The Misadventures of Crow & Siona
Contents
First Contact
Things had finally turned around for the better for Whispering Crow... At least that's the way it was before he met Siona. Crow's lowest point came two years ago, but despite two years of hardship, life had always been getting consistently better for Crow during the course of those years. It all started when Crow repaid his debt to Plentimon. Although it had left crow bankrupt and destitute, the events around it all also made Crow debt free, or so he thought. From that point on, the sun shone on Crow and his deeds, slowly regaining his wealth a little bit at a time through honest work. Finally he would receive his exaltation and he could finally take a short lived rest. He had brought himself back to square one, but this time he had an exaltation... something that wouldn't be taken away from him so easily. And with this exaltation came a vast array of new powers for the shrewd Crow to wield, but as he would soon discover, it didn't just come with responsibilities like normal mortal power would. It came with debts and obligations. Crow always knew that people were always quick to forget about how generous he was to them, but they never ever forgot about it when he made a promise, or he was in debt.
Crow was busy putting back together a stable life. Plentimon, who for some strange incomprehensible reason began acting much more friendly towards Crow, gave him an honest job dealing cards at The Diving Sea Snake, where he was payed with a modest salary, and he slowly began to accumulate his wealth from the bottom up. He was no longer homeless and starving. Crow had finally started to smile again. Crow now used his wealth to trade with the guild. A second passion to him, Crow viewed trading as a form of gambling, where what you gambled was time, and not money. He saw the chance of trading was all in being lucky enough to pick the right sucker to swindle out of his goods for ridiculously cheap price, and if he picked wrong, then all he lost was some time, which he now knew that he had plenty of. Still, there were the select few who apparently had more time than even a Solar Exalted.
Crow was hurriedly walking through the streets, making miserable attempts at whistling to himself, at a nice brisk pace, when he suddenly stopped short, turned around, and demanded, “Why are you following me?”
“Who? Me? I'm not following you.” Said the elegant, pretty lady who was most definitely following him.
“Look, “ said Crow “first of all, even though you're wearing a hood, I can most definitely see those pointy ears of yours. Secondly, you are following me. You have shown up in my day, at least once a day, every day, for the past two weeks. Why are you following me?”
She smiled, unwaivering in her confidence in the face of evidence. “I said, I'm not following you. Clearly, someone wants us to be together.” She calmly approached Crow and placed her hand on his chest gently. “You believe in destiny don't you?”
Crow maintained a stern look, narrowing his eyes at her, and brushed her hand off his chest. “I believe in chance and luck, not fate. Even if I did, you don't honestly expect me to believe that fair folk would share the same destiny as humans? Just tell me why you are following me.”
Her smile and inflection hadn't changed one bit, it was as if she planned out both parts of this conversation, already knowing what to say next, even before Crow replied. “Since you believe in chance, then you must also believe in coincidence.” She grinned a little and ran two of her fingers down Crow's jawline. “I am so fortunate to have met you.”
Crow folded his arms. “You really think that for a moment I buy that you're attracted to a smelly human? Who are you anyway?”
“Now we're getting somewhere. I'm Siona.” The fey lady smiled. “What's your name?”
“Whispering Crow.”
“Well, Whispering Crow? Are you going to keep your promise?” Siona poked Crow in the chest and let her finger trail downward, back to her side.
“Wait... what? Promise? What promise?” Crow took a step backwards and looked a little confused.
“We had a deal, you and I. Don't you remember?” Siona pouted softly, mocking an injury at the inability for Crow to recall her so called deal.
“I most definitely do not have any deals with any fair folk.” Crow narrowed his eyes again.
“If you don't remember, that's okay. I'm sure it will come to you soon enough.” Siona nodded.
“Why can't you just tell me what this deal is, and I can consider if it isn't insane, and sounds like a deal I might have actually made.” Crow tilted his head to one side.
Siona replied in a breathy voice. “Oh, Crow. You can't expect me to just ruin all the intrigue for you on our first meeting.” She reached up and pat Crow's cheek. “Don't worry, we'll talk again later, and we'll take it in baby steps... and then, we can finally be together.” She grinned again, and turned to walk away, leaving Crow behind a very confused man.
