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Across the country, far away from anywhere important, a woman with long hair the colour of autumn leaves and skin the colour of parchment is scratching runes into an old wooden table. She's got a pair of scissors in her left hand; they're the sharp, silver kind that are used to cut hair and fabric and sometimes throats. She can smell death and strawberries, but only one of them is coming from within the room.
There's a mirror opposite. She's counting the lines in her face. Two by her left eye. Four on her forehead. One that curves up from the side of her lip, right the way up to the corner of her right eye. She winks at her reflection. Her reflection winks back.
Her knuckles are white and she's no longer carving into the table, but into her thigh. The scissors clatter to the floor and she gasps in pain, not from her new wounds, but from the bird that's dug its claws into her shoulder.
"Hell and damnation," she spits, grabbing the bird by it's feet and hanging it in front of her face with a smile that's all teeth and gums. "Should skin you, I should. Nice raven soup dinner for me, eh?"
The bird doesn't make a sound. She lets go of its talons, and it just about catches itself on the air before it hits the ground.
"Ha," says the woman, dusting a hand over her leg to get rid of the cuts. "I should have clipped your wings."
The bird pecks at her bare toes indignantly and hops away on the floor to settle in its roost in the smouldering fireplace. The woman looks down at the table, and unfolds a letter that she moved before making her way through the wood.
"I wonder if the baby's doing well," she hums, eyes scanning over the parchment. "Should be... Ten and five. In December, I think. That's what he told me, anyway."
She casts a glance to the corner of the room, where a man is sitting on a stool by the bookshelf. He sighs, and nods. "Fifteen in December."
"Ah," says the woman. "Indeed. Now, tell me more."
The man starts reply.
The woman smiles.
Her teeth are stained with death and strawberries.
Sage awakens with a jolt. According to the horizon she can see through the curtains, it's just after sunrise. She takes a minute to calm her breathing (which is probably the reason she woke up) (because Jesus, she really can't breathe) and then swings her legs over the side of her bed. The floor is cold beneath her toes but the smooth, worn stone calms her slick skin.
She hears the sheets rustle on the bed next to hers. "Are you okay?" Asks Hermione, her voice gentle and hoarse with sleep.
