Raven stood upon the outcrop and shivered. A cold wind buffeted at her back, but it was not the weather that caused the involuntary movement of her skin, which was not really hers. Indeed, an onlooker would not see the woman standing by the waterfall with a tiny babe in her arms. They would see a man. A large, muscular man with close-cropped, dark hair, his arms held high above him with ruthless bloodlust blazing in his dark eyes.
Another cool breeze sent the chill down the young woman's flexible spine. No, it was not the wind that made her shiver. It was just the babe.
How could such a small thing cause her such agony? The woman knew, of course. This demon-child was her son. And, though it appalled her to no end, losing him was about to be the hardest thing she had ever done.
Yet another shiver wracked Raven's slender body, and she was forced to admit it was naught but a tremble. Why was she so shaken? She had always been strong. She had to be strong, to have this son, to send him to his fate...
She trembled violently now as her heightened senses picked up the roar of an enraged rabble making their way inexorably up the steep slope leading to the cliff's edge. For a moment she clutched the babe more tightly with her man's fingers for the foolish fear of dropping him. Why did she still have these mothers' instincts of protection, when she was about to kill him anyway?
There, she had thought it. She was about to kill her beloved son, the one who looked so much like her. The real her. The child was like a male version of herself, in truth, if one was to ignore small matters such as numbers of digits and inexplicable tails.
She could see the flickering light of the rabble's torches, now, as they approached from her left. The young mother gulped slowly, then, still bearing the babe high above her head, she turned to face the enraged townsfolk.
It was all too suddenly that the rabble was just about upon her. When the nearest of them were mere feet away, she spoke in clear, steady tones that surprised even herself. She spoke to remind them of whom they were crowding around – not the terrible shape-shifting woman who had borne the demon-child, but a fellow townsman, holding the bloodthirsty town's sacrifice high above his head.
Raven could see the expressions of the townsfolk flickering in the torchlight. They were hideous faces, distorted by hatred borne of fear of the unknown. But they trusted her. Only because they believed that someone else spoke the bitter words. She smiled the grimmest of smiles at the irony. But the townsfolk would only see a man about to kill a small child, and pleased about it.
It was then, in the silence that followed her brief words, that the babe began to cry. He cried in a piercing wail, as if somehow knowing his doom's imminence.
An unsteady shuffle of the gathered let Raven know that if she did not dispose of the child now, the crowd would do it for her. She knew she could defeat the entire mass, kill them all, but in these days of her innocence, she still could not bear to take away a life.
And yet she stood on the brink of a waterfall, about to kill her own son. With silent hatred welling inside her for all of humankind, Raven let go.
She did not dare watch. As soon as the weeping babe began his final plummet, Raven turned back to the crowd.
In the darkness of this fateful night, none would have seen the townsman's eyes glow in distinctive burnished gold.