Should Have Ordered Wine
It had stopped raining about half an hour ago, but Whispering Crow was outside long before that and had gotten caught in a heavy downpour. He was soaked from head to toe, and now that the wind was starting to get a little colder as the sun slowly set on the horizon, he looked for a good place that he could go to and have a drink, and preferably loiter around for a while until he was dry. He sat down at an empty table facing away from the window. A short waitress came up to him and prompted Crow in a typical uneducated accent, “Wot can ah git fer ye?”
“Absinthe.” Crow put his feet up under the table on the chair to the right of him, and turned his head around to look out the window behind him at the setting sun, which was painting the entire tavern red.
“Be roit back.” The waitress wandered off. A few minutes later, Crow was still staring out the window, and didn't see his drink being brought to him, but he most definitely heard the chance of the voice into a more soft spoken, eloquent and musical voice, and in a different language.
“Here's your drink, darling.” Crow spun with a start, as he immediately recognized the voice as the one belonging to that Fey lady who had haunted him earlier in the month.
“What are you doing here? What did you do to the waitress?” Crow hastily looked around but couldn't find the girl who took his order. He did notice, however, the Siona had brought him the correct beverage that he asked for.
“Oh, don't worry about her. You should be honored that someone like me delivered you your drink personally.” Siona smiled, and with two fingers, she pushed the drink towards Crow into the middle of the table, and helped herself to a seat. Crow withdrew his feet and sat more attentively.
“As a matter of fact, not only do I not feel honored that you brought me my drink, but you've just guaranteed that I'm not going to drink it.” Crow smirked and sternly changed the subject. “Okay, I just want to say that I've thought about it, and I think I recall making some kind of bet with a fair folk. Is this what you were talking about?”
“Oh, yes, that would be it. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you lost the bet, and now it's time for you to pay up.” Siona's face expressed a more calm and relaxed gaze, instead of her usual cheerfulness in adversity that Crow was used to. Crow gauged that she just liked it better when things weren't going her way, which meant this bad news she was talking about, was going to get really bad.
“Pay up, huh? Alright, fine, I'll pay up. What do I owe you?” Crow was naively waiting to be asked for money, not even thinking just how complicated a bargain with the fair folk could get.
“Actually, according to the terms,” Siona withdrew from her clothes a thick bound stack of papers, “You're going to have to pay me back in stages. There's a separate agreement for everything I asked for, and there's quite a long list.”
“Fine,” said Crow, “Since you didn't mind waiting this long to cash in this debt, I assume you don't mind if it takes me at least a good long while before all my debts are repaid?”
Siona grinned widely, “Oh, that's what I'm hoping for.”
“Just hit me with the first thing I owe you. We'll work down the list, do them in order, and eventually I'll get them all to you.” Crow strummed his fingers on the table.
“Okay,” Siona smiled. “the first thing you owe me is one demesne of moderate potency.”
“A demesne?” Crow scratched his head. “Well, that's going to take a while, I don't have any demesnes right now to give you.”
“Oh, that's fine,” said Siona, “you can just help me get one right now.”
“What you expect me to do? Depose some little god just so you can take his demesne? I don't think that's going to happen.”
“Well, if you can't make the primary payment, then you're agreeing to make the alternative payment.” Siona smiled a wicked smile.
“Alternative... payment? What's the alternative?” Crow looked on with trepidation of what was to come.
Siona flipped through the contract briefly and came to the page she would find it on. She said, “Oh, the alternative payment. This was actually all your idea. I simply agreed to it, since it was a less binding contract on both of us.”
“Can you just tell me what it is?” Crow tapped his fingers impatiently.
“Well, it's a little gauche, so I'll just let you read it for yourself. It's right here, under alternative payment.” Siona turned the contract to face Crow and pointed it out to him.
Crow read through the first few legal lines of the indicated section silently, but found himself reading out loud as he was awestruck, and horrified. “I... have to extract... the semen... of a tiger... that has been starved for at least twenty-five hours?! What kind of bullshit is this?!”
“Shhh! Not so loud!” Siona whispered loudly. “Anyway, that is what you suggested yourself to do, and if you can't give me a demesne then that's what you have to do. I think now is a good time to point out the irony of the pasty white beverage you ordered.”
