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The Raven [Sekah & Taldemire]

"That's a good birdie. I assure you I will, just as she will remain safe and sound in my loving care. Now then..."

Rowan began to bully Crow's ass with his cock. His hand full of the dark locks of the fairy's hair. Tight grip pulling back on Crow's neck as the thrusts thump his head into the ground. Panting grunts following a pace gaining speed. The tapping slap of Rowan's sack clapping rhythmically. Hands tighten, hips slam harder, his moans louder and deeper until the thickening pulse of Rowan's cock swelled as his cock head bloomed before shooting ribbons of thick hot cum deep within. The changling's balls tugging with each pump that filled him. Shoved to the ground, canceling the order to be on all fours now.

"While I'm at it, I cancel all previous orders. Beast you shall not leave this basement, you shall not call out to anyone, and you shall not harm or restrain me. Other then that you can enjoy your small prison, knowing your sacrifice will protect your sister." There was a sense of bitterness welling up in Rowan. His release against Crow wasn't making any part of him feel better in his attempt for retribution. He snorted, grabbing his cock and shaking the remains of a few droplets of cum across the pitiful fae face.
 
Crow had seen stallions in a king's army being trained to keep their heads high as they trotted in formation. He pitied them, now that he knew the rancor of their gait. It hurt, his scalp aching, his neck tight as his throat worked in a swallow, his adam's apple ducking. He whimpered under the harsh fucking, his flesh clapping, ripples up his ass everytime Rowan thrust, and deep inside of him, too.

Suddenly he felt the sticky graffiti released inside of him. His whole body shuddered, sobbing wrenchingly. He cancelled all his orders, and Crow was so disoriented he couldn't gather up magic to stop Rowan until it was too late.

Again. He'd failed her again. When he saw her, he'd use her fae name to free her, and she'd free him using his, and they'd escape. That was his new plan. He flinched away from the cum shaken in his face, as delicately as raindrops off a lady's parasol.

When Rowan's hands were off him, he scrambled away in repressed instinct. Sobs bubbling up into his hand as he scrubbed the cum away from himself. Some droplets stuck in his hair, and he looked down at the cum in his hand with his eyes and nose turning cherry from the shame and anger in his tears. He crawled to a water bucket that Hana had filled up this morning, and soaked a rag, washing himself with the futile, feverish ablutions he remembered from his childhood. His forehead wrinkled in shame as the cloth delved between his legs—it was leaking out of him. His shoulders shook.
 
Rowan stood watching as Crow crawled like a wounded animal. Curled in a ball as he washed away the fluids that stained his body from his day's torment. His manhood was sated, but his stomach turned. There was a pit in his gut that rolled. Uneasy quisiness bubbling up from some unknown pocket of the changlings subconscious. Memories flashed through his mind, the process his body went through as tendrils of lava poured through his veins and peeled away his humanity. How his captures haf their way with him for their own leisure and playful malace as he cursed their very name in his agonizing screams. That one moment of magic when his wings grew in just to feel them slowly torn off tendon after tendon. The room smelled of blood, iron tinged sweat and sex folded together. His head spun and his body felt like it was going to burst into flame as sweat began pouring from his body.

It felt as if those memories were coming for him. Like a dream waking back towards a nightmare of the past. That same fearful panic as he heard them giggling to his cell. Rowan held himself and fled from the room without a word. He couldn't stand there looking at Crow any more. Panic and sickness was like a jackhammer inside him. Rattling and unsettling like a crumbling home brought to its knees by an earthquake. The door slammed behind him and he dropped to the floor. His hands holding him up as uneven heaving breaths tried to catch in the knot of his throat. There was no air, there was no relief. All he felt was pressure building and building. Heart rapidly pounding causing his chest to ache. Rowan wanted to scream, but noting but his panicked breaths came out with shuddering squeaks in his voice.

