The Crow and the Butterfly Chapter 7

[Warning: This chapter gets kinda intense later on. Also, please open up another tab in your internet and look up "Oh Fortuna" by The Piano Guys on Youtube. It has two race cars on it. The song is the main point of inspiration for this chapter. You won't regret listening, I promise. Anyway, enjoy.]
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When Crow awoke, it was as if nature herself reflected his mood. Sullen clouds stretched across the sky, blocking the light of daybreak and transforming the vibrant colors of the forest into tired shades of gray. There was no breeze of an approaching storm; just the bleak stillness of unchanging, leaden clouds.

Peering up through the roots, he glared at the sky, irritable from exhaustion and soreness. He did not want to move, not while he still craved sleep and the sweet bliss of unawareness. However, it grew brighter still in minute degrees, and he could not ignore it.

Rasping angrily in his throat, he crawled up out from beneath the oak. His body ached, his eyes clouded with tiredness. With a moan, he stretched, bones popping, returning to their proper place, he bent over, his spine cracking in a satisfying way. Somewhat mollified, he straightened and flapped his wings, the long silky pinions gently folding in the air.

After a moment, Crow paused and cast an eye over the tree behind him. If he truly was going to remain here, why skulk beneath the roots? The hard ground was only bypassed by sheer exhaustion, and it did nothing to improve the soreness in his form. He looked again, scrutinizing the thick branches with an experienced eye. Building himself a roost would be an easy task with so many resources surrounding him. He should be comfortable in the place he dwelt, surely?

Comfortable...he grunted, his mood souring once more. He was entirely too comfortable in this place.

He took flight, cutting off his thoughts as he winged toward the stream. He was through with agonizing over this. Let him have a moment of peace---!

He stiffened; a chill running down his spine. His body instinctively knowing before his mind had, Crow perched in a tall aspen, black eyes fixed upon the ground. The woods were quiet, small creatures huddling in their dens, their breath filled with fear.

Something was stalking through the trees, he could sense it. He remained stock still, barely breathing. His tall black ears were sharply pricked, swiveling in all directions, searching for the softest sounds...

...of a quiet rustling to his left.

His eyes raked the forest floor for the source, then he bristled, his teeth slowly showing in a snarl, his wings half opening.

An enormous, grotesquely fat weasel slunk through the ferns with a stealth that bellied his size. Beetle black eyes glittered with a mad hunger as he crept forward, brown fur stretching over his ample belly. A thick, whiskery fringe grew from his snout beneath a red, bulbous nose that twitched in the dry air.

Crow had seen him once before, ages ago upon Mountain's vast hills and cliffs. He had been thinner, then, but still fast and vicious. Crow had kept his distance from his shining teeth, and Weasel had stayed wary of his curling talons. A few brief seconds of eye contact had told both predators that they were matched in lethal purpose.

It would seem now that Mountain's crags were not enough, not when this forest was here, rich in prey. Weasel crept on, unaware of the silent ebony specter above him.

Crow held his silence until Weasel disappeared from view behind several mulberry bushes. He would have to be much more careful now if that menace was once again in his territory. A horrible sensation, inexplicable, but potent, was stealing through his chest, like a shadow upon a sunlit plain. He snorted, flexing his talons in and out of the white-patched wood, seeking to distract himself from this emotion. He didn't fear Weasel, that much was certain. The overgrown rodent wouldn't catch him in any case---

Birds erupted into the air as something charged through the underbrush. Crow leapt up, the feeling in his chest intensifying to an almost painful degree as the tiniest of screams pierced the gray air. He threw himself forward, his wings pumping through the air like pistons. He panted through his mouth, black eyes wide.

A clearing opened before him as he burst through the foliage, revealing the bulk of Weasel snuffling eager over...

Over Butterfly, trapped beneath his paws, her body a deepest black of pain mirrored with the indigo of numb fear, the wide strip of blue in her wings sharply contrasting with her form. One gossamer wing was torn, pierced through with a claw, bleeding droplets of blood.

A fury that he had never known before ripped through him, exploding in him with a force that could not be described by words. The world froze as his vision flickered and was engulfed in a red mist that eclipsed everything but what lay before him. Weasel. He...must...DIE.

He dove downward with a scream of rage that felt as though his very throat had split in two. Weasel whipped around, but was not fast enough to evade him. Crow slammed onto his neck, and began to tear and slash at the thick pelt. His scream continued undiminished as he attacked non-stop at the writhing form below him. Blood flew through the air with black feathers and he beat his wings at Weasel's head, his talons plunging down again and again. His wrath drove him into a frenzy; blood spattering against his arms and face, he ravaged all before him like a crazed beast.

Weasel reared, howling with pain. In a sudden movement, he twisted out of Crow's vicious brutal hold, and sank long white fangs deeply into Crow's chest.

He screamed again, thrashing wildly as fresh blood poured to the ground, the liquid hot as it dribbled down his body. Weasel shook his head, seeking to rip Crow apart, his eyes gleaming sadistically at his new prey's pain.

Agony was replacing rage as his wounds were opened wider. In desperation, he beat his wings harder, scrabbling at Weasel's face with his talons, leaving long gashes across the blood-flecked muzzle, finally deeply scratching on black eye.

Weasel shrieked, dropping Crow with a spasmodic twitch of pain as blood flowed from the ruined eye. Glaring with hatred, he swiped at Crow's bleeding body, sending him flying away and into a nearby briar patch.

He barely felt the impact as his body crashed into the first vine, the branch snapping in two, splinters mixing with the feathers and shining spheres of blood that hung in his vision. There was no sound; no movement. Time seemed to freeze, the world darkening at the corners as he stared at the blood that floated before him. He could see her face reflected in those crimson orbs. The many different sides of her he had seen, that he had pretended to ignore. The colors that rippled across her figurine face...

He almost couldn't feel the hard ground as he slammed into it, the thorns in his back like a feather's touch. Above him, the grayed sky was dappled by the twisted black spines of the briars, those patches of mottled white as distant as the stars of the heavens.

A cold numbness was overtaking him, rivers of red continuing to flow from his chest.

He knew. He knew the inevitable turn his path had taken. And yet, a strange, serene calm eased over him.

So this was his fate, a cruel ironic twist that had remained hidden from him until now? It did not disturb him. It felt right somehow. The fact that he had been destined for this, for something that he initially despised, made his mouth twitch into something that was almost a smile.

He had no regret. It was worth the price that he was paying.

He felt, rather than heard, something small approaching him. Stumbling. Searching.

In a movement that cost him every ounce of strength left in his body, he turned his head to stare into her crystalline eyes. Butterfly stared back, tears falling from her eyes like pieces of liquid diamond. She was trembling, her tattered wing held close to her body. Somehow...her body was different. There were spots of light red and green that remained as they were, the same as that stripe...

He blinked slowly. How had she managed to escape in the midst of all that blood and chaos, to find him here lying beneath this cage of thorns?

She came closer to him, her form a bleak gray of sadness that was deeper than understanding. Despair. Grief. Her eyes held a desperate plea, one tiny, shaking hand out-stretched to touch his blood stained cheek. He could feel the small warmth of her palm pressing against him, the sensation penetrating through his body to his failing heart.

His blackened eyes, that had been eternally hard and cold, grew soft as he gazed at her, at this creature that had changed him so much. He had no regret.

Her face was the final thing he saw as his vision failed and he fell into a never ending darkness.