Good Morning Magpie, Part 1: The Dove and the Magpie, 1

Part 1: The Dove and the Magpie

1.
The wind blew fierce, a torrent in the night, as the magpie was tossed about through the clouds. His chest burned, his wings ached, and he had been flying away for longer than he could remember. No rest, no slowing, only purpose.
Though he had tried to flee from the darkness that poured from the seam, he could no longer bring his wings to carry him. He fell through the storm, hearing the ghosts of his life whisper in his ear.
You should have stayed.
You were not worthy.
You are a traitor.
These sounds careened through his skull as he fell through the trees, bouncing between branches. He heard several cracks and felt a horrible pain in his wings, and he cried out into the night.
Finally the ground spiraled upwards, eager to introduce him to his death.

2.
But death didn't come to him. It was pain. He'd hit the ground with a heavy thud, and lay there mumbling to himself as he tried to recount how he got there. He drifted in and out of consciousness as the sun dawned on the world, and myriad small creatures fled to the East. He couldn't see the darkness from which they were running, but he could feel it. All creatures could, somewhere in their souls.
He felt great fear and great sadness as he saw the sky turning gray. He watched the color drain from the trees and the underbrush, heard the sounds of the few creatures unwilling or incapable of leaving die down into silence.
He tried to move, but his body racked with pain, and he stopped. He examined his outstretched wings, and looked away immediately. He shuddered.
The magpie closed his eyes to keep from crying, and let himself pass into a state of sleep, though he wasn't able to rest. Images of his life flashed before his eyes, and soon he was incapable of keeping the tears at bay.

3.
Just as delirium came to him, he felt a tug. Soon his whole body ached, and he was overwhelmed with vertigo. It's the world collapsing, he thought. Soon he'd be dead, and the pain of his broken wings would be relieved.
But soon never came, and his discomfort grew immensely as the movement became more vigorous.
“Leave me be!” he called into the sky. “Don't tempt me with relief, then pull it away!”
“Shut up, you baby,” came a voice that stopped the magpie's heart. He labored his eyes to see.
A dove of purest white had hold of his wing, pulling him Eastward.
When the shock of it passed, he kicked his leg into her side, and her grip lessened. He pulled away.
She turned on him. “Do you want to die?”
“I had grown accustomed to the idea,” he said. When he tried to ruffle his wings, he fell to the ground, crippled in pain. “Just leave me be. You can't mend my wings anymore than you can carry me away from the darkness. Go and save yourself, noble dove, and forget my eyes.”
As though his words had fallen on deaf ears, she grabbed hold of his wing once more and started back to pulling him. Finally, the magpie pecked at her neck.
“You're wasting your energy, dove! I am short for the world, and you will be too if you don't flee with the rest of animalkind!”
“Shut your blasted beak and help me carry you or we will both die, because I am not leaving you here!”
He gave a loud sigh as she continued to pull his dead weight. “What displaced sense of honor drives you to this deed? You're only making my hurt all the worse, and for what little life you may be sparing me I shall die all the more pained for my broken wings!”
She dropped him and turned viciously. “Shall I fashion a splint for your wings, so you may not burden me with your aches? Or should I simply tie you a noose?”
“Lady, I mean you no offense of this, and I appreciate your intentions, but you haven't the slightest clue how cruel you're being. I do not wish for death any more than you, but I have accepted my fate for what it is. Please, little one, you're running out of time.”
“Even if the sky itself crumbled to the ground, I would not turn my back to your need. So you can either stay an ass and kill us both, or get off your bloody rump and help me.”
The magpie eyed her for a few moments and sighed. He pushed himself to his feet and gingerly slid his wing beneath hers.

