Chapter 5: A Song of Death and Life

Long before there were birds, when the first creatures crawled onto the land, there was a crow. She had broad wings of violet feathers, so deep they appeared black, and a beak of bony white. From that beak came a song, both brilliant and sombre. It was the song of death. Whenever she found a creature dying, she would soothe them with that song and those around them would give respect, letting it pass in peace.

For hundreds of millennia of millennia, she fluttered across the land and sang her song. No creature was too noble to cut short her song.

That was until she encountered mankind. At first, they treated her with respect. Over time, that became reverence, but then it became fear. Even if she did not sing, they dared not stay in her presence. They called her an omen. By now, birds had come and some resembled her; these birds were chased away, sometimes injured, sometimes killed, kept away by tricks.

Rather than comfort, her song was said to bring death. A lie repeated became truth. It started with a curse, those who heard it dying by the seventh sundown. Over time, it became within five sundowns, then three, then by sundown the same day, until it finally became that those who heard it would die once the last note faded.

She no longer sang, but that did not dissuade the rumours. Instead, they believed them all the more, believed that it was because they ran at the sight of her that they had lived.

However, mankind was not alone in knowing her. One day, as she sat atop the tallest tree in a vast and quiet forest, a trilling voice called out to her. “Are you the one they call Old Crow?”

Surprised, she turned towards the voice and lost the breath in her throat. Hovering in the air was a swan. Only, instead of white, those feathers were like flames that had been shaped, a beak of gold and eyes of silver, shimmering and splendid.

“Unlike you who has watched the creatures crawl out of the ocean, I only came to be in the last few millennia, so I am still rather young and curious,” the swan said. “Of all the oldest creatures I have asked, they have told me that your song is the most beautiful. May I hear it?”

Old Crow hadn’t sang in so long that her voice came out rough and broken. “If you hear my song, you shall perish,” she said.

The swan landed on the branch and fluffed up her wings, raising her head high. “I am not afraid of death.”

Old Crow tried to laugh, the notes coming out as caws. “I am,” she simply said, her voice heavy. “So afraid I dare not sing again.”

The swan, confused as to what to say, simply said, “Please, let me your hear your song.”

Old Crow let out a sigh. “If you promise not to die, then I shall sing,” she said as a joke.

But the swan eagerly nodded. “Yes, yes—I promise!”

Old Crow stared for a moment, then another, before finally bursting into laughter. Her caws echoed to the horizon and her eyes teared up, her whole body shaking.

The swan stamped on the branch. “What is so funny?” she demanded.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Old Crow said, humour still in her voice.

The swan stared at Old Crow for a long moment, then said, “I have promised, so sing me your song—or are you going to go back on your word?”

Old Crow shook her head. “I shall sing for you, but you must wait.”

“How long?” the swan asked, her anger from but a moment ago gone and, in its place, a burning excitement.

“Until you are dying,” Old Crow said. “If you spoke to all the oldest creatures, you must surely know that I only sing to comfort the dying, yes?”

The swan’s excitement crumbled, her head falling low and wings coming to her body, even the fiery feathers becoming docile and muted. “I understand,” she whispered.

“Then, until we meet again,” Old Crow said, attempting to dismiss the swan.

It was just that the swan didn’t leave. For days, Old Crow tried everything from speaking of things to spark the swan’s curiosity to ignoring the swan, only to find the swan stubbornly staying on the branch beside her. “I shall wait here until I die,” the swan always said so boldly when asked.

So Old Crow flew away, only to find the stubborn swan landed beside her on whatever branch she ended up on.

It wasn’t that Old Crow disliked the company. If anything, she appreciated it. No, what Old Crow disliked was that the swan was, in a way, begging for death. It was a constant reminder of what she had become.

However, the swan could easily talk louder than that reminder, slowly closing the distance between their hearts.

“How beautiful your feathers are,” the swan said. She went to preen Old Crow, but Old Crow hopped back, glowering. The swan giggled, amongst her tittering laughter the crackle of a fire. “How shy you are.”

Old Crow turned away and said, “I am the first bird to exist, so why would I need another to preen me?”

The swan did not stop there. She took small trips to places she had been before and brought back things she thought Old Crow would like, whether that was food or pretty strips to add to Old Crow’s tail. Rather expectedly, Old Crow declined the gifts.

So the swan instead made a nest for them to share. She made it of twigs that, when heated by her fiery feathers, gave a pleasant scent. Things that glittered, materials that were vibrant—she wove them into the nest, then found all sorts of comfortable things to pad it.

