Black Feathers and Shiny Things

[Nox]

It was early morning, the sun just beginning to peek over the trees in the park. The air was still cool and humid from the night, though the promise of a hot day was rising with the sun. Allie walked up to the fire ring in the cairn, whistling a slow tune and swinging a small rope full of shiny metal objects around one finger. She circled the fire pit once and stopped to look around in the trees. Her whistling ceased as a smile tugged hard at the corners of her mouth, almost a mischievous look on her face. She tossed the ring of things in the air a few times, each one higher than the other, until it went high enough to catch the rising sunlight and reflect it brightly. She didn't throw it again, but instead put it in her pocket and began to collect twigs and sticks to build the fire up from the embers still throwing heat and wisps of smoke from beneath the ashes.

[DarkWanderer]

Arcos had spent the night wandering about the city, contemplating his usefulness to the members of his caern and the garou nation as a whole. Normally, dealing with the garou was easy. They gave him an order, he completed his mission, and then they rewarded him. That was the end of it. No socializing on a large scale, no learning the customs or etiquette of their kind. Nothing. Why was is so different here with this caern?

As he neared the park his thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a tiny glistening light in the sky. He stopped, hands in his pockets as he stared in the area he spotted the shimmering reflection in the sky and there it was again.

A sly smirk grew across his features before he made a bee line in that direction, almost ignoring any obstacles in his path as he headed to collect his precious 'shinies'. Stumbling out of brush, Arcos entered the clearing housing the fire pit, spotting Alli here before he stood up straight.

"Well, hello," he said, his fingers wiggling in a small wave, "I didn't expect to see you here..." His eyes darted to and fro, searching for the source of the alluring reflection.

[Nox]

Alli heard him before she saw him. It was difficult to keep from smiling too widely, but she managed to keep it a friendly grin. "Oh, good morning. I didn't really expect to see you either." By this time, she had gotten the fire to catch on the small twigs and sticks, and was now gathering thicker sticks and breaking them up to feed the flames. She glanced up, again having to suppress a smile at seeing his wandering and flitting eyes. "Are you looking for something?"

[DarkWanderer]

The corax dusted himself off before his approach, "Sorta," he began, stifling a yawn as hr stretched his arms, "I thought I saw something over here... Maybe I was just seeing things. Y'know, sleep deprivation and all." He idly bent down to pick up a stick, casting it into the fire without hesitation before he sat on the ground.

Watching the flames lick around the fuel he had added, he cocked his head slightly before his attention returned to Alli. "So whatcha doin'  out here? Just starting fires? Are you planning on cooking something or are you just a firebug at heart?" He gave her a snicker, laughing at his own joke as normal.

[Nox]

Alli pulled a package of cheese hotdogs from her backpack, opened them, and stuck one on the end of a stick to roast over the fire. "It seemed like a good idea, I like fire, and I like cooked hotdogs," she said, then reached into her pocket and pulled out the hemp rope of shiny. "Is this maybe what you saw?" Over the last few days, she had been collecting all kinds of things for the boy. It was a bracelet-sized hemp rope, on which hung can tabs, a couple of pennies, 6 Smirnoff bottle caps each with a color of the rainbow, and a few various bracelet charms, one of which was a small raven.

[DarkWanderer]

Arcos gasped as his eyes grew wide, "Ha! I knew I wasn't going crazy!" He quickly hopped to his feet, clearly excited about the new objects that had been collected for him. He closely examined them, touching them to flip them over in the light while resisting the urge to snatch them away from her. "Look at that, you have can tabs... bottle caps... Colorful bottle caps at that, that's awesome... Oh, and what are these? Charms? Oh wow! A little raven, isn't that sweet." He beamed at her brightly. 

"Are these for me? Please tell me that these are for me."

[Nox]

Unable to hold back from his infectious excitement, Alli tossed her head back and laughed. "Yes, these are for you. But," she said, and closed them in her hand, "before you get them, you have to answer a riddle for me. Deal?" She smiled her mischievous smile, one brow raised.

[DarkWanderer]

Arcos grinned darkly at her, "A riddle, eh?" As much as he loved shiny objects, there wasn't anything else that could catch his attention like a good riddle could. Being a corax, he had a natural affinity for enigmas of all kinds.

"I do hope it's not too difficult for me," he said in a sarcastic tone.

'Shinies and riddles?' he thought to himself, 'This is already turning out to be a great day.'

