Chapter Text
A comfortably cold and cloudy day at Länsijoki Park, one of the myriad of parks in Kuluufia nestled by the Latomäki River west of the city. A little girl, freckled and donning a red beret over her wavy hair was rummaging through the park’s many bushes with a small raven perched on her shoulder. For every few bushes they stopped to look at, the little girl plucked out a trickle of bilberries from the branches until her palms could no longer hold any more, and the raven would let out a caw with each berry snatched, which made the girl giggle and imitate a caw back. There was no way she could have known, but the raven she found had a name, and it was Ramona.
“We’ll leave them riiiight here,” the girl kneeled down, releasing the bilberries below a shrub. Ramona hopped off her shoulder and inspected the berry pile. “That way other birds can’t find and steal them while you eat.”
“Phoebe?” a woman’s voice called out, “time to head back to the bookstore, sweetheart!”
“I have to leave now,” Phoebe sighed. “Me and my moms live in a bookstore, isn’t that cool?” She gently stroked her black-feathered acquaintance as to bid farewell, the raven in turn closed her eyes while her tailfeathers flapped up and down in glee. “Welp, enjoy your bilberries, miss raven…!”
Ramona watched as Phoebe ran towards two women smiling and waiting for her. The taller woman knelt with open arms as she embraced her child tightly, then she carried Phoebe up while the shorter woman suiting round-rimmed glasses gave her a kiss on her freckled cheek. “Moms, guess what? I made friends with a raven today, and she was really friendly!” was the last thing Ramona heard from the girl, coupled with the affectionate laughter of her moms as the family walked off to Main Street.
Her attention was now back to the bilberries. Seeing the various shades of blue, and imagining the juiciness sloshing inside her beak had made her stomach rumble. There was nothing else to do but dig right in.
“Wait, wait, wait, stop!!!” a voice from who-knows-where begged aloud, startling the raven.
Soon, a figure as tall as a perfume bottle sprang out from the shrub. While most of its body was covered in a little poncho, its arms and legs were nonetheless brown and furry, while behind it appeared to be a long pink tail. It donned a tricorne hat in between large and floppy ears, and finally, its mouth and nose protracted into a whiskered snout. The tiny figure waved its arms against the raven, and all Ramona could do was leap back and spread her wings out as she squawked endlessly in hopes it would be too scared to hurt her.
“No, it’s okay!” the figure continued, “I’m sorry for alarming you, but I had to tell you that some of your berries are, well, not ripe yet. I-I’m a surveyor around here, you see,” it then tipped its tricorne hat and bowed awkwardly. “Anselm is the name, and I fancy any labels but the ‘sir’ variety would be more preferable.”
Ramona brought back her composure, twitching her head and letting out a softer caw as though to say “okay then”. Anselm gestured towards the bilberry pile, “I can’t let wild creatures eat unripen fruit under my watch, so, if I may?” he asked. The raven rocked its head up and down to tell him yes; what a kind gesture, she thought.
And so, Anselm went to work separating the ripened berries from the not-so-ripened ones, all the while he was mumbling to himself every action he was doing. “Put one here…Another one here…Right, that should do it,” he rejoiced as soon as there were two different piles of bilberries. “That pile with the most bilberries is the ripe ones, lucky for you I might say.”
“GWAH” Ramona cawed.
“Oh, um, perhaps I was not being structured enough before?” the little creature said, “I’m Anselm, a surveyor from the Hyllpunki settlement, that’s who I am.”
“GWAUGHH” Ramona cawed again.
“What I am, you mean? Why, I’m a Nimble, of course.”
From there, Ramona did a little hop before her entire body grew and changed from a raven to a young girl in the blink of an eye, whose skin was as pale as chalk and her hair short, black and unkemptly swerved. She was garbed in a gray dress under a black cloak upon transforming. The raven-turned-girl crouched to the point her chest almost completely touched the ground and her face pointed close to Anselm, who could not help but notice that her iris’ were as blue as a bilberry itself.
“How did you know what I was saying from just a caw?!” Ramona asked, her brows raised in a surprised arc.
“All creatures can naturally interpret each other, humanoids included,” Anselm replied. “Speaking of which, I had no idea there were any Vikorppit living in this city. I’ve never encountered one before.” He then brought out a little notebook to write down his discovery.
“Just like how I’ve never seen a Nimble before,” Ramona sat upright, bringing her legs close to her chest and offered her hand so that Anselm could hop on and be lifted closer to her face; there was no comfort in crouching for too long. “And about that, I’m pretty much the only one of myself around here, at least that’s what Arrowwood and mum tell me.”