4.
The day wore on between exhausted arguments and long periods of silence. The magpie was in pain, asking every dozen feet to be left along, but the dove refused to grant his wish. But finally she grew tired herself, and they agreed to sit and rest for a short time.
The magpie cleaned his feathers as he watched the dove gather bits of twig with her beak and arrange them in a pyramid, a pile of fluffy detritus beneath it. She disappeared for a little while, and before he could think she'd left him for good, she returned with a thin slab of rock, which she set next to the makeshift tower. She began to strike it with her beak.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Sparks flew off the stone and into the twigs, and almost immediately they burst into flames.
“It's cold,” she said. “Colder by the second.”
The dove nestled herself to the fire and set her eyes on the magpie.
He looked away awkwardly.
“You seem awfully resourceful for a bird of peace.”
She blinked, but said nothing.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked.
At this, the dove broke her gaze and looked away. She said, “No. But I saw it happen. I was flying.”
“Oh,” said the magpie. “Oh I see. What happened?”
She took a deep breath. “I'd been traveling with a flock of gulls from the South, we'd just come over land when we heard what could only have been a thunderclap. A bright flash burned our eyes and the very air we breathed seemed to alight in flames. It looked to me as though the horizon had cracked, and a great blackness was seeping out from it, sapping the life around it of its color. We fell, like all creatures of the sky did, but we were high enough to regain our lift before we hit the ground. Is that what happened to you, magpie?”
He looked away. “No such luck, I fear. A cougar had just taken me into its den, played with me as it would a mouse, and broken my wings. When it heard the crack you describe as thunder, it grabbed its cubs and ran. I only barely managed to pull myself out from that hole before it was trampled closed. Of course, I'd be better off had I stayed below. Almost assuredly I'd be dead by now. It's ironic really, that the world should be coming to an end and all I want is to die, and the only thing keeping the world from granting me my wish is a dove with a sympathy complex.”
His jabs had no effect, and she made no reply. He coughed.
“So, the gulls then? What happened to them?”
“The creatures that came from the shadows took them.”
The magpie turned his head to one side. “Creatures? I saw no such creatures.”
“Had I left you with your suicidal delusions, you'd have dined with with them not moments after we met. You're lucky to be alive.”
“Lucky? Have you ever known a bird to break its wings and fly again? I'm not a bloody ape, I can't just set them back into place and wait a week for nature to work its course! The only thing this body can do well enough to brag about is fly, and I've no chance of ever doing that again. If this magpie be lucky, I should wish my enemies were half as fortuitous.”
“The Gods have granted you life. You should be appreciative that they only took your wings.”
He stared at her for a few moments. “No. No, no, no!” he cried desperately, “A religious dove! It could have been a masochistic wolf or a lunatic koala, but no, the one creature in all of creation to feel charitable towards this dying bird is a theologian! My dove, I wish you'd revealed this to me sooner, I would have just slit my throat from the start!”
“I take it you are no lover of religion.”
“I am not, at that.”
“That's your prerogative, then. It's none of my business whether you're eternally devoured by the great Worm-Sloth in your afterlife, so long as it doesn't happen because of me.” She paused, then said, “We've rested long enough, we need to keep moving.”
The magpie sighed. “I apologize for being so rash, I simply have a long history with those who drink from the pond of Asthuria. You seem to be an understanding bigot at least, which makes you tolerable. And that reminds me, have you a name?”
“None that you have any business knowing. But you may call me Swan.”
As she patted out the fire, he looked at her with a crooked grin. “If that's the game we're playing, then my name is Crow Raven Hawk of the Eagle family, thrice descended of the Vulture clan and second cousin twice removed of-”
Swan thwapped him across the head with her wing, and he stopped.
“Come along, Crow,” she said with a wry smile. “We must be on our way if you're ever to return to your palace.”
“A sense of humor!” he said. “That's encouraging.”

