Categories > Original > Fantasy > Fairy Wings
There was a smell Kai associated with movie theaters, a clammy, sweet-sick smell, as cold and sticky to the touch as the floor undoubtedly was. Lines of light beamed down from the projector, giving the dust motes a ghostly glow. Everything else flickered weirdly--now blue, now white, now another color altogether--as images danced upon the upright field of silver. The unbearably cheerful voices from a succession of pre-movie advertisements sent tremors right through him until he wondered how humans could stand to have their ears battered so from all sides. He moved down the aisle, unable to keep from grimacing as he felt the beginnings of claustrophobia curl the edges of his mind. He felt as if he had just walked into the open maw of a gigantic beast from the depths of negative-astrality, its shiny lure of flashing pictures inviting him to come and impale himself upon one of its lumpy, upholstered teeth. He had no idea why Sir had chosen to summon him here of all places, but far be it for him to question Sir's reasoning. Maybe there was a point to having to meet his mentor here, an obscure but insightful lesson Kai was supposed to discover and imbibe.
Or maybe Sir just liked watching movies. His mentor was strange that way.
He found him in one of the center seats, looking deeply fascinated with a commercial for men's antiperspirant. His aura shifted slightly though as Kai sat down beside him; there was no doubt he had been tracking Kai's presence ever since he entered the theater. Kai turned toward the screen, waiting. He became aware that he was digging his fingers into the armrest, and willed himself to relax. He knew what was coming, didn't he? He understood the consequences of his actions. He had no right to feel like this. No right to feel angry, cheated...afraid. He wasn't supposed to be feeling anything like this in the first place.
Hollow. Incomplete. Imaya's whispered words streaked across his mind, and disgust swept through him. Why in black filth was he doing this? He knew better than to think that lacerating himself with the past would change the present; that was the human way of dealing with things, not Faerie. He had to stop. After everything that happened, he would not shame his mentor further by turning coward. Only humans showed fear. Faerie did not. He would--
"This is a good place to go to feel alone."
Shaken out of his dark thoughts, Kai glanced at his mentor. "Sir?"
"This movie theater. It's a good place to go when you want to forget things for a while." Sir made a small movement with his hand to indicate the darkened theater. "Here, no one knows or cares about you, and for a little while you can leave your life behind and slip into someone else's--someone stronger, better-looking, and more interesting than you. And the best thing about it is, you don't have to take responsibility for anything, because somebody else makes all the decisions for you. It's almost the perfect escape." He quirked his lips upward at Kai's expression, and added wryly: "It's a human thing, Kai."
"Sir, I--" Kai stopped, unable to think of anything to say.
Haniel turned and smiled, his golden eyes brighter than the garishly-lit screen, aglow with so much kindness and affection that Kai had to look away. There was sorrow in that golden gaze, too, and regret at what must be done, but what stunned Kai the most was the complete lack of condemnation in his Angel-mentor's eyes. For some reason, it hurt him more than his teammates' attempts to distract him.
Haniel sighed. "Lady Rashnu has given her verdict. Your sentence will be carried out within the hour."
An hour. No, less than that. "I understand," he said, proud at how calm he sounded. "Sir, if you don't mind my asking, why here?"
Haniel glanced around the theater. "This is such a human place, don't you think? Only humans would think to create something like this," he said, pointing at the screen where the movie credits were flashing.
Kai snorted. "I understand. The constant attempts to escape reality, the endless search for a shortcut toward the freedom they seek, the fear-driven avoidance of anything that could puncture their illusions and cause them pain--sounds human, all right."
Haniel slid him an inscrutable glance. "Is that all you really see, Kai?"
Before Kai could answer, a man shuffled toward them, juggling a couple of soda cans and a tub of popcorn in his arms. "Excuse me, are these seats taken?" he asked Haniel, tilting his head toward the empty seats beside the Angel.
Haniel smiled. "No, no, go right ahead."
"Thanks," the man said, before glancing behind him. "Over here. These seats are free."
A woman caught up to him and gave him a strange look. "Who in the world are you talking to?"
He turned, but both the young man and the boy had disappeared.
The train station was thick with humans as surrounding office buildings emptied for the day and people began the trip home. Lines snaked in front of ticket windows and turnstiles, and the grimy tiled floor was almost completely hidden by a layer of shoe and stocking-clad feet. Beneath the impersonal fluorescent lights, human faces stared vacantly into the darkened tunnel, seeing none of the other faces around them. They pressed together, jockeying for position as they waited for the train to arrive, but despite their close proximities hardly anyone spoke to or looked at or attempted to reach out to anyone else.
Haniel glided through the crowd, ignored by the humans except for a few who felt the passage of the Angel as a rush of joy and tenderness and a sudden conviction that everything was all right after all. He would occasionally touch a human on the shoulder or on the arm, and for a brief moment that human's face would light up and his or her shoulders would straighten, until rationality caught up with them and they glanced around furtively to check if anyone had noticed their odd behavior. But sometimes, the memory of that unfelt touch would remain, and sometimes the sparkle would linger in their eyes for just a little bit longer.
