Blackbird
#1 of Other
Fringedog (http://www.furaffinity.net/user/fringedog) bought me a gift, so I felt obligated to respond in some fashion. Why not a a vignette? Enjoy.
This was put together and edited in a fairly short period of time, so critique is welcome despite being a gift, as things might easily have slipped past me.
The dreams had started coming a week ago.
On the first day the dream had been only faint, easily lost in the grogginess of the morning, and she was left with nothing more than a faint recollection of dreaming about something unusual. She had barely noted it upon the first seconds of waking, the fleeting image rapidly receding in her mind. There had been naught but a chasing after wind as she fruitlessly tried to recall it, shrugged, and went about her day.
On the second day, it was much the same, but she took more notice, now, perhaps because of it happening two nights in a row. She was dreaming about something. Something that she found herself obsessed with throughout the day. At first upon waking she could recall nothing but the same frustrating sense of absence. The first image she received, springing into her head in the morning only a scant hour after waking, was a peculiar perception of the sense of... feathers. Their feel and sight and smell all rolled into one essence, one memory that encompassed only that concept alone. The image in particular burned into her mind, the feathers black as charcoal. She knew what it was like to have them. Her mind kept flicking to this strange sensation, no, this strange /knowing/. Later in the evening it had only grown more prominent.
By the third day, she bought a book on dream analysis, read it, and threw it away. It was of no help to her. Vague generalities. Nothing like what she was experiencing now. The memory had not gone, as her mind kept flashing to it yet again, over and over, at random times throughout the day. Feathers. Not just the knowing of feathers, but the sense of them fluttering in the wind, moving through the air, drifting upon the currents. She had trouble getting to sleep, even though she wanted to dream again. The tickling upon the edge of her mind bothered her too much, and she tossed and turned. What did it mean?
On the fourth day, she bought a book on lucid dreaming. She had to experience her dreams firsthand, and remember them. She was getting only tantalizing glimpses. What was she dreaming about? She found her day filled with almost nothing save unrelenting curiousity, her mind often far removed from what she was doing and instead pondering her newfound obsession. The night air gave her goosebumps upon the way home, and yet she found the sensation pleasurable. She took an hour to devour the book once home and, barely able to sleep from the sense of palpable tension that had settled over her, started to apply it.
On the fifth day, she woke and understood. She was dreaming about becoming a bird.
On the sixth day, she woke from bed in the middle of the night, covered in sweat. The crescent moon shone through her window, illuminating a faint line upon her pale skin. She knew what it was like to fly. Yet there was something more that escaped her. Something that had enraptured her in her dreams that even her lucidity could not probe the depths of. The hidden meaning was still there. Why was she dreaming about this? Why did her whole body quiver when she thought of it now?
On the seventh day, she was unable to focus, and, indeed, unable to leave her home, so lost as she was in a daze of daydreams, her mind exploding still with the aftershocks of her dreams. Reality was lost unto her, and she barely remembered to feed herself. There was only the unceasing question of what it all meant and the joy of reliving the memory of the dream. She looked down from time to time and could swear she had those feathers, could swear her body was that of the bird she was in her sleep. Yet there was more. She could not breach it. Some aspect of her dreams was concealed from her, even though she played through them in full wakefulness. She was dreaming about more than just flying through dark forests and low hills, and yet she could not recall the secret that she knew she was being shown. She found herself anticipating the embrace of sleep, so that she could try again to understand...
And then it was now. Or what her brain perceived to be now. She was unsure whether she was awake or dreaming. The two had blended together. She felt as if she was acting in a play, or perhaps merely putting on one for herself, as she swung her legs out of bed and sat up. Sweat glistened on her body, a heat rising out of the depths of her essence from her very core. She turned to the window expectantly just before it crashed open, shattering into a million pieces, and the night air blew powerfully upon her warm body and chilled her to the bone.
Through the window and it's shattering glass came a figure of pure blackness, the moonlight reflecting off the glossiness inherent to it, silhouetting it perfectly. It landed upon its knees, and rose slowly, surrounded by shimmering glass shards that were taking forever to fall. In that instant of slow motion she understood who she was finally being visited by.
She had not been the one who was flying.
Her visitor was only a hair taller than her, and yet the blackbird's feathers made it seem as if an engulfing shadow as they embraced. She felt herself swallowed up in the blackness and felt a great joy at the touch of feathers upon her suddenly bare skin, and then she gasped as the blackbird's hand sought purchase between her legs. In that infinite moment she knew release. She felt touches upon her body as she leaned heavily against her lover. In the raven-woman's arms she changed. Every place she was touched sprouted feathers, and each change made upon her form sparked her ecstacy anew. It was as if by being caressed she was remade. She felt herself stretch and contract, felt powerful new wing muscles encircle her chest and back, felt her tail sprout, felt the flight feathers itch as they grew in, felt her face stretch to accomodate a beak, momentarily distorting the screams of pleasure she had only just realized she was emitting. Then she fell limp against the blackbird, only to find herself falling, falling, felt her lover's wings extend to carry them through the air, and knew she was being carried off into the night.
She woke the next morning, back in her bed, staring up at the ceiling as daylight streamed in outside.
Nothing was concealed from her. This time she remembered.
She lifted her hand up in front of her face, and as she willed the feathers to grow down her arm, she smiled.