Raven didn't like the desert all too much

It was too, bright for his taste. Everything was all one color, and it all blended together with the sky and the ground and made his head spin.

The looming shape of Possibility greeted him. Raven found it to be a nice place once you get past all the shouting dragons and crowded roads. The birds didn't care too much for it though, and slept soundly in their cage slung around Raven's neck. He'd let them out when the woke up.

Raven shifted the large bundle on his back and settled into a merchant's booth. He spent the day there, selling his scrolls and inkwells and claw-written stories. The sun was setting low when a peculiar SandWing made her way to his booth, as Raven was packing his things away. She was pale and golden and very peculiar, with blood red eyes and a bone pierced through her nose.

"Hello there." she hissed sweetly. Raven could smell the spices on her, and assumed hsi 'greeting customers' stance behind the counter.

"Hello. How may I help-"

"You don't have any wings, do you?" she interrupted. Raven felt embarrassed, looking down at his bare shoulders. He stammered

"I uh, yes, I mean, no. I don't have any wings, no."

"Maybe I could help?" She asked, leaning closer over the counter. "I am a doctor, you know."

"A doctor?" Raven asked, he had met a healer before. The ones in the rainforest never spoke to him. "You can fix me?"

"For a price, I can do anything." she said. "Follow me."

The SandWing's tent was packed with candles and spices that made Raven's nose burn. Despite there being so many odd lamps and candles, the tent space was very dark, still. She seated herself behind a low table packed with dragon-shaped dolls and vials of what looked to be blood. He had never seen the RainWing medics with this stuff. It must be a SandWing thing.

"Now, let me inspect those little stumps of yours, yes?" she asked, coming closer to Raven. He froze and felt the SandWing's breath on his neck and shoulders. "Born this way, I presume?". Raven nodded.

"Yes yes..." she cooed, fussing over Raven as if he were made of gold and onyx. His scales turned from their pitch green to a pale one, feeling a bit nauseous. Probably because of all these fumes. It was making him sleepy. "Easily repairable, easy doing."

The SandWing stepped away from him, and circled the RainWing instead. "Now, you understand the rules of my profession, yes?"

Raven shook his head.

"Well. There are a few basic rules. Do not interrupt the 'procedure', all says are final, and in order to give, I must take away." She explained. Her red eyes flicked to the cage of birds around Raven's neck.

"Would you take like, my ability to read, or write?" he asked, worriedly, wringing his talons together.

"No no, darrrling." she purred, tracing her deadly barb along Raven's spine. She plucked at the rope holding the cage around the RainWing's neck. "To give you wings, I will need one of them."

"My ravens?" he asked. Raven reached inside and pulled Maya out. the smallest of the black birds fit neatly in his palm. "You want to keep, one of my ravens?"

"No no no. Nothing like that." the SandWing sat at the table, opposite Raven. "In order to give something with life, I need to take something in death." she nodded down at Maya, sleeping soundly in Raven's talons.

The RainWing nearly fell over. "K-kill her?" he asked, holding her more tightly, closer to his chest. "You don't sound like a healer."

"I didn't say I was." she smiled back, with teeth so sharp they sliced into the air around them. "I told little old you, that I was a doctor. No healing, only witching."

"Witching?"

"Ding ding ding!" she shouted. "A Witch Doctor! Isn't it fabulous? I get to give things to dragons that healers could never dreaaaam of! All I need, is the life of a raven, for the wings of a Raven"

Raven looked down at Maya again, through his tears. "You'll really give me wings?"

"Wings unlike any other, my dear friend."

Raven sobbed. Mouthed a silent apology and a prayer to Maya, and shoved the bird into his mouth with a swift crunch.

"That's what  I like to hear!" The SandWing cooed, clapping her talons. "Are you ready?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raven sat atop the tallest building in Possibility. His birds flew in circles around him, reminding those below that he was here fro their lives.

The RainWing opened his eyes, black as a bird's. His ravens cawed, and he obeyed.

With o whoosh of giant, black wings, Raven swooped into the tent of a MudWing. A murderer. He sank his venomous fangs into the dragon's neck, and left without a sound, leaving behind a dead dragon with a black feather in one of the black holes in its neck.