A Dinner Fit For Ravens - Writing Exercise

Writing exercise: Random First Line Generator
writingexercises.com.co.uk/firstlinegenerator.php

So for this writing exercise, I was supposed to break out of my typical genre, and write in a style that I never would normally write in. So I picked horror, which very definitely fits the criteria. I went to a random first line generator to get me started, and here's my (edited) result. After a first read-through my husband was confused, so I had to do some editing to make the plot line clearer after answering some questions he had. (SO GREAT to have a listening ear/in-house editor!) Here we go:

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A Dinner Fit For Ravens

"Outside the cabin, the wind howled through the trees, while inside, the old woman's fire was nearly out."

Everyone knew you didn't go out after dark. Not here. Not alone. She pulled the furs closer around her shoulders and watched the slashes of lighting through the cracks in the heavy shutters. A raven croaked in the corner, sharp eye glinting at her in the ember's light.

"Whsst!" she hushed the bird, "Your Elle's got a fine treat cooking up for you." She shuffled to the hearth, throwing the last tinder on the coals, the quick crackle as flames leapt their length and died down again, the spots still glowing in her eyes.

In the morn she would have to go farther for fuel. The longer distances to haul wood were hard on her bones, but there was little choice. The boy who had come by to help her with chores and the heavier tasks could no longer work. She even kept the gloves she had loaned him, ridiculously oversized on his small hands. It was lonely now, without the boy's chattering. As a matter of fact, not many came around any longer.

A banging sounded as a shutter worked loose, and she and the raven eyed it. The storm was worsening, and the season was young yet. The storms had been growing more severe, lasting longer and blowing harder than memory could recall. She had enough here for a while, though she needed more fuel and laying up supplies for the storm season yet. She secured the shutter, banging the bolt home hard that held them locked in against the night.

When she was a young girl, she remembered crying in nameless fear against the dark, her terror strongly gripping deep within her. Eventually her mother relented, leaving a candle stub lit to light up the shadows. How strange that an echo of that fear boiled up inside her now.

Her raven rattled its feathers briskly, fanning its wings slightly, and cocked an eye at her inquisitively. He was restless, and she felt the same urge that he did. The air was charged, the tops of the trees in the distance nodding rhythmically under the blasts of wind, dark roiling clouds sliding across the face of the moon.

His talons gripped the perch, beak clacking as she undid the aviary door. In a rush of ink he was past her, swirling around the rafters in a whirl of smoky black. She smiled a yellowed smile, and slid the furs from off her shoulders. The beam across the door took a hard push out of the brackets, and the door creaked on its hinges from disuse. A fork of purple lightning illuminated the air as the wind peaked in a higher crescendo, pulling at her hair. She stepped over the threshold, renewed in the electrified night. Her legs stretched out as she began to run, her raven apace even in the gusts that pushed against them.

A spatter of rain hit her, cold and stinging, as her muscles loosened into a long lope. An ear-rattling rumble accompanied frequent lightning daggers. She could feel the tremors through her feet. The wind shrieked around her, the smell of wet earth surrounded her. Against the buffeting of the wind, her body felt renewed, stronger, younger. Her raven screamed above her and dove ahead, wings sucked in tight against his sleek body. The smell of copper in the air, she followed.

* * *

Blood. There had been so much blood. She had never expected it all, and how thick and sticky it was, hard to wash off, and where it had not washed away, how it cracked and darkened as it dried on her skin. It was not storming then. No cleansing rain to stand in. She could smell the copper.

The fire was barely a warm ash bed when she and the raven returned, soaked yet elated. She pulled the furs over her shoulders and peered into the pot on the hearth as he settled in a whisper of feathers onto her shoulder. Taking the ladle from the hook, she pushed the long leg bone down into the broth and stroked the raven's shiny feathers.

"Hungry?" she asked her pet, as an eyeball rolled up to the surface of the stew to stare back at her.