This is the second part of the writings concerning the Raven Lord.

<Previous | Next> (The next one is adult themed, FYI)

"Getting inside..." She looked up at the tower, an impossibly high spire of carved stone bricks. She saw her new Lord dart into the top through what looked like an open balcony. She couldn't see any other openings or ways in. The uniform suddenly made sense. Uncertainly, she flapped her wings, trying to get a feeling for the new appendages. It was like doing the same motion as when she was a human, but she could feel the muscles in her chest pulling much harder with each stroke, giving her a bit of lift. She was smart, and she had done some study on animals, including birds; this should be easy. Imitation seemed like a good route. Running a few steps with her wings outstretched, she tried to flutter into the air, only managing an awkward jump out of all of it. Maybe this was not going to be easy.

Huffing and puffing, the newly fledged bird flapped roughly back to the ground after several failed attempts. The angle and timing were proving difficult to grasp in practice. A cold gust pushed past her, kicking up dust in a swirl around her and the tower. That was just what she needed, an updraft! A few more running jumps and she barely got the wind under her wings. Wobbly, she started to gain altitude, trying not to look down and the rapidly dwindling ground. The balcony began to loom in her sights. Just barely clipping the railing, she sloppily landed in a pile.

A large, wicked talon slammed down onto the base of her wing, pinning her firmly to the cold stone floor. No matter how she struggled, her legs could not gain purchase and her other wing simply didn’t offer the enough range of movement to pry her loose. When she looked up into the searing red eyes of the Raven Lord, however, every thought of escape vanished. Despite her small size, her body suddenly felt exceedingly heavy. He stared at her imperiously down a broad, arrowhead-like beak while his midnight chest feathers ruffled in the updraft around a large brass necklace adorned with five red diamond-shaped jewels.

As she stared, paralyzed in either awe or fear—she was not certain—his features shimmered as feathers flattened to cloth. He grew taller as his beak shrank into a human mouth and nose. His wings fell limply to either side, thinning as his arms fell away from them. Before long, she was no longer pinned by talons, but by the toe of a worn, leather boot, pressing just firmly enough to hold her in place without harming her. His eyes, no longer a burning red, but still just as piercing, regarded her evenly as one hand brought a tarnished timepiece between them.

"Eleven forty-three. Close call, little bird." He stepped off her wing and turned his back on her, moving into the tower. "Come along now, you’ve wasted enough time..."

With a gulp she stumbled up to her feet. She had no idea how close she was; that took longer than she thought. Her skin crawled with goosebumps, only now they served the purpose of ruffling her feathers. With a short shake, she settled them back into place, along with stretching her previously pinned wing.

"Yes sir. Right behind you." She hopped awkwardly along the floor, wings fairly tired after all of the flight practice.

Moving over to a large, oaken writing desk covered with rivulets of off-yellow wax from a multitude of large candles scattered across it, he motioned for her to alight atop of it while he retrieved a worn piece of parchment and a long, ragged, black-plumed quill.

"Just one or two more formalities and you will be prepared to enter my apprenticeship in earnest." His voice betrayed his growing smile. Struggling with a fluttering jump, she landed up on the desk, taking care not to knock anything over. Her claws stuck slightly to the wax covered desk.

"O-of course." She cautiously hopped over towards the parchment and cocked her head as she started to look it over. "So what is this?" The tall, ominous figure loomed over her as he leaned forward to scribble across the parchment.

"A contract of fealty..." He began, scrawling out line after line of jagged, archaic script. "Merely a measure to ensure your...loyalty." With a sharp flourish, he drew a long, straight line at the bottom of the page and marked a small x beside it. "Sign here,” he chuckled.

Her dark eyes dilated a few times as she focused on different spots on the paper. She couldn't read it. Was it because of her new form? Was it a language she didn't know? Was it magically hidden from her?

