Raven Chapter 8 Krakens, Care, and Crystal Arches 84 #2
Even from up here, it looks heavy. Not dark, exactly—I can see pinprick yellow from windows too small to be called proper, the orange flare of trash fires, the sickly green glow of cheap wards slapped onto doorways that probably won't hold.
The light gets swallowed by narrow, twisting streets that look like they were designed by someone with a personal grudge against straight lines.
Somewhere down there, at the exact seam where survival ends and ambition begins, Anik's gym squats on the border. And even though I can't see it from this angle, I know Dre's clinic is just a few blocks down, squatting on the same fault line.
And beneath all of it, the Catacombs thread through earth and stone like the city's circulatory system.
I can't see them—that's the point, after all.
The underbelly of The Bazaar, where laws are written in blood and whispered favors.
Secret entrances scattered throughout the city. You just have to know where to look.
And then there's the Oubliette. The Omelette, I call it — the Council can choke on their fancy name for it.
From up here, it looks like nothing much — a dark smudge on the horizon, a crumbling stone keep squatting on its own little island like something the tide forgot to take.
The stone building is just the door. The real prison is tucked inside, a pocket dimension folded into those old walls like a secret the Council doesn't want anyone poking at.
They say it holds the worst of the worst. The monsters that are too dangerous for even the Catacombs. The kind of people who don't deserve to breathe the same air as decent supernaturals.
I don't trust their definition of "worst." Not even a little.
Because I've tried to get in. More than once. Whatever they've got layered around that place — wards, blood oaths, something older than both — it's the only door I've ever found that won't open for me. Not even a crack.
Someone's in there, and whatever they are, the Council is afraid of them.
I don't know what that all means. But I don't like it.
I tear my gaze away from the island and point myself in the opposite direction. Jim's waiting, and I need the quiet..
My travels haven’t expanded beyond this continent, so I’m not sure what they do abroad.
I mean, have you ever tried float-traveling over the sea?
It’s incredibly boring. The last—and first—time I tried, I got who knows how far across before giving up and sinking into the ocean for a change of scenery.
It was the best decision I ever made; that’s where I met Jim.
Now he tends to stick closer to the shore when he feels me coming for a visit.
I have no idea how he knows I’m coming, but he always shows up right after I arrive.
I also don’t understand how humans and supernaturals alike never seem to notice him.
He’s pitch black, with tentacles that glow and shimmer like trapped universes.
His eyes are deep and dark, mirroring that same twinkling, cosmic light.
He can’t talk, of course, so we have a very one-sided relationship—but he once saved me from a big shark thing that wanted to eat me, so I’m pretty sure we’re besties.
Now that I think about it, I might need to update my list of what can see me.
Instead of just cats and ravens, it should include cephalopods and sharks, apparently.
That’s four more creatures—not counting Miriam’s weird ability to sense me—than I had when I started out.
I let that fact roll through me like a tidal wave, allowing myself to, once again, appreciate how far I’ve come since I first gained consciousness.
Sometimes I forget what the beginning was like—just floating, brief flashes of clarity with no control, then the steep learning curve that followed, and the hollow ache that grew when I finally accepted I was truly alone in this existence.
Lately, life's been feeling like the weeks before I finally broke that pot. That pressure building, knowing I was capable of something , just not what or when or how. And then—crack. Everything changes.
When Jim shows up just a few seconds later, I can't help but blurt it all out to him.
Huginn and Muninn are great, but they're unpredictable. Coming and going whenever works for them. Jim is the only standing date I have every week. It makes me think that, if something were to happen to me in this form, at least one person would notice. He’s shown up for me every week without fail. Like clockwork.
Would it be nice if he could talk back? Of course. But just having this—having his silent, steady presence—is more than I ever could have hoped for.
“So yeah,” I rush out, after finishing most of my rant, “with everything that’s happened lately, it just feels… Ugh, why is describing things I’ve never felt so hard? There’s just this giant feeling inside of me, and it’s like it has nowhere to go but out, you know?”
