Chapter Text
For all that Diaval was effectively a fae god, it was truly quite rare that he was called upon.
Firstly because he was neither a fae nor a god, despite being more or less treated like both. He was a born raven married to a Fae Queen, so he had none of the rights or restrictions of fae-dom, and he had never had any sort of church or worship to fully qualify him as a god in the eyes of most.
Maleficent told him multiple times that these were irrelevant and that the world of fae magic didn’t work like that, but never let it be said ravens aren’t stubborn to a fault.
Secondly, and in his eyes more importantly, due to the longstanding agreement to work as symbols of death, the corvids that Diaval sheltered under his wings understood better than most their own mortality. As such, none would flagrantly throw his name around to save themselves from a known Fate; when their time was meant to come, most would accept it with the grace becoming of their station in the world.
The exceptions to this usually became personal messengers to some god or another, another deal brokered between Diaval and the beings far beyond his reckoning.
Maleficent also keeps telling him that he is on equal footing to them, but Diaval disagrees. Politely.
Therefore, being requested (never summoned, only one being could do that and he had been enjoying tea with her at the time) from The Moors to Port Townsend, Washington after years of remaining separate from the mortal realm was incredibly abnormal.
Finding himself arriving on the tailwind of the goddess Lilith herself was admittedly moreso. Diaval had never personally talked to her, but he knew she and Maleficent got on well and had some kind of understanding about revenge. He didn’t want to know any further than that.
Immediately he could see the problem; the witch holding one of his own, bleeding and broken as she tried to get away from Lilith. So, doing what any good bird should do, he slammed into her. Hard. Knocking her down into the staircase and allowing the goddess to grab her. The witch was a nasty one, though, and hadn’t let go of the ball of feathers in her evil little hands.
That wouldn’t do at all.
With a quiet swirl of black soot, Diaval changed into his human form and stepped back down the stairs to the landing where all three members of this chaotic party were moving out of the door. Bowing quickly to Lilith, he addressed the goddess politely. “Excuse me, ma’am, she has something of mine. Can I have that first?”
Lilith just looked at him with that implacable stare of hers. Unsure if it meant he was unwelcome, or about to be killed for even getting close to her space, Diaval continued as politely as he could “No disrespect, milady. I won’t stop you from taking her. I just want to make sure one of mine doesn’t go with her.”
With as much dignity as he could muster, he stepped over to the witch on the ground, neatly taking the bleeding, hurt crow from her hands. She tried to clutch harder to him, but Lilith dug harder into her leg the moment she moved, which thankfully stopped that little scuffle. He would have to find her favorite tea cakes for the next time she visited The Moors.
“There we are. I hope your day finds you well.” Diaval bowed again as he stepped back, gently holding the bird in his hands, which also had the effect of feeling the poor thing’s blood drip down them onto the floor. Once he figured out exactly what had happened to his charge, he had a feeling he was going to be most upset.
Lilith stared at him for one more beat of time, before continuing her progress of dragging the now screaming witch out of the house, into the Beyond with a loud slam of the door.
Left alone with the injured bird, two ghosts, a psychic and a dead girl, Diaval lifted the small creature up to his eye level and tried his best to smile at him. “Now, what’s to be done about all this?”
⧫⧫⧫
Monty had never felt such comfort in his entire life. The closest to it had been the only time he had seen his father in his first nest, freshly returned from a hunting trip and with large, soft feathers that he had draped over all of his hatchlings.
Then he had been taken by a witch and forced into a familiar contract, never to see his family again.
This, though, felt like all the best breezes in his feathers on a warm, summer day. Monty was pretty sure this was death, since he remembered being in world-ending pain moments ago. He had just never expected Death to be so nice to him, since he had seen her a few times when Esther needed his parts for some spell, and was never able to go with her which felt like a rude thing to do.
“Come on, little fledgling, open your eyes for me,” a Voice said near him. Monty wanted nothing more than to do whatever that Voice said; more than any order from Esther he had ever been given. But I’m so tired…
“Just for a moment, little one,” the Voice said. Monty could only force one small, quiet croak past his beak. “That’s it, almost there. Just open them for a second and then you can go back to sleep,” the Voice cajoled. “I promise.”
