It was at once limiting and enlightening to be caged up inside a fleshy brain. From all sides, stimulation and emotion and messy, organic thought tried to cluster into my mind and make a mess of my thoughts. Being alive was like being a lidless eye forced to stare into the world - at the mercy of tides of sensation rushing in.

I was disoriented within the chaos, confused.

In many ways even his keen eyes were limited compared to me, when I could see every detail of a mile-wide span at once, taste and touch them with unseen senses, but I was realizing that in return I gave up a certain appreciation for the parts of that whole. Of course I did. The mind didn’t exist that could observe every fraction of the world in its beauty and grotesque horror without being drowned within that knowledge - I would have been shattered by the sheer scope of the little wars for survival and moments of peace scattered throughout my territory.

In many ways I was detached and impassive, while the crow could afford to appreciate what little scraps of the world he saw with his simple senses. I reveled in the way the wind felt in his feathers, growing bitter as we chased the roc, and the sun against the back of his wings. In the chance to experience mortality.

The world was magnificent. The mountains towered up, half-clothed in mist that moved like a phantom river gliding atop the ground, cascading over sheer cliffs like a waterfall, pooling in the low depths of the valleys. The rocs shadow passed overhead, and the stormwinds it rode on bent the trees with a thunderous whisper.

There were formations of ice below that had to stem from magic. I could see the remnants of ancient creatures, locked in place beneath frozen lakes. A giant warrior had managed to break his hand through the surface and reach his fingers up, the tree-trunk thick digits turned black by the cold. His face glared out - preserved for eternity.

It spoke to me of an ancient time, of heroes lost. The crow thought in these terms and so did I. The world to him was made of brave ancestors who were remembered and the chewed-up bones of the forgotten.

We reached the roc’s nest as the sun began to set, following it to a forest-covered valley. Two descending mountains, each covered in whip-thin pine trees, collided and formed a basin of dense white snow. I was surprised at first by the sheer quantity of water I saw-

But something itched in my mind. Something was wrong.

Nothing was alive below. Some birds surfed on the last currents of heat coming out of the desert, but the snowy fields were unmoving. Even lacking my own senses, I felt the crow’s unease and interpreted its instincts. There was foul magic tangled through the air. The snow reeked of something truly evil.

I could’ve guessed just by the total lack of people, despite the abundance of water on the peaks above. It would only take a little fire to free it from the snow. So something here was deadly enough to stop them.

The roc had no concern as it swept past all this, into a deep valley, the trees here all crushed to splinters to form a great nest. Eggs like boulders sat in wait, and the creature settled down, covering them protectively with its wings.

It was a beautiful gesture. This mountain of feathers and sinew, curling down around its young.

We swept outwards and past the roc, following the thinning drafts that would keep us airborne. There were ruins in the mountains, the broken walls and lingering, ice-bound crags of an ancient garrison fort, spanning between two peaks with a long curving wall that served to bind together a lean, square tower and a sprawling complex of little barracks and buildings. Below, the snowfall was rugged and uneven, and I suspected there was a town buried underneath.

Something moved in the frozen stillness. I saw it in the depths of the ruin and made the crow bank hard for the trees below.

Too late. We had been seen.

From the old fort a distant wail rang out, and a flock of dark winged shapes burst from the openings in the deepest alcoves. Bats the size of hounds. They were quick, moving erratically in the air with zig-zag patterns that made the whole cloud of swarming bodies expand and contract like the breathe of a living body.

As they poured towards us I followed the movement in the depths of the fort. It was vast. A single thing, a shadow the size of a whale, moved behind the numerous gaps in the walls.

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Yes. It was more than time to make our exit. The crow was already ahead of me. It had a hungry, inquisitive mind, but the sight of so many foreign creatures in the air made its brain cloud with panic. It folded its wings, tilted its head down. We dived together.

Snow rushed past as the wind cascaded over smooth feathers.

