A Bird Named Poe

Poe had seen it all. 

The city changed around him. Gangs rose and fell, elections came and went, neighbourhoods gentrified, the city was occupied - twice - but Poe was always there, keeping a sharp black eye on things. He always told his proteges, the winged ones and the two-legs, that the sky was their playground, if you knew how to use it. Not being able to fly did put the humans at a disadvantage, but there were always the rooftops.

Ah, the rooftops. Even having wings himself, Poe loved them. It was a whole world up there, somehow separate from the noise and stink and bustle of the streets. A city within a city. Poe might have been only a crow, but on the rooftops, he was king.

So it was with some surprise that that was where he found the would-be thief.

They were only a child, then, all angles and elbows and roadburned knees. Their hair was lime-green, and fell in their eyes as they stood, hands in their pockets, above the bakery.

Poe knew what ‘hungry’ looked like.

“Hey. Kid.”

They jumped, skittering backwards against a chimney. 

“Lord of lightning!”

“I’ve been called worse,” Poe shot back dryly. “You all right?”

The kid just stared at him.

“You’re a crow.”

“Very observant.”

“And… you’re talking.”

“Again, very observant.” Gods, he was tired of this. Why did the two-legs feel the need to state the obvious, just because they’d never seen it before? “I asked you a question, kid. You all right?”

“Oh! Right. Yeah,” they lied, and their stomach growled. “No.”

Beaks weren’t made for smirking, but Poe did his best.

“Wait here.”

On silent wings, he swooped down, snatched a bun from the basket outside, and carried it back to the kid on the roof. The baker didn’t even have time to yell before he was out of sight again.

“‘Ere oo oh,” he said around the bag in his mouth.

“What?”

Poe dropped the bun at their feet. 

“I said, here you go.”

The kid looked at the bun suspiciously, but hunger got the better of them, and they tore off the wrapping, devouring it in a few ravenous bites.

“How did you do that?” they asked, still chewing.

Poe hopped onto the ledge that circled the roof.

“Practice.” He strutted a few steps along the ledge, then added, “And panache.”

The kid wiped their mouth on their sleeve.

“Teach me.”

Poe tilted his head, regarding them closely. They were human, but he could tell they were quick. They certainly had the motivation. And truth be told, Poe was getting bored. He hadn’t had a protege since that pigeon he’d found two winters ago, and she was long gone now. Last Poe had heard, she’d gone upscale, stealing from the fancy neighbourhoods near the city centre. And I taught her everything she knows, he thought smugly. But her absence did leave the crow at loose ends. Anyway, he liked the look of this one.

“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.

“Axi,” they answered, apprehensive.

“Nice to meet you, Axi. I’m Poe, but you can call me Master.”

“Do I have to?”

Poe laughed his cawing laugh. Yes, he definitely liked this one.

They learned quickly, and Poe was a good teacher. He showed them how to walk the rooftops, how to make themself a shadow. How to use the thieves' tools that Poe didn’t have the necessary thumbs to master. He taught them how to pick pockets, and how to get into houses without waking anyone. He taught them how to time a burglary so the cops wouldn’t know until too late. They soaked up the knowledge like a dry sponge. They were desperate for it, hungry as they had been for the bread on that first rooftop. 

Poe had had many students - he was getting old, for a crow - and he’d never seen anyone more suited to his chosen trade than Axi. The kid was a born thief. 

Unfortunately, they were also a born daredevil. They were reckless, and it made them sloppy. As they started going off on their own, they got more and more daring, hitting bigger, better marks. Nobody cares if a baker loses a loaf of bread, or if a single ring is taken from a jeweller’s. They start to care when the jeweller’s whole stock is gone. So Axi started to be known - first to the police, then the press.

One night, they came up to Poe’s favourite rooftop, brooding.

“Hullo,” he greeted them. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

 They threw the newspaper they were carrying at his feet.

“Lime-haired Burglar Strikes Again,” he read aloud. “You’re famous.”

Axi paced. 

“I don’t want to be famous. Famous means I get caught.”

“Keep your feathers on, kid, I’ve been doing this since before you were born. I know what it means, and I know what we do about it.”

They flopped down, leaning against the exhaust pipe of the shop below.

“So what do I do about it?”

“You’ve gotta get out of town, simple as that.”

“How? And how am I going to pay for it?” 

They nervously chewed a fingernail.

“You know the mansion, 8th and Park?”

“Yeah, what about it? They’ve got the best security system in town.”

“Do they now…” 

There was something gloriously smug in his tone, and Axi didn’t know whether to be relieved or apprehensive.

“Poe, what do you want me to do?”

“You let me do something. Wait here,” he ordered, and flew off into the sky.

Wait. Axi hated waiting.

For once, the night wasn’t dark. The sickle moon hung bright and hungry in a sky the colour of raspberries and summer and unrequited love. 

It was a perfect night for parties and walks on the beach.

It was a terrible night for stealing things.

The thief crouched in the shadows of the roof, chewing a nail and sulking. Their face was shadowed by a hood, but spiky locks of lime-green hair still peeked out from below it.

“Seriously?” they asked the sky. “You couldn’t have given me a worse night for this.”

The sky did not deign to reply, so the thief went back to chewing their nail. 

The shadows lengthened, and still the thief waited. A cloud covered the crescent moon, then decided it had places to be and left. The first stars came out, flickering shyly, and with them came the crow. He perched on the edge of the roof and pecked at something unidentifiable in the gutter. 

“Shoo,” muttered the thief.

“Well that’s nice,” huffed the crow. “All evening running around for you, giving up the good spots at the rookery, and all I get for it is ‘shoo’!”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry! I didn’t recognize you.” The thief put their hands up. “Jeez, Poe!”

Poe fluffed his feathers, mollified. 

“You’re all clear, by the way,” he told them. “If you leave now, you can hit the mansion and still catch the ten-fifteen out of town.”

“Thanks, Poe!” the thief exclaimed, already up and running across the rooftops.

Poe sighed.

“Good luck, kid,” he called after the shrinking silhouette, and shook his feathered head, then took off into the raspberry sky.