DRABBLE: Mutual Curiosity (Tom/Luna)
Title: Mutual Curiosity
Pairing: Tom/Luna
Rating: PG
Word Count: 436
Summary: An unnerving cry - not quite high enough to be piercing - reaches her ears, and a half-mile later she discovers a bird of dark plumage pecking at the carcass of a doe.
Author’s Notes: Ambiguous dark!fic is ambiguous. Also, a different take on the Death Eaters. I thought I would never ever ever ever even attempt to write Luna, but things change, I guess. Written for rarepair_shorts's Winter 2009-2010 Fic Exchange. Originally posted here.
Today the sky is the color of decaying corpses. And it snows, just like yesterday.
The artiste props up his canvas and raises his thumb. Winter is bleak, he paints, winter is a gnarled, barren tree. Winter is a Bringer of Death.
Weep for me, my love.
But Luna laughs and skips down the road. (Not quite skips, though she does as best as one can in the snow.)
Winter is her favorite season. It is at the same time the brightest and the darkest, with white earth below grey sky - which makes it easy to see where she is going and who is following her.
(Animals like to follow her just as much as she likes following them.)
An unnerving cry - not quite high enough to be piercing - reaches her ears, and a half-mile later she discovers a bird of dark plumage pecking at the carcass of a doe. She stops skipping all at once, and the bitter wind strikes her cheeks in protest of her stillness.
But she does not look away when more black birds arrive; she is too curious and trusting to remain afraid for very long.
A Muggle might caution, Crows are bad luck. Pests. Omens of Death. Avert your eyes. Turn back now.
(They sprinkle the ground with the innocent’s blood as they eat.)
Luna peers closer and watches the murder. She is pretty sure these are ravens, and not crows.
Once the doe is picked clean, the birds fly away, each in a different direction; they are not a true flock, but they flock to meat. Only the original bird stays, surveying the bones.
He finds a tiny piece of the heart and attacks it.
“I suppose you can’t help being a raven,” Luna says to him, and edges closer still. There is the light of recognition in his keen, beady eyes. “But there are other things to eat, you know.”
She reaches into her coat and shows the bird a radish and some celery, which are wrapped loosely in a handkerchief. “You can have some, if you like,” she smiles, taking a vegetable for herself.
But the carrion bird will, by definition, only touch carrion. No other taste is worth acquiring.
Denying her, he flies away under the dappled light of the evergreens.
The snow hides all prior mischief, and this suits him well when he finally deigns to come back. Luna does not mind that he has brought others with him. She has plenty of celery this time.
“Oh, hello, Tom,” she calls out softly.
He feeds on her hand, and a mysterious smile escapes her lips.
Pairing: Tom/Luna
Rating: PG
Word Count: 436
Summary: An unnerving cry - not quite high enough to be piercing - reaches her ears, and a half-mile later she discovers a bird of dark plumage pecking at the carcass of a doe.
Author’s Notes: Ambiguous dark!fic is ambiguous. Also, a different take on the Death Eaters. I thought I would never ever ever ever even attempt to write Luna, but things change, I guess. Written for rarepair_shorts's Winter 2009-2010 Fic Exchange. Originally posted here.
Today the sky is the color of decaying corpses. And it snows, just like yesterday.
The artiste props up his canvas and raises his thumb. Winter is bleak, he paints, winter is a gnarled, barren tree. Winter is a Bringer of Death.
Weep for me, my love.
But Luna laughs and skips down the road. (Not quite skips, though she does as best as one can in the snow.)
Winter is her favorite season. It is at the same time the brightest and the darkest, with white earth below grey sky - which makes it easy to see where she is going and who is following her.
(Animals like to follow her just as much as she likes following them.)
An unnerving cry - not quite high enough to be piercing - reaches her ears, and a half-mile later she discovers a bird of dark plumage pecking at the carcass of a doe. She stops skipping all at once, and the bitter wind strikes her cheeks in protest of her stillness.
But she does not look away when more black birds arrive; she is too curious and trusting to remain afraid for very long.
A Muggle might caution, Crows are bad luck. Pests. Omens of Death. Avert your eyes. Turn back now.
(They sprinkle the ground with the innocent’s blood as they eat.)
Luna peers closer and watches the murder. She is pretty sure these are ravens, and not crows.
Once the doe is picked clean, the birds fly away, each in a different direction; they are not a true flock, but they flock to meat. Only the original bird stays, surveying the bones.
He finds a tiny piece of the heart and attacks it.
“I suppose you can’t help being a raven,” Luna says to him, and edges closer still. There is the light of recognition in his keen, beady eyes. “But there are other things to eat, you know.”
She reaches into her coat and shows the bird a radish and some celery, which are wrapped loosely in a handkerchief. “You can have some, if you like,” she smiles, taking a vegetable for herself.
But the carrion bird will, by definition, only touch carrion. No other taste is worth acquiring.
Denying her, he flies away under the dappled light of the evergreens.
The snow hides all prior mischief, and this suits him well when he finally deigns to come back. Luna does not mind that he has brought others with him. She has plenty of celery this time.
“Oh, hello, Tom,” she calls out softly.
He feeds on her hand, and a mysterious smile escapes her lips.