Both arms failed as he fell to the floor, soft whimpers as he began to catch his breath. Soft, sobbing gasps as he laid curled on the floor. Hana had watched in shock, unable and unwilling to help. Part of her wishing he'd die right there on the spot so she could be free of the man, but she knew her chances to leave and be with her brother also depended on the man releasing his orders from them both. Rowan laid there for a long while. His panic attack subsiding little by little with each teary eyed breath. Muttering to himself as he recollected, "Please...I don't want to go back. I can't. Please..."

When finally able he sat up, he never looked at Hana. A sense of shame and humiliation casting his eyes down to his feet. He spoke her true name and said, "You will go to your brother. Before you approach him you will say his true name and command him to not touch you or use your true name. Then you will not communicate with him in any way. Clean him up and then when you are done with that come and wake me. I need to rest." With that he weakly makes it to his feet and shuffles down away towards a bed he climbs in, a blanket covering him as he tries and disappears from the world for a while.
 
Crow watched in astonishment as the man, suddenly reeking of sweat from more than his lovemaking with Crow, staggered out of the room. He saw the door swinging open and saw him collapse and then the door shut, and there were just the sounds.

He didn't receive any joy from his new master's panicked breakdown. He didn't want to hear it. It was hard to hate someone who was breaking down, even someone as awful as him. Crow was having his own misery.

He heard the words Hana was given, along with a true name order. He hid behind the door, praying Hana wouldn't realize what was happening. He jumped on her when the door opened, trying to stifle her so he could use her true name to free them both while the master slept. And then—

—she dodged him easily, having heard his breathing behind the door and being unable to defy him in even the slightest way. "Beast, don't use my true name, don't touch me!"

Crow sprung back, weeping. He'd failed her. Again, again, again he'd failed her. She rattled off the rest of the instructions, and they wrapped him tighter than chains even as he couldn't hear them, his ears were ringing so much. He was starting to have a panic of his own. But he hadn't been ordered not to use Hana's true name. He hoped Rowan never thought of making them forget each other's true names, permanently. That would—be entirely awful and undo a new idea Crow had: ask someone to say the words to Hana, and unwittingly get a stranger to free them.

She couldn't speak to him, her big brother, who'd just been raped. So she pointed to the water jug, and they knelt beside it. She slid the rag in, felt it was lukewarm, and glowered at him until he blushed, and made the water comfortable and warm.

She had never bathed him. That had been his role, when she was a child, and even after to give her a sponge bath on the rare times she got sick. He was a full fae—he was never sick. The bubonic plague couldn't touch him. Slice his flesh and it healed moments later. He'd suffered terrible things, but he always healed, so there had been no need to clean him—indeed, it would feel as strange and intimate and humiliating as this did.

He stopped crying with her in the room, unwilling to let her see him cry, to worry her. She saw it all anyway, gently helping him bathe the sweat and shame from his body. She stroked the cum from his hair, unable to touch him herself, but he was just glad she was here, alive, and he'd bought her some kind of safety.

When he was clean, he climbed into a new pair of clothes, and tried to feel whole again. He didn't. He felt Rowan's cock had carved a hollow into his body, into his soul, and the pain was only growing, though with Crow's healing there was no pain. Crow watched her walk into the other room, his eyes on her back, the door opening and closing.

"Get up," she told the man sleeping in their bed. "Wake up, bastard," she added, lightly shoving him, wishing she could strangle him instead.
 
Startled into waking, Rowan rose up from his rest. An ache lingered in his head as he rubbed his face, giving his body a moment to catch up. He finally rose onto his feet, making his way to one of the water jugs he had filled the day before. It was nearing emptiness, he may need more supplies soon. He knew he couldn't stay here forever though. Eventually he would have to make his way home. It would be safer there, but he couldn't make that move till he knew he had a plan. Along with a way to explain his two captives to the others.

He took a few long gulps of the water. Quenching his dry throat and setting it back down to the side. He saw her face, she hated him even more then she had before.

