Blodwen Rowlands

"Then go bugger off, no one's stoppin' you." Ace snipes back brightly. "Go sit at y'table an' smile an' smirk an' give a good scare t'the kiddies."

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"No," she says, as a cruel smile spreads across her features -- twisting almost like a snarl.

"Another idea it is entirely, that I have -- and you will help me with it, I do believe."

The White Rider cups one hand around the glass globe, as bloodstained smoke begins to boil wildly within it, and says sweetly,

"So fond it is that you are of the pretty bird -- your family, you have even called him. Family let it be, in truth."

She throws her other hand out, pointing at Ace with all five fingers spread, and the sudden flash of pink radiance is almost fire-bright.

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Instinctively Ace backs away as she would from any blast, putting distance between her and the explosion, but she'd forgotten about the football. Abruptly she loses her footing as she steps on it instead of the solid ground and goes over backward in a flurry of feathers.

...

Suddenly everything is too big, with even the football suddenly appearing monstrous. The landscape seems oddly flat, and there's more of it, spreading away behind her. She opens her mouth to protest, but all that comes out is an indignant rough cawing.

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Her laughter is bright as light flashing from a cold blade, and silvery as ice-covered branches scraping against each other in a wind.

"A pretty pet it is that you will make, now -- why, and I shall even take you back to the palace beyond, where no one will find you. Not even your Raven will dare return there, not after what happened before, goodness no."

She reaches into a pocket, pulling out a twist of smoky-looking wire that expands into an oddly shining net.

"In time enough, you may even learn to sing for my amusement."

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She has no idea what has happened, and Blodwen's voice now resembles rumbling thunder more than an intelligable voice, but suddenly the white giant is coming towards her and she'll be damned if she's going to stay put.

It is then Ace discovers the problem.

This isn't a body borrowed from Raven, with instincts and ability built in. This is her, and she doesn't know how to fly.

Well, damn.

So she hops. Hop, hop, hopping for her life!

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Ace is moving quickly and with increasing confidence in each fluttery hop, but at present she's only a very small bird when all is said and done.

The White Rider takes three quick steps, and with a snap of her wrist, the net falls into place over the jay.

Laughing, Blodwen bends down to scoop her prisoner from the ground.

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Whooooooooooaa! Ace stares balefully at the ground as it treacherously drops away.

Then another thought occurs (they come more slowly now, there's not much room for them in the tiny little bird head).

She's got a big friggin' beak.

With a will, she sets to making as many holes in Blodwen's hands as birdly possible.

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She hisses in pain and wrenches her hands apart, pulling violently at the net--

--which shimmers and transforms into a cage of shining silver wire, with the jay locked securely inside.

Blodwen raises it higher in order to look in, a malicious smile curving her lips.

"Much better."

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"For some, perhaps."
Here we are.
Raven's voice is quiet, sharp, and oddly carrying in the open air.

"Not for her, I do not think."

He smiles, showing a quick flash of teeth.

"And not for me."

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She whirls to face him, the cage swinging in her hand as she does-- and she has no trouble recognizing him even in this form. Not here, not now, not when she wears his blood at her throat.

Ice-blue eyes meet black ones, and she holds his gaze as she smiles in turn-- sweet and dangerous and heartstoppingly bright.

"Pretty bird." The light soft voice is musical and gentle, and not quite mocking. "Not upset, are you now, when I am simply using what you have yourself shown me the way of?"

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In her shining silver cage, Ace clings to a bright bar to keep her balance as the world sways in a sickening manner. Still, the new voice is familiar, and Ace tilts her head to try and get a good look at the speaker.

Wikipedia says this about the Eurasian Jay: '...the jay is well known for its mimicry, often sounding so like a different species that it is virtually impossible to distinguish its true identity unless the jay is seen'. Perhaps that is why, when a sudden trill sounds from Blodwen's neatly crafted cage, it sounds most alarmingly like a mocking little 'Not for me, not for me!' when clearly, birds cannot talk.

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"It is not so recent a thing, perhaps."

His voice is still quiet, black eyes bright and clear.

"But there was a time, I think, that you offered me a choice, yes?"

He takes a step forward.

"It is time, I think, for me to make it."

Time and past time, perhaps.

Perhaps.

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"Choices and consequences, is it to be, cariad?"

She raises her chin defiantly as he moves toward her, and for just a second, the cage in her hand is almost forgotten.

