[2.20][???] Through The Grapevine

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A raven’s croaking wakes you.

You groan, swat blindly at it, and roll over in your bed. You were in the middle of a positively bizarre dream, and if you give it up for even a moment you know that it will be gone for good. It is not often that you sleep this deeply. Down here in the chthonic dark, separated from the burden of your body and the sufferance of your soul, your dreams are all that you are. The only thing that you must be.

It is very nearly pleasant.

But the bird is still there.

You pull the sheets over your head and try to block it out. It croaks again, louder. You wrap the pillow of black-feathered down around your head, crushing it against your ears, and the croaking becomes as muffled as everything else.

Slowly, you relax. You drift back into the void where dreams linger, letting it all fade, so that even when the raven gives up its croaking entirely, it is only a dim satisfaction.

Ting.

Your eye cracks open.

It is only a sliver, of course, and only the left eye. You are still astride that line between oblivion and dreams. After a long, tense moment, your eye drifts shut again.

Ting.

You growl a curse into your pillow.

Ting… Ting.

You will not give it the satisfaction.

Ting-Ting.

You will not surrender your first good night of sleep in an age. Not for all the wine on earth, and certainly not for a single covetous bird.

…

Good. You let yourself drift, though you tuck this little irritation away in what remains of your thoughts, to be addressed properly when you awaken. A pet should know its place—

Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting-Ting—

You rip the blanket off your head, glaring across the courtyard with half a bloodshot eye.

The raven cocks its head, its beady gray eyes staring unrepentantly back at you. It sits perched atop one of the nine columns enclosing your innermost courtyard, nestled among the creeper-vines. It is a grotesquely large, overfed creature. You can see in that beady stare that it wants something from you.

“Begone.”

Speaking is a reluctant effort. The dream is trying to slip away from you now, slicker than oil and lively as a fish. You hold tight to it.

The raven cocks its head the other way. Its feathered bulk suddenly heaves—once, twice, like the bird is about to vomit up the contents of its stomach.

“Be-ee-eee-gone,” it croaks. It shudders, beating its unreasonably wide wings in discomfort. Then it snaps its beak at the air, as if it’s tasting the word. “Begone.” Finding it to its liking. “Begone.”

“Wretched bird. I’ll kill you.”

“Wrrrrrrr.” Another gag. “Wrrrr-etched. Wretched.” Another shudder. “Ooh. Oooooh. Y-oooh. You.”

Your right eye cracks open a sliver in disbelief.

“Excuse me?”

The bird cocks its head again.

“You. Wretched. Begone.”

For a long moment, the shadowed courtyard is silent.

“Are you mocking me?”

The raven considers you. It is only an animal, of course. More intelligent than the average bird, perhaps, but low cunning and a bit of simple pattern recognition are all it has behind those beady eyes. You may as well be talking to yourself—

Ting.

In response to your question, the raven slowly and deliberately lowers its head and taps its beak against its adamant perch. The resonant chime cuts through every sound barrier, including the black-feather down of your pillow.

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You contemplate a great many terrible things in that moment. Contemplation begets awareness, and to your displeasure, you begin noticing again. Processing. Hearing. By the time the whispers start filtering in, you know that there are only moments left before the dream is gone for good, and you are stuck in this place with this irreverent raven, sober and awake. A fate worse than death.

Can’t get out of bed to kill the raven, but neither can you leave it be.

“What do you want?”

“Waah. Waaaaaah. Wan—!” The bird suddenly stops speaking altogether, sitting motionlessly atop the adamant column. Then it spreads its wings and launches itself into the air, circling around the perimeter of the courtyard. It swoops low at random intervals, only to struggle back up into the air and repeat the process again.