Raven's Watch [m] α

Faust had been gone for less than a half-hour. She couldn’t remember ever being so impatient in her life— a prisoner bereft of a sentence. But it would come, soon, no medicine woman need confirm it beyond the quickening in her pulse. She’d be damned if she was made the man’s bedwife!
Rush now. Think later.
Thoughts had taken on her father’s voice, and he was all but yelling them at her. Ayovi did not know when she’d be let alone again. The window was now.
Flouting pain, the dove vaults from the cave and pushes for the treeline, thick tail bannering behind her. He might lose her scent in the hemlock– he might–
A pair of bright flames is what she sees first but it’s the startling smell that kills her course with a slide and an audible gasp– like cow vomit and blood stewed in spirits. The air fouls, Ayovi finds her head snapping back, but her wide blue eyes never divert from off his face– not down to the old crusted fluids– not to the hide smothered in violence.
“Please. H-help me,” she pleads quietly.