Kai trailed after his mentor, equally unnoticed by the humans, watching the Angel weave through the crowd. Only a human gifted with psychic sight and a pure heart would be able to see the Angel's materialization, just as Kai and the other Faeries saw him. To Kai's eyes, Haniel was an Angel of cream and gold beauty. His long hair was a shade of gold lighter than Kai's; it flowed gracefully as he moved, tangling in the large, brilliant flares of yellow and white light at his back, which a human would see as a luminous pair of wings. His appearance was that of a slim human male in his early twenties, one who favored rumpled button-down shirts, corduroy pants and battered sneakers; no human, however, could look even halfway as beautiful as an Angel. It wasn't because of any symmetry of face or smoothness of features; the aura of pure love and soul-deep compassion was Beauty in and of itself.
Kai sighed and gazed around him. There were almost as many Faeries as there were humans, all of them currently on duty, watching over their assigned human or, in some cases, pairs and groups of humans. There were other Angels, too, watching over the humans or the Faeries or both. They radiated rays of sympathy and bracing encouragement toward Haniel and Kai, while the Faeries stared at Kai with stoic expressions. They knew about him and his sentence, he could see it in their eyes, and he could also see that his disappearance from the world would not affect them in the least. For a moment he was besieged with a strange desperation, an alien urge to rush over to those Faeries and tell them that his name was Kai and he was Faerie just like them, and he tried to do something only it turned out disastrously, and he was just Kai, look, look into his face and remember, /remember/--
He stumbled, eyes wide and gasping as he struggled to contain his emotions before he did something stupid and humiliating. Sensing his turmoil, Haniel turned back and laid a hand on his shoulder. Warmth spread out in waves from the Angel's touch, and Haniel's cream and gold aura wrapped around Kai like a cloak, reassuring him, giving him strength. The train arrived at that moment, and the crowd of humans and Faeries suddenly became a mighty river, pouring into the open doors of the train. After a couple of minutes, the train moved on, and the only ones left were a few stragglers, Kai and Haniel.
And two other Angels, one of whom Kai recognized. Lord Nakir, head of the Records Division, appeared as a stoop-shouldered old man, his shiny, bald pate rising like an egg atop a nest of white hair. He wore a neatly pressed white collared shirt tucked into creased gray pants--the exact same uniform worn by clerks in every government bureau in the city. A pair of black-rimmed spectacles hung from a cord around his neck, and he carried a clipboard in one hand. His resemblance to a government employee in desperate need of retirement ended, however, with the violet aura of power surrounding him, coalescing into brilliant arches of silver and purple wings at his back. His dark eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows were far keener than any mortal's, although the sparkle of dry humor was conspicuously absent at the moment.
Kai stared at him, suddenly feeling as if time had run backward instead of forward. Lord Nakir and his ever-present clipboard was one of every Faerie's earliest memories; Kai could still remember when the Angelic Record-keeper came to declare Haniel's official guardianship over him. Lord Nakir was there at each stage of every Faerie's evolution; of course he would be here now, at the last stop in Kai's.
The other Angel was one Kai had never seen before. Judging from the radiance of his aura, he was clearly higher-ranked than Haniel. His materialization made him look like a human male in his early thirties, tall and thin and angular, with neatly cropped dark green hair and a thin pair of wire-rims over unsmiling hazel eyes that looked as if they had never held any sparkle of humor, dry or otherwise. He was dressed in full corporate glory--a white shirt in a gunmetal-gray suit, with a striped green necktie--but for some reason Kai could easily picture him wearing army fatigues and a sergeant's insignia. He held himself rigidly straight, and even his shimmering wings were folded at his back, the forest-green rays looking sleek and streamlined. The only feature that was strikingly at odds with the vision of elegant, uncompromising professionalism was the streak of warm gold in the hair on top of his head, beginning with a stubborn-looking curl over his eyes and ending in a cowlick. The expression on his face brooked no foolishness, and he fixed Kai with an odd, probing stare. Why such a high-ranked Angel would bother with a Faerie's sentence, Kai couldn't imagine. Not sure what he had done to earn such disapproval from an Angel he had never met and would never meet again, Kai met the intense hazel gaze squarely, even curiously, causing the Angel's frown to deepen.
"Lord Nakir, Lord Cassiel." Haniel bowed respectfully, and Kai hastily followed, breaking his staring contest with the tall, green Angel.
"Well met in the Light, Haniel, old friend." Lord Nakir smiled briefly.
Lord Cassiel nodded, then glanced around the station. "Shall we adjourn to a more suitable place, gentlemen?" he said, his voice as cool and deep as a forest at midnight.
The rooftop of the Renaissance Tower had always been one of Kai's favorite places, especially at night, when the city shook off its shroud of smog and noise and the stink of garbage and chemicals and too many humans, and transformed into a gaudy, exuberant imitation of the star-strewn sky. From here, he could see the city in stark clarity--the streets and buildings, the bridges and towers, the smoky clubs and hellholes--the darkness and brightness of it, from the creeping pits blacker than the night from which the unsavory denizens of negative-astrality crawled out into the human world, to the beautiful pools of flaming light, fed by streams from the Sea of Eternity, where Faeries were born. Here, too, he could play with the air-sylphs and let the winds lift him up and spin him through the clouds. He'd thought the place a sanctuary only he knew about--well, he and his Angel-mentor and probably his teammates as well, although they never mentioned it. In any case, he had never seen any other Class 4 Faerie upon this particular rooftop, giving him reason to pretend that this place was his and his alone.
