Sitting on Dream's shoulder was a lot like sitting on a cruising pillar. It took Matthew some adjusting to keep his balance on Raven's shoulder, who seemed to enjoy bouncing, nodding effusively, and otherwise making things difficulty. He clucked a little at the back of his throat, and she could take that as a 'nice to meet you too' if she chose.
"Oh, it's not a dream," he assured her. "I've been in dreams, and this ain't one." The longer he spoke, the more his voice had a vaguely foreign lilt to it. Some kind of American dialect. Southern, perhaps. It was hard to tell, the gravel got in the way. "Definitely corny though. I'm embarrassed to talk to you. Looking like you do, with a name like Raven. Selling ice cream. You're like a bad teenager romance novel. Pretty soon a tall dark and handsome exchange student named Rafael is going to be entranced by you and fall all over himself to whisk you off to Brazil, or something." His beak gaped open in what she would soon learn was a corvid grin.