“This is insane. I couldn't have possibly made a bargain like this.” Seeing the contract again had made him start to recall a little more detail about it, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to deny it anyway.
“Oh, but you did, and I'm going to make sure you keep your promise, like you should.” Siona smiled.
“Okay, fine, as distasteful as this is, I think it's easier and more harmless than handing you a demesne, so, just tell me what the hell you are going to do with this stuff once I've extracted it.”
“EW!” Siona shrieked and made a face. “Don't give it to me! I don't want it! That's disgusting!”
Crow dropped his jaw and opened his eyes wide at that, and it all came to him. “You... aren't interested in the payment.. You just want to make me jump through ridiculous, absurd, and humiliating circus hoops! Does every one of these stages have an alternative payment?!”
“Now now, Crow. That is not true. I am just acting as an instructor, a guide in the arts of honoring your debts, personal worth of your word... responsibility... accountability...doing the right thing, just because it's the right thing to do...”
Crow interrupted, as every word that was added onto that list was just making him more angry. “There is nothing that one of your kind can teach about those subjects to anyone!”
“Oh you know that isn't true, Crow. In thousands of years, not one of us has violated your diplomatic immunity. We are in many ways more idealistic than humans could ever hope to be.”
“Alright, you know what... lets talk demesnes again. You saw any in the area that you had your eye on?”
The comment caught Siona a little off-guard. “Wait... what? Why'd you change your mind?”
“AHA!” Stammered Crow, pointing his finger accusingly, “You aren't even interested in the primary payment! In fact, it's a disappointment!”
“Oh, no, Crow. Everything I said was true.” She smiled again, “I just want you to be the better man, and to choose to do the right thing to do. What you said earlier about the demesne was absolutely right. It would be unfair to get a little god involved in our contract, especially when they had no say or control over it, and it would be bullying to just kick them out, and this is why that it's the wrong way. You just need to keep your promise while choosing the most honorable, fair, and just path, and I believe the alternative payment is for you.”
“You just have such an amazing way, of making such an obvious pile of complete bullshit smell so god-damned pretty that my mind is actually blown.” Remarked crow. “So back to this tiger thing, I'm going to have to go to the opposite side of the world, to the jungles of the south east to find one of those things.”
“Oh, don't bother. I took the liberty of importing one here. It's waiting for you inside the inland forest in a cage, being guarded by some hobgoblins. I'd also say that by now, it's probably been starved for about twenty-four hours.” Siona grinned.
Crow slammed his fist on the table so hard, it tipped his glass and a splash of absinthe spilled out over the top and dripped down the glass. “Mark my words, I am going to get you back for everything you do to me and it will be one hundred times worse!”
Siona let out an ecstatic shudder and grinned, “Oh, I can't wait for that moment. I hope you're a man of your word, and don't disappoint me. I do want to just point out to you, though, that the only thing I am doing to you, is making you do the right thing, which of course is sometimes reason enough to have hard feelings, everyone hates the police after all. However, everything else in here,” Siona picked up and wiggled the contract in front of Crow's face, “you did to yourself. Shall I take you to the tiger?”
“Lead the way.” Crow said as he stood up, his head hanging in defeat.
How do my leftovers taste?
Crow entered his recently regained home from the front, and hung up his jacket. He headed into his kitchen where he noticed someone was already inside waiting for him. A little more bold in her clothing this time, Siona sat in a chair around the dining table, facing him as he entered the room, and she smiled. “Welcome back, Crow.”
“What are you doing in my house? How did you get in here?” Crow immediately demanded.
“Oh, with the key you gave me.” She nodded towards him.
“I most certainly did not give you any key! Show it to me!” Crow stamped his foot.
Siona took the key out and placed it on the table and spoke, “Here it is.”
Crow stared at it vacantly for a moment before replying, “That key is a fake!”
“So I guess that means I can keep it?” Siona grinned.
“You'll just make another one anyway if I take it away from you.” Crow sighed. “What do you want?”
“I want to play Pachisi! Look, I've set everything up for us.” Siona gestured with her hand at the setup that was on the dining table.
