The Magicians' Realm Chapter 74: Nevermore, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 74, everyone! In which we have an extended Poe reference and two entirely different conversations….

Movie this week is Jeepers Creepers 2, which I watched part of with my Mom this past weekend. We spent a good chunk of it either not looking ("Ew! Tell me when it's over!") or critiquing how horror movies are done in general, which is best summed up by that one GEICO commercial: "If you're in a horror movie, you make bad decisions. It's what you do."

In other news, I'm done reading The Fifth Wave—not finished, just done. Couldn't get much past the mother's death being described in detail. Which was the book that rounded out the whole dark edgy young adult bestseller list that I slogged through (you know, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner), and cemented our family's rule of "Four stars bad, two stars good." Seriously.

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Yes, they do. :) Yes, that'll be interesting to say the least….Soon, I hope—combination of scholarly demands and warmer weather has slowed it down, plus I'm wanting to make sure that I wrapped everything up right…and looking at the calendar, I don't think I want to post a finished chapter this Saturday (April Fools). But it's coming (and Dad's reading it now, which is both fun and kind of surreal—but he likes it). Yes, Kaiba does need Yugi/Yami as a foil—he's kind of like Maxwell in that regard: it's fun to see how they react to other characters, but in no way would I want them in my house. :\

FluffyIdiotIsI, thanks for the review! Yes…although that probably didn't take much, if you ask Kineil. She might….No, there hasn't been, really—which might be a good thing, because I'm terrible at writing mush. :\ SHE DOES! :D Yes, brace for the other shoe to drop….Lil' Stevie has his priorities. And I'm using that, just so you know. YES! And yes—and that's a common problem. I think of that line every time I see the lobsters at the grocery store. :D Ah, I had been wondering….I've found that raking helps me, for some reason. And then the weather is rotten, so I can't get out of the house…maybe that's it….They do. Thanks! I'll be aiming for that and beyond! :D

Fromtheashtrees, thanks for the review! Haha, yes—you can thank FluffyIdiotIsI for planting that idea in my head. And nope—gaggle is fun to describe people with (although I think it's the technical term for a group of geese—would have to look it up). Yes—we've seen the Harry Potter movies about a dozen times, and I still have to explain things to Mom when we watch them (like why Voldemort does what he does—was the middle of the climax and Mom asked me why he was like that, and I just said "Because he's jealous of Dumbledore's hair—look at that old man, and Voldemort's bald at fifty." It was as good an explanation as any). Yes—it's why I was so careful to give several chapters to the ending of The Frost King (and I still need to finish up the last chapter of that…): I wanted a proper denouement to the whole thing. And because something I read that stuck with me: "You learn more from other's mistakes than you do from their achievements." It does, really….

References:

"The Raven" © 1845 Edgar Allen Poe ("Quoth the raven nevermore")

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

Anzu tried to keep a straight face while she was working.

It was difficult.

As he said he would, Yami sat on a bust next to a window she had opened to let air in, perfectly still with yellow eyes taking everything in. There were times she wasn't even certain he was breathing.

A few people had come in, commented on the overlarge bird on the bust, chatted a bit until Yami would indeed croak nevermore, causing them to yelp in alarm. Oh, she was so dead when Miss Binder came in. But in the meantime, it was at least a little funny.

"I'm concerned that you don't have anything better to do," she said, after the latest frightened customer had scurried away.

"But this is entertaining," Yami protested—Anzu wondered if being a bird affected his voice any, seeing as how it sounded mildly different; she put it on her list of things to ask later.

"Well," she said, glancing around. "As much as I'm glad you've found something else to focus on…what did you think about yesterday?"

Yami tipped his head, looked away before looking at her. "I'd rather get your opinion first."

Her opinion…."My first thought is wow, the guy had way too much space, followed by obviously no one has bothered to dust here for a while."

Yami coughed, like he was holding in a laugh—or maybe some other reaction.

"Second thought…I don't know, the film was a little weird, and it didn't really tell us much….Maybe Bakura will have better luck."

"I'm sorry, have you seen Bakura? The man does nothing unless he's properly motivated."

"This is true. Which leaves the way the house was torn up." She gestured to some of the books she had been reading that morning. "I'm looking, but I'm not sure what could have been done to dampen the magic like that."

"Me neither," Yami said, sounding forlorn. And not in the I can't figure this out I'm so frustrated tone—more like I've tried and I've tried and there was nothing I could do. It was the sort of depth she hadn't heard from him before.

"Don't worry about it—you'll figure it out," she told him, causing him to look at her and blink owlishly. "In the meantime—any chance of teaching me that? Or do I have to get in line behind Yuki?"

More blinking. "Do what?"

"The bird thing."

He looked down at himself. "Oh. Well, first you need to pick a bird you want to turn into."

"A pigeon."

"Do what?"

"A pigeon," she said, pointing out the window. "Like one of those, sitting on the Ancient wire."

Yami looked out the window to see the little gray and pink birds sitting on the thick black wires stringed above the library and hooking up to a huge metal tower. "That's not a pigeon—that's a mourning dove!"

"What's the difference? They both go coo."

"Yes, but doves aren't considered flying vermin. Granted, pigeons aren't flying vermin, but there's no convincing some people."

"I see. So I picked a bird. Now what?"

Yami glanced at her.

"Are you sure about the mourning dove?" he asked. "Not that it doesn't suit you, but turning into more than one animal requires a lot of concentration and good memory."

"You don't think I can do it?"