At least he got a chance to view the city from his favorite place one last time before the end.
The rippling brilliance of the three Angels' auras gave the Renaissance Tower the appearance of a multi-hued torch illuminating the evening sky. Kai's wings flapped longingly in the breeze, sifting through the air currents, and for a moment he found himself wishing he could fly away and join the air-sylphs in their nightly festivities. /Foolishness/, scoffed a voice in his mind, and he was unaware of how wistful it sounded.
"Now then, kindly step forward, young Faerie," Lord Nakir began, addressing him. "I would like to see this sprite who has been making my job more difficult for me." The Angelic Record-keeper put his spectacles on and squinted through the lenses at Kai, who was well aware that it was all for show, as there were no eyes sharper than the ones in Lord Nakir's head. "Arkaion Windancer, Level 3, Class 4, under the guardianship of the Angel Haniel, assigned to GM Sector 5A prior to suspension, and team leader of Recon and Containment Unit 4 under the Angel Haniel."
Kai twitched. "With respect, Lord Nakir, I'm not team leader or anything."
"Unofficial team leader. My eyesight isn't the only thing that's sharp, young Faerie." The dark eyes behind the spectacles seemed to twinkle with laughter, but before Kai could be sure, Lord Nakir was already rifling through the sheets of paper attached to his clipboard. "Our office received a copy of Arkaion's sentence, bearing Lady Rashnu's imprint. Would you like to inspect it, Haniel?"
He tapped the clipboard once, and one of the sheets burst into blue-white flame. The flame streamed around the Angel's hand until the blue-white fireball floated over Lord Nakir's palm. As Kai watched with dull eyes, Lord Nakir offered the fireball to Haniel, who shook his head. "Thank you, Lord Nakir, but I don't need to check it. The sentence was laid down in my presence, after all."
"I see." With a flick of a finger, the fireball swept down Lord Nakir's hand and became a page on the clipboard again. Lord Nakir turned toward Kai, his face grave but not unkind. "Well, young Arkaion, is there something you would like to say before your sentence is carried out?"
"I--no, Lord Nakir." For a moment, Kai couldn't recognize his own voice. He closed his eyes, summoning his courage, and opened them again when he felt Haniel give his shoulder a comforting squeeze.
Lord Nakir cleared his throat. "Very well. Let us continue." This time, the entire clipboard ignited, turning into a healthy yellow-white blaze tinged with green at the edges. Kai felt the heat burning in his center, roaring, licking at the edges of his vision. He felt himself being drawn to the flame the Angelic Record-keeper held in his hand, and had actually taken two steps forward, one hand reaching out, before he realized what he was doing and froze. Ignoring Kai's erratic movements, Lord Nakir intoned: "In the presence of Lord Cassiel, the Angel Haniel, former mentor of the Faerie Arkaion Windancer, and I, Nakir, as witness, I hereby declare the--"
"Wait!"
Three sets of eyes turned toward Kai, who blinked, equally shocked at his own outburst. "Please, Lord Nakir, I--I just need to know--"
Lord Cassiel's expression grew even more forbidding at this interruption, but Lord Nakir smiled slightly and nodded. Arkaion tore his gaze away from the enticing flame and bowe-d gratefully, before turning back toward his former Angel-mentor. "Sir, I--I want to ask-"
"Ask what?"
Kai read the question in Haniel's intense golden gaze, then glanced sideways at Lord Cassiel's censorious glower and lowered his head in defeat. "Tell the team to follow Yvenjon. He's been putting in extra hours in training lately, and it's about time his efforts paid off. Tell them...I said so. Please."
Haniel sighed. "I will. Follow your Light, Kai."
"Thank you." Satisfied, Kai faced the two Angels and the flickering, dancing fire that was the other half of his soul. "I accept the sentence. In the name of the Eternal Light, let it be done according to Thy will."
Lord Cassiel's eyebrows shot up at Kai's arrogance in preempting the ritual, while Lord Nakir cleared his throat again to hide his laughter. "Mmrm, so glad you approve, Arkaion. As I was saying, I now declare the mentorship of Arkaion Windancer, Level 3, Class 4, transferred from the Angel Haniel to Lord Cassiel, under a special probationary status as specified by Lady Rashnu."
"What?!" Kai's mouth fell open, and stayed open as Haniel came forward and reached into the flame, withdrawing something that looked like a length of fine yellow cord. It stayed open when Lord Cassiel raised his hand, twisting a similar forest-green cord from his own aura, and wound this around the flame three times. Kai felt the shock of the change shiver through his entire body, and he spun toward Haniel with a half-formed plea for the cream and gold Angel to take him back. Haniel smiled a little sadly, a smile of farewell, and the words died in Kai's throat, strangled, no doubt, by the alien green threads now winding inexorably tighter around his flame, merging into his soul.
