early may
"ach, yonder, you think me foolish?"
the large sister ceased the preening of her feathers, now looking at her brother down her hooked beak.
"you doubt my expertise, my insurmountable wisdom?" this was said with clear dramatic exaggeration, the sister throwing back her head as if delivering a monologue upon a stage.
"none can outmatch our clan's inherent clever!"
"t-that's now what i'm-" he attempted to interject, when hereby began her definitely-not-purely-comedic boastful dramatics.
the small brother shifted upon the thick branch of elm they both occupied, on the very edge of the forest - shadewood its name, told them a magpie - and sighed as his sister croaked.
"...this is still a horrid idea." he spoke when she was done.
she rolled her iceblue orbs.
"you repeat yourself, yonder! past two days you've chirped about not-a-thing besides how much you think my plans shall fail!" she raised a wing to her head as if struck by the heartlessness of her brother's words.
then, she spun and engulfed yonder with her great white wing, pulling him towards herself and turning him to look not deeper into the woods, but at wast hinterland stretching beyond.
"yonder!" her eyes shone, devouring the sight. "is trickery not our mother's and your father's legacy? this way we shall honour both, this way we shall make a legacy all our own!"
then, she looked to him. "and earn a meal, 'fcourse."
he attempted to explain, to elaborate, but hereby's feathers muffled his protests and the boy was roughly handled, hatchling to her brutish strength.
yonder wouldn't look upon the land, instead knitting his brows and giving hereby a severe side-eye as she spoke of things that mattered little to him.
"we'd get to do all that with an actual conspiracy!" he attempted to worm out her embrace. "playing games with predators-- this is, literally, the textbook way to end up a meal!"
now hereby sighed, her sibling being unreasonable. she pulled him nearer herself.
"yonder, yonder... i know the peace you'd find in safe, stale, dull domesticity..."
she raised her other wing to quiet any correction.
"...but i am not a raven built for such living. it brings me such misery that you remain blind to it."
she released him.
"but if you intend to follow me, you will have to ingest the bitter seed of this truth."
hereby moved to the thinner end of the branch - was it an elm? she could never tell - and perched there, waiting, looking.
yonder clenched his beak, struck my frustrating uncertainty.
what his sister suggested was a dangerous thing, toying with wolves and their frankly confusing social systems and beliefs. he wanted no part in it!
and yet, he couldn't leave.
he simply... couldn't.
the fledgling shut his eyes and turned his head, not wanting to see hers or she his expression.
"......... graahh!! fine!" he croaked at last, turning to face her certain mocking. "i'll play! as long as you promise to stay alive."
he attempted to mime his father's hardness, but his beak clicked like a child's.
"the moment i see your feathers on the ground, i'm out."
there was no mockery on her countenance, only a gentle smile.
(her kind, selfless, hatchling brother! his denial could blind the sun, but it was a crime on her part, to keep him from fated nest and lover.)
that is, until yonder gave his ultimatum, and her beak parted in a grin.
"if i should die, it'll be in a manner most narratively satisfying." she hopped over to him and preened that shock of iridescent-purple upon his head; a sister's kiss.
then, back to the end of the branch she went.
"onto business! you fly east, and i shall go a ways south. in an egg's time we are to meet on the same spot, and regale each with tales of mischief these beasts had never before seen!"
hereby, known to shorten goodbyes until the gleam in her eyes couldn't be caught, fell backwards off the tree, wings spreading like a phantom's cape.
"onwards, then!" was her last croak before the white raven turned in mid-air and flew off towards a cloud-engulfed peak.
he wished to speak, say words, any words, but he was swept up in her eagerness. one blink and she was already leaving, and his throat tightened with the sudden thought that this might be the last he'll see of her.
"watch yourself!" the purple-tinted brother croaked as her great pale form flew out of view.
it felt like a kind of defeat, but no force on heavens or earth could hold his sister in place when her mind set to something.
he picked the direction he thought closest to east, and flew off.