Ravens Wings Quotes

Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders round as ravens claws.

Do you know how pale & wanton thrillful comes death on a strange hour unannounced, unplanned for like a scaring over-friendly guest you've brought to bed Death makes angels of us all & gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws

The raven red, on ruby pinions winging its way between the worlds, hears dead men singing. It scarce knows it strength, the price it scarce knows, but its power will arise and the Circle will close.

Death makes Angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as Ravens claws

If one squinted into Cabeswater long enough, in the right way, one could see secrets dart between the trees. The shadows of horned animals that never appeared. The winking lights of another summer's fireflies. The rushing sound of many wings, the sound of a massive flock always out of sight. Magic.

Shadows in shadows He watches through dreams Wings black as Africa Body strong as stone Done waiting The ravens call.

Love can transform us. It can be a healing force or a disaster, a tidal wave, a tornado. It can burn and scar us or heal our scars. It can be the ghost that haunts us, or the best friend who reads our every thought. Love may arrive like an angel of mercy, a fairy with raven wings or a hairy beast that will tear us apart limb from limb, kill and savor us down to the bones.

Gansey turned the key. The engine turned over once, paused for the briefest of moments - and then roared to deafening life. The Camaro lived to fight another day. The radio was even working, playing the Stevie Nicks song that always sounded to Gansey like it was about a one-winged dove.

Nestlé into the feathers of the ravens wings while it takes flight to deliver you safely past slumber & into your space of dreams.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest, with black hair as iridescent as a raven's wing and cheekbones sharp enough to cut a girl's heart. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow, with black eyes, and hair as dark as the raven’s wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accustomed from their cradle to contend with danger.

BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with merry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee. There the Loves a circle go, The flaming circle of our days, Gyring, spiring to and fro In those great ignorant leafy ways; Remembering all that shaken hair And how the wingèd sandals dart, Thine eyes grow full of tender care: Beloved, gaze in thine own heart. Gaze no more in the bitter glass The demons, with their subtle guile, Lift up before us when they pass, Or only gaze a little while; For there a fatal image grows That the stormy night receives, Roots half hidden under snows, Broken boughs and blackened leaves. For all things turn to barrenness In the dim glass the demons hold, The glass of outer weariness, Made when God slept in times of old. There, through the broken branches, go The ravens of unresting thought; Flying, crying, to and fro, Cruel claw and hungry throat, Or else they stand and sniff the wind, And shake their ragged wings; alas! Thy tender eyes grow all unkind: Gaze no more in the bitter glass. - The Two Trees

Henry shuffled the jewelled insect back out of his pocket. It amber heart warmed light through the pit again. “Back in the lab, of course, as father dear tries to copy it with nonmagical parts. My mother told me to keep this one to remind me of what I am.” “And what is that?” The bee illuminated both itself and Henry: its translucent wings, Henry’s wickedly cut eyebrows. “Something more.

As Kate laments the loss of the singularly most profound love of her life, she watches the black ravens gather in a circle around her, dragging their wings in ritualized fashion as they dance to the beat of ancient drums, pounding out the story of ageless lamentation.

I am Crone, eldest of the Moon's Great Ravens, whose eyes have looked upon a hundred thousand years of human folly. Hence my tattered coat and broken beak as evidence of your indiscriminate destruction. I am but a winged witness of your eternal madness.

The raven spread out its glossy wings and departed like hope.

is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well

I am a black bird, a Raven, I am Raven. I know and I am knowing—I know and see life and death, expansion and contraction and I do not shiver and cry—I am unafraid. I am Raven. I am black as liquid night with wings and my eyes are stars to see by. The light within me leads the way and it is revealed through my eyes and I am what lies between the dark and light. I am the balance between.

Kate’s eyes grow dim as the past envelops her, pulling her into the silent black void of the desolate mother and her winged emissaries.  Rustling their feathers, the ever-vigilant ravens sink their claws into the deepest recesses of her mind as they seek control of her consciousness.

Hey, I heard this great song,” he said. Gansey tried to tune out the sound of a raven horking down a hot dog. “Want a listen?” Gansey and Ronan rarely agreed on music, but Gansey shrugged an agreement. Removing his headphones from his neck, Ronan placed them on Gansey´s ears - they smelled a little dusty and birdy from proximity to Chainsaw. Sound came through the headphones: “Squash one, squash tw -” Gansey tore them off as Ronan dissolved into manic laughter, which Chainsaw echoed, flapping her wings, both of them terrible and amused. “You bastard,” Gansey said savagely. “You bastard. You betrayed my trust.

If one squinted in Cabeswater long enough, in the right way, one could see secrets dart between the trees. The shadows of horned animals that never appeared. The winking lights of another summer's fireflies. The rushing sound of many wings, the sound of a massive flock always out of sight. Magic.

One day he trapped a large raven, whose wings he painted red, the breast green, and the tail blue. When a flock of ravens appeared over our hut, Lekh freed the painted bird. As soon as it joined the flock a desperate battle began. The changeling was attacked from all sides. Black, red, green, blue feathers began to drop at our feet. The ravens ran amuck in the skies, and suddenly the painted raven plummeted to the freshly-plowed soil. It was still alive, opening its beak and vainly trying to move its wings. Its eyes had been pecked out, and fresh blood streamed over its painted feathers. It made yet another attempt to flutter up from the sticky earth, but its strength was gone.

They ran through the night together in a darkling fairy tale of blood and forests and snow, of girls with raven's wing hair and rose-red lips and sharp teeth as white as milk.

I had come to the canyon with expectations. I wanted to see snowy egrets flying against the black schist at dusk; I saw blue-winged teal against the green waters at dawn. I had wanted to hear thunder rolling in the thousand-foot depths; I heard the guttural caw of four ravens…what any of us had come to see or do fell away. We found ourselves at each turn with what we had not imagined.

