Finn was no ordinary raven, his sleek black feathers glossy as midnight oil, catching the faint glow of torchlight in the underdark caverns where he now perched. Barely two years old—young for a bird of his cunning ilk—he'd lost his left foot at the ankle in a cruel twist of fate, the stump a ragged scar that spoke of chains and desperation. His right foot, taloned and strong, gripped branches or Eli's shoulder with a vice-like hold, while his beak, sharp as a dagger, clicked in rhythmic irritation when thoughts turned dark. He favored a peculiar quirk: a low, rasping caw that mimicked human laughter, a mocking echo he'd picked up from the Faire's rowdy crowds, twisting it into something eerie, like wind through hollow bones.

Born in the wild eaves of the surface world, Finn had soared free until the witch's snare at the arcane Faire. She was a hag of twisted thorns and spite, peddling curses from a gaudy tent reeking of sulfur and regret. Captured for sport, crammed into a iron-barred cage too small for his wings, Finn's spirit nearly broke under her petty magics—illusions that promised flight only to yank him back. He wanted nothing more than the endless sky, the rush of wind under feathers, the dominion of heights where no chain could reach. But the missing foot, severed in a botched escape attempt amid the Faire's chaos, grounded him; flights were lopsided stumbles, energy sapped by the imbalance, leaving him vulnerable to predators or worse, recapture.

Eli, the drow rogue with skin like polished obsidian and eyes gleaming silver in the gloom, had spied him there—a kindred outcast, bartered free with whispered secrets and a vial of spider venom. Now, Finn shadowed Eli through shadowed tunnels and moonlit ruins, his wants sharpening into a fierce loyalty laced with resentment. He couldn't reclaim his full freedom alone; the world was too vast, too cruel for a cripple. So he adapted, wheeling in tight, clever circles to scout ahead, his keen eyes piercing fog and deceit. That rasping laugh-cry would erupt when he spotted danger—a patrol of orcs or a rival thief—alerting Eli with precision born of survival's forge.

It worked because Finn's mind was a labyrinth of guile, sharper than any blade. Where his body faltered, his wits soared; he'd lure foes with feigned weakness, then strike from blind spots, or relay messages in coded caws only Eli understood. Conflicts gnawed at him: the itch of captivity's ghost, urging wild flights that ended in painful crashes; the bond with Eli, a drow whose underworld ambitions sometimes clashed with Finn's surface-born yearnings for open skies; and the witch's lingering curse, a whisper in his dreams that twisted joy into suspicion. Yet in Eli's company, Finn carved a new arc—not unbroken freedom, but a shared dominion, where his flaws forged unbreakable trust. Their journey twisted onward, through betrayals and blood, until one storm-swept night atop a crumbling spire, Finn's wings caught a true updraft, carrying them both beyond the witch's reach. In that moment, maimed but unbroken, he found his sky not lost, but redefined—perched eternally on the shoulder of fate's chosen thief.