Crows Murder

The seizure had arrived just in the time for the physician to distribute a sedative to cease her violent trashing. Her fever had reached a peak that even threatened the very foundation of her immunity. Her tangled and matted black hair remained plastered to the duvet as her body ceased its seemingly impassible flailing. The white linens upon which she laid upon in her haphazardly supine disposition were drenched with the liquid salt expelled by her feverish body. Not only did her perspiration exude the minute tragedies of her life, but they seemed to obliterate the placid stoicism which she frantically clung to during her conscious moments. She was more vulnerable now than ever, particularly with her mind and soul meandering between the world of the living and its effervescent moments of human sorrows and joys to the simple, silent privileges of peace and tranquility that the Cities of Dust, or what the Pani labeled “purgatory” beheld. She had crossed that threshold, but death remained abashed and elusive. She sought it, but it refused to acknowledge her efforts. Death was like a man; taking whomever it wanted without discrimination and leaving behind the cries of the living who sought to bargain with it for the souls of the claimed. It was ironic that her life was momentarily preserved in the chance of a passing executioner – Crow. Or was it chance?

The physician was mild-mannered and rather gentle in his approach to the Pani woman; his countenance revealed a man who had a composed demeanor and a smooth, kindly face that revealed a speckling of blackheads across his nose and cheeks which resembled sprinkled pepper. The salt and pepper coloring of his could make one gauge he up in his age and his manner suggested that he might’ve been a doting, loving father or even a grandfather. The serums always kept one guessing as it rendered cellular aging obsolete. However, a pair of eyes suggested what type of person a human being usually was. She learned from an early age how a simple glance can reduce her to tears. Now, as Crow had assumed, she would fight tooth and nail to preserve her freedom… but her life? Had she not attempted to end it prior at the cliffs before the arrival of the “black bird”?

The physician, whom Yurei would have determined was mild-mannered and kind, inspected her with a detached and clinical countenance: he checked her pulse, opened her eyes as he had a candle produced before her then to discern pupil response. He performed a cursory examination before rising from the side of the bed and a slender, fair-haired kajira adjusted the coverlet and tucked her like a mother to child. The dreams had subsided as the sedative quelled the vexatious visions and silencing the noisy ghosts of a sordid past which was both troublesome and unchangeable.

“I had hoped she was well enough, though it seems she isn’t. But… the worst is over. A seizure can occur at times if a fever is high enough.” He pivoted and strode towards his humble desk which was cluttered with diagrams of the human physiognomy. The man not only seemed to perform well in his profession, but his profound dedication to self-education displayed in the dark circles around his eyes. “I had brought you in here because I intended to examine her body and I realize most owners wish to be present for that.” He settled down heavily and sighed while the candlelight cast writhing shadows across the room as they resembled tree branches dispersing towards a summer sky. Oddly enough, the shadows fluttered around Yurei’s sleeping form like the flapping wings of a bird. It performed the same for the stern and aloof assassin who had remained with her even through her ordeal.

“The area of where her brand is has been… cut out? That’s the best way to state it.” He lifted himself from the chair as he created distance between them as he approached Yurei and gently lifted the blanket to expose her upper thigh. Indeed, he had spoken truth; where the “kef” that Eve had branded into her flesh so long had been replaced by thickened, raised scar tissue that revealed crude knife marks which seemed to be done in haste. Her pale-tan skin which hinted a creamy yellowish-pink undertone provided a startling contrast to the ugly, savage marks that had intended to blemish her true identity to most men. It was foolish and stupid for a woman to depreciate her own beauty… but it was a brave, silent protest which few, if any dared to do – ruin the markers of which men placed upon them. It was her declaration to any and all who decided to enslave her of the lengths that she would go to secure her freedom.

“I assume she is recent acquisition to you; though, it looks as if she might prove difficult. I have only witnessed few instances of panther women mutilating themselves to deter captors. They usually don’t last very long within the collar. If this has dismayed you, I can always euthanize her. She is pretty, but far too scarred and perhaps too wild to tame and conquer, Killer.”

