_gallifrog_
Symbolic Animal of Gallifrey
By the time they'd all finished with their praises Rinaa's ear were glowing with embarrassment, and some colour had crept across her cheekbones, she was so unused to getting so much praise from her family at once. Cliff, Cal and Jay were never together as often as they wanted to be. When Earth closed it's borders to aliens there was no way they could get to Earth for visits. Rinaa was used to such praises and motivational words from her friends, but from family it was completely different. Part of her knew they had a point, and knew they meant every word and wanted to bask on the praise, but the other part of her of was more hesitant to accept it, thinking it safer if she just slipped into the background and acted as unremarkable as possible. She settled for a small, shyish smile (if she had long hair she would definitely be using it to cover her face) and "I guess I don't really see how impressive it is when doing such things is the norm for me."
"I'm just a mine of information." John shrugged immodestly in response, before properly explaining. "Ravens have a lot of links with all kinds of mythology" John knew Fia would know that there was all kinds of folklore associated with ravens outside of one involving the Tower of London. The classic example being the two Ravens of the Greek god Odin- Huginn (Old Norse for "thought") and Muninn (Old Norse "memory" or "mind"), whose job it was to fly across Midgard and bring him back knowledge. There were also links to various Celtic and Scottish deities. Given that they were carrion birds, they ate corpses on battlefields and in many cultures were considered harbingers of doom who brought messages from the other world. "And there's never really been an exact way to get rid of them, they're tenacious and feisty and don't give up a kill easily. There's rumours of people who are born with the gift of controlling birds- 'bean na n-éan' they're called in Gaelic folklore" John's pronunciation was flawless (ban nah naay-n), he was nowhere near fluent in Irish, but he'd learned how to pronounce it properly when helping out a mate called Brendan. "Though I've never heard or seen any. Closest I've got is people like Madame Xandu who keep ravens as magical familiars. But for the rest of us, it's really just a case of chucking things at them until they go away. When they flock and attack together they're pretty damn brutal, Chas can confirm that." he said the last part louder to grab the cabbies attention.
Chas nodded. "It sucks, I'll have you know. I've been killed both by regular ravens and carrion crows, which are basically demonic ravens. They rip the flesh off your bones with their beaks and those talons are deceptive serrated." The second instance he was referring to was also the first time Kay had seen him die and the first time Fee had properly revealed herself to John. "Anyway there was this one time, I needed to nick a corpse" John told them in an 'as ya do' kind of way. "But the ravens had got there first, so I started chucking stuff from the nearest alleyway dumpster. There was a half-empty bottle of Sprite, one of those two litre ones, so I chucked it, not expecting it have such a dramatic effect. It burnt them like it was toxic. A little research later and you learn that stuff is crazy acidic, even more so if you get it blessed."
"Well that's the point, they're meant to look real." John replied in response. "Took somebody somewhere a hell of a lotta work to get that far, plus they're always mixed with a certain amount of real ravens to sell the illusion, and by sell the illusion, I mean shit everywhere." He smirked. "And as for how I found out, The Tower's just a fascinating place in general, all kinds of gruesome deaths, not just executions took place there. Great place to sneak into as a reckless teenager -a mate of a mate was a tour guide, I nicked his keys, made a copy and used to sneak in a lot to do magic illegally. Still do occasionally when circumstances call for it. One of those nights I saw somebody doing something seriously dodgy to one of the ravens, looking like they were molesting it. Turned out they were just changing the batteries."
"I'm just a mine of information." John shrugged immodestly in response, before properly explaining. "Ravens have a lot of links with all kinds of mythology" John knew Fia would know that there was all kinds of folklore associated with ravens outside of one involving the Tower of London. The classic example being the two Ravens of the Greek god Odin- Huginn (Old Norse for "thought") and Muninn (Old Norse "memory" or "mind"), whose job it was to fly across Midgard and bring him back knowledge. There were also links to various Celtic and Scottish deities. Given that they were carrion birds, they ate corpses on battlefields and in many cultures were considered harbingers of doom who brought messages from the other world. "And there's never really been an exact way to get rid of them, they're tenacious and feisty and don't give up a kill easily. There's rumours of people who are born with the gift of controlling birds- 'bean na n-éan' they're called in Gaelic folklore" John's pronunciation was flawless (ban nah naay-n), he was nowhere near fluent in Irish, but he'd learned how to pronounce it properly when helping out a mate called Brendan. "Though I've never heard or seen any. Closest I've got is people like Madame Xandu who keep ravens as magical familiars. But for the rest of us, it's really just a case of chucking things at them until they go away. When they flock and attack together they're pretty damn brutal, Chas can confirm that." he said the last part louder to grab the cabbies attention.
Chas nodded. "It sucks, I'll have you know. I've been killed both by regular ravens and carrion crows, which are basically demonic ravens. They rip the flesh off your bones with their beaks and those talons are deceptive serrated." The second instance he was referring to was also the first time Kay had seen him die and the first time Fee had properly revealed herself to John. "Anyway there was this one time, I needed to nick a corpse" John told them in an 'as ya do' kind of way. "But the ravens had got there first, so I started chucking stuff from the nearest alleyway dumpster. There was a half-empty bottle of Sprite, one of those two litre ones, so I chucked it, not expecting it have such a dramatic effect. It burnt them like it was toxic. A little research later and you learn that stuff is crazy acidic, even more so if you get it blessed."
"Well that's the point, they're meant to look real." John replied in response. "Took somebody somewhere a hell of a lotta work to get that far, plus they're always mixed with a certain amount of real ravens to sell the illusion, and by sell the illusion, I mean shit everywhere." He smirked. "And as for how I found out, The Tower's just a fascinating place in general, all kinds of gruesome deaths, not just executions took place there. Great place to sneak into as a reckless teenager -a mate of a mate was a tour guide, I nicked his keys, made a copy and used to sneak in a lot to do magic illegally. Still do occasionally when circumstances call for it. One of those nights I saw somebody doing something seriously dodgy to one of the ravens, looking like they were molesting it. Turned out they were just changing the batteries."