He could feel it already. The bond between him and the Angel-mentor he had known all his life, who had trained him and raised him from flicker to flame, was shifting, breaking apart and redirecting itself, becoming something intolerably foreign yet still infuriatingly familiar. Some deeply buried instinct in him recoiled and fought against the change, but by this time Lord Nakir had already performed the finishing touches to the Rite of Binding and had resealed Kai's soul back into the clipboard, rendering any protest Kai could have made futile and insignificant.
Slowly, Kai turned and faced his new mentor, feeling the compelling force of the new Binding surging though him as he did so. Lord Cassiel had managed to lose most of his disapproving frown, and something akin to wonder had entered those remote hazel eyes. "Your resistance is most surprising, Arkaion," he said, as cool as ever.
Kai felt the alien-familiar force pushing the words out of his mouth. "Please call me Kai, S-Sir," he managed through gritted teeth.
Ignoring Kai's distinct lack of enthusiasm, Lord Cassiel inclined his head and regarded him thoughtfully. "No, I believe I won't. Considering the circumstances, 'Arkaion' is more appropriate than an overly-familiar pet-name. After all, I'm sure you will agree that ours is not a typical Faerie-mentor relationship."
"Yes, S-Sir."
"I will accept the title of 'Sir' from you, however. I believe the Binding will oblige you to use it, in any case."
"Yes, S-Sir."
Lord Cassiel narrowed his eyes. "What is this.../disorder/ I sense in you, Arkaion? Are you not pleased with the unwarranted show of leniency toward you?"
"I believe he was expecting to be extinguished, Cassiel," Lord Nakir put in, removing his spectacles. "It is the usual penalty for Faerie misdeeds of this gravity. It is but natural to feel some degree of confusion when things do not turn out the way you expected them to."
Lord Cassiel arched one thin eyebrow. "Indeed. And so this is supposed to be gratitude you are...feeling?" he asked, pronouncing the word as though it was vaguely distasteful.
"No." Kai, beating back the maddening urge to declare undying loyalty to his new mentor, gave the tall Angel a fierce look. "With respect, S-Sir, I think I would rather have been extinguished."
A strange, muffled sound escaped Haniel, and even Lord Nakir inexplicably found an urgent need to clean his spectacles against his shirt front. Lord Cassiel's face suddenly went expressionless. "Indeed," he said again, in a frosty tone. "Very interesting, I'm sure. At any rate, such things do not have any bearing upon our mission and can be easily disregarded."
Kai bit back a sarcastic retort. "What mission is that, S-Sir?"
"One that will require the use of your supposedly prodigious skills. Hmm." Kai sensed the touch of the green Angel's mind upon his soul as Lord Cassiel used their newly-forged link to access all of Kai's personal records, including his memories. His new mentor had the grace to keep the surprise out of his face. "Well, your abilities are certainly impressive, but your track record is, frankly, a disgrace. A string of offenses, a tendency to disregard rules, and the most dreadful performance in the area of guardianship. This is inexcusable. How in all the cosmos can a Class 4 Faerie with a Level 3 ranking be so careless around humans? How could you make so many lapses when it comes to the well-being of a human?"
Drowning in resentment and humiliation, Kai fixed his eyes upon the tops of his shoes and steeled himself against the desire to spout abject apologies and fawn like a whipped puppy just to get back to his new mentor's good graces. "They're not lapses," he finally muttered.
Lord Cassiel's gaze sharpened. "What is your meaning?"
Kai looked up, angry eyes revealing the truth. The green Angel frowned. "You hate humans," he stated flatly. "By the Light, what an aggravating conundrum you are."
"Will this have any bearing upon our mission, Sir?" Kai asked blandly, reveling in the chance to throw his new mentor's words back in his face.
Lord Cassiel glared at him. "No. You are under my custody now, and all that is required of you is to obey my every command to the letter. Your...failings will not be given the opportunity to manifest themselves. Your skills in other areas will have to suffice; otherwise, the inherent dangers in our mission will surely overwhelm you."
"I've faced dangerous situations before, S-Sir."
"Nothing like this, I'm certain."
"Sir, there is nothing this city can throw at me that I haven't already dealt with--"
"The mission is not in this city."
Kai blinked. Lord Cassiel raised a hand and pushed his glasses up his nose with an air of smugness. "Do we have an agreement, then?"
"We--we will have to leave the city?" Kai asked, feeling the beginnings of panic at the idea of leaving the only place he had ever known.
"Obviously."
"And if I refuse?" he said in a hopeless voice.
Lord Cassiel arched an eyebrow, an expression Kai was quickly getting used to. "You would refuse the chance to be restored to your own team and returned to Haniel's mentorship?"
Kai's entire body went slack with shock, his disbelieving gaze flying from Haniel to Lord Nakir and back to Haniel again. His heart rose considerably when Haniel grinned and nodded, and Lord Nakir's words actually sent rays of joy shafting through him. "Cassiel speaks the truth, young Arkaion. Lady Rashnu herself has specified this in your sentence. If Cassiel's mission succeeds, you will be released from your probationary status and returned to your former position."
"I understand," Kai croaked.
Lord Cassiel sighed with weary patience. "And thus, I ask you again. Do we have an agreement?"