“I do not want to play Pachisi with you. In fact, I want you to get out of my house, right now.” Said Crow
“Can't we play one game of Pachisi first? I'll even let you take the first turn.” She smiled a little.
“If I play one game of Pachisi with you , will you get out of my house?” Crow folded his arms.
“Absolutely not!” Siona smiled. “See, I told you I'm an honest person.”
“Well, thank you. Now you can be honest about telling me what I need to do to get you out of my house.” Crow stared at her intensely.
“Well a game of Pachisi certainly isn't going to hurt your chances.” Siona grinned.
“I really just want to do the bare minimum.” Crow sighed.
“Alright, well, in that case,” Siona flipped the contract onto the table. “you owe me my very own PSV.”
“I don't have any idea what the hell that is or how I would go about getting one for you.” Crow tapped his foot.
“Neither do I! I guess that means you're stuck with the alternative payment.” Siona smiled on in glee.
“I was afraid you'd say that. What do I have to do this time?” Crow rubbed his forehead.
“This time, you're going to have to find a needle in a haystack.” Siona flipped the pages and pointed to the appropriate line in the contract. “Says so right here.”
“That's a joke, right? That's supposed to be impossible.”
“I'm afraid the terms of our agreement do not permit me to joke or exaggerate about the contract.” Siona nodded. “Don't worry, I'm sure you'll think of something.”
“Can we play one game of Pachisi first?” Said Crow, looking to stall for time.
“OH! I'd love to!” Siona shrieked in joy and scoot her chair closer to the table.
After a quick game, Siona had completely dominated Crow at Pachisi, the pair left to go where Siona had prepared the haystack with the needle in it. Sitting in the midst of a field, the block of hay was barely small enough for a man to pick up.
“Is this it?” Crow walked up to it and looked it over.
“Yes, oh, and one other thing. I thought you might want to wait until nightfall and spread out the entire stack of hay for you to shine down golden light upon and look for the reflective object in the mess of hay, so I made the needle out of gold.” Siona smiled sweetly.
“Hilarious. I guess I'll try plan B, then.” Said Crow as he began to take small handfuls of hay and scatter them across the field anyway. When he was finally done, he took off his boots and began to walk barefoot across the entire field of hay, making sure to kick any hay he had stepped on off to the side so that he wouldn't lose track of the places he had been. After a few hours, starting from when he first started scattering the hay, he yelled out, “OW!” and lifted his foot, and sure enough there was a gold needle stuck inside the bottom of it, which he pulled out and held up in the air triumphantly. “I found it! What do you think about that, huh?”
Siona tilted her head, an amused, unimpressed look on her face, and said, “Oh, I thought you might try that, too. So I poisoned the needle.”
“What?!” Crow grit his teeth in rage, and charged toward the fair folk, his strength already fading fast as he did. “I'm going.... to.... kill....” and with just a few more inches left to go, he was unable to finish his sentence as he fell unconscious and over on top of Siona, who caught him. Siona kissed him on his nose, leaving a bright red lipstick mark, and set him down gently and began to walk away.
“Sweet dreams, darling.”
A Moment of Silence
Crow was sitting at the bow of the ship, staring out as the sharp point of the ship cut the tall waves. The breeze blowing as the ship pressed forward carried with it a bit of sea spray. He was flipping a coin in his hand to pass the time, when suddenly, at the peak of a toss, from behind him, a voice called out, “Heads!” As the coin landed and Crow caught it, sure enough, it had come up heads. A pair of arms slid around over his shoulders and crossed in front of his chest, and the woman behind him leaned down and whispered, “Looks like I win again.”
“You have a lot of nerve showing your face around me after that last stunt you pulled, Siona.” said Crow, staying completely motionless.
“I was just playing around, Crow. You should learn to lighten up.” Siona had the left side of her lips brushing against Crow's right ear. “It's all in harmless fun.”
“I do not enjoy being the plaything of a fair folk. Actually, I don't enjoy being the plaything of anyone, but the bottom line is, just because I have some absurd debt to you doesn't mean that you need to rub it in.” Crow turned his head a little to look at her for the first time this afternoon.