The physician had assumed Yurei belonged to Crow; but who wouldn’t consider that he brought her in? The physician didn’t prod any further but waited with anticipation for Crow’s response.

Crow listened and stood there as this power of force, but truly heard what the physician said. It was important to learn what someone was telling. More often than not, one could hear hidden thoughts between words and with it gained knowledge that could be fruitful when used properly. He didn’t nod, nor gave any indication that the words meant something to him, perhaps because of the awareness that even the Physician could be bribed, tortured for knowledge about him. There were to many that would dance on his pyre if he came to an end. Who would blame them ? He was only a killer now.

Perhaps his fear would be unfounded, the woman only a slave and what would her words be of worth. Still he was certain that even words of a slave could put a man before the gates of the city of dust. He had number of stories when it came to this. Many were shared by the campfire too young recruits that would be beaten into the killers, they needed to become. He often had wondered why some believed there was some honour in his caste. Why they felt this inner urge to spill blood over a that bit of gold and yet he himself was one example. A man that had been disappointed by life and wished to cheat the Reaper of Death. If he had only given it more thought then, he might have been there for his daughter and Anna which now had to give birth to a child that had been conceived by the rape of his last victim.

Crow turned his face to the physician when he mentioned the scars. “In truth I did not know, but I have to meet a slave or woman that carries none.” He said as if unbothered by them and keeping his detached appearance. In all these years it had become this shield of coldness, which had become thicker by the years. How could a killer truly survive if he would start to care, it was the ruthless thought of being unbothered by whomevers life was paid for. When the physician went out of sight he looked at his own hands that were able to commit murder and yet these had carried the wounded peacock to here. “Why?” he mused to himself fully aware that life had its own tricks and treats without any legit explanation. However the mentioning of the scars was taken to mind, perhaps in his mind it made sense as to how she had become the bitter peacock he once met. How would one endure pain and not have a way to answer it, find a way to secure oneself for not happening it again. Was her bitterness a wall to hide behind ? Was her elusive way of being, a mask that hid her true heartdesire ?

The words that were shared, were known to him. He couldn’t quite remember who had taught him the words or their meaning. Still he knew them and gave him the understanding that he hadn’t found her by accident. Perhaps the higher powers that some barbarian slaves talked bout did exist or again the wheel of his life wasn’t easy to comprehend. Either way he knew that the name he once was given was significant to the girl and perhaps if they were able to share information he might learn as to why.

The story of dark clad men, fully disguised and as the wind swift, calculated and more importantly of an iron state of mind weren’t the killers of today. They were perhaps better, more in touch with what they were and what they were able of. He once heard a story about a man that could catch arrows while blindfolded simply because he was able to hear them and turn to it without having to see it. He wondered for a brief moment if he would be able, but such needed trust and at the present he was quite sure that he didn’t have that trust in his own abilities.

He looked at the physician that seemed to wait on an explanation as to the words the girl had spoken in her delirium. “I doubt the meaning of the words would help her get well, Physician.” He replied as to warn the man “I didn’t pay you for hearing her out while she is in this state. I simply pay you to treat her so she can serve as to what she is – a slave.” His voice held nothing of his thoughts or emotions. He wouldn’t share his own concerns, thoughts or puzzles to the man, just as he wouldn’t do it with anyone but those very few he trusted. Even those could be seen as a blemish to what his caste brothers so often spoke of : Alone with Gold and Steel.

When the Physician walked off he wondered what T. would say, one of his most trusted comrades. There were a few select others but they were hardly the ones he would share thoughts with when it came to the more philosophic thoughts or puzzles life brought him. T. would perhaps just as much as he, desire to look further, fearless for what one might needed to face. “A fire, a crow and the dark fighter have a connection to the peacock, but what ?” he silently asked himself.

He looked up when he was summoned and waved his hand gallantly to the physician. “Lead.” He simply stated when he spied the curious look of the man upon his manners. He knew that the mere gesture of his hand might have betrayed his high caste origins but it didn’t matter anymore as in the present he was the low caste killer, called Crow.

