Prompt: The Gift | Genre: Fantasy | Word count: 200 words
Raven watched as the woman stumbled out of her house, clutching
her stomach. She poured water from the vessel by the door into a pitcher and shuffled
towards the berries. She reached low to the base of a tiny shrub, her arms
shaking. Suddenly, she sank down to the ground, setting the pitcher down with
her feeble hands. She sobbed as her robe hung around her shoulders, drowning
her now-thin frame.
Raven watched for a while before grumbling, “Weak as
always.”
About to fly away, he stopped. The woman wiped away her
tears, picked up the pitcher, and used her whole body to support it while she
poured the water. She crawled to the next shrub, and then to the next, until
she watered them all.
She let herself collapse on the ground, her sunken eyes
staring into the darkened sky, breathing hard, “New life... after so long...
can’t let it die... I won’t!”
* * *
The next morning, she spotted a stone next to the vessel, “Einarr!
Look here! It’s the skírr stein! We
can purify the water now!”
“But where did it come from? It’s been decades since we last
saw one.”
They never noticed the black bird watching them.
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