Summary: A team of five young anthropologists are recruited by the notorious Romafeller Foundation to investigate something long lost; instead, they find each other and much more than they had bargained for. 1x2, 3x4, 5xS, other. AU. WIP.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters; however, the concept and the plot are of my devising. No profit has been made or will be made from this venture, and no infringement of rights is intended.
Note: All coincidences are purely coincidental; this short story is not meant to infringe or insult any anthropologist anywhere. As I am not acquainted with ethnographers and I have just begun my first anthropology course, all of the anthropological activities are my creation and any passing similarity to established protocol is just that, passing and no more. It is my sincere hope that true anthropologists are more diligent and less self-centered that the characters portrayed.
Chapter 12: Corvidae Incident
Happily, Duo piled some more food into his mouth while he was talking to the wisewoman, Ji'han. He was asking her why she didn't have a pair friend, and why she hadn't married. She, of course, was confused about why he was asking. Of course she didn't. That was just the way it was.
Quatre was a distance away, sitting in a sun drenched garden with some of the young hunters, reluctantly demonstrating how to tie various knots. Some of the men had looped sections of rope around each other, and were good-naturedly rough housing for the benefit of the girls who were gardening. At a slight distance, Wufei was sitting by the shaman, Prayir, who was directing a building project. Some of the older men, and Trowa, were carefully bending poles into place and interweaving green saplings into patterns according to the shaman's instruction.
Apparently, something was going to happen in a few days, but no one had yet told the anthropologists exactly what that something was. Overnight, they seemed to have reached the gleeful consensus that "surprise" was the best way to bring this about.
Irritably, Heero put aside his video recorder, and glared at the wisewoman's apprentice. Ni'an grinned cheekily back at him, and scooted a bit closer. Heero edged closer to Duo, picked up the recorder, and zoomed in on the new pattern that one of the older warriors was busy weaving.
Hm. It looked oddly like circuitry. Heero filed that away for further reference.
Snarling, a mangy feral dog stumbled into the edge of the village, and collapsed against the side of Rekon's house. A bird was lodged in its jaws, flapping weakly. Some women worriedly grabbed and their children, and the young men had stopped wrestling.
Duo's mouth snapped shut, and he stared.
"Dogs don't usually get this far south." Ji'han said, worriedly, and jabbed a finger at her staring apprentice. "What think you, girl child?"
"I am not a—" The girl sniffed, and thankfully leaned away from Heero. "It does not seem right. We don't usually have dogs down here, or those black carrion birds who so like the city and love the ports. It reeks of evil."
"Yes." Ji'han agreed. "A shaman has cast a spell against us."
"It's got it." Duo growled, jerking to his feet. So tightly that his knuckles were white, he clasped his borrowed machete. Caressing the blade's edge, he laughed brightly and walked over to the dog. It was gnawing on the bird. So, simply and surely, Duo lifted up the blade and neatly lopped the dog's head off.
All of the villagers were frankly gaping. Even Heero was stunned.
So, so gently, Duo picked up the head. The bird was already limp, and entangled in the yellowed and broken teeth. Carefully, he pried the jaws apart and pulled the bird gingerly out. Blood and various fluids were dripping onto his hands. Duo fell onto his knees, and began to shake.
Heero had seen Duo kill birds before, even black colored birds despite his inordinate fondness of the hue. He did not see why this bird was so special.
"A crow, a crow, a crow…" Duo whispered, holding the bird reverently, and stroking it on the bony ridge at the base of its skull. "Do you know what crows are?"
Birds.
"Crows are the divine messengers, punished with blackness, and despised for loving death and carrying souls to the afterlife." Duo's fingers were red, and he was crooning a hymnal at the bird. "Crows are death.
"No…" He whispered, brokenly, caressing the bird's swings, touching his palm to the sleek breast and the stuttering heart. The bird's head drooped, and then lolled backward at a strange angle. Pressing his fingers through the feathers, Duo began making some vague choking noises. "No. No. Death does not die! Death lives! Death LIVES!"
Snarling, he strode over to the dead decapitated dog, kicked it over, and stomped on its rib cage until there was a resounding crack. The crow carcass was cradled tightly against his chest, and he howled with laughter. "Death begets death! I am DEATH!"
If Duo had been a gorilla, he would have been expelled from the kinship territory. But, he was not, and it was never wise to approach the panicked or the posturing; so Heero waited patiently.
Quatre, his eyes vivid in his pale face, was clasping his hands over his heart with an expression of immense pain—yet, he still hung back, somehow sensing that his sort of compassion would not help. Trowa had moved so that he was standing slightly in front of Quatre, and, oddly, he must have been the only person that hadn't even spared Duo a glance. Wufei had placed his arm judiciously across the shaman, and the wisewoman and her apprentice were looking at Heero in askance. All of the villagers were remarkably quiet, and some of the women had shoved their curious children back into their houses, or neighbor's houses.
Suddenly, Duo quieted and stared at the bird. "Hey, Heero, do you want to go and bury this thing with me? It just doesn't seem right to…leave it out, ya know?"
Insects were collecting about the dead dog.
"Hn." Heero commented.
It seemed the right thing to say, because Duo nodded as if he had expected it, and then spun on his heel and marched right out of the village.
The shaman rushed over to the dog, and began barking orders on how to dispose of the carcass. He had decided that an evil spirit in the dog had invoked Duo's madness, and that it was only prudent to dispose of it correctly. The wisewoman was going to cleanse the area and purify the machete, while her apprentice went to investigate the rest of the village to make sure that the spirit hadn't possessed anything.
Heero followed Duo far into the jungle, and deep into the boggy swells of shadow where the birds sounded different and animals stayed in the trees.
"This is perfect." Duo declared, and then he got down on his hands and knees and began to dig. Heero mimicked him. Duo scattered a bit of dirt over the feathered corpse, and then begun to fully bury it. Heero helped, until the muddy earth was mounded. Duo gathered up two small sticks, felt around his body for some twine, and looked like he was going to cry. So, Heero donated a shoe-lace to the cross making venture.
Sticking the cross in the mud, Duo stood, crossed himself, and then clasped the little golden crucifix he wore around his neck. He looked absurdly like a priest, in his strange black and white garb. "May his soul and the souls of all faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace."
Duo waited, as if wanting to hear something.
Heero said, "Hn."
Then, they walked back to camp. Duo babbled to entire way, stringing together his usual collection of words that lacked intrinsic meaning. "So yeah, then I was like, woah now, and he was like so what, 'sup punk! I totally like freaked, you know, not in that way, but the other way, so well, he was like yo, and we were both laughing our asses off 'cause the bitches were shit-faced and yeah like either or man, you know?"