When next to the bed he instantly noticed that she hadn’t slept calm or tranquil, she herself seemed to be haunted by demons in her unconscious or restless sleep. The white of the sheets in so much contrast with the black of her hair or the taint of her skin. How helpless she seemed and yet he knew that she would still give a powerful struggle if anyone dared to end her life. He was certain that in her dreams she was like him and wondered what would have happened to her if she had been born a boy. He didn’t speak, tried hard to keep his face unreadable while he waited – patiently – as ever for what the physician wished to address.

“Well Killer… it seems that your discovery is going to live.  You brought her here just in time as she was near death.  Her fever has broken for the time being and her condition has stabilized for now.  Though, she still suffers from delirium and she continues muttering in this strange tongue which I can’t discern.  Thankfully, she is now resting at the moment.  Though, I would recommend that she remain here for sometime.  My examination of her revealed that she is malnourished and…” The physician lowered his voice slightly, reserving his low, hushed tone for the assassin as he was uncertain if the Pani woman in the adjacent room was asleep or not, “Were you aware of the extensive scarring of her body?” The physician continued to wipe his hands in the rep-cloth and set it aside the basin.  His countenance was calm, but he seemed fidgety within the presence of the darkly attired man.  Who could blame him, knowing the notoriety that was quintessential with the black caste?    Yurei laid in, for what would be the first time in months, a warm bed with clean sheets.  The change in her usual sleeping arrangement elicited discomfort, evidenced by her tormented tossing and turning, left her utterly restless.  But, she wasn’t agitated simply by her arrangements, though that was only part of it.  It was the unsettling dreams which refused her consolation, even in her comfortable setting.  She was gradually beginning to discover that the past was not something one could easily leave behind.
——

It was the frightened shriek which assaulted her ears that caused her to abruptly awaken.  The little Pani girl, now aged ten, jolted upright in her bed and allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room.  She remembered how difficult it was for her to adjust to a mattress instead of a futon and the adjustment period which had followed it.  The coiled springs of non-Pani mattresses just could not compare to the bean and buckwheat filled quilts of the pleasure house.  How luxurious and cozy they were, compared to the white Karian slaver’s gifts and kindnesses which she never quite became inured too.    It had been three years since Lord Nishida sold her mother’s contract to the Karian slaver.  The cruel and often nettlesome memory remained emblazoned in her mind’s eye: the very men who were assigned to guard her and her mother turned around and snatched her and her mother away from their collective home like namahage monsters.  Suyuan had been cosseted, doted upon, but still expected to maintain honor and decorum; especially when it pertained to men.  She was expected to revere them… and whoever owned her mother’s contract.  The Karian slaver was now her father, refuge, and from it seemed to be… her irrefutable face.  His face was something she could never forget – ruddy, deeply-lined and leathery like the tarn saddles she used to observe being made in the tarn camp.  His hair was close-clopped and resembled overnight snow distributed on the earth.  In each ear, he sported two gold rings which mesmerized her as she had only witnessed earrings on collar-girls.  His gaze was nearly a sneer of cruel intelligence and power, even though he dealt with the Pani girl very kindly and almost paternally.  There was something about the white man which elicited a frisson at times; especially when he regarded her.  When he looked at her, a bit of her innocence shriveled up and expired.  These were moments when she pleaded with him to see her mother and many times he firmly denied her.  Even in her present adulthood, she still had difficulty pronouncing his name… something S… Sam…?    Smoke curtailed into the small room through the narrow slit just beneath her door and she commenced to cough and sputter quite violently, causing her to violently trash and flail about the bed which hollowed out into the present.

