#i just want one of krav's ravens to bring taako krav's jewelry

[hopelesslydimwitted]

i have no explanation for this. i rescued a bird and imagined taako nursing one of kravitz’ raven children back to health, and krav’s gay ass finding out and scoring a date

Taako felt something tug at the hem of his pants, barely taking his attention away from the herbs and vegetables in front of him. He kicked his foot away from whatever it was and took a few very delicious looking tomatoes, reaching next for a bundle of basil.

There was a very loud, very grating caw from his feet and he all but jumped in surprise. Eyebrows pinched together, he looked down at the offending creature- a sleek black bird that, Taako had to guess, paired with another quick bite and tug at his pants, was the thing that was pulling at him a moment ago.

“What? What? Go-- go away, shoo.” He waved his hands at the raven, stepping away and delicately pulling up his ‘assaulted’ leg in a vaguely dramatic display of disgust. “I’m not going to drop this for you, nice try. You’ll have to buy your own vegetables like everyone else, so, uh-- get a job.”

Taako turned back to place the basil in his basket, when the raven made another noise at him. This time it was softer, now that the raven had gotten his attention, and… well, honestly? It was a very pathetic, pitiful sound. Even as he was acting annoyed at this creature, Taako couldn’t help but spare a curious glance at the raven. When Taako’s eyes were on it, it flapped its wings at him. One of its wings stayed winched in, not going very far before it twitched back in. Taako noticed a dark sheen on the feathers near its shoulder, and fuck it was probably hurt.

“I-- I’m not a vet. I can’t-- I’m a wizard and a chef, not a cleric, and especially not a raven cleric. I can’t help you, so-- so go bother someone else. Shoo.” He tried again, half heartedly, to shoo the raven away.

It cawed pathetically at him again.

Taako, groaning in a show of unhappiness, tucked his bag away and unwrapped his soft wool scarf from his neck. “If you-- I swear to Dan, if you bite a hole or take a shit in this scarf, I’m going to, I’m gonna-- I’m going to make a new one out of your feathers. Capisce?”

It made a noise at him, and Taako hesitated before crouching down. He made a makeshift bird-holder with his scarf, making sure the the fabric covered all his exposed skin because if he gets sick from a stupid wild bird, he is going to flip his shit. He aimed to grab the raven by the torso, wanting to pin its wings to his body, but he didn’t get very close before the raven just… it just fucking jumped into the scarf like it was used to being picked up by humanoids.

Taako would never admit that a bird jumping into his open hands scared him as much as it did.

...aaand now that Taako had the injured raven in his hands… he had absolutely no idea what to do. There was surely a vet around here somewhere, right? It’s Neverwinter for Istus sake, there’s gotta be someone who can help a bird.

He looked around, keeping the raven as far away from his body as he could without his arms giving out under its weight. He thought he remembered seeing a sign with an animal of some sort a few street blocks back, and headed that way. (He’ll come back to pay for the ingredients later… maybe.)

After about fifteen minutes of wandering around the city with a fucking raven in his arms like it was some kind of pet, Taako finally managed to find what looked like it might possibly be a veterinarians. He pushed down the handle with his elbow and tried to swing in as gracefully as he could- he had an image to uphold- and by some grace of a higher power it wasn’t a complete failure.

“Okay, so,” Taako started, plopping the surprisingly heavy, what the fuck, raven down on the counter. “This is a bird, hello, I’m Taako, and, uh-- this thing annoyed me until I brought it in so, basically, I’m going to need you to, uh, fix it.”

The small, surprised dwarf behind the counter looked at the raven, who bristled a bit but remained in the scarf.

“Uhm… Well, I-- I suppose we could take it off of your hands, Mr… Taako.”

“Yeah? Cool. Oh-- and when you release it, make sure to take it to the square or something, it likes people like a fucking moron.”

The dwarf paused in reaching for the injured bird, her expression turning sympathetic. “Oh, uh, Mr. Taako, we… We can’t actually do much for a-- a raven, so we’ll be euthanizing it.”

Taako blinked as he registered what she’d said, and for some? reason? he got very defensive very quickly and pulled the scarf-and-raven closer to him.

“Can’t do much? Or won’t do much?”

The dwarf babbled on about some policy and training and shit, but it was clear that they were not going to be interested in nursing the raven back to health. Taako rolled his eyes, and told himself to just leave the bird there, its a fucking bird, it’s not like its ghost will come haunt you, just leave it and go.

He ended up leaving in a huff, raven in arms, all up in a bad mood after finding out that, no, they won’t take the raven and, no, there is not another place in Neverwinter that would take it in.

