Sturmovik: Created page with "{{title |name=The Raven |author=Sturmovik |user=Sturmovik}} {{author note|I believe this was my first ever one shot story (ie not part of the LTF series). Written in Februar..."

2013-10-29T03:23:59Z

Created page with "{{title |name=The Raven |author=Sturmovik |user=Sturmovik}} {{author note|I believe this was my first ever one shot story (ie not part of the LTF series). Written in Februar..."

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{{title
|name=The Raven
|author=Sturmovik
|user=Sturmovik}}

{{author note|I believe this was my first ever one shot story (ie not part of the LTF series). Written in February, 2001.}}

The sun had long since set and a lone raven was circling high above the buildings.

Raven was hungry. It was cold time and the light had gone. Raven couldn’t see well. Raven needed food. Finding was hard, but raven knew special place. Food could always be found at special place. Elders warn raven about square caves. Square caves home to tall things. Tall things bad for raven. But raven was clever. Raven liked cave food. Easy to get, tasted good. Elders not clever enough to get cave food.

The raven flew up over one of the buildings and spiraled down into a central shaft. It landed on a pipe and began to work at a vent cover with its beak.

Raven knew just right way to make square flap open. Inside of flap very dark. Raven could not see but knew the way by heart. Raven felt the hole that led to cave of always light. Raven poked head through and saw no tall things. Raven prepared wings and jumped into cave of always light. Cave was long and narrow, flying hard. Raven flew to smaller cave where food was. Raven noticed round white things and landed. Cave food was always best. Moist and sweet it stopped raven’s hunger.

The raven had once again flown into the Physics department lounge and was now gorging its self on cookies that had been left out by the staff that afternoon. It was late at night and the department was basically deserted.

Raven peck at round thing until round thing became small enough to eat. Raven liked dark bits the best. Then raven smell it. Raven smell meat. Smell was dead, but something different. Raven couldn’t resist.

Raven fly, followed meat smell. Meat smell from cave inside cave. Raven couldn’t believe eyes. Little round dead meat bits in large bread thing. Whole thing was covered in red stuff. Smelled of grease and fat. Raven dig in. Taste was overwhelming. Raven couldn’t stop.

The Raven could care less that it had accidentally flown into the personal lab of a student who had been taking computers apart and playing with the insides. The raven didn’t understand Cathode Ray tubes, electric fields or voltages. The only thing that mattered was the meatball sub both he and the student intended as a midnight snack. Raven saw motion! Raven turned to see tall thing coming right for it. Raven leaped to fly, but something grabbed it and there was a crash. All raven could see was a blinding flash of white light then blackness.

Raven opened his eyes and he knew something was wrong. Sight was different, smell was different. Raven leaped to fly, but he was too large. He hit the ground. What was wrong? His wings! His wings were gone! Replaced by long tubes with pink bits at the end. His size! He had grown! Raven looked down, all his feathers were gone. He legs had become similar tubes. Raven called out. Others could help. NO! All that came out was an odd screech. His call was gone as well. Raven then realized that he was a tall thing.

Raven panicked. He had to get out. He had to get out of the building. Where was the door? Wait! Everything around him had a name. He could hear the call for each in his mind. He was in a “building”, to leave he would have to walk down the “hall” and use the “stairs”. Raven searched his mind. He knew exactly how to leave. Other images began to flood over him. Other tall things. They were called “humans”. There was so much knowledge it was too great to comprehend. Raven then heard another strange squawk, but it wasn’t from him. He looked down and saw a small, black creature. It was hopping around and making pathetic and confused cries. It was a bird. It was a raven. Raven realized he was looking at himself. Raven bent down and pointed at the bird. “Raven,” he said in a voice that sounded like it was coming from semi human alien, “You, Raven.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” echoed the strangled thought of the human. All he had done was to have stepped out to the bathroom. He came back to find some big ass raven snacking on his meatball sub. He went to chase it away and possibly catch it when suddenly he saw a blinding flash and then nothingness. When he awoke he found himself covered in black feathers and staring at his own body now moving around by itself. He tried to say something but all the came out were squawks. The last straw was then his body bent down, pointed at him and said “You Raven.” The human responded with “Listen asshole, you had better give my body back right now or I swear I’ll find a way to fuck you up”, but again all that came out was a bunch of squawks and caws. The human was confused. Was he really now completely a raven? He still thought like a human. He still had his memories. He concentrated a bit. Yes, they were still there, sort of. It was hard to remember specifics and everything was generally in a gray haze. What wasn’t in a haze were images of flying, black feathers and feasting on road kill. “Oh my god. Maybe I am a raven. Maybe I am going to be stuck like this forever.” The human started to cry. Of course birds can’t cry so all that came out were some incredibly pathetic sounds that could pass as sobs.

