Disclaimer : I obviously don't own Samurai Jack or any other character featured in the show. However, the witch and the raven are mine.
I hope you'll enjoy my fanfiction!
Sorry if there still are some grammar mistakes, English isn't my first language.
Have any questions, constructive criticism or comments about how much I suck/don't suck? I'm listening. :)
The breeze was blowing through the brown and golden leaves of the forest, barely disturbing the silence. As the evening was slowly passing and the air getting a little bit colder, a lone man in white was hiding in a bush, hoping his future dinner would soon walk into the trap he had previously set.
A small animal finally appeared and slowly approached the bait, not suspecting anything. However, just before it got close enough to set off the trap, a voice scared it away, and it was obviously not the voice of the man in white.
Someone was approaching ; the man decided to remain hidden until he could determine whether the intruder was dangerous or not. The voice paused, letting him hear the sound of footsteps on the crunchy fallen leaves, then came back louder and singing in a language he didn't know :
"Promenons-nous dans les bois
Pendant que Aku n'y est pas
Si Aku y était
Il nous mangerait
Mais comme il n'y est pas
Il nous mangera pas !"[1]
The voice and the footsteps came closer and their sources became visible : the person walking was a red-haired woman wearing a brown cape and holding a staff longer than she was tall while the song came from the raven perched on her shoulder.
"Will you please stop that?" the human asked her feathery friend, visibly annoyed.
"You're just jealous because you can't sing to save your life", the bird replied, proving to be able to do much more than simply mimicking human speech.
"No, I'm just… I mean, can't you sing another song for once?"
"I sing whatever I want!"
"Alright…" the woman in brown sighed. "The house shouldn't be far. We'll be safe there."
The man in white stepped out of his hiding place as the mysterious duet was about to disappear behind the trees again. The sound of his wooden sandals on the autumn leaves alerted the raven, who alerted her companion that they were followed. They stared at the man, then at the katana on his side, then back at him for a good half a minute before the bird broke the silence :
"Are you… Samurai Jack? Icantbelieveitlookitshim oh my. Can I have your autograph?"
"Sorry to interrupt, but we have to get to the house before the patrol arrives", the woman stated. "You should come with us, Jack : you'll get a roof over your head tonight and we'll get our autographs. Follow us!"
The samurai known as Jack hesitated a moment before following the stranger, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword just in case her intentions weren't that friendly.
The house mentioned earlier was waiting for them in a nearby clearing. Its frontage was almost completely covered in lichen and ivy.
The woman in the brown cape produced a key from a hidden pocket, unlocked the front door, opened it to Jack and locked it behind them. Then, she put the key back where it came from and handed the samurai a pen, smiling. He took it when she reached for another pocket in her outfit and grabbed a notebook which could fit in the palm of her hand and asked him to sign it.
It wasn't the first time he was asked to sign something (someone even asked him to sign her undergarment once, which he politely refused), so just like the other times he quickly drew his family crest on the paper.
Jack then took a closer look at the room before him. It was home for dust, spider webs and dusty spider webs. The curtains covering the windows had lost their original colours long ago.
"It's been so long since the last time I was there…" the woman whispered to herself, confirming the warrior's suspicion that the house had been abandoned for quite some time.
"Was this your home?" he asked.
"It was my teacher's house", she explained while leaning her staff against the wall. "She used to say I'd always be welcomed here."
"What happened to her?" the raven asked.
"Nobody knows for sure, but she disappeared only a few days before the school was destroyed…"
The bird flew away from her companion (who left the room, visibly looking for something) to sit atop the back of the old armchair next to the samurai. Even though her beak was not as expressive as a human face, her amazement at being in presence of a living legend such as Samurai Jack was still pretty obvious.
The warrior had been wandering in Aku's future for years now, helping people in need while constantly trying to get back to his own time. He always did what he felt was right, and knew many people admired him for it ; however he had spent more time fighting off the bounty hunters out to kill or capture him than with his "fans" as the people of this land would say.
The woman in brown and her bird appeared to be fans, but the samurai knew from experience people weren't always what they seemed to be.
The woman came back in the living room carrying as many brooms and dust-cloths as she could and set them down on the floor in front of her before reciting a quite long incantation.