I hold it true that thoughts are things Endowed with bodies, breath, and wings, And that we send them forth to fill The world with good results - or ill. That which we call our secret thought Speeds to the earth's remotest spot, And leaves its blessings or its woes Like tracks behind it as it goes. It is God's law. Remember it In your still chamber as you sit With thoughts you would not dare have known, And yet made comrades when alone. These thoughts have life; and they will fly And leave their impress by-and-by, Like some marsh breeze, whose poisoned breath Breathes into homes its fevered breath. And after you have quite forgot Or all outgrown some vanished thought, Back to your mind to make its home, A dove or raven, it will come. Then let your secret thoughts be fair; They have a vital part and share In shaping worlds and moulding fate -- God's system is so intricate.

I thought about the ravens, and I spread my wings to fly...

The interior would have resembled the backseat of a really big car if the seat belts hadn't had five-point fasteners that looked like they belonged in an X-wing fighter.

I was making a different sort of heart, one that was black, one that was protected by thorns, by bats, by raven's wings, by sorrow, by my aloneness, my armour

A reaper emerges from the crowd with glossy, black wings, and Akila takes off her headset and runs dizzily over. She puts her arms around me and says, I am so happy right now. I do my best to be cool about this contact, but it has never happened before, and I pat her awkwardly on the shoulder, terrified that a too-enthusiastic reciprocation will alert her to her error, like the way a white person might raise a jungle cat from birth and be pals for a time until the cat turns five and realizes it is, in fact, a carnivore. If I’m honest, all my relationships have been like this, parsing the intent of the jaws that lock around my head. Like, is he kidding, or is he hungry? In other words, all of it, even the love, is a violence.

Tell you something," the raven said. "I was flying over the Midwest once." He stopped abruptly, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and began again. "I was flying over the Midwest. Iowa or Illinois, or some place like that. And I saw this big damn seagull. Right in the middle of Iowa, a seagull. And he was flying around in big, wide circles, real sweeping circles, the way a seagull flies, flapping his wings just enough to keep on the updrafts. Every time he saw water he'd go flying down toward it, yelling, "I found it! I found it!" The poor sonofabitch was looking for the ocean. And every time he saw water, he thought that was the ocean. He didn't know anything about ponds or lakes or anything. All the water he ever saw was the ocean. He thought that was all the water there was.

His angelic wings blackened when the dark fury assailed his mind. Summoning new strength from the unholy power that ravaged his soul, grieved to drastic levels of desperation by the tainting of the holy light within him, he combated ally and enemy alike, bent on destroying both sides in order to ensure the quelling of the dark energies there and then. For days and nights, the lone warrior bathed himself in the blood of angels and demons. And when it was over, he stood alone on contaminated land, with a contaminated soul. He was banned forever from Heaven and not even Hell had space for a creature which seemed to cherish Oblivion over Pandemonium. The dark angel, not so far removed from his former self as his superiors seemed to believe, died on the edge of the cliffs, of utter loneliness and despair.

He couldn't see anything but the birds, every shape and colour. His heart was a winged thing itself.

My ravenous gaze devouring every inch of her visage, from the gentle branching of lines that wing from her sunken eyes to a paltry splattering of freckles that mottle her bottom lip. She smiles.

As Reverend Deal moved into his sermon, the hands of the women unfolded like pairs of raven's wings and flew high above their hats in the air. They did not hear all of what he said;they heard the one word, or phrase, or inflection that was for them the connection between the event and themselves. For some it was the term "Sweet Jesus". And they saw the Lamb's eye and the truly innocent victim: themselves. They acknowledged the innocent child hiding in the corner of their hearts, holding a sugar-and-butter sandwich. That one. The one who lodged deep in their fat, thin, old, young skin, and was the one the world had hurt. Or they thought of their son newly killed and remembered his legs in short pants and wondered where the bullet went in. Or they remembered how dirty the room looked when their father left home and wondered if that is the way the slim, young Jew, he who for them was both son and lover and in whose downy face they could see the sugar-and-butter sandwiches and feel the oldest and most devastating pain there is : not the pain of childhood, but the remembrance of it.

That’s it,’ Shelby said as they ran along behind Raven. ‘From now on no one’s dead until I read the autopsy report.’ ‘Such a report could be faked,’ Wing observed. ‘Hey, only people who haven’t come back from the grave get to have an opinion,’ Shelby said quickly. ‘So that counts you out, zombie boy.’ ‘Strictly speaking I am not a zombie since I did not actually die,’ Wing said. As usual it was impossible to tell if he was joking or not.

Early Summer, loveliest season, The world is being colored in. While daylight lasts on the horizon, Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing. The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos. "Welcome, summer" is what he says. Winter's unimaginable. The wood's a wickerwork of boughs. Summer means the river's shallow, Thirsty horses nose the pools. Long heather spreads out on bog pillows. White bog cotton droops in bloom. Swallows swerve and flicker up. Music starts behind the mountain. There's moss and a lush growth underfoot. Spongy marshland glugs and stutters. Bog banks shine like ravens' wings. The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome. The speckled fish jumps; and the strong Swift warrior is up and running. A little, jumpy, chirpy fellow Hits the highest note there is; The lark sings out his clear tidings. Summer, shimmer, perfect days.

Well,’ Shelby said with a crooked smile, ‘look at it this way. If you’re a member of the Disciples right now, you have Otto tracking you down and Raven coming after you when he does.’ ‘Actually,’ Wing said, ‘when you put it like that, I almost . . . almost . . . feel sorry for them.

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen. Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold, Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.

