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Description
Liz knocked on the black wood of the door, mostly for formality. She didn't wait for an answer before turning the knob and opening the door to her meister's bedroom. He didn't seem to mind as he greeted her with a simple "Yes?" from his seat at the desk pushed up against the tall, iron-framed window that nearly reached the high ceiling. It brought in the dull light of a rare cloudy sky. It wasn't often that the dry air of the Nevada desert held enough moisture for clouds. Kid was apparently too busy to turn and face her, so she spoke to his back.

"I made dinner," she told him, very proudly.

Kid turned in his chair to look at her. She was wearing casual clothes today, just jeans and a hoodie, as they hadn't had class or a mission. "Really? You never cook."

"Well you haven't left your room all day and it was getting late, so..." She said, ebbing slowly away from the door across the dark hardwood of the room. She glanced briefly at her reflection on the mirrors that lined the west wall like a a ballet studio, keeping the room perfectly symmetrical no matter where he placed the furniture. She ran a hand casually along one of the smooth wooden posts of his bed.

He stretched in his seat, entwining his fingers and pulling them as far above his head as they'd reach. "Sorry," he said through a yawn. She paced over to him and leaned on the polished surface of the small desk with both hands, her dark blonde hair draping around her face and shoulders like curtains.

"What've you been doing up here all day, anyway?" she asked, tucking some of her hair behind her ear and looking curiously at the mess of books and papers spread haphazardly over his desk. She always found it odd that, even though the smallest amount of disorder could throw him into a panic attack, Kid never seemed to care much for the way he arranged his studying material. She guessed he was just too focused to notice the mess.

"Research," Kid answered simply. He quickly began cleaning his space now that he'd been roused from that deeply concentrated state he fell into when reading for long periods of time. He closed his notebook before she could see what he'd been writing.

"Researching what, exactly?" she pressed, noticing some rather obscure looking diagrams in a book just before he slammed it shut.

"Just different theories," was all he gave her.

"Tch," Liz pushed herself off of the desk and placed her hands on her hips. "And you give your dad a hard time about being vague,"

She watched his eyebrows twitched downward for a moment and his lower lip bring itself up slightly into a bit of an intentional pout. He placed one of the books on top of another with just slightly more force than the one previous to it. However, he said nothing. Liz laughed lightly. He looked like such a child sometimes.

A small gust of air blew in just then and sent a few of the papers fluttering off the desk. It wasn't until now that Liz realized the window was open. No, that wasn't it. It wasn't until now that Liz realized that that window could open. It was a tall, thin window made up of an iron grid and a rounded top. It was the only window in the room and was covered by no curtains. Strictly speaking, it wasn't the kind of window she imagined letting a breeze in. The whole thing didn't open, just a small part of it. The lower portion apparently opened and swung out with the help of a crank, something she hadn't noticed before.

Liz bent down and helped Kid, who was currently scrambling on his hands and knees trying to locate and retrieve all of the papers that were now scattered across the floor of his bedroom. She tried looking at the papers as she picked them up, but he quickly snatched them out of her hands.

"It's just... reaper stuff," he said as an excuse as he brought himself to his feet.

"Eibon?" she guessed knowingly as she reached for a paper that had flown swiftly under the bed.

"Some of it," He admitted, sitting himself back into his chair, sideways this time to better face his partner. "Among other things. Father's been giving me extra lessons lately which apparently comes with some extra homework."

Liz pulled herself out from underneath the bed and handed him the final paper. Before he could take it from her grasp, she stole a glance at it and read, "The evil eye?" She gave him a confused look as she pulled herself off the floor and the paper was added to the stack he was holding. "What's that all about?"

"It's something that witches try to use to cast curses on people," he told her, finally giving in. "No one's really sure if they actually have any significance or not though. Its supposed to be that casting the evil eye on someone will cause them misfortune or even death."

"So is it like a spell or what?" Liz was curious.

"Not necessarily. It can be anything from a drawing to simply glaring at someone. Of course, if every time someone glared at someone else that person died then there would be an awful lot of murderers going around, so that part is really just superstition," Kid explained. "Personally, I think the whole thing is ridiculous but Father thinks I aught to learn about it and then decide if I think its real or not."

