Prompt Fill week of 2/5
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but hello, Cousin." Lily startled, jumping up to hide the razor behind her. It was her grandfather's, originally, but that wouldn't stop her "stepfather" from claiming it as his own and her a thief. There wasn't anyone around, however, and she looked up at the canopy of trees, wondering if audio hallucinations could be caused by blood loss. She hadn't actually gotten to cutting today, but she hadn't studied medicine.
"I'm not supposed to be talking to you, little human-chick, but you are destroying yourself, and we are family. Family helps its own." A crow cocked its head at her, then flew down from the nearby tree, landing near her foot.
"What?" Not her smartest reply, but frankly, she wasn't sure she wasn't losing her mind.
"Yeah, that would be why I'm not supposed to be talking to you. You don't know anything about yourself, so you aren't prepared. Still, I'd rather face punishment than watch you kill yourself. Put the razor down; I won't take it, I just want it out of your hands." The crow was definitely talking. Lily slumped back to the ground, staring at him. He impatiently scratched at the ground until Lily set the razor down between them, then nodded in apparent satisfaction.
"What is going on? Am I insane?" Lily asked, deciding she'd rather just tear the bandage off.
"No, you aren't insane, just uninformed." The crow responded, moving his wings in a way that looked incredibly like a shrug. "Your mother has made a lot of poor decisions, really. You father would never have allowed you to go this long without knowing about yourself."
"Yeah, well, Dad's dead, so." Lily spat out, blinking back tears. Her dad died three years ago, leaving her alone in a world that didn't care. With a mom so worried about having a "positive male figure" in her life that she didn't stop to make sure the man she chose was actually a positive influence.
"I know. I was at the funeral, although your father and I had never met. He'd given up his feathers by the time I was born." The crow sighed. "Mother was very sad he didn't come home at least once before everything happened. Either way, we've been keeping an eye on you, although not as close of one as I would like, considering the circumstances."
"You're not really making a case for my sanity. The longer I go without answers, the more insane I think I am."
"You say that, but we both know you think you're the only sane person left in your family." Lily couldn't really argue with that, she'd certainly screamed that at her mother more than once. "Anyway, I'm your cousin, Mark, on your father's side."
"I don't have family on my father's side." It was an automatic response, something trained into her from a young age. Her father never talked about his family, and once he died, her mother simply said they didn't exist.
"You do, just not of the human variety. You're a Crow, Lily." Mark looked at her, and she couldn't tell why, but she did feel certain he wasn't lying to her.