Notes – Done for a kinkmeme request that wanted to see how the Black Ravens run their market. Set not very long after the end of the fourth games with heavy spoilers for it.

No one is born with the knowledge that you can convince someone to buy anything with the right persuasion, but some people pick it up faster than others. From an age when most children were more concerned with who was going to be picked for what team in an afternoon's game of football, Crow had been able to look out on a pile of junk and see a potential profit to be made from it.

Which was fortunate, since Crow lived in an area that had a great many piles of junk in it.

There were two sides of Misthallery – the whimsical tourist side, where you could travel up a stream of clear water in a beautiful boat and admire the wonderfully historic scenery, and the other side. It wasn't that there was particularly anything wrong with the other side or that tourists were told to avoid going there, but it was viewed as being quite dirty and overall was just a simple market place. There was nothing of any interest there.

At least, not until Crow made something of interest in it.

This wasn't a task he would ever have claimed to have done on his own, as it had taken the combined talents of many of the other children in that area. They had created a character and a rumour. The character was the Black Raven, a fable created by a costume that was made of yet more junk thrown out by those who didn't need it anymore. And the rumour was that if you followed the Black Raven, then you would reach the hidden black market, where many items of value and wonder were sold to the highest bidder.

These items, in truth, held no real value for the most part, but wonder… now wonder is something you can sell to someone. You can polish up a worthless trinket and in the right light it could look like something rare and valuable. Something that a man in a mask would tell you was worth money and you'd buy it with the intention of getting it valued professionally one day, but then shove it in a drawer somewhere and forget about it all together.

Crow knew how the minds of adults worked. He knew fine well that if enough people heard of the black market and yet it was notoriously hard to get into, then after they had gone through all the effort of getting there at all that they'd convince themselves that anything being sold simply must be worth their while.

Few of them ever realised the truth of the matter, and if they did then it was often too late by then. The Black Raven would be gone with the gold and the black market once more impossible for the person to find.

Sometimes, Crow would think about the future. He'd wonder just how far he could push this Black Raven scheme. That maybe when he was an adult himself that he could expand the business further than just Misthallery. In the city there were many more people – did that mean that there were more fools to trick or more wise men that'd be likely to catch them out?

Professor Layton had come from the city…

But Crow wasn't scared of Layton. He might have been caught out by him once, but as he got older Crow reasoned that his intellect would probably improve enough to match or surpass even that of the man in the top hat.

However, that was all the future. And if you spend too long lost in a world of what that might come then you lose track of what's happening right now. You forget to check up on Scraps and Badger, foraging for new items to sell among the piles of junk, only to find that they have instead decided to slack off and do something else. If you turn away from Wren and Socket for too long then you'll find that they've started bickering with one another once more and nothing gets done. Or else Tweeds might get hungry and wander off to bother Marilyn at her market stall, to try to get some free food from her. Even Louis could be distracted from work by the prospect of getting sweets from Aunt Taffy.

They needed someone to organise them, to keep them focused, and Crow was that someone. He kept the machine moving and if any of the others resented him for it then they did not show it.

Sometimes he wondered if there'd even be a Black Raven without him. He was the one who had come up with the concept, and while he would never have been able to execute the plan without their help, without him pushing the idea, would they all still be sat around on the corners of the dump waiting for Aunt Taffy to pass by in the hope that she'd sell them some sweets.

Not everyone can look at a pile of junk and see a goldmine. Some people need to be taught to see it. Crow liked to think that he'd taught the other kids to see the goldmine and that maybe one day, if even just one of them became successful through doing this, then it would be thanks to his guidance.

The day's hunt for new items to sell was ended for Crow by finding a hat. It was a very tall, brown, top hat with a red ribbon wrapped around it. Rather nice to look at. This hat did not look like it had been very long in the pile of junk, but instead as if it had just blown in on the wind.

He pricked his ears and could hear the voice of a man yelling, most probably looking for said hat as it had blown away.

Well now.

By the laws of the black market this top hat was now under possession of the Black Raven. And if its original owner, friend though he may be, wanted it back then he would have to pay a fine price for it.

It takes a good businessman to look out to nothing and see a goldmine, but yet, sometimes even among the trash a true treasure can emerge.

He tucked the top hat under his arm and began to walk back to the market's head quarters.

Crow, you see, was an expert at finding treasures.