"Yes." This time, there was no hesitation in Kai's words. "Yes, Sir."
The green Angel smiled thinly. "Good. We leave in an hour. And Arkaion? Understand that the outcome can swing both ways. If this mission succeeds, everything you have lost will be restored to you. If not, then the standard sentence will be promptly carried out. Have I made myself clear?"
Kai nodded once, his determination rushing through him until his aura flared almost as brightly as the Angel's. "Crystal, Sir. And this time, I won't screw up. I swear it."
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Authorial Insertion:
Again, thanks for reading! Hope you liked it!
Or maybe Sir just liked watching movies. His mentor was strange that way.
He found him in one of the center seats, looking deeply fascinated with a commercial for men's antiperspirant. His aura shifted slightly though as Kai sat down beside him; there was no doubt he had been tracking Kai's presence ever since he entered the theater. Kai turned toward the screen, waiting. He became aware that he was digging his fingers into the armrest, and willed himself to relax. He knew what was coming, didn't he? He understood the consequences of his actions. He had no right to feel like this. No right to feel angry, cheated...afraid. He wasn't supposed to be feeling anything like this in the first place.
Hollow. Incomplete. Imaya's whispered words streaked across his mind, and disgust swept through him. Why in black filth was he doing this? He knew better than to think that lacerating himself with the past would change the present; that was the human way of dealing with things, not Faerie. He had to stop. After everything that happened, he would not shame his mentor further by turning coward. Only humans showed fear. Faerie did not. He would--
"This is a good place to go to feel alone."
Shaken out of his dark thoughts, Kai glanced at his mentor. "Sir?"
"This movie theater. It's a good place to go when you want to forget things for a while." Sir made a small movement with his hand to indicate the darkened theater. "Here, no one knows or cares about you, and for a little while you can leave your life behind and slip into someone else's--someone stronger, better-looking, and more interesting than you. And the best thing about it is, you don't have to take responsibility for anything, because somebody else makes all the decisions for you. It's almost the perfect escape." He quirked his lips upward at Kai's expression, and added wryly: "It's a human thing, Kai."
"Sir, I--" Kai stopped, unable to think of anything to say.
Haniel turned and smiled, his golden eyes brighter than the garishly-lit screen, aglow with so much kindness and affection that Kai had to look away. There was sorrow in that golden gaze, too, and regret at what must be done, but what stunned Kai the most was the complete lack of condemnation in his Angel-mentor's eyes. For some reason, it hurt him more than his teammates' attempts to distract him.
Haniel sighed. "Lady Rashnu has given her verdict. Your sentence will be carried out within the hour."
An hour. No, less than that. "I understand," he said, proud at how calm he sounded. "Sir, if you don't mind my asking, why here?"
Haniel glanced around the theater. "This is such a human place, don't you think? Only humans would think to create something like this," he said, pointing at the screen where the movie credits were flashing.
Kai snorted. "I understand. The constant attempts to escape reality, the endless search for a shortcut toward the freedom they seek, the fear-driven avoidance of anything that could puncture their illusions and cause them pain--sounds human, all right."
Haniel slid him an inscrutable glance. "Is that all you really see, Kai?"
Before Kai could answer, a man shuffled toward them, juggling a couple of soda cans and a tub of popcorn in his arms. "Excuse me, are these seats taken?" he asked Haniel, tilting his head toward the empty seats beside the Angel.
Haniel smiled. "No, no, go right ahead."
"Thanks," the man said, before glancing behind him. "Over here. These seats are free."
A woman caught up to him and gave him a strange look. "Who in the world are you talking to?"
He turned, but both the young man and the boy had disappeared.
The train station was thick with humans as surrounding office buildings emptied for the day and people began the trip home. Lines snaked in front of ticket windows and turnstiles, and the grimy tiled floor was almost completely hidden by a layer of shoe and stocking-clad feet. Beneath the impersonal fluorescent lights, human faces stared vacantly into the darkened tunnel, seeing none of the other faces around them. They pressed together, jockeying for position as they waited for the train to arrive, but despite their close proximities hardly anyone spoke to or looked at or attempted to reach out to anyone else.
Haniel glided through the crowd, ignored by the humans except for a few who felt the passage of the Angel as a rush of joy and tenderness and a sudden conviction that everything was all right after all. He would occasionally touch a human on the shoulder or on the arm, and for a brief moment that human's face would light up and his or her shoulders would straighten, until rationality caught up with them and they glanced around furtively to check if anyone had noticed their odd behavior. But sometimes, the memory of that unfelt touch would remain, and sometimes the sparkle would linger in their eyes for just a little bit longer.
Kai trailed after his mentor, equally unnoticed by the humans, watching the Angel weave through the crowd. Only a human gifted with psychic sight and a pure heart would be able to see the Angel's materialization, just as Kai and the other Faeries saw him. To Kai's eyes, Haniel was an Angel of cream and gold beauty. His long hair was a shade of gold lighter than Kai's; it flowed gracefully as he moved, tangling in the large, brilliant flares of yellow and white light at his back, which a human would see as a luminous pair of wings. His appearance was that of a slim human male in his early twenties, one who favored rumpled button-down shirts, corduroy pants and battered sneakers; no human, however, could look even halfway as beautiful as an Angel. It wasn't because of any symmetry of face or smoothness of features; the aura of pure love and soul-deep compassion was Beauty in and of itself.
