52 Crows - Flash Fiction

Ellie was a crow goddess, descended from the crow-people of the western mountains. She kept the wits and wiles of the bird in her heart, and when she slept she always flew in her dreams.

With every new crow goddess the birds flew a little further east. A little closer to the sunrise, the brightness of the morning. A little further away from the safe darkness of the mountains, the lands where nobody roamed and the crows wheeled freely in the gloaming.

Ellie liked the light, held her stick forth and watched the sunshine flood it with gold. She knew instinctively that the future of her kind lay further east, and she encouraged the birds to stay close. They gathered before her, clacking hellos and tapping their beaks respectfully into the sandy soil. The light glossed their feathers inky blue, and Ellie smiled at them all.

The danger of being seen increased every day, so the crows pressed close and hid her skinned parts with their black feathers, tight in trees and copses. She smelled the people, the tall unfeathered, and gazed in wonder at their naked skin, their soft flowing robes of white.

Then the day came, when she found one close enough to touch, an unfeathered boy who gazed at her in wonder with his blue star eyes. They fell in love and their destinies mingled, settling where west meets east in a land of darkness and light. The years passed, as years do, and Ellie gave birth at last to a beautiful girl; a girl with blue star eyes but also flowing ink-black hair. She was the next crow goddess, and Ellie wrapped her tightly in feathers and taught her to fly.