Wren opened her eyes and stared up into the sky. Soft fronds of something green brushed at her face. The smell of life and water caressed her nose. She sat up and looked around. Fields of green plant floated effortlessly on the breeze as far as the eye could see. She brushed her hands over it and the stalks bent out of her way, then sprung up again as if paying her no mind.

Wren squinted. In the distance stood a man, deep in argument with someone she could not see. His voice carried in the wind. Wren stood and followed the sound. Her feet were as effortless as the grass as she strode toward them, toes squelching into the soft earth. He did not turn to look at her as she approached. Instead he stared directly into the fronds of a large, brown plant which sprouted at the top with hundreds of soft green leaves which cascaded like the points of a fountain over the top.

"You said you would help me!" he shouted. The skins of animals covered his body from head to toe, and a wide ruff of fur wove around his neck and cascaded down his shoulder. His shoes were thick leather and a belt tied a rough-hewn tunic at his waist. His skin was work-weary, but not burned like it would be from the heat of the sun, and lighter than anyone she'd seen at home. 

Laughter carried down like the voice of a ghost from the treetops. Wren craned her neck to see whose voice brought it forth, but all she could see was a great bird with slick, black feathers from head to toe, the likes of which she had never seen before in Terres. It hopped down a few branches and fixed the man with a stare.

"Humans are so fickle," it cackled. "I promise you the moon and you ask for the stars still. I give you a taste of flight and you waste it on an apple."

"Excuse me!" Wren shouted. Neither the crow nor the man seemed to hear her. She took a step closer to the man. The grass tickled her feet as she walked between the fronds, dainty, as if they would cut her like razor-wire. She pressed her hand to the man's shoulder and gasped as it passed through. 

"Please! Just another taste! I will not abuse it."

The bird let out another great cackle, punctuated by a sound more animalistic shriek than human voice.

"Very well. Bow your head."

The man kneeled on the ground and suddenly Wren got a sickening feeling she knew exactly what was about to happen. She desperately grabbed at his shoulders.

"No! It's a trap!" she screamed, but her hands continued to pass right through him as if he were nothing but air.

The man began to writhe. The muscles on his back contracted and twisted under the thin fabric of his tunic. He doubled over and let out a prolonged scream. His eyes bulged from his head and he retched onto the ground. The screaming rose to a crescendo as his back stretched into two great mounds of flesh. His shirt tore from him as two fully-formed wings burst forth in a shower of blood and sinew and flesh.

"Why are you doing this?" the man begged, breath all ragged gasps and pleading and sorrow. He curled onto his side, blood coating the fronds that grew from it. The bird flew from the tree and perched on his shoulder. The grass began to die around where the man's body touched, and the ground grew cracked and dry like a disease. The crow watched them with mild disinterest as he writhed and the blight spread. 

"You asked for flight, I gave it to you."

"Please don't kill me, crow," he pleaded.

The crow laughed. "All will carry this curse, your children and your children's children. The ground will wither beneath your feet wherever you travel. Your fellow man will hate you, even once my people have died, the magic has faded, and your people cease to remember why or what you did. Do not trifle with a crow's gifts or ask for more than you have been granted. You cannot run from me, not even after I am dead."

The crow slowly turned his head and fixed Wren with one yellow eye. She froze in place, eyes wide with fear, as the pupil expanded and contracted as if taking her in.

"It's okay, he can't see me," she said to herself in a voice no bigger than the whisper of the wind across the ground. The crow let out a shrill call.

"Oh, but I can, child," it said.

Wren clutched at the edges of her shirt and took a step backwards so quickly she tripped and slammed backwards onto the ground. The bird bounced from the man's shoulder and into her lap. She flung her arm in its direction but it passed through the creature without even so much as a flicker.

"Don't trouble yourself," it said.

"Who are you, and where am I?" Wren asked, hands shaking, blood pooling in her head. The crow turned its head sideways and let out a few plaintive clucks.

"This happened long before you were born," it said as it moved to her shoulder and ran its beak through her hair. Wren shivered. "I scarcely believe anyone still remembers. It's been over a thousand years in your time." The bird paused to preen at its own feathers. "My name is not important, Wren."

Wren froze and turned to look at the bird, who fixed her again with his beady yellow eye. His pupil contracted and he hopped off her shoulder and landed in front of her.

"How do you know my name?"

"I know a great many things," the crow said. "I know your name, I know where you were born. I know your parents' names and the name of the woman who was so kind to not let you die when those wings burst from your back. I know the name of your friend you care for far too much to disappoint. I know your greatest fears, your worst nightmares, and your biggest accomplishments.

"I know when you will die, when you will have children. I know who to trust and who not to trust. I know everything there is and everything there ever will be. And most of all, I know you are related to that man." The crow pointed his beak at the man writhing in the dirt as the ground died beneath his flailing limbs. "Is there anything else you would like to know?"

"Why am I here?" she asked, mind racing as she thought about the great many things the crow knew and how she didn't want to know the answers to a single one of them. She also knew better then to ask.

The crow let out a laugh as the man struggled to sit up, blood pooling around him as the plants where his hands touched withered to stalks, then dried up in the air and blew away. Another man rushed toward him across the field.

"Thomas!" he screamed as he knelt beside the bleeding man and helped him to his feet. Wren watched as they made off into the distance. Neither seemed to notice the patches of bare, dry earth slowly spreading from his footsteps until they joined and consumed the earth around them as if it were ravaged by fire. 

"Wise choice," the crow remarked. "You must know the truth."

"Why?" Wren couldn't see any reason for the truth. What happened in the past did not change the future. She wished she hadn't seen anything. There were no problems to solve and no questions to ask. No information that would help her. Instead she felt just as lost as she'd ever felt. 

"It is your right to know your past," the crow said.

"How do I go home?" she asked, as if the crow would have all the answers. Somehow she doubted he knew any more than she did. She went to move the wings on her back and noticed that there was nothing there. 

"You wake up," it replied. The crow flew off and perched in the tree, turned his head and narrowed his eye at her. "Of course, this is not the place for you. You are not dead. Living things do not belong with memories of the past."

Wren's eyes widened and she stared down at her hands. The light flickered through them as if she were merely a dream of a dream. The crow let out another plaintive shriek and took off into the sky.

"Wait!" Wren said as she stood and took off after it, feet lighter than a feather on the wind. Her tunic blew behind her as she breezed effortlessly behind him and he rose higher and higher into the sky. She reached a hand toward him, but all too quickly he was gone, disappeared like a pinprick into an endless sea of blue. 

Wren fell to her knees and watched him go. What sort of answers were these, which solved nothing and scarcely prevented any heartbreak? She clenched at the fabric of her shirt as her hands rested upon her knees and closed her eyes.

"Wake up," she willed herself. She opened them again to a sea of verdant green. She shut them again, this time even tighter, and pictured the faces of her mother and her father and Armand.

"Wake up!" She snapped them open and took in the trees dotting the skyline. She pounded her fist on the ground and closed her eyes even tighter, willing herself to fall through the ground somehow and back into her original place, the one where she belonged, because she did not belong here. 

"WAKE UP!"

Wren's eyes cracked open and her mother's stared softly back down at her. Every muscle in Wren's body relaxed as a giant exhale left her lungs. She let them close softly again, then fluttered them open as the medic tent came into focus and the astringent smell of antiseptic hit her nose. She fought to sit up and a wave of ache raced across her back. Wren let out a small groan and collapsed again onto the cot.

"Thank goodness," Meria breathed as she gave Wren's hand a squeeze.  

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What do you think of the crow, and how the marked ones came about? Do you think it was right for the crow to curse the man? Put your thoughts in the comments!