We landed - my mind was already bracing for the crash, while the crow remained confident - on an outstretched branch. The movement made the whole tree bend and shake, dislodging snow from the branches.

The scent of the snow was poisonously bitter. A metallic stink rose in the air. Above the bats were spreading out, fluttering through the skies and darting into the forests.

We held very still. Moments were slipping by and the wind was rocking us back and forth on the slender branch, the hunting predators flashing by without seeing us. We were disguised for the moment from their silent echoing cries.

Frost crawled up our talons, and the snow began to burn at our feathers rather than melt away. Right away I began to understand. This stuff would only grow colder where it touched our body, consuming warmth rather than being consumed by it. Again I was limited, but I could feel the Mana I’d imbued the crow with being warped and drained away.

More and more frost came to cover our limbs. I came to know pain, the burning sensation, the desperation to make it all stop.

We had no choice. A few more moments and we’d fall from the tree as our body went totally numb. I could try to urge the crow to stay calm, to wait, hope for an opportunity to break the ranks overhead and give us a clean escape into open sky. But every moment I spent waiting for a stroke of luck was another moment sapping strength from my companion’s wings. I should’ve steered us to run in the first place, rather than try to hide in enemy territory.

I would live of course, although I didn’t think I’d like the experience. All the more reason I should’ve watched out for the one who will bear the worst of this.

My crow was a rather noble soul. It felt my worries and anxiety and met them with a stoic face, a surge of something between confidence and fatalism touching my soul. All is as all must be.

Brave bird.

Our only way out that we could grasp in our claws was to fight. So we waited a moment more, for as much space as we would get to make our ascent, and launched upwards. We barely cleared the tree before the swarm began to turn, an invisible communication bringing them back from being stretched out like a net thrown over the clearing. They collapsed in on us as one, the nearest already stretched out its leathery little fingers to go for the crow’s throat.

We met, and the fight was brutal, short, decisive. It came for our throat, we got to its own meaty little neck first, and there goes the blood raining down, followed by the body. Before we can even recover, our wings stretched out wide to steady us for the killing blow, another slams into us from behind. It grabs hold of one wing and lets its weight drag us out into a spiraling fall.

The snow below us might as well be a field of blades. We kicked and clawed and the bat faltered, giving us the chance to pull free, trailing gore-covered bits of feather. We struck our wings against the cold air and we nearly managed to steady ourself before the next foe arrived, and with a snap of its jaws, our throat is locked in the beast’s teeth.

The sky and earth spun and my senses are blotted out by chaos. When we break free I barely understand, until I see how the bat’s body convulses on the ground beneath. Our poison stinger did its work.

The crow guided us, with me as a passenger. We dove through an opening in the frost below so small I hadn’t even seen - the window of a buried house. We flopped across a table, gasping, blood running from our body. Bones broken and muscles worked past exhaustion.

The snow wasn’t so thick here. The shelter gave a little warmth.

Outside the flock was screeching, trying to find us.

I had to go. Being entangled in the crow’s mind when it passed would only cause me to suffer. But-

Did it have to die? Wasn’t there something I could do?

I had no Mana. I had none of my powers here, so far from my domain, but I was one with the beast’s mind. I could stop its organs as easily as I wished, simply by seizing control. For a moment I considered giving it an easy death.

It cawed defiantly, wanting to go fighting. The sound was a rattling little croak.

Wait. I reached down, and grasped at the core of its brainstem, trying to separate out the functions. Trying to find the most basic impulses, the breath and heartbeat, and not stop them, but slow them terribly.

It was cold here; close enough to the evil snow to be freezing, but far enough away that the life-draining influence wasn’t too toxic. I had no time to save the crow from dying - but I could put it into a state of preserved, comatose near-death.

I could buy time. I could feel it working, feel the world slowing to nothing around me as the beast’s heart ceased to hammer at its chest, slowing, slowing, the blood taking in the cold, the world fading out in a sleepy, blurring haze.

I’ll be back. I promised as the crow slipped into the dreams of the half-dead.