Raven's Watch what a grand and intoxicating innocence

Ravens.

Anathema watched them in silence from her own perch. She hadn't moved in hours, her ruffled patchwork fur arranged into a new pattern in this loaflike position. Her stocky limbs, tucked neatly away, were beginning to stiffen. Even so, she might not have moved until nightfall had something not changed.

She didn't recognize the stranger, but then, maybe something in her did. Seaglass eyes locked to his dark figure with the surprised but eager purpose of an old friend realizing the opportunity for reunion; Anathema descended from her perch with quick, abrupt movements, her limbs creaking and cracking in protest. Her anxious clicking, too, filled the air like tiny stones tumbling starkly down the mountainside.