For some reason, all Monty knew was that this Voice would never lie to him. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt more right than anything else. Swimming upwards against the black that was overtaking his mind, the crow struggled to use any muscles at all for what felt like hours, before finally, finally, opening his eyes.
Blinking blearily, he recognized the living room. And that Edwin was upright and looking at him like he was dying, while holding onto Charles and Crystal for support. Those aren’t the Voice. Where is the Voice? It was so nice.
Croaking softly again, Monty swiveled his eyes around, brushing past the torture table, the damage everywhere, and the body on the floor, to the man holding him. No, not a man.
“Diaval…!”
His God, the one who saved him in his final moments, smiled wider at the crow.
“Aye, little one. You’ve had quite the day, it seems.” Leaning in closer so Monty could look into those deep black eyes, Diaval continued “I swear to you, I will do everything I can. Right now, I’m going to seal your wing so you can’t bleed anymore, but none of this will be pleasant. You may never fly again.”
Diaval lifted him up even higher to be on eye level. “Do you understand? It is alright to pass into the Great Sky if you so choose, Fate has not yet chosen your string for this moment; it is up to you, fledgling.”
Monty could only blink through the confusion. Pass on? But I only just made friends… They’re probably mad at me though… And I only have one wing now…
But I want to live as a free bird, if even for a moment. Even without flying again.
Looking straight into the God’s eyes, Monty focused as much as he could on the only thought he could grab. I want to live!
Smiling even bigger, Diaval nodded at him. “Alright, little one. So begins the rest of your life.”
Then, His soft hands covered Monty completely, encapsulating him in warmth and comfort, before swirls of black soot enveloped his body, and with a vicious spark of pain over the tattered remnants of his wing, unconsciousness took him away for good.
⧫⧫⧫
Honestly, Crystal was over today. Between Edwin and Charles’ impromptu trip to hell and fighting David in her head, which turned quickly into Jenny’s place being blown up and both of the boys being taken again, to fighting a witch in and screaming at a goddess, who then showed up live and in-person, to Niko dying by jumping in front of a spell meant for her, it was all way, way too much shit for a Tuesday.
Watching Esther rip off and eat ( fucking eat, what the hell) Monty’s wing as a last minute bid to kill them all was icing on the shit cake. Crystal wasn’t even sure how to feel about the crow yet, considering it was still within a very small period of time that she’d even known he was one. Let alone that he had been working with Esther the whole time while trying to lead them all into a death trap in the woods.
To then have another god show up as a big crow then pick up Monty from the hands of said witch as she was being dragged out of the door to her doom, all because Monty apparently summoned him from somewhere, was more than Crystal was willing to process on top of all of the other shit that had happened to her today.
As she helped unlock the last of the shackles from Edwin’s limbs, she tried to convey her limit of “what the fuck” to Charles through her eyes, not that he was looking at her at all. He was, unsurprisingly, giving moo-eyes to Edwin as he helped the other ghost off of the table. Edwin, the perpetually smarter of the two, at least had the sense to not take his eyes off of the weird goth man that had appeared in the middle of a witch’s house.
None of them had managed to bring themselves to look at Niko yet.
Pulling the detective off the table fully, Crystal took one of his arms over her shoulders, while Charles predictably took the other. Whether or not he actually needed the help was irrelevant; Crystal wasn’t about to let go of either of them for a long time. Unless she had to somehow fight the emo that was still holding a bleeding bird to his chest.
Walking forward with the boys, she heard him talk softly to Monty. Something about opening his eyes, which for a bird she thought was dead a moment ago, would be another feat of this weird ass day.
“Diaval!”
That was the second time Crystal had heard that name today, from a crow. Because they can talk now? She had never heard one talk before, but the cats could talk so why not.
Diaval, presumably, continued to talk to Monty, lifting the bird up to eye level before apparently coming to some kind of conclusion and covering him with that weird soot stuff he’d used earlier. Then, with another terrible half-scream, Monty was no longer bleeding on everything, and was silent again.
The jury was still out on whether Crystal wanted him to be dead or not at the moment.
Nodding to himself, the goth dude turned to face them all, moving his hands to cup under Monty’s tiny little body.
