Attneding the Crow King pt 1

The blizzard has ebbed from a scream to the gentle whisper of a flurries. The snow alights upon the roof of an old inn where two crows have taken shelter, huddling together near a shaft of warm air wafting up from the fireplace.

The younger of the pair glances upward at the change in weather and gives himself a well needed stretching. "Look, there. The wind is dying down. Where shall we dine, Karasu? I'm getting hungry."
Karasu does not answer right away. His head twists to the side as he hops with his twisted old leg down and along the signpost of the inn. He stares off towards the West Winds for what must be the twelfth time since sunrise and clacks his beak fretfully. "Krage," he says, "We should go."
"Well, yes, of course we should go. That's what I just said a moment ago, if you were listening, and I'd expect you <i>weren't</i>. You've been staring at the clouds all morning when you should have been looking downward for something to eat. I don't understand why not, we've not seen a meal since that rotting soldier last week and even that wasn't much of a meal, the way his hawks and hounds chased us off. So, yes. We ought to go and find something decent to eat."

Karasu shakes his head, "No, that isn't what I meant. I... I think we should go westward, Krage."
"West? Whatever for? We only came from the west but a season ago, from the forest where last we saw our fellows, remember?" Krage considers this statement for a moment, then gently adds, "They won't be there. You know this, don't you? Our roost is gone and our flock alongside it. I don't even think the forest surrounding it is even there anymore. I've been hearing from the jackdaws Men have evicted everyone from the place, no trees or anything anymore. Nothing's waiting for us there. Nothing's coming for us here. We ought to fly onward. Preferably toward something to eat, eh? Come, let's try the South Winds. I'll bet there's far better pickings. I saw a hunting party of wolves going that way, there may be leftovers"
Karasu shakes his head again, "No. No, I don't think we ought to. We should be going west, and I don't mean for the old roost. I know it's gone, and I'll ask you not to talk to me like I'm a hatchling, thank you. I know what I'm talking about. I do. We should go west. Farther from where the roost was, farther from where we've been before. All the way to where the grass disappears to rock and the rock wanes to the water. I think that's where we should go. Both of us. Now. Right now."
"But why? Whatever for?"
The older crow shuffles his feathers a bit sheepishly, "Well, that part I'm not entirely sure about. But I know we have to go before we miss...whatever there is to be missed."

Krage can only sit on his signpost and stare at his friend in bewilderment. <i>Flies. That's what it has to be. He has flies in his skull. His brain has begun to rot and all that's left if the buzzing of flies upon what was left in his brain. That's got to be what it is.</i>

Karasu decides to take a different approach. Coyly, almost as if he's observing an ant crawl across the ground he states, "Corneillie has gone there already, you know."
There is a short pause. Neither of them had spoken of Krage's absent mate since she had vanished a moon ago, leaving behind three eggs and the tattered remains of what used to be their nest. It is a very underhanded trick to pull, but it works. The Four Winds curse him, it works.
Krage sighs impatiently, "Gone where?"
"You know where."
"No, I'm quite sure I do not."
"She's gone to him. On the West Winds. She went to him."
"Who?"
"The king. Our King."
Krage glares at his friend quite dangerously, "Don't you start up this nonsense again Karasu, or so help me, I'm going to twist your good leg clean off. We have been over this time and again, there is no King. Men have kings, and I suppose there's the occasional Rat King or somesuch but not us. We are crows, if anything we are only under the occasional Murders we form, but under no kingdom. Ergo, we have no king.
"And even if we do (and I am not saying we do), I don't see why we ought to go to him when we're out here suffering in the cold like this. Where was he when the Men got hold of those long metal sting-sticks that almost took my wing? Or when they conquered our roost? Where is this king now when the hawks and owls swoop down at us, on our children? Kings ought to protect their subjects. If anything, he should come here and he ought to beg our forgiveness. That's what he ought to do."

After a minute of sulking, he adds, "Besides, I don't care what Corneillie does."