"Don't look at me like that. Be grateful I even let you see him." His voice grumbled as he redressed in simple clothing. Two visible scars ran down from his shoulder blades in long ugly lines. "He heals, I allow him some level of his own personal will, and I promised him to bring you no harm as long as he gives me what I need. And I'll do whatever I need till I know by any shadow of a doubt that my plan can be executed."

"Your plan? Me and my brother are trying to live our lives and not cause anyone harm just so we can get some small peace. You come in and keep us locked up, torturing my brother and you call that part of some plan?"

Her voice screamed at the absurdity, almost laughing at how insane it sounded.

"He is down there, humiliated and scarred because of you! So what if he can heal? So what if you are so benevolent enough to allow me something I already had? You're still just some twisted monster getting his kicks harming others. You make me sick." She spits at his feet, like a cobra spitting poison at her predator.

Rowan tried stretching some of the tension in his muscles in the middle of the room as she spoke. His jaw setting tight as his teeth ground. The place was small, so there wasn't many places to go to get away from her bitter wrath.

"You can hate me all you like." His voice deepening as he marched toward her stoic and defiant form raising to a shout as he pushes his face into hers. His changling form rippling as black raven eyes flash. Feathers ripple in bursts down his arms and face as for just a second his raising voice screams in a squack as his beak nearly jabs her face before shifting back to his curled glowered lips. A raven talon hand reaching for her neck. "But I will not allow you to speak to me as if I am a monster! All I used to be was a human man trying to feed his home on a hunt that landed me into the grasp of fae. And that's all I can remember! I don't even know if I have a wife, children, or if there are elderly parents dying without my help. All I have left is feint feelings in my soul and unclear memories that disappear as quickly as they come. It was all taken. Everything was warped! I was warped!"

His voice falters, weakens in power under the reality of things. His human-like hand falling to his side."So much that who ever it is that I left behind...I doubt they would recognize me anymore. I don't even know if I would ever recognize them passing on the street..."

A long pause as he backs away. "Even magic is no longer beautiful to me. For the feint glimmer of it that your kind blessed me to witness, quickly was used to tear that very blessing from my body. All for their amusement. All so I could be a good work tool that could not flee to the safety of the sky. That is why I will use you both till I take back as much as was taken from me. Curses to your chances, but how should I care when that choice was not given to me? Who knows, such a suicide mission may rid you both of me for good. We won't know that though. Not until I see it done."

He composes himself, his resolve a crutch to hold him up. "Stay in this room here, Slut. Sleep, eat, and fix things up while I am busy Slut. I have another meeting with your brother." With that he leaves her silently. Re-entering the room where Crow was, his eyes looking solidly into the fea.
 
Hana turned from him, angry, and hoped she wouldn't have to hear her brother's moans again. She slid into bed and immediately fell asleep, her hands over her ears, in instant obedience to his command.

Crow had been kneeling near the door, listening, rubbing the palm of one hand with his thumb, gently cradled in his lap. When Rowan came in, he looked up at him with fear in his eyes. "Please, sir," he said, "my sister's never been a slave. She doesn't know—what to expect, how to act. Please forgive her, and don't hurt her."

Crow kowtowed to the ground, showing his shoulders were shaking, showing the nape of his neck and his soft umber curls. He slowly peeked up from his prostration to glance at Rowan's eyes and then look at his shirt, his breath rushing. The glitter of tears were threatening in his eyes.
 
Rowan looked more annoyed now then angry as he stepped through the threshold. Ignoring the fae and his pleading as he walked over and grabbed the chair he had Crow strapped to before. He sat, crossing his legs and looking at Crow contemplatively with set jaw and furrowed brow. His dark earthy, muddled hair a mess of wavy locks made from his rest.

"Evesedropping? Really Crow? Then you grovel for me to keep your sister safe. What have I already said to you? Hm? She is still safe and unharmed, for now." His arms cross as he speaks with bitting words. "At least she has the guts to stare me straight in the eyes in defiance of her situation."

