creator_raven | (no subject)

(no subject)

It is an entirely pleasant day, sun shining brightly, breeze softly stirring the grass, cousins calling out from the trees.

Raven hears them, climbing higher to escape the sound.

It is not always a bad thing to be alone.

But eventually he spirals back down, pulling up again just shy of the lake.

There are only so many places to fly, here. But he will take what he can, so.

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Raven tilts her head, watching back with bright black eyes.

"I am neither Dark nor Light, I do not think."

She flashes a quick grin.

"And I am not often much of one for hating."

Hate is boring, after all.

In the long run.

"If you were, dear, why, that I would know," Blodwen tells her. Amusement is clear in the sweetness of her words. "We are not that much alike, oh goodness no, and you are a pretty bird, not a dour lion."

"As for hatred, well." She shrugs. "Useful it is, in its way."

"Also boring."

There is something almost careless in her voice.

Almost.

"Mostly it is, I think, a very clumsy tool."

"Not as clumsy as you might think, pretty bird," she replies.

The light soft voice has a darker knowledge suffusing it.

Raven's eyebrows go up.

"Possibly you would be surprised by what I consider clumsy."

She blinks.

"Or possibly not."

"Oh, I do suppose I might be," she says lightly, "but my goodness, how can I know unless you tell me?"

Raven blinks, looking startled.

"You do not know me well enough to tell? Not even now?"

They are both startled now, for this instant. Blodwen stares at Raven in visible surprise.

And then it passes, and ice-blue eyes gleam suddenly as she lightly touches the pendant at her throat, calling a swirl of pink from within.

"Oh, my. My goodness, pretty bird. I had no idea."

Raven frowns.

"You did not? I am surprised, I think. It is a thing I had imagined to be obvious."

"And now it is."

Her smile is sweet and warm.

"Why, thank you, cariad."

Raven leans back, deliberately careless.

"Perhaps you are even welcome."

Her shoulders twitch.

Blodwen looks satisfied, and lets the pendant fall back to rest in the hollow of her throat.

Raven settles more comfortably, hands resting on the branch for balance.

"Though I do wonder if you have gotten what you want, yet."

She tilts her head, watching Blodwen.

"Or is it 'who'? These things, perhaps, are very difficult to tell."

"Oh, cariad." The high light voice is soft and strangely sympathetic.

"Mortals die, have you not learned?"

Raven just tilts her head in the opposite direction, black eyes wide and unblinking.

"I have learned it well, I think. Many times over. It is one of the things that I do not forget."

"Then you should realize what it is that I am after, dear."

A beat.

"Is it that you do not?"

"Sometimes it is better not to guess."

Raven frowns, looking at Blodwen.

"I am thinking the answer is no."

Her smile is gentle and sweet, but there is no light at all in the ice-blue eyes. Her gaze is flat and blank, with a terrible deep emptiness behind it, a pit that would swallow the whole world and more if it could.

Softly, so very softly, the White Rider says,

"Why, it is everything that I want."

The frown fades, and Raven tilts her head, blinking slowly.

She fishes a cookie from her pocket and eats it, mindful of the crumbs.

"It is a feeling I know well enough, perhaps."

Another blink.

"Though cookies and people are not much the same."

She swings her feet a little, still watching Blodwen.

"Save that collecting either is remarkably stupid. Also boring."

"Oh, I would not call it a collection, pretty bird," she tells Raven lightly.

"It is only that I do not like to lose."

"There are not many who do."

Raven shrugs.

"Most manage well enough, regardless."

She doesn't blink.

"Endings are not always so bad."

"But I do not end, cariad," she says softly. "And neither have you-- although so tired you are, I know."

"A shame it is, that you did not truly stay with me."

Raven goes still for a moment.

A long moment.

And then she tilts her head back, laughing high and wild and warm.

"You did not lie, I think, when you said you were very bad at changing."

Ice-bright eyes gleam with her own inner amusement as she says,

"Why, cariad, why is it that I should? No need at all, there is -- and soon there will be even less."

She cups her hand around the pendant, calling forth the swirl of bloodstained smoke, and the white cloak around her shimmers as it falls into soft feathers.

The owl hops on the branch, tilting her head to look at Raven with bright golden eyes before she launches herself, gliding silently through the trees, deep into the forest.

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