So is she your mom or does she just work here?”

“She’s our mom,” Lotty clarifies. “She doesn’t really keep the other kids-”

“-unless they get too old,” Dotty finishes. “She does a lot of stuff with the Civics office trying to match babies up with new parents.”

“Huh. Any matches for…” What was the baby’s name again? “Vee? It’s easier for small ones, isn’t it?” Lynel scuffs their feat against the counter. “That’s what I heard when I was gettin’ moved around, anyways.”

Dotty and Lotty’s ears draw back a bit. “Well- sick babies are harder to take care of,” Dotty starts.

“And Mom’s not allowed to lie about any of that stuff-”

“-and Vis is really, really sick. Y’know?”

“Mom said they’re not gonna die or anything,” Lotty insists, “but. Y’know. Not really gonna get better, either.”

“That’s a bit like Fadir, then,” Lynel guesses. “That’s not too bad.”

Dotty and Lotty squint at the adults for a moment. “Is he-”

“It,” Lynel quietly corrects.

“Is it- is it very nice, do you think?” Lotty suddenly asks.

“It does look nice,” Dotty adds.

“What do you mean?” Lynel asks, voice getting smaller. “Why does that matter?”

“I think Mom wants to give Vis to Mx. Ravenslove.” Dotty’s shoulder shrugs. “I don’t know. It already visits so much. ”

Oh.

Oh, okay.

This is a thing now. Okay. Okay.

Lynel’s fingers dig into their palms until it quakes, shakes, hurts like rusty nails, and feels the sudden urge to deck Dotty and Lotty in their innocent puppy faces. But that would be mean, so Lynel doesn’t- doesn’t do that. Because that’s just wrong.

Fadir’s still just standing around with the baby, who seems to absolutely adore it with all their little heart, knocking their head into its chest as it solemnly places a fruit box sticker on their cheek. 

“They do seem very attached to you,” the sirin mother points out. “Have you ever considered adoption before?”

“Eh? No,” Fadir distractedly answers. “I already did that.”

“Oh?” The sirin blinks, and looks between Fadir and Lynel. “Oh! Really? I couldn’t tell! You look so alike.”

Fadir and Lynel Ravenslove, with their shared freckles and tousled hair and free arms tucked at their chests like some sort of peeled flightless bird, both stare at her with equally blank smiles.

“Sounds fake, le,” Fadir decides, “but I’ll believe it.” It pats Lynel’s hair. “Already have one. Paisei.”

“...You can adopt more than once, Mx. Ravenslove.”

“Heh?” Fadir’s wings flare with surprise. “When did that happen?”

“That was always a thing,” the sirin patiently points out. “Literally always.”

Fadir’s face freezes as it stiffly tilts its head this way and that, clicking to itself.

“Sha ren you sha fu,” it finally says. “I may be stupid.”

Fadir’s eyes suddenly flick down to Lynel.

“I will… think about it,” it vaguely says. “Kamsia.”

The train ride home is a lot quieter this time. Lynel stares out the sides and watches shadows run along between the trees as they pass- formless quadrapedal freonds trying to ride the coattails of the train’s momentum.

“What do you see?” Lynel starts. “When you look at Vis.”

“No matter what I do, Vis is… there,” Fadir slowly answers. “For a long, long time. And then somethin’ terrible falls apart. It’s very strange. I’ve never seen a time knife with me in it.” It raises its hand, watching its allays dance along its fingertips. “I never feel my own thoughts, when I look at th’ thread o’ time. Not like that. But wherever Vis’ threads end, there is something- I don’t know. An’ then I see you.”

Lynel frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You an’ Vis, together,” Fadir clarifies. “Very very close. That’s why I kept comin’ back, le. Somethin’ in that child’s life tears through time, an’-” Its hand shakes slightly. “-an’ I don’t know what that means for you.”

Oh. It wasn’t how Lynel was thinking at all.

“But you felt upset earlier,” Fadir notes. “What happened, ne?”

“I-” Lynel hugs the backpack in their lap. “When you were holding Vis, it felt… bad.”