"It sounds creepy, whatever it is," Liz shuddered slightly.

"Hm. It's just a myth if you ask me, but if it is real then only a handful of witches must be able to use it properly since I don't believe the academy has had to deal with anyone using it. At least, as far as I know" he paused. "Which, I'll admit, isn't actually very far..."

Just then, the most peculiar thing happened, leaving Liz rather confused and astonished. She noticed a crow standing in the open window, perched calmly and eyeing them with an oddly focused perception. As Liz noticed the large black bird, Kid followed her stare. His eyes fell upon the bird and he looked at it with a gaze that was, for some reason, a mixture between mildly amused and slightly annoyed.

"And what do you want?" the black haired boy said, clearly referring to the bird. Confusion molded Liz's face into one with scrunched eyebrows and slightly parted lips. She might have expected something like this from someone a bit more creative or playful than him and would have laughed. However, Death the Kid was a very literal person and not one to personify random animals. This was what made such an interaction seem so odd.

The bird, which was enormous, jumped from the window ledge and onto the neatened desk. Kid simply reached out a hand and gently stroked its silky, black feathers. Liz didn't say anything. Kid sighed.

"He wants me to feed him," he stated, knowing how confused she must be.

"How do you know that?" the blonde questioned confusedly.

"I believe I fed him once and he's expecting more," Kid responded, sounding peeved. "Crows remember that sort of thing. I generally try not to do things like that since they tend to be attracted to me so much in the first place."

Liz shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. "Something that comes from being a reaper, huh?"

"Yeah," he said. "Some crows actually help to guide souls out of the mortal plane like death gods do. We naturally just, I guess for lack of a better term, go together,"

"I always thought crows were associated with witches," the blonde commented.

"No," Kid said quickly. "They're associated with death. Witches might use their feathers or entrails for potions, but they definitely don't have the same affiliation with witches as they do reapers."

"That must be why there are so many crows in Death City then." Liz concluded, remembering how many crows were always around when they went out.

"Right," the boy confirmed. "But you probably notice them more than most do, since they like to follow me. Bit annoying, really,"

"That's... kind of weird actually," she commented. Kid responded by tilting his head in silent agreement. "So what're you going to do with him?"

"Well I'm not going to feed him because then he'll keep coming back. They remember faces. They're very bright birds." he said. "No... I think it'd be best to just ignore him until he goes away."

However, Kid continued to pet the bird affectionately with a soft look in his eyes. Despite what he'd said, he clearly had no intent on ignoring the crow.

"I wouldn't be able to touch it like that. I'd be too afraid it'd bite me," Liz admitted, eyeing the crow's large black beak warily. "Honestly, are these things normally this big? 'Cause he's freakin' huge."

Kid smiled, not taking his eyes off of the bird. "They're normally this big, yes." She didn't see this side of him very much, so she often didn't remember it was there. Behind Kid's obsession with perfection and his neurotic tendencies, he was also a very thoughtful person. Despite the way he spoke of the birds as though they were a nuisance, he genuinely seemed to like them. He appeared to have a strange sort of empathy for them that she couldn't understand.

"They're very good problem solvers," Kid marveled. "They use tools almost like humans do. They mourn their dead too. They're really fantastic animals."

There was pause as Liz wasn't sure what to say to Kid's random fact spitting. After a few moments, she finally asked the question that was burning in her throat.

"So can you like... talk to them or something?"

Kid gave her a confused look. "No."

"Oh," Liz didn't have anything to say again.

"Dinner is going to get cold," she remembered suddenly. "We should go eat. Patty's probably getting antsy too."

Kid's smile faded slightly. "Right," he paused, thinking. "Would you mind if I ate up here? I have more studying to do."

"You're going to feed the bird, aren't you," Liz deadpanned, not believing his studying excuse at all.

Kid didn't respond, but his eyes widened a little, darting to several different places.

"Didn't you just say you didn't want it to come back?" her voice was a bit higher.

"I... um..." He couldn't quite think of a response. He pulled his hand away from the crow, finally. After a few more seconds of hesitation, the black bird flapped its wings and, rather ungracefully, found a new perch on the nearest bedpost.