One minute I was at home reading in bed and the next thing I knew I was waking up on board a helicopter with some crazy Russian woman.’ ‘Oh don’t worry, we’re familiar with the crazy Russian woman,’ Otto laughed. ‘One piece of advice though: I wouldn’t call her that to her face.’ ‘Not if you’re a fan of the whole not eating through a straw thing anyway,’ Shelby said, grinning. ‘I do not believe that Raven would ever assault a student without good reason,’ Wing said with a frown. ‘I know. I was just, you know, exaggerating, because . . . funny . . . never mind,’ Shelby said with a sigh. Otto tried very hard not to laugh.

Her eyes traced her man, the two tattoos on his back flexing as he moved. It had always fascinated her, those tattoos of his—a giant black dragon taking up the entire left side of his spine, its tail curled and head turned back, watching as a flock of ravens emerged from its wings and flew away diagonally to the right.

Each evening the night swallowed the sun and gave the raven the sun's energy. He stored this power in his wings, tinged with the blue of Alaskan skies.

Like an omen of perilous events, three ravens pass high above, issuing no flight calls, their wings slicing the air with sharp silence. Everything means something important now.

He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow of eighteen or twenty, with black eyes, and hair as dark as a raven’s wing;

Always there have been six ravens at the Tower. If the ravens fly away, the kingdom will fall.

There were no ravens to be seen. Abruptly a fox burst out of the trees, running hard. Ravens poured from the branches after it. The beat of their wings almost drowned out a desperate whining from the fox. A black whirlwind dove and swirled around it. The fox’s jaws snapped at them, but they darted in, and darted away untouched, black beaks glistening wetly. The fox turned back toward the trees, seeking the safety of its den. It ran awkwardly now, head low, fur dark and bloody, and the ravens flapped around it, more and more of them at once, the fluttering mass thickening until it hid the fox completely. As suddenly as they had descended the ravens rose, wheeled, and vanished over the next rise to the south. A misshapen lump of torn fur marked what had been the fox.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.

When I was a boy, that was all I wanted—to grow a pair of wings and get up into the sky. I had a basement full of failed wing projects. Boards and capes and motors, even a pile of found feathers I once tried to glue together with a bottle of Elmer’s; you should have seen your grandmother’s face. But I never got any higher than the backyard fence I’d launch from. I never got inside a cloud. Your raven did.

And back then, I did not know how wings could melt and peel away from your body; how someone could plunge so unexpectedly from their soaring ascent to freedom and be swallowed by the ravenous waves below.

I have found that a writer is formed not so much by their experiences but by the way in which they view and capture those experiences. Like vivid, rainbow metallic skin cells on the wings of a fragile butterfly, it is how you touch and reveal those inner parts of yourself, without damaging the psyche, that determines whether the beauty is experienced and expressed and shared with others or, in fact, becomes the death of the self and Soul and psyche. I hope that I capture something in my work that is about the elusive, the magical and powerful and the transformative. The writing in itself is transformative for me.

Talaith sat upon an airborne throne of black marble held aloft by a pair of giant flapping raven's wings growing from the throne's back. Despite myself, I was impressed. Much classier than a broom or carpet.

The Commander was a complete contrast to his men: Roman to his arrogant finger-tips, wiry and dark as they were raw-boned and fair. The olive-skinned face under the curve of his crested helmet had not a soft line in it anywhere - a harsh face it would have been, but that it was winged with laughter lines, and between his level black brows showed a small raised scar that marked him for one who had passed the Raven Degree of Mithras.

Let this curse find those who have stolen from us like the wolf finds his prey. May death come to you on swift wings, may your spoils turn into serpents and coil around your necks, may the rest of your days be stricken with unending sickness, may your children's bodies belong to the fire, may every last one of you anguish in eternal pain, crying aloud for mercy, while we turn our heads away with a smile and a deaf ear. In payment for your treachery, we will accept your thieving hands on our finest plates, your sullen heads on our tallest flag poles, and your worthless souls in our enveloping clutches. All the while we will watch your graveless corpses writhe with worms and turn into an eternal, restless dust. Always know, we shall forever be against you as a crocodile on the water, as a serpent on the earth, as a raven in the wind, and as an enemy in this world and worlds to come.

And I never felt more alive, until I spread my wings and flew away. Flew away with the ravens. It was then that I knew, knew that I was one of them, even though I was red. Red with blood and anger and hate. They accepted me, as The Red Raven.

In turn, the fae never forgot the way I burst through the sky like a broken-winged bird, and that is what they always called me. So, yes, I was scared to fall. But without falling, I never would have landed. And what a beautiful thing it was to land.

The ravens play individually, in pairs, or in samll groups; they circle high, dive, fold their wings, and shoot up or down with one or several of their fellows. They chase and frolic, tarry, turn loops; they make croaks, high cries, and rattling sounds. They do anything but fly in formation. They remind you of a bunch of schoolboys wandering down a lonely road, kicking a ball along. The geese fly mechanically, calling unvaryingly and beating their wings at a steady disciplined rhythm like soldiers marching off.

He stalked into the room, leaned his long rifle against the mantelpiece and spread out his hands to the fire. He was clad from head to foot in fringed and beaded buckskin, which showed evidence of a long and arduous tramp. It was torn and wet and covered with mud. He was a magnificently made man, six feet in height, and stood straight as an arrow. His wide shoulders, and his muscular, though not heavy, limbs denoted wonderful strength and activity. His long hair, black as a raven's wing, hung far down his shoulders. Presently he turned and the light shone on a remarkable face. So calm and cold and stern it was that it seemed chiselled out of marble. The most striking features were its unusual pallor, and the eyes, which were coal black, and piercing as the dagger's point.

birch – hope butterflies – change, transformation, inner growth cypress – mourning daisies – innocence, purity dragonflies – ancestors fireflies – life, sexuality hummingbirds – hope and beauty, the sun in disguise, infinity in the flight of their wings phoenix – rebirth poppies – remembrance raven – in some cultures death, in some cultures a bringer of light associated with Creation rose (red) – romantic love rose (yellow) – friendship sage – powerful cleansing sweetgrass – a grandmother medicine sycamore – hidden treasure

Many a spear dawn-cold to the touch will be taken down and waved on high; the swept harp won't waken warriors, but the raven winging darkly over the doomed will have news, tidings for the eagle of how he hoked and ate, how the wolf and he made short work of the dead.

