“Air harsh and damp, yelling warnings of the disaster to come, cuts sharply against any animal that had yet to seek shelter. The sky felt like the ocean and the ground was so wet that heavy woodland creatures sunk into its depths, quickly claimed by the world that had birthed them.

“You there!” Just as the young raven had prepared to take flight, a creature called out to it. “Wait, please! Won’t you take me with you?” Head cocked and eyes alert, the raven saw what spoke to him. Five feet below, slithered a snake, its scales so dark that it almost blended in with the moist earth it glided across.

Prepared to take off, the raven answered, “I have no time for passengers!” His wings flapped, raising him from his branch.

“Wait! If you take me with you, I promise to bring you food every evening! I’m a good hunter.” This was cause for pause, for this raven did not like to hunt.

He eyed the snake from his position above. “How do I know that you won’t bite me once I have you close?” He had inquired as the clouds twisted above him. The sky trembled, the gods above calling for rain.

“If I do that, I might die too. I cannot fly as you do,” The snake responded. And this made sense to the raven. Fearing the rains to come and the hunger that would follow his travels, he swooped down to grab the snake, and together they flew.

The winds slid beneath his wings as the pair made their escape from the floods that would soon drown the forest’s creatures. All was well until the raven felt a sharp prick in his neck. Heat overcame him.

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When he looked down, he saw the snake had indeed bitten him. “No! Why would you do this? Now we will both die!” The raven wavered in the air as pain took over him.

The snake upon dislodging its head, merely said, “I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

The pair fell from the sky, a meteor of black wings and scales.

When their fate greeted them, it was only the cobra that slithered away unscathed.”

Kolino shifted, his little eyes narrowed. Looking up to his father, he wondered out loud, “But why would he do that? Why would he say he wouldn’t, then do it anyway? That doesn’t make any sense!” Kubin Balaski laughed at the hiss that escaped his son, his tail whipped out to curl around the boy’s leg.

“That is just the nature of snakes, boy. We hiss and rattle and poison just as lions roar and creep and slash.” He raised the boy up by his leg. Kolino’s tongue fell from his mouth, his little arms crossing as his hair fell with the force of gravity.

“So we are liars?” He asked, his murky eyes trained on his father.

The grand snake thinks for a moment. “Yes and no.” He swung the boy, eliciting a small giggle. “Did the snake ever say that he would not bite the raven?” The boy thinks for a minute, but comes to the conclusion that the snake did not in fact guarantee that he would not bite the raven. “Then where was the lie boy?”

Kolino’s mouth fell open, for he knew that while the snake did not say the lie, he implied it. He didn’t know how to put his thoughts into words though. “Enough thinking. Nature is nature boy, and nature will do as it always has. Now sleep before your mother comes slithering in here.”

The boy was tossed to his small cot. Unable to morph, he slept as human children did, tucked safely beneath his blankets. His father’s words rumble around in his head. He began to wonder if it was really his nature to lie and cheat and poison, as his father seemed to think it was.