Kai sighed and gazed around him. There were almost as many Faeries as there were humans, all of them currently on duty, watching over their assigned human or, in some cases, pairs and groups of humans. There were other Angels, too, watching over the humans or the Faeries or both. They radiated rays of sympathy and bracing encouragement toward Haniel and Kai, while the Faeries stared at Kai with stoic expressions. They knew about him and his sentence, he could see it in their eyes, and he could also see that his disappearance from the world would not affect them in the least. For a moment he was besieged with a strange desperation, an alien urge to rush over to those Faeries and tell them that his name was Kai and he was Faerie just like them, and he tried to do something only it turned out disastrously, and he was just Kai, look, look into his face and remember, /remember/--
He stumbled, eyes wide and gasping as he struggled to contain his emotions before he did something stupid and humiliating. Sensing his turmoil, Haniel turned back and laid a hand on his shoulder. Warmth spread out in waves from the Angel's touch, and Haniel's cream and gold aura wrapped around Kai like a cloak, reassuring him, giving him strength. The train arrived at that moment, and the crowd of humans and Faeries suddenly became a mighty river, pouring into the open doors of the train. After a couple of minutes, the train moved on, and the only ones left were a few stragglers, Kai and Haniel.
And two other Angels, one of whom Kai recognized. Lord Nakir, head of the Records Division, appeared as a stoop-shouldered old man, his shiny, bald pate rising like an egg atop a nest of white hair. He wore a neatly pressed white collared shirt tucked into creased gray pants--the exact same uniform worn by clerks in every government bureau in the city. A pair of black-rimmed spectacles hung from a cord around his neck, and he carried a clipboard in one hand. His resemblance to a government employee in desperate need of retirement ended, however, with the violet aura of power surrounding him, coalescing into brilliant arches of silver and purple wings at his back. His dark eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows were far keener than any mortal's, although the sparkle of dry humor was conspicuously absent at the moment.
Kai stared at him, suddenly feeling as if time had run backward instead of forward. Lord Nakir and his ever-present clipboard was one of every Faerie's earliest memories; Kai could still remember when the Angelic Record-keeper came to declare Haniel's official guardianship over him. Lord Nakir was there at each stage of every Faerie's evolution; of course he would be here now, at the last stop in Kai's.
The other Angel was one Kai had never seen before. Judging from the radiance of his aura, he was clearly higher-ranked than Haniel. His materialization made him look like a human male in his early thirties, tall and thin and angular, with neatly cropped dark green hair and a thin pair of wire-rims over unsmiling hazel eyes that looked as if they had never held any sparkle of humor, dry or otherwise. He was dressed in full corporate glory--a white shirt in a gunmetal-gray suit, with a striped green necktie--but for some reason Kai could easily picture him wearing army fatigues and a sergeant's insignia. He held himself rigidly straight, and even his shimmering wings were folded at his back, the forest-green rays looking sleek and streamlined. The only feature that was strikingly at odds with the vision of elegant, uncompromising professionalism was the streak of warm gold in the hair on top of his head, beginning with a stubborn-looking curl over his eyes and ending in a cowlick. The expression on his face brooked no foolishness, and he fixed Kai with an odd, probing stare. Why such a high-ranked Angel would bother with a Faerie's sentence, Kai couldn't imagine. Not sure what he had done to earn such disapproval from an Angel he had never met and would never meet again, Kai met the intense hazel gaze squarely, even curiously, causing the Angel's frown to deepen.
"Lord Nakir, Lord Cassiel." Haniel bowed respectfully, and Kai hastily followed, breaking his staring contest with the tall, green Angel.
"Well met in the Light, Haniel, old friend." Lord Nakir smiled briefly.
Lord Cassiel nodded, then glanced around the station. "Shall we adjourn to a more suitable place, gentlemen?" he said, his voice as cool and deep as a forest at midnight.
The rooftop of the Renaissance Tower had always been one of Kai's favorite places, especially at night, when the city shook off its shroud of smog and noise and the stink of garbage and chemicals and too many humans, and transformed into a gaudy, exuberant imitation of the star-strewn sky. From here, he could see the city in stark clarity--the streets and buildings, the bridges and towers, the smoky clubs and hellholes--the darkness and brightness of it, from the creeping pits blacker than the night from which the unsavory denizens of negative-astrality crawled out into the human world, to the beautiful pools of flaming light, fed by streams from the Sea of Eternity, where Faeries were born. Here, too, he could play with the air-sylphs and let the winds lift him up and spin him through the clouds. He'd thought the place a sanctuary only he knew about--well, he and his Angel-mentor and probably his teammates as well, although they never mentioned it. In any case, he had never seen any other Class 4 Faerie upon this particular rooftop, giving him reason to pretend that this place was his and his alone.
At least he got a chance to view the city from his favorite place one last time before the end.
