#cat&raven

[k4creative]

Raven and Cat

Please be my beta readers! 😊

I saw this photo on facebook for the umpteenth time this week and I decided to consider it a writing prompt. I'm keeping the premise, but I am deviating from the picture somewhat.

Here is the first part. I hope, I’ll be able to continue it!

Note: english is not my first language.

Any comment, criticism and good-intentioned help is welcome!

I.

In a forest clearing, on a moss-covered, sunny rock, a big white cat sleeps.

Calling this cat white though is like describing a sunset as ’orange’, or the eye of your lover as ’blue’... As the sun rays glide over his coat, you can observe, that parts of it are white as milk, others are like whitewash, or the silvery-creamy white of a pearl. His whiskers fracture the light into rainbow-coloured sparkles, and his fluffy tail – his pride and joy – gleams like the light of a harvest moon.

He sleeps restlessly. His ears are constantly twitching - catching the noises of the forest –, so does the end of his tail. Now his ears perk up, he opens one yellow eye and in the very next second he’s sitting upright, regally curling his tail around his front paws. He looks like, he never slept. An unholy swishing sound fills the forest clearing as an enormous black bird breaks the treeline. It lands without fuss a little further from the cat. It’s eyes glow purple for a moment, but the next blink clears the enchantment, leaving only the normal colour of anthracite in the big bird’s iris.

-Well? – asks the cat, unable to mask his agitation.

-Nothing. – comes the reply in a sharp, edgy tone. – I looked everywhere. – continues the bird, adjusting their chest feathers irritably – There’s no way she’s still in the vicinity. I can see traces of her mana all over the place…it is her territory after all…but beyond the Border…only a faint trail pointing North. We’re gonna have to follow her dammit! It’s been a month…

-I vote we wait for another week. There were times, she was away longer than…

-Yes yes – interrupts the raven rather rudely – but she always, always left instructions and sent dreams if she was delayed.

The cat visibly pouts after the interruption. His whiskers twitch and his pupils dilate for a split second. He remains accusingly silent, looking daggers at his companion.

-Look – says the raven, perfectly imitating a human sigh – I know you are territorial…I am too, but this is serious stuff.

-What about her villages? – asks the cat, finding her superior tone again.

-They have to make do without her anyway. – shrugs the raven – We did everything we could since she left. We educated that dull herbalist down in Riverbend. I replenished the potions of all the barber surgeons in the area and you strengthened every enchantment around the Border. The people gotta be fine until winter. – they tilt their head with a nasty expression on their beak - If this is not enough, they’d die without her anyway…

The cat lowers his lashes disapprovingly, then he lets out a sigh, yawns and stretches. The raven fidgets, waiting for a reply. They know that the cat has a bad temper and a stick up his butt about basically everything, so they force themselves to be patient. With two small licks of the hair on his chest, he finishes the ritualistic stretching and – apparently – the thinking too.

-I think in this particular matter your surmise might be true, bird. – the cat’s sonorous voice sounds in the raven’s head – However, an expedition of this importance and caliber should not be rushed. We need provisions: food, water, enchantments…we have to think about lodgings along the way…

-You must be joking! You are a hunter and a high class mage for the goddess’ sake! And I am a proud scavenger. Food? Water? Lodging?! It’s high summer, we can sleep wherever and whenever. You are nocturnal and I can adapt my eyes, so we can even move at night...! Stop pussyfooting around this and let’s go!

The moment they say it, the raven knows it was a mistake. They pull their head way down between the wings and with rapid blinking, looks apologetically at him. His eyes sparkle, ears flat, mane is all fluffed up and his whole body radiates righteous indignation. If the situation wouldn’t be this serious, the raven would flee now, till he calms down, but not now.

-Look, I am sorry! It was tactless of me to use that word, but we have to go and we have to start now!

-I will not let this insult slide, bird! -  sounds his voice in the bird’s head, underlined with a faint growl emanating from his throat. His blue left and yellow right eyes sparkle with fury. The raven is certain that if the enchantment would still be active, they’d be able to see his mana swirling red around his paws. After a few seconds of heavy eye contact, he gets a hold of himself.

-Unfortunately we really are pressed by time here. – he sighs, forcing calm on himself - She can only count on us. I will follow your lead for now, but be warned: you’re dancing on thin ice.

With that, the cat swishes his tail and with energetic bounds, fueled by his unquenched anger, he leaves the clearing. Due North.

The tension leaves the bird’s body after a few seconds. They imitate a heavy sigh again, and to calm themselves down, they emit a silent, low, purring ’kraa’. With a full body shake, they tidy their plumage, activate the enchantment in their eyes with a heavy blink, then take off to the sky, their giant wings beating the air heavily.

[feluart]

Cat's and Jean's friendship is very important to me 🫂

[plutonicbees]

secret calls in the phone/sewing/cat room (chapter 4 of bllb u will always be famous to me)

[queenoftheantz]

!!WIZARDS!!

I drew these last year and made them stickers that I sell at cons, but I forgot to post them online! (If you happen to go to Dokomi this year I'll have these with me there) (the two cats at the top are based on my friends' cats, who are perfect and special)

[polartss]

quick doodle of Laila and Cat from last night 🤓

[yuumei-art]

The Raven The Black Cat

[bigtittygothgirlandrew]

Nora: please don’t ask me when book 3 will come out

Us: BOOK 3?

