Dancing With Crows

The second of Poetigress's Thursday Prompts I've done. So maybe you'll want to read the first one first.

     The raucous crow laughter on the roof of the house 

next door made it hard to concentrate, but I was just about at the 

end of the pony story anyway.  The thing was practically writing 

itself by this time.

     "Come on, Poosy, Poosy!" one of the crows called. 

"Come on over and dance with us!"

     El Brujo, draped as usual over the sill of the open 

window, flicked an ear.  "If any of you could dance, maybe I 

would."

     An eruption of complaints: "You saying what I think 

you're saying??" "Oh, no, you didn't!" "I heard it!  I just don't 

believe I heard it!"

     "Big words from a throw pillow, Poosy," came the 

first crow's voice.  It had more rasp in it than the usual 

crow voice and made me twist around to look up and out the 

window.  Past the black cat lay a yard or two of empty air 

and then the slanted and shingled roof of the De La Vega's 

house.  Six or seven crows squatted in a circle, all of them 

staring back at me--or, I guess, staring back at El Brujo 

stretched on the sill with her eyes closed, her front paws 

tucked under her.  The biggest crow in the group hopped to 

the edge of the roof and spread his wings.  "But talking 

isn't dancing.  Or are you afraid out here on the roof, your 

paws will trip more easily than your tongue?"

     El Brujo opened her eyes slowly, turned her head to look 

out the window, and the other crows on the roof started back 

a bit, their wariness almost a scent on the afternoon air.  

The big crow, though, he just shifted his wings, pointed one 

at the air above him and reached the other out as if inviting 

El Brujo to take it.  "El Brujo," I started to say, "don't do 

anything--"

     But her hind legs had already gathered themselves under 

her, springing her from the windowsill and sailing her across 

the gap between the houses toward the big crow, her front paws 

outstretched.  She caught his wings, and I gasped, thinking 

that would be it for the crow.

     Instead, they spun together, rolled, and came up embracing 

one another nose to beak, the crow's wings around El Brujo's 

shoulders, her front paws at what I guess would've been his 

waist if crows even have waists.  The other crows 

exploded into caws, but this time, I had to blink to hear a 

rhythm there, something almost like a melody even, the crows 

clawing in time at the shingles and rattling a song from their 

throats.  El Brujo and the big crow glared into each other's 

eyes, then they swirled away, leaping together, whirling up 

and down across the roof, their two black bodies standing out 

in the afternoon sunlight against the blue of the sky whenever 

they sprang upwards, his wings never leaving her shoulders, her 

paws never leaving his waist, their eyes never straying from 

each other's.

     The cackling music got faster and faster, the dance getting 

wilder and wilder till they were just a black blur, fur and 

feathers mixed into one.  Then with one last massive caw, the 

music stopped, El Brujo and the big crow freezing at the exact 

same moment.  For a second, they stood in silence, then all the 

crows leaped cawing into the air, El Brujo settling into the 

shingles to lick a paw.  "Not bad, Brujo!" the big crow called, 

flapping away with the others.  "See you next week!"

     El Brujo didn't answer, and after another moment of running 

her paw over her ears, she rose and jumped back across onto 

the windowsill.

     "A friend of yours, I take it?" I asked her.

     She settled into her regular place.  "An acquaintance," she 

said.  "But one who understands the small comforts of life."

And then comes 3.