Prologue: City of Wonders - Scene 1

[Admin]

*clack* *tap* sounded the nut as it hit the pavement. Sometimes, a Raven is lucky enough for the shell to be cracked by the fall alone. But, most often, they have to wait for one of the human's machines to crush it. And so it was that the bird now had to be patient. Perfectly adapted to it's urban environment, it flew down on the sidewalk and did as countless humans and ravens did before it. It looked at the light indicating that it was safe to pass. Three lights came and passed, but the nut was still in the middle of the road, undisturbed.

Other humans came around it. Incredibly immense creatures they were, and somehow more afraid of her then she was of them. Only some dared to try to pet her; Others would trow her some of their own food. Just like that. An odd thing it had never seen grow on any tree. It had a hard crust and a soft interior and came all kinds of shapes and sizes. In its tiny brain, that thing was associated with the sound "bred". Because that's the sound humans would most often make when trying to give her some. She had also learned that when she made similar sounds, humans would be amazed and give her some more.

One of the very loud machines passed by at great speeds. It ignored all the lights as other machines made way for it and it's loudness. It had it's own lights, too. Confusing ones that moves around a lot. Victory came with it, as it crushed the nut wide open. The bird would be able to eat it the next time the lights made the machines stop. However, before this could occur, it heard another loud noise. One that meant death. And that meant food. Danger, sure. But, also food.

The Raven had a choice to make.

[Genevieve]

The cracked nut meant food in a few seconds. The dead humans would mean food later. Food that might not actually be dead. It would be best to get the nut now, then head towards the humans that were protecting their territories with their thundering tools.

So she waited the turn of the lights, then quickly took the cracked nut. She swallowed as much a possible; it was important not to waste time. The machine's weren't always calm around the red signal, as seen a few moments ago. There were still some nut crumbs, but she had to leave. She skipped and flapped her wings lifting her to a surrounding rooftop. After landing she tilted her head and tried to see if more gun shots would be heard in the same direction as the first. More shots would mean more chances for a good meal. But it would also mean that the humans were in a serious fight, and it might take hours for the bodies to be safer to approach.

[Admin]

More shots were heard. The bird could see below her the humans growing scared and scattering away from the origin of the loud sounds. Locating the source of the commotion was now an extremely simple task.

[Genevieve]

A longer fight, it seemed. She observed the scared human's reaction below her. She tilted her head as she gazed down. If she was lucky, all the humans in the area would be leaving. This also meant that the humans feeding outside would leave their feast behind. Rare were the humans that cared to carry their food remains.

She kept that thought in mind as she took to the air. Her destination was towards the gun-fight, but she scanned below her with her sharp eyes to find an outdoor feeding spot.

[Admin]

An mess of sounds erupted nearby in a most unpleasant way. Not the battle the raven was hoping for, just some humans screaming very loudly, much more loudly than humans usually do. It somehow communicated to others humans that they should leave the area and so they did. Some walked, some ran. Here and there, they left unfinished food on tables outside of building while the nearby doors and windows were being closed.

A veritable feast of flavors awaited the opportunist bird. More than one of which had the same kind of ideas than this Raven.

[Genevieve]

Please with the sight of the unfinished food left behind, she landed on a nearby roof. She checked her surrounding to make sure the area was safe for her approach. It wouldn't do to have a hidden human smack her away.

So, she took and instant to observe her incoming brethren. Although gun-shots almost always meant food, it didn't mean she liked the thunderous noise that echoed around her.

She skipped a few steps at the top of her roof as she took note of the food below. She targeted a juicy morsel, and if safe, she would dive down and grab it to consume on her rooftop.

[Admin]

The bird found a decent morsel. It was closer to the action, but not so much as to be deemed too dangerous. It had the advantage of being far from any place to hide for humans who might want to smack her.

[Genevieve]

She dove and nervously skipped towards the morsel. She took a cautious peck at it. She checked around to assess her safety once again. In the clear, she grabbed the food with her beck and flew back to her rooftop to consume it.

A few bites in, she was getting full. She started to think it would to wise to hide the rest of it somewhere. But then again, there was more food laying around. She decided to stay on her rooftop a bit and look down. How were the human currently faring? This would help determine if her food source would stay plentiful or if the human would resume their normal lifestyle and clean everything up in a few hours.

[Admin]

Near her, the scene looked so:

The human weapons were floating in the air, surrounded by blue spheres of light. Three groups of them could be distinguished easily. There were two opposing factions, those were often fighting over territory, they were screaming loudly at each other with bloodlust in their eyes. It was unclear how or why they were not killing each other. The other group is the one that came in the loud vehicles. They were speaking much more calmly.

That group still had their weapons on them, not in the air. Two of them were dressed in machines that could make them run very fast and one of those, was the one talking to the other factions. Another human of that group was studying something in his hands and looking anywhere but at the current commotion. That human watcher looked up and pointed in the direction of an alley nearby; There was a lone human in there, looking in from afar. That seemed to cause unrest for the two humans not currently dealing with the squabbling humans. The one wearing metal took his weapon out of its holster, showing the lone human that he was armed, but he did not aim in his direction. The lone human was impeccably dressed and utterly unimpressed. He continued to look in from the shadows. The situation seemed to be under control for now.

[Genevieve]

The raven emitted a slight frustrated croak as the third group was confronting the two opposing factions. She seen them in the past before. It often meant that the situation would calm down and the cleaning up would commence. But, they weren't always successful. They could fail which would leave the food out for countless days as the unrest persisted. Not to mention that the human would succeed into killing themselves.

