Rhona groaned and let her body hang limp as she flutter along the road; she watched the path roll underneath her idly. 

“This job is so fuckin’ dull, I swear to-"

She stopped and pulled herself up, she lingered quietly in the air. Something, somewhere was watching her, she could feel it and it wasn’t long before her suspicions were confirmed. With outstretched talons, a large owl swooped out of the night sky. It grasped at Rhona and Rhona rolled out of its way. The owl pulled up and soared in the air far above Rhona.

She looked up and, to her dismay, another owl circled around her with the first. She barely had time to think before they were upon her again.

The first owl swooped down on her again; Rhona barely managed to sidestep it before the second owl flew in the from the side, trying to catch her in its beak. Rhona flew upwards, as quickly as she could, and drew her sword. The first owl followed, flying up at Rhona; she leveled her rapier at the bird’s large glowing eyes, the needle broke through the eye and plunged deep into the owl’s skull.

It cried out and writhed in pain, jerking the sword out from Rhona’s grip. It flapped desperately but couldn’t find a grip, landing with a deafened thud on the road beneath her. Rhona watched as he spiraled out of control and was caught off-guard by the second owl who clipped her with its wings.

“Gah! Fuck!”

Rhona was sent into the same downward spiral as the first owl, her fall was broken by the now lifeless corpse of the first owl. She gasped and coughed, trying to catch her breath. The owl hovered overhead, waiting for another chance to strike. Rhona groaned and crawled her way up the cadaver to its head, her sword was hardly a nub, lodged deep in the brain of the bird. She put one foot against the bird’s eye and pulled with all her body and yanked the needle out.

She pushed off of the bird and caught herself mid-air, the owl swooped down with its talons out, managing to wrap them around Rhona’s waist. Rhona groaned as the bird flew back up with her in its grasp. On her belt, though, sticking out from between the owl’s talons was a glass vial of a strange clear liquid - a fairy poison. She swung the sword at the vial, once, twice, three times. Each attempt cracking it ever so much before it finally smashed. The liquid seeped out, covering the owl’s talon, Rhona’s legs and most importantly,  the tip of her blade.

Rhona smirked and lunged the blade through the owl’s talon, the talon twitched and spasmed, before going limp. Rhona free fell for a while, watching the fast-acting poison cause the owl to go into a seizure and fall to the ground to die. Rhona caught herself just before hitting the ground and she let herself down slowly.

Rhona pushed the sword back into her belt loop and pulled the broken vial off of her belt carefully before letting it drop onto the ground. She sighed heavily and picked herself up again, continuing down the road to the Cossler’s estate.

“Flyin’ in th’ fuckin’ dark. Nothin’ bad e’er happens when yer flyin’ in th’ fuckin’ dark.”