He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow of eighteen or twenty, with black eyes, and hair as dark as a raven's wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accustomed from their cradle to contend with danger. "Ah, is it you, Dantès?

Yeah, I think that Raven woman must not have been too pleased when I tasered her,’ Penny replied with a lopsided grin. ‘You are tasering Raven!’ Franz said slightly too loudly as he sat down on the sofa. ‘This is not being a clever thing to do.’ ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Nigel said as he sat down next to Franz. ‘Glad to see that you still have all your limbs at least.’ ‘I doubt that Raven would have resorted to dismemberment except under circumstances of extreme provocation,’ Wing said with a slight frown. ‘I was jok— Never mind,’ Nigel said, rolling his eyes.

The sound of wings flapping pulled me from my moment of relieved euphoria, and I looked up to see a massive black raven standing at the end of the alley. It was roughly the size of a bobcat, larger than any raven I’d ever seen before, and its beady eyes were locked right on me. Even though the purple light from Sigrún had all but gone out, the light somehow seemed to linger on the bird’s black feathers. It titled its head as it watched me, squawking once. “What do you want?” I demanded, but the raven had no reply. It just flapped its wings and disappeared into the night sky.

She was beautiful, only hers was the dark beauty of night, just as Sherry's was the bright beauty of daytime. Her hair was raven-black, ending in a sort of widow's peak low on her forehead, and her face and arms were alabaster- white. Her gown was a clinging thing of swirling black, almost like smoke, and two peculiar shoulder-draperies she wore, hanging down loosely and caught at the wrists, almost suggested great triangular wings when her arms were in motion. Her lips were a red gash in the pallor of her face, and they glistened as though she had daubed them with fresh blood instead of rouge. "What's your name?" I asked. "Call me Faustine," she said low. I saw her staring fixedly at me, with a sort of half-smile on her face, but her gaze rested a little lower than my own face. I fingered my neck uneasily. "Is there something on my collar?" ("Vampire's Honeymoon")

It was a dead swan. Its body lay contorted on the beach like an abandoned lover. I looked at the bird for a long time. There was no blood on its feathers, no sight of gunshot. Most likely, a late migrant from the north slapped silly by a ravenous Great Salt Lake. The swan may have drowned. I knelt beside the bird, took off my deerskin gloves, and began smoothing feathers. Its body was still limp—the swan had not been dead long. I lifted both wings out from under its belly and spread them on the sand. Untangling the long neck which was wrapped around itself was more difficult, but finally I was able to straighten it, resting the swan’s chin flat against the shore. The small dark eyes had sunk behind the yellow lores. It was a whistling swan. I looked for two black stones, found them, and placed them over the eyes like coins. They held. And, using my own saliva as my mother and grandmother had done to wash my face, I washed the swan’s black bill and feet until they shone like patent leather. I have no idea of the amount of time that passed in the preparation of the swan. What I remember most is lying next to its body and imagining the great white bird in flight. I imagined the great heart that propelled the bird forward day after day, night after night. Imagined the deep breaths taken as it lifted from the arctic tundra, the camaraderie within the flock. I imagined the stars seen and recognized on clear autumn nights as they navigated south. Imagined their silhouettes passing in front of the full face of the harvest moon. And I imagined the shimmering Great Salt Lake calling the swans down like a mother, the suddenness of the storm, the anguish of its separation. And I tried to listen to the stillness of its body. At dusk, I left the swan like a crucifix on the sand. I did not look back.

Beside the bat, on the opposite window, was the image of a raven painted in a mixture of black, blue and purple. I had to step back to realize the creature's wings were curved into the shape of the upper half of a heart, while their bottom halves were connected at the tail to form the end of the heart.

in my voyages, when I was a man and commanded other men, I have seen the heavens overcast, the sea rage and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, beating the two horizons with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain refuge, that trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury of the waves and the sight of the sharp rocks announced the approach of death, and death then terrified me, and I used all my skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to struggle against the wrath of God. But I did so because I was happy, because I had not courted death, because to be cast upon a bed of rocks and seaweed seemed terrible, because I was unwilling that I, a creature made for the service of God, should serve for food to the gulls and ravens. But now it is different; I have lost all that bound me to life, death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell.

I can look back one day and remember that I stood here, in the heart of an icicle kingdom, with a frosted city at my feet and a shivering sky at my cheeks. This is so much better than a cage. ⁣ A smile plays about my lips as I breathe in the breeze. I think this is what it must be like for a bird before it lets out its wings and flies.

The high desert landscape of New Mexico is a sparse terrain, bearing the trace of stories long forgotten. It’s a good place to study the parlance of wind and flowing water, to ponder ravens on the wing and the play of shadows among the rocks. The land here cuts through you like a knife, enticing you to relinquish one trusted language for another- or for none at all.

If these weren't the worst odds he had ever faced,they came damn close.Still, he sensed the wings of panic moving through the riders and thought he might have a decent enough chance. Thought but was destined never to know, for just then a great fluttering shattered the forest stillness,a sound somewhere between the howl of wind and the throb of drums.A terrible beating that grew louder and louder as the air thickened,becoming almost solid,and the men began to scream. Ravens filled the sky.They swarmed from the surrounding trees,darting at the riders,going for their eyes. Even as they did,out into the clearing before the lodge ran a band of stout little men, weirdly dressed,sporting long beards, and looking as though they had just crawled from beneath a bridge. They seized the bridles of the horses and whispered to the animals, causing them to rear so violently that the riders were tumbled from their saddles and fell one after another to the ground. The birds swooped lower, still attacking,as the men huddled,arms wrapped around their heads,thrashing frantically.Before Dragon's startled gaze,the little men loosed the horses and turned to go.One,who looked somehow familiar, gave him a cocky grin and waved. Friends in high places...and low.

