The Potentially Homicidal Bird-Woman
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Philothea stood looking over an open grassy field. On the far side, she saw a quaint little thatched-roof cottage with a pillar of smoke billowing up from the chimney. It was a beautiful, comforting sight. She could almost smell a hot stew cooking on that fire. Her stomach rumbled; she started sprinting forward.
“Don’t go in the lake,” Pouli warned, from his perch on her right shoulder.
Philothea paused and looked around the sprawling field.
“What lake?” she asked.
Pouli shot off her shoulder and flew in a loop over the open space.
“This lake!” he cried, then returning to his perch, added. “Don’t run into the lake!”
“There’s nothing there,” Zoe observed from her place on Philothea’s left shoulder. “That bird is demented.”
“There is a huge, deep lake!” Pouli objected, “With very rude geese, see them?”
Philothea frowned. “I don’t see anything, just grass.”
“Pouli is delusional,” Zoe complained. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t know,” Philothea answered. “Pouli’s smarter than you give him credit for, maybe…”
“His brain is the size of a raisin,” Zoe snapped. “He’s just trying to keep us away from the house because he doesn’t like fae.”
“No!” Pouli squawked. “There’s a lake! Don’t fall in! Don’t make a lake mistake!” He puffed himself up proudly when he rhymed.
For a moment, the birds continued arguing. Pouli insisted there was a lake in to Philothea’s right ear, and Zoe chirped into her left about how she should ignore him and proceed. This, combined with Philothea’s ravenous hunger, did nothing to improve her mood.
A small part of Philothea wondered if Pouli was right. She felt a tingling, similar to the one she felt as the emperor’s men closed in, but it was vague and distant and… warmer somehow.
Philothea had no idea how to make sense of all the feelings she’d started to experience after putting on the seal for the first time. And with her rumbling stomach and the sounds of Pouli and Zoe arguing in each of her ears, the odd feeling was swallowed up.
“I’M GOING!” Philothea shouted and shot forward over the field. The moment she started running, she noticed a sound that made her stomach flop–the honking and hissing of geese.
Suddenly, she felt herself plunging into deep, icy water. A tiny cry escaped before she was sucked below the surface by some invisible force. Her hands paddled and grasped as she tried to swim upward toward the sparkling surface, but to no avail.
The current sucked her deeper and deeper, then, just when she thought her lungs would burst, she plunged out and landed hard on her back.
For a moment, Philothea was silent as she tried to figure out what happened. She was lying in an underground chamber with a ceiling made of… Was she going crazy? The ceiling was made of water. She had fallen through the lake and somehow ended up in a little air bubble.
She struggled to sit up, while stunned, gasping, and shaking. How was this possible? Was she hurt? A quick self-examination didn’t turn up any injuries. More remarkable was the fact that she was completely dry.
How?
Philothea noticed two balls of feathers lying on either side of her. “Zoe!” she cried, picking the first one up in her hand. The bird didn’t move. “Zoe?” Philothea asked, poking the bird with her finger.
The head shot up and looked around.
“Lake mistake!” cried the bird. “You fell prey to tricky fae!”
“Pouli,” Philothea breathed. To her relief, the second fluffball was also starting to revive. Zoe fluttered to her feet.
“What just happened?” Zoe asked.
“You trespassed, that’s what.” It was the cold female voice that seemed to ooze irritability.
Philothea jumped when she noticed a figure standing over her like she had materialized out of thin air. The newcomer took a step forward into the bluish light of the underwater chamber.
She was the most beautiful person Philothea had ever seen. Her skin was a deep, warm brown, her sullen eyes a forest green. A thick black braid curled around her neck and spilled over one shoulder. She dressed in furs and leather like a huntsman but did not carry a bow. Perched upon her shoulder was a raven. Next to Pouli and Zoe, the bird looked enormous.
Where had this woman come from? It seemed like she had just appeared in the strange little earthen chamber. There were no entrances aside from the water above.
“You naughty thing!” Pouli screeched at the intruder. “Go back in your cage!”
He would have shot forward and tried attacking the woman, but Philothea had instinctively closed her hand around him at the woman’s appearance. She caught Zoe in her other hand to prevent her from making a futile attack.
The raven stretched its neck out and regarded Pouli. “You are a naughty bird. This is Raven’s lake.”
The woman stroked the raven’s feathers. “That’s right, this is my lake and these three are dirty thieves, aren’t they?”
“Dirty thieves,” the raven agreed.
“We aren’t,” Philothea defended. “I’m sorry.”
“What shall we do with them, Fae?” the woman asked the bird.
“Wait a moment, did you say Fae?” Zoe observed. “Is that raven’s name Fae?”
The raven let out a deep and hearty laugh, then said, “turn them to dust, feed them to the wolves, kill them, dirty thieves.” The raven laughed again. “Raven must kill the dirty thieves before they steal again, ho, ho, ho!”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Pouli mimicked. “Ho, ho, ho, you naughty bird! You will get no grapes!”
“Hold on,” Zoe continued. “Am I misunderstanding this, or is your name Raven?” She was looking at the woman.
“Yes, I am Raven,” the woman confirmed. “And this is Fae.”
“So the fae’s name is Raven and the raven’s name is Fae?” Zoe asked.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Raven shrugged. “Because I am going to kill you. Well, at least the girl. I might spare you birds. I like birds.”
“I’m sorry,” Philothea exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to trespass. I was just coming to see you–”
“That’s a first,” Raven remarked. “Most people try to avoid me.”
The next thing Philothea said was probably stupid given the circumstances.
“Why?”
A tiny hint of a smile touched Raven’s lips.
“Because people don’t like me,” she answered. “And the feeling is mutual.”
“You must like someone,” Philothea objected.
“You less and less,” Raven answered. “You have thirty seconds to convince me not to kill you.”
Philothea’s mind suddenly went completely blank. There are plenty of reasons not to kill someone, decency being the most obvious. However, in that moment, Philothea forgot them all. She just sort of stared at Raven blankly and then burst out laughing.
Pouli, of course, started laughing with her, imitating her voice perfectly. That made Philothea laugh even harder.
It was a strange thing to do in the face of imminent death but honestly, her situation was ridiculous. She was sitting slumped in the dirt clutching a squirming starling in each hand.
“Why are you laughing?” Raven snapped.
“Because,” Philothea choked. “I don’t want to die.”
The woman furrowed her brow.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” the fae woman continued. “Nothing about this situation warrants laughing.”
“I know!” Philothea squealed. She then scrunched up in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a second wave of hysteria.
Raven was taken completely off guard, she just stared at the giggling mess of a girl before her, trying to decide what to do next.
Finally, she sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Come on,” she said.
“Come…where…” Philothea managed. Suddenly, the strange subterranean room began to melt away, and Philothea found herself inside a little cottage. A warm fire burned in the hearth, and Philothea could smell something wonderful cooking.
“You didn’t kill us,” Zoe stated.
“Not yet,” Raven answered. “I might after dinner, I don’t know.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Fae chuckled. “After dinner.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Pouli mimicked. “You naughty thing!”
The Fables of Para Sympan 