He shifts slightly and thinks for a moment. "You are stronger then that, and I will need that strength for my plan. You said only a fae can open the way into their realm correct? Using some magic to 'pull' It open? Yet, you have less information for me then I had initially thought. I need to know more of the layout of land as well as securities, places of important, and weakness. What I may have to do is take you both with me to my home city. I can possibly get more info there, or we can find a way to. Surely with a fae to open the way the others would be more willing for war. But that means I will take you and your sister and you will both be there to grant us access to the fae realm."

His legs switch and he taps his fingers on his arm. "Do you know any information about Changlings? How much power do the fae have over us?"
 
"I, I don't know, sir," Crow answered honestly. He came out of his kowtow and knelt on the floor, anxiously holding his left elbow with his right hand, his shoulders drawn up to his ears.

"I've never met a changeling. My father mentioned you a couple of times, that's all. I don't know defenses, anything like that—I only know you can't take Hana into the fae realm. She's considered a slave there, same as I understand changelings are."

He glanced into his eyes. Have you ever tried to look in your rapist’s eyes minutes after assault? Crow tried, but ended up looking at the ground instead.
 
A deep unamused sigh leaves Rowan's lips. "So be it." He rises from his seated position and walks next to Crow, standing shoulder to shoulder. "Unfortunatly for you, since your information is lacking, I have no choice but to use you both in whatever other ways I need. This means that you both in fact will accompany me, when the time comes, to the fae realm. You will unlock the way and I may very well make you fight along side me against your own kind. And yes I can, and I will. Wherever she goes, you go."

He knew the position Crow was in, partially. That shame and fear of the capture who has defiled and torn your body asunder. This was going to be war though and Rowan was willing to follow that ugly, vile path. "Regardless of what you might think I do know what is going through your mind. Escape, rescue, revenge, and even suicide if the worst of fate comes to you. It's all you can think about being a prisoner to something you cannot escape. It's a cruel reality. But if this is left to go on, many more people will suffer this same fate. Torn from their loved ones, forgotten, changed, ravaged, and lost from what they used to be. None of us will be heroes. Nor will I ever go down in pages as some martyr. That isn't what I want. All I want is change, even if that change kills me in the end and I lie there an unworthy abominable being forgotten like dust to time."

His words holding no joy or pride as he speaks. Rowan then begins to walk away towards the door, waiting a moment before leaving to hear any last words from Crow before he leaves him to gather supplies.
 
Crow listened. He listened to Rowan's self-entitled recriminations, his beliefs about how noble and righteous and necessary what he was doing was. Crow tried to tell himself the phantom aches in his body were just that—phantoms—since his healing would have long-since mended the man's abrasions of his body.

"You could have asked me," he said. "You don't have to use me cruelly. I don't think it's right that people are made slaves of the fae's either."

But he doubted Rowan would believe him, let alone listen, as he crawled to the edge of the room next to the door to the bedroom and sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, and his eyes pressed to them.

As soon as the man was gone, he was going to name-order Hana free, and they would escape.
 
Rowan turned back to Crow, he regarded the man silently for a long moment. His eyes wept dry sentements of sympathy. It was the most human expression he had given in a long time. "You're right" He admitted softly. His eyes downcast in the sobering moment. "But of all that time and all that pain. Years of my life trapped with no one to trust but one person. My friend? Mentor? I don't even remember any more. The one person who saved me from that hell, sacrificing the last of themselves so that I'd have a chance to be free. Only to enter the world again alone. Who was I to ask in that situation? The one thing I feared most in this world?"

He sighed, "I guess it doesn't matter now. Not right now. Maybe if we succeed I can make you both forget this nightmare. At least there is that."