Fadir blinks. “Why?”

“I know it’s stupid! I know it is, I just-” Lynel feels their cheeks growing hot. “Mother was nice too, before the others were born.”

“..Ah.”

“She was still nice, after. At least at first.” Lynel picks at the threads of their pack. “But there was never enough to be nice to me and them. Mother and I weren’t allowed to be selfish anymore.”

Fadir’s expressions were odd to get used to at first, with that smile frozen on its face. But then Lynel thought of it like a mask slapped over its mouth, and things got easier. It was easier to understand, when everything was hidden in the eyes.

There’s something strained and hollow in that expression. Ice cracking on a frozen lake, screaming with the weight of it all.

“I did See after her, le,” it whispers. “To see if she would want you again. Or feel sorry for lettin’ me take you away.” 

It pauses, as if wondering whether to hold its next words. It delicately folds its hands across its lap. 

“She will use your absence well. She will always be enough for them, for the rest of their lives.” It sucks in a large breath, a rattling cage of lungs made to tear apart the sky. “An’ if I ever see her again, I will tear out her eyes for puttin’ you in my hands. Paisei.”

A pause, and then-

“You should make a doll of her and tear its guts out,” Lynel offers. “That’s what I did when people made me mad.”

“I should not do that, le,” Fadir drily refuses. “I am- I am a god. I think that would act-u-ally hurt someone.”

“Like a little rubber chew toy,” Lynel continues anyway. “An absolute wet rag.” They suddenly remember the sirin lady’s comment. “Can you believe the butterfly house said we look alike? That was so weird.”

Fadir snickers.

“It’s your fault,” Lynel jokes. “You’re infecting me with your- your bird thing.”

Fadir leans closer. “Ne?”

Lynel leans back. “No.”

Fadir leans its entire body onto Lynel’s side. “Neeeee?”

“Noooooooo.”

Fadir’s scaly, knobbled hand rests on the side of Lynel’s face, pulling them just close enough to rest its head on their own. “I am very sad for why you are here,” it admits. “But- I am happy that you are here. However long you stay.”

Lynel might have felt something like a kiss- stilted, gentle, kind. 

“Okay?”

Her name is Meatball. 

Mea for short. 

(Meat for medium.)

In Mea’s defense, traditional wulver names are just kind of like that.

But the important part of this isn’t her name, no matter how much everyone else back at the office likes to joke about it. The important part is that this time it’s her turn to take on the Ravenslove case.

Not that there’s nothing wrong with Ravenslove Tower. Fadir Ravenslove is, according to everyone who’s had the misfortune of dealing with it, a really sweet guy. It’s just that when dealing with a guy who has medicated C-PTS, who also happens to be a literal verified god, there’s always something going on. And yes, Fadir is a god. The Office doesn’t need a slip of paper, or lack thereof, to know about that. Every diviner this side of the motem network has been talking about their guide, and the Office makes it their business to know things.

There’s not a lot of gods on the record. Mx. Ravenslove is mostly just on there because it needed C-PTS meds and took an Anglos language course some decades back. The Office’s policy is to leave it to its own devices and just check in every once in a while. Except this time, the new status quo involves a child. Because at this point, that may as well happen. 

It may as well.

Getting to Ravenslove Tower is a whole other beast. The last country road cutting out of Slovenguard, a few routes off the Snake Alley train line, and the only thing people seem to agree on direction-wise is “walk towards the forest, it’s impossible to miss.”

And boy, was it ever. If the willowy purples of the wisteria tree at its side weren’t enough to stick out like a sore thumb, the tree-like ambitions of the house itself were a jagged splinter on the forest’s edge, roof shingles sporadically weathered like a sunset out of time from the humble duty of shielding rain and snow away from those aspen pale walls.

The interior’s a little dated, but that’s to be expected of a house built in the 1940s and a head of house who doesn’t feel like keeping up with the times. Fadir seems perfectly content to pump water into a teapot after transferring some chicken rice out of a wok and into a pair of bowls- one of which is for Mea. The little god quickly walks off with the teapot before she can protest otherwise. It even used those holdable bowls so Mea could eat the wulver way, without any utensils. (Cheater.)