"Feh. Of course you don't," Karasu is becoming anxious. He is usually not so quick to snap back, especially in a matter as delicate as Corneillie's abandonment of her nest. He seems uncomfortable in his own feathers, constantly preening and fidgeting and nervously looking between Krage and the West Wind. "Listen," his voice is becoming more terse, "I think you have it all wrong".
His anxiety is starting to make Krage a bit nervous himself. He wishes he'd stop fidgeting so. "Do I? Because I've no wish to fly off west towards some fantasy king? Because I've no flies in my head telling me to ride the Westerlies, which are coldest this time of year, by the way, for no real reason -"
"Krage, there is a reason! A good reason. Don't you understand? He needs us, he's calling us. He's calling us through the four Winds and breezes and undercurrents and the little pockets of air that cut through the cold from the west! Don't tell me you haven't felt them. Our King's calling us, not just me, but us. All of us."

It takes all of Karasu's will not to tear out Krage's eyes when he snickers at him. "And who, might I ask, is 'all of us' supposed to be? Sounds pretty ambiguous if you ask me."
"Thankfully, nobody asked. Please Krage, we're late as it is. We need to go. I don't see how I can make you understand... How can't you hear him? Or feel him? I can't make sense out of it."
"I can't make sense out of you, but you don't hear such prattling from me. For goodness sake, don't fuss and fidget so, you make me nervous. You're going to damage your bad leg hopping about like that."
"Damn the leg. Listen. Haven't you noticed that we're the only crows we've seen in almost five suns?"
"So? Because we've seen no crows doesn't mean they won't arrive later. Some will pass by us, they always do. We're everywhere. They probably just aren't here because of the blizzard and pickings are slim out here. They're probably all devouring a nice carcass or at a massacre someplace."
"Exactly! They're all somewhere else, so why not go to where they are? To the west?"
Krage sighs, "On chance that's the case, they can't ALL have gone west. And I know one crow who certainly hasn't. Watch and I'll prove he's still there content as a cat."

With a brisk shiver to toss the snow from his back, the crow lifts into the chilled air, his anxious friend close behind him. They soon reach a man-nest nearly twice the size of the rest with an outer shell the shade of ripened raspberries. Alighting on a ledge next to one of the nest's strange transparent walls, Krage confidently puffs his feathers as they peer inside.
He is absolutely certain if there was ever one remaining crow in the area, it would surely be Fisk. Of course, Fisk was a known traitor to all Birds for his disgraceful choice of residence, not really the best choice of crows for evidence against this imagined mass migration, but he is also the only choice. He'd notice of a lack of crows, as passersby never missed a chance to pause and scold him and when the transparent barrier was gone, some went to far as to enter the nest and attack him. The lack of kin in the sky had to be exaggerated, and Fisk would prove Krage true.
It's a simple affair: find Fisk's cage, get an answer, and go get a meal without anymore talk of kingly nonsense. This, Krage discovers, is only partially true. It's hard to miss the tall enclosure of elegantly coiled ivory wire, fashioned in the guise of a man-nest.
The rest of the matter is not as simple.

Crammed between the bars is Fisk, caught halfway through a ravaged hole he'd torn from the wires, now gnarled and twisted, fiercely cutting deep into his body. In a heap of feathers and wire is the last crow in miles, who until now harbored no longing for a fantasy king, nor his fellow crows, nor even a sky to fly in, dead by a mad escape attempt.
Krage, despite himself, cannot help but notice how Fisk's dead eyes are staring directly towards the west.

Karasu stares with him in a moment of reproachful silence, shifting uncomfortably from foot to twitchy foot. "There. Even our Fisk, a known traitor to his kind is still loyal to his king. To our king." His voice is quieter than it was before, shivering as he speaks. "Listen. I would never wish to abandon you in the dead of winter, my dear Krage. I would not wish to let you miss such a grand event, such a grand being as that which awaits us. I'd never wish to leave you at all, for you are my friend and we both know no crow was ever meant to be alone, but if you absolutely must insist on staying, alone you will be.
"Even if, as you say, there is no King of Crows, then surely there must be some other reason our brothers have ridden the West Winds. There may be a crisis, there may be news, there may simply be a massacred feast, as you yourself mentioned before, but whatever, whoever waits for us, we should go towards it. Now.
"Once more I ask you, Krage. Will you come with me to attend to the Crow King?"

In this time Karasu has been fidgeting and hopping about with his speech, Krage has not turned away from the Fisk. The somber tone in Karasu's voice unnerves him, for usually he is a crow of good cheer and laughter. And Fisk... his eyes...
"If only to catch sight of what in the Four Winds could possibly have captivated you so, I shall go with you. But as we leave, Karasu, please, please, can we get something to eat?"