The rippling brilliance of the three Angels' auras gave the Renaissance Tower the appearance of a multi-hued torch illuminating the evening sky. Kai's wings flapped longingly in the breeze, sifting through the air currents, and for a moment he found himself wishing he could fly away and join the air-sylphs in their nightly festivities. /Foolishness/, scoffed a voice in his mind, and he was unaware of how wistful it sounded.
"Now then, kindly step forward, young Faerie," Lord Nakir began, addressing him. "I would like to see this sprite who has been making my job more difficult for me." The Angelic Record-keeper put his spectacles on and squinted through the lenses at Kai, who was well aware that it was all for show, as there were no eyes sharper than the ones in Lord Nakir's head. "Arkaion Windancer, Level 3, Class 4, under the guardianship of the Angel Haniel, assigned to GM Sector 5A prior to suspension, and team leader of Recon and Containment Unit 4 under the Angel Haniel."
Kai twitched. "With respect, Lord Nakir, I'm not team leader or anything."
"Unofficial team leader. My eyesight isn't the only thing that's sharp, young Faerie." The dark eyes behind the spectacles seemed to twinkle with laughter, but before Kai could be sure, Lord Nakir was already rifling through the sheets of paper attached to his clipboard. "Our office received a copy of Arkaion's sentence, bearing Lady Rashnu's imprint. Would you like to inspect it, Haniel?"
He tapped the clipboard once, and one of the sheets burst into blue-white flame. The flame streamed around the Angel's hand until the blue-white fireball floated over Lord Nakir's palm. As Kai watched with dull eyes, Lord Nakir offered the fireball to Haniel, who shook his head. "Thank you, Lord Nakir, but I don't need to check it. The sentence was laid down in my presence, after all."
"I see." With a flick of a finger, the fireball swept down Lord Nakir's hand and became a page on the clipboard again. Lord Nakir turned toward Kai, his face grave but not unkind. "Well, young Arkaion, is there something you would like to say before your sentence is carried out?"
"I--no, Lord Nakir." For a moment, Kai couldn't recognize his own voice. He closed his eyes, summoning his courage, and opened them again when he felt Haniel give his shoulder a comforting squeeze.
Lord Nakir cleared his throat. "Very well. Let us continue." This time, the entire clipboard ignited, turning into a healthy yellow-white blaze tinged with green at the edges. Kai felt the heat burning in his center, roaring, licking at the edges of his vision. He felt himself being drawn to the flame the Angelic Record-keeper held in his hand, and had actually taken two steps forward, one hand reaching out, before he realized what he was doing and froze. Ignoring Kai's erratic movements, Lord Nakir intoned: "In the presence of Lord Cassiel, the Angel Haniel, former mentor of the Faerie Arkaion Windancer, and I, Nakir, as witness, I hereby declare the--"
"Wait!"
Three sets of eyes turned toward Kai, who blinked, equally shocked at his own outburst. "Please, Lord Nakir, I--I just need to know--"
Lord Cassiel's expression grew even more forbidding at this interruption, but Lord Nakir smiled slightly and nodded. Arkaion tore his gaze away from the enticing flame and bowe-d gratefully, before turning back toward his former Angel-mentor. "Sir, I--I want to ask-"
"Ask what?"
Kai read the question in Haniel's intense golden gaze, then glanced sideways at Lord Cassiel's censorious glower and lowered his head in defeat. "Tell the team to follow Yvenjon. He's been putting in extra hours in training lately, and it's about time his efforts paid off. Tell them...I said so. Please."
Haniel sighed. "I will. Follow your Light, Kai."
"Thank you." Satisfied, Kai faced the two Angels and the flickering, dancing fire that was the other half of his soul. "I accept the sentence. In the name of the Eternal Light, let it be done according to Thy will."
Lord Cassiel's eyebrows shot up at Kai's arrogance in preempting the ritual, while Lord Nakir cleared his throat again to hide his laughter. "Mmrm, so glad you approve, Arkaion. As I was saying, I now declare the mentorship of Arkaion Windancer, Level 3, Class 4, transferred from the Angel Haniel to Lord Cassiel, under a special probationary status as specified by Lady Rashnu."
"What?!" Kai's mouth fell open, and stayed open as Haniel came forward and reached into the flame, withdrawing something that looked like a length of fine yellow cord. It stayed open when Lord Cassiel raised his hand, twisting a similar forest-green cord from his own aura, and wound this around the flame three times. Kai felt the shock of the change shiver through his entire body, and he spun toward Haniel with a half-formed plea for the cream and gold Angel to take him back. Haniel smiled a little sadly, a smile of farewell, and the words died in Kai's throat, strangled, no doubt, by the alien green threads now winding inexorably tighter around his flame, merging into his soul.
He could feel it already. The bond between him and the Angel-mentor he had known all his life, who had trained him and raised him from flicker to flame, was shifting, breaking apart and redirecting itself, becoming something intolerably foreign yet still infuriatingly familiar. Some deeply buried instinct in him recoiled and fought against the change, but by this time Lord Nakir had already performed the finishing touches to the Rite of Binding and had resealed Kai's soul back into the clipboard, rendering any protest Kai could have made futile and insignificant.