5.
The second time they stopped, it had begun to rain. They were only losing ground to the darkness, and Swan only agreed to stop when Crow had pointed out she was barely breathing. She hadn't bothered with a fire, they merely sat in the rain and tried to recoup some of their strength.
“So,” Crow said, “you said the gulls were... eaten, was it? How did you escape that?”
“With great difficulty,” she said.
“And the creatures you say came from the darkness. What manner of creatures are they? And why haven't we seen them?”
There came a guttural roar from behind them, and the two instinctively jumped into the air. Though Swan flew up several feet, Crow simply fell on his face. The dove cam back down and grabbed him once more by the wing and started dragging him away from the noise.
Then there were a series of heavy footfalls approaching them, faster and faster, and Crow kept looking behind his back to see what it was, but saw nothing.
“What could make that sound?!” he yelled.
“Keep moving!” shouted the dove.
As they passed between the leaves of grass, they heard other noises too. Howls, shouts, cries, a demonic chorus that was moving at an unnatural speed. They came upon a ridged hill and hid behind it, and the thing that had been chasing them passed by. It pounded off Eastward, and other things followed in its wake. Crow could make out shadows, but nothing more.
He whispered, “Swan, you were in the air, did you see what these things are?”
She said nothing, and put her wing against his beak, giving him a stern look. He stayed quiet.
The angry ruckus continued past them, and it became readily apparent to the birds that there was a veritable army of these creatures.
When the stampede of creatures seemed to pass, they were left with an awful silence. After a few moments, they lifted themselves up and pushed forward once more.
But when they pushed past a bush of crab grass, they stopped in their tracks.
There lay on the ground a rabbit, blood trailing from its mouth, paw twitching. It had been trampled in the initial rush to escape from the darkness, and now five gulls were picking at its entrails. But the gulls were not normal. They were jet black, and no light reflected from their wings. One of them gnawed at an exposed rib, and its beak cracked and fell apart. Instead of stopping, it simply used the remaining shell to scoop up gore, tilting back its head to let it slide down its throat.
One gull moved toward the rabbits head and plucked out one of its eyes. It held the gelatinous sphere in its mouth for a few moments, staring directly at Swan and Crow.
“Does it see us?” Crow whispered.
The gull bit down, and the eye popped. Bits of it flew everywhere, and the gull hopped over the corpse towards them.
It opened its beak and made a call, and trails of black slime sprayed outwards from its mouth. It spread its wings, the same blackness spreading from its side. And then it broke into a run at the two birds, and Swan was locked where she stood. Crow looked between the two of them and pushed her out of the way, letting the gull run past them. It stopped and turned.
“What's wrong with you, dove? We have to move!”
The gull turned towards Swan and walked towards her, and she tried numbly to back away from the creature, but she was frozen with terror.
Just as the gull was about to peck her gut, the magpie took hold of a stick and struck it across the head, which flew from its shoulders and bounced once off the ground, then collapsed into a pile of black mess. Its body fell over, and did the same thing.
Swan lay wide-eyed on the ground, and Crow dropped the stick.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“Whatever these creatures are, their bodies are astonishingly frail.”
She stood up and stared, quivering, at the black mass on the ground, and the four remaining gulls feasting absentmindedly on the rabbit.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“They were with me,” she said, “when we fell. They were of the gulls I traveled with.”
Crow looked at the small, ravenous flock. “But these things aren't natural.”
“It's the darkness,” she said. “The stuff pouring from the seam. It covered them, and now they're...” She trailed off.
“Wrong,” he said.”
She nodded.
Without another word, he slipped his wing over hers, and they continued around the gulls. But they had little hope that they would encounter anything they wanted to see.

6.
Night had fallen once more, and though the rain had stopped, everything was covered in mud. They had encountered no more creatures, and labored greatly to keep it that way.
“You wait here,” Swan said as she wandered away. She returned again with dry sticks and another piece of flint.
“You have quite the nose,” he remarked.
As she made to start the fire, he held out his wing. “I don't feel right letting you do all the work.”
He struck the flint with his beak, but caused no spark. Instead, he shattered the piece of rock in two and got his face stuck in the ground. Swan pulled him out, laughing. Indignantly, he left her to her work, and laid back and stared at the sky. Black clouds, no stars. He sighed and sat back up.
“None of this water tastes well. I'll be a very happy magpie when we've reached the East and can drink from the clean pools there.”
Swan said nothing, continuing to stare at the fire.
He coughed. “So, what shall we do about the creatures then? We can't go Westward lest we become like them, and I fear to so much as touch one of them for all the gross coming off them.”
Silence.
“Haven't you a plan?” he asked.
She looked at him, and he saw that she was crying. “Any plans I may have had were destroyed the moment we saw those gulls.”
“So they were dead! Or undead. Either way they weren't the companions you had before. Isn't it Asthurian doctrine to live in the moment?”
“If you had gone through what I have,” she said, “you would not say such a thing.”
He watched her as she gazed into the fire.
“What have you gone through?” he ventured.
She looked at him, but did not answer.
They sat in silence again, and the magpie nodded off. Swan watched him with a mix of emotions, then returned her gaze to the fire.
Crow awoke with a start, giving a short scream before falling onto his side. The dove gave him a worried look.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
He looked around quickly, then settled his eyes on the ground and sighed. “I haven't had an easy night of sleep in a very long time.”
“What is it that haunts you?” she asked.
“What is it that keeps you silent?” he returned. “We all have our demons, Swan.”
She closed her eyes.
“I have traveled between both poles, and have made many friends along the way. I have seen all of them die, be it from age, predators, or carelessness. I had promised to make no more friends, and though I shared no names with gulls I had certainly grown enamored with them. And they too were killed.” She paused, then said in a whisper, “The Gods are cruel.”
Crow asked, “Then why do you abide by them?”
“Because despite all the horrors I've seen,” she said, “I am still alive.”
“And admirable stance,” he said. He made no effort to comfort her. He knew there was no comfort he could provide.
“I come from a storied family,” Crow said, “and I left them behind. My guilt is what haunts me.”
The fire was dying down, and Crow picked up some sticks with his beak.
“Would it comfort you to sleep by my side?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you making an advance on me?”
“If you're going to act like a child, fine. Consider my offer rescinded.”
He looked away. “I apologize. My father was too smart for his own good, and I fear that same wit was bestowed on me. I haven't the nose for serious situations.”
“If it's wit you wish to call what you have, I should hate to meet someone half so funny as you.”
They remained silent for a time before Crow spoke quietly, “May I lay next to you?”
After a few moments of consideration, she nodded. He walked to her side of the fire and settled next to her.
“The world is coming to an end,” he said.
“So it would seem,” Swan replied.
He closed his eyes. The dove watched him as he fell into sleep. His form slumped a bit, and then he began to shudder. Swan settled closer to him and put a wing around his shoulder to pull him close.
He rested his head on her neck and whimpered, “Emma. Emma.”
Swan replied in a soft voice, “Sleep, magpie. Cast your fears to the wind and dream peaceful. Leave your hurt with me.”
His shuddering soon ceased, and he fell silent.
The dove closed her eyes, and began to dream.

