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He was a little thief, and he knew it. He'd been out of Cetus only a cycle, or--two, perhaps, had it been? He wasn't sure. The black bird only knew that he had grown, and survived. He'd found good caves, with good food, but his restless nature kept him from settling in any one place for very long. Instead he'd eat in Eridanus, then wander a tunnel for a day--searching, always, but he never knew what for.
Corsair did know that he'd found jealousy, envy, a desire for material things. He'd seen the Spire and decided that he wanted that, but its ominous buzz when he'd drawn closer had made him decide that perhaps stealing the entire Spire wasn't the best idea. He wasn't entirely sure how to move it, anyway; he'd figured he'd get a plan once he'd reached it, but he never had.
He'd "stolen" shiny rocks he'd found, and shells of little creatures, but more often than not he forgot them--stashing them somewhere and forgetting, or waking up and leaving without remembering that he'd had some "buried treasure" just beneath him. Other times, he'd destroyed the "treasures" idly with his beak, to his own dismay--he'd wake from his idle trance to realize he'd wrecked that cool stick he'd found while not paying attention to his own damn actions.
Ahh, well!
Right now, he was visiting Gemini for the very first time. The crystalline walls and alcoves of geode gemstones had him fascinated: it was all very pretty, and he admired each gleam of light and glint of sparking refraction throughout. The hum of the Rift, however, at last caught his attention--and with a flutter of black wings he veered for that, head flicking this way and that as he settled in to examine it.
"What the fuck is that?" he asked it, aloud--he hadn't made very many friends, so his speech was both basic and foul, and was often just directed at himself. "What the fuck are you?" he proceeded to demand of the Rift.
"Why do you need that thing, anyway?"
The wagon was stopped, a nice little curve atop a hill, under a large and withering tree. The view down across the countryside--into the forest beyond--was a lovely one, with farm fields extending for days.
"Weather predictions," came the snapped response. "Did you want supper, or not?"
"You traded three weeks' of medicinal salves for a farmer's almanac?!" The man hopped down from the wagon, frowning a little.
"He didn't have much else to trade. Now bring the carrots." The thick wooden spoon stirred, the witch leaning in to sniff at the altogether unsinister cauldron--a pot cooking stew, and not some strange potion.
A cool wind blew across the fields, bringing with it the twinned scents of soft plants and warm, rich manure spread across them. He wasn't sure how well the crops were doing, these days, but damned if the farmers weren't still trying. He examined the book one last time--weathered, worn, dog-eared here and there. It contained weather predictions, little anecdotes, jokes; advice on farming, throughout. What to sow, and when. How the seasons factored in. Moisture requirements.
They didn't need this right now. He still wasn't sure why she'd taken it in trade; the witch was a pack-rat if ever he had seen one. With a surreptitious glance her way, he tossed the book quietly into the helpful hole in reality, and quickly made his way over--opening the sack of carrots as he went.
It was one more thing she'd probably not miss.
Corsair receives: one old farmer's almanac.