Difference between revisions of "A Kindness of Corvidologists"

It's a clear, hot day in Detroit this Monday. Alma doesn't have family in the service in Detroit and isn't attending any events. She's sitting under a tree on one of the greener patches of campus. Her duffle bag and vest of pockets are on the ground next to her and she's sans laptop for now. She's flicking through a bunch of pictures on her phone and annotating some pages in one of her notebooks. Note isn't in the tree above her, but Alma is sporting some extra stylish twigs speared jauntily through her hair.

Rounding the corner of a building, Wednesday looks about to cross the grass, looking to the rooftops, when he spots Alma. He grins, changing direction, his coat billowing for a moment, showing a Moonsorrow t-shirt underneath. While the weather is hot, he still has his wide-brimmed hat on, but doesn't look uncomfortable at all. "Hey," he calls out in advance, warning her of his presence. How eloquent!

Jim flies on by and spots Note first. So a large raven descends from high up, and flies around the tree, coming to land in a nearby branch. Note is greeted with some friendly clicks. But then he sees Alma right after. So, the bird flies down from the tree, landing on the stump of a branch, clicking at Alma now. She should know enough about ravens to know what that means.

"Heya," Alma says to Wednesday. "How are the crows? Want to hang out for lunch?" Her notebook goes in a cargoshort pocket and a pencil behind her ear. As is often the case when she meets friends, she digs around in her duffle and finds some fruit and trailmix to share. She's got some bread today too. When she hears that tell-tale Raven click, she grins some more. "Hey!" she raises her voice. "have you met Wednesday!" She talks to Wednesday in a quieter voice. "You totally have to meet Jim. He's helping with the research."

Digging around in one of the coat's inside pockets, Wednesday produces a ziploc of some sort of jerky. "The bloodgulls are getting chatty - good for me." He looks up at the raven, still grinning, but head tilted in a question. "This is Jim?"

Jim glances at Alma's mix, then at Wednesday. But his head swivels right back at her, head tilting at her. Then the bird looks back at Wednesday again, and stares intently a long moment. He then flaps and lets out a trill. He should have more faith in Alma. Possibly?

Alma cocks her head at a Raven. She gives him a look, like, maybe wanna introduce yourself? "Lunch? I have some pumpernickel today too." She doesn't go for that, instead she pulls out an orange and starts peeling it. a delaying tactic. She's gone for a more straight face but her mouth is upturned in a supressed smile.

Wednesday opens his ziploc. "Or the good stuff? Sorry it's not juicy anymore, Jim." He tears off a small chunk of jerky, and holds it up to the raven. As he does so, he begins to chant in a low, gravelly, soft voice, "gu zzz ga zzz gi zzz ge zzz go zzz..." repeating the syllables, grinning at the raven.

Jim watches Wednesday again. He knows this guy is... special, and so it wasn't a big deal for Alma to introduce him like that. And now he's doing that. The bird is puzzled.

Alma explains to Wednesday, "Yeah, he's my student. Uh,..." Alma looks a little concerned. "It's probably better to explain what you are doing in English? He doesn't know magic the same way you do." Alma looks at Jim, "Meet Wednesday. He's meeting corvids in a less academic way than we are. Note hangs out with him sometimes. I don't speak his language though."

Wednesday shoots Alma a questioning look. "He's a...student?" Glancing back at Jim, then to Alma, "Does he speak English?" He shakes his head quickly, and focuses back on Jim. "Sorry - I mean, do you? I was trying to speak to you..." The jerky is still offered, though Wednesday's arm is less outstretched, as he's forgotten about the bribe.

Jim looks around. Making sure no other students or whatever are nearby, then looks up at Wednesday. In a strong Texan accent, he says softly "Howdy. Begging your pardon but I don't know what you said."

"Oh! yeah. Sorry. You both speak English. I don't speak chant? Jim doesn't either? I, ok. It lets you talk to ravens? I only talk with Note. And Jim when he speaks English... or Spanish." A worked twig falls from a branch in to Alma's lap. She picks it up and examines it closely, hmmmms. "Thanks." It goes in a pocket.

"Yeah, I hadn't gotten to the Raven part, yet. It's hard for a charm-bearer to rush into langauge like that - I was building a bridge, if you will. Anyway," he re-extends the arm, and jerky, "For you?"

Jim realizes what he's doing. "Well thank you," he says, the bird leaning forward, snatching the piece of jerky with his beak carefully, then lowering it down, pinning it against the sawn-off branch with his foot to start tearing at it. "I'm Jim Gomez. You are?"

(Alma is not paying attention to Jim or Wednesday. It looks like she just got a brainstorm. She digs out her notebook and twig and starts furiously taking some notes before she forgets.)

