Novel
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Raven's, unlike other birds, are rarely compelled to flock together. So the raucous caw of another immediately draws her attention, movements sharp and stilted as she turns her head to find the intruder.
Perhaps they have never met before, but there is something oddly familiar about this raven. So for that reason, and maybe others, she merely watches him with a curious glint in her dark eye as he alights upon her shoulder. Her skin shivers at the touch of his talon, the color shuddering so briefly to match his that one could almost believe it had been a trick of the eye.
He appears no different than any other raven. Blackest of blacks in the dim light of the forest, a subtle rainbow sheen to the feathers where the light touches just right. She is so very familiar with that avian body. Perhaps hers had been slightly smaller, but still... too familiar.
‘Help,’ his second caw almost seems to say. It could be intuition, or it could simply be her deep understanding of the raven, but she could swear that is what he had said. Her dusky ears twitch at the discordant sound. Craning her dual toned head about, she peers intently at the black bird for a moment.
“Why?” she warbles.
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.