In this strangely still moment there is nothing but the two of them, Raven and Rider, facing each other on grass as green as the palace where they last fought.

Somewhere above them, a wind begins to rise.

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The cage swings, but now it has more to do with Ace ramming into the slender wires over and over, screaming out a harsh alarm call over and over.

The white bitch can't have Raven.

Not for her.

It's not a fair trade.

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Raven is still, coattails fluttering in the rising breeze.

"Choices, yes, and consequences too."
Years like wings.
He takes another step forward, deliberate and steady.
What does the motionless raven remember?
"Possibly freedom, of one kind or another."

Another step.

"It is often so. Now."

He holds out one hand.

"Put her down."

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"Why, and cast her aside?" she says lightly. "Surely it is that you do not mean that -- and even if you did not, still and it is not a good idea with her so upset."

She lifts the cage higher, holding it between them where he can easily see the angry bird within as she chides gently,

"Have a care, dear, such an injury you will do yourself if you struggle so."

Over the silver wire, her bright clear gaze meets Raven's.

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Have a care have a care have a care have a care... She warbles, staring hard at Raven.

Go.

Run.

Fly.

You don't trade a king for a pawn. That's not how the game is played.

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"It is a thing you believe matters?"

Raven's smile is a small thing, and full of pity.

"There is little care to freedom, and still less to cages."

He takes another step, close enough for Blodwen to see the whites of his eyes, stark against the rest of him.

"But perhaps this, too, is a thing you were not made to understand."

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"No, pretty bird," Blodwen says, and the light musical voice is very soft indeed-- and very certain.

"I understand very well indeed, and it is you who does not see it."

He is very close now; only a few feet away at the most. Her hands tighten on the wire as the White Rider tells Raven,

"Freedom you cannot have, without power."

And in the next instant, she slings the silver cage and its occupant aside as she calls down the storm.

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Raven's laugh--Raven's power--rises to meet it, bright and wild and true.
they hear the wind they hear beyond the wind the other sea
"Power itself is a cage, Blodwen Rowlands--a trick, a trap, a joke. I know it very well."

No thread tangles at his fingertips, no charms hang from his sleeve. All that he uses is that laughter, spinning through the thunder and the lightning and the shriek of the wind.
like a closed shell near them, they don't hear
"Freedom is in the choosing, in the changing. And you have said, I think, that it is a thing you cannot do."
anything else, they don't look among the shadows of the cypresses;
Something is building, stirring, springing to life around him--nothing like light, nothing like flame, but something else altogether.
for a lost face, a coin; they don't search,
"But I can."
watching a raven on a dry branch, for what it remembers.
And now he moves, darting forward, heat haze spilling from his hands, from his eyes, from his skin, rushing to meet her through the rising storm.

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When her world goes tilting and spinning out of control, she squawks once in startled panic. Then, for a precious few minutes, she finally learns how to fly.

And then the ground comes rushing up in a bright green blur.

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Heat races over her in a wave and is met by a rush of cold that pours upward in response. Icy chill radiates from her as its heart, bitter and overwhelming as the shrieking darkness of the blizzard closes now around them both.

He is too close to her to evade, and she does not even try. As Raven closes the distance between them, she throws both hands out before her and slams them flat against his chest, sending the power of the Dark rising over him with reflexive force.

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Raven could fight, fire and heat and power flung up against the dark in a wave, a wall, a counterthrust.
It remains motionless just a little above my hours
Raven could flee, grabbing Ace's cage as he goes, safe and away and gone, for now or for good.
like the soul of an eyeless statue.
Instead he raises his hands to Blodwen's wrists, grip firm but gentle, and he lets the Dark in, heat haze twining around it like vines, like ivy.
There is a throng gathered in that bird
His laughter stutters, body choking in one breath.
thousands of people forgotten, wrinkles obliterated
Two.
broken embraces and laughter that has not ended,
Then silence.
works arrested, silent stations.
And a rising tide of power floods out of him, from his hands, from his chest where she touches him, and pours back into her, back over her, Raven's laughter ringing high and clear above it all.
a heavy sleep of golden spangles.

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At most any other time, Ace would be cheering her brother on wildly, no matter what form she's stuck in.

However, she has come to a new and stunning appreciation of how hard the ground really is. Thus, just beyond the focused combatants, a small silvery cage glitters in the failing light. Inside that cage, a miserable pile of tan and iridescent blue feathers is slowly becoming drenched at the bottom.

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