7.
The next morning, Crow awoke alone in the clearing. He gazed bleary-eyed from the scorch marks on the ground to the trails between blades of grass.
“Swan?” he called out. “Are you here?”
There came no reply.
“Swan?” he said in a meek tone.
He sighed. “I've been abandoned once more.”
“Oy!” Swan shouted. Crow started.
“What's your damned problem!” he shouted. “Aren't I in enough pain?”
She came ambling out of the thicket dragging behind her a contraption of sticks and grasses spun into ropes.
“Not yet you aren't,” she said with a grin.
“What on earth is that?”
She set it on the ground and walked towards him. “I had a revelation. As we are, we're losing more ground than we're making. You can't fly with your wings akimbo, and I can't carry you.”
“So?”
“So, we need to fly but we can't one do what the other can't. But if we worked together?”
He looked at the contraption, then back at the dove. “And what does that have to do with this?”
She smiled. “It's a harness. With my wings doing most of the work, yours won't have to work so hard to keep us aloft. I think if you but keep them stretched-”
“I am awestruck,” Crow interrupted.
“I'm sorry?” she said. “Does that mean you're impressed?”
“It certainly does,” he said. “You've done such a good job of seeming intelligent, I am simply shocked that your lunacy hasn't shown its colors sooner. Have you not seen my wings? I cringe but to move them, let alone keep them outstretched. And that's when we aren't in the sky! I would be just as well off trying to fly by myself!”
She took a harsh tone. “Is that your threshold, then? You're only willing to live if you don't have to hurt doing it?”
“I've already hurt enough, Swan.”
She eyed him for a moment, then walked up on him and pushed him. “What do you have against the world that you're so afraid to live in it? You haven't even tried to fly since I found you!”
“I jumped when the creatures moved past us!”
“But have you tried since? You're so convinced of your doom that you would not even argue against it for fear of being wrong! What harm is there in hope?!”
Crow glared at her and stepped forward. He said, “Hope?”
He opened his wings, cringing, and spread them to their fullest length. The dove stepped back.
Feathers jutted out from them at every angle, blood matted them together, and in several places bone jutted out from the skin.
“Have I any hope to fly again? Or should I simply close my eyes and pretend that nature is more a mother than she is a bitch, that she will grant me flight instead of gangrene?”
He closed his wings with a relieved exhale and said, “I am hopeless, Swan, because there is no force in this world or any other that could fix me.”
Rain started to fall once more, and the dove shouted, “What good does that serve?!”
“To be realistic?”
“To be fatalistic! You've broken your wings, so you are as good as dead? The Gods have-”
“Don't you dare speak to me of the Gods!” he yelled back.
“And don't you dismiss them so quickly! What have they ever done to deserve your scorn?”
He scowled. “What have they ever done, what action have they committed, what great good have they set upon the Earth that makes the Gods so deserving of adoration? Has there been any moment in your life when you were not in pain? Yet you cry out to them, as though they would ever step from their gilded thrones in the deep halls of Asthuria to mend the broken heart of a lowly dove, or the wings of a poor suicidal magpie! And in case you haven't noticed, the very personification of evil is eking out of a seam in the world! If the Gods had any bloody sense at all, they would be fleeing Eastward with the rest of their congregation. We've been abandoned, Swan! The only difference is, I'm willing to admit it.”
He turned his back to her and started to amble in the direction of the seam.
“What are you doing?” she called out.
“I refuse to wait for death a moment longer!” he shouted. “I'm marching into it with every ounce of what little strength I have left.” He looked over his shoulder. “Does that satisfy your silly little convictions? If nothing else, at least I am taking an active role in my demise.”
Swan grabbed her harness and caught up with Crow, keeping apace with him.
“I'm sorry you feel the way you do,” she said, “but if nothing else, can you think of me?”
He turned to her. “Of you? I would cast you into the seam itself if it meant I could follow!”
“Then... what about Emma?”
Crow stopped in his tracks and looked at her. She saw great fear in his eyes.
“How do you know of her?”
“Whoever she is, is this how she would want you to spend your last days? Would you rather her see you as a coward?”
“If you have any sense of self-preservation,” he stated, “you'll stop with this immediately.”
“And what if I don't, magpie? What will you do to me with your broken wings? Peck me until I bleed out?” She opened her wings and lifted herself several feet into the air. “Come and get me, Crow!”
He stared for a moment, then turned and continued West. Swan landed and caught up with him.
“I'm just trying to make a point.”
“You've made it,” he said. “You have made that point into a sword of absolute clarity. I am exactly as worthless and as helpless as I have led myself to believe. Congratulations, you've transformed my miniscule fears into unfettered certainty. Now, please, leave me my last shred of dignity and pretend we never met.”
“Crow...”
“It has been an interesting diversion, little dove, but I've grown tired of it, as I have of you.”
“I understand you hating me, Crow, but-”
“Hate you?” Crow turned and looked at her with tears in his eyes. “That's the work of insurmountable wit, Swan. If you think I am capable of hating any creature other than myself, you haven't the slightest understanding of my character.”
“Crow, I'm just trying to help you stay alive!”
He screamed, “How many different ways must I express it, little dove? I don't want to stay alive!”
He marched away from her as the rain grew heavier, but she continued to chase after him.
“But I want you to!” she called.
“You don't even know me!”
She grabbed him and forced him to stop.
“I know you're in a lot of pain, and the lion's share of it isn't from your wings. I know that for all your tripe about not caring, you saved me from that gull and have kept me in good company for the short time we've been together. You're the only friend I have in the entire world, and you've set yourself on the edge of oblivion just to spite me!”
He stuttered. “It... it isn't spite for you-”
“It may as well be! Every step you take Westward is one I will take as well, and even if you drown yourself in that darkness, I won't hesitate to follow you down! No words, no wit, no amount of anger can shake me of my conviction. Our fates are tied, whether you like it or not.”
He watched her, doing his best to shield his eyes from the rain and wind.
“And to be honest, I don't want to die,” she said.
Crow looked towards the East and sighed. He looked at Swan.
“Fine. We'll try your damned harness.”

