"Leave." he demanded with his own call driving Matty away.

As they left Corvus examined the fallen crow. He latched onto her bent wing giving it a twist. This elicited a pained squawking noise from her. It hadn't fixed it completely, yet that was the best Corvus could do with his current form. She was still too weak to stand, so Corvus regurgitated some seeds from the food storage pouch he'd discovered he had and feed her beak to beak.

With her unable to move Corvus hunkered down for a long night. The night passed more easily than expected because of the Insomniac ability. Rather than being about depriving him of sleep, the Trait allowed him to store hours of sleep. If he stored too many it would have a negative impact on his routine but by limiting it to one or two days stored he could push himself to stay awake if he needed without suffering any ill affects. Early the next morning his family returned, giving Corvus the opportunity to gather more food and let himself take a short rest. His sleep was troubled, filled with dreams of another life.

"Haaa," Corvus panted with sweat dripping down his face. His legs burning he kept moving them, frantically running down the country lane towards the city. His unconscious mother mounted on his back. Goosebumps ran up his arms as the cool morning air brushed past him as he ran. When the city outskirts appeared he redoubled his efforts pushing himself even harder to reach his destination.

When he reached the gates he blew past the guards, ignoring their shouts to halt and their pursuit. Following the main street he darted down an alley, finally coming to a halt in front of a small house. Slamming his fist on the door he screamed, "Zahid! Zahid! Help!"

'Oh god, what if he isn't in,' Corvus panicked. He hadn't considered that possibility. Zahid was the only person that might possibly be able to help, if he wasn't there it wouldn't matter that he'd made it here. 'Come on, be here.' He pleaded continuing to beat on the wooden door.

*Jangle* *Jangle* *Shiik*

Corvus peered over his shoulder to see five well armoured guards. Two were holding swords pointed at him.

"Now listen here boy, don't make this difficult just come along peacefully." the most grizzled of the five ordered.

Dropping to his knees everything poured out of him as he let out a guttural roar, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Corvus let his mother gently slip from his back as he used his hands to help break his fall.

"That'll be enough. Stand down, Captain." a voice requested.

"You!" the captain retorted. "You know him?"

Feeling a gentle touch on his shoulder, he turned his face towards it not daring to let himself hope. His tension evaporated as he took in the visage of Zahid. Being grasped by the man's large hand he was hauled to his feet as Zahid explained, "Indeed, there on the ground is his mother, one of my patients. Now if you would be so kind could you have your men lower their arms and help me get her inside."

Glancing left and right at his men the captain barked, "You heard the man, get to it."

Zahid opened the door guiding Corvus into a room with a single well kept bed. Feeling Zahid let go of him, Corvus turned to follow him out of the room thinking he had been led here to rest. He found a chair being deposited into his hands by Zahid who was wearing a knowing smile. Setting the chair in the corner out of the way he sat down to watch. One of the guards slipped his mother onto the bed.

Wiping the hair from the woman's face Zahid places the back of his hand on her forehead, his mouth curling down as he did. He then moved on placing his fingers in the crookk of her neck, gently applying pressure. "Haa," he sighed as he left his patient walking over to cluttered shelf shifting the bottles there around before bringing down a small clear glass vial filled with a dark red liquid.

Grasping for any information Corvus blurted, "What's that?"

Looking over as he propped open Corvus' mother's mouth Zahid replied, "It's a panacea of sorts."

"Panacea?"

Pouring the solution into the unconscious woman's mouth, forcing her to swallow it Zahid continued explaining, "A true panacea is a cure all, but I have never seen one. The substance I have just used is the closest I have ever seen. It's made from small red sea grapes that rarely wash up on shore in the far south."

Hearing that something so rare was used for his mother's sake Corvus stammered, "T-Thank you, thank you so much." Finally feeling as though everything was going to be alright.

"No," Zahid replied, "she's an old friend. To do less would be ungracious."

