Lapis gazed into the foliage bordering the Barn. Adjusting the curvature of her eyeballs, she refined the clarity of her vision until the black fuzzy spots in the trees solidified. The smudges became black birds, their profiles exposed to her. The bird watched her, even as she watched them. They tilted their heads, twittered and murmured to one another, and even shifted their perches in the trees, but their eyes did not move from her.
"Huh," exhaled Lapis. Withdrawing, she settled back onto a sofa in the Barn. She folded her hands, knitting the fingers together.
After a minute or so, Lapis arose, and travelled up the stairs, to the stash of books Steven had gifted her. Lapis ran her gaze over the books at the top of the box. The guide she sought did not seem to be on the top; she'd have to do some digging. Lapis ran her hands along the box sides, plucking out a little red book and a golden spined book. She set them aside-a small red travel guide to Europe, and a book full of pictures, illustrating a castle in Austria called Schönbrunn.
Lapis used the purchase bought by removing those books to remove three other books, one about dinosaurs, another about cryptology, and the last about a people who lived only a little while ago, the Ancient Egyptians.
At the bottom of the box, Lapis found what she sought: Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds. Removing it, she flipped through the pages without actually seeing the contents. Turning, she promptly stubbed her foot on a book, and fell onto the ground.
Recovering from that disgrace, and returning to the spot of her observations, she attempted to identify her dark guests. Lapis looked at all the black birds in the book. She quickly eliminated Magpies and Blackbirds; her birds had a uniform black plumage. Grackles? It took Lapis longer to eliminate these; the major difference she could tell was that grackles' plumages were iridescent. Their beak sizes were different as well, but Lapis ignored that. She decided to go by color alone.
Now, she had narrowed it down to either a Raven or a Crow. Lapis could not make a decision. The two seemed to have roughly the same colors; their wing and beak size were different, and so were their vocalizations. However, Lapis had no experience with this, and it took her a very long time to decide her birds were crows. What kind of a crow, she could not tell. She would have to ask Steven.
The rest of the morning she spent taking pictures of the crows, and drawing pictures of them to show to Steven. When Steven arrived in the afternoon, she showed him her pictures and drawings.
Steven praised the composition of Lapis's shots, gasped at Lapis's somewhat childish drawings, and squeed when Lapis announced she wanted to be the crows' friend.
"Aww…Lapis. That's so adorable! Those poor crows, with no friends…Of course I'll help!" he gushed.
"OK," said Lapis. "Should I go over and introduce myself?"
"Hmmm…actually I have a better idea!" said Steven. "The way to a bird's heart is through its tummy!"
"Ah. I see," said Lapis. "We should use food to bribe the crows into becoming our friends."
"Er…" Steven contemplated correcting her, but realized that was the general idea of feeding birds. Bribing them into letting you come a little closer-food was the goodwill present, a token to say you wouldn't kill and eat them. Instead, he said: "Well, yeah. But only with crows though. They've been living with us for centuries! Other birds, you shouldn't feed. They're more independent, and if you feed them, they won't know how to care for themselves anymore."
"I see. What food does a crow like?" asked Lapis.
"Well…crows are a little picky. So we need to do trial and error!" announced Steven. Going into the kitchen, Steven compiled a list of things that the crows would like, and things that the crows would hate.
HATED:
Chocolate, Rose Family Seeds, Avocado, Mushrooms, Nightshade Family, Dried Beans
LOVED:
Fruit, Nuts, Snails, Worms, Pasta, Popcorn, Raw grains, Eggs
Steven tacked the list next to the window from which Lapis observed her birds. He explained to her the position of each item of the list. Lapis noticed that most of the HATED items were simply poisonous. Steven said, "Birds really are susceptible to poisons."
"Susceptible?" asked Lapis.
"Yeah!" agreed Steven. "I heard Connie use this word."
The seeds of the Rose family had a little cyanide within them, chocolate had theobromine in it (also poisonous to dogs and cats), and members of the Nightshade family had deadly toxins in them.
Steven took Lapis out towards the crows, to test which foods they liked. Lapis would throw down the food, and walk a healthy distance away. Judging on how quickly the crows plucked up the food, Lapis figured out that her crows preferred unshelled unsalted peanuts and hard-boiled eggs.
Next in their plan was drawing up a feeding schedule. A rhythm was critical to let the crows know it was Lapis who would feed them at this-and-this time. Then, hopefully, the crows would come to expect her.
Lapis established a regular routine: every morning, at ten'o'clock in the morning, Lapis would lay down some peanuts and eggs, and perch in a nearby tree. She observed the crows flying down to pick up the food and store it in their caches. Sometimes the crows would peck apart the peanuts, and eat them right then and there. A few would monopolize the boiled eggs, and devour them-shell and all.
Lapis tried to rope in Peridot, but she was less interested-Peridot would not be able to get as close as she liked. Peridot did not like to perch in a tree and just watch birds eat food. On the other hand, Lapis was just fine.
She continued to feed the crows over many months. Though the crows were suspicious at first, Lapis slowly pecked her way into their hearts. Lapis was regular like clockwork-the same amount of food at the same time, at the same distance from the Barn. Lapis did not look like a regular human, either-she never threw rocks at them, or called them omens of death.
She could even fly, as they, but gave the crows their privacy, which they appreciated. Lapis would simply perch up in a tree, draw them, watch them, and even try to talk back in their own language. Lapis would give out a strange noise whenever she put food down-a yoo-hoo. Whenever a crow spotted Lapis, that crow would caw loudly, summoning the rest of them. The crows showed their affection by muttering back at Lapis, and allowing her to be just a little closer. They were after all, wild animals, and needed their space, despite their synergy with humans.
Their relationship culminated in a quiet winter morning. The crows quietly settled an hour beforehand in the trees next to the Barn. A few brave ones perched on and around the Barn, peeking in at the green thing which seemed to be more alarmed by their presence.
Peridot stared at the layers of crows gathering around the Barn. She ran down the stairs and nudged Lapis into awareness. "Lapis! Get up! Your little crow friends are everywhere!"
"Really?" asked Lapis, eager. She gathered her food, and exited the Barn. The crows scattered when she did so, but quickly gathered around in the trees, waiting for her to throw down some food and retreat to a safe distance. Lapis did so, then gathered up Peridot to sit and watch the birds. Lapis took a picture.
"Steven will be so happy that I made some friends," she murmured as she took more pictures, eyes starry like Steven's.
"Hmph," huffed Peridot, determined to make some more friends of her own.