The first birdcall of dawn swept away the gloom left behind by last night's storm, waking Shadow City—though unfortunately, that birdcall was not very pleasant: "Caw!"
A massive storm crow dove down from the Egg Tower—remember it? Shadow City's new landmark building. The gust from her wings nearly created two arcane vortices out of thin air, and faint black spatial cracks lingered along her descent path. Clearly, this crow had just flown from the void into the real world, and the residual void power on her body had left conspicuous traces on the Prime Material Plane.
The storm crow landed in the small plaza with tremendous fanfare but without harming a single blade of grass. Looking around at the familiar sights of home, the crow goddess who had just returned from a distant journey decided to compose a poem. She stretched out her neck, her cry shaking heaven and earth: "Caw! Caw-caw, caw—caw-caw!"
I had been waiting in the plaza for this girl for half an hour, yet the moment she showed up, she started making such a racket. She was so excited that she did not even notice her owner beneath her feet. I could not decide whether to laugh or cry. No wonder crows were among the most aggravating creatures in the world—anyone who heard that singing voice would drop to their knees.
"Enough, enough, Little Bird, stop yelling! I'm right here!" I craned my neck and shouted upward with all my might, finally overpowering the dumb bird's ecstatic cawing. "It must have been hard coming back from so far away... Hey, you brat, don't use your beak! Don't you know how hard that thing is?!"
The dumb bird looked down and was overjoyed to see her owner. As usual, she leaned in to give me a kiss.