He goes to walk away and with a final disheartened moment as he looks at Crow one more time. "I'm sorry, but there is going to be more pain before we can even think of seeing and end at all. Even one with a sliver of hope. I want you to be unable to use your true name in anyway and the one of your sister as well you will be unable to use in any way, beast."

With that final order he stepped forward and closed the door. On the other side he had order a the same thing to Hana. As cruel as it was it would be the final thing keeping them from escaping. He allowed her to see her brother while he was gone. They would need it for what was to come. Rowan needed supplies. One way or another he will find some kind of weakness for the fae. He grabbed his sack of onyx silks to sell for cash and left the two trapped within the house.
 
"No," Crow pressed his eyes into his knees, unwilling to look at his captor. "Don't take my memories from me. Never again. Please." His mother had done that, a cruel game to punish him. He knew there were precious memories of Hana that he'd never get back.

When Rowan left, Crow uncoiled slowly. First his stomach, so tight he thought he might vomit. Then his muscles.

He knocked on the door between two rooms, then opened it. He saw Hana was still asleep, ordered so by name command, and leaned on the edge of the doorframe, unable to step one foot in the room, and watched over her, with his eyes worried, like she was made of ash and would disappear at any moment.

His sister awoke suddenly, sat up sweaty and gasping. It hadn't been a pleasant sleep; not even a tolerable one. Like Crow, tonight she was plagued with night terrors.

She ignored him to bee-line to their bowl of fruit in the room, stuffing some in her mouth. She wasn't hungry, but she'd been told to eat. Then she vomited in a chamber pot, too nervous to have food in her stomach, still hurt from the torture. Crow cooed to her as she began mindlessly grabbing a broken crock pot and attempting to fix it. She looked at Crow finally, coming next to Crow in the doorway, leaning on the other side, as he made earth and clay with his powers to help her fix it. They said nothing, waiting until Rowan came back, leaning on each side of the open doorway and nearly against each other, an invisible inch keeping them apart—Rowan's orders to remain in their respective rooms.
 
It had been hours. Rowan had to find a buyer for his extra silks that he had not sold yet. The amount of money he had wasn't enough for everything he needed. Even when he haggling for an iron dagger, arguably the most expensive item on his list, he needed a cash boost to allow him the ability to grab the rest. It would take the remainder of his sellable goods for now, which meant he would need to create more fabric from his raven form's quills. For now he needed to do some research though. One that could greatly effect the future he foresaw.

With a sack full of goods, he made his return. The humid air a breather allowing him a moment of thought. A slow stroll as his actions all stirred about in his mind. Crow's words haunted him. "You could have asked." The man's voice played on repeat in the back of his mind. How could something feel so utterly true and equally absurd at the same time? Would he have been able convince a fae to join forces with a changling so that they may destroy the poisons of what they were doing to the realms they kidnapped from? What felt like revenge was began to be butchery. Unsteadied Rowan walks with a heavy mind. The only thing moving him forward at this moment was a need to know what made the fae tick. That one sliver of a chance of tales and hearsay led to some shred of reality. A fae weakness to turn the tides.

He found his way back, the door clicking with a lock. He came in, setting down the bag. Making a face at the chamber pot that was made a mess. The naming power was far stronger then he had ever imagined. A troublesome one as he tried to remember that they will in fact follow said commands regardless of necessity. With a sigh he canceled her eating command for now. He'd give her time before he began her on some sort of feeding schedule. For now he needed her busy, preferably so much so that she knew less of what he was about to do to Crow. It was a shame, sending her out was far more detrimental. The half fae could only clean such a small dingy place so much. He grabbed a few paper maps he used regularly to plot out routes for trade. With a point of a finger he had her note the location he described as, "our next home", before name ordering her. "Slut I need your full attention to scan these maps and take note of terrain and ease of access to the best of your ability. Create me several routes and detailed explanations for why those would be ideal for our travels, Slut. I want as smooth and safe a route for us as possible. The less interruptions by passersby the better."