Taako ended up taking the black bird home and dumping it, scarf and all, into his bathroom sink. He stood there, hands on his hips, glaring at the raven blankly as he contemplated what the FUCK he was going to do with this thing. It felt like he stood there for hours before he reached into his blouse and fished out his stone of far speech.

“Hey, Ango, pick up. I need a favor from you, and it involves your favorite thing~ Research!”

--

That’s how Taako ended up with some of Magnus’ spare dog toys, various seeds and berries, a few- yuck- frozen small prey animals, lots of soft spare clothing that he’d gathered from his expansive wardrobe, and a small tube of betadine and cotton swabs.

The raven had let Taako investigate its hurt wing, and Taako was able to see that it may have been bitten, or hit with something. Whatever had happened, it had broken skin and bled a little bit. It wasn’t bleeding now, so that was a relief, but it still needed treated. Taako, with the help of Angus’ extensive and enthusiastic research, was able to clean the area of dirt and feathers before soaking a towel with the betadine and cleaning the dried blood away. He was careful not to press too hard on the newly formed scab, because he did not want to deal with a bird bleeding all over his business, and gently dabbed some ointment on it.

The raven? Super chill the entire time. Taako had on thick leather gloves that went past his elbows, because he was so convinced that this thing was going to try to bite his arm off. He was wrong, apparently. The only time it so much as moved was to scratch an itch under its opposite wing or shift its feet when the betadine touched its skin.

It was definitely 100% weird and Taako wasn’t sure how to feel.

“Please, lord, please tell me this isn’t some man trapped in a bird body. Please. I’ve had enough weird shit to happen to me, I don’t need a bird-man.”

Of course, he didn’t receive an answer. Was this a man’s mind in a bird? He just didn’t know.

--

“You are the weirdest fucking bird I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

The raven, now very comfortable in Taako’s presence, was now perched on the arm of the chair the elf was sitting in. The elf was reading, quietly and to himself, until the raven came up and refused to stop cawing at him and biting at the book until Taako started to read out loud.

Things like this, like biting at the radio until Taako turned it on (and subsequently screaming through each song until fucking classical music came on) and climbing up Taako’s body until it could rest on his shoulder, kept happening until about a week later, when Taako finally shoo’d it away one last time.

“Your wing is fixed, and this place isn’t free bed and board, so-- so, do me a favor and, like, fuckin’ scram. Okay? Come back with rent money if you wanna stay.”

It was a rude send off, but Taako still found himself looking out his window to see if he could see the sleek black bird, despite the raven not coming back once after it had flown away a day ago. The raven was gone and was still occupying Taako’s mind, but at least it wasn’t occupying his bathroom anymore. Taako was happy for that, for sure.

He was even happier, though, when the raven did return. Mind you, it wasn’t because he saw the raven again, hell no. It was what the raven had brought back with it- holding in his beak, careful not to drop it when it called to Taako, the raven had a small golden ring.

“Oh! Is that for me?” Taako grinned, holding out his hand and laughing when the jewelry piece was dropped into his palm. “Is this the magical Raven Gift that angus told me about?”

He inspected the small cuff- it was an incomplete circle, inlaid with an intricate pattern and a few glittering red gems. It wasn’t quite a ring, looking closer at it, more like a piece of gold to put in your hair (Taako only got so from the dark kinky-curly hair still stuck in it).

Taako disappeared into the kitchen, tucking the gold in his pocket, and fetched a handful of leftover seeds from the raven’s stay.

“I’ll count this as rent, my man. Keep bringing me things like this and I’ll make sure I’ve always got stuff here for you to chow down on. Just, next time? No people-evidence on it. Hair? That’s one thing. But if I don’t say something now, I just know it’ll escalate to, I dunno, a fucking finger or something.”

He got a jovial caw in return.

--

“Where-- where did it go?”

Kravtiz was on his hands and knees, face close to the floor as he looked under his bed for his lost accessory. This was the tenth piece of jewelry to disappear from his vanity, and quite frankly, he was getting pretty spooked.

He looked up at the small pit pats on his hardwood floors, eyes flashing to a small conspiracy of ravens in his room.

“If one of you is taking my gold, I will not be happy.” 

He looked around for a few more minutes before groaning and giving up. “My Lady, do you know how much that ring cost? That was my favorite ring! Where did you hooligans put it?”

The ravens, of course, did not answer. They never did. It usually didn’t bother Kravitz, he wasn’t a sociable man, but now that he wanted answers to where the fuck his things were going, it was admittedly, a tiny bit frustrating.

