Call of the Raven

The sound of the mews door opening made Kuro blink. It was well before dawn. He couldn't really see much due to the darkness, but he could sense Blake's approach. He felt her hand underneath his feet and he stepped up, stretching his wings a little though he was careful not to smack her in the face with them. The entered the house and his eyes hurt having to adjust to the sudden harsh, artificial light. His enrichment was already set up for breakfast and he hopped onto the counter. "Sorry for the early wakeup call, Kuro, Noire. Winter called me and needs me to attend a meeting early this morning. Keep in mind the time zone difference." Kuro sighed but nodded. That was fair. He hated being woken up this early, but dealing with the time zone difference... There wasn't much he could do about it. So he started picking at his enrichment while Blake set up a laptop and started chatting with whatever human cohorts Winter had her working with. They obviously didn't care from the indifference in their voices even if he couldn't understand them due to them speaking Atlassian. As dawn drew up, though, he saw Blake give a motion to wait for a minute, then she picked the two birds up. She turned them out of the door, leaving the crow and raven to their own devices. "So...what do you think we should do today?" Noire stretched her wing and her foot together, then roused. "That's...a good question. I'm not entirely sure. I'm not used to being woken up so early. We have all day to explore the city or do what we want to." They usually filled their days pretty well, but with it being so early... He wasn't sure what patterns existed so early. "Maybe we should go people watch for a little while." "Speaking of people watching, maybe we should keep an eye on Yang for the day." Now that he thought about it, that sounded pretty good. They could keep an eye on how Yang made herself at home and what she did through the day. He wasn't sure if she had a job lined up yet or would just be unpacking for the day. Though they would try to have to be subtle about it and subtle and Noire didn't go hand in hand. He could understand her logic, but she would completely bust open the operation if he let her stay with him. He was always the better of them. "How about you go people watch and I stay and watch Yang?" he suggested. Noire's head feathers raised and she shook her head. "If we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it together. Don't just toss me into the cold!" Her voice raised and he held his wing up. Blake's meeting shouldn't be interrupted. Plus, they might alert the Yang. That and he didn't want noise complaints. For the most part, they were pretty quiet and people didn't complain too much about it. But it was early morning and people would almost definitely make some sort of noise complaint if they got too loud. Granted, the songbirds were already singing and getting people to wake up if they were light sleepers. "Your chatter will alert her that we're nearby. Plus, she can see our bands." He lifted the foot with the metal band around it. They were banded by the Valian government that way Blake could have the proper permits to keep and care for them. They weren't breeder bands, but all aura breeds whether bred or found in the wild needed to have some sort of banding for proper permitting. They were very identifiable. Then again, would Yang even know to look for them? He couldn't be sure... Still, it was a risk to have Noire's constant chatter when they were watching someone inside of their house. "Subtle is not a word I would use to describe you." Noire let out a loud noise of protest. Kuro's expression flattened and he looked at her for a very long moment. She sighed and dropped her head. "I suppose you have a good point. I'll go to the train station and go watch some people. See you later." She flew off, leaving him alone. Good, she was off his back for a while. He did care about her, but she was noisy and could grated on his nerves at times. He really did not like her when they were trying to do something stealthy. With her gone, he fluttered over to Yang's yard and studied where the vantage points were. A good tree in the side yard which prevented Blake from seeing into her house, but it was a perfect vantage point for seeing into Yang's bedroom and the side window for the living room. There was also a little shrub that looked into the kitchen. He had a good few vantage points to study her daily routine from. He set up shop outside of her bedroom window. Considering she had just moved in, it was completely disarray. Boxes piled high in the room and the only comfort there was the mattress on the floor. She had curled up on it and still slept. However, a blaring alarm soon woke her up and he felt heat creep into his face when she was wearing nothing but a crop top and underwear. He was being such a creeper right now and he knew it, but he wanted to get a feel for what she was like. She seemed okay, but people could hide all sorts of nastiness behind pretty faces and pleasantries. He'd seen it far, far too many times when accompanying Blake to Band events. That hadn't happened in quite some time due to her job, but even so… She left the room and Kuro followed her down to the kitchen, though with his larger size, he struggled to sit on the shrub. There she went about a normal morning routine of getting breakfast and messing around on her scroll. After eating, she started to go about unpacking her house and moving things around to the best of her ability. Most of her day consisted of that and she didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He wished he could read her scroll, though... That would tell him what she really thought. That and he couldn't hear inside what she was saying to herself. Though it seemed like she played music quite a bit from the beats he could hear through the muffled windows. As evening drew in, he returned to Blake's house and opened the puzzle window door. She was setting up enrichment for the both of them. Noire was back as well, her head tucked up underneath her wing. "So what was your day like, Kuro? It's rare to not see you two together. I'm surprised Noire came back before you did." Blake's ears twitched ever so slightly and she looked at him. "We just decided to go on different routes today." They often would separate if they got on each other's nerves too much. They usually stuck together, but not always. Everyone needed space even from their most loved people every so often and he had definitely needed a bit of time away from her as well. But he mostly wanted to keep an eye on Yang. She seemed relatively normal, but there was just no telling if hse was racist or not. He wanted to make sure she was a good friend for Blake. So he'd keep an eye on her for the next couple of days, though it did seem like she wouldn't be doing too much aside from getting her house all settled. "Gotcha. Well, hope you had fun." He wished he could say the same thing. Surveillance like this was absolutely dull, but he needed to make sure that they weren't walking straight into some sort of trap... That Yang was actually a good person and would be good for Blake. She sat out their enrichment and he stabbed at the box that contained the majority of his food. In due time, he got it all out and was pretty full. With that done and out of the way, Blake took them out to their mews and settled them in for the evening. Their mews was linked by a barred window, though, and he hopped to the perch so he could converse with Noire. "So what did you see today?" she asked. Her head tilted back and forth a bit. Thankfully, there was nothing really stopping them and Blake was in the house; she wouldn't be paying attention to their conversation. "Honestly, not a whole lot. She was just moving things around and getting her house settled. I'll keep an eye on her for a week, then we can go back to our usual journeys around the city." He did honestly need some time away from her as they had spent far too much time together as of late without any breaks. Plus, it'd give him a nice long time to observe Yang's habits. He really just wished he could see her scroll, but that wasn't going to happen. He wasn't a raptor. He didn't have the eyesight to read what she was from a distance. Plus, she'd been facing the window with her scroll's back. Reading things backwards and with such small text would be next to impossible for him. Noire sighed. "All right. Well, let me know if you find anything interesting." He heard her fly away. With that, he settled in for the night with a sigh. What a mess. He just wanted to make sure that Yang wasn't doing anything that would negatively impact Blake...