"I'm sure you could—I'm just letting you know. So now you just learn as much as you can about them—size, weight, what they look like, how they move….That last bit you get from actually watching them."

"You have absolutely no idea how much time I spend staring out that window."

He looked like he was getting ready to answer—glanced away when he heard someone coming, and quickly went back to the stuffed bird routine.

"Ah, Miho," Anzu greeted. "You're late."

"It's not my fault," Miho protested. "There's some big hullaballoo up at the Administration Building—they found one of the Administrators dead!"

Yami jerked slightly before forcibly going back to his previous pose, but the action was not lost on Anzu. "What happened?"

"I don't know—they wouldn't tell a Commoner," Miho said, punctuating the statement with a hmph! and a toss of her head—which was when she spotted Yami. "When did we pick that ugly thing up?"

Oh boy. "I don't know, I kind of like it."

"Why?" Miho asked, poking Yami's chest—it looked like her fingers sunk in more than they should have on a healthy bird. "It's some weird, moldy, stuffed bird!"

"Moldy!?" Yami demanded, having apparently reached his limit of being insulted—and resulting in Miho screaming and taking off so fast she left a shoe behind.

"Did we offend your delicate sensibilities?" Anzu asked, once Miho's screams had faded—which didn't take too long, considering sound didn't really carry in the library.

"A little," Yami admitted, sniffing under his spread wings. "I am not moldy—at least, I don't think I am…."

Anzu reached out and poked him, surprised to find that beneath the bone and feathers he felt very much like a dead stuffed bird: unpleasantly squishy and lacking the warmth of circulating blood.

"Hey!" Yami protested, batting at her hand. "No poking!"

"Let's be fair to Miho: you do feel like a dead bird," Anzu said, committing more fingers to the poking. "Are you supposed to feel like that?"

"Gah! Stop! That tickles!"

Anzu resolved to not stop, except she heard more people coming. "Oop—quick, compose yourself."

"Same to you," Yami muttered under his breath, fluffing his feathers and shuffling his wings before going back to his astonishingly still position—just in time for a harried-looking Miss Binder to arrive. Oh boy—Anzu wondered if she could telegraph to Yami that pulling it on Miss Binder would not be a good idea, or if she could get the whole thing out into the open as fast as she could before it went sideways.

"Anzu, dear," Miss Binder said, patting her fox fur and fluffy cardigan. "I don't suppose you could explain to me why Miho was departing with all haste and screaming her head off?"

"We may now have a trick bird here," Anzu said, pointing at Yami.

"Nevermore," Yami croaked.

"How appropriately literary," Miss Binder observed. "Although you should really be a raven."

"I should," Yami admitted, doing a sort of sideways nod. "But this is more striking."

"Indeed. I don't suppose you heard about the dead Administrator?" Miss Binder asked Anzu.

"Miho said something," Anzu said, before looking to Yami. "Should we be concerned?"

Yami's eyes flicked—there was something he wasn't saying, nor was he going to say it. "They are fairly old," he replied.

"Yes, well, it's a shame, and people will lose their heads over anything," Miss Binder said, sighing. "Which brings me to my next piece of bad news—one of the Administrator Librarians has come for the spellbooks."

"To repair them, I hope," Anzu said, thinking of the growing stack of books in the repair ward in desperate need of a book doctor.

"I do too, but I find it doubtful."

Which was about the time the Administrator Librarian came in, looking to Anzu very much like a female version of cartoon Ichabod Crane wearing a dress, tight bun and haughty nose being her first impressions, clipboard and heels being the second.

"I noticed several books on our restricted list on the shelves," the Administrator Librarian sniffed, mincing over with sharp little steps.

"Ah, me," Miss Binder sighed, deflating. "But as I understood it, you were wanting the spellbooks in the back that need doctoring."

"They really do," Anzu said, sensing that Miss Binder was trying to direct this meeting.

"We need all of them," the Administrator Librarian said, rapping her pencil against her clipboard. "We're reappropriating all of them until the new regulations come through."

Oi. Anzu cut a glance to Yami to see how he was taking the news.

In short: with a glare fit to kill.

Which was apparently not lost on the Administrator Librarian—she seemed to sense the malice, or maybe she just noted the odd black blot against the window; either way, she spotted Yami—

And let out a shriek comparable to Miho's.

"What is that thing doing here?" she screamed, flinging her clipboard at Yami and then quickly following it up with several books—Yami yelped at the onslaught and fled for the open window. "Get out! Get out! Get OUT!"

Yami did so with all haste, and Miss Binder managed to catch a book before it went sailing out the window.

Which then made it Miss Binder's turn to look like an angry bird, as she rounded on the Administrator Librarian—if she had feathers, they would have been standing on end.

"How dare you throw books!" she railed. "And you call yourself a librarian! Same to you—out out OUT!"

Anzu was treated to a scene that looked very much like a furious round snowy owl chasing away a startled crane. Interesting, to say the least. She crossed around the counter and stuck her head out the window once they were gone.

"Yami?" she asked, looking around.

"Coo," one of the pigeons—mourning doves—said.

"Before I continue, are you really Yami, or are you just a regular bird?"

"Coo."

"Right. I don't suppose you saw a big black bird fleeing with all haste, did you?"

"Coo."

"And I'm talking to a bird. Right. My name is officially Yuki Montgau," Anzu sighed, glancing around once more. Nothing. Just a black feather on the windowsill—

Which crumbled and dissolved into dust on the wind as she looked at it, sending an involuntary shiver up her spine.

What had just happened?