"Don't feed the bird, Kid," Liz directed, making her way to the door. "Now, come down stairs and eat. And don't tell Patty about it. She'll want to keep it."

"Alright," Kid sighed, standing up and looking at the bird for a moment. It stared back at him.

"Get," he ordered as he shoved his hands in his pockets. The crow just cocked its head to one side. He sighed again and looked briefly at Liz, who was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. He took a few steps over to the bedpost and reached up to the crow, waving his hand around it in a way that, in most situations, should've caused the bird to flee. "Get gone, dammit."

Instead, the crow jumped onto his arm, wrapping its scaly black feet around the white sleeve of his shirt. He held his arm in front of himself so that he was facing the bird. He glared at in for a moment before carrying it over to the window. He leaned over the desk and flicked his arm through the opening. The crow stumbled slightly upon being thrown into unexpected flight, but then continued to fly off into the mansion's enormous garden. It didn't exactly leave, though, as it simply landed in one of the black trees below.

"Tch..."

As Kid turned away from the window, replacing his hands in his pockets as he did so, Liz realized that, though he wouldn't admit it, he must have fed that crow before. He clearly knew that feeding them was not the smartest thing to do, but felt the need to anyway. The young reaper's relationship with crows was a strange one and she hoped he wouldn't decide to keep one as a pet at any point. If it was true what Kid had said, that they remember faces, she'd also rather not have crows following her around because they'd seen her bring this one food. It had been the same way once, as she recalled, with Patty trying to feed pigeons. Of corse, that had been slightly worse being she'd wanted to give some of their precious little food to the avian equivalent of a rat.

"You'd better not feed those things," she warned. "I don't want the whole house full of crows. Those things freak me out,"

"They're just birds, Liz," Kid responded as he joined her in the door way.

"Weird stalker birds," she added. "Aren't you gonna shut the window so it doesn't come back?"

"It's too hot for that," he told her as he walked passed her and into the hall. Liz glanced at the open window, eyeing the clouds that made today unusually cool, before she finally closed the door.

"Of course it is."

Description
Liz knocked on the black wood of the door, mostly for formality. She didn't wait for an answer before turning the knob and opening the door to her meister's bedroom. He didn't seem to mind as he greeted her with a simple "Yes?" from his seat at the desk pushed up against the tall, iron-framed window that nearly reached the high ceiling. It brought in the dull light of a rare cloudy sky. It wasn't often that the dry air of the Nevada desert held enough moisture for clouds. Kid was apparently too busy to turn and face her, so she spoke to his back.

"I made dinner," she told him, very proudly.

Kid turned in his chair to look at her. She was wearing casual clothes today, just jeans and a hoodie, as they hadn't had class or a mission. "Really? You never cook."

"Well you haven't left your room all day and it was getting late, so..." She said, ebbing slowly away from the door across the dark hardwood of the room. She glanced briefly at her reflection on the mirrors that lined the west wall like a a ballet studio, keeping the room perfectly symmetrical no matter where he placed the furniture. She ran a hand casually along one of the smooth wooden posts of his bed.

He stretched in his seat, entwining his fingers and pulling them as far above his head as they'd reach. "Sorry," he said through a yawn. She paced over to him and leaned on the polished surface of the small desk with both hands, her dark blonde hair draping around her face and shoulders like curtains.

"What've you been doing up here all day, anyway?" she asked, tucking some of her hair behind her ear and looking curiously at the mess of books and papers spread haphazardly over his desk. She always found it odd that, even though the smallest amount of disorder could throw him into a panic attack, Kid never seemed to care much for the way he arranged his studying material. She guessed he was just too focused to notice the mess.

"Research," Kid answered simply. He quickly began cleaning his space now that he'd been roused from that deeply concentrated state he fell into when reading for long periods of time. He closed his notebook before she could see what he'd been writing.

"Researching what, exactly?" she pressed, noticing some rather obscure looking diagrams in a book just before he slammed it shut.

"Just different theories," was all he gave her.

