Morrslieb
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Morrslieb leapt into the air, the first beat of his powerful wings scattering the smaller birds that had clustered too close. The sunlight was dying swiftly as he rose above the crumbling walls, a great cloud forming directly over the manse. As its shadow spread, faster than a raven could fly, the martins simply watched Morrslieb’s retreat, the branches of the old willow where they made their nests beginning to sway in a rising breeze. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the belly of the clouds.

Morrslieb had flown only a hundred yards or so from the ruins when the gale struck him, roaring down out of the darkened sky. Squawking as he tumbled head over tail-feathers in the sudden gale, he had only just righted himself when a hissing curtain of rain came sheeting down, the sudden weight of falling water hammering him out of the air.

Splashing to the marshy ground, Morrslieb picked himself up with a panicked croak, flicking water from his sodden feathers. The world had shrunk to the width of a few yards, everything beyond that lost in the sudden downpour - but over the drumming of the rain and the moaning of the wind, he thought he could hear human voices, shouting to one another through the storm…


At the Duke of Aquitaine

A faint, far-off rumble of thunder cut through the mid-morning chatter of the inn’s common room. No-one paid it too much mind, except a merchant at an adjacent table who looked up at the sound.

“Two storms in one week,” he remarked to his companion. “Maybe this damn drought is going to break after all.”

"Rhya grant us it falls on the fields," muttered the other man, in between mouthfuls of eggs. "They need all the water they can get."