So quietly that Corvus didn't catched he added, "I only pray it's enough." before raising his voice enticing, "Come, rest in another. What can be done has been done, there is little point exhausting yourself."

"But-" Corvus started to interrupt.

"No. I insist you rest, I will watch her in your stead, and wake if she comes to before you." demanded Zahid, grasping his should and pulling him out of the room. Corvus glanced backwards at his mother, hope and fear colliding inside of him.

A loud caw rang out, forcing Corvus awake. Standing there was Speckles looking at him and out of the corner of his eye he saw the rest of the flock flying away. Glad not to have been left behind in silence, Corvus cawed trying as hard as he could to express thanks. Speckles got the point but asked, "Follow?"

Denying his brother's request, he went to look at his patient. 'She looks much worse. No that's not right.' he corrected, 'She is much worse, but she looks about the same.'

Trying to find the issue, he ruffled her feathers finding the punctures. There was a green tinge on the inner edge, with an angry red ring spreading out from there. 'Poison!' he spat, 'Dammit. Fuck, shit, is there really nothing I can do?'

Recalling his dream Corvus gave himself a little shake. 'What are the odds?'

Foraging around the downed female, Corvus brought her some grass seeds dropping them into her beak. Looking her over again countered himself, 'Won't know if I don't check.'

Having decided his course of action, he let out a few caws attempting to reassure her he would be back, then flew off to the small bend on the east of the island. Landing he began to browse through the boughs of seaweed that the tide had brought in. He didn't waste a bunch time, worrying that a snake may happen upon the injured crow while he was away. Glancing around quickly he dismissed some strands completely to conserve time. He almost stopped breathing when he saw the moonlight glint off a spherical object buried among some leafy seaweed. Separating the two his heart fell as he got a good view. It looked like a bunch of tiny grapes. Green ones. 'This whole venture is mad, there's still a chance.'

He dragged the grapes up past the tide line to prevent them being washed back into the ocean. The bushel was too big for him to carry back and he didn't have the time to drag it there. Snapping a small branch off he held it in his beak as he flew back to where he left the female.

Landing near her, he dropped the branch and tore one of the tiny grapes off of it. Holding it in his beak he hopped over, leaning down he squished the grape letting the juices fall onto her wounds. Some tiny bubbles formed at the edges. 'That's a good sign, right?' he questioned. 'No, it doesn't matter, it's still the only chance.' Corvus crushed up all the little grapes he had brought over. At first she had been fine, but when the wounds started to foam she let out some pained cries.

Knowing sooner was better, Corvus made two more trips to where he left the grapes. He tried to be careful about it flying in low circles around his injured patient to check for danger before he left and coming straight back. By the end of the night Corvus had managed to use the apply the juices to the both sides of the wounds once, and to the more aggravated side twice. 'I hope this works,' he prayed collapsing from exhaustion as his family showed up with the morning sun.

It was mid afternoon when he came to and the other birds were still around. He saw a small pile of seeds on the ground near him, and watched as each member of his family brought something to add to it. It made him feel guilty for struggling to view them as family. They obviously cared about him. Only the new female didn't add anything to the pile. Corvus dubbed her Heartless. Not because she didn't help him, but more because she didn't help her own sibling. He understood why she didn't, but couldn't bring himself to forgive her for it.

His charge on the other hand seemed a little better as she ate quite happily when he took some of the food over to her. He had considered going for more of the grapes in the end forgoing the option for the moment. There was a chance his family or Heartless would follow him, and despite normally not caring to hoard food, the sea grapes were special.

By the third day, the injured female dubbed Bent Wing was able to stand and move around a little on her own. She'd started to feed herself again and Corvus had lead her to sea grapes indicating she should eat them. The puncture had scabbed over and whatever the poison was seemed to be flushed out, but she was still unable to fly. Observing from a distance, Corvus decided it wasn't that she would never be able to fly just that her wing being bent a little meant she needed to relearn.