——

Her cracked and calloused hands gripped the sheets until her knuckles became a faint shade of white, resonating into the other room as scene played repetitively in her mind.  The smoke, the fire, and her mother finding her in her bed violently coughing.  She had led her to an alleyway and quickly dressed her as a she-urt and the final words which would be her legacy. “You are free… 1,000 times above me and all the more.  I would rather see you die on the streets as an orphan, begging for scraps of food as opposed to living the privileged life of a collar-girl… a kajira as these white men call them.  This is now your fate… only Amaterasu or the Priest-King gods can determine your destiny now.  Remember that you will always have fate, but not always destiny.” She grasped the sheet as perspiration formed on her forehead and her fever began to resume.  What exactly had her mother meant? Weren’t fate and destiny interwoven? Her mother was stern, insightful, clever, and most of all obedient.  Suyuan had remained second to and in her mother’s shadow for the duration of her life.  She was the ideal contact women… that is, until her mother’s secrets were discovered and both mother and daughter paid dearly for the mistakes.  Enslavement seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and the love that she was deprived of in the tarn camp finalized in the moment when her mother smuggled her out of the slaver house… risking her own life to ensure that her daughter could have the opportunity that Mizumi never dare risk for herself except for one being she loved most in the world.

——

Yurei continued to grunt in her discomfort just as the physician heard her unsteady and fragile voice strain for volume.

“She keeps repeating these two words… tengu-karasu.  Do you have any idea what that means, Killer?” The physician affixed his concerned gaze upon the assassin, baffled by the foreign words. “She also continues to repeat the words and names, ‘Crow’, ‘my black-bird’, and ‘Ama… Ama… te… ra.. su.  She is delirious, but do you know who or what she is referring to? I hear her, I should check upon her as it seems her condition has worsened.”
A few moments later, he emerged.

“Killer, I believe you should come in here…”

Staring into the flames was one of those moments were thoughts of past and future came to him as these notes that he needed to read or store somewhere so he could remember them. The Peacock, made him think back on the encounter he once had with her.  How proud she had been and yet she had something about her, that made her hardly appealing.  The latter rather odd, since Crow enjoyed the women more than he often was willing to admit.  He never underestimated the power these creatures held in his world, even though they could be enslaved and taken at whim by any men.  Perhaps some women felt secure behind the high walls of cities, but he was very sure that if a man truly wished to possess one, she eventually would find herself at his feet.  However the man might have to pay with something much grander than the woman would. He had lost something, which Crow tried hard to keep.

 
The flames made his eyes light up with that glow of demonic thoughts about the women he had owned, deceived, taken and even murdered.  He was a proud man and never really lost that strength that he owned when he was still a tarnsman in Glorious Ar.  But even then he knew that love could weaken him, would make him soft, tender and caring. His companion had eventually showed him how weak he as a man had been, when she had died in his arms.  The loss of her, had made him doubt everything he was at that point and eventually prey to the Assassin Snix. It had been him that recruited him for the first time, when Assassins had been outlawed by the mistakes of Pa Kur.

 
He glances to the girl that seemed to crawl deeper underneath his cloak in wonder why she came so often on his path in life. The peacock that had been bitter to his caste, by the loss of her lover that desired the black cloak and helmet.  The lad hadn’t survived the harsh training and he knew she had blamed him for his demise.  In a way he knew that her judgement was true and false. The lad had died eventually if he hadn’t done it in his training. There was no true desire, but only the wish to learn the skill and run off with the woman he loved.  Crow shook his head, when the thought of love crossed his mind.  Love was one thing that many of his caste feared. He knew that some did love their slave, perhaps even had a secret affair with a lady that betrayed her own companion with such a dark and sinister killer. But he knew also how many of those had been killed, because they eventually weren’t able to be uncompromising to their profession.

 
He took a stick and poked the fire to ignite it a bit better and added a new log upon it, when his thoughts went to the women and slaves he had deceived by his – so called care – They thought to own his heart, but it had been cold to them. However their need to have his love, gave him the opportunity to fake it and make these women splendid within the furs.  The y blossomed in their collar only because he had been able to be this amazing actor that could play the part. The last one of the things that abled him often to approach a target, to kill him in the next.