"That makes sense..." She said with a nod, pretending that she perfectly understood what was on the paper. She looked up at the Lord, his face still in a devious grin. Every time she saw it, she got chills up and down her spine, but at the same time she found it dangerously enticing. She glanced over at the quill in his hand, but realized that she has no such appendage to wield it. Taking a few steps over, she dipped her left claw on her right foot delicately into the ink well. Tapping it a few times on the edge, she turned and shakily scrawled out her name on the line. 'Corva Nactis' gleamed in fresh ink on the parchment. There was a sharp pain in the bottom of her foot as, before her eyes, both the ink dripping from it, and that comprising her name shimmered with a dark, reddish glow.

"Excellent... We have an accord, then. Power for servitude. My secrets...in exchange for your will," he laughed darkly and lifted the contract from table just as another raven—or at least something shaped as such, but with shadowy feathers and red, glowing eyes—swooped from an unseen corner of the tower rafters and snatched it from his outstretched hand. Corva flinched as the shadow raven swooped down, making her caw in shock.

The Lord made no remark, instead keeping her locked in his bemusing gaze. "My curse is yours, as is my blessing. Welcome to the flock, my little bird, hmhmhm..."

"Curse?" she asked nervously. "What do you mean 'curse?'" She gulped.

"But of course," he answered with a chuckle. "Did you think it would be so easy? So painless?" The light from the candles seemed to diffuse into a sourceless glow. The room seemed to stretch around her as an oppressive blackness began to blanket the edge of her vision. Still she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from his, even as she began to falter beneath his imperious glare. She realized with a sudden stab of fear that it wasn’t her body that was faltering either—it stood steady, resolute...waiting for instruction—it was her that was faltering. She felt herself slipping away, her will draining, as mindless obedience took its place, an animalistic autonomy that simultaneously left her frightened and yet strangely enraptured. He was her Lord. She was his raven. There was no greater honor than to serve. To obey.

"Corva," his voice, indistinct, resonated with a vague familiarity as he gave another amused laugh. "A name like that seems almost fated to serve as my right hand." She lifted her beak as a fingernail was pressed to the bottom of her jaw while her feathers began to take on an insubstantial, shadowy quality. "Nonetheless, you will be tested as every soul that came before you. Should your soul remain intact, you will return to me, proven ready for the mantle I wish to offer to you." His finger dropped to her talons and she stepped onto it without a thought. "But should your resolve falter..." He lifted her until she stood eye to eye, her own already starting to take on a reddish glow similar to the one that took her contract. "...your soul will be lost and your body will join my roost for eternity."

"What do you wish of me? What is my task?" She stared back at him, her nerves steeled. As her wings and feathers begin to wisp this way at that, made of insubstantial shadow ether, it was difficult, nearly impossible under the gaze of the Raven Lord to maintain her grasp on her own mind and will. She could feel the pressure to submit, and how pleasant it would be to give in and simply obey, like placing her head on a pillow when tired. This was the test, she thought to herself. She could not give up. She forced herself to blink slowly as she stared her master in the eyes.

The shadowy haze around her vision pulsed in time with her heartbeat—something that seemed to slow as she began to succumb to the numbing effect of the Raven Lord's curse. However, the haze lifted slightly as she focused on the core of her being. It was a feeble spark in the encroaching shadow that threatened to consume her soul, but one that grew brighter the harder she concentrated upon it. Through the haze, she could see his pensive expression; calm, calculating, and with a small, ever-present smirk of amused superiority at her attempt to maintain herself. At last he spoke.

"Very good. Seeing as how you wish to demonstrate your tenacious faculties, you will serve as my liaison in matters too distant for me to personally attend to." He slid open a drawer in the desk and retrieved a scroll case bound with the seal of a raven's head. "You will bring this to Krenzel's Folly, an outpost roughly sixty miles south of here. A man there by the name of Mathias Blackthorn has enjoyed the boon of my protection in exchange for a timely tribute provided to me at the passing of each season. Seeing as how that was three weeks ago and I have yet to receive such payment, you are being sent to collect." He secured the scroll case to her back with a fine, silver thread as he spoke. "Should he refuse, this notice will ensure he is informed of the... consequences."

She gulped dryly and bowed before the Lord with a deep wing. It was taking most of her conscious effort to keep the shadows from encroaching deeper than her wings. The scroll case felt heavy on her back and she had to adjust her stance to not fall over like a fool.