Slowly, Kai turned and faced his new mentor, feeling the compelling force of the new Binding surging though him as he did so. Lord Cassiel had managed to lose most of his disapproving frown, and something akin to wonder had entered those remote hazel eyes. "Your resistance is most surprising, Arkaion," he said, as cool as ever.
Kai felt the alien-familiar force pushing the words out of his mouth. "Please call me Kai, S-Sir," he managed through gritted teeth.
Ignoring Kai's distinct lack of enthusiasm, Lord Cassiel inclined his head and regarded him thoughtfully. "No, I believe I won't. Considering the circumstances, 'Arkaion' is more appropriate than an overly-familiar pet-name. After all, I'm sure you will agree that ours is not a typical Faerie-mentor relationship."
"Yes, S-Sir."
"I will accept the title of 'Sir' from you, however. I believe the Binding will oblige you to use it, in any case."
"Yes, S-Sir."
Lord Cassiel narrowed his eyes. "What is this.../disorder/ I sense in you, Arkaion? Are you not pleased with the unwarranted show of leniency toward you?"
"I believe he was expecting to be extinguished, Cassiel," Lord Nakir put in, removing his spectacles. "It is the usual penalty for Faerie misdeeds of this gravity. It is but natural to feel some degree of confusion when things do not turn out the way you expected them to."
Lord Cassiel arched one thin eyebrow. "Indeed. And so this is supposed to be gratitude you are...feeling?" he asked, pronouncing the word as though it was vaguely distasteful.
"No." Kai, beating back the maddening urge to declare undying loyalty to his new mentor, gave the tall Angel a fierce look. "With respect, S-Sir, I think I would rather have been extinguished."
A strange, muffled sound escaped Haniel, and even Lord Nakir inexplicably found an urgent need to clean his spectacles against his shirt front. Lord Cassiel's face suddenly went expressionless. "Indeed," he said again, in a frosty tone. "Very interesting, I'm sure. At any rate, such things do not have any bearing upon our mission and can be easily disregarded."
Kai bit back a sarcastic retort. "What mission is that, S-Sir?"
"One that will require the use of your supposedly prodigious skills. Hmm." Kai sensed the touch of the green Angel's mind upon his soul as Lord Cassiel used their newly-forged link to access all of Kai's personal records, including his memories. His new mentor had the grace to keep the surprise out of his face. "Well, your abilities are certainly impressive, but your track record is, frankly, a disgrace. A string of offenses, a tendency to disregard rules, and the most dreadful performance in the area of guardianship. This is inexcusable. How in all the cosmos can a Class 4 Faerie with a Level 3 ranking be so careless around humans? How could you make so many lapses when it comes to the well-being of a human?"
Drowning in resentment and humiliation, Kai fixed his eyes upon the tops of his shoes and steeled himself against the desire to spout abject apologies and fawn like a whipped puppy just to get back to his new mentor's good graces. "They're not lapses," he finally muttered.
Lord Cassiel's gaze sharpened. "What is your meaning?"
Kai looked up, angry eyes revealing the truth. The green Angel frowned. "You hate humans," he stated flatly. "By the Light, what an aggravating conundrum you are."
"Will this have any bearing upon our mission, Sir?" Kai asked blandly, reveling in the chance to throw his new mentor's words back in his face.
Lord Cassiel glared at him. "No. You are under my custody now, and all that is required of you is to obey my every command to the letter. Your...failings will not be given the opportunity to manifest themselves. Your skills in other areas will have to suffice; otherwise, the inherent dangers in our mission will surely overwhelm you."
"I've faced dangerous situations before, S-Sir."
"Nothing like this, I'm certain."
"Sir, there is nothing this city can throw at me that I haven't already dealt with--"
"The mission is not in this city."
Kai blinked. Lord Cassiel raised a hand and pushed his glasses up his nose with an air of smugness. "Do we have an agreement, then?"
"We--we will have to leave the city?" Kai asked, feeling the beginnings of panic at the idea of leaving the only place he had ever known.
"Obviously."
"And if I refuse?" he said in a hopeless voice.
Lord Cassiel arched an eyebrow, an expression Kai was quickly getting used to. "You would refuse the chance to be restored to your own team and returned to Haniel's mentorship?"
Kai's entire body went slack with shock, his disbelieving gaze flying from Haniel to Lord Nakir and back to Haniel again. His heart rose considerably when Haniel grinned and nodded, and Lord Nakir's words actually sent rays of joy shafting through him. "Cassiel speaks the truth, young Arkaion. Lady Rashnu herself has specified this in your sentence. If Cassiel's mission succeeds, you will be released from your probationary status and returned to your former position."
"I understand," Kai croaked.
Lord Cassiel sighed with weary patience. "And thus, I ask you again. Do we have an agreement?"
"Yes." This time, there was no hesitation in Kai's words. "Yes, Sir."
The green Angel smiled thinly. "Good. We leave in an hour. And Arkaion? Understand that the outcome can swing both ways. If this mission succeeds, everything you have lost will be restored to you. If not, then the standard sentence will be promptly carried out. Have I made myself clear?"
Kai nodded once, his determination rushing through him until his aura flared almost as brightly as the Angel's. "Crystal, Sir. And this time, I won't screw up. I swear it."
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Authorial Insertion:
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