Ode to a Requiem (TakodaVega & GreenWolf)

[GreenWolf]

The evening was still, the day had been mild and there was no breeze to bring the winds of the north down from the mountains.  A caw sounded in the distance, black on black in the night sky, wings beating furiously, they seemed to bring the winds with it's motions.  He changed to a glide, soaring cross a full moon that hung swollen in the night sky, an ominous ring of her glow surrounding it on the think clouds.  Luna's gloaming rose, covering the farms and homes with a brilliant, but murky, darklight, illumination enough to see, but leaving details to street and house lights.  The avian traveler grew larger, though unwitnessed at present, any who laid eyes upon his form would know him for a stately Raven.  He brought the winds with him and perched upon a telephone pole, crying out.  Beneath his entry, a large beast of a black wolf padded silently into town, fog rolling in gently behind him, filling the streets with a thick blanket of mist.  The Reaper's heralds had arrived.

Galloping in through the mist, the lone rider wore a tatterdemalion black cloak that hid him entirely from view.  Almost entirely.  Between his passage and the wind, the fog was stirred and swirled around him, one skeletal hand lifted as he crossed out over the fields, brandishing a wicked looking scythe.  His horse snorted and sent gouts of smoke out of his nostrils before the beating of his massive hooves crossed from grass to paved road.  The Grim Reaper reined in beneath a street lamp in a crossroads and dismounted from his midnight steed.  The haft of the scythe struck the ground a single time, and the blade vanished, leaving a blackened walking staff with an intricately twisted upper section that ended in branches twisting around a glowing crystal.  Hood-hidden gaze swept over the quiet street, landing on the front door to a residence.  A surprisingly normal voice came from beneath his cowl.  "You're all insatiable Drama Queens.  The three of you."

The Raven laughed, a rapid-fire cawing, "And you, worst of all, Poe," and he was no longer the image of legend, but an indeterminable aged, white male, tall, gaunt.  Somewhere in his twenties or thirties, dressed in oxfords and khakis, a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows.  The staff quickly shrunk, retaining its shape as it became a ballpoint pen.  He stashed it in his interior jacket pocket, and withdrew a pair of thin-framed glasses that he settled onto his face.  "Stay hidden, I'll only be a minute."  His wolf, whose head came up to his chest, whuffed at him and trotted off around the side of the house.  Poe, cawed once more and alighted to the rooftop.  Death, for even in his learned man's guise, he was still Death, opened the closest saddle bag on his motorcycle, the horse no longer there, and retrieved a leather satchel-like briefcase.  He breathed in, tasting the night, and headed up the walkway towards the darkened residence.