Her long hair, the deep black of a raven’s wing, was pulled back from her face. I couldn’t tell if my new stepsister was pretty, or hideous, or merely the strangest girl I had ever seen. “I don’t want a pretend mother. Or a false sister.” The princess’s voice was cold as ice. I hesitated, then curtseyed to her, but she seemed to take no notice, and certainly didn’t return the favor. Either we would become friends—or the bitterest of enemies.

Perhaps the forces of winged retribution. The prophet Elijah being fed to the ravens. Like Baida, I have killed my three pigeons.’ ‘Two,’ Adam said. ‘Two died instead of Vishnevetsky. One died instead of my brother. Long ago. Attar, the Persian poet, saw the destiny of souls as a flight of birds across the seven valleys of Seeking, Love, Knowledge, Independence, Unity, Stupefaction and Annihilation, before at last being lost in the divine Ocean and thenceforth happy. A charming, if sterile, conceit. Next time, the bird may escape,’ Lymond said. ‘Happy pigeon. Next time, the archer may die.

Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie. The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop. Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast. 'What I would give to suckle at that teat,' thought he. from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales

He found himself outside the city, walking through a world without color. Ravens soared through a grey sky on wide black wings, while carrion crows rose from their feasts in furious clouds wherever he set his steps. White maggots burrowed through black corruption. The wolves were grey, and so were the silent sisters; together they stripped the flesh from the fallen. There were corpses strewn all over the tourney fields. The sun was a hot white penny, shining down upon the grey river as it rushed around the charred bones of sunken ships. From the pyres of the dead rose black columns of smoke and white-hot ashes. My work, thought Tyrion Lannister. They died at my command.

Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. Valerian's hair shines like polished gold. Nicasia's limbs are long and perfectly shaped, her mouth the pink of coral, her hair the colour of the deepest, coldest part of the sea. Fox-eyed Locke, standing silently behind Valerian, his expression schooled to careful indifference, has a chin as pointed as the tips of his ears. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest, with black hair as iridescent as a raven's wing and cheekbones sharp enough to cut out a girl's heart. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

— Где лебеди? — А лебеди ушли. — А во́роны? — А во́роны — остались. — Куда ушли? — Куда и журавли. — Зачем ушли? — Чтоб крылья не достались. — А папа где? — Спи, спи, за нами Сон, Сон на степном коне сейчас приедет. — Куда возьмет? — На лебединый Дон. Там у меня — ты знаешь? — белый лебедь… - Where are the swans? - They went away, the swans. - The ravens too? - They stayed behind, the ravens. - Where did they go? - There where the cranes have gone. - Why did they go? - For fear their wings be taken. - And where's papa? - Sleep, sleep, the Sandman on His steppe-steed will be here now very shortly. - Where will he take us? - to the swanly Don. There - fancy! - I've a white swan waiting for me...

It was spring, and the long months of desolation melted into running water, with streamlets pouring from every hill and miniature waterfalls leaping from stone to stone to stone. The air was filled with the racket of birds, a cacophony of melody that replaced the lonely calling of geese passing by far overhead. Birds go one by one in the winter, a single raven hunched brooding in a barren tree, an owl fluffed against the cold in the high, dark shadows of a barn. Or they go in flocks, a massed thunder of wings to bear them up and away, wheeling through the sky like handsful of pepper grains thrown aloft, calling their way in Vs of mournful courage toward the promise of a distant and problematic survival. In winter, the raptors draw apart unto themselves; the songbirds flee away, all the color of the feathered world reduced to the brutal simplification of predator and prey, gray shadows passing overhead, with no more than a small bright drop of blood fallen back to earth here and there to mark the passing of life, leaving a drift of scattered feathers, borne on the wind. But as spring blooms, the birds grow drunk with love and the bushes riot with their songs. Far, far into the night, darkness mutes but does not silence them, and small melodious conversations break out at all hours, invisible and strangely intimate in the dead of night, as though one overheard the lovemaking of strangers in the room next door.

With what sense is it that the chicken shuns the ravenous hawk? With what sense does the tame pigeon measure out the expanse? With what sense does the bee form cells? have not the mouse & frog Eyes and ears and sense of touch? yet are their habitations And their pursuits as different as their forms and as their joys. Ask the wild ass why he refuses burdens, and the meek camel Why he loves man; is it because of the eye, ear, mouth, or skin, Or breathing nostrils? No, for these the wolf and tyger have. Ask the blind worm the secrets of the grave, and why her spires Love to curl round the bones of death; and ask the rav'nous snake Where she gets poison, & the wing'd eagle why he loves the sun, And then tell me the thoughts of man, that have been hid of old.

