4.40+ A random bird POV

AN: When someone jokingly suggested I should do a random bird POV after the cliffhanger in 4.39, I was struck by an idea. And would you look at that, it just happens to perfectly align with April 1st. Here, enjoy an extra minichapter.

The crow ate its seeds upon the window sill, pacing itself. They were good seeds, very nutritious. There was a tapping and then banging on the window, but the bird was too busy with its meal to pay it any mind. It was a good meal, very nutritious. It listened through the closed window like any real crow could, taking in the delicious morsels.

When the people left, so did the crow. It quickly scarfed up what was left of the food in quick jabs of its beak, then took flight. The creature was different that day, without understanding why. Not even really perceiving the change, nor when it had happened. Real crows were smart, but introspection was not one of their strengths.

Some people mistook that for stupidity. If the bird ever heard them, it would scoff at being perhaps mistaken for their dumb cousins, fake crows. Fake crows fell for simplest snares and couldn’t even talk, so no one in their right mind would mate with them. Real crows could calculate the artillery curve of an arrow before it was released and dodge, see through most thin walls, and teleport past simple barriers. It sometimes baffled it that the people who could do none of those sneered at it with disdain. 

Case in point, the not-quite-human who thought they were being sneaky. They probably were, since the other people were not paying them any attention. It swallowed that bit up and flew on. The critter watched the two highborns failing to reattach severed limbs and the old man sitting in his office, frantically scribing letters - which it remembered even though it couldn’t read.

It was a really chaotic day. Next the crow smelled that delicious aroma from within the building, but when it looked there was nothing there. It flew five circles around the area, but never found that particular meal. It had just tired itself out for nothing. Annoyed and irritated, the bird left.

The crow flew for three hours into the middle of the woods, far enough from any settlement there would be no finding it. There it reached the spot where real crows in the region gathered, a good hundred of them, sitting on branches in an otherwise unimpressive spot in the deeper woods.

Some people would call it a murder, which was wrong. The birds didn’t kill anyone. Not directly, at least. This was a covenant of crows, obviously. A real gaggle of real kin, each dancing, singing, gawking, or caring for the orb.

The newcomer partook in the first three, but the last was its purpose. Bit by bit it skipped across the covenant, reaching the middle where the ever-growing white globe was. Then it barfed on it, secrets spilling out of stomach. 

The delicious morsels flung through the aether. Like dreams after waking, gone and forgotten. They joined the pile in the middle, coming up to a mound about a dozen Ruins high. Some on the bottom were already long spoiled. The crow was not question any of that. A real crow did not question these trifles, it merely gathered secrets, then fed the whole like it would any chick. 

Then flew away, the uniqueness of the day receding from it like the tide. At least until it smelled a particularly delicious secret again.