Work Text:
The thing was, the crow looked really sad and for better or for worse, Matthew had a tender heart.
“Matthew,” Lord Morpheus had said to him, “a pod of undinės wishes to give me a gift in celebration of the summer solstice.”
“Do I want to know what a ‘pod of undinės’ is?”
“A group of rusalka.” Lord Morpheus had blinked. “Mermaids. More or less.”
Mermaids. Sure. It was far from the weirdest thing Matthew had seen since becoming the Raven of the Dreaming.
“While I am grateful to them,” Lord Morpheus had continued, “I cannot leave the Dreaming on the night the gift must be bestowed. You will go to the waking world and convey my heartfelt thanks, as well as my apologies for not being able to attend myself, and you will receive the gift on my behalf then return with it.”
“Convey thanks, give apologies, get gift, come back. Got it, Boss.”
Which was how Matthew had found himself alighting on the shore of a large lake in Lithuania to the sound of ethereal singing. The undinės were jaw-droppingly beautiful, and completely naked except where they were artfully covered by their long, flowing hair. Matthew noted with a flick of interest that the sight didn’t seem to have the same effect on him as he suspected it would have, were he still human. What did get him excited was one of the undinė presenting him with a very shiny blue shell, and telling him that it was just for him to keep. Matthew gratefully clutched it in one of his claws.
When it was his turn to talk, Matthew was quite proud of himself for listing at least five of the Boss’s titles in his introduction, and the undinės seemed perfectly satisfied with his thanks and his apology. One of them brought forward a glowing pink flower with a blossom nearly half the size of Matthew’s body. Each petal was shaped like a small fern and was an ombre of blush pink near the center to fuschia at the tips. She explained that it was a fern flower: a symbol of fertility that can only be harvested during the summer solstice. The undinės wished to present it to the Shaper of Forms in celebration of the fact that his kingdom was once again fertile ground for dreams.
Matthew gently took the stalk in his beak, gave a low bow to the undinės, and took off.
He had been about to fly up into the Dreaming when he saw the hooded crow hunched miserably at the base of a tree. Matthew knew this was not his problem. Knew that he had more than enough to deal with in the Dreaming without involving himself in the issues of waking world birds. But, well, there was nothing for it. He was a softy. The flower was glowing just as gamely as when it was handed to him: it seemed like it would keep.
Matthew swooped down to land in front of the crow, and gently put the fern flower down so he could speak.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
The crow blinked at him. “Are you real?”
Matthew shrugged his wings. He was used to this reaction from other birds. “I’m a dream, but I’m a real dream. I’m really here and I’m really talking to you and I didn’t come from your imagination.”
“Oh.” The crow blinked at the fern flower. “What’s that? It’s shiny.”
“Magical solstice flower that some mermaids wanted to gift to my boss. King of Dreams. Don’t worry about it. Are you okay? You just looked… really not okay.”
The crow studied the fern flower for another moment then looked back at Matthew and heaved a sigh, letting his head droop further. “I’m hideous.”
Matthew cocked his head to the side. The crow… looked like a normal hooded crow: black head, wings, and tail, gray body. Nothing out of the ordinary. “Um.”
The crow held out his leg. Secured around his ankle was a tiny box on a black band.
“Oh!” Matthew gasped. “Did humans put that on you?”
The crow nodded.
“Does it hurt? Did they hurt you when they put it on?” Matthew felt anger bubbling in his chest.
“No, it doesn’t hurt,” the crow sighed.
Oh. Matthew took a breath. “Is it uncomfortable at all?”
The crow shook his head. “I mostly don’t feel it.”
“Does it make it harder to fly or walk?”
The crow gave another mournful sigh. “No.”
Matthew blinked. “Sooo, what’s the problem?”
“It’s ugly!” the crow cried. “Garagalar has been getting all the girls! The humans gave him a green band! Everyone just loves Garagalar’s green band! It’s so pretty! It’s so shiny! And - and this one just looks like - like a blah! Like I have an ugly, bumpy leg!”
Matthew - somehow - managed to swallow down his laughter before it emerged. “Let me guess, Garagalar is being a real dick about it too.”
“If he strutted any harder he’d dislocate a hip,” the crow grumbled, drawing a claw through the dirt.
Matthew did let himself chuckle at that. “Well, I’m not sure I can do anything about Garagalar and his strutting, but I can probably help you get that thing off.”
The crow perked up. “Really?”
“Sure thing. Happy to help.” Matthew let go of the blue shell he had been grasping in his claw and stepped gingerly over the fern flower to get closer. “Let’s see it.”
The crow held out his foot and Matthew inspected the plastic band.
“What’s your name, anyway, pal?”
“Cartagrawk. What’s yours?”
“I’m Matthew. Nice to meet you Cartagrawk.”
“Matthew? That’s a weird name.”
“Yeah,” Matthew agreed, “it’s a long story. Now, I think I can probably just bite this thing. My beak’s pretty strong.”
It took some maneuvering so that Matthew could bite the plastic without hurting Cartagrawk’s leg, and even then he wasn’t able to bite right through, but after a few minutes he was able to put a crack in the plastic and loosen it enough that Cartagrawk could work his foot out of the loop.
“Caw! Thank you!” Cartagrawk gave an excited flap of his wings.
Matthew fluffed up his neck feathers with pride. “You’re welcome.”
Cartagrawk looked out into the forest. “Garagalar will probably still get all the girls with that stupid green band of his. But at least I’ve got more of a chance this way.”
Matthew cocked his head. “Maybe we can give you an even better chance…” he looked down at the fern flower still glowing on the ground. “This thing has something to do with fertility…” Matthew picked up the flower in his beak and gave it a gentle shake over Cartagrawk’s head and back.
Cartagrawk shook his feathers and drew himself up taller. Maybe it was a trick of the light but it did seem like his feathers had more of a shine to them.
Matthew put down the flower and pushed the shiny blue shell closer to Cartagrawk. “Save that for someone special,” Matthew told him.
Cartagrawk’s beak fell open. “Really? You’re giving that to me? It’s beautiful!”
Matthew nodded. “Yeah, I don’t need it. And you have some serious wooing to do.”
“Wow! Thank you! How can I ever repay you?”
“Eh, ya know, pay it forward. Help out someone in need down the line. And don’t let Garagalar throw you off your game.”
“I will! I mean - I won’t! I mean - I will and I won’t!” Cartagrawk was hopping with excitement.
If he had still been human, Matthew would have grinned. “Nice to meet you, Cartagrawk. Good luck out there.”
Matthew gently picked up the fern flower and leapt into the air.
“I hope,” Lord Morpheus said as he took the fern flower from Matthew’s beak, “that you will not make a habit of using unfamiliar magical objects for your own devices, Matthew.”
Matthew could tell he wasn’t mad, not really. He resettled his wings. “There’s no devices, Boss. Just helping out a fellow corvid. One who got screwed by some humans.”
“Be that as it may, had this been something more powerful or nefarious things could have gone badly both for you and the crow.”
“Well,” Matthew said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I figured you wouldn’t have sent me by myself to carry the flower home in my beak if it was dangerous.”
“Hm.” Lord Morpheus pulled a glass bell jar out of thin air and placed the fern flower inside. “Your reasoning is not unsound. And the act was kindly done. Come.” He extended his hand and Matthew hopped on to be transferred to Lord Morpheus’s shoulder. “I believe Lucienne and Jessamy would enjoy seeing this.”
Together, they set out for the Library.