Chapter 61 A Group of Crows is Called a Murder Part 2

“Cawr? Caw? Coo?” - The queries of Cheese Cheese Cheese I’m Naming Myself Cheese and You Can’t Stop Me the Glutton, in the Cantos of Crowkind

‘Whatever the hell these birds are, it was wrong to think of them as baseline crows.’ The idea seemed so obvious in hindsight, no regular creature would be able to survive this long on this world, gene vaults or not.

So it was probably a stupid idea to land alone in their clearing and clear his throat. The crows kept a ‘community’ gathering spot in the remains of an old greenhouse high on the roof of an apartment. The greenhouse glass had long been fogged over with dust and muck, jagged holes of shattered glass were the only entry points. It was once filled with dead plants and twigs, but they had evidently cleared out most of it, leaving heavier pots of dried earth scattered around.

Someone might’ve expected this abandoned place to be dull, it was anything but. They had gathered a veritable dragon’s hoard of shiny trinkets, colourful accoutrements and fabrics. Eclectic in collection and decoration. The place was almost blinding, glittery t-shirts and vibrant ripped fabrics hung off the beam, replaced whenever they got too faded. Shiny pieces of metals, keys, and a recent point of focus, coins lay in great stacks. Some placed on top of the pots, arranged as if they were metallic plants that blinded the eye. He wasn’t too surprised to see some of them rolling an emerald the size of his head around. That jewel thief was better than he let on. The hoard was illuminated by a single glowing fish head of all things. Still fleshy and dead eyed, it gaped at him from the centre of the room on top of a bird fountain.

A few of them stopped what they were doing, stepping towards him. They were probably expecting another job. They kept expecting that even when he called for a larger gathering, it was night, so many crows were already gathered, but Ranpo wanted to get the last stragglers.

When all came, Ranpo opened his beak, and they listened in utter silence.

“So yeah,” Ranpo finished, “I’m taking over, we’re stopping our organised crime, and moving onto more legitimate business.”

The murder of crows around him shifted, the stance looked passive. It was baffling, he was expecting aggressive, swears- crows could swear with the best of them-, yet he was met with silence.

Then Uno- in hindsight, Aiden calling the one eyed, one legged bird that was pretty mean spirited, even One-Eyed sounded better- hopped forward. Slinked forward really, head low, tail raised, and growled, “Fuck off.”

That’s when the group turned aggressive. For the first time, Ranpo thought the term murder was a rather apt way of describing a group of them. They certainly seemed to have murder in their eyes, and Ranpo had to let them surround him. Cawing loud curses and slurs as they flared their wings in intimidation. Ranpo admitted he was slightly speciesist, but saying that about the colour of his feathers was uncalled for.

Then one of them lunged at him, he tried to dodge, he really did, ‘Why did Aiden have to make this look so easy!?’

The crow got him in the wing, then a second one descended upon him, then a third, and fourth, and soon his body was ripped apart in a flurry of beaks and claws.

Turns out he did bleed, though the blood felt papery, like really thin paper mache. His flesh was some weird in-between amalgamation between paper and flesh.

Losing that body was so annoying, especially since he couldn’t fold himself a new one. Damn apes and their thumbs.

“You guys done?” Ranpo asked, his real body splayed in two dimensions on the clay pot beside them.

Several beaks dropped. One-Eyed’s was not one of them, he pushed one crow’s jaw shut with his wing, and approached him more cautiously, “You hold tricks, but know we’ve stolen our fair share of tricks as well.”

“I’m not asking for much,” Ranpo shrugged. “Just be decent people.”

“And why should we listen to a human fucker?” One-Eyed cawed harshly with laughter. “You even use their expressions! Leave! That is the kindness you have bought from teaching us the tricks of coins.”

“Kindness!” “Kindness!” the murder repeated behind him.

Ranpo’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t care if you alienate my friend?”

“Who gives a fuck about him?” one of the crows cawed. One-Eyed immediately shot it a dirty look and slapped it with his wing.

‘Damn.’ There went his in. The crows had found another store to shop at. It might be the jewel thief, or some other poor sod they had roped in.

“Like you said, I taught you how to use money,” he enunciated the words, as if speaking to idiots. “I taught you how to get by in the human world. Aren’t you all eating way better now? Isn’t it nice to not have to root through garbage and trash cans, instead getting the fresh articles straight from them?”

He realised pretty early on his peers weren’t so interested in grand ideals, except food, and maybe shitting. Crows shitting on people were a lot more directed than humans realised. “Are you satisfied with just this amount of loot? Of food? You guys could earn so much more!”

“More?” “More?” The murder asked.

“More!” he shouted back.

“More!” the crowd repeat.

“Are you parrots?” One-Eyed yelled, sweeping his wings, “Gullbrained! He is without name, barely a child!”

That was unexpected, “I have a name, it is Ranpo, you may have heard people use it.” His name was the only word he didn’t speak in crow. There wasn’t really a direct translation in caws to that hideous reference.

One-Eyed flew closer, looming over him, “Human name, it is not accepted amongst the crow kind.”

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“Then what is?” he challenged.

“Something other than that,” an older voice interrupted.

Both their attention turned. In the back of the greenhouse a pair of eyes stared back of them from the shadow of a ceramic vase. The creature hobbled forward, head just peaking out of the darkness. Unkempt, its feathers were messy and slick, as if covered in crude oil or paint, it was much larger than any of the assembled crows, for it was a raven.

“His name is Three Toed Headphones,” the raven gestured to One-Eyed. It quirked it’s head, “I could offer a name to you, or give you the right to choose one. Though maybe not the latter, for you would choose to keep the name of man, and forces us to speak human.”