Feeling incomplete without the ruby-inlaid, bird-skull shaped ring on his finger, Kravitz headed out into the busy streets of Neverwinter. Thankfully, the ravens didn’t flank him as he wove in and out of the crowd, but whenever he stopped for too long at a crosswalk or stopped to look at a stall’s items, they landed and gathered around his feet.

He definitely loved how it added to his dapper-goth aesthetic. Slim black suit with red accents? Fancy, professional. Skull themed jewelry? Goth, ups the gothness of the suit minimally. Ravens keeping close to him on top of all that? 110% fancy goth vibe.

He was busy checking his schedule for the day when a familiar raven landed on his arm- he didn’t name them, but could recognize them. This was the one that liked being read to and had been missing for a week or so, before coming back with a new scab on its shoulder.

He looked at the bird, automatically fishing a small peanut out of his pocket to feed it. It accepted the treat, and Kravitz went back to reading the calendar his hands. He wasn’t paying attention to the raven, who shuffled up his arm to perch on his shoulder…

...and bit at the shiny, golden chain around his neck…

...and pulled the loose necklace from his body and fly off.

“Hey!” Kravitz shouted after the raven, starting to follow after it to retrieve the stolen goods.

The raven was easy enough to follow, flying low and stopping every once in a while to look over the crowd and fucking make sure Kravitz was following it, is it playing a fucking game with him???

The raven finally dipped back down into the crowd a few dozen feet away, and Kravitz saw him land on someone’s shoulder. That someone all but yelped in surprise, whipping their head around and almost hitting the raven with the wide brim of their wizard hat.

“Jeezy creezy, my dude, warn a fella before you fuckin’ decide to use them as a landing.”

Kravitz tried to call to the wizard, to tell him to hold the raven in place so he can get his necklace back, when the raven dropped the necklace into an awaiting palm.

“Holy crow!” the wizard beamed loudly, not even hesitating before slipping the loose golden chain over his hat and around his own neck.

Thief! and using my own bird…

When Kravitz was finally close enough, the wizard elf was turning towards him and looked about ready to leave. Kravitz held up his hand to stop him, slightly out of breath embarrassingly enough, and stood in front of him.

“That-- That’s my necklace.” He looked pointedly at the elf’s chest, why is so much of his chest exposed, oh my god he looks so soft, and the raven on his shoulder leaped over to instead perch on Kravitz.

“Oh.”

Kravitz watched as the elf looked him over, no doubt noticing how the necklace matched the other pieces of jewelry on him (his outfit may have been absurd, but it was very well-coordinated; of course he’d be able to tell what jewelry matches what).

“Is the bird yours?”

“...Excuse me?”

“The bird,” the elf repeated, looking at the raven on his shoulder. “Is it yours?”

Kravitz looked at his shoulder, as if he didn’t know there was a very real raven right there. He… was not expecting this.

“Uhm…. Not-- not really, I just-- I feed them.”

“Oh.”

Kravitz stood there, confused as all hell as the elf seemed to contemplate something. His lips were in a thoughtful pout and his arms were crossed, his manicured hand playing with the heavy gem on the end of his newly-acquired (stolen) necklace.

“How ‘bout this, raven man,” he said, and Kravitz knew he was going to try to strike a deal. Fuck.

“I’ll give you this necklace back, and you buy me coffee.”

...fuck?

Kravitz’s face must have given away how confused he was, so the elf grinned (how could a goddamn smirk be so attractive? Wait, what the fuck, Kravitz, he stole your necklace! Don’t think he’s pretty) and elaborated.

“Well, based on how much money you must churn into that dope-ass aesthetic of yours, I was going to assume you didn’t have enough moolah to buy me a nice dinner. Coffee’s cheaper.”

“You… want me… to buy back my own necklace?”  Kravitz felt himself start to get angry despite himself.

The elf laughed, ears flicking up in amusement, and Kravitz felt his own ears flick back in surprise. He’s not sure if he’s more surprised that the thief is mocking him or that he very much finds this thief very very cute.

“In a sense… yeah, I guess.”

“You want a free dinner in exchange for returning a necklace that isn’t yours?” 

“I mean… I was going for something along the lines of a date, but...”

Fuck.

The raven cawed at the elf, and Kravitz was immediately not upset anymore. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. This elf, this very pretty elf, was looking at him and expecting an answer. And he couldn’t talk. His voice was shocked into the ‘off’ setting. How fucking embarrassing was this?

“I…” When he finally found his voice again, he coughed to clear his throat. “I… think that would be… a fair trade.”

Fuck, Kravitz-- FAIR TRADE?? You’re such a stupid gay.