As for their part, Lynel- Ravenslove name pending- watches Mea suspiciously past their spoonfuls of food. They’re a brown-skinned kid with green eyes, brown hair, and freckles. They look and smell very stressed. Their handshake is strong, but it shakes with hunger, even as they stuff their mouth with candied nuts like there’s no tomorrow. A bad sign for their previous situation, but a point in favor of the new one- Fadir clearly left the extra food out knowing Lynel would take it, and Lynel feels safe enough to indulge.

Their answers to Mea’s questions, on the other hand, are clipped- almost irritated. Yes, they understand why they’re here. Yes, they understand they can leave the house at any time. Yes, they know where they are and how to use local transport.

Do they want to be here?

…Anything’s better than going back to Mother.

Mea lets Lynel go back to do whatever they want in the house while she goes to find Fadir outside. She knows an emotional landmine when she sees one. That’s a job for a therapist, not a high-strung civic worker.

The tengu- the god- the raven… thing- the raventhing is lounging by that porch built under the house. Two bell-collared allays tenderly eat biscuits off a plate while a spoon swirls idly in a steaming mug, a dollop of some brothy paste freshly gouged out of a box. The dragon turtle teapot on the table barely inclines its clay head towards Mea as she approaches, and Fadir’s eyes turn to her as she takes a tentative seat.

Be wary of gods, pup, her grandfather would whisper. The Flame of Creation is still a flame. And a flame, no matter how little, can swallow all the world alive.

A loud sneeze flies out of Mea’s snout. Nervousness is unprofessional. A god is still a god, but a case is still a case, and Ravenslove is no different than any other person daring to ask if they could foster a child.

“So!” Mea loudly straightens her files against the tea table. “First things first. I can look for human GPs to set Lynel up with, and I am going to put them down for a referral to a therapist. That’s non-negotiable.”

Fadir furrows its brows slightly. “Therapist y’ said cannot, le.”

“The last caseworker told you that?” Mea guesses. At Fadir’s nod, Mea goes back to the tengu’s file. “The therapists that worked on your case said counseling wasn’t necessary for your situation, but for Lynel- well-” Mea’s words halt for a moment, head tilted as she considers an entirely new thought. “Sorry, quick question, have you… had children before?”

Fadir’s eyes squint as it rolls the fingers on one of its hands, counting to itself.

And it keeps counting.

And it keeps counting.

“Six-ty,” Fadir finally says. “Three.”

Mea stares at Fadir in shock.

“Raven children le,” Fadir elaborates. “One of ‘em is a dragon, if that makes it better.”

(This did not, in fact, make it better.)

“This is normal,” Fadir insists with a slight laugh. “I am so old!”

“Well, for people-” Mea pauses again. “-is that mean to say? People? I’m not saying your time as a raven was, like, less meaningful or anything-”

“Can, le,” Fadir gently interrupts, an unreadable smile on its face. “I understand. Things are simpler back then. Is not the same.”

Oh, great! Mea’s not being accidentally racist! Raven racist. Ravenist, if you will. (She should probably get back to saying words.)

“For… people- for children,” Mea amends, “adoption is kind of a traumatic experience. Y’know what I mean?”

Fadir raises its eyebrows. “More than havin’ no one to take care of ‘em?”

Mea makes an uneasy motion with her paw. “It’s kind of a lose-lose thing for the kid. Having new parents is a reminder that your old ones can’t, or don’t want to, take care of you any more. It’s easier for younger kids sometimes, when they aren’t old enough to remember their original parents, but it’s always harder for the older ones. And it gets harder the older they have to be adopted.”

Fadir’s eyes flick to the upstairs area of the house, fixed on some slowly moving point. Mea doesn’t need to be told that Fadir is seeing Lynel’s current state of affairs all too well.

