Corvus
((Sooo long overdue and more of a glimpse than a story but hey, it's something!))
The raven sat atop it's perch preening while it watched the girl.
It was an easy task and her skin was so fair she nearly glowed in the moonlight. The pale sheen of her hair did nothing to aid in her concealment. But it had not always been so and the corvus surrounding her in the tree's and the underbrush remembered well when she'd been a dark, wild thing stalking the forests.
But the years had been altering her even then.
They gathered now, wherever she went, whatever she did, and watched. This strange woman and her dealings. They swarmed around, settling around her in the dark, blacker spots against the shadows of the night.
Her campfires were too small to scare them away, too small to be of much use but the cat; moon white and spirit blue... not even the corvus would fly into it's path. And it was always there, watching even as they did: claiming. No one touched her when he was there, not ever. But wary as they were of the cat he held little interest for them. It was she alone that they watched.
Long years she'd been gone but they remembered the scrawny child; bruised and bloodied and broken. And the wild young woman with the blood staining her hands.
Calloused fingers slicked her damp hair back, caking it with mud all the way to the pale crescent of her lower back. Fingertip streaks trailed down her face and arms darkening her for the night's work. Her leather's soon covered the rest. And then she moved toward the river, bow slung across her body, swift and sure as a cat, graceful as a doe. Then she was gone, the cat trailing like shadow in her wake.
And the raven followed while the corvus watched and waited.
The raven sat atop it's perch preening while it watched the girl.
It was an easy task and her skin was so fair she nearly glowed in the moonlight. The pale sheen of her hair did nothing to aid in her concealment. But it had not always been so and the corvus surrounding her in the tree's and the underbrush remembered well when she'd been a dark, wild thing stalking the forests.
But the years had been altering her even then.
They gathered now, wherever she went, whatever she did, and watched. This strange woman and her dealings. They swarmed around, settling around her in the dark, blacker spots against the shadows of the night.
Her campfires were too small to scare them away, too small to be of much use but the cat; moon white and spirit blue... not even the corvus would fly into it's path. And it was always there, watching even as they did: claiming. No one touched her when he was there, not ever. But wary as they were of the cat he held little interest for them. It was she alone that they watched.
Long years she'd been gone but they remembered the scrawny child; bruised and bloodied and broken. And the wild young woman with the blood staining her hands.
Calloused fingers slicked her damp hair back, caking it with mud all the way to the pale crescent of her lower back. Fingertip streaks trailed down her face and arms darkening her for the night's work. Her leather's soon covered the rest. And then she moved toward the river, bow slung across her body, swift and sure as a cat, graceful as a doe. Then she was gone, the cat trailing like shadow in her wake.
And the raven followed while the corvus watched and waited.