Landed Wings - By Skylhur Tranqille Page 0,5

feel my wings pushing against my coat yearning to unfold. There is some sort of dusty town at the edge of the cornfield. Up ahead I see what looks like a LandBound woman pulling a small child behind her. The child is wingless. I can’t help but stare. I’ve never seen a wingless child before. I still don’t understand how any child is born wingless. Even if your wings are stripped – shouldn’t you still have the gene for wings? The little girl is looking at me like she knows I have a secret, thankfully, my feathers are fully concealed. The woman bares her teeth at me, like I don’t belong, regardless of my concealed wings. How does she know? I see a few more people as I walk further into the town and they all look at me with the same distrust. What distinguishing mark is upon me, that they know? I look at myself in the reflection of a store window and see a stray feather in my hair. I curse. They will all know me now as SkyBound. I pluck the feather out and drop it on the ground.

CHAPTER 4: MOCHA

ASHLYNN

As I watch the feather drop I realize that my life has just changed, irrevocably. It lands and a small child swoops by me and snatches it up. I look up in alarm, about to cry out and run after the child but something stops me. Oww! What was that? Blinding pain in my head one second and nothing the next. Really weird. I rub my head anxiously, but the pain doesn’t come back. I don’t know how long I should stay down here - things don’t seem to be going well. I’m only going to stay a couple more minutes and then I’ll leave. I look around and see a boy, no older than me, maybe even a year younger walking closer to me with a fierce, proud expression on his face, like that of an eagle. There is something not too far from distaste in his eyes. He makes my feathers squirm. Why is he looking at me like that? I squash the impulse to check my reflection in the nearest shop window. Maybe there’s something on my face. As he gets closer, I realize that he is older then I first thought and Oh my… he is beautiful. His face is almost elfin. Upturned eyebrows, pure jet black - beneath them, the lightest brown eyes I've ever seen. They are caramel, or butterscotch, or amber. Indescribable and beautiful. I know I should probably go but I get the feeling that something is happening that I don’t understand. This perfect specimen is lean, and I cannot understand why he doesn't have wings. He’s taller then me, but only by a few inches. I am pretty tall myself, about 5'6'' which is tall for the SkyBound. I would guess he’s about at 5'11''. His mouth is wide, but not too wide, firm and plump, but not too much so. His ears are slightly pointed and his hair is jet black, brushing the tops of his ears, his bangs brushing the tops of his eyes. His skin is caramel too. He is gorgeous. I wish he would stop staring at me with that hardened line of a mouth and fierce expression. Why does this LandBound remind me of an eagle, or a falcon? I can’t help but smile, if he doesn’t want to talk, fine by me, I’m good just looking at him. I wonder if…

"What are you doing here, SkyBound?”

He spits out the word and looks as if he has a bad taste in his mouth.

“Come to mock us?”

Boy this guy isn’t as nice as he looks, who does he think he is, talking to me like that? No one talks to me like that.

"What? No!”

I look at him with my (fiercest?) expression in my eyes. I stop myself from saying anything else because I can feel my wings straining for release and I can’t let that happen here. If he keeps grinning at me with that nasty evil grin though, I’ll show him why no one at Volar High tests me.

"Yeah, right. So, what, you just wanted to come gawk? We’re not animals in a zoo."

"What’s your problem? You don’t know me, or what I know. I don't know you, so why are you talking to me like that?"

He steps closer to me invading my personal space.

"Leave."

Seriously? Who does he think he is?

"No. I’ll leave