The Raven looked down at his former self. It had stopped hopping about and was now emitting some low noises that made water well up in the Raven’s eyes. The bird appeared to be crying and the Raven was starting to feel bad. With his new human brain and knowledge the Raven realized that the human was now in his old raven body. He could picture how scared and alone the human must feel. He bent down again. “You are human?” The bird made a nodding motion and stopped crying. “Me...I am Raven.” He then searched for the most reassuring thing he could say. “We’ll fix this back to normal.” With that Raven picked up the Human and began to stroke his soft feathers.

Because they both had each other’s knowledge Raven and Human were able to quickly learn how to be their new selves. The Human learned to CAW properly and was busy jumping around the room as he perfected the art of flying. The Raven was getting used to walking upright on 2 legs, grasping things with his “hands” and even doing the two at the same time. Raven reviewed the Human’s memory of what had happened just before the accident. The Human had been working on something called a Mac Classic (the device’s use was still a mystery to the Raven). He was going to turn it into a home for fish. He had taken it apart in the lab, but he wanted to see if the CRT/power supply were still good for anything and he had plugged them. After completing the experiment the human turned it off and went to excrete waste products. Upon returning the Human discovered me, the Raven, eating his snack. He went to catch me and then the white light.

The Raven walked back into the small lab room. What had been the power supply had some nasty burn marks on it and it smelled like melted plastic. The human had been aware that these things could be dangerous. Maybe this strange human device was to blame. The Raven figured he would definitely have to learn more before he tried to solve the situation. The Raven noticed the meatball sub and both his human and raven parts went “YUM!” at the same time. Fighting his urges, he picked it up, turned off the light, closed the door and went to share this meal with the Human.

The human listened intently as the Raven described his theory of the accident. He was also glad to be getting his meatball sub. He really loved meatball subs. The Raven put some on the table in front of him and he reached out to dig in only then realized that he didn’t have hands any more. He felt ready to cry again.

“You have to use your beak. Peck at it until it’s small enough to get down.” The Raven’s human speech was improving.

“I know it’s hard, but I had to do it for years and it got me by. Still, I can’t say these hand things aren’t convenient,” he said shoving the sub into his mouth. After they finished the Raven spoke up again.

“I think I know where you live. I’ll take you back to your room and you can use your computer thing to communicate. I’d better carry you cause its cold out and you’re still new at flying.”

The Raven reached out and picked up the human who resisted the strong urge to bite and flail. The Raven tucked the small black mass under his coat and turned off the lights. They left the building and walked across campus to the dorm. This was turning out to be a very interesting day.

Raven might have had access to all the human’s knowledge, but that didn’t mean he instantly knew everything. As his mind explored new neural pathways his base of experiences increased, but he was still basically a bird in a fantastic new world. When he looked at something new he found himself awash in memories and information. The human could only sit and watch out of the flap of the coat as his body bumbled its way back home. They finally got in the room and the human wiggled free and hopped onto the keyboard and once there he began to peck at the keys with his beak.

“It’s really late, we need to get some rest. Tomorrow, you need to do everything that I normally do. Later on in the day we can talk to some of the tech people about what happened and possibly recreate the same sort of accident to switch us back.”

This took about 5 minutes to type out. The Raven replied, “That sounds good, do you think I could really pull off being you?” Of course being the clever bird he was the Raven typed it on the keyboard.

