Moonspear by a route obscure and lonely

“Come out.”

The voice was dulcet and clear, and it rang brightly through the crackling cold; tall, tapered ears tipped forward upon Cypress’ skull as he listened. She sounded blessedly different from any other female he’d heard, so he did as she commanded and emerged from the underbrush to stand before her. Her appearance, though, caused his heart to seize painfully within his breast. The blue brilliance of her eyes was so similar — and so were her long, gangly legs and pitch black fur. There were subtle differences, but he wanted so badly to see Lucy that he didn’t bother to mark them. To banish the flighty runner’s ghost, “What’s your name?” he asked her, his quiet baritenor falling hoarsely from his lips. He knew all about being quiet — but there was nothing soft about the raven, whose scarred muzzle quirked downward at the leftmost corner and whose lantern yellow eyes were hollow and hungry. He was a study in severity, his wild, unkempt fur tousled by the winter wind and his stoic face a mask of hard, implacable lines. To his jaded eye she seemed young and inexperienced, and he did not have the heart to tell her she was doomed to die.