He looks to Crow with a look that tells him that he will name order him if he has to, walking into the room, grabbing the bag again before he moved back to where they had occupied together before. "Come with me, we have much to do."
 
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Crow rose up onto his knees as Rowan stalked in, his lips parting in a sharp gasp of fear. He looked in and sighed when Hana's commands were negated and she finally put aside the pot she'd been mending and stood up, crossing her arms implacably.

She listened to his instructions with her lips set in a scowl, before releasing a beleaguered sigh and sitting down.

"Asshole," she muttered after him, but she bent and studied the map carefully. There was no room to half-ass a name order.

When Rowan came back into the other room, Crow eyed the pack he had with misgivings.

As he walked in, Crow addressed him hesitantly. "I thought of another weakness while you were out," he said. "Iron."

He pinched in his lips and spun his iron-resistance ring over his finger nervously, taking in the man's face and intention with a careful intensity.
 
Hana's comment was left in the air behind him. Only receiving a simple grunt was his response as he left her to the maps she was to look over. When Crow and Rowan entered the basement, the door closing behind him and the pack set to the side, there was an uneasy silence. Rowan cracked his neck before speaking in an even tone.

"Alright let's change a few things up. I won't have the luxury of control against any of your kind. None of us will. Beast all of my other commands are now void. You will not kill or disable me Beast. Running away and using either yours or Hana's true name is also forbidden Beast. Other then that you're free to do as you please."

Rowan knelt down and dug through the bag, pulling out one of the first things to experiment with. A small satchel of salt now rest in the changlings hand. Rowan raised an eyebrow as he heard the fae's words.

"Ah, you remember now do you? Well I suppose rumors saved me a trip at the very least. It seems the most possible, so we will save that for last. For now let's try some other rumors I've heard of your kind. Could be a learning experience for us both, you and I."
 
Crow moved sharply, but Rowan cut off his avenue to attack and the name order snapped him up faster than he could kill a man.

Crow scratched at the floorboards as he walked into the basement and knelt, sighing sharply to himself. The nails dragged across the wood with a loud grind, Crow turning away from Rowan, then turning back when he saw him pulling out a satchel of salt.

"You're going to—find out what hurts me?" he asked.

He eyed the satchel dubiously. There was salt in just about any dish you could name, it was all over pastries in China, and he'd spilled it on himself sometimes—he thought if he could be hurt or entrapped by salt he'd have been so long before now. But he didn't point it out. Let something that couldn't hurt him be tried before something that could was.
 
That brush of killer intent rushing at him with the quickness of lighting. A tickle of wind that pushed of the fist inches away from Rowan's face. It was enough to truly feel a sense of fear that twisted the changlings stomach, saved only by the fact that his intentions were formed and expressed first. With a grimace he quells that tightened fear in his muscles that readied for a response. Hiding his feelings in a nervous chuckle he speaks to Crow, "You're certainly feeling fired up. That's good. We're going to need that energy to figure this all out."

Pinching wads of the salty granules he walked about the fae, leaving a circle about him. It was said that faeries could be warded off by barriers of salt. This seemed the silliest solution out of them all, but Rowan was willing to try anything if it even gave a slightest advantage. After completing the circle he shrugs at Crow, "Eh, hurting you helps. Though if any of these things ward your kind off or weaken you in anyway then it would equally be valuable. Honestly, I'm tossing dice here." He laughed in an amused annoyance. Humans would be far easier to war against. Fae and their damned magics.
 
Crow watched dully as Rowan surrounded him with the circle of salt. He felt fatigued and sad, like a person does when grieving a relative. It was just that it had been such a long time since he was raped; he'd forgotten what it was like. The dull echo of shame and fear that was like a malaise—fear of this man.

He eyed the circle with weary distrust, and stood up. He stepped in and out of it with no trouble, saying, "I think you're doing it wrong," slowly.