“Har har. Listen, can the crap and build me a place to sleep. Um, could you open the window, I have to poop?”

Raven opened the window and the human flew out onto the railing to do his business. The human flew back in and began to type once more.

“You’d better make my nest out of that towel, I don’t want to dirty something important. Then shut down the computer.”

Raven dutifully made the nest and the human settled down to sleep. The Raven hadn’t ever done such things like turn off a PC or gotten ready for “bed”, but if he stared at an item long enough the knowledge would suddenly appear.

After the light was off the human tucked his head under his wing and tried to sleep. Alone with his thoughts he realized how much he had lost. All he could remember was a general outline of his life and the same was true of his knowledge, he had lost much of the detailed information he had spent his whole life learning. At least he could still read. Interestingly he also knew how to fly, where the best scavenging was, what to look for in a mate and what predators to avoid. Sill the human was beginning to feel he had gotten the short end of the trade.

The next morning the human woke up to a surprise. He was covered in feathers and about 1 foot tall. He went to scream and a loud CAW came out. This woke up Raven and he commenced flapping his arms and running at the window. After a few seconds they both remembered the situation and looked a bit embarrassed.

Raven felt confident he could carry out the Human’s duties. The Human would spend the day flying around and experiencing the best parts of being a Raven. He felt he owned the Human that much. Raven gathered up the bird and took it outside. “And you’re sure you’ll be ok?”

The Human nodded and sent back a look that asked “And you?” “Yes, yes. Of course now go.” With that the Human flew off and Raven went to start his day as a human.

Raven felt quite uneasy as he walked to the human event know as “class.” The raven had no clue what to do until the memories suddenly popped into his mind. It was like flying at high speeds towards a window, expecting it to open at the last second. Only when a small detail was about to turn into a big crisis would the raven be granted the knowledge to avert disaster.

He finally made to what he somehow knew as the “right” room and took a seat at what something told him was his “usual” place. He would need to take notes for the human, but what were notes? Images of a red notebook and black pen popped into Raven’s mind and he rummaged through the human’s book bag to find the required tools. Raven was looking forward to this “class” thing. The human greatly enjoyed this particular activity and something told Raven that this was the key to all the human’s power. Being confined in the little desk chair was uncomfortable and the raven was getting antsy, but he knew this “class” thing would be worth it in the end.

Forty-five minutes later Raven had a pounding headache and he could barely keep his eyes open. It felt like someone was smothering his spark with a wet wool blanket. He thought all anybody would find of him would be an empty shell staring into nothingness. The raven couldn’t understand his new brain and why it kept insisting things were funny and interesting when they were stupid and boring. The raven didn’t care about logical circuit diagrams or IEEE floating point numbers. The raven wanted to be soaring in the noonday sun, happy and care free, but now his lovely black wings had been replaced by gangly arms. The raven couldn’t understand why humans tortured themselves like this.

Just as the raven thought himself a goner the class ended and everybody started to leave. Raven packed up the human’s things and went outside vowing never to return to such an abominable activity, but then he was flooded with more information from that cursed human brain. If he stopped going to these classes he wouldn’t be able to find a “job” and if he didn’t get a “job” he would starve. When Raven queried as to the meaning of “job” he learned that humans were expected to spend most of their lives in mind numbing toil. Raven stopped just outside the building and gazed longingly up at the sky, tears forming in his big human eyes.

The human had gotten off to a much better start. As soon as the raven had bid him off he had jumped into the cool air of a sunny winter day. It was the most amazing thing he had ever felt and he couldn’t resist the urge to fly higher and higher. Soon the entire city was spread out like a tarp, far below his small black mass. The simple act of looking down and seeing nothing holding you up, feeling no real means of support, no chair, no rope, was almost enough to put the zap on the human’s mind. The human felt the urge to sing out and inform the world of his great joy.

“CAW CAW, CAW.”

The human was dismayed by his harsh and ugly voice. His hart was aching to sing a joyful melody. “Well,” the human thought, “If I can’t sing maybe I can be funny.”

Always a source of wit, the human then went about trying to force a human call into the raven’s beak. After about an hour, he had made significant progress.