“What does a crow name matter?” he briskly asked.

“Little at all, for someone of your ambitions,” it cawed back. “Slaying of immortals, stealing of elixirs, forging a champion, all the makings of myth, don’t you think?”

“How did you know that?” Ranpo slid off the pot, gliding across the ground. He reached his mangled body, and forced it back into one piece as he stood and stared down the great raven.

“That is a stupid thing to ask,” the raven told him. “We are crows, who cannibalised the corpses of Thought and Mind still roosted on their master’s shoulder. We have been stealing secrets and tricks since the first dawn. Even if you are crow shaped and not crow born, you should know that. Just as I know you do not fear me, for you have stared down a much greater thing than I, and talked her down.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Myself,” I answered him. My face loomed over him. “You desire leadership of the crows of this land, not just a mercenary one. It is a matter you would need a name for. Do you want one?”

“And I would have to get a name from you,” he said.

I shrugged, and Ranpo realised I had been using human mannerisms the whole time. Rather late of him, honestly. “It is a formality, but I keep the Cantos, so I am bound to formality.”

Ranpo was silent for a moment, before he scoffed. ““This is bullshit,”” we both said at the same time.

““What?”” again at the same time. ““You’re repeating- How are you doing that?””

Ranpo stepped a foot back, ““You’re a meta, aren’t you?””

“A name,” I asked him again. “Do you want a crow name?”

‘I should’ve brought Aiden-’

“You constantly rely on him,” I chastised, “when it should be you he relies on.”

“Get out of my head!” Ranpo cawed as he arched his wings, body raised like a wild animal.

“Finally,” I crooned, “something like a crow.”

Ranpo froze, shrinking back down as he took another step back.

“I don’t ask for much, merely a secret and a place in your memory. I must admit you only need to give a secret, the memory is an indulgence of mine.” I lowered my head in submission, “I merely hope that when you achieve all that you sought, you remember Me.”

Ranpo regarded the raven, “A secret? Only a secret? I doubt there is something I could keep from you.”

The raven shrugged, “Formality, as I said.”

Ranpo frowned, mentally working through his mind what he had already revealed, before he finally settled on one, and walked forward to face the raven again. “Fine, I’ll tell you-”

“Interesting.” The raven turned away, skulking back into its vase. Its body fading into the shadows. “I’ll keep that one.”

“What- Hey! You! What secret did you take?” Ranpo shouted, “What about the name!?”

The silhouette paused, turning a beady eye towards him, “You are ambitious, Eat the Skies and Shit Out the Clouds.”

“What?”

It took Ranpo an embarrassingly long time to realise that it wasn’t a request, or order.

It was his new name.

Three Toed Headphones fluttered down in front of him, staring with his one eye.

Ranpo tensed, before the crow yelled, “There is a new crow among us! Celebrate! Celebrate!”

“Celebrate!” “♫~Celebrate!~♫” the crows sang.

“What?” Ranpo gaped, as the crows began flying around him.

“Bring the booze!~♪” Headphones sang as he led the dumbfounded Ranpo back to the centre. There, groups of crows worked together using a bottle opener to crack open several green bottles of beer, and poured the contents into a bird fountain. A crow, covered in golden bracelets and watches leapt and swan dived into the pool of beer. The splash went everywhere, and Ranpo tasted alcohol on his nose for the first time in his life.

A ring of crows landed around him, clapping wings together as they skipped. “♫~Sing!~♫” “♫~Sing!~♫”

“♫~Sing! For we are CROWS!~♫”

“♫~Ashen clad! Heaven sent!~♫”

“♫~Thieves one and all! Keep your sticks close!~♫”

“♫~What is this?~♫” Ranpo sang in confusion. “♫~Why am I singing?~♫”

“♫~Stole fire from man, just so we could burn our yams!~♫” Headphones slapped his wing, “♫~But do we care?~♫”

“♫~No!~♫” “♫~No!~♫” the murder chanted back.

“♫~Burnt our feathers black, but did we stop stealing?~♫”

“♫~No!~♫” “♫~No!~♫”

“♫~Spied some secrets! Keep your voices down!~♫”

“♫~Blind and deaf lollygaggers! Used us eyes and ears!~♫” Headphones twirled around in a circle, singular eye scanning the crowd, “♫~But do we care?~♫”

“♫~No!~♫”“♫~No!~♫”

“♫~Secrets didn’t save them! So we had our fill!~♫” Headphones leapt into the booze fountain, “♫~Corpses and carrion, all a crow’s feast!~♫”

“♫~I suppose I could agree with the idea of eating carrion,~♫” Ranpo sang. “♫~Do zombies count?~♫”

“♫~Now you’ve you got the idea!~♫” A group of crows slammed down a mug of beer. “♫~Drink!~♫” “♫~Drink!~♫”

Ranpo tentatively took a sip.

The crow that was covered in golden bracelets leapt out of the fountain, “♫~Sing! For we are crows! One day we will huck off our raven ash, blind you with the bling we deserve!~♫”

Headphones splashed out a wave of booze into the gaping beaks of many crows, “♫~Sing! For we are crows! One day we will keep the secrets for no one but ourselves! Shit yourself, we’ll know your face and where you live!~♫”

“♫~So drink! Drink! Drink to that golden plume!~♫”

“♫~Drink! One day humans will die, and then it’s our turn!~♫”

The next morning, Ranpo woke up with a splitting headache on a pile of half eaten fruits and nuts, surrounded by the prone or wobbling forms of the murder that tried to murder him last night. Somehow also covered in glitter.

“I understand how Aiden feels now,” he murmured, before falling back down to sleep.