Then he stood there, holding his elbows inside the circle, like he felt a chill—he did, but it seemed to be from long ago, a place far away. It was balmy and too hot in here.
 
Grumbling as he tried to make a neat circle around the fairy. None of it really seemed to affect Crow. As annoyed as he was, Rowan kept his cool even while flicking a pinch of salt at the fae.

"No? What, do you think I need to do some fancy chant and make it a square?" He sat back and looked at the circle, then back at Crow. His brow furrowed with thought and he stood up from where he knelt. Dark ringed eyes squinting for any missed details.

Grabbing a handful of salt he walked towards the fae and rubbing it against the skin of his arm. "Hmm...you feel anything? A tingle, queasy, or hell even particularly seasoned at this point? You don't look any more uncomfortable then you have already." Pacing back and forth as he thinks of other ways of using the mineral to test it out, but as it was turning out to be little more that flavoring and preservative.

"Bah, crone superstitions!"
 
"It just feels like you're rubbing me with salt," Crow said unhelpfully. "I wouldn't want any in a wound, but I don't think anyone wants salt in a wound."

A little more helpfully, he offered, "I think fae have been encouraging false rumors from the start; if salt stopped me or kept me out of something or—y'know, something like that, I'd probably find it hard to cook with, but I cook with it all the time. I can even make it, if I focused hard enough. I can't make iron."

"But if you want to keep trying," he said doubtfully, and trailed off, nudging the circle with his toe just to show he could.
 
Rowan makes a face, looking at the bag of salt. His lips scrunched up and he set it down. More use could be had of it, but as of now he decided to move to another item.

"Honestly I would not doubt that. I remember only bits and pieces since my memories were played with, but I do remember their love of mind games."

He could make salt, but not iron. Another hint to the possibility of the knife being the most capable tool. Yet, how much was to believed of a captive fae? Rowan looked over to Crow and spoke frankly.

"Can I ask you something? What were the two of you doing here in the first place? To this fisher village that gets the occasional trade?"
 
"If my mom was anything like the average fae, I can't even imagine," Crow told him readily.

He blinked in pure shock when Rowan asked him what he was doing here. He stared at him, clearly confused. "I live here," he said, slowly, trying to disguise he thought it was a crazy question. "It's not a bad place to live." He didn't know why he felt defensive. What did it matter what this madman thought of him and where he lived? "Traders come from all over, so strangers like us don't engender much notice. There's always work for outsiders at the dock. I've lived in much worse places." He was quiet, thinking of all the human domains he had lived in, unexpectedly sad. Some of them had been beautiful, like the jungle paradise of Angkor Wat or the sprawling city of Nanjing; others had been humble fishing villages far from civilization, who no one but him would remember the name of once they left. "What did you think I was doing here?"

He didn't know what Rowan's imagination could conjure, but he was a little curious. Whatever Rowan was used to when he said the word fae with such hatred, fear and disdain, it wasn't Crow.
 
"Your mother? Heh, seems you fae have issues tormenting each other then?" Rowan said, looking through his bag as they talked.

Rowan was more rationally realizing the events that have unfolded in these past few days. The burning hate and rage having worn a hole inside him. Very little information has even come about from this ordeal. Even with his ability to inact his revenge onto these two fae, it felt unsatisfactory. Rowan found it hard to believe anything the fae had told him, but more times then not it had been truth. At the very least this man seemed sincere. In his head he had began to continued to wonder if his side escapade was time wasted away into regret. What was to be believed in any more and what was to matter in the face of what is right or wrong.

Taking out a few pieces of jaggery and tossing them to Crow. "Did you know your kind can't resist sweets?" Rowan shrugged to himself popping a piece into his own mouth and letting it's molasses-y sticky sweetness melt on his tongue. "That's what was said at least." With his fingers he rubs his temples before squeezing at his eyes towards the bridge of his nose. "So this is just where you two decided to settle down, for what? A normal life? Why not in your own realm?"