“Eliott Arrowwood, you mean?! You know him?” Anselm jolted.
“Yeah! How do you know him?”
“He’s only the savior of my people after our first settlement was lost to a blizzard, the man who helped made Hyllpunki possible for us with nothing but a bookcase to build our homes in.”
“This Hyllpunki place sounds pretty cozy,” Ramona grinned, picturing a miniature version of Kuluufia on a library shelf with hundreds of whiskered Nimbles running about in her head. She then picked a couple ripened bilberries from the ground and shoved them into her mouth, and the sweetness of the fruit made her hum a gratified mmmm after swallowing. “Want one?” she asked, holding a bilberry in front of Anselm.
“Oh, no thank you, um…”
“Ramona. Girl labels for me,” the raven-child answered cheerily, then she tossed the politely-turned-down bilberry into the air before it fell straight into her open mouth.
“Bravo, miss Ramona!” Anselm applauded; Ramona giggled with her mouth closed as she chewed. She tossed another, landing into her mouth yet again, the impressed Nimble cheering on the Vikorppi of her skills; she continued her trick for another two bilberries until one finally hit her cheek instead of tongue, but the two creatures were still amused and laughed uncontrollably.
“So, do all Nimbles look like you?” Ramona asked, “poncho and fancy hats and all?”
“Oh, no, not really,” Anselm chuckled, “this is just how I like to dress during surveyance, but everyone back in Hyllpunki is free to dress however they fancy. You would find, however, that we Hyllpunki Nimbles make an effort to only decorate everything in dark shades of red and green.”
“Say, where is this Hyllpunki place anyhow?”
But before she could get an answer, the pair were distracted by the sound of the clocktower chiming its bell over at Main Street. “Oh no, speak of the stars,” Anselm sighed, “I’m supposed to return there now for communal supper, but it will take me ages travelling from here. Oh dear, how I never should have worked overtime today…”
Before he began to sulk, he had an idea. “Wait a minute, perhaps you can fly me there! I-If you’re willing to, of course,” he suggested. “To answer your question, miss Ramona, Hyllpunki is exactly where Arrowwood’s abode is.”
“But that’s all the way in the Outskirts!” Ramona recoiled in shock, “I never fly all the way there on my own, not unless I’m with my mum.”
“You’ll have me,” Anselm tried to reassure, “don’t worry, I’m an excellent guide and can make sure the both of us can make it unscathed.”
“It’s not really that either,” Ramona continued to protest, “it will take me so long trying to fly from this park to there, and I really don’t want my mum to be worried sick wondering why I’ve been gone for ages.”
Anslem heaved a nervous sigh. “But you’re my only hope at the moment of returning to my community in time. I’ve already missed out on so many suppers with them”
“I…” Ramona stammered, her expression now tight with strain, “I’m sorry, Anselm, I’m just no good at making decisions like these,” she lowered him to the ground as she looked other way; she knew she wanted to help, but to fly a Nimble to the farthest parts of the city on her own was new and risky for a girl like her, “I’m really sorry…” she whimpered.
Anselm stood frozen on Ramona’s palm, looking upwards at the crestfallen Vikorppi. “It’s no hard feelings, miss, I understand. I don’t want to push you into saying yes if you really can’t,” the Nimble promised as he stepped out of her palm, “I’ll be okay finding another way back. I’ll just…leave you to your bilberries for now.”
When Ramona felt like Anselm was no longer paying mind to her, she glanced down to see the tricorne-cladded Nimble pull out a big map from his poncho and mumbled indiscernibly to himself looking for all the quickest routes to the Outskirts. It was hard for the raven-child to stop thinking about her newfound little friend and his difficult journey back. She thought about how gloomy the other Nimbles would be once he’d be late for supper, like how worried her mother would be if she hadn’t flown back to their apartment once the weather got cold—the who-knows-how-many people whom he was meant to have supper with together, whom he’d lose time spending with because he was too far away from home.
Ramona’s heart sank, it was an unbearable thought to bare for her. Mum would understand why she would be home late; she would also try to help a Nimble return home to his loved ones if she was in her shoes, the Vikorppi thought.
“Is there anything you can pack those bilberries with, Anselm?” Ramona asked.
“Pardon, miss Ramona?” the Nimble turned away from his map to see a now grinning, determined little girl.
“I’m flying you home,” Ramona nodded, standing up from her spot on the grass. “I can’t let creatures miss out on supper with the people they love under my watch, so…” the little girl then hopped a tad before her body shifted back into a raven. “GWAH” she cawed— “if I may…” Anselm interpreted.