Blackfeather Woods I took the boy to hear an echo

he is quick to reacquiant himself with all the intricacies of the wood, and passes now through the hollow places beneath it all. they are familiar to him, and if he should stop, the stone would whisper careful tales to him. he does not, for clenched in his jaws in the body of a crow, stiff with death. there is purpose with which he breaches the surface and makes haste to that great gorge he knows fractures the earth. he could have easily approached it from one of the tunnels he knows to empty into the bare cliff some meters down, but he needs height. 

he stands now at the edge, and places the crow by his feet. carefully, he stretches the crows wings out as best he can, the task made difficult by their rigor. when they satisfy him, and he feels the familiar clutch of talons on his nape, he ever so delicately sets the bird down into the open air, where it begins its slow fall into oblivion. the bird on his back offers a hoarse croak at this, and abraxas falls motionless as he waits for the delicate sound that means the fallen has struck bottom.

Ramsay watched all of this happen from somewhere nearby, in the shadow of a barren bush, where he had been enjoying half a squirrel as a snack. Laying down, he was less than half the length of a normal wolf, and it did well to conceal him in the shade, though he hadn't been making any real effort to hide when he came here. He'd come alone, after all, or thought he had. Slack-jawed, he watched as Abraxas arranged the wings with tender care, then pitched the dead bird over the cliff.

What. The. Fuck.

So intent was Ramsay on watching this strange ritual that, until it called out, he didn't even see the crow that settled on Abraxas' back. With a start the dwarf clutched his half-eaten squirrel closer to his breast and cleared his throat. No sense trying to hide that he'd just seen... whatever that was. His body might be hidden but his head was exposed and Abraxas would spot him soon enough, he was sure. With a little hesitation if only because he didn't know what he'd just witnessed, Ramsay uttered a soft and guarded, hello.

the echoing thud, barely heard. his maw drapes all the way open as the bird calls again, but the sound is accusing, now. talons dig in to the callouses as the bird takes off, in the opposite direction of the offending Ramsay, and the man's head turns purposely toward the boy, movement slow and even. his gaze settles on the stunted one. his maw closes. ritual interupted, caught without the familar embrace of his shadows, the man only stares, dully, for a long moment. 

then he closes the distance with stiff grace, until only a few meters lay between them. the boy has gathered up all his attention. he pauses, stops, falls motionless. faded tongue slips between his fangs, his lips, and catches a feather stuck fast there. in silence, he draws it into his maw.

It was a little like something out of a low budget Hallowe'en special. Abraxas' mouth yawned open and Ramsay half expected something awful to happen, like hundreds of tiny crow bodies pouring out of it. Then his head turned ever so slowly toward him, and then his mouth closed. Ramsay's lips remained parted, suspended halfway between outright gawking and asking a question. He was leaning toward the latter but then things got about a hundred times more WTF'd.

What in the world. A shudder threatened to snake down his back as Abraxas came to a halt in front of him. He watched, a little queasy and a little horrified, as a pale tongue threaded out from between the black wolf's blacker lips, then retreated, drawing a feather into the soundless maw of the beast. What. What. He swallowed stiffly, fighting back a gag at what a feather in his throat might feel like. He wasn't quite scared, for Abraxas didn't seem harmful exactly, but he was certainly disturbed.

Why? he wondered, throwing a fleeting look at the chasm. Why are you here? Why did you throw a bird over? Why did you spread its wings first? Why did you eat that?