A Soul Saved, A Love Braved, A Future Changed || A Merlin BBC Fanfiction

1

It was a cold windy morning in the midst of autumn, the streets were covered with a thick blanket of red and brown leaves. The air smelt of rain that was about to fall, which sadly wouldn't provide any help to the small patches of dead grass and wilted flowers that littered the front porches of every house. The seasons were slowly passing by and so people's everyday lives followed.

As Elvira was walking down said streets only one thing was on her mind, her college work.

Wow, how original.

Well as a 21-year-old that was to be expected. After all the new semester was just about to start and Elvira was already stressed because of it. So to remedy the situation she did the only thing she knew to calm herself down. A run through the local woods. Well, more like a walk through the woods. But alas who cares?

It didn't take long for Elvira to reach the woods, her house was practically next to them. Although it was a not-so-frequented place of said woods, so Elvira was always mindful to always come to this place during the day.

Oh, if only she knew.

As soon as she entered, Elvira started going down her usual path and for good reason too. She had discovered the path in her first year of college, specifically on a Tuesday when her classes had been cancelled, and now she was in her fourth and last year so she obviously knew the path like the back of her hand.

What mattered to Elvira was that everything was familiar to her. Whenever stress got to her, she needed familiarity, she needed something to ground herself back to reality. And so, when something out of the ordinary was present near the creek she had stopped for a drink, alarm bells started to go off in her head.

She could hear the sound of something rustling in the grass. It was probably an animal, Elvira thought to herself, but what kind of animal was the question. And so she approached.

The animal heard her approach and started to painfully coo. Elvira pulled the bushes to the side and stepped through them.

The animal was a bird, specifically a crow! Elvira doubted she had ever seen one up close! As she examined its appearance, with her somewhat limited knowledge of birds, she came to the very obvious conclusion that the bird was quite wounded.

"What do we have here?" Elvira said out loud to no one in particular.

She came closer to the crow and kneeled before it so she could take a closer look. The crow's feathers were as black as the night sky, and its eyes shined like pearls in the sun. There was a faint outline of a scratch that started from its neck and ended under its left wing. Thankfully, the wound wasn't fatal but the crow had lost quite a bit of blood -judging from the surrounding blood-stained grass- and was probably dehydrated and hungry.

This reminded her of her family parrot -Tofu, the smart African grey- who, when Elvira was around 18 had a vicious fight with a neighbourhood stray cat and had similar injuries.

So Elvira felt quite confident in her ability to nurse this crow but to health. She then proceeded to take off her jacket and carefully wrap the bird in it. Elvira was grateful that the bird didn't seem to want to fight her, so she was able to hold it in her arms.

After she had a secure hold on it, she kneeled back down towards the creek and scooped some water in her palm. She brought her water-filled hand in a gentle manner towards the crow to see whether or not it would respond. Thankfully, the crow immediately responded to the water and started drinking, albeit with a little bit of difficulty but it still drank. That is all that mattered.

As the bird kept on drinking, Elvira mapped out the shortest route to the local exotic animal centre. And so after giving the bird a few more handfuls of water, the young woman exited the woods, crow in her arms.