Siona was silent for a moment before she spoke up, “I... I'm sorry.”
The lack of any of the explanations that usually follow an apology caught Crow a little off guard. “Yeah, well, I'll believe it when I see it. What do you want from me today?”
“I just wanted to talk to you. You don't think I expect you to repay me on the middle of a ship where you don't have access to any resources, do you?” Siona stepped around and sat in Crow's lap and leaned on his chest.
“You seem to have a knack for arranging for my debts to be paid wherever I am. How do I know you didn't bring the resources onto this ship?”
“Because, silly, they're waiting for us at the ship's destination.”
Crow sighed. “What do I have to do now?”
“I am first required to ask you for a sapphire the size of an austrech egg.” Siona smiled and helped herself to getting more comfortable on Crow.
“You know I don't have anything like that. What do I have to do instead?” Crow couldn't help himself but to wrap one of his arms around Siona's shoulders.
“No. You were right. I'm not going to rub it in. I'll let you know when we get there. For now, just try to let your mind be peaceful, and lets just enjoy our company.”
“You're making it very hard for me to enjoy your company when you keep holding this debt over my head like you've been doing.”
“When this is all over, Crow. You'll be a better man, and you'll have me to thank for it.”
Siona closed her eyes, and the two of them just sat there. Neither of them said anything else for hours. Eventually, Crow fell asleep, and when he woke up, Siona was gone.
Curiosity Killed the Clawshell
Whispering Crow felt drawn to a certain tavern when he disembarked. He didn't know where it was, just that he had to find it, and that his room would be waiting there for him when he got there. Once he arrived, he payed for a room to rest for the night before he would go out to continue the rest of his journey. His room was on the third floor of the building. When he got to the room, Siona was already inside of it, twiddling her thumbs impatiently.
“Oh, thank heavens you're here. I've been waiting for you all day. I've been so bored.” Said Siona.
“How are you always one step ahead of me?” Crow folded his arms, closing the door behind him.
“I know you too well.” Siona smiled.
“No. I think you're twiddling with my dreams to make me be in the right place at the right time.” Crow tapped his foot.
“Why would you say that? You haven't done anything that you weren't already going to do anyway, have you?”
“It's not a matter of what I do. It's a matter of you waiting for me when I do it.” Said Crow.
“You should be thankful. There's a lot of men who don't have any women waiting for them when they go home.” Siona grinned.
“Don't change the subject! I'm in no way involved with you. That sort of logic doesn't even apply!”
“Oh, but you are involved with me. You are just in denial.” Siona nodded.
“Lets just talk about business, you said you were going to tell me what to do when I got here.”
Siona laced her fingers together and said, “This one should be easy. You're going to have to ride a wild clawshell from the center of the island to the surf.”
“That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.” Crow sighed.
“Oh, you'll be fine, what do you have to fear from a crab ten times your size, anyway?” Siona tilted her head a little with a smirk.
“What kind of question is that? Look, whatever, just take me to where you have the clawshell and I'll ride it.”
“Oh, I don't have a wild clawshell anywhere. You're going to have to go get one.” She grinned.
“This just keeps getting better and better.”
To make some quick preparations, Crow bought himself a shark angling rod, some tackle, and a few large chunks of various meats, pork loin, beef shoulder, chicken breast, and tuna fillet. Armed with his lures, Crow figured he was sure to find some clawshell that was interested in eating some of it. With a little bit of effort, he managed to hunt down a clawshell which strayed to the shore. Sticking his first piece of meat on the hook of his rod, he hung it in the air near the clawshell. Crow stuck the rod into the ground temporarily, to shoot a flaming arrow into the meat. The meat slowly began to cook and the aroma made its way toward the clawshell. Unable to resist, the clawshell scuttled forward towards the meat, and Crow picked up the rod and began running, holding the rod over his shoulder backwards at the clawshell. The clawshell was pretty fast for how big it was, and every few miles, it pincered the meat out of the air, and Crow had to repeat the process of luring it over again. Finally, he made it to center with just one lure left, Crow swung the rod and cast the lure over the clawshell's head, behind it. It turned around, and scuttled forward to dig in. Crow crept up from behind it. Shot its back with another flaming arrow, and jumped on. Too busy burning from the rear to care, the clawshell made few attempts to remove the unwanted passenger, and Crow held on for his life, dodging the clawshell's attacks as best as he could. During the entire time all of this had been going on, Siona was never far away, shouting out encouragement for Crow like a cheerleader. When the clawshell made it to the surf, Crow rolled off, stumbled forward and fell to the ground, soaked in his own sweat, and now covered in sand.
