Washed Up

Don't you know that two is more than one?

Angel woke up gradually, in the way that your senses reach your brain one at a time. First he heard, which, to be fair, is probably the main reason he didn’t snap into full consciousness more quickly. Usually, when he woke up, he heard utter silence, and that stressed him out. Everytime he heard this lack of sound, he pondered his biggest fear that he might have been taken from his family. Instead he heard water, shifting back and forth in a rhythmic function. It was like a voice trying to calm him with a gentle shhh, and Angel imagined it was what his real mother’s voice sounded like. The sound drew a smile across the teen’s features, his body relaxing in response.

Next came touch. Angel felt something alien; tiny miniscule rocks that, in their own way were rough, but worked together to create a soft, ever-molding bed that formed to the boy’s shape. Feeling the laziness of a cat bathing in the warmth of the sun, Angel stretched his limbs - his arms, his legs, his wings - as far away from his torso as they would go.

And then suddenly pain stabbed all over Angel’s body in seemingly random places. He cried out as his remaining senses flooded him. A dry, salty taste in his mouth. A foreign smell that the boy struggled to describe as simply more than fresh. And when he opened his eyes with a start, Angel saw a land the likes of which he’d never seen.

His pain forgotten, the Avian’s eyes explored the surface he lay on. His hand combed through the form of dirt that was looser than any dirt he’d ever seen. It was loose and rough and soft. He watched it slip between his fingers like liquid. Trees loomed in the distance, but not like the ones he’d seen before. These had no branches. One long trunk led up to a single spout of large leaves along the top. His head snapped towards the hushing sound behind him, his mouth falling open at the expanse of water lapping at his toes. He’d never seen a natural body of water before, let alone one that stretched past the horizon and out of sight.

Angel inhaled sharply when he realized he was thirsty, but as he attempted to crawl towards the water, he felt another stab in his side. He looked down at himself, but saw no sign of blood. He ran a hand gently along his torso, pressing carefully along his body and hissing when it hurt. There were four spots on his lower chest that responded with pain: probably damaged ribs. He tested all of his limbs to check for injury and found that his left wrist hurt quite a bite and both of his wings felt absolutely terrible. Maybe he’d landed on them when he’d fallen from the sky.

He forced his wings to relax, like the equivalent of slouching, and they naturally draped themselves over him. He crawled on his hands and knees towards the water, gentle on his injured wrist as the tips of his wings drew lines in the sand. He smiled when he reached the body of water, cupping a hand and lowering it to allow water to ride in on a wave. He brought the handful of liquid to his lips quickly, so as not to lose it through his fingers, and sucked it up hurriedly.

Choking on the salty taste, Angel spat it out and wiped his arm across his mouth. He spat again when this gesture put some of the loose dirt into his mouth. Then, much to the Avian’s chagrin, he heard a woman’s giggle.

Angel whirled around and attempted to stand. For the most part, he only accomplished kicking up a large amount of the dirt and falling on his back, which resulted in a resounding burst of laughter from the unknown source. Crying out when he landed on his wings and gasping for breath, the boy rolled over on his hands and knees and then propelled himself to an upright position. He didn’t take any steps forward or back, fearing he would slip again.

Scanning the line of foreign trees and foliage, Angel searched desperately for the figure mocking him. His eyes caught the movement of a group of bushes rustling as something ducked out of sight. He almost took a step towards it, but worried he would fall again. He settled for glaring petulantly at the general location of movement. Several moments of near silence - save for the calming hush of the salty water - passed until a head popped out from behind a bush, a confused frown lining the feminine face.

“What’s wrong?” a gentle voice called from the short distance.

Angel felt something in his body like a kickstart in response to the voice. It was something he’d never experienced and spurred in him a feeling of confusion. It wasn’t attraction; he knew what that felt like. This was almost a strange combination of simultaneous love and heartbreak. Like the most beautiful sound had just been introduced to Angel’s ears, and then just as swiftly taken away.