 
When the girl moved and spoke he turned to her, noticing that she wasn’t doing that well. Cold might have held her longer than he thought. Perhaps hunger or thirst made her hardly conscious to what danger might be beside her.  When she spoke the words – My Crow – he arched a brow. If she had knelt before him, he would have slapped her for speaking so boldly. He wasn’t anyones, but his own.  However her voice seemed weak and hardly the woman he remembered from Ar. It had been there where he had made her walk around a tree, just for his entertainment and have her out of hearing range.  She was at times obnoxious, annoyingly there, when he didn’t need a slave or a woman such as herself. She was not only beautiful in an unique way, she was cunning too.  The peacock wasn’t one he would ever underestimate.

 
When the woman again spoke his name and seemed to drift back in her own world, where she struggled with her own demons, he wondered what to do with her.  He could just leave her there, have nature or the wheel of life have his own way with her. However he couldn’t dismiss that feeling he had been sent here for a reason and that she was part of an answer that needed to be unravelled.  She seemed so helpless there now, something that made her truly beautiful.  “How sweet to concur a peacock when she has no longer her feathers to ruffle.” He mused while he decided to end the fire with some kicks of dirt over it.

 
He turned to the woman that seemed even more fragile in the moonlight.  He used the cloak to keep her warm as in this role that he could carry over his shoulders. “Seems you must have a good luck charm, Peacock.” He mutters while he tried to lift the weight  on his shoulders so he could walk without much discomfort.  Unsure where he could find a physician in these parts that might take care of her, he started to walk.  Thankful for the strength he owned and that helped him to keep going even with the load of the woman on his shoulders.

 
Although this might be seen as care for the women, it had a different purpose to him that he took her.  For some reason he had found her and with it he felt there was something that he needed to learn from her. He would drop her by the first signs of danger, would sacrifice her if some thieves held an interest in her.  She was only a woman and with it, unimportant when it came to the choice he or she.  “Too noble.” He muttered to himself, knowing that he was an odd one in his caste and wondered how many of his caste brothers would have made the choice to pick up the girl to carry her to a physician.  His face became grim of anger, when he considered why he eventually had made that choice. He – by the Priest Kings – cared for the girls life.  Death served a purpose, but he wasn’t one to just offer a life to death without giving effort to keep it alive, unless coin was paid. Then, but only then he would take life, without blinking or doubt.

Even as she slumbered, the past still proved nettlesome and revealed itself in the form of nightmares that proved an unparalleled consistency which Gorean men could never amount too.  A man can conquer a woman – her heart, body, mind, and soul, but there is always something in a human being which another cannot fathom touching.  The bosk dung heap in combination with the fire proved to be of some benefit, despite the fact that her larl cloak which she had robbed from the bondmaid she murdered began to decline.  Perhaps it was her time spent within the wilderness or the quality of the fabric, but she never seemed to be warm enough.  That changed when her so-called “savior” arrived in the form of a previously marked man’s cloak.  Crow’s garment offered her respite from the frost that labored in men’s work – only this time it was enslaving the last remnants of green nature.  Autumn was tolerable for the Pani panther, and even in Port Kar for the duration of her formative years of beggary, she seemed to thrive best during that season.  However, it was always during Winter where it was a hit or miss in her luck; winter is when she blossomed, when others seemed most content in the summers of their lives.

 
Her dreams were vast and uncompromising, though to state that they were cruel was relative.  In her sleeping visions, she discovered how her gender became subordinate to men; the war between the sexes was waged through toil, labor, and violence.  The chaos resumed until Priest-King gods declared that women were born to serve men.  This knowledge she gained originally through reading and folktales, finding thediscovery silly, if not a bit cumbersome to her sensibilities.  During the few moments of her life when she was free, her dependency was not upon men, but survival.  But, survival incorporated men and it was a game regarding who had the upper hand.  Yurei had always desired the upper hand, to maintain the control that evaded her the day that she and her mother were sold to the Karian slaver.  She was treated as a daughter, but the stain of what Lord Nishida never left her and haunted her even in the present.  There is no alleviation for women in a world whose fathers eagerly sell them to the highest bidder.  Lord Nishida had inadvertently taught her that her gender was marketable and that she was at the mercy of men; even female children are not exempt from the standard Gorean men had coerced upon them.