He just stares at me with those bottomless eyes—eyes that speak of a soul-deep loneliness that has always resonated with me.
Yeah, he totally gets it.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I stop visiting randomly, don’t panic. I promise I’ll find a way to let you know I’m all right. I just might have to learn how to swim first. And drive. Or use public transportation.”
I wave off the massive, crushing weight of those looming logistics like they're nothing more than an annoying gnat. My coping strategy is a three-step process: feel too much, make it funny, then forget about it until 3 AM. It always comes back, but that's a future Raven problem.
Sustainable? Absolutely not. Functional? Debatable. But it's mine and I'm choosing to ignore my awareness of how unhealthy it is until I can seek professional help.
Jim and I continue to swim mindlessly as I tell him about everything that’s happened in the last week.
I spend a long time describing the unnamed soul I touched, though I still can’t explain it beyond my own perception.
When I finish that particular part, I’m pretty sure Jim gives me the tentacled version of a hug.
I can’t actually feel it, obviously, but he wraps all his sparkly, glowing tentacles around me, and it looks like he squeezes a little.
I’m going to call it a hug, anyway. He may have just been trying to see if I’m finally snackable, but I don’t think that was it.
Delusion or a manifestation? The world will never know.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. The calm I always feel with him is unmatched.
It’s like I’ve spent my whole life adrift, and only when I’m with him do I feel grounded.
I feel something similar with the other guys, of course, but there’s just something so deeply accepting about Jim’s energy.
I get lost in it for quite some time before realizing the rays of sunlight that once broke through the water in large slices are now only slightly bigger than slivers.
“Oh, crap!” I exclaim, looking around as if a clock might be floating by.
“What time is it?” I ask, turning to Jim, who—predictably—doesn’t answer.
“I gotta go! Someone has to watch over Ro-ro while he’s all statue-like.
Or, um… more statue-like than usual?” I wave frantically at Jim.
“I’ll see you soon—thanks for listening! ”
I float up to the surface and panic when I don’t see land. Just as I’m about to dive back down and frantically search for him, Jim swims up beneath me, his lights shining brighter than usual. I smile and follow his glow until the lights of the Bazaar reappear in the distance.
I catch the giant crystalline clock on the tallest tower in the Spire and see that my worry was for nothing and I have a little time to spare before Ro-ro takes his nap. Might as well use it to admire the view.
The wonderfully unique island glows like a brightly lit gem beside the sprawling, dull human city—New Yark? New Lark? New Something-or-Other. No matter its name, it pales in comparison to the magically concealed island just off the coast.
Humans can't see it, of course. To them, this is just empty water, a shipping lane they navigate around without ever questioning why. They don't see the way the air shimmers at the shoreline, or the massive Quartz Nexus Arch that dominates the Merchant's Ring's southern plaza.
I’ve always found those arches beautiful.
They were my first glimpse into a world beyond humanity.
It happened decades ago. I was following a woman who’d just stepped off a bus from a town so small it barely had a name.
She was lost and terrified, and I felt a pull to stay with her.
When a group of men cornered her in an alley, she ran.
In her sheer panic, some latent power in her blood must have ignited—it’s the only thing that makes sense.
She burst through the side of a stone archway that didn’t even look like it belonged there, and I, pulled in her wake, went with her.
We tumbled through into a world that left us both breathless.
It was like stepping into another world.
Magic users, elementals, shifters, dwarves, demons—supernaturals of every kind wandered the streets, shopping and living their lives.
I stayed with the woman until she found her own group of protectors and was safe.
Then, my true journey began. I spent decades exploring this new, thrilling existence.
It took a few decades before I grew weary and began to fade—which says a lot.
I'd been ready to vanish after about one decade in the human world.
But this place? This place gave me thirty more years before the weight caught up.