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crtalley · 3 years

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JACKDAW — an introduction

→ surreal adult fantasy → second person present tense → read it on Wattpad

—you wake up in a muddy riverbank.

Jackdaw has fallen from grace. That is the first thing they discover when they open borrowed eyes in the discarded land of Lorne. They cannot call on the infinite power that once rested at their fingertips. They cannot shape the world around them to their will.

But everyone else can. The townsfolk of Lorne are magic made flesh, with the power to rot and heal, to cure and kill. Jackdaw should be hailed as a god among them. Instead they're an outsider, learning the rules of a new world like a child first learning to walk.

They have to find a way back home—into their own skin—before they die in this strange place.

her smile is calm, the beat of a heart in an open chest. “i’m beth.”

Everyone dies. That is the first and only truth of the world, as far as Beth Hedley is concerned. She walks through the forest and leaves a trail of rot behind. The basket she carries is full of the crows and ravens that watch from the treetops.

She is the only one in Lorne who walks through the forest. The hounds come from the trees on the full moon to hunt; Beth visits the deepest parts of the wood then, when they are empty, and feeds the many mouths within. She comes back in an echo of violence—but she always comes back.

Until she doesn't, any more. Until the only remnant of her is a hood red with blood.

Beth Hedley is not the wolf in the forest, but she might be its victim if Jackdaw can't save her.

a crow hops to her shoulder, and she need only turn her face for it to whisper in that soft croaking voice, “they’re home.”

There were not always blackbirds in Lorne. But when Unkindness came crashing to the earth in a starfall three centuries ago, she brought with her the ravens that act as her eyes, and she sent them out into the world to search for the other two.

A century ago, she found the Crow Man, lingering in the darkness under a bridge and whispering riddles to himself. He brought with him the beady-eyed crows that perch in the tens and hundreds and sing taunts as townsfolk pass.

New birds are flying forth from the steeple of a church—so long abandoned that no one knows its god. Unkindness, in her tower of mirrors, turns blind eyes to the heavens and dares to smile at the sun that cast her down so long ago.

Jackdaw is home.

general taglist

@metanoiamorii @glitterandstarshine @crookedwritings @basilelestrange @avi-why @hekat-ie @localdeadlylaser @jadeywrites @aubergineanathema @quadraphonictypewriter @kudzupocalypse @lascalaveras @cheshawrites @eloquenceandemphasis @asablehart @arctic-stars @worldbuildng

jackdaw taglist

@hottubraccoon @thelittlestspider

#wip intro #my writing #death cw #violence cw #wtwcommunity #soleirnaviary #wardsoftheseas #wip: jackdaw #i love them all so much #if u have questions about any of jackdaw let me know #esp unkindness and the crow man #i love them #an inordinate amount #wip introduction #writeblr #my wips

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