#Tell Me Everything Chain by Chain|Cathal

[quothesquills]

Jazz

Let the Music Play On || Accepting

A tiny finger points.

“Bláth.” A flower.

She smiles. “Bláth.”

Again.

“Lough.” A Lake.“Lough.”

Again.And again.Rock. Sky. Wolves. Trees. Fingers. Toes. Apple. Grass. Meat. Mead. The last two confuse her, so similar to one another. One to chew on with teeth. One to slake thirst. She has a question for every star there is in the coming gloaming. All of which is met with wide-eyed wonder. But she’s as bright as the sun that shines in her gaze and picks up each word, each concept as quickly as he can explain them.

The last sunlight fades into the woods and then entirely out of sight but she makes no move to let him up from where he’s lying in the grass. Her head rests in the soft dip of his belly, below his ribs. What was ink black feathers is now soft hair that spills across his skin and hers. His shirt is much too large for her but at least it’s something as she pulls his arm around her.

“Cathal?” She points upwards where the first glimmer of stars begin to appear.

[quothesquills]

Hip Hop

Let the Music Play || Accepting

Lughnasadh.

It made no sense to her why the humans made such a fuss of the first harvest. In these long last summer days where the air was still hot and the fields were ripe and the shearlings plump. She did not let Boy get too far, not from her beady eye stare as he ran bare-chested with the other youths. None half so tall or half so fair.

Some shied away from him, away from the livid scars that still stained him red. Some of them shied away from him because they were part of Boy’s nestling’s flock. Older humans but not by much. Who were essentially busy puffing their chests and showing off their long limbs to the females of the clan.

But Boy ran. And kicked the sheep stomach stitched together in a very clever way between his feet, and back and forth with the feet of the others. He threw his dark head back and laughed. 

And she?

Flitted from branch to branch, to thatched roof, never too far. Sleek head tilting side to side, great golden eyes glittering brightly, as she watched on. Sometimes opening her beak and making an echo of his sound in a dark, raspy voice.

These games, both with sheep stomachs and with females seemed to be half the point of the celebration. The older humans gathered in their own flocks, bartering and trading and talking of the long winter that must soon begin. Later, she heard, there would be fires and songs and drinking with meat, the succulent juices she could smell as they roasted. All to celebrate the strength and the grace of Lugh. This was funny to her, because she didn’t see why the Sun itself would care about one village of people.

And maybe it was that moment when she was distracted by a tempting bushel of grain, or more correctly, the squiggly squirmy snack trying to make a feast of it that she lost sight of Boy.

Until the shouting. Until the ring of bodies formed in a circle. Where Boy faced his elder nestling, and a fist was thrown. And again. And then she could see that blood flowed from Boy’s nose.

This…incensed her.

It didn’t matter to the raven what Boy had done, or who the other one thought he was to correct him. This was her boy. This was the boy who ran as a wolf in the woods.

She sprang into the air and glided along on silent black wings. Sharp talons ripped at the fledgling’s face, his shoulders, gouging furrows where she might. Her strong beak sought out tender unprotected flesh. His scream was a joy in her ears, as her feathers were splashed red in her retribution.And she never really saw who threw the rock.

But it hit her square in the chest.Worth it, to buy Boy some time.