Crowman, Cont

Grinning Crow put his large hands in the pockets of his cream trousers and exited the room, via a beautifully carved archway which lead to large marble and stone battlements overlooking a vast pine forest which stretched out as far as the eye could see. Crow leant on the battlement walls feeling rather pleased with himself. Raven might think himself smart with all his cunning plans, diplomacy and spies but Crow was smarter and he, unlike his brother had changed much over the centuries. Loss and a love for human kind did that to you. That and an absurd love for pop and world music.

As three crow's bearing two small packages swept overhead to the North East Crow pulled his pocket watch out of the breast pocket of his cream jacket and opened it. Now this pocket watch was a very unusual indeed. In fact there was nothing like it in the whole Universe, well, this one anyway. on the outside it looked ordinary, too ordinary for it to be your average pocket watch, in burnished gold. On the inside it looked like the whole Universe had been condensed and forced inside. And the colour it let out! A deep, pulsing, magical, mysterious, raw colour. it was the colour of the Universe.

The half of the pocket watch that was currently lying flat on the palm of his hand currently showed, in deep purple spidery writing that was so miniature you had to have a crow's excellent vision to see it, all the various times of the world as well as the best place and time to party in each time zone.

Satisfied that it wasn't to early to go for a wild night out in the bustling picturesque town of Vianden, Crow pressed one of the many small silver buttons situated around the ring of the bottom half of the pocket watch. The purple writing disappeared to be replaced by a holographic map of the world which hovered a few inches away from Crow's face. This detailed map was covered with little red dots which showed exactly where each one of his siblings were. Double checking that each and every Raptor Guardian was well away from Luxembourg, that Raven was still in the freezing terrain that he called home for most of the year and that Common Fox was still in Swansea Crow allowed himself to completely relax. It was time to go and have some fun!

5 minutes later Crow was down in his open courtyard, cheerfully whistling his way through Megan Trainor's new album while he waited for his closest human friend, chief advisor and driver Sergei.

"Hey Crow. Sorry I'm late. Jana got a piece of rubble in her hoof when I took her out for a ride this morning and the red corvette's tyres had gone flat."

"Oh dear. Is Jana alright?" Jana was one of Crow's many horses and his favourite, despite the fact that when they had first met she had decided that his fingers tasted just as good as the juicy red apple he had given her.

"Yes she's fine. I mean she's mad at me for knocking her out but other than that she's all good" the Portugean awnsered with his usual sweet smile. Crow chuckled lightly. He could imagine how cranky his fiery mare must be feeling. He'd have to pay her a visit with a basket of apples later.

"So are you ready for a wild night on the town?" Sergei asked cheerfully as they walked down the steep drive towards the black Mercedes-Benz parked at the bottom. "Hell yes. I haven't had a stressful day like this in years. Not even that business with Mother Wolf a few decades ago was as stressful" Crow grumbled as he opened the door to the front passenger seat and climbed in. "I take it you found our mole then ?" Sergei queried while the engine purred to life.

"Yes I did. And we were right, it was one of Raven's. I've sent him a message expressing my utmost displeasure with his actions". Sergei snorted with amusement, his straw fedora hat briefly sliding over his dark chocolate brown eyes before he pushed it back. "Don't think I don't know what your version of 'sending a message' is" he chuckled. "Let me guess. You had some fun with him then after you scared the piss out of him you had his eyes torn out then fed him to the crows."

" What? How did you?" Sergei rolled his eyes and shot Crow an exasperated glare. "Oh dude, gimme a break. I'm your best friend and as you should very well know, unless someone's dropped a mountain on you recently, before you pulled me out of my personal little hell hole I worked as a torturer, interrogator and killer for terrorists, more or less in that order. Now are we gonna go out and have fun or are you going to sit there all night looking like a shocked older version of Prince Charming Mr Goldfish?" Crow shut his mouth with an audible snap and shook himself.

"Sorry", Crow apologized with difficulty as Sergei parked the car in the middle of the pebbly road. "Sometimes I..." he paused. How to put this so that Sergei wouldn't take offense and sulk for the next century or two? "Sometimes I forget that your not just my closest friend, my most trusted advisor, driver and unofficial servant slash body guard. Sometimes I forget where you came from and the pain you can cause, and I mean that in a good way. I mean you don't like watching people being tortured and killed",

"Yeah okay okay, I get the point your trying to get across" Sergei chuckled, "your forgiven. Now let's go before you ruin my reputation".

"You have a reputation ?" Crow teased as they climbed out of the car, the doors slamming shut with a flick of Crow's hand. There would be no need to lock the car. Everyone, even the tourists, knew at a glance who the black Mercedes-Benz with a moss green crow sitting where the car model's motif should be belonged to, and no one wanted to run the risk of pissing him off.

"Cause' , I'm a flirt with a heart of stone and fists to match according to Mari's local gossip network. Come on, I smell panella".

Published 29th February 2017