8.
After sorting out the tangled mess, she slipped part of it over her head and stepped into two loops, one for either leg, and pulled them taut. The slack went into the underbelly of the harness, which Crow slipped inside of as tenderly as possible. They immediately admitted that it was an awkward setup.
Swan flapped her wings, and they lifted off a few inches from the ground. Then they fell, and Swan exhaled heavily.
“By the Gods, you're heavy,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “Perhaps if we got a running start?”
She nodded and prepared herself for take two. She took off into a run, Crow keeping his legs in time with hers as best he could, and when she spread her wings the two lifted off.
She called out to Crow, “Spread your wings!”
With a sigh he did so, and immediately they picked up lift. Swan flapped her wings and the two glided upwards, and Crow laughed.
“I can't believe it!” he shouted.
“I didn't think it was going to work either!” she yelled.
He didn't understand what she'd said through the rain. “What?”
“Nothing!”
As they flew higher, Crow surveyed the extent of the damage to the world. For miles the world seemed bleached of its color. Only at the edge of the Eastern horizon was there even a hint of color and sun. Before they turned their course in that direction, Crow looked back to the West.
There appeared to be a wall of black expanding out from the seam on the horizon. It bled off onto everything it touched, and grew slowly across the land.
“My Gods,” he said without thinking.
And then they turned East, and he shook his head. Though his wings ached and there were pins and needles at the slightest bump in the air, he was not in as much pain as he had expected. Perhaps this won't be so bad after all, he thought.