FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

~ The blue jay barely looked up from his book as he reclined in the cheap folding chair behind the table of baubles and wares. "That's a fusor coupling. Bent, but the metal's still good scrap if you want a wedding band on the cheap.", he volunteered to the coyote holding the aforementioned chunk of silver-platinum alloy.

~ "I wasn't really looking for a project...", she replied as she turned her attention to the items adorned with various engravings and a few artistic castings. "Is this a cloak clasp?", picking up a large chunk of brass engraved with the image of a raven holding a bundle of bones above what appeared to be a startled gryphon. She'd never been all that great at reading the expressions on faces of beak and feathers, but the art was clear on the matter of this particular gryphon's confusion.

~ This was sufficient to draw his attention up from his book as Henry volunteered, "Part of a priest's regalia." This seemed to pique the canine's interest as the salesman saw his opportunity. "Have you not heard the tale of Raven's Gift to the Gryphons?", setting his book down to sit upright with as welcoming an expression as he could muster for the traveller.

~ "No, I can't say that I have. I've not spend too much time around avian culture, I'll grant.", her attention turning to the bright blue jay's offer while the clasp rested heavy in her hands. "Did the raven steal something?"

~ Harry let out a low crackle of laughter, "Raven. Just 'Raven', it's her name, and no. She wasn't the thief in this story. You've heard of Phoenix, right? And how he got his folk their flames?" The jay kept his eyes up to the customer, letting her get used to the weight of the clasp in her hands. She shook her head. The bird continued, "Ah. Now him, he stole it! Stole the whole lot of mortals' magics from wherever the great gods of old had thought to hide it, when we were all still stumbling about and scrapping for corn or whatever." He opened his beak to a small gap, mimicry of a grin.

~ Sarah nodded slowly, listening quietly. "See, he thought he'd be able to slip out without the avian or mammal pantheons noticing, but as paranoid as the whole lot were of each other, they'd noticed it practically before he took it. By the time he'd gotten around to running, he found himself at Raven's feet and begging her to help." Harry quietly adjusted the location of a few items, tidying the rows.

~ The bluejay's hands slipped under the table to pull out a receipt pad and pen, beginning to write down the number on the tag hanging from the clasp. "And Raven, being clever and not fond of the rules, decided to help. Being clever, as you may recall, she knew that the avian and mammal pantheons would never come eye to eye on any sort of course of action, so she had Phoenix hand most of the stuff over to gryphons." The jay paused in his writing to wiggle fingers in the air, as though pretending there to be a rainfall of magic down onto the table.

~ The coyote nodded, slipping one hand into her pocket to pull out her wallet as the story continued. "See, gryphons being what they are, the two courts could never sort out who should take the magic back and which half of their nature was the source of all the trouble. And that way, they didn't notice that Raven let Phoenix give most of the fire to his people and kept death for herself." Sarah sought a bit of explanation as she counted the bills, "Wait, I've worked with a few ravens and never knew them to be well.. dead or particularly magical.", with a bit of confused shrug.

~ Harry sighed, an honest sound, "Raven wasn't a fool, no. You may recall that she's clever, in fact. She didn't dump that burden on her own folk. She handed it off to the basilisks, and you saw how that worked out." Sarah had never met a basilisk, and always assumed they were as real as a jackalope. As she handed over a crumpled wad of credits she decided on a more upbeat line of follow up, "And Raven didn't have anything to give to her own folk?"

~ As he swiftly wraped the clasp in some newspaper and slid it into a bag the bluejay perked up with the answer, "Oh! Why, Raven gave _all_ the corvids the gift of storytelling", handing over the bag and receipt.