“Hello there. I’m sorry for appearing so suddenly,” he smiled at them. He did that a lot, actually. The smiling. Charles and him were going to get along way too well. “My name is Diaval. Who might you be?”
Rallying slightly, Edwin pulled his shoulders up to greet the man. “We’re the Dead Boy Detectives. I’m Edwin, this is Charles and Crystal. We are here to solve a mystery.”
“Ah, the Dead Boy Detectives is an excellent name for ghosts to use!”
Yes, apparently the happy man also had no taste what-so-ever. He and Charles were going to fuse into one huge super idiot.
“That’s what I always say! Crystal here disagrees, but I think it’s aces,” Charles said cheerfully. “If you don’t mind me askin’ you though, what are you planning on doing with our crow friend there?”
“Yes,” Edwin chimed in. “He was our friend for a while, before all of this… fuss.”
“Ah, a friend. That’s lovely,” Diaval said. “I can’t give him to you, he is too hurt for that. He’ll come with me for a bit until he gets the wind under him again and can pick what he wants to do.”
“Sorry, with you? Like Lilith just did to that bitch?” Crystal jumped in.
Diaval’s smile fell into a frown at that, and he pulled Monty closer to his body, like he was trying to protect him. “No, nothing so nefarious as all of that. Just to a place where he can heal with his kind.”
“His kind? How are you able to do that?” Edwin asked, finger twitching to pull out his notebook. “I was unaware crows possessed healing abilities. Is it because he was a familiar?”
“Mm, no. That is, unfortunately, not a skill of ours. And being a familiar to a witch doesn’t grant much in that regard,” Diaval looked down at the pile of feathers in his hands. “Just… a peaceful place, where he can put himself together again.”
Turning his head back towards the kitchen, he nodded at the spattered blood and feathers on the counter from whatever Esther had done to Monty last. “Just away from things like that.”
“If… if you’re able to heal things from the brink of death…” Crystal started, hope gathering under her fingertips like a physical thing. “Can you fix our other friend here? She took a spell for me, and she can’t die like this.”
Diaval smiled sadly at her; it made her want to smack it off of his pointy face. “I’m sorry, luv. My powers don’t work like that.”
All three teenagers seemed to deflate, like the last figments of prayer to save Niko had vanished in front of them.
Walking forward towards them all, his smile returned slightly. “However, I can offer this. We can see the forecasts of Death, and that girl hasn’t been reaped today.”
“Wha-what does that mean? Niko isn’t dead?!” Crystal shouted.
“Ah, no. Not as such. Her body is empty, but her soul was not removed from this plane quite yet. Fate isn’t yet done with her, it looks like, although I cannot offer to where she might be,” Diaval nodded his head, black hair glistening in the low light. “It looks like she was holding a gift; sometimes those help in mysterious ways.”
Letting go of Edwin, Crystal stumbled forward, grabbing the man into a tight hug, avoiding Monty as best she could.
“She’s somewhere. Not dead. We can find her.”
Under her arms, she could feel Diaval stiffen slightly before relaxing into the hug, moving one his hands from holding Monty to wrapping around her shoulders. “Aye, that you can.”
“ Thank you, ” she whispered to him before letting go and stepping back, wiping her eyes that had begun to water. “Well boys, it looks like we have another mystery on our hands.”
Snickering quietly, Charles smiled at her, starting to walk Edwin towards the door with eyes that were also suspiciously damp. Crystal would call him out on that later. “That we do.”
“Is that from Scooby Doo? Niko showed me that one.”
“Gasp, Edwin, are you understanding pop culture now?”
“It might take me a hundred years, but I will pick up something.”
Laughing to himself, Diaval led the way to the door, opening it for the trio of teenagers. “I wish you all Luck on your journey. I suspect you may need her.”
Squinting slightly in the bright sunlight, Crystal opened her mouth to agree, when she was interrupted by one of the snarkiest voices ever.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” the Cat King said from the street in front of the witch’s house. “It’s common courtesy to let the locals know before you drop in unannounced, Fae King.”
Sure, why not make the goth man a royal fairy. Really round out the shit week. Crystal was very done with it all.