“This isn’t an easier version of having a kid,” Mea stresses. “This isn’t a baby that you can raise however you want. Lynel already has their own thoughts, and feelings, and hurt about all this that you can’t change. It’s going to take a long, long time for Lynel love you as a parent, and you’ll have to live with the chance that they might never be able to do that.”

Fadir sighs. “I don’t need that. I-” It lets out a huffing noise. “I really don’t. I lived out a whole life o’ that. If Lynel doesn’t love me, that’s- that’s fine. Really is.” It shrugs, wings rolling forward with the motion. “But I reckon they still need somebody t’ love ‘em anyways. May as well try.”

“It doesn’t have to be you,” Mea reminds it. “Lynel was never supposed to be your responsibility in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with putting them into foster care and letting someone else take care of them down the line.”

“I know.” Fadir taps the talons of its hands together. “But it’s not so bad, le. If I can be that kind of someone else, too. Be-cause…”

Fadir trails off. This little porch is right under the house, sheltered from the light of day. But the lantern flame, cast on Fadir’s golden shirt, scatters soft tones across the red bracelet at its wrist, the jade on its neck, the candlelight gleam of its eyes out of that uncanny shadow. 

It blinks. The spell, whether real or imagined, is gone.

“Because,” the raven says again, just a touch too late. “It’s not so bad, is it?” Fadir tilts its head. “I don’t think it is.”

Mea sighs.

“You’ll be seeing me once a month,” she decides. Fadir’s eyes brighten, and Mea raises a paw in warning. “I’m not saying you’ll be perfect. I’m not even saying you’ll be good. But you’re still right. We can use a few more somebodies out here for these kids. We need people to try. I-”

Mea’s ears perk, turning towards a sudden noise. Catching the motion, Fadir’s head sharply tilts before it picks up one of Lynel’s sandals and chucks it at the drainpipe.

The sandal crashes against the frail copper with a loud, resounding gong. Something rattles down the pipe, heralded by a chorus of pitiful squeaks, before a small sandy imp bursts out and splats on the ground.

A cowboy hat gracefully drifts out of the pipe to float down on their head.

(This would be Kibble, then.)

“Och.” Fadir bats at Kibble’s head. “D’ya always have t’ sneak around in the walls? We have guests.”

Kibble sneezes loudly.

Fadir squints. “You’ve done somethin’.”

Kibble stares at Fadir for a long moment, and then starts skittering away on white boots.

“Aiyo-” Fadir slaps its knee and stands up forcefully. “Y’ ab-so-lutely have, le! I open the cabinet an’ all the cold cuts will be gone!” Its eye twitches. “Y’ ate all the ham in the icebox, and y’ said you wouldn’t!”

“¿Y qué eres?” Kibble hisses. “¿Un pinche propietario?”

Fadir stares at Kibble in shock for a moment, and then it laughs. It laughs in a way ravens were never meant to laugh- a forceful, unnatural sound. But it smiles with that odd glow caught in its mirthful eyes, and it looks like the sun in miniature, if only for a moment.

A lot can happen in thirty years.

Turning fifty. Learning what a house is. Turning sixty. Getting dragged, kicking and screaming, towards the abstract concept of becoming literate, and picking up a swear or ten along the way. Turning seventy, realizing that not only are you still young, you're not even halfway done yet, and you’re ten years away from living twice as long as most wulvers.

Your parents can die, and one of them can come back with a gimp leg, two extra limbs, and a brain stuck out of time.

A lot can happen in thirty years.

A lot can happen in one.

Corvo Ravenslove tries to visit when he can.

Slovenguard is used to him by now. What little residents make their stay here have been here far too long to blink at the sight of a full grown draconis and his flying island appearing in their skyline. Besides, he always parks it off to the side. It would be rude to scare the chickens.

Ravenslove Tower has a few more rickety floors than the last time Corvo saw it, but the door is still tall enough for him to walk through.

It’s funny. Corvo never even lived here. Never needed to, never planned to. But when Fadir built this house, it thought of him anyway.

A lot can happen in thirty years. But when Corvo sticks his head under the house, antlers threatening to scratch the roof of the little porch that’s been built into the foundations, Fadir is still just barely large enough to use Corvo’s wrist as a perch. Somehow, the father-son ratio of Corvo’s childhood years has stayed exactly the same.