[rann-poisoncage]

[k9anthrope]

"Oh you identify as an animal??? I'm gonna treat you like one then!!"

GASP do you promise ??

[ailithnight]

DPxDC Prompt #8

Danny was practicing shapeshifting with Amorpho when he felt the tug of a summoning and heard the distant words drifting into his mind.

Normally Danny would just ignore it. Or if it seems like this was a group that needed some sense scared into them, he'd shift into his Horror form and terrify them into never pulling this shit again. But then he heard them mention live sacrifices, and Danny just had to step in before that happened. So he let the summoning pull him on through, briefly forgetting he was shapeshifted into a... less than ideal form.

Danny lands in the circle right on top of one of the intended sacrifices, a group of people in weird outfits and, is that guy green? Irrelevant. Immediately Danny on knows something is very wrong. His powers feel muted and far away. His form suddenly feels, locked somehow.

He casts his gaze across the summoning circle and, to his horror, recognizes the binding ritual. These cultists wanted to bind and seal him in one of these mortal's bodies after they were sacrificed. But they fucked up the spell. Or maybe Danny fucked it up by coming in too soon? Irrelevant again.

What matters is the spell went sideways. Instead of locking Danny into one of the sacrifice's bodies, it locked him into his own form while pulling most of his abilities just out of reach. Now he's here. In the shape of- He's stuck as-

"Dude, is that a pigeon? Did the Ghost King, like, send you to voicemail?"

[k4creative]

Raven and Cat

II.

At the shimmering dome of the Border the raven catches up with the cat. They don’t descend, but start circling overhead. They let out a soft ’korr-korr’ to catch his attention.

-Do not disturb me! – snaps the voice of the cat in their head with force.

The raven feels the tension emenating from the small figure on the ground. They circle lower, landing on top of a fir tree and take a better look at their colleague.

This is what the raven sees:

The small, but tense shape of the cat sits on a clearing, looking right ahead. The rays of the setting sun envelop the cat, dressing him in the brilliant colours of a fire opal. He just sits there, apparently waiting for something. He glares at a point in the clear air a few meters ahead without blinking.

The raven blinks…

The enormous, leopard-shaped astral form of the cat, made out of silver and gold flames, sits before an impenetrable-looking, shimmering wall. The Border is a frightening shimmering and humming presence. The fact that it’s see-through does not make it any less terrifying. While the cat sits and stares, his astral body reaches out one giant paw, tentatively touching the wall…a mark ont he wall: a smudge of blue mana. The Witch’s mana. Looking unmistakably like a bloodstain.

The raven swoops down without thinking, almost belly-flopping beside the cat.

-An exit wound! – they cry – how could I miss it?!

-You rely too much on your eyes and the aerial view. – replies the cat loftily. – You also have no sense of smell, or touch to write home about…not even on the astral plane…but shut your beak now and let me analyze this, before it fades away completely!

The jab hurts, but the raven – being a wise creature – knows when not to take offense over such trifles. They settle down beside the cat, left wing lightly touching right shoulder, and closing both eyes, start to concentrate. The black and purple mana of the raven starts flowing out of their body in one purposeful tentacle, reaching for the back of the cat’s head, strengthening him.

The unblinking eyes of the cat soon become vacant, his mouth opens slightly, revealing a pink tongue and sharp fangs, his nose and whiskers weakly twitching. In the past, the raven found this part very funny, until one day they cared to check, what the astral body is doing in the meantime…since then, the cat’s expression is no laughing matter for them.

The giant mana leopard reaches out with one claw, sampling the mana smudge left on the wall by the Witch. As the mana combines with the other, the astral body flares up, a blue edge dancing ont he gold and silver flames. The sampling claw disappears in the maw of the creature. This point, the leopard loses it’s shape, becoming an ever changing, pulsing unfocused and terrifying cloud of energy. Than, with a mute thunderclap, the whole cloud collapses back into the head and spine of the cat in a blink of an eye.

The cat sneezes. Once. Twice. Thrice. He licks his nose in a dignified manner and looks at the bird beside him with the narrow-eyed blink of a cat’s smile.

-Thank you for the assistance. It…helps a lot in the recovering. – he purrs in a slightly embarrassed tone.

-Least I can do. What did you find out?

-She did not leave by her own choice, that one is sure. – comes the reply. The tone is analytical, but the twitching end of the cat’s tail is telling.

-She was forced to leave. By someone or something strong. They were able to enter our territory without us noticing and exit the dome again, with her in tow, leaving only this small wound…

-So you’re saying we’re in trouble? – asks the raven.

-Big trouble. – nods the cat. – You were right from the start. We cannot waste more time.

Without wasting any more words, both get up with determination. They cross the Border together, carefully avoiding the wound. The invisible wall stroking their coats with a barely perceptable sparkle of blue mana. The eye of the raven lights up with gold for a second, as the shadows of the coming night surround them.

[velvetbatss]

[fluoritelvr]

silly little guys

[goryhorroor]

“horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. sound revolutionized cinema across the board and had a huge impact on the horror genre— and not just in the form of dialogue. sound effects added an extra dimension to terror, from creaking doors to echoing footsteps to the rumbling of castle thunder. music cues built suspense or signaled the presence of a threat. as screen storytelling moved away from symbolism towards realism, the dreamlike wraiths of silent cinema were replaced by monsters that grunted, groaned and howled.”

[hany272]

[sirascolat]

Catalina Alvarez, taken by Laila Dermott, 2007.