“Twilight fell: The sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars.” ---- At first it seems like a strange thing to look up and see a dot of black on the horizon just as the sky turns from blue to dusky pinks and golds. A quick look might suggest a bat and on further thought perhaps it seems another strange animal bred from broken god-magic that might bring with it another disaster. But that speck of black keeps drawing closer and soon it's not a bat at all but a raven that breaks through the clouds and land on a half-rotten log that was washed up from the floods. And as soon as it lands three other specks of black break through the horizon. Each one picks another location and each carries, on it's leg, a golden scroll. A closer look might reveal that this particular scroll on this particular raven looks almost water-washed. In the dusky light it's almost more rose-gold and copper toned than the gold of signos. It's no less lovely for the faded look of this scroll, it's almost prettier for the strange paleness of it. Fitting for the court who is half here, half in another court. At once all the ravens pick loose their knots and the scrolls flutter like golden leaves to the ground. Once free of their burden all the ravens take wing and fly away, out past the clouds until the coming dark hues of the night swallow up their inky feathers. How silly it seems now to think that they looked a little like bats. Each of the scrolls catch on a breeze, unroll and the words shine and glow like embers of a dead fire. When the sun fades in the sky When the spring ticks away like the final hour And the moon burns not like winter but silver sunlight Then the path will be revealed in fairy light And stone and gold will guide your way Come to me at the start of summer. There is no signature on the letter. But maybe, just maybe, the blot of ink at the bottom looks a little like a crescent moon. |