A Crow Gave Wings

He lived on a mountain, high up, alone. So high there was never a cloud between him and the sky, but they lay about, rose at dawn, fell away at dusk like a blanket, dividing his world from the rest. He had no idea how he'd gotten there -- had never been to the base for the depth of the dew and treachery of the descent; never been to the peak for the cap of thickly formed snow and his having no coat against the cold. He lived in the caves, the cliffs and crags. He simply was, among the sun and stars and moon -- thought Venus his only friend, and when she blinked into the cloudless twilight he was comforted by her watchful presence, her constance and bright, so that he only felt alone in the seasons she did not shine. His life continued such under the clear sky, and each day he would ask, Who am I?, Who am I?

One evening a pure white crow came to rest on an outcrop of rock. Though he'd never seen another creature before he was without fear of the corvid, felt drawn by its wing-falls as drifts are drawn by the driven snow. And he spoke, for he still spoke crow. "Where have you come from friend? Can you tell me what lays beneath these clouds and do you know the stars above? And can you tell me, cousin, what truth you've come to know?"

The crow replied without a sound, giving him two long feathers, pure white, and spread its wings and leapt from the cliff into his memory, showing him how to fly as the Evenstar appeared in the east. And he thought, I will go to see her, I will find that spark.

As he took to the air the mountain unfurled around him and a huge stone dragon shook the frost from his form. The two seemed suspended in that moment above the mists, the dragon's wings spreading like beach rocks rolling in the tide, his eyes glass on fire, the snow hanging incandescent about the two.

"You are my heart," he said to the boy, "Taken to flight that has ended my long sleep. So I will follow where you wish to go, as I must."

They looked to the heavens, to that one bright light... and so a crow gave wings to a dragon's heart that he might find Venus, as the clouds lay about on that clear and snowy night.