Discovering Fae

Grim

She’s so close. I saw her. My beautiful queen. The time apart has only made me appreciate how beautiful she’s always been. It’s also changed her, making her even more breathtaking, which shouldn’t have been possible. How does one improve upon perfection?

Now, they’ve left the palace. I could have taken her while they were traveling, but the others were still in the way. No, it wouldn’t do to have someone come to her supposed rescue after I save her. It was best if they were out of the way first. Pity, since I wasn’t fond of killing the second female, for some reason. They looked nothing alike, so it wouldn’t matter to me if I killed the extra. It would certainly be less trouble, I’m sure. But I couldn’t. They acted too similar for me to watch as the last spark of life left the woman’s eyes, snuffed out by my hands or by my orders.

I waited.

I watched.

I plotted.

Phoenix Hollow wasn’t the place for this fight. If I had a proper army, perhaps, but one phoenix could run right through the useless flesh that made my army, then it would all be over, far too soon.

They had to leave again soon.

“Sir,” someone whispered, getting my attention. “The found him.”

“Oh? After all this time?” I mused.

“What would you like for us to do?”

“Let him go free,” I smirked.

“S-sir?” the man asked, eyes wide in fear.

“You heard me. Set. Him. Free. A little extra chaos should do nicely,” I grinned and turned back to face the direction where my queen waited for me. “They’ll split up when he’s spotted. Then, it’ll be much easier to save her without much interference.”

He hesitated only for a moment before he bowed his head and left to do as he was told.

Yes. Soon, my love. I’ll come get you soon.

Blaine

How to put in words what I feel about Naz?

Hm.

He’s witty, I’ll give him that. He’s also far more intelligent than he lets on, which concerns me, because demons love secrets and smart demons with secrets, especially where Fae is concerned, never mean good things are coming.

I could feel it around us like a far too heavy blanket; suffocating and uncomfortable. I could almost taste it in the air like blood; bitter and metallic, yet still satisfying as it rolled over my tongue. Something was absolutely coming, and it wasn’t going to be small or nice, and I was willing to bet my fangs it wouldn’t be easy, either.

I growled softly and rolled my shoulders, getting Ben’s attention.

“You feel it, too?” he asked, and I nodded. “Damn. I was hoping it was just me.”

“There’s a lot of death on the horizon,” Naz agreed as we all looked out over the softly rolling hills of the Malokian Plateau. “I can almost taste the suffering.”

“Sick,” Ben scoffed.

“The nightmares of this will feed my kind for a long time, little fox,” Naz grinned, showing off his pointed teeth.

“Demons like you give the rest of us a bad name,” he huffed.

“Demons like me are the reason the rest of you are even alive, whelp,” Naz snapped. “And you’re a fucking demon. You’re supposed to have a bad name. That’s literally the demonic dream put into speech.”

“Enough,” I growled, pinching the bridge of my nose. I swear, all I’ve done since Mary and Quinn had to return to the palace was keep these two from going at each other's throats. Ben was provoking a Lord with his attitude, and Naz has made it his personal mission to get Ben to accept the darker parts of his nature.

“Loosen up, Fido,” Naz clapped a hand on my shoulder, which looked odd, since he was significantly shorter than I was.

“Let it go, Ben,” I said, when he opened his mouth to come to my defense. “I appreciate the backup, but pick your battles. This is not one you can win.”

“I’ll never be like him,” he growled, flashing orange fur.

“Of course not. You’re a fox and I’m not. It’s nice to have goals, though,” Naz rolled his eyes.

“Stop it,” I snapped and Naz smirked at me.

“How long do you think you can keep it up, Unbound?” he said, the light conversational tone covering the darkness of his new line of topic.

“Until there’s one worthy,” I growled, feeling the dark burn of my Fury in my chest.

“No Hound believes a Master is worthy,” Naz snorted.

“Exactly,” I nodded.

“I see them. Wait. Maybe not,” Ben squinted at the horizon. “There are three specks, I think.”

“Then not likely,” I sighed and relaxed.

“You forget something,” Naz held up one of his long fingers. “It’s been nearly three weeks since you saw Fae last. She’s been growing wings this whole time and the humanoid ones usually grow them faster than the beastlier ones.”

“Nah. One of them is freaking massive. There’s no way,” Ben shook his head.

“Do you know nothing of Immail?” Naz sighed in exasperation. “One of the Original Hundred, the demons first created by our Unholy One Himself?”

“I know that as a bedtime story meant to fill the heads of young demons with notions of grandeur,” Ben scoffed.