 
Yurei stirred in her sleep, disturbing the snow beneath her fetal form as one of the moons illuminated her.  Despite her disheveled appearance; gaunt form, tangled and dreaded coarse blackberry colored hair, and a visage that carried scars of which devalued her prospects upon the auction block, she was still beautiful.  The serene countenance of her sleep, despite the tornado of otherworldly visions dancing in her head, revealed her heart.  She was hardened, but soft.  Cold and comfortably detached to where she could easily kill to survive, but compassionate enough to offer aide when she saw fit.  She feared much, but rarely doubted herself.  She had been the victim and now sought out conquests of meticulously and stealthily kidnapping high caste free women and selling them for a profit.  Like assassins, she emptied herself of her feelings when enduring difficulty and simply soldiered through it like a rarius.  She was strong, resolute, and wayward but haphazardly vulnerable and helpless when doubt did enter her mind.  Men seemed to cause the rapid second-guessing of herself during enslavement.  She could love so profoundly and obey unquestionably… that is, until she was denied the opportunity to be herself.  The forest offered another perspective outside of the world of men.  In the forest and alone, she could be herself… not Pani, not a free woman, a panther, a slave, an outlaw… just herself.  The Northern Forests were her Thassa and she mariner to them; navigating through the sea of verdant trees with lush foliage and taking what she wanted.  She was the “man” in her forest and she intended to remain as such

 
Her lashes fluttered spontaneously against her cheekbones while the dream abated; this one featured the mystical black bird which she had been following.  Suddenly, she felt very warm due and her body tensed in opposition as she curled more tightly into her fetal pose.  A sole panther girl in the wilderness is similar to that of an Earth lone wolf; they both can survive on their own for sometime, in fact for several years, but eventually the solitary lifestyle will catch up to them.  The self-imposed solitude that the Pani panther had settled into was beginning to take its toll.  Barns and fires afforded her some immunity from the cold and kept hunger at bay it was obvious from the feverish shivering beneath Crow’s vast cloak that she was battling her own limitations.

 
Consciousness briefly claimed her and her russet colored eyes opened to peer, albeit feebly at her surroundings.  She descried the figure who was rekindling the fire, imbuing the flames with life despite hands which had shed blood for decades.  Her heart thrummed against her chest when she gradually began to recognize the darkly attired man.  From what her weak vision discerned, his clothes revealed him for what he was she croaked his name with a hoarsened, weary voice, “Crow, my black bird.” There was movement beneath the cloak as a single cracked and bleeding hand touched the ground behind him.  She sought to touch him, even though the distance seemed pasangs to her in her enervated state, “Crow.” Though the effort to touch him was arduous for her, the peacock still possessed her determination as she called his name once more before succumbing back into the space where dreams and nightmares were sovereign and where the gods could continue their meticulous manipulation of her mortal, human mind.  She called to Crow once more, though either through relief or delirium, labeled him with irony, “Tengu-karasu…”

 
Perhaps she assumed he was one; the protective spirits of her culture and childhood.   But sleep seized her just as her hand brushed against his backside, alerting him of her awareness of his presence.  Another gim hooted in the distance while a second moon made them luminescent; making them appear like otherworldly and ethereal creatures who seemingly belonged to scrolls of fiction for children.  The darkness had subsided for now while it seemed like the moonlight intended to guide Crow as to what he should do next.