"Sixty miles south. Krenzel's Folly, Mathias Blackthorn." She couldn’t help but caw at the end of her statement. Sixty miles! Even as the bird flies, that would surely take all night and she was new to her wings no less. The edges of her vision begin to blur as she caught the doubt chipping away at her will. Sixty miles was doable. She would ta¬ke it one wing-beat at a time. "So you have said it, so it shall be, m'Lord." Her wings spread wide, she prepared to take off. With a firm toss, she found herself airborne whether she was ready for it or not.

"Excellent...excellent! Hmhmhmhahahaha!” His laughter rang through the air behind her. “Fly, little bird, fly! I trust you will not fail me..." She had expected more difficulty with the case on her back but her wings felt not the ache they had moments ago. The shadowy appendages felt hollow and insubstantial, but they bore her aloft regardless of the fatigue she was already beginning to feel as the tower shrank away behind her. The more she focused on the task at hand, the easier the flight seemed to become, but so too did it seem to invite the shadows to encroach further. She was being tested, both in the endurance of the body and of the mind.

"Keep flying. Eyes open. Flapping. Keep flapping..." she chanted to herself. Through the haze what she could see was the countryside blurring by with astonishing speed. A normal bird could not fly this fast. Trying to focus on landmarks was dizzying and failed to keep her mind preoccupied enough to fend off the encroaching darkness. It didn’t help that it was the dead of night and the moonlight was faint from the sliver hanging in the sky. She wished so badly that she had been given the opportunity to sleep first.

Everything was so dark, like the space between wakefulness and dreams. The world swirled before her tired eyes in a blur. Where was she? Where was she going? She was... "K-krenzel's... Folly. Mathias Blacktorn... tribute..." she croaked to herself.

But why? The Raven Lord willed it. The comforting embrace of the shadows wrapped a little more snugly around her at the thought. She shook her head. There was another reason. It sounded so good to give in. It would feel good for an eternity to simply slip away. But then she'd be nothing more than a shadow puppet. She didn't want that. She was Corva Nactis, future apprentice to the Raven Lord. Why? She wanted the power, she wanted the control. She was desperate for it. Why else would she approach such a clearly evil man with such a fearsome reputation? Someone to serve, sure, but the magic was also just as alluring. She wavered in the air as she looked down. Tucked away in the inky blackness of the nighttime countryside was a cottage, a mere orange pinprick of firelight in the murk.

The light in the cottage below slowly became the singular focus of her mind—a literal light in the darkness. As she stared at it, the light seemed to grow, drawing her into it with a sensation that felt as though she was falling into warm water. Its embrace soothed her mind as she allowed it to consume her—better to give into this light than into the shadows, her mind rationalized. The falling sensation ended with a deafening clatter, a loud caw, and the distant, echoing laughter of the Raven Lord. The light winked out.

"...answer to the idle threats of some crazed old mystic?" The words were angry, biting into her enough to rouse her from her waking slumber. The light was back, all encompassing, dull and yet comparatively blinding to the darkness around her...the shadows comprising her... "...succumb to superstitions and parlor tricks. With the new tax rates, the fact of the matter is that I cannot continue to drain my meager coffers for some 'tribute' to an aloof magician!"

The wind was still. The air was warm. The weight was still on her back, but it was lighter now. Empty? A large, blurry silhouette loomed into view, obscuring the source of the light as her surroundings steadily condensed. A man, somewhat rotund and dressed in the fineries of nobility, stood before her. His face was still indistinct to her through the shadows that continued to crawl across her vision, but his voice was agitated and dismissive.

"...Right then, birdie, you go take this back to your 'master' or whatever, that is if you're even well-trained enough to understand me. Hmph. Thinks he can threaten me when I have yet to see him lift a single finger to make good on his half of the bargain." A meaty hand swung towards her and her body rocked with the force as he roughly shoved another scroll of parchment into the case tied to her back. "Go on! Git!"