“You’re lucky Lynel is at school right now,” Fadir tiredly smiles. “I told them you come over, but-” It makes a vague noise.

“Kiasi, le,” Corvo finishes for it. “I get it. The landing always looks way scarier than it actually is.”

“And be-sides,” Fadir continues, “I want to take care of your shopping before you an’ them start fightin’ over scraps.”

Corvo sputters. “Ahba- ahba, I wouldn’t throw hands with a child!”

“After last year, I don’t believe you.”

There is a silence.

“The seagulls deserved it,” Corvo quickly says.

“County fair turkey leg, le,” Fadir deadpans.

“I would fight a seagull in the back alley of a taotie buffet,” Corvo insists. “Those birds are a menace to society.”

To this day, Corvo doesn’t know how Fadir manages to look so concernedly done with his shit while wearing the most perfectly gentle smile on its face. Which is absolutely unfair. Corvo has seen this old man’s raven body size up a bear in defense of a tossed bag of fries.

“You look like Talon when you make that face,” Corvo says instead. “And it managed that with half its beak missing.”

Fadir snorts. “Xylem always translated for it well enough.” Fadir’s head casts to the side. “Did I ever tell you how we met? Th’ five of us, le. Ravens don’t have big pairs like that.”

“The other ravens would always look at you a little funny when you were all together,” Corvo recalls. “But only those horny teenagers would be shitty about it.”

Fadir scoffs to itself as it stands and stretches, walking off towards the garden. The cane by its seat stays at its simple perch- Fadir doesn't need to be told the lay of its own land, not anymore.

“No one knew what t’ do with your egg when we first found you,” Fadir starts. “Xylem an’ Talon, ah- vo-lun-teered t’ take what-ever was going t’ hatch. They raised most o’ their last children already, ne? All the time in the world.” Fadir smiles sharply. “Morrow took that personally.”

Corvo ducks his head low as they pass the wisteria tree, as if this time his face wouldn’t get pelted with flowers. “Morrow took everything personally, ahba.”

Fadir shrugs. “We didn’t know how long you would be a child. Morrow wanted younger mates t’ see to it. I said such a big egg would need more than two mates watchin’ it if either of us wanted t’ see our children next spring.” Its foot grabs at a cuttlebone in the ground and tosses it towards the chickens grazing by the glowberries. “Suppose I won out, ‘cus that’s what we did. We waited for you t’ hatch. An’ by the time your second spring came, we- we were nestin’ our chicks to-gether.”

Its face softens.

“Fry was young. Tried t’ court all four of us at once, le!” A small laugh. “But it was always good to th’ chicks, and… it would fly out to the sea, every year, just to bring back pretty stones. Crazy bird.” A pause. “Course, I only know that ‘cus I did the same thing.”

“And then Xylem died,” Corvo gently continues. “Foraging accident, ne?”

“Dui. Morrow an’ I did our best t’ take care o’ Talon after, but…” Fadir sighs. “It couldn’t live with that. Not without Xylem.”

“And then Morrow died.”

“And then I… died.” Fadir’s voice trails quiet. “And then I didn’t.”

Corvo remembers those days. Him and Fry had barely even processed being unable to find Fadir’s body before something stumbled out of the woods- skin like silver, talons like blood, a prophet’s ravensign swallowing its face like a solar fucking eclipse, only recognizable by the stilted voice of a dead raven that could barely stutter its own name out of a forcibly restructured syrinx.

Fadir died with Morrow that spring afternoon. The Sunraven that walked out of Pando in the summer was never quite the same, and it and Corvo both know that.

“Never stopped Fry from visiting,” Corvo allows. “It’d bring you those stones until you could fly to the ocean again.”

“Every year on my birthday.” Fadir stops by a carved stone in the garden. “Every year.”

Corvo doesn’t ask about the writing on the stone. He already knows what’s buried there.

(He donated that headstone itself.)