Siona walked up to him and exclaimed, “You did it, Crow! I'm so proud of you!”
Crow took a moment to catch his breath, before finding the strength to stand up and pointed his finger at Siona. “You can throw whatever asinine trials and tribulations at me you want. I will defeat you at every corner, woman!”
Siona smiled and simply said, “You look like you need a bath. Good thing the water's right here. Do you want I should help?”
Crow rolled his eyes, threw himself back down onto the sand and took a long nap.
Less Than Three
Crow emerged from the inn he was staying in, bright and early in the morning, and went to head down to the market square of the city he was in to go do some trading, hopefully making money in the process. When he got there, most of it was small time stuff. Stuff that he couldn't really resell at a high enough rate to make a profit worth the amount of effort it would take to buy the item, but he did finally come across one kiosk that held some curious, high quality looking items. Crow pointed to a masterfully crafted platinum ring with an emerald set into it. “How much is that?”
“For you, that costs one kiss.” a familiar female voice replied.
Crow snapped his head up to look at the merchant, and narrowed his eyes. “That's way too expensive.” Crow frowned a little.
“Oh, Crow, I've been so good to you. It wouldn't kill you to take the extra step in being good to me, too.” Siona laced her fingers together, gingerly holding them up in the air.
“You're right, it wouldn't kill me, but it would sure hurt an awful lot, and probably give me nightmares.” Crow smirked and folded his arms.
Siona sighed and said, “Oh, you always know the right thing to say. That's why I love you so.”
“Please, spare me. I'm well versed in the routine now, so just hit me with it and lets get it over with. What humiliating, ridiculous stunt, risking injury and permanent maiming am I going to have to pull off now?”
“Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned that. This time, I won't ask you to do anything humiliating or dangerous.” Siona nodded.
“Well, that's a relief, alright, so, what do I owe you?” Crow strummed his fingers on his own arms.
“You owe me a life-size statue of a tyrant lizard, carved entirely from one solid chunk of marble, and painted well enough to look alive.”
Crow sighed, “Okay, and what do I do when I can't give you that? Remember, you said it wasn't going to be humiliating or dangerous.”
Siona grinned, “Oh, it's not. You simply have to convince five hundred people to hug you, all in one city, and you're not allowed to bribe or pay them.”
There was a long moment of silence following Crow's reaction, “I have to what?”
“I'm sorry,” said Siona, “would you prefer something humiliating and dangerous?”
“...actually, yes.” Crow reached behind and scratched the back of his head.
“Well, have no fear, Crow, there's plenty of that to come, but for now, you have to get five hundred people to hug you.” Siona smiled widely, “And by the way, once you've hugged five hundred people, you'll feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
Crow tilted his head to one side, picked up the ring he pointed at earlier, and said, “Alright, I'll pay your price for this ring.”
Siona shrieked and nearly took off into the air, she hurried around the kiosk and threw herself onto crow, tossing her arms around him and kissing him deeply on the lips. She pulled back with stars in her eyes.
Crow looked down at her and said, “four hundred, ninety-nine to go.”
Siona blinked in surprise, with a vacant stare up at crow, before finally casting her glance to him at an angle, “That was impressive, Crow. You're pretty crafty; I underestimated you.”
Crow grinned, “Oh, don't pin it all on me. You're my inspiration.”
Siona was already holding on to Crow, so she figured she might as well milk the moment for what she could, she squeezed him tighter and leaned her head on his chest. “Oh, Crow. What am I going to do with you?”
“Listen, Siona. This sisyphean task you've set me to is probably going to take me like, a month.” said Crow.
“That's okay. I'll keep you company the whole time, and we can get to know each other better.” Siona grinned.
Crow sighed and said, “Great, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.”