He planted his feet a shoulders width apart in the ground. After a moment he closed his eyes. Here was the wood. Slow and green he felt the life of it, the life that had been his life as well these four centuries past. It poured around him thick and steady, binding all together: the long patient strength of the trees that anchored, the deep bright power of the handful of dryads--Tobias felt Bramble clear as day among them, young and strong--and then the small and necessary, the bracken and ferns, the mosses and mushrooms. Here were the songbirds and ravens and solemn wide-winged owls, shy deer and burrowing rabbits, fox and badger and snake, beetles and moths and midges, all the things that were in the wood, that lived each in their own way under the shelter of the old oak. (76-77)

Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

Jess pushed herself up to sit next to him. "In case you didn't get the memo, it' s my turn to take care of you right now." Ike dropped his face into his hands on a groan, and Jess's cool hand massages his neck. "Oh, my God. You're so hot." He chuffed out a small laugh. "Why, thank you." Jess Chuckled. "You realize you don't have to fish for compliments, right? Not from me. Because I will straight-up tell you that the sight of your Ravens tat stretched over all these muscles gives me a lady boner." Her fingers traced the design across his shoulder blades - a spread-winged raven perches on the hilt of a dagger sunk into the eye socket of a skull. The block letters of the club's name arched over the menacing black bird. He threw her some major side-eye. "I know I'm sick because the perverted part of my brain just heard you say my ink gives you a lady boner.

I love mockingbirds, but I cannot rehab them because they imprint, or bond, or whatever you choose to call it. Young ravens and crows are worse. In their quest for attention and affection, they are akin to domestic dogs. And when you placate young wild animals with a tender human touch, it changes them forever. So rehabbers have to reject the overtures of creatures who attempt to bond, to ensure they retain their wild nature. Some people are good at this. I am not. I have too much of what John Keats called negative capability as well as a close corollary, empathy. When birds arrive at my door lost, broken, and terrified, the distinctions between us fall away, and they are no longer wild animals separate from my humanity. Instead, I am right there with them, sharing their troubles, fear, and pain. I see myself in them and want to protect, love, and reassure them.

I look in the mirror. All my pieces are shattered. I look closer and I wonder if my soul is on the other side. I look inside me and I’m empty, full of lies and betrayal. All I do is bleed and bleed. Am I that insignificant? Am I the sacrifice? The soft-spoken words written as the ink dries, whispering death on poisoned lips. I’m alone as you are no more. My wings will heal, and I will fly away––never to be seen again.” The room goes deathly silent. You can hear a pin drop. I look up but refuse to look over at Dravin. I will never look into his eyes again. “Raven?” I hear his soft-spoken voice, but I don’t look, and I don’t answer. It is like he is a ghost. An imaginary shadow I made up in my mind and in my head. Even if he haunts me in my dreams, I refuse to acknowledge him when I’m awake. “Look at me,” Dravin demands quietly. There is this thing about ghosts I read somewhere. You don’t have to acknowledge them when you don’t want to. In this case,

Love Minus Zero / No Limit" My love she speaks like silence Without ideals or violence She doesn't have to say she's faithful Yet she's true, like ice, like fire People carry roses And make promises by the hours My love she laughs like the flowers Valentines can't buy her In the dime stores and bus stations People talk of situations Read books, repeat quotations Draw conclusions on the wall Some speak of the future My love she speaks softly She knows there's no success like failure And that failure's no success at all The cloak and dagger dangles Madams light the candles In ceremonies of the horsemen Even a pawn must hold a grudge Statues made of match-sticks Crumble into one another My love winks, she does not bother She knows too much to argue or to judge The bridge at midnight trembles The country doctor rambles Bankers' nieces seek perfection Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring The wind howls like a hammer The night blows rainy My love she's like some raven At my window with a broken wing Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

You are a woman born of secrets and sadness. It will either destroy your future or lead you to greatness. A handsome gentleman with eyes like the sky and hair like a raven's wing will come into your life. If you let him, he will become the hand of your vengeance. If you let him,he will shatter your heart.

Hildebrand turned after closing the door of his truck and the raven mocker struck. He sunk viselike talons into Hildebrand’s shoulders, flapping wildly to stay in the air, intending to distract him while he took his soul, all of it, leaving him dead on the ground. So no one would be able to go into the other world to retrieve it, because there would be no place to return it to. Hildebrand screamed as the raven mocker sucked his soul from his body through his breath. He was strong. The raven mocker filled with soul energy. He was charged with it, changed with it. Before Sky reacted Dave was out of his seat and in through the front door. He raced through the house. On the back porch he stopped, arrested by an astounding sight. A huge crow attacking Rocky, enormous, like a mastiff with wings, talons hooked into Rocky’s coveralls, flapping furiously, pecking at Rocky’s face. And something else, the bird was draining Rocky’s life. Filled with adrenalin, he perceived all this instantly; he reached down, pulling his Levi’s pants leg up with his left hand and drew the .32 Beretta in his boot with the right. He drew, aimed and fired twice in one smooth motion. He hit the son of a bitch, but all it did was piss him off. The crow dropped Rocky. Dave re-aimed and fired another double tap. The bird flew at him, growing large in his vision, filling all of it, even as John opened the door behind him and Dave fired again, absolutely sure he hit him every time he squeezed the trigger. No effect. No effect whatsoever. Talons clawed his shirt and the gun fell from his hand. The raven locked eyes and Dave felt his energy draining. He felt an invisible tentacle enter his body through his eyes. He didn’t know what was happening, psychic wrestling, not connected with anything physical; something inside him grabbed that tentacle and shoved it out. Then he was through and inside the bird’s eyes himself, reaching in there, doing something. He heard Sky’s feet stomp on the porch as he cried, “Usinuliyu Selagwutse …” in Cherokee as he scooped up the pistol. The bird flew away, cawing, straight into the sky. Dave stood on the porch, gasping, weak in the knees, as Sky darted past him and went to Rocky. He knelt beside his friend, touched his face, and said, “Let’s get him inside.

He was staring down at her and she started anew at the vision of the man; he was without his helm and it was her first clear glimpse of him.  He had a granite jaw and long nose, and was relatively young and unmarred for one with such a ghastly reputation.  His dual-colored eyes were still unnerving and dark brows arched intelligently over them. His hair, unrestrained by the helm, felt to his shoulders in a slick, dark sheet that reflected the light like a raven’s wing. He was not unhandsome in the least and that surprised her.  For a man of such reputation, she had expected a beast.

it was as black as a raven’s wing she’d once found on the beach.

