It's novel writing time! Here's a snippet of a fantasy novel I'm developing entitled Ringbearer:
Seven birds, black with a glossy coat and a mournful, unholy gaze, hung on a wire outside Jessica’s apartment window. The heavy fog that acted as their backdrop swirled ever-so-slightly as the birds cawed into its vast and dense emptiness. Days like this weren’t terribly common for the city of Rancho Cucamonga, but even when they did come about, they seemed to always clear up by midday. This wintery afternoon, however, appeared to be an exception.
“Sure is ominous out there, isn’t it?” Jessica said, pulling her curtain aside.
“Maybe, but we’ve had days like this before. It’ll be gone by tomorrow,” Sam said. Samantha Cromwell, who often boasted about being a direct descendent of the one and only Oliver Cromwell, put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder before turning her back to face her. She smiled at Jessica. “Don’t you think?”
“I hope you’re right. It just seems darker out there than usual.” Her eyes narrowed. “Eerie, almost.”
“Well, that hasn’t stopped us from going out before, has it?”
“I guess not. Oh, by the way, you see those birds out there?”
“Yeah…” Sam said, her eyebrow slowly rising. “And?”
Jessica grimaced. “Well, you do know the difference between a raven and a crow, don’t you?”
“Is this that stupid joke where it’s only-“
“A matter of a pinion?!” Jessica beamed at Sam. “Can’t beat me to the punchline.”
Sam sighed. “You know that’s not scientifically accurate, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Crows and ravens have the same amount of pinions, ten, to be exact. The only way to tell if they are different is really just by looking at them in flight. Ravens will have four flight feathers while crows will have five.”
“Oh… cool,” Jessica said, looking down a bit.
Sam smirked. “But you know what those birds are doing?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, based on how they’re looking at us on that wire, I’d call that a felony.”
Jessica looked back at the birds. It was almost as if they were searching for her eye contact. How curious, she thought. She looked into one of the bird’s eyes. Time faded away as an inky void spread from its eyes into the rest of her reality, placing her and the bird as the sole two objects in this boundless space. She felt lost, alone, catching whispers of an icy night’s chill while the frost simultaneously materialized deep in her bones. She went to run but paralysis had already sunk in. The bird sat in place on a short pedestal, motionless, as if scanning her for what she might try to do next. The stare deepened further and further until she could no longer bear to be.
A quick, shallow breath shocked the world around her back to her normal surroundings. Shaking her head, she broke the entrancing stare. It had only been a flash of a second. With a shiver down her spine she slinked back from the window and returned to Sam. “Why’s that?”
“Because that’s obviously a premeditated murder.”