Wednesday bows his head a tad and tugs at his hat. "Call me Wednesday." He tears off a hunk of jerky for himself, and leans down to drop the ziplock on the grass near Alma's gear. Standing back up, "Do you find yourself in the form of a battle gull often, Mr. Gomez?"

Jim glances at Alma, then back to Wednesday. "Battle gull? I don't understand why you'd call me that, Wednesday."

(Alma is still not paying attention)

Eye twinkling a bit under the brim of his hat, Wednesday shrugs. "Call it poetry? But you said, 'call -me- that.' Are you a raven, then, Mr. Gomez?"

Jim tears off another pieces of jerky, looking down at himself, then back up to the man. "Do I look like a pigeon?"

(Alma is still not paying attention)

Wednesday smirks. "More like a pigeon than a Mr. Gomez, to some."

Jim pauses at that for a moment, tearing off another piece of the jerky to eat, and then the last piece held down by his foot. "Ah, so you're suggestin' this is some form of disguise?"

(Alma is still not paying attention)

"I was at first." Wednesday reaches down, and takes a pinch of trail mix from Alma's stash. "But you seem to identify as a raven, and I've heard of stranger things." He pops the trailmix in his mouth, crunching. "So are you a raven?"

Jim looks up at him. "I am a raven. I am also a man," is his answer. "Not familiar with that concept?"

"It's a perfect match!" Alma blurts out. She's got a page bookmarked in her notebook and is holding the twig next to that page and consuling a picture on her phone.

Wednesday looks about to reply to Jim, but looks to Alma after her exclamation. "What do you have, Alma?" He couches down, sitting on his heels, coat rumpled beneath him.

Jim looks over. Wednesday already asked the question, so he hops off of the tree, and hops in the grass to take a little piece of the snacks she has.

Alma looks up, startled. She'd gotten so focused that she forgot about the rest of the world. She shows them the twig. "It fits the pattern." She holds out her phone so they can see a picture of a weeds growing in cracks in concrete somewhere. She quickly swipes to an earlier picture, showing an unmaintained basketball court and rusting playground. Maybe the twig has the same forking branch that shows up in the concrete? Regardless, she seems pretty intense about it. "It has to do with the... the..." she waves her hands, "shoals of the city," She really stares at them. "in the consciousness of everything. the, uh, people. ..the... the city rules. paperwork. it makes things drift around." she slows down a little and puts her notebook away again and pockets her phone. "I am mapping soft.... shallow places in the shroud. things are too quiet. I'm making some noise. It's slow going but I've got this map worked out. This may be a new spot. We'll see." She looks at Jim, "This is part of the other work I do. It's gone a little strange."

Wednesday examines the twig, the pictures. "Van Der Rohe showed me some maps - city planning stuff." He taps the side of his head a couple times. "I can share them if you think it would help." Looking over to Jim, he continues their previous conversation. "Maybe not familiar, but I can imagine. I've heard enough rumors of people who were also wolves." He shrugs.

Jim is even more lost than he was when Wednesday was doing his ooga boogay. Gulping down a little seed, he stares at Alma a moment, and just says flat out "Ma'am, I don't understand." The wolves part he chooses not to respond to. Fortunately he has a poker face as a bird.

Notebook put away, pencil back behind her ear, Alma makes a little more sense as she explains to Jim, "Remember when you said that people might feel threatened if Note spied on them? And I explained to you that we don't do that, we find people who need help? Like at the Second Stories place? This is like that, except for finding... spirits who need help? But imagine that something had muffled everything, that's what I'm trying to get through. It takes some... calcualtion, so to speak." She turns to Wednesday. "Her. huh. Is she any use? She doesn't seem to be open minded enough. I wouldn't be surprised if she misses a lot of details, but go ahead, I'd love to see her maps."

Wednesday listnes to Alma explain, nodding along thoughtfully at the general message, though clearly unsure of the details. At Alma's response to him, he grins fiercely. Oh, he has -thoughts- about that Hermetic. "She's convinced that her leadership is essential. The maps - I can draw them out, should be fairly accurate - or I can search around, see if I can get digital pictures. Not sure how much that sort of thing can be tracked, though." He waves his hands vaguely. "I can send them to you later."

Jim looks between them. "Oh. I reckon if y'all have maps of the spirits in the city, i'd love to see what kind of map y'all have of the white zone. It's the white zone you're talking about, right? The part with spiders and a big ol tent?"

Alma tries to translate this to anything she knows about, but she doesn't manage it. "More like curtains? Not a tent? Something that separates us. I've maybe seen some ants. bees. No signifcant spiders. but I'll go back through my notes. Why do you call it the white zone?"

Wednesday shuts up. He's clearly eager to hear more.

Jim flaps. "We should discuss it later if we can, ma'am. When eeryone's notes are all together."

Alma nods, then looks at where the sun is. "I need to get going. You two should get each other's number. Compare notes." She suggests. She gathers her things and heads back to her office.