And now the Bird Word

[helborn]

[The 'voice' that shows up on the network is rough and scratchy, as if it's more croaked than anything.]

'And then you had to go off and disappear like th -'

[Casper's 'voice' responds.]

We've gone over this and - wait, we're on the network. You're on the network.

... Shit.

'Well, would you look at that? Now I can tell people how much of an idiot you're being.'

You would even if you couldn't speak.

'I mean, probably.'

... I'm sorry about him. In advance, and in general.

Comments

[helborn]

Is it? I don't think so. But yeah, you have been. Don't think that these sorts of things won't ramp the hell up, though.

[flatteries]

[ Okay, that settles it. Getting lectured by a bird? Definitely weird.

Which means the only way Inigo can deal with it is by making lame jokes. ]

Does that mean you plan on putting your best foot forward as well?

[helborn]

Joke's on you, both of my feet are my best feet.

[flatteries]

Are all birds this.. [ He almost says "full of yourself", but he's trying to be nice here! ]

.. self-confident as you are?

[helborn]

Depends on the bird, but I'm special.

[Casper butts in.]

He's old, for a raven. I think the only reason he's still around is that he was sent by my mother. I'm pretty sure he was, at least.

[flatteries]

Why would your mother send you a raven?

[ He can't imagine his own mother doing that.. ]

[helborn]

She's a goddess. A lot of the deities send their children an animal companion.

[flatteries]

W.. Wait. Your mother is a goddess?!

[ He's learning something new about fellow Travelers every day. ]

[helborn]

Oh. Uh. Yeah. Hel, Norse goddess of death and the underworld.

[flatteries]

I.. Er, excuse me, it most likely sounds kind of strange for me to be so surprised. [ Or offensive? He's not even sure. He's never even dealt with anything as strange to him as literal god children. ]

I've just never met anyone who was the child of a literal goddess. Or god, really.

[helborn]

It's fine. I don't exactly hide it here because when we've seen multiple personifications of Death walking around, for example, it doesn't make sense to be secret about it. There's a lot of strange people around.

[flatteries]

True. You shouldn't call it being strange though!

[ Despite that literally being what it is. ]

You should instead call it.. special, perhaps. It's not as if it's a bad thing to just have been born who or what you are. I should've acted less surprised too.

[helborn]

It's not your fault. And I was born with weird... stuff... about me, but I didn't know she was my mother until about a year and a half before I came here.

Sometimes I worry about you, kid. The fact that you could understand me didn't clue you in?

... Look, I didn't even know the gods actually existed and neither did you.

[flatteries]

To be fair, being able to understand an animal could have a lot of different reasons than being the child of a god. [ Especially with all the weird stuff that's going on across all of the worlds they've visited.. Inigo has learned this much. ]

So was your life still a little more normal before, even with the slightly strange things?

[helborn]

Magic isn't really a known thing in my world... but yeah, mostly. I could talk to ghosts, but otherwise it was pretty normal.

Talking to ghosts isn't normal.

I said 'otherwise'.

[flatteries]

I have to give Bob some credit here. Magic is fairly normal where I come from, but I don't think I've ever heard of someome speaking to ghosts.

[helborn]

I mean... I knew that was weird but I thought maybe everything else wasn't real since I'd never see any evidence of it.