Scraps

The raven scanned the ground below for the gift he'd long-ago lost.  It seemed like a lifetime since he'd seen it, that beautiful gift that he meant to give to her.  But it was gone. Lost forever in the thickly-wooded places where he'd hidden his heart.  Probably for the best, anyway. She'd burned their hideaway, smashing every window with  a hammer before lighting the fire herself. He sat quietly on the familiar branch, looking down at the bare patch that used to be the yard in which he'd hidden treasures.  He jumped from branch to branch, settled in on the familiar places, and tried to remember the place he'd called home.  Then he saw them, flitting in the wind, caught in the pine boughs high up off the ground.  He leapt, half-flying to them, and gathered one up in his beak.  Tears welled in his eyes as he took wing and soared away, a tattered plum scrap helping him remember the night sky...