“CAW, Nevama, Nevamar, Nevamore.”

The human felt that was close enough and then, spying the crowd of lunch eating students outside the campus centre, thought of a way to exploit his newfound talent. He fluttered down near a small group of students.

“CAW, Nevamore.”

“Hey, did you hear that?”

“Nevamore, CAW CAW.”

“Shit, that crow can talk. Listen.”

“Nevamore.”

“That is so cool, it must be trained or something. Hey, toss it something.”

After a few more “performances” the human had gathered a small crowd of “real” humans who were now laughing and throwing food. French-fries, hamburger bits, pizza crusts, the human was in raven heaven. Then suddenly, the human was not alone.

A seagull landed next to the human and began snapping for a share of the food. The human didn’t mind, there was more than enough to share. Then a pigeon showed up, then another, then more gulls, they kept coming. Soon there were 20 or 30 birds all fighting for the scraps the students had thrown. It was a mad free for all brawl and with the main attraction in the middle of a mob of dirty birds the student crowd lost interest and went away. The human tried to yell at the other birds and jab them with his beak, but he was far outnumbered. A few painful gull pecks later and the human felt it was time to leave. He flapped away still hungry.

Spying the clock on the bell tower the human saw it was getting close to his rendezvous time with the raven. He winged his way over to behind the science centre. There were some private residences that adjoined the property and as the human flew over he spied brown gold. One of the houses had a bird feeder. It had come under squirrel attack so most of the food was scattered on the ground. The human wondered where the squirrels had gotten to, but he just figured it was their loss. He would gorge himself until Raven showed up.

The human made a perfect landing and began to peck at the bread crusts that had stocked the feeder. It felt good to be able to fill his small belly. Suddenly there was an orange blur and the human’s new instincts rocketed him into the air as a sharp pain flowed from his tail. He landed on a branch and looked down to see Bob, the WSA cat, hissing at him from the ground below, his missing tail feathers clearly sticking out of Bob’s mouth.

As fun as flying was, the human was getting sick of being a bird. First other birds had attacked him, now a cat. The worst part was he was still hungry. The human desperately wanted his arms back, he wanted mass and opposable digits. He wanted his meal plan, to stuff himself on warm food and most of all he wanted to be at the top of the food chain, not duking it out in the middle. He looked over and saw that the raven was waiting for him.

Raven had just come from stuffing himself on human food. The wonderful exotic tastes had almost convinced him that a lifetime of self-imposed torture was worth it, but time and again his thoughts would turn back to the sky and his lost freedom. He was finishing a soda and nibbling some curly fries when the human glided silently up and landed on his shoulder. After he swallowed his fries, Raven spoke. “I did not have a very good time being human today. In fact I want my old body back more than ever. Judging by the look of my body I’d say you had a similar experience.”

“CAW!”

“Ok, lets go meet this electrical engineer friend of yours.”

The pair then proceeded to the electronics lab where the human known as ‘V’ was running a session.

“Hey V, could you give us...I mean me some of your time. Um, I have a little problem maybe you could solve.”

“I’m kind of in the middle of a lab here...woah! Did you know there’s a large crow on your shoulder.”

“It’s a raven.” The raven replied with a slight tone of anger.

“Sorry, raven.”

“This will only take a second, can you please help me out.”

“Ok, fine. By the way where did you get the “raven”?”

“Um, it’s a friend’s.”

Raven led V to the human’s small lab, pointed to the remains of the MAC power supply and asked him what had gone wrong.

“Here’s your problem. You got some tomato sauce on the circuit board and it caused a short, discharging these capacitors through the coil and these pathways here. I hope you weren’t in the room when this happened. This probably created a blinding flash of light and some intense electric fields. A discharge like that would sure make you “Think Different” as in it would probably make you think dead.”

Both Raven and Human almost choked on the irony. “Um...I was in the next room and I just saw the light.”

“Lucky you. Anyway, you should really be careful around these things, they’re dangerous. Why do you think they make it so hard to open the case up? The power supply is just sitting there open. Well I need to be getting back, I hope I helped.” And with that, the human known as V left the room.

