"This raven bit has been a capital idea, my love," Alice said, fluffing and fanning her shiny black tail feathers. "We've had so many lovely visits to see what our family are up to!"

"It has its advantages," Uncas agreed, "but I'm a little more partial to the fox myself. It's more…me."

"I agree. Your shiny black nose is darling." She clicked her beak in the way he had come to know as her grinning with amusement in this form, and made the knocking sound in her throat particular to female ravens.

"That's not what I meant…" he grumbled. "I was thinking more along the lines of cunning and sly and heroic, with a handsome appearance."

"Well, there is that, too…you had just better be careful sneaking around like that on Nathaniel and Cora's farm once they have a chicken coop. Nathaniel might shoot you. Oh! Ssssshhh! Someone is coming!" Alice whispered excitedly. The two ravens craned their necks from their vantage point in the oak tree outside the house and watched as a tall, thin man of about sixty years came out the back door, mumbling under his breath about "That uncouth barbarian" and "Cora has lost her mind".

Alice narrowed her beady black eyes. "I never did like Giles, but he has certainly become even more hateful since Cora married Nathaniel."

"I don't know how Nathaniel hasn't just gone off and shot the bastard yet. He's lucky my father isn't here now." Uncas seethed, growing more peeved by the second as the unpleasant, churlish husband of Alice's cousin Eugenie continued to insult his brother under his breath as he walked down the path and passed under the tree. "I'll be back in a moment."

Uncas stretched his wings and dove into the air out of the tree with a loud "CAW!" that Alice heard as a shrill Mohican war-cry. She whooped with delight as he dive-bombed Giles, catching the man completely by surprise as he yelled out in shock.

"Don't think for a moment you're having this much fun without me!" she cawed, launching off her branch to join the fray. "Haha! Pick on my lovely brother-in-law, will you? Take that, you miserable curmudgeon!" she dove and pecked Giles on the head.

Uncas flapped his wings in the man's face while he waved his arms to try to shoo them away, trying to run, but the relentless pair cut him off at every pass. Finally they wheeled off for a moment and Giles headed for the garden gate. Alice swooped past him overhead and landed on the arched arbor. As he quickly passed beneath her, she turned and lifted her tail. Giles hollered in indignation and brushed something off his shoulder, throwing his hands in the air. He took off down the walk back to the house, grumbling about how even the birds were insane.

Uncas flew up and landed beside Alice. "You didn't." He looked at her incredulously.

"Oh, I did." She clicked her beak and Uncas laughed raucously.

"I won't deny he deserved it. Too bad Nathaniel didn't get to see that!"

"What are Nathaniel and Cora doing, anyway? Come, let us go peek in the window. There was some commotion about dinner clothes or some such going on earlier."

They flew back to Giles and Eugenie's house and lit on the windowsill of Nathaniel and Cora's room. Alice peeked in the glass, seeing her sister there in a lovely dark blue gown.

"Oooooohhh. They must be going to a dinner party. Cora looks so pretty! She hasn't worn a gown like that in a long time!"

Uncas peeked in too, stacking his black-feathered head on top of Alice's. "She does look nice. Not as beautiful as you, though."

Alice giggled. "I shall never tire of your sweet compliments."

He ruffled her feathers with his beak. "That's good, because you're stuck with me for eternity, in no uncertain terms." He looked back to the window and caught sight of his brother standing beside Cora. "What the - " in his sudden surprise, he lost his footing on the windowsill and slipped off with a flurry of scratching claws and graceless, guttural caw. He spread his wings and righted himself, landing back on the sill. He burst out laughing, the sound registering audibly as a series of short crows.

"What is wrong with you?" Alice whispered sharply. "Be quiet, or they'll hear you and then our fun will be over!"

"But…LOOK at him!" Uncas gasped, still laughing at the sight of his brother in very proper English clothing. "What have they done to him?"

"I think he looks rather handsome," Alice said proudly. "And it looks like Cora thinks so, too," she giggled at the adoring look in her older sister's dark eyes.

"He must really love your sister. He's never dressed like that in his life, and he'd never agree to wearing that for anyone else."

"Likely not, but they still make a handsome couple. I'm glad they are happy together."

"Oh, don't mistake me, I'm glad too," he said, starting to laugh again, "but this is such a wasted opportunity to tease him mercilessly, and our father isn't even here to see it!" he guffawed.

"Brothers," Alice huffed with an eyeroll. "Come on, they're looking as if they're ready to leave. Let's follow the carriage! I want to know where they are going!" They flew back to the oak tree to wait for everyone to get into the carriage that was now waiting in the drive.

"Fine," Uncas said. "But next time we do this I get to be a fox again."

Author's Note:

This is a really quick, hare-brained one-shot that I came up with on the fly this morning when I should be doing classwork for my nursing course, but I hope it made someone laugh! MohawkWoman reminded me that today (June 19, 2017) is Eric Schweig's 50th birthday, and her own birthday was just a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to try my hand at writing a funny little birthday story in honor of them. This story is a (hopefully) humorous spinoff of a situation in Chapter 15 of my story "Where We Start Again", so I apologize if you haven't read that and this makes no sense, but it could in theory exist on its own (maybe). It is also a spinoff of a humorous conversation I had with MohawkWoman (who initiated this situation idea) about Uncas and Alice going after Giles Barrington in their Raven/Fox forms as revenge for him being so mean to Nathaniel all the time. This is the kind of ridiculous stuff that lives in my head, y'all, and I never have any idea if it comes out on paper as funny as it is in my head because I'm a giant weirdo. XD Thanks for reading, anyway! Happy birthday to Eric and MohawkWoman!