She squawked angrily at the pudgy man. "How dare you speak to a servant of the Raven Lord so disrespectfully! You would do well to remember to keep what's due in mind, lest you bare his curse! You have been warned, fool!" With one last shrill, blood-chilling caw she spread her feathers wide and took wing. Luckily, he had left the window behind him open and she swooped low over his terrified head into the night air. The man continued to gawk after at her angered tirade and well after she departed into the darkness.

Pumping her wings hard, she fought to gain altitude over the tree line. She had no idea what she just said. Rather, she didn’t know if she actually said it, or if it just came out as a bunch of angry cawing. Again, she felt the cool, numbing air in her feathers, but only on her head and the center of her breast. All else has been consumed in shadows. She reflected as she continued to carry the heavy tube on her back with tired wings. She made it there. That was the half way mark. Did she fail already though? She felt like she might have slipped away at one point. Did he see it? It didn’t matter. If she didn't keep trying and fly back to the tower she would certainly fail.

As she wheeled to gain altitude, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted dozens of red pinpricks dotting the roof of the outpost she just flew from. Ravens. All of them comprised of the same shadows that had all but enveloped her. She startled slightly, as another whipped by her, diving toward the open window with something clutched in its beak: a weathered piece of parchment scrawled with jagged archaic script. Her eyes immediately darted to the bottom, desperately seeking the name that affirmed her existence, but while the one she saw was familiar, it is not her own. Signed beside the small x in elegant, sweeping blood red script was the name Mathias Blackthorn. Moments after the other raven entered, more seemed to appear from the midnight shadows, alighting on window sills, fence posts, perching atop the chimney and the roof until the entire structure is aglow with the gleam of their eyes.

The part of her that remained Corva Nactis paused, curiosity momentarily overriding the drive to carry out her mission. She heard an angry shout from inside, followed by something a little more appropriate for his insolence. Fear. Begging. Screaming. As she watched, the ravens turned simultaneously toward the center of the roof, staring with unblinking intensity. Shadows began to swirl in a growing pool as a bluish-purple bird skull formed in the center, floating over the building. Inside, the screaming steadily devolved into strangled cawing as the bird skull sigil glowed brighter. And then the sound stopped. The shadows swirled tighter as a red sphere of light rose through the roof into the center. When it dissipated, a new raven stood in the center of the flock. The sigil vanished with a burst of bluish lightning and a thunderous, echoing caw. All at once, the ravens took flight, scattering into the night, their newest addition among them.

She wheeled around for a few moments, shocked at what she just witnessed. Did she bring that upon him with her threats? It wasn't really her power that did it. The words had just sprung out of her beak. The persistent ache in her wings reminded her of her mission; she was to return to the tower, no matter what. Realizing how tired she already was made ice grip at her heart, or rather it enticed the shadows ever tighter. Once she got back she could collapse on the floor and let sleep take her. Seeing her potential future in the shadow flock filled her with enough resolve to keep flapping. How she was going to keep her clarity of mind long enough to get back was beyond her.

The now eerily silent outpost shrank away behind her as she was once against faced with gauntlet of her idle mind. When the last lights of Krenzel's Folly faded away, she could no longer be certain if she had already succumbed to the void or not. She felt lost, alone, and helpless. She found herself counting the wingbeats, but she was no longer in control of them. The same single-minded determination that was pulling her through her journey was damning her very soul to an eternity of mindless servitude in a black feathered prison. Worst of all, she was starting to feel too tired to care. Maybe there never was a test—perhaps she was receiving exactly what she signed for. After all, she never heard of the Raven Lord taking an apprentice in the past. Had her hubris and lust for power doomed her? Resignation began to take root in her heart and once again the thought of surrendering her will to her Lord eternal began to appeal to her addled mind.

And then the world began to shift to gray. The outlines of trees became distinct in the pale light of morning. The world stretched beneath her, silent and beautiful. To the east she could see Fallcrest, whose streets bustled with markets and commerce. To the west, the verdant expanses of the Moorglen where some still believed the sylvan folk danced through the meadows. And to the North...far, far to the North, past the mills nestled within the hills, she can just make out the misty silhouette of the Raven Lord's tower. Time regained meaning, grounded in relative distance. Resolve flooded back into her as her goal suddenly became tangible.

