A Long Road Chapter 2 Ficbit – Crows and Needles

He ducked, fast and to the left. Thunderous caws split the air, as black wings swept by his sore ear. Claws twice the length of a normal crow’s scraped over tender skin, almost drawing blood. “Ow! You-!”

“Shaya!” Wen Ning scolded, holding out a leather-wrapped wrist so the Burial Mounds crow could perch if it wanted to. “T-that’s not nice.”

“How can you tell that’s Shaya?” Rubbing his twice-assaulted ear, Wei Wuxian glared at the sniggering bird, then quickly scanned the treeline. Two more soaring black forms that had to be Wu li and Cubao de. Drat.

“She’s more purple.” Wen Ning held himself still as a dark beak pecked at his cheek, not breaking skin. His eyes went misty, then focused on one hapless ghost path cultivator with a look of pitiful alarm. “Master Wei! You tried to lose them last time?”

“Would I do that?” Not that he’d tried. Exactly. He’d just kind of hoped he had.

Stroking a smug black head as Shaya croaked, Wen Ning gave him an even sadder look.

Augh, I can’t, the sad is too much! “They don’t like me!”

“Sure they do,” Wen Qing’s voice rang across the clearing. “They think you’re hilarious.” She waved a hand. “Nothing around here’s going to eat us or attack us, or you two would have shredded it already. Go find us some water.”

Because the energies around here are tangled, water cloaks resentful energy, and if there’s any monsters in the water we’re the only ones strong enough to take them down, Wei Wuxian filled in silently. He tried not to roll his eyes, listening for any sound of a running stream. “We should send her looking,” he murmured to Wen Ning, stalking toward a promising soft gurgle. “Any water ghoul that went after your sister would end up a silver pincushion.”

Tossing Shaya back into the air, Wen Ning fell in behind him. “W-we can’t afford to waste the needles.”