The Raven and the Reindeer

by T. Kingfisher

The reindeer hide bunched around her as she fell, and in her reflection, she saw the antlers frame her face. The hide had been a magnificent gift, however poorly she wore it. The hide. The gift. The herd. In the speech of reindeer, she found that she could think again. I am here. I am still alive. If she was half an animal, let the animal half speak for her, then. The human part was tied up with human things like self-loathing, but that did not matter. There were no words in reindeer speech for I hate myself. It was not a concept that could be thought, and so she did not bother to think it. She thought, instead, the thing before me smells of snow. Janna was screaming, but she was screaming in the human language, and Gerta did not dare slip back into that. Kay came toward her, with his face ominously blank, but then a black shape sliced between them and Mousebones drove his beak at Kay’s face, cawing a raven’s mobbing call, as if Kay were a hawk instead of a human boy. “Awk! Awk! You will not! Egg-stealer! Nest-thief!” The thing that smelled of snow leaned forward. Her eyes narrowed. She is expecting me to die, but I am not dead yet.