And it was not just a raven, Gansey saw. It was a tiny foundling, featherless mouth still a baby’s smile, wings still days and nights and days away from flight. He wasn’t sure he would want to touch something that looked so easily destroyable.

I read a poem today that reminded me of you.” He gave her another sideways glance, as if confessing something naughty. “Would you like to hear it?” Her knees quivered beneath her skirts. Perhaps he did feel something for her. Perhaps he is now going to declare himself! “Yes, I would.” “Your chaperone is watching us from the parapets. It would be better for me to recite it more privately.” With gentle force, he guided her behind a tall hedge. Lydia’s belly fluttered as Deveril took both her hands. His hair gleamed like an angel’s wing. Would he tell her he couldn’t let her go, that they didn’t have to go to London? That instead they could remain here…together? “She walks in beauty, like the night,” he whispered. “Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.” Vincent’s eyes were like a turbulent sea in a moonlit storm. He gazed at her as though she was something precious. Lydia sighed as his long fingers removed a pin from her hair. “One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress,” Her breath caught as he twirled a lock of her hair. “Or softly lightens o’er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.” His hand crept up to caress her cheek, his intent gaze never wavering. “And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,” His lips curved in a sensual smile as he concluded. “But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!” For an eternity, they stared as if peering into each other’s souls. His fingers slid past her cheek and threaded once more through her hair, sending the remaining pins scattering into the grass. “Lydia,” he whispered. Then his lips were on hers, warm, silken, teasing.

I read a poem today that reminded me of you.” He gave her another sideways glance, as if confessing something naughty. “Would you like to hear it?” Her knees quivered beneath her skirts. Perhaps he did feel something for her. Perhaps he is now going to declare himself! “Yes, I would.” “Your chaperone is watching us from the parapets. It would be better for me to recite it more privately.” With gentle force, he guided her behind a tall hedge. Lydia’s belly fluttered as Deveril took both her hands. His hair gleamed like an angel’s wing. Would he tell her he couldn’t let her go, that they didn’t have to go to London? That instead they could remain here…together? “She walks in beauty, like the night,” he whispered. “Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.” Vincent’s eyes were like a turbulent sea in a moonlit storm. He gazed at her as though she was something precious. Lydia sighed as his long fingers removed a pin from her hair. “One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress,” Her breath caught as he twirled a lock of her hair. “Or softly lightens o’er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.” His hand crept up to caress her cheek, his intent gaze never wavering. “And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,” His lips curved in a sensual smile as he concluded. “But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!” For an eternity, they stared as if peering into each other’s souls. His fingers slid past her cheek and threaded once more through her hair, sending the remaining pins scattering into the grass. “Lydia,” he whispered. Then his lips were on hers, warm, silken, teasing. Her limbs melted. Intoxicating heat unfurled low in her body. Lydia reached up to pull him closer, to demand more. Vincent pulled back before she could grasp him. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “And that is your most important lesson in courtship, Lydia. Never allow a man to get you off alone, especially if he desires to recite poetry, and particularly Lord Byron’s verses.” A strangled gasp caught in her throat at his duplicity. It had all been part of the game! “You…you…” He held up a hand. “Now slap me with your fan in retaliation for taking such liberties.” Reeling in outrage, she fumbled in the pockets of her cloak for the ineffectual weapon. Vincent shrugged, undaunted at her ire. “That is why you should keep your fan at the ready.” Seizing the bundle of cloth-covered sticks, she smacked him soundly on the arm, much harder than Miss Hobson had instructed. “You are lucky I did not have my gun,” she hissed. How could he? To

When I was young I was taught well better to give than to receive what to do with life I was told what goals I must achieve but well intentioned goals of others were simply not my own found living my own life no theirs the full cost of which was my home I'm full of clear dichotomy of pleasure and of pain like loving long days of summer just as much as those of rain a thriving centre of attention I'm comfortable alone putting others first comes naturally but my motives are my own I like to taste sweet delicacies of loving and of touch but equally my heart can freeze when it all becomes too much. I'm comfortable with the physical what many would call sin knowing you cannot spread love to others if you can't love the skin you're in. I find myself helping those with troubles in their times of greatest need yet my own pain that I suffer from my own advice I ought heed I do not expect a following beside me in my pain but I'm always pleasantly comforted by those with me in the rain. A hopeless female Shakespeare whose world is getting dark hoping in small ways at least I'm able to leave my mark a successful life is not counted in years for I shall soon be gone but by how many lives I have touched and helped with my humble single one. I'm grateful of the life I've had mixed privilege with suffering maybe I just lived it a little too fast while others rested during buffering what memory of me might last when I step through the final door I'd rather it be how I faced the world always with a mighty roar. And so when the time comes for me to face my final curtain I'll face death with the same energy for life of this you can be certain no subtle soft exit for this dark winged bird I'm no peaceful mindless minion, I'll regale of my sins with the devil himself in eternity of riotous oblivion.

The Provider Several crows were lined up along the ridge of a quite ordinary house. 'These ridge poles are a good idea,' said a young one. 'Who dreamed it up?' 'This place of rest is a fortuitous gift from the moon,' said a raven who was mixing with the hoi polloi today. 'The moon is a relative of the roc, a distant cousin of mine. Believe me,' he said, stretching his wings out to their full advantage and pushing the crows at the end off balance, so several leaped into the wind and cried, 'caw' . . . 'it depends on your original stock. I've got a piece of the roc.' The moon rose spectral and drained, a gossamer imprint of her nighttime self, a reminder of crystal fracture, the load of swinging primitive stones, the ancient hairy arms with slingshots. A sudden explosion and the sky was defined with flapping and cawing. 'What was that?' cried the young one who was addicted to awe. 'Who knows?' replied the raven. 'Often the moon demands a sacrifice. As a close relative, it is now my duty to go and eat the meat. For it is said, nothing is wasted; nothing is without purpose.' And the raven rose and flew toward the hunters.