Then the snow fell. Just a few flakes that melted as soon as they landed. That day Matty, One Feather, White Wings, Speckles, and even Heartless had gone through the process of asking him to leave with them. Rebuffing each attempt Corvus refused to abandoned his patient, more so because she was on the mend.

When the next couple days passed without sight or sing of them Corvus became worried about them, and led Bent Wing south with him to search for them. Finding no indications of their presence on the ground Corvus flew up to check the around the cliff. All he found was the nest he had hatched in. Feeling something akin to nostalgia he landed on it's edge, recalling the events of the past four or five months. After reminiscing, Corvus gave himself a shake, warming up for his descent when he noticed a something bright wedged under a dried out stalk of seaweed at the bottom of the nest. Pulling the seaweed apart, there was a small pair of connected, wing-shaped, white leaves. Peering at it he could see a bulge in the leaves near where they touched. 'Is that a seed?'

Grabbing it in his beak Corvus hopped of the ledge gliding back down to where Bent Wing waited closer to the edge of the isle. Coming to the conclusion that what he found was likely to be a seed, he dug as deep a hole as he could and dropped it down. Not thinking about it Corvus had let Bent Wing see him bury the seed, worried she would just eat the seed he grabbed it back up. Storing it in his beak he covered the ground back up. 'Not worth risking it'

A thin patchy layer of snow coated the ground before Bent Wing was able to fly again. Corvus knew they needed to head south if they wanted to survive the winter but having been left behind, he didn't know where to go. Sitting on the cliff's southern tip, all he could see was water. Knowing no matter what he did, he would be risking both his and Bent Wing's lives he took off.

Author's Note

Lot's of stuff to say.

Writing this chapter was ... an experience. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, figuratively at least, on my part as things went up and down like a roller coaster.

One of the things I felt whenever I tried giving voice to Corvus' thoughts in the prologue and first chapter was that he went with the flow way too easily. I kind of tried to touch on that this chapter. Parts of it I think worked, others not so much. It's the unevenness of the parts that work for me and those that don't that make this chapter feel like a failure. For example, certain parts I feel like I did a good job of showing, but there are swaths of text where I feel like it is mostly tell.

The sheer length of this chapter stretched my vocabulary well beyond it's limits. I think I've said before English is my native language and it is but that doesn't mean writing comes naturally to me. I love stories and thinking up various worlds and other things, but writing about and sharing them is actually difficult and nerve wracking.

Another of the big issues I had with this chapter was I felt it was a little info dump-y. I dropped a lot of information or at least I feel like I did, I tried as much as possible to write it in, in a more story oriented way rather than a straight up info dump. Don't feel much like I succeeded.

I actually did quite a bit of research into crows and other birds to fill in some gaps. I found it quite interesting, and tried to incorporate it into the story. I do admit there are parts that are less than honest to complete fiction. Dealing in facts has it's time, but it can make for a dull story, which I am sure some of you felt this chapter was.

All the sections with Corvus as crow felt like a huge miss to me. The more I wrote the more I felt like I was just writing out a series of actions rather than painting a series of pictures. I might rewrite it at a later date but not this instant. Having the mc be an animal has it's uses but I feel like the story suffers from the mc being so isolated. During my research I discovered crows actually have different calls for different things so I tried to wrap that up into the story so I could work on developing some supporting characters for the mc. It has yet to bear any real fruit though.

Before I leave some last I have a request for suggestion to those who read Heir to the Throne. I am looking for creatures you'd like to see in the world. Humans are a no, as are Elves and Dwarves but I do want creatures that could work as demi-humans. Specifically ones that work with an Ice-Light or a Fire-Neutral elemental type and aren't birds, serpents, and/or reptiles.

Thanks to everyone who rated, followed, favorited, and commented. It might not seem like much to those that only read, but anyone who has given writing a go can tell you how encouraging or discouraging such things can be.