Soon, the previously inanimate objects started cleaning the entire house all by themselves.
Once the coat rack had been cleaned by one of the dust-cloths, the witch hanged up her cape, revealing the dark grey outfit and black shoulder bag she was wearing underneath.
"So, as long as we don't attract too much attention from the patrol we'll be safe here", she said.
"You've mentioned a patrol twice", Jack pointed out. "May I ask you what it is?"
"Aku's drones often patrol in the area. 'Been this way ever since that factory was built over the school I went to as a kid. People usually evacuate whenever they appear in the distance."
At the mention of his mortal enemy, the samurai instinctively reached for the hilt of his sword.
"I must put and end to-" he started before the witch interrupted him :
"Not now. Everyone has already run away to safety, and even if you destroyed every single drone out there right now, a brand new army of those will be built the next day. The best thing to do is to stay here for the night and go back to our separate ways tomorrow. Hungry?"
While asking this one-word question, she produced from her shoulder bag a loaf of bread twice the size of its container and a large knife. Jack stomach answered for him.
The raven flew from the armchair to the back of the couch in which the two humans sat. The redhead cut three slices of bread then divided the first one into smaller pieces she fed one by one to the bird.
However, the latter spent more time asking Jack about his adventures than eating. Her friend had to remind her that if the warrior was to tell them about everything he went through over the years, they'd probably be there all week.
She later guided Jack to the guestroom which had been cleaned by the enchanted brooms and dust-cloths. The raven, now back on the witch's shoulder, noticed the bookshelf facing the bed and asked :
"Wait, are these books in French?"
"Yes", the woman replied, smiling at old memories of her long-lost mentor. "She was awesome like that."
"I beg your pardon", the samurai spoke, "but… I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this language. What is so special about it?"
"Well, same thing than with way too many regional tongues : ever since Aku's administration imposed the Universal Language everywhere, not that many people still speak French nowadays", the witch explained. "The countess does though."
"I'm a duchess", her feathery friend corrected.
If there was still any room for doubt that she was no ordinary raven, it had now vanished. Jack had encountered a bird who used to be human before, if that scissor smith in that village he found himself in years ago was to be believed ; this one must be in a similar situation.
"Whatever", the duchess' companion replied. "There are many more books in the main bedroom, wanna see, ma chérie?"
Sitting on the edge on the bed in her former mentor's room, the witch was reading aloud to the raven on her shoulder. She hadn't had the occasion to speak more than a word or two of French in years and therefore the duchess helped her whenever she had trouble with the pronunciation.
"What would I do without you?" the redhead asked once they finally finished reading Le Petit Chaperon Rouge[2]together.
"I don't know, you tell me", the bird who wasn't really a bird replied.
"I'd rather not think about it. I don't want to imagine my life without you in it."
The witch then closed the book, put it back on the shelf and got ready to go to sleep.
Even though hours passed, to her it felt like she had just fallen asleep when her companion started to frantically peck her face to wake her up.
"Chérie, I need my beauty sleep…" she grumbled, rolling on the other side of the bed to escape the sharp beak of the raven.
This did not stop the latter, who was now attacking the back of her head.
The witch finally gave up and opened her eyes and sat up. Her friend hopped in front of her and started talking, but she couldn't understand a thing : lip-reading didn't work on birds.
"Wait a minute princess", she said, yawning and reaching for a small object on the bedside table, "let me get my hearing aid."
"I'm a duchess" was the first thing the red-haired woman heard after putting the device in its place.
"Why did you wake me up?"
"Samurai Jack is gone."
"Of course he is, he has more important things to do than staying with us, you know. Like fighting Aku's tyranny and stuff."
"You don't understand, dear", the raven said. "He asked me where the factory was! He said something about getting rid of the patrol! I think he wants to destroy the factory!"
"What?" the witch jumped out of bed and grabbed her bag. "We have to help him!"
"You're crazy."
"What else is new?"
Notes :
[1] The raven's song is a real-life French nursery rhyme I changed the lyrics of to make it about Aku (because hey, I'd bet anything you want that a being such as the Shogun of Sorrow would inspire hundreds of songs to the people living under his reign). The original lyrics say "pendant que le loup n'y est pas".
[2] French title of Little Red Riding Hood.