A weak morning breeze lifted her wings just as the light lifted her spirits. A new concern began to grow in her mind. What happened to a shadow raven in the light? Would she burn away into nothing in the sunlight? She flapped harder, straining to even keep her pace, much less increase it. As the bright globe of the sun starts to peek over the horizon, Corva shot through the archway of the balcony.

"Ah, there you are," the Raven Lord murmured from his desk without looking up. "I wasn't certain you would make it..." Slowly, he raised his head, appraising her shadow-cloaked form with a dark, ominous smile. "...did you?" Perching on the wide arm of an unlit candelabrum, she panted to catch her breath, barely able to keep her balance.

"I... I did," she said, not actually as certain as she sounded. "I'm... right here." She shook her feathers, trying to loosen up the already tensing muscles, hoping to maybe rid herself of some of the shadow in the meantime. For several seconds he just stared at her, expressionless. If he was surprised by her words, he did not show it, instead returning to the large, leather-bound tome he had been writing in.

"And your report?"

"Your message and warning was delivered, he did not heed it, and ultimately paid the price he was due." She wobbled faintly on the metal arm, trying desperately to maintain her composure despite her exhaustion. "Oh, and if you care, he did send a response parchment back with me, not that it matters much anymore."

"Very good, very good..." he answered with such a level of disinterest that she was uncertain if he heard her correctly until he held his hand out for her. "Let's see it, then." Shakily, she hopped and glided over to the desk and bowed before him, offering the silver canister tied to her back. She stayed bowed until she felt him remove the container.

With a tired flourish, he unfurled the scroll and laid it on the desk in front of him. Squinting down at it, he read it through silently. Suddenly he laughed. A short, sharp 'ha' that gradually grew into a raucous cacophony of amusement. Seeming to compose himself, he shook his head and absently held the corner of the parchment into the flame of one of the candles on his desk before blowing the candle out.

"I do love it when they grow complacent..." He stood from his seat, holding the rapidly conflagrating scroll, and walked over to the window she flew through. "It gives me an opportunity to remind them the cost of my benevolence." He tossed it away into the wind just as the flames began to tease at his fingers, then returned to the desk rubbing his hands together.

"And then we have you, my little bird..." His fingers danced lightly across her head and down her back, spreading a chill down her spine as sensation returned to her. The shadows fell away from her wings like tattered cobwebs, dissolving into the desk, as her eyes lost their reddish hue. "...or should I say, my apprentice."

"Really?" she gasped in delighted disbelief. Corva cleared her throat and tried to regain her composure. "I- I am honored, my Lord. I will gladly be in your service." She bowed once more, aching wings spread wide. He gave her another appraising look and chuckled darkly at her enthusiasm.

"Stand before me, apprentice," he intoned with a gesture toward the floor between him and the desk she was perched upon. Obediently, she hopped down and looked up at her Lord with a very different feeling than the last time she was in such a position. It was hard not see the floor as an acceptable place to fall over and sleep.

"Your will is strong, little bird," he began, leaning on the end of his staff to regard her with a faint leer. "May that be a boon, and not a liability. Riiiise..." He gave the end of his staff a sharp tap as the shadows rushed her from every direction, lifting her, filling her, and enshrouding her. For a moment, she was fearful that her soul was about to be snuffed out more forcefully, that somehow she was being punished for not failing his ‘trial.’ However, that fear was replaced by the dull ache and cracking pain of her bones twisting and reforming once more. The floor seemed to drop away from her as she staggered to stay on her feet through the far more rapid transformation back. In a matter of seconds, she looked upon her Lord through human eyes as the shadows that melted from her feathers draped over her shoulders to form a similar black cloak and hooded mantle as the man before her. Exhaustedly and reverently she dropped to a knee and bowed her head, admiring the swirl of the fabric around her.

"You will not be disappointed, my Lord."

"Good.” He commented with a wry grin. "You'll find that your quarters have been prepared in the East Ward. I will inform you when you are needed.”