“I know why y’ don’t visit,” Fadir quietly admits. “I know it’s hard.”

Corvo’s wings snap shut like a tarp as his body stiffens. “I- I try when I can-”

“No,” Fadir softly corrects. “Y’ don’t.” It tilts its head towards Corvo’s eyes, bone-deep weariness locked into its gently frozen smile. “It’s alright, le. You were still very young. I think- I think it was not fair, that you were still so young.”

Corvo looks off to the side. “Plenty of people lost their parents younger than I did.”

“An’ you waited every day for twenty years before y’ gave up on wonderin’ if I would die all over again,” Fadir bluntly says.

“Because you’re not going to die, ahba,” Corvo insists. “You- you basically can’t.”

“May-be so. I think I want t’ live for a very long time. Or not. I just want to live!” Fadir kneels against the ground, body turning towards the headstone in its garden. “But sometimes, I think- I think it is because this body is so far away from these terrible things. I died. And you didn’t. It’s okay, I think, if that makes you sad.” Its knobbled hand hovers around the stone, never quite touching. “It just means you were still alive.”

And maybe it’s twenty years too late to realize for every slip and fall and painstakingly relearned word, Fadir had been just as there and aware and done with it all as Corvo was. But Fadir lived anyway, and so did he.

That will have to be enough.

“Let’s go out to eat this time,” Corvo decides. “Forget the shopping trip, le.”

Fadir’s smoldering black wings puff up with surprise. “I like to cook for you!”

“I keep destroying your entire pantry in a day!” Corvo nearly wheezes. “I feel so bad! I don’t want to scare the new kid!”

“Maybe we call up the taotie buf-fet,” Fadir sarcastically offers. “So your new ahdi can watch you fight a seagull.”

Corvo chuffs loudly enough to stir a light breeze. “Jokes on you, I’d pay to make that happen. And I probably will. I’ll-” He raises a single defiant claw. “I’ll fight you.”

“And I would let you win because I missed my son ve-ry much,” Fadir sweetly croons. It starts to walk back to the house. “I go text Lynel about dinner. They always buy snacks after school, le.”

Oh, Corvo silently realizes. I missed you.

“Hey,” he softly calls out, stopping Fadir just short of the porch stairs. “Happy birthday.”

Fadir’s eyes widen for a second, almost turning pitch black. It blinks, and squints to itself.

“That’s the first time you called it my birthday,” it whispers. “Kamsia.”

It’s head snaps away, and it stiffly walks up the stairs. Bit of an awkward response, really. Corvo wasn’t sure what he expected.

DIVISION: 6

REPORTED BY: Cpt. Ankylos Brinestain

DATE REPORTED: 13 Dec 1973

INCIDENT:

Mylna noted disturbance of premises approx. 2200 and found the following affects in the Division entrance butterfly box:

-1 child, > 5 months, indeterminate qilin (achlis variant) hybrid

-1 butterfly embroidered blanket

-1 untranslated hand bound book, Lietuvių Script (contents unexamined)

-1 full set of silverware measuring spoons

-1 decoratively carved wooden spoon, enderwalker make

-1 written consent, repeated in Anglos, Gaelic, and Lietuvių Script, ceding custody of child to the Division and dictating all other effects as possessions of the child

On-site EMT Grigor evaluated the child for tachycardic symptoms and ran the dragon ambulance to the Aspenbone General Hospital. The child’s possessions have been forwarded to the Aspenbone butterfly house, where they will stay as soon as they are properly stabilized.

Due to the dangerously late hour of the incident, a note has been forwarded to the Census and Civic Response Offices to see if this coincides with any recent death reports or missing person cases.

Written consent form is as follows:

The child will not find us. We will not return for them. We will not ask for them. It has been advised that they should spend their last days in more expert hands.

We leave the things we wanted to teach them. The things we would have given them, as our parents did for us. Their first bed, their first kitchen tools, their first wedding gift. Use our knowledge freely, as long as our gifts find their way to the child by the time they are grown.

We’re very sorry to have to do this. It’s not fair. You were too young.