“I know he was called Demon of Death when he entered a battlefield,” I said.

“He was magnificent,” Naz said wistfully. “Very few could stand against him, and none would be stupid enough to attempt it. Immail was the first of the Hundred to be named Archdemon and given a house. Of course, he was then stripped of his title and removed from his throne as our Infernal King for something that should have been seen as momentous.”

“And that would be what, exactly? He reached his quota on tortured souls and joined the Unholy One?” Ben rolled his eyes.

“He heard a Call,” Naz shot back.

“Why are those dots coming right for us?” I asked, breaking up the inevitable argument that was soon to happen.

Naz hummed in curiosity before he turned to look. After a moment, I heard a laugh slowly build until it was a full body experience with Naz holding his gut and head thrown back.

“Well, that’s not concerning,” I muttered as I squinted harder towards the dots. “Anything that amuses him that much is bound to be bad, right?”

“Oh, what great fun! This is going to be very entertaining!” Naz bellowed as he sat down crossing his legs and waiting, like a child waiting to be called on in school.

“Yeah, that’s not a good sign, is it?” Ben said as his fox fire coated his hands and halfway to his elbow. “Should we be looking for cover?”

I gave him a flat look and held my arms out. There weren’t any trees that could be called cover, the hills were too soft in their slopes to be useful, and while the grass was thick, it would do nothing to hide us from above. We were screwed.

“Right. Forget I said anything,” he made a face.

“Non-hostile, whelps,” Naz chuckled then pointed up again.

“Why is that big dot getting bigger faster than the other two?” Ben squinted.

“It’s moving faster,” I answered and looked at Naz. “You’re sure it’s non-hostile? To us and not just you?”

“I am positive. But you may want to brace yourselves,” he snickered and ducked his head into the crook of his elbow as a huge force of wind hit us.

I nearly ended up on the ground and Ben tucked into himself to try and stay upright, but he fell back into the grass anyhow. Three waves like that, and I was on my knees, trying not to get shoved around before it was finally over.

“Ah, crap,” I heard a familiar voice, and I looked up to see something both terrifying and amazing.

“Fae?”

Fae

Fledging was miserable business. My skin burned and itched like a bad rash so badly, nothing would stop me from scratching. My nails weren’t doing it though, so I ended up using the stone walls of the Archive, which is what Raiz called it.

Fledging is also disgusting business. All of the itching literally rips the skin open until the bones of the wings literally erupt from the flesh. Then, the wings themselves are gross, covered in puss and blood and this foul-smelling goo that Mom said was like the fluid around a baby when it’s born. I don’t care, it was gross.

Fledging is also painful business, because now you have these two gaping huge holes in your back and all of that gross hanging around. “To avoid infection, one must wash” was the only warning I got before Raiz dumped a bucket of water on my back and I tried to zap him like a mosquito for the next six hours.

With the emergence of my wings, came the unbound depths of my power. It was an odd sensation. Like, you’ve spent your whole life restricted to using only a thumb and finger and are given three inches of motion in your arms, then suddenly, you’re completely free of all restrictions, including the ones that were holding your shockingly weak self up.

It took a few days to get used to the feeling, but the strength would come later. Unlike my wings. Once they were clean, I guess instinct took over and I shook them dry and shot into the sky. There may have also been a few whoops, but I’m not telling on myself.

I had two options for wings. Demon or Celestial. Both are very different than fairy wings because of how dense they are. Fairies still have bones in their wings, they’re just teeny tiny and stupidly thin, giving them a lot more flexibility. Both demon and Celestial wings have thick, sturdy ‘arms’, off of which everything else is built.

Demons have secondary arms that are more like fingers, making them look very much like bat wings. Like bats, they also have a functioning thumb joint at the mid-joint on the main arm and the membrane is fleshy.

Celestials are far more bird-like, with the secondary arm bone connected to the primary at both ends with a slight bow in the middle for support. No thumb joint, just feathers. Feathers that are softer than any word could describe, yet sharp enough and strong enough to be used as both offense and defense in battle.

Aside from basic purpose, there was nothing at all about the two very different sets of wings that could be remotely similar.

One was feathers. One was leather. One was shades of white with hints of gold, silver, or copper. One was earth tones, like brown, mud red, or shades of gray.

Different in just about every way. Two options. Only two!

So how in the pixie dust did I end up with black Celestial wings and a wicked claw on the thumb joint that shouldn’t have been there?!

“Fellas,” I greeted my two very shocked friends and the highly amused Naz. “So, a few things have happened.”