“Isn’t it nice?” the swan asked Old Crow. “Won’t you live here with me?”

Old Crow was reluctant, but, when the swan stared with such big, watery eyes, it became impossible to decline. “When I feel like resting,” Old Crow said.

The swan’s mood immediately turned around, her wings waving happily and feathers flared, almost setting the nest alight. “Please, rest as much as you like,” the swan said, waddling over so Old Crow could have the spot she had warmed.

Old Crow hopped onto the edge of the nest. “Here is fine,” she said.

The swan huffed and stomped, glaring at Old Crow until Old Crow gave in and hopped inside. Just as before, the swan instantly turned cheery and demure, shyly shuffling closer so they sat side by side. Old Crow didn’t know how it could get any more embarrassing, but the swan always had a way to exceed her expectations and, in a motion as fast as lightning, the swan pecked at Old Crow’s neck. Not a painful peck, though, but as if she was simply nudging Old Crow with her beak.

Bemused, Old Crow asked, “What was that?”

The swan sat smugly, fluffing up her wings. “It is called a kiss and is how the humans show affection.”

Old Crow seethed at the mention of humans, but she was old and slow to anger, that displeasure hidden deep beneath her feathers. “Do not kiss me again,” she said sharply.

The swan pouted and asked, “You don’t want me to show my affection?”

“It’s not that,” Old Crow said softly, but she didn’t explain any further.

Choosing to interpret that in the way that suited her best, the swan stuck out her neck and gently rubbed her head against Old Crow’s cheek. “This is fine, then?” she whispered.

Old Crow felt uncomfortable from the touch, but it was how the creatures showed affection, so she put up with it, giving no reply as her answer. The swan happily took the silence as agreement.

For days and years and centuries, the swan chattered about all sorts of things or sang the songs she had learned. Old Crow barely had the chance to speak, but she did not mind, the swan a welcome distraction from the aching loneliness of before.

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However, unlike Old Crow, the swan began to show her age. Old Crow hadn’t paid much attention at the beginning, but that age touched the swan’s voice, slower, at times raspy.

A spark of fear ignited in Old Crow’s heart. She now watched closely, which made the changes she noticed all the more painful. The passionate feathers of the past had become truly tamed, always keeping the same shape and heat, no longer following the swan’s mood. Not only that, but their colours had shifted from the wild ambers tinged with reds to a pale and sturdy orange-yellow.

It only grew worse. The swan’s good cheer never faded, but her energetic nature did, coming to the point where she no longer left the nest and sometimes slept for days on end. Then, as if wet sticks had been placed upon a fire, her joints creaked and groaned, hisses of steam escaping from her beak. Her beautiful eyes of silver tarnished until they were black as coals, her golden beak becoming as dull as old brass.

In this time, the swan had talked less; to make up for it, she asked Old Crow for stories. Old Crow could only indulge in these requests, telling the swan tales of the great creatures that had walked the earth long ago, of the magnificent volcanos and the frigid ice that had engulfed the world.

Time could only go on. When the swan moved, ash fell, her feathers shorter and heavy with the smell of smoke. Her voice only ever sounded in weak whispers, often times Old Crow having to lean close to hear.

Old Crow’s heart ached. It ached unlike it ever had before, every beat painful, feeling as if her chest had shrunk to half its size.

For the bird who had never feared death, she now understood why the humans had come to hate her. The creatures of the land had always known how fleeting life was, but Old Crow had never had to watch her siblings be eaten by her own father, her mother hunted by a ferocious beast, her own children die from starvation as she could barely feed herself.

No, this was the first time she had watched one she loved come into death’s embrace.

Every day, she feared it would be the day the swan asked her to sing again, doing her best to tell such interesting stories that the swan would forget that promise they had made long ago. But the swan never forgot, eagerly anticipated the day she would hear the most beautiful song in all of creation.

So it was that, one day like any other, unlike any other, the swan softly said, “Old Crow.”

Seeing the swan had woken up, Old Crow quickly hopped over, preening those ashy feathers as she asked, “Yes?”

“I think it is time for me to hear your song.”

Such a simple sentence brought Old Crow to a stop, inside her waves of tumultuous emotions crashing all over the place, deafeningly loud.

“I understand,” Old Crow whispered.

With great effort, Old Crow forced down her feelings, returning to the silence she had long known. Then she sang. She sang the oldest song that all creatures knew, sang so loud that her voice carried beyond the horizon, bringing that silence in her heart to the whole world as every creature bowed their head in respect—even the humans.