Then how did he come to learn that I was back in town?” Buster said. “It’s a small town, Buster,” Mrs. Fang answered. “When you got here, you had a grotesquely swollen face. It attracted attention.” When they first arrived back home, Buster, still adjusting to the high dosage of the medication he had given himself, woke in the van and demanded that they stop for fried chicken. “Buster, I don’t think solid food is a great idea yet,” his mother had told him, but Buster had leaned into the front of the van and reached for the steering wheel, saying, over and over in a strange monotone, “Fer-ide chick-hen.” The Fangs pulled into a Kentucky Fried Chicken ten minutes later and walked inside the restaurant. Buster swayed unsteadily as his parents directed him to a table. “What do you want?” they asked him. “Fer-ide chick-hen,” he said, “all-you-can-eat.” They left the table and returned a few minutes later with a breast, wing, thigh, and leg, a mound of gravy-soaked mashed potatoes, and a biscuit. Everyone in a five-table radius was staring at the Fangs by this point. Buster, oblivious, unpacked some bloodstained gauze from his mouth, picked up the chicken leg, extra crispy, and took a ravenous bite. He felt something come loose inside his mouth, his muscles stretched beyond comfort after so much time in atrophy, and he began to moan, a funeral dirge, dropping the leg back onto the tray. The barely chewed scrap of chicken fell from his mouth, stained a foamy red with Buster’s blood. “Okay,” Mr. Fang said, sweeping the tray off of the table, dumping it into the trash. “This little experiment is over. Let’s go home.” Buster tried to pack the gauze back into his mouth, but his mother and father were already carrying him into the parking lot. “I’m a monster,” Buster bellowed, and his parents did nothing to dissuade him of this belief. “Well, I’m not going to do it,” Buster said. “I think you should,” Annie said. Mr. and Mrs. Fang agreed. Buster did not want to talk about writing. It had been years since his last novel had been published, a spectacular failure at that.

The language, in fact, was Danish. After a moment, Nilsson recognized the lyrics, Jacobsen’s Songs of Gurre, and Schönberg’s melodies for them. The call of King Valdemar’s men, raised from their coffins to follow him on the spectral ride that he was condemned to lead, snarled forth. “Be greeted, King, here by Gurre Lake! Across the island our hunt we take, From stringless bow let the arrow fly That we have aimed with a sightless eye. We chase and strike at the shadow hart, And dew like blood from the wound will start. Night raven swinging And darkly winging, And leafage foaming where hoofs are ringing, So shall we hunt ev’ry night, they say, Until that hunt on the Judgment Day. Holla, horse, and holla, hound, Stop awhile upon this ground! Here’s the castle which erstwhile was. Feed your horses on thistledown; Man may eat of his own renown.” She started to go on with the next stanza, Valdemar’s cry to his lost darling; but she faltered and went directly to his men’s words as dawn breaks over them. “The cock lifts up his head to crow, Has the day within him, And morning dew is running red With rust, from off our swords. Past is the moment! Graves are calling with open mouths, And earth sucks down ev’ry light-shy horror. Sink ye, sink ye! Strong and radiant, life comes forth With deeds and hammering pulses. And we are death folk, Sorrow and death folk, Anguish and death folk. To graves! To graves! To dream-bewildered sleep— Oh, could we but rest peaceful!

All at once, a beam of light tinged the raven's wings blue as summer skies. Rainbows poured from the tunnel in all directions. It was an entrance to another world

Troy exchanged a brief look with the Ravens' assistant coach, Brian Quinn, who stood quietly in the background. Quinn had been the assistant coach last season too, but seemed perfectly happy to have Troy here to take over his shipwreck of a team or maybe, in keeping with the theme, it was less a shipwreck and more a bird with a broken wing and a missing eye that was probably dead.

The raven settled back. “Dog is Cordi.” “Said that.” Percy took flight from Kate’s shoulder and landed next to the raven. “First.” Copernicus swatted the parrot with a wing. Percy ducked his head, feathers fluffing, and twisted, bumping the other bird with his rear. David intervened before a bird brawl broke out in earnest. “Enough, you two.

he said this turning his strong body to face the beautiful, stunning, breathtaking, astonishing, bewildering girl who was a princess and his one true love, Eodwyn. she had hair like raven wings and skin like snow that the dogs haven’t peed on yet and cheeks like cherry blossoms and eyes like a magnificent summer sky.

If the ravens leave the Tower, Britain will fall.

Without a doubt, she had to be the most beautiful woman to ever cross his path. Her hair fell dark as a raven’s wing, the ink-black color of the night sky. She rode upon a chestnut gelding and wore red.

Aedion, facing her in a fine tunic of deep green, was the first to notice. He let out a low whistle. “Well, if you didn’t already scare the living shit out of me, you’ve certainly done it now.” Rowan turned to her. He went completely and utterly still as he took in the dress. The black velvet hugged every curve and hollow before pooling at her feet, revealing each too-shallow breath as Rowan’s eyes grazed over her body. Down, then up—to the hair she’d swept back with golden bat-wing-shaped combs that rose above either side of her head like a primal headdress; to the face she’d kept mostly clean, save for a sweep of kohl along her upper eyelid and the deep red lips she’d painstakingly colored. With the burning weight of Rowan’s attention upon her, she turned to show them the back—the roaring golden dragon clawing up her body. She looked over her shoulder in time to see Rowan’s eyes again slide south, and linger. Slowly, his gaze lifted to hers. And she could have sworn that hunger—ravenous hunger—flickered there.