He was asking, unsure if faeries normally lived among humans. It had seemed odd that he found them out in the open. Since his escape, for as far as he knew, he had not encountered any other fae during his trading travels. "Honestly? I didn't know what you two were doing here.", Rowan admitted. "I had just come to scrounge up some money and get away from my village selling my silks. Needless to say running I not only one fae, but two was something I had never planned on."
 
Crow looked down sharply, like the question burned him. The issue of his mother he tiptoed around. He had to shake off a lifelong malaise just thinking of her. He had no way of knowing if his was the common fae upbringing or not, but if so, it was horrible.

"I told you," he said, stubbornly resisting the urge to snap at this man. "Half-fae like Hana are slaves. I tried to go across the veil, when I was fourteen, just the once. The fae of the city I found kept us at the gate, negotiating, but they seemed willing to let me in. But then—they asked me if I wanted to keep Hana personally or sell her."

Crow winced, as if the memory still stung.

"I left. I didn't ever return."

He curled up, looking at Rowan eating the sweet dully, then toying with the sweet tossed into his lap. "I don't think that's true," he informed him slowly. "I prefer salty and savory food to sweet. Maybe because I never had sweet foods growing up. I only like sweet fruits."

"Hana likes sweets, though."

He crouched and drew his fingers slowly through the circle of salt, mussing the granules and sitting cross-legged. "I don't think we're as different from humans as people think," he told him. "I don't feel—any different than the humans around me. I react to things the same way, basically. Have the same emotions. I've lived among humans my whole life. I don't mind it. I'm not—I don't dislike humans at all. I don't think I'm above them. I've had friends, over the years. Hana has taken lovers. We often have to leave for new places, though—vampires find us, or some calamity hits, or we're driven out because the humans sense something strange about us, or—we just go too long without aging."
 
The response Crow gave was sullen, "Aye I suppose you did. I fear I wasn't listening as hard as I could have before." His eyes down cast watching a dozen berries of his namesake roll about his palm. "So by both circumstance and society you two became outsiders? By your own people you were given a choice no one should have ever had to chose." Crushing two berries between his thumb and forefinger Rowan presented the crushed fruit to Crow in a half hearted attempt to see their effectiveness. "No one should be a slave, especially by their own people. I have no place to say it, but you did chose the only option that was pure."

There was a moment of painful wincing on the changlings face. He was able to escape and be a slave no more. A sympathy for these two lost souls similarly wished to avoid that fate ever again. Yet, Rowan had come and shattered that idyllic dream for them. There wasn't any sorry about it that could repair the damage already done, nor was Rowan truly willing to just give up the goat now and release them. Though he felt an ache in him that wished many things in life had gone differently.

"Keep the sweets, you can give them to your sister when we are finished with today. I don't suppose the rowanberries are doing anything?" Mulling over his thoughts, he sucked the juice from his fingers. He made a chuckle at a few wandering thoughts. "Well with as much salt as I have now, I'd be able to affect a pig more then I would a fae. At least we'd get something satisfying out of these random treats and trinkets."

Rowan sighed, off topic he idlely admitted, "You know I've never actually seen the tree I'm named after?" Looking to Crow he laughed as if it was a joke that even Rowan didn't readily know the punchline to. Then his face settled as he looked the fae over. He had very intimate detail of all of Crow's features. "No, you both look very similar. My experience with fae is, unpleasant, but I could see how in the right circumstances you would act similar as well. Though I don't know if you know this, but you smell very diffrent from a human. That's the only way I found out there was a fae near me. But you are just a living being trying to carve out what life you can in this world. With all your magics, glamours, and charms even the mighty fae can be just two people living a modest life." Amber eyes sat before Crow, shameful and apologetic. Long tresses of wavy brown hair hanging messy about his face. Rowan felt like the lost broken man he was. "When this is all over, maybe we can all be free." His voice, deep and mournful, was a pessimistic declaration of hope.
 
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