"Tch," Liz pushed herself off of the desk and placed her hands on her hips. "And you give your dad a hard time about being vague,"

She watched his eyebrows twitched downward for a moment and his lower lip bring itself up slightly into a bit of an intentional pout. He placed one of the books on top of another with just slightly more force than the one previous to it. However, he said nothing. Liz laughed lightly. He looked like such a child sometimes.

A small gust of air blew in just then and sent a few of the papers fluttering off the desk. It wasn't until now that Liz realized the window was open. No, that wasn't it. It wasn't until now that Liz realized that that window could open. It was a tall, thin window made up of an iron grid and a rounded top. It was the only window in the room and was covered by no curtains. Strictly speaking, it wasn't the kind of window she imagined letting a breeze in. The whole thing didn't open, just a small part of it. The lower portion apparently opened and swung out with the help of a crank, something she hadn't noticed before.

Liz bent down and helped Kid, who was currently scrambling on his hands and knees trying to locate and retrieve all of the papers that were now scattered across the floor of his bedroom. She tried looking at the papers as she picked them up, but he quickly snatched them out of her hands.

"It's just... reaper stuff," he said as an excuse as he brought himself to his feet.

"Eibon?" she guessed knowingly as she reached for a paper that had flown swiftly under the bed.

"Some of it," He admitted, sitting himself back into his chair, sideways this time to better face his partner. "Among other things. Father's been giving me extra lessons lately which apparently comes with some extra homework."

Liz pulled herself out from underneath the bed and handed him the final paper. Before he could take it from her grasp, she stole a glance at it and read, "The evil eye?" She gave him a confused look as she pulled herself off the floor and the paper was added to the stack he was holding. "What's that all about?"

"It's something that witches try to use to cast curses on people," he told her, finally giving in. "No one's really sure if they actually have any significance or not though. Its supposed to be that casting the evil eye on someone will cause them misfortune or even death."

"So is it like a spell or what?" Liz was curious.

"Not necessarily. It can be anything from a drawing to simply glaring at someone. Of course, if every time someone glared at someone else that person died then there would be an awful lot of murderers going around, so that part is really just superstition," Kid explained. "Personally, I think the whole thing is ridiculous but Father thinks I aught to learn about it and then decide if I think its real or not."

"It sounds creepy, whatever it is," Liz shuddered slightly.

"Hm. It's just a myth if you ask me, but if it is real then only a handful of witches must be able to use it properly since I don't believe the academy has had to deal with anyone using it. At least, as far as I know" he paused. "Which, I'll admit, isn't actually very far..."

Just then, the most peculiar thing happened, leaving Liz rather confused and astonished. She noticed a crow standing in the open window, perched calmly and eyeing them with an oddly focused perception. As Liz noticed the large black bird, Kid followed her stare. His eyes fell upon the bird and he looked at it with a gaze that was, for some reason, a mixture between mildly amused and slightly annoyed.

"And what do you want?" the black haired boy said, clearly referring to the bird. Confusion molded Liz's face into one with scrunched eyebrows and slightly parted lips. She might have expected something like this from someone a bit more creative or playful than him and would have laughed. However, Death the Kid was a very literal person and not one to personify random animals. This was what made such an interaction seem so odd.

The bird, which was enormous, jumped from the window ledge and onto the neatened desk. Kid simply reached out a hand and gently stroked its silky, black feathers. Liz didn't say anything. Kid sighed.

"He wants me to feed him," he stated, knowing how confused she must be.

"How do you know that?" the blonde questioned confusedly.

"I believe I fed him once and he's expecting more," Kid responded, sounding peeved. "Crows remember that sort of thing. I generally try not to do things like that since they tend to be attracted to me so much in the first place."

Liz shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. "Something that comes from being a reaper, huh?"

"Yeah," he said. "Some crows actually help to guide souls out of the mortal plane like death gods do. We naturally just, I guess for lack of a better term, go together,"

"I always thought crows were associated with witches," the blonde commented.

"No," Kid said quickly. "They're associated with death. Witches might use their feathers or entrails for potions, but they definitely don't have the same affiliation with witches as they do reapers."

"That must be why there are so many crows in Death City then." Liz concluded, remembering how many crows were always around when they went out.

