Crow Princess, Page 40

PAGE 40 — THE END

A framed portrait illustration. Cora stands in her black ball gown with her crow feather wings, while Branwen stands behind her in a dark flowing gown, embracing her tenderly. Both have peaceful, content expressions. They are finally together—two souls who were friends in death, now reunited in life.

Feathers drift at the corners of the frame.

THE END

A decorative crow emblem marks the conclusion of the tale.

If you’re thinking, “This picture looks a bit like the back of a romance novel,” that was intended.

The rolling theme for this series is that Cora and Branwen are “soul mates”–literally (although I think that term is rubbish, in this story it works). Any plans I had of introducing male counterparts for either of them had to work with that. I wasn’t about to come in with “Crow Princesses: Romancing the Throne” and marry them off just like that! I wasn’t planning on sexualizing the love (because, uff, you invite the creepiest male readership if you do that, and I didn’t want to cheapen their relationship so a bunch of guys could fap off thinking about them). It was more like a Sailor Neptune/Uranus thing except with less clearly defined femme/butch roles. Branwen’s more confident and protective of Cora, but Cora’s smarter and more worldly, having grown up learning at human schools. (Crows don’t have algebra and sciences… yet.)