“So,” said Raven, “It looks like we can recreate the event that caused this mix-up.”

Using the human’s memories and helpful caws from the human, the raven took apart another MAC Classic and set the guts out on the worktable. The raven then plugged it in and performed the same experiments the human had before they had been switched. The raven then unplugged it, went to the trash and found a bit of uneaten meatball sub. He carefully gathered a glob of tomato sauce on his index finger and held it above the circuit board. The human hopped up on the table and offered his wing to the raven. For a second they met one another’s gaze and something unspoken passed between them. Finally Raven’s finger’s reached out grasped the human’s black wing and thrust his sauce-covered finger towards the special location. Once again there was a blinding light and all flashed to black.

The human decided that this was by far the worst day of his life. He had been turned into a bird, attacked by other birds and then almost eaten by a cat. Now he had a headache that not even Excedrin could fix. The human pressed his fingers to his forehead in a futile effort to rid himself of the pain. The human opened his eyes. Fingers! He had fingers! He could feel them and move them about. They were his! He moved his legs. He had legs! He could stand again! His eyes, his hair, his clothes, everything was back again.

The human leapt up from the floor with a barely muffled should of elation and began to dance around the little room working out his formerly absent limbs. The raven stood on the table doing much the same thing. Then their eyes met again and both raven and human saw another creature, not their own body moving under foreign control. The raven jumped on the human, grapping the front of his shirt in his talons and gave the human what can only be described as a hug with big black wings. The human returned the gesture trying hard not to hurt the smaller bird.

The most amazing part was they both remembered everything. It wasn’t just the memories they had experienced while switched, but those their “caretaker” had experienced in their stead. Moreover, everything the human had taken with him was there for the raven when he got back and vise versa, everything the raven had dumped into the human’s brain was waiting for the human when he got back. They both realized that neither of them would ever be the same.

After a few more minutes of celebration the raven jumped on the human’s shoulder and they started to walk toward the inevitable. They got outside and the human turned to the raven. “Thank you for helping me get my body back, you are a true friend, but now I guess we have to go back to our own worlds. Goodbye Raven my friend.”

With that the human grabbed the bird and threw him into the air. The raven flapped thrice, alighted on a lamppost and turned back to look at the human.

“Well go on, get out of here.”

“CAW.”

“Don’t you caw at me. You’re a wild creature and you belong with your kind.”

“CAW!” The raven flew back and once again landed on the human’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you want to go and be free? I have your memories, you hated the life of a human.”

“CAW, CAW.”

“Oh, I get it. Why live the life of a raven when you can mooch off of a human and get the best of both worlds. ::sigh:: I guess you ravens are smart after all.”

The raven grinned as best he could and nodded. “CAW.”

“All right, let’s get back to my room. I’ve got work you neglected to do.” He reached down into the little paper cup and brought the last curly fry to his mouth. Unfortunately it didn’t make it.

“Damit Raven, give me back my fry!” The human made a grab for the bird, but he only succeeded in hitting himself in the side of the head. Raven flapped ahead, landed and began to nibble his prize.

“Aren’t you going to act like a normal bird?”

Quoth the raven, “Nevamore.”

“Why you little!”

With that the human began to chase after big black bird. Had anyone bothered to look out across the field in the waning hours of that cool winter day all they would have spotted were two lifelong friends roughhousing in the snow.

={{seperator|k|The End}}=

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Modern magic]]
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User:Sturmovik/The Raven - Revision history

Sturmovik: /* {{seperator|k|The End}} */

Sturmovik: /* {{seperator|k|The End}} */

Sturmovik: Created page with "{{title |name=The Raven |author=Sturmovik |user=Sturmovik}} {{author note|I believe this was my first ever one shot story (ie not part of the LTF series). Written in Februar..."

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:24, 28 October 2013
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	[[Category:Modern magic]]		[[Category:Modern magic]]
	[[Category:Magic]]		[[Category:Magic]]
	[[Category:~~Avian~~]]		[[Category:Birds]]
	[[Category:Human]]		[[Category:Human]]