[Nox]

Alli grinned in turn and pulled her hot dog off the fire before it burned, then set it aside. She crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side, looking at him as if sizing him up, considering carefully which riddle to present. She was by no means a master, but she had learned a bit about the Corax and used the information to set up this gift for him. 

"When one does not know what it is, then it is something; but when one knows what it is, then it is nothing. What is it?"

[DarkWanderer]

He nibbled on his lip as he thought about it, playing with his lip ring a little in the process. "If one does not know... it's nothing... if one knows then it's something... hmm." He rolled the riddle in his head over and over, though he swore that he'd heard this riddle before.

"Nothing is something... something is nothing... I got it!" He smirked at the challenger. "It's a secret! If everyone knows about it, it's not a secret anymore." He seemed very proud of himself.

[Nox]

She narrowed her eyes, but her smile grew. "No, not a secret. Try again."

[DarkWanderer]

Arcos narrowed his eyes back at her, "Not a secret?" His mind began to repeat the riddle over and over again. "A lie. If I don't know you're lying to me, it's a something, but if I know you're lying to me, than I don't believe it, so it's nothing."

[Nox]

"Hah, nope. One more try raven-boy." This was turning out to be a bit more fun than she had expected. The riddle had come from a book of older riddles that looked like it had been for kids. She had considered a few others, but upon seeing that one, picked it immediately. After all, Corax love them.

[DarkWanderer]

Arcos ground his teeth a little as he racked his brain, searching for the answers. He repeated the riddle out loud. He paraphrased the riddle. He thought the riddle over one more time. There had to be an answer to this riddle. And then it hit him.

"Wait a second. I've been thinking about it all wrong. It's not a lie, and it's not exactly a secret." He inhaled slowly, ready to give his last guess. "It's a riddle." He said, "I mean, the answer to your riddle is a riddle. It might be confusing. I was even a little confused."

[Nox]

Laughing, Alli tossed him the rope of shiny things. "Very nice, I wasn't sure if you were going to get it for a second." She picked up her hotdog and proceeded to devour it with as much gusto as you could while eating a hotdog. "Pardon the ravenous behavior, I haven't eaten for a little while longer than my body likes. If you'd like some, I'd be happy to share."

[DarkWanderer]

Arcos caught the rope with glee before he peered down at the hotdogs, imagining what it was; Mechanically shredded animal bits, the kind nobody really wants to eat, stuffed into the intestine tissue of some other animal, and it sounded pretty good to him. He eating habits were always backwards in his forms, but hotdogs he could eat in any one of them.

"Thank you," he said, taking one and chomping on it cold. However, he preferred them raw as a homid, and cooked as a corvid. "I won't pass up free food. At least free food that I can stomach." He snickered. There really wasn't much he couldn't stomach between his two forms.

[Nox]

Alli chuckled. "Between deer jerky, fruit, nuts, and the occasional pack of hotdogs, I always have food on me, so if you ever ind yourself hungry but can't find food, find me." She put another hotdog on a stick to heat over the fire. "Oh, if you don't have any plans today, I'm going to be going to the river to look for sea glass if you'd like to join me."

[DarkWanderer]

"Sea glass," Arcos repeated with excitement, "I love that stuff- Inanna and I used to pick it up over on the beaches of western Europe... Although, I wasn't aware you could even find sea glass in rivers." He thought about it a moment as he finished his hotdog. 

"But it makes sense though. In this river?" He pointed in the direction of the Ohio river, "They have those locks down there, right? That means they'll dry up that part, right?" He was getting eager just thinking about it. He could find more than just sea glass down there.

[Nox]

"That would be dangerously interesting, but no, the river doesn't dry up, it makes it more shallow. But there are a lot of teenagers who go down there and party and break glass bottles on the rocks. Between that and the floods that carry some in, there's a lot of those glass pieces hidden in the rocks and sand. I'm going to use them for jewelry, or a mosaic, or maybe just to keep in a jar because it's pretty. I haven't decided yet."

[DarkWanderer]

The corax tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, his imagination creating pictures in his mind of teenagers getting drunk and smashing bottles for no reason other than for the hell of it. He remembered suddenly that he wasn't old enough to drink in America and that he'd soon have to get someone to buy his liquor for him.

Shaking the thought away, his dark eyes focused back on Alli as he smirked. "Y'know, it would be easy to pick out those little pieces of glass from up high. I could circle around the rocks and sand and lock onto those little guys from above. Like a... Glass-seeking missile. It'll be fun."

[Sponsored content]