"Right," the boy confirmed. "But you probably notice them more than most do, since they like to follow me. Bit annoying, really,"

"That's... kind of weird actually," she commented. Kid responded by tilting his head in silent agreement. "So what're you going to do with him?"

"Well I'm not going to feed him because then he'll keep coming back. They remember faces. They're very bright birds." he said. "No... I think it'd be best to just ignore him until he goes away."

However, Kid continued to pet the bird affectionately with a soft look in his eyes. Despite what he'd said, he clearly had no intent on ignoring the crow.

"I wouldn't be able to touch it like that. I'd be too afraid it'd bite me," Liz admitted, eyeing the crow's large black beak warily. "Honestly, are these things normally this big? 'Cause he's freakin' huge."

Kid smiled, not taking his eyes off of the bird. "They're normally this big, yes." She didn't see this side of him very much, so she often didn't remember it was there. Behind Kid's obsession with perfection and his neurotic tendencies, he was also a very thoughtful person. Despite the way he spoke of the birds as though they were a nuisance, he genuinely seemed to like them. He appeared to have a strange sort of empathy for them that she couldn't understand.

"They're very good problem solvers," Kid marveled. "They use tools almost like humans do. They mourn their dead too. They're really fantastic animals."

There was pause as Liz wasn't sure what to say to Kid's random fact spitting. After a few moments, she finally asked the question that was burning in her throat.

"So can you like... talk to them or something?"

Kid gave her a confused look. "No."

"Oh," Liz didn't have anything to say again.

"Dinner is going to get cold," she remembered suddenly. "We should go eat. Patty's probably getting antsy too."

Kid's smile faded slightly. "Right," he paused, thinking. "Would you mind if I ate up here? I have more studying to do."

"You're going to feed the bird, aren't you," Liz deadpanned, not believing his studying excuse at all.

Kid didn't respond, but his eyes widened a little, darting to several different places.

"Didn't you just say you didn't want it to come back?" her voice was a bit higher.

"I... um..." He couldn't quite think of a response. He pulled his hand away from the crow, finally. After a few more seconds of hesitation, the black bird flapped its wings and, rather ungracefully, found a new perch on the nearest bedpost.

"Don't feed the bird, Kid," Liz directed, making her way to the door. "Now, come down stairs and eat. And don't tell Patty about it. She'll want to keep it."

"Alright," Kid sighed, standing up and looking at the bird for a moment. It stared back at him.

"Get," he ordered as he shoved his hands in his pockets. The crow just cocked its head to one side. He sighed again and looked briefly at Liz, who was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. He took a few steps over to the bedpost and reached up to the crow, waving his hand around it in a way that, in most situations, should've caused the bird to flee. "Get gone, dammit."

Instead, the crow jumped onto his arm, wrapping its scaly black feet around the white sleeve of his shirt. He held his arm in front of himself so that he was facing the bird. He glared at in for a moment before carrying it over to the window. He leaned over the desk and flicked his arm through the opening. The crow stumbled slightly upon being thrown into unexpected flight, but then continued to fly off into the mansion's enormous garden. It didn't exactly leave, though, as it simply landed in one of the black trees below.

"Tch..."

As Kid turned away from the window, replacing his hands in his pockets as he did so, Liz realized that, though he wouldn't admit it, he must have fed that crow before. He clearly knew that feeding them was not the smartest thing to do, but felt the need to anyway. The young reaper's relationship with crows was a strange one and she hoped he wouldn't decide to keep one as a pet at any point. If it was true what Kid had said, that they remember faces, she'd also rather not have crows following her around because they'd seen her bring this one food. It had been the same way once, as she recalled, with Patty trying to feed pigeons. Of corse, that had been slightly worse being she'd wanted to give some of their precious little food to the avian equivalent of a rat.

"You'd better not feed those things," she warned. "I don't want the whole house full of crows. Those things freak me out,"

"They're just birds, Liz," Kid responded as he joined her in the door way.

"Weird stalker birds," she added. "Aren't you gonna shut the window so it doesn't come back?"

"It's too hot for that," he told her as he walked passed her and into the hall. Liz glanced at the open window, eyeing the clouds that made today unusually cool, before she finally closed the door.

"Of course it is."