The current situation however seemed to show victory for the third group: human death probably won't occur today. At least, not in this location.

Part of her wondered why the lone human in the alley would cause unrest among the powerfully tooled humans. Maybe he could change the situation. Curiously, she kept an eye on the individual. Tension could suddenly escalate and food could be available for days to come.

[Admin]

The humans from the third group envelopped the hands of someone from the first group in blue light and seemed on their way to leave with him. At first, all was well but as they turned away one of the people from the first group lost his temper suddenly and ripped off a parking meter with his bare hands like it was nothing. An instrument he immediately sank into the belly of the watcher man from the third group. That man briefly knew the pleasure of flight and disappeared at blinding speed in a badly lit alley. Swiftly turning around, the armed man from the third group still had his weapon ready and did not hesitate to shoot. Although no wounds were visible, the strong man fell over, unmoving. No one else seemed to desire that fate and quickly showed various signs of rendition. When the captured man was safely in the machine, the human who had handled the talke went to see his friend in the alley, but came back out alone. The one with the weapon displayed signs of anger and made it clear he meant business.

When the strong ripped out the parking meter, the man in the shadows had growled, but otherwise made no movements to intervene. And now, it seemed as if he had seen enough as he turned around and made to leave.

[Genevieve]

"Kaw!" She croaked out when she understood that the fight was over and there would be no bloodshed today. The humans would soon clean up the area and all the food would leave. Still, she did get a good meal so far for today.

She kept looking and the humans below. They would entertain her for now, until she feels hunger again.

[Admin]

All of the two first groups were made to sit in front of each other, with their arms behind their back. Some had blue lights around their hands, others did not. Everyone was very quiet.

It took very little time for the big rectangular machine to arrive at the scene. Two man came out of it, they went into the alley for a short while, when they came out, the body was on a floating metal plate they put into the big rectangular machine. The new fourth group, took some time to talk with the third one who didn't seem interested to do something with some white piece of paper.

During the commotion between the third and fourth group, a man from the second group decided to try to flee. He got around a corner before the man who had handled the talks noticed and went after him. Leaving his companion to deal with the fourth group and the second corpse.

[Genevieve]

When the man from the second group decided to flee, she couldn't help herself croaking out an excited croak and flap her wings. She wasn't encouraging the escapee, nor was she warning the predator. She was simply expressing her amused self because of the upcoming action.

She shifted position on the roof, trying to get a better angle.

[Admin]

From her new vantage point, the raven was able to witness the scene. The man fleeing never had a chance. His cries of anguish were clear, he was desperate.

But the man chasing him had metal legs. With them, he was able to run at speeds she could only reach when flying. That did, however, have its flaws as the man found turning corners quite difficult. It was, in truth, comical to see him take the two turns he needed to do before he had caught up to his prisoner. When he did, he slapped him on the ankle with a rod and his feet were suddenly also surrounded by the blue light. Unable to run in this condition, he slammed into the pavement. Hard.

The metal legged man with the rod tapped on the blue light on the man's wrists, and then on a peg jutting out from the side of his metal legs. The two were bound in the same light and the prisoner had no choice but to follow. Try as he might, he did not manage to close even close to unbalancing the metal legged man by his yanking. Nor did he manage to move him by his pleas. Soon, both men had returned to the scene where every one waited.

The strong man who had pulled out the parking meter was no longer visible and more machines had arrived. The prisoners were being forced to enter them.

[Genevieve]

The raven kept watching until all of the prisoners entered the machine. She wondered what should she do next, seeing as her entertainment as left.

[Admin]

The Raven stayed around long enough for most of the people below to leave. Others arrived and took pictures, gathered things, left others there and left again. About that time, another Raven came around to meet her.

It looked... off. It seemed charismatic enough, but it was clearly missing some feathers. It came close and studied her.

[Genevieve]

The humans seemed to be returning to normalcy. No more action for the moment. She turned around from the sight and took notice of the other raven. She nervously croaked at his sight and skipped hastily to the food that she has yet to hide.

The raven close to her was an adult; she might be on his territory. But he wasn't pecking at her in aggression. It didn't put her at ease. She checked her food source, and cawed again in consternation. She was tricked, she showed her food! She skittle nervously around, expecting the other raven to trick her again to make off with her prize.

[Admin]

He cawed back at her with a certain nonchalant attitude. Similar to the way a human would go "Hey, babe. Whatcha doing?", which of course had no rhyme or reason for her.

He seemed to like her.

[Genevieve]

Well, she didn't like him.

She cawed aggressively, but her body language expressed flight instead of fight. She was on the verge of diving off the roof, and leaving behind her loot. The adult before her definitely had known some fights and she wasn't ready to lose some feathers over the scraps.

[Admin]

"Hey, cool down, babe" his body language was saying. Again, an expression completely out of the range of the Raven's register. All in all, he was hellishly confusing.

He tried getting closer again.

[Genevieve]

She squawked and dived off the roof. Her descent was fast, but calculated. Her wings spread and she quickly ascended to normal flight height before landing on a rooftop on the opposite street side from the other raven. She kept an eye on him from this distance.

[Admin]

He seemed displeased but otherwise uninterested in persuing this conversation so he let her go. She could see him from her new spot, he was slightly mistreating some other raven nearby. Apparently blowing off some steam on a completely innocent bystander.

[Genevieve]

She croaked in frustration when the raven attacked the other nearby ravens. Then she decided to let them fend for themselves; better them than her after all. So, she took flight and headed away from the location.

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