My itinerary last night: Respond to the Ravens’ call and go to the Boneyard. Go see a Svartalf about some politics. Go check on some folk in the Nine Realms and avoid an obvious trap. Then end the night in the Nagalands because I think I’ve had more than my fill of drama, and I do need to practice being calm.
I’m sure there is a homily about well made plans and how they go awry.
Entering the Boneyard, I emerged winged and shrouded. The scars on my shoulders have been extended down my upper arms. I have given up on the idea that they are rank and accepted they are the marks of Raven ownership upon me. I push my mask off my face and note my skin itches as if painted. I pull the mask off completely and take a look at it. The features are almost completely faded away. Only the original marks remain and even then they are only viewable because I know where they are. To anyone else, the mask is matte and featureless.
My face still itches. My fingers map out the locations and I realize some of the mask’s missing marks are now present directly on my face. I smile at noting which were translated and which have gone.
Ah, well. There’s work to be done. I attend to Boneyard duties without incident, much to my surprise. Surely, there will be some fallout for my little stunt in splitting the sky. Right? Bones sorted. Fires set. Time for some quiet in the corner before leaving to see about other troubles.
I turn around to see Ravenwoman sitting on one of the piles. I can tell she’s smirking with schadenfreude despite the full mask. Before I can challenge her, two ravens descend on my shoulders with enough force to bring me to my knees. More ravens arrive, tearing at the scars on my shoulders and arms, opening old wounds and adding more between shoulder and elbow. But the attack doesn’t feel punitive. They work precisely and with little noise.
Ravenwoman’s smirk changes into a frown. This was not the entertainment she was expecting.
I had dropped the angle of my wings to allow them access to the back of my shoulders. While the ripping was painful, it wasn’t excessively so, and I was able to bear the discomfort with ease. The marks on my arms were superficial and filled with ash to make them scar later. The attack on my shoulders was more specific. They worked to reach the shoulder joint and only pulled away enough flesh to make it visible and exposed to the air.
I allowed my arms to hang limp and looked at the anatomy lesson with curiosity. They finished and held the wound open. The ball of the joint looked damaged. It was black and pockmarked from a multitude of tiny burns. I was surprised to see charcoal there.
I heard a beak clap over me. I look up to see one of the larger Ravens. It looked into the shoulder joints and cawwed dismissively.
“I’m not sure when this happened, to be honest. The only thing I can think of is when Quetzalcoatl poured my melted heart back into me. I haven’t placed my arms under stress since then.”
The Raven cocked its head with an “Oh, really.” expression. It hopped to one of the pyres and took a beakfull of flame. It hopped back to me and dripped the flame and ashes into the joints. The pain increased but I just closed my eyes and bore it. After the heat passed, I looked into the shoulder joints again. The pockmarks had been filled and the bones glowed as if cinders but were whole.
The Raven backed away and the smaller ravens holding the wound open released their grip. They all took turns pinching the wounds together with their talons, encouraging the flesh to reseal itself. My shoulders healed in minutes, but kept the ashes under the skin in a macabre tattoo.
The medical care completed, the ravens all flew away. I was left kneeling on the ashen ground of the Boneyard with only Ravenwoman for company.
“That’s it? That’s it! After the shit you pulled, that’s all that happens?”
“What shit?” I didn’t get up from the ground. My shoulders had begun that dull aching that comes after surgery.
She gestured wildly in a small tantrum. “You dare to ask me about what! Everyone knows what you did, Sky-Splitter! Who gave you right to take others with you into your madness!”
“I didn’t take others with me. I told them plain what I meant to do, and asked for volunteers to come with. Not all of them came with me. Those that did were able to leave at any time. Not a single one of us were forced to remain.”
“The affairs of the living is not our concern!”
“Is not your concern. I’m still alive. I’ll wager that those that came with me are also still alive. And each of us have folk that are being affected by the Grey Sky. I’ll wager that being torn to pieces by those things is among the most gentle of handling they have experienced, and that the discomfort of being regenerated in Boneyard fires is nothing compared to what our kin is having to deal with because of that barrier.”
“We deal with the dead! And that’s it!”
“Then why do you deal with me? I am physically living, after all.”
She stood from the pile of bones but I remained kneeling.
“You are promised my skull, Ravenwoman. And that’s all. I’m sure you want a feast served to you. Rich in experiences and emotions. I’m sure you would not be satisfied with a skull of a person that died long before their body did.”
I finally stood up. “We living Boneburners are tied to the Boneyard and the Ravens for as long as we are alive. We have duties here. Yes. But we also have duties to the world we live in. My actions were rash, short-planned, ignorant of possible failure states, and over all a terrible idea. Yes. But I could not just stand by and do nothing, when there was something I could do.” I hung my mask on the side of my head. “Don’t think I didn’t consider what could have happened to me if I failed, Ravenwoman. I have not forgotten the years when I was multiple people in one skull. Nor have I forgotten what it cost me to unify myself.”
I turned away from her. I heard her moving swiftly towards me. A constable of ravens swooped down from the surrounding mounds. I had not seen them there. They poured over and around me in fluid flight and accosted Ravenwoman directly. With loud caws and vicious bites, they forced her out of the boundaries of my little corner of the Boneyard. I watched them chase her away in surprise.
So I did not see the Raven Lord in front of me until I bumped into it.
I bowed my head in apology but stood up square to face its gaze. It looked over my shoulders and upper-arms. It looked over the faded mask and the fresh paint on my face. It grunted and flew off, with all the conspiracy of ravens behind it.
I didn’t realize I held my breath until I let it out in relief.
A bone was out of place on one of my pyres. I reached into the fire to place it back in the pattern I had made. The fire itself grabbed me and pulled me into the pyre, snuffing out my awareness entirely.
Needless to say, the rest of my itinerary did not happen.