Once her voice had reached every corner of the world, Old Crow quieted down until only the swan could hear. She sang and sang. Her heart, in desperation, believed in the words of the humans who had said that her song ushered in death. And so, out of desperation, she continued to sing, believing that the swan would only pass when the song finished.

For countless days Old Crow sang, sang even after her voice grew hoarse and cracked, the beautiful tune now nothing more than horrid scrapes and groans, yet she dared not stop.

Then, when Old Crow felt foolish for her naive belief, her song wavering, another tune rose up. Unlike hers which was sombre and elegant, this one was light and hopeful. It was the song of light in the darkness.

To Old Crow, it felt familiar. She could hear in it the echoes of the song of the moon and stars, and the echo of the song of lightning, this song one much like the song of the wildfires, but with a gentleness that felt comforting rather than the harrowing wildfires.

And it was sung by the swan.

Old Crow had thought the swan passed away days ago; now she brimmed with a deep sense of warmth as if the song truly reached her heart. Slowly but surely, the pain and despair that had so filled her chest was burnt away, leaving behind a small ember of hope.

It was not the hope that the swan would continue living, not at all. Instead, it was an almost nonsensical and backwards hope that, truly, the swan had not waited by Old Crow’s side just to hear this song. It was a hope that the swan had enjoyed these few millennia they had spent together.

Old Crow hoped that the swan had come to love her as deeply as she had come to love the swan.

With the last of her voice, Old Crow sang with the swan. Although neither of their voices were as beautiful as they had once been, to the two of them, it truly was the most beautiful song there would ever be in all of creation.

Their duet continued until sundown. Once the last rays of light extinguished, the swan’s final note trailed off into silence.

Old Crow held for a moment longer before she finally broke, the loss in her soul overwhelming her song with sobs. Tears ran down from her eyes, dripping off her beak. She looked down at the swan, the fiery feathers now ashen, eyes closed. Her tears fell, then ran down those feathers, leaving streaks on the once-beautiful feathers.

No, to Old Crow, even now the swan looked more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. Gently, she brushed off the ash and watched the last reddish glow of those feathers. Her tears fell, sizzling, unending.

Once the last fiery feather finally extinguished, Old Crow raised her beak to the heavens and cried out. It wasn’t fair. She had seen so much and had no need to see more, but the swan was so young, so fleeting. Without the swan, there was no need for Old Crow to carry on, but she would never die no matter how many times she heard her own song.

So Old Crow cried, cried out to all of creation to beg for death. She begged and cried while thunderclouds circled above her, dry, a black deeper than darkness. Thunder rang out without lightning, louder and louder as if trying to drown out Old Crow’s cries. Louder and louder it became, then silence, a silence louder than any thunder or any cry.

Ending her cries, Old Crow stared at the lightning lurking in the sky and accepted her death. She closed her eyes, heart stilled, and smiled.

“I shall be with you soon,” she whispered.

In a blinding flash, the lightning struck their nest, a fearsome bolt of electric blue. Only, it didn’t strike Old Crow. It took her a long moment to realise and, even then, she prepared herself again, confident the next would take her.

However, the clouds lightened and there was no more sign of lightning amongst them, not even a rumbling. Old Crow sagged with disappointment, bit by a feeling of having been taunted.

“What a beautiful song that was.”

Those words paralysed Old Crow, every single muscle tensing and mind pausing. The voice had sounded familiar; different, but familiar. A higher pitch, the tempo faster, sharper, but it was certainly the same voice she had come to love.

So very hesitant, Old Crow looked down. There, where the swan had lain down for her final rest, there was now only ashes and a young chick amidst them. It did not have fiery feathers, nor a golden beak, nor eyes like like coals.

No, that fluffy down was an electric-blue fuzz with crackles of lightning hopping between the feathers. That beak was like shiny copper. And those eyes, they reminded Old Crow of long ago, of the swan’s silver eyes, but these eyes had a faint touch of blue to their lustrous grey; familiar, but different.

As different as this chick looked, Old Crow couldn’t help but softly call out, “Is it you?”

The chick happily fluffed her wings, nodding her head. “Of course! I promised you I would not die, did I not?”

Old Crow couldn’t help herself and hopped forward, wrapping the chick up in her wings, her tears now falling on its head. Rather than complain, the chick giggled, the chirps crackling somewhat like the swan’s had laughter had; similar, but not the same.

“Will you sing it for me again now and then?” the chick asked. “I would like to sing with you.”

Old Crow pecked the top of the chick’s head, tightening her hug. “Of course. Whenever you want to sing together, I shall sing with you,” she whispered.

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