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Grian flopped down on his bed and set the massive book open against his pillow. One glance showed him that the book would take more than one bedtime to read. It was already almost midnight! He didn’t have the energy left to read arcane boulder spells of the utmost complexity. He groaned and rolled onto his back. Perhaps the boulder spells could wait?
A knock sounded at the door. A distraction! Grian jumped up and raced to open the door. “Hello!”
There was no one there. Grian huffed in disappointment. He had hoped for something to keep him from working. Now, with no excuse for procrastinating, he would have to be productive! Hmph. Well, it was just some reading. He could ignore most of the words on the page and then have to re-read it tomorrow. That was a good strategy, right?
He heard the same patterned knock again, but this time at one of the windows. It took him a moment to figure out which one; then, he rushed over and opened it. Only after the window was open did he consider that perhaps opening the window to strangers was a bit unwise. Ah, well. It was a few milliseconds too late now.
A big black bird stood on the windowsill. “Are you a crow?” Grian asked the bird. “You look like a crow.”
The crow(?) fluttered past him, evidently offended, and landed on his bed. It started to pull his blankets into the shape of a nest.
“Hey!” Grian spluttered, rushing over. “Th-that’s my bed, I need to sleep there! Stop ruining my stuff!”
“Nevermore,” the bird croaked.
Grian stopped short. “Pardon?” he asked. Who knew a crow could answer questions? Well, judging by its rougher voice, it was actually a raven.
“Nevermore,” the raven repeated.
“Oh, you’ll never stop... well, that’s a bit dramatic.” Grian huffed at the bird/crow/raven and crossed his arms. “Now when am I going to get to sleep?”
“Nevermore,” the raven said again.
Grian made a nasty face at the bird. “You’ll leave eventually—or I’ll make you!” He plopped down at his desk and then thought for a moment. “Well, as long as you’re here, I might as well make use of a conversation partner. Perhaps you’re some sort of oracle.” He squinted at the bird. “You don’t look very oracle-y.”
The bird did not reply.
“I guess if I were an oracle, I wouldn’t want word getting around, either,” Grian agreed. “People would always be coming to me for answers. ‘Cuz—y’know—I’d be super-accurate all the time.”
The raven didn’t say anything—but at least it didn’t say “nevermore” again, so Grian took this as a sign that he would be a great oracle. If, y’know, he had prophetic powers. Which he... didn’t.
Maybe the raven did, though. “When will Scar get more customers for his mattress store?” Grian asked as a test question.
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Grian laughed. Of course—he’d asked a question about time, so the raven would reply “Nevermore.” “Do you know any other words?” he asked. “Or am I ever going to get anything else out of you?”
“Nevermore,” repeated the raven.
“Oh, I’m never going to—you only answered the second question—that’s clever, that’s clever.” Grian tapped his chin and thought deeply. He didn’t even notice the raven tearing out pages from his boulder spells book and eating them. “Alright,” he said at last. “I challenge you to somehow answer this question with the word ‘nevermore.’ It’s got to make sense, though, alright?”
The bird said nothing.
“Glad we understand the rules,” Grian said, satisfied. “Now. Tell me, what color is Mumbo’s mustache?”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Grian frowned at the bird. “That doesn’t work. I’m asking for a color, not a time—I didn’t say ‘when’ or ‘at what time’ or anything like that.” He thought deeply again. Had the bird outsmarted him somehow?
He laughed when he realized what the raven meant. “I said ‘tell me!’ That’s why you could say ‘nevermore’—like, ‘I’ll never tell you.’ I get it, I get it. That’s smart, I didn’t think about that. I guess I should’ve thought of that.” He thought again. “Alright, but there’s no way you can make ‘nevermore’ answer my next question.” He leaned in dramatically towards the raven. “What is two plus two?”
There was an awkward silence. Grian stared at the raven. The raven stared at Grian.
“Well?” asked Grian impatiently. “Your answer?”
Still the bird was quiet. Finally Grian realized that this was the kind of question the bird was not going to answer.
“Because you can’t make ‘nevermore’ work,” he said, slightly in awe. “So you just... aren’t going to answer?”
The bird stared at him.
“Let me phrase that better,” Grian decided, slightly unnerved by the abyssal black eyes. “When are you going to answer the question that I asked earlier, which was ‘What is two plus two?’”
“Nevermore,” the raven croaked.
“Alright, that is scary.” Grian got up and headed for the door. Instead of a bird only able to say one word, it seemed to have a full grasp of the English langauge, and knew precisely what parts of Grian’s speech to answer. It might even be smarter than him! It was probably secretly an evil genius that was planning to take over Hermitcraft with its diabolical knowledge of clauses and colons.
The bird in question fluttered off the bed and landed in front of the door. Horror bolted through Grian. “Let me leave!” he said, panicked, and realized his mistake too late.
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."