The raven perched upon the limb of the dry tree.  The wind whistled about in a melancholy lament, telling the scant travelers of its horrid demise.  The sky above was in utter turmoil, though no rain was taken in by cracked and parched land – only a severe coldness was felt, making the ground crisscrossed with fissures even more brittle.  A few tumbleweeds danced across the barren terrain, scuttling and skittering about the ground, dragging the weeds they’d gathered along behind them, hardly remembering the pain they’d been through.  The raven gazed down upon all this as it had many days before, but it said nothing.

I walked toward the black bird, seeing it was the only living creature beside myself on this desolate trail.  I hadn’t been walking many days; I was not tired, but I simply wished to speak with the dreaded symbol of the past, one that was said to foretell death – or, at least, that was the legend.  I do not believe the truth of that, but thought it would be entertainment of some sort to speak with it.

I walked cautiously, not wanting to startle the silent bird, and placed a rather jovial smile upon my lips.  It simply looked down upon me, stark still even as the sky fell around it, as if I was only one of many who come to seek its advice and to learn of its wide breadth of knowledge.  I paused at the gnarled tree, looking into its beady black eyes, and it looked back into me.

Silently he sat upon the branch; talons curled about the weathered extension of equally beaten tree, keeping me in expectant suspense . . . intentionally?  Oh, but what suspense it was!  My heart beat wildly in my chest, so wildly that I feared it would pop out.  But hearts do not often pop from ones chest, so I was in no real terror of that happening.  Even as my skin trembled and goose-pimples arose on my arms and back, even as the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose up with the violent shivers that tore my body, I stood there.  I would not leave for petty fear.

I felt I was living in some sort of puzzle, the pieces mismatched for surely the silence would clash and break with the fury of the storm.  Surely it would, and then the raven would speak.  But first, first, would I have to trust it?

The bird then smiled a bird-like smile, its beak twisting up in a horrid, grisly one, one that made my heart churn and my blood freeze over.  The coldness was not getting to me, no, for I was decked in a heavy coat and had a pair of mittens over my fingers.  Indeed, I was safe from the cold, but not from the raven’s stare.  And stare it did!  I believe, now that I look back upon it, that it was waiting for me to ask something.  But what do you ask a bird?  I felt strange enough just standing there, gazing up at ebon creature, it’s darkness blending in so perfectly with the whirling canopy of clouds and flashing shards of ethereal light, standing there, standing, waiting to talk to it.  Who, in their sane mind, would remain?  I surely was not sane, though – that was a known.  For to even get there would certainly take a bit of madness, that, that, I knew to be true!

So I stood, and I watched, and it perched, and it grinned.  The same, ghastly grin!  It never left its beak and I knew, I knew, that I was terrified of that grin.  But still I stood.  Still, still, still, I stood.  Would you?

The bird spake unto me after quite a while of pondering and brooding, its voice sounding quietly but coming from everywhere – sometimes loud, and sometimes heard in only one ear.  I listened intently to its words, as nonsensical they were.  The raven, the raven of legend and myth and lore was talking to me!  A mere mortal!  To think, the ecstasy I felt.

"Why are you here, here you are, why?   Why would you stay, stay and talk, talk and stay, to a raven such as I?  I do not understand, mortal, understand I do not, why someone such as you would stay, fight all these terrors, yes, you have fought.  Tell me this now, now this tell to me, what things that you suppose, suppose you that, that you will see?"

I was speechless!  Speechless, to say the least.  The bird’s eloquence was astounding, enough to make me rock back on my heels and enough to make my heart flutter with its words!  If only it was a human man, to speak such sweet words to me, to bestow this language upon mortal ears.  If anyone deserved it, I thought it was I!  But I must answer, so that I did.   I told it of my darkest secrets and desires, dreads and dreams, perhaps thinking that this beautiful raven of lore and legend would some how offer council to my terrors.  My deepest terrors, ones that I had before shoved deep, deep under a rug in my mind, for fear someone would shake it out and reveal them.   The bird, the lovely bird as I saw him now, did not have to ask – I only had to talk, and I only had to hope that he was listening.  After I told him these things, even though his expression did not change, he spake again, caressing my ears with his genteel words.

"Woman of the light, the dark and the light, light and dark, is there reasons for you telling me these, these telling me, of what terrors you’ve embarked?   Embarked you have, yes, you have been wise, wise have been you, for letting me hear, her me letting, mayhap I can help you through.  For the roads are misty, misty is the road, and to travel alone, alone travel to, time surely would erode.  Erode away!  Gone and away, away and disappeared, as does your life, your life, your precious life – your life, your life, my dear."

My heart climbed to my throat, clawing and scratching its way there, tearing up my insides, both emotionally and mentally.  I felt my brain, the ability to think correctly and to move, begin to deteriorate, and there was nothing I could do!  Nothing.   The raven had bespoke my future and he had bespoke my fate, and there was nothing – nothing – nothing I could do to stop that from happening.   So I sighed, I sighed as I realized that a shadow had fallen over me.   That shadow, that shadow, that shadow was the raven, and as my eyes rolled skyward, it sank down upon me.   It sank so slowly, so slowly that I cursed it for not going faster so I would be able to put this latest misery aside, but it didn’t.  It didn’t, and then it entered, it entered my mind, my spirit, my body and my soul, it consumed me so fully that I felt my body shrink!  Smaller and smaller, moving and crunching and cracking and breaking to fit the raven’s body.  I would have screamed if I could but I could not, I could do nothing but allow it to devour me.  I felt my arms grow, I felt them extend!  Into wings, into graceful and powerful wings.  And as I watched, I watched with raven eyes and saw my own body disappearing beneath me, and, as I watched I smiled, but I didn’t smile, only my body did – only my body and not me.  So, only from a distance I saw myself smile a smile so peaceful that then, I knew, I realised.  I realised that the raven had been waiting for me, a person like me, a troubled person who took their emotions and bottled them up, only spilling them out to a lonely bird.  A lonely, horrid bird who would take that information and . . . and use it.  And use it to his advantage, his awful advantage, for now he wasn’t a raven.  He was, now, he was, the very mortal I had been.  The mortal that I had wanted him to be, but now that he was, I wished he wasn’t.  Oh, what twisted ways he made me think! And he walked, he walked away.  He walked away, and he left me.

I perched upon the limb of the dry tree.  The wind whistled about in a melancholy lament, telling the scant travelers ( such as I had been, oh, oh, such as short time ago ) of its horrid demise.  The sky above was in utter turmoil, though no rain was taken in by cracked and parched land – only a severe coldness was felt, making the ground crisscrossed with fissures even more brittle.  A few tumbleweeds danced across the barren terrain, scuttling and skittering about the ground, dragging the weeds they’d gathered along behind them, hardly remembering the pain they’d been through.   I gazed down upon all this as I had ( for the illusion of ) many days before, but I said nothing.