The dagger had been washed from his forehead before he had pulled down the hood and had sheltered his face from the snow. His cloak heavy by the snow crystals that had occupied it while he walked in the darkness that he often called his friend.  His steps through the snow seemed to be slow, calculated and with determination, while nothing in him really gave thought to the direction he was heading. This last kill had broken something within him, something he needed to find back for if not his own demise would be certain.  No Assassin would be able to do what they did if they couldn’t shut down their own emotions.  The thought of leaving a woman he had held dear, pregnant by the corpse of her companion, weighted heavy on his shoulders while he ploughed through the snow.
His eyes just above the scarf he had drawn up his nose were keen on his surroundings as if it had become a second nature to be alert and on the ready.  Those green eyes that once had sparkled of joy were lifeless and yet behind them there was this grief of an old man that feared he had lost his most loyal and beloved friend.  His heart that once had beaten for his companion, his children and a slave felt empty and cold.  The sound of his footsteps in the snow made him aware that one might hear him coming and with it his one hand gripped the hilt of his blade, so he could draw if some thief would dare to venture in his direction.  His expression tensed at the thought of all the gold he made in his profession, most of it he wouldn’t ever spend.  He figured it was something in his genes, from his father, to hold on to fortune while he doubted them both to be of greed.

He held pause by this large tree that had dropped all of his leafs, since season had changed. The branches the sharp outlines against the light of the moons.  He pulled down the scarf and inhaled the cold night air and sighed deeply. How had he become the man he was now ? The man that indeed could say without blinking that nothing else mattered. The man that could kill in cold blood because a simple exchange of coin had been made.  The answer had been clear when he was many years younger and now in this cold he wasn’t certain.  He had justified himself that he held honour. That he prevented the wars that would rage between cities if it weren’t for that single kill. He, not only an Assassin but a mentor for others had often told the reason and purpose for their caste and professions and yet now felt himself in doubt.

A nightly cry seemed to call him from the distance and yet he was certain that no noise was made.  He squinted his eyes to see if something on the horizon could tell him what might lay ahead.  The cry had taken him from his negative thoughts and he couldn’t help to think of T. and their long hour discussions about the spirits and the wheel of life that kept turning.  Crow was more of a rationalist.  Calculated and organized in his thoughts and yet he had seen too much which he couldn’t explain to dismiss the spirits or influence of a hidden force.  He waited to listen if there was truly something calling him and yet he knew deep down it was in vain.  He pulled up the scarf again and headed in the direction in which he felt himself directed.  An old killer that had nothing better to do than to find himself walking in a direction that held perhaps only a dream.

Along the line he felt the call stronger, making himself restless and weary. Was it the call of his own death ? Was it the call that the wheel would turn without him ? He remembered the story of the urt, T. once told him. The older urt telling the younger one to watch out for the wheels of a cart and with it finding his own death. A small grin formed behind the scarf at the recollection of the story, which no other could tell so beautiful as his comrade Taog.  He chuckled softly to himself, visioning the faces of the slaves that had often been forced to listen to the two men sharing tales about life, death and the meaning of life.  How amazing that even now such could bring comfort while something seemed out there, which didn’t make any sense.  The weariness seemed to be replaced with the hunger of knowing, the desire to face the demon or to learn from his mistakes.  The killer :  The Crow seemed to have ruffled his feathers and was ready to face that which had called him from afar.

Something told him in the darkness that someone was there and yet he couldn’t see anyone there.  The crying seemed to have stopped and he was sure that this spot, was one that he needed to find.  He stood there, completely in that power of his. That strength that indeed would tell about the purpose, the meaning of what he was. It felt that with every step he had made his doubt about himself had become less.  He was slightly annoyed that his own puzzle didn’t seem to be unravelled by the spot he was drawn too.  Yet now he had found it he wouldn’t leave it without the answer he felt was there.  In no state to just find a spot to get some sleep, he gathered some branches when suddenly his look met the sleeping girl near something he could use to start a fire. The girl unrecognizable in the dark was sound asleep.  A glance about the place to see that she at least had sheltered herself against the cold wind.

While he silently build that pile he could light for a fire, he wondered if this woman was perhaps there for his answer. It wouldn’t be a first that a slave girl, without knowing, had given him answers to puzzles he didn’t seem been able to resolve.  With the first light of the fire he watched the light dance over her small frame. Her pale skin seemed fragile while her hair was like this frame around it. The woman curled up as if it had tried to find shelter by nature itself became more visual and suddenly he knew who this woman was.

“The Peacock has lost her feathers.” He whispered while he placed the heavy cloak over her body and warmed himself by the fire until she would awake.