So of course he mustered an eloquent, “I fell.”

The woman gasped as if she’d just heard the most dramatic rumor of all time, and she stood to full height. Angel felt as if he’d shrunk upon taking in the sight of her. She was the largest woman he had ever seen. She was not obese, but she stood at least seven feet tall with wide hips, thick thighs, and a bountiful chest.

It was not sexy; it was intimidating.

The giant of a woman - Angel noted that she had no wings, so she must have been Human - stomped towards the teen. A vast expanse of thick, pearly white hair sprouted from her scalp and tumbled all around her. It flew about every which way as she hurdled towards Angel. Unconsciously, he took a step back from the hulk of pure woman charging towards him and then gracelessly landed on his rear.

She skidded to a halt just before Angel, and at this short distance he could see how very toned her arms and legs were. He wasn’t sure what she was dressed in; previously he had thought she was just sunburned. But her whole body was a reddish pink, and there seemed to be no lines indicating where her clothes started and stopped. Like she was covered in a full body suit from head to toe.

The woman took a knee, her face distraught with the worst kind of distress. She reached out to Angel, and he held up his arms in defense with a cry of fear. Undeterred, the woman scooped him up in the gentlest way. She pulled his comparatively small body towards hers in a warm hug. A warm glow resonated from her chest, and Angel cried out again, this time in surprise, as he felt the pain in his ribs ebb away. Warmth spread to his wrist and wings, soothing the pain there as well.

Just as gently as she had picked him up, she placed him back on the loose, shifting ground. Angel stood awkwardly, one hand still clinging to the woman’s arm for support.

“Can’t you walk?” she asked after a moment, her voice sending another wave of that strange sensation through him.

“I… I’ve never seen dirt like this. Why is it so… squishy?”

She laughed that overly pleasant chuckle again, and Angel looked up to her smiling face. He felt his heart swell and his face flush in love and reverence. “Have you never seen sand?”

“Sssand?” Angel looked down to the sand at his feet, squishing his bare toes into the soft grains. “What about this water?” he asked, gesturing behind himself. “Why is it… salty?”

“That’s an ocean. Avian, where do you come from? I don’t sense very much magic in you.”

Angel looked back to the woman, taking his hand away from her arm. “I’m from the earth. My mom was one of the Avians that came down a long time ago. I… I don’t know if you know about that. She was a… a slave. And she got impregnated, and then I was born.”

“Ah!” she cried out, her large hand suddenly grasping Angel’s chin and tilting his head back at a sharp angle so she could see his face. Specifically, and he knew because it’s all anyone saw when they peered into his face, she was looking at his eyes. Not the yellow iris and slitted pupil of an Avian, but a bright blue ring surrounding a round, black lens. To his surprise, a grin of utter joy broke out onto her face. “Beautiful. You are not Avian! And you are not Human!”

Angel shook his head free, turning to walk away from the amazon as a wave of sadness erupted over him. He struggled but succeeded in wading through the sand. “No. I’m neither; I’m nothing.” He heard the sand shift behind him as she hurried after him, grabbing his hand. He tried to pull back, but her grip was firm.

“No.”

The boy turned to face the woman, surprised at the amount of pure and utter resolution in her voice. Her face was set in an expression of certainty, a small smile breaking the serious expression.

“You are both. Don’t you know that two is better than one?”

Angel sneered as they continued the topic from which his self-loathing spurred. “But I’m not two. I’m two halves, which makes one. If that,” he added bitterly. He turned away again as tears pricked his eyes, though he didn’t attempt to walk away while the woman still held his hand.

“No,” she said again, this time gentler. “You are something special. Look at me, Angel.”

He turned to her more in shock than obedience. “How do you know my name?”

“This is very important. I can’t stay long, so I need your help. When creatures are born, they are already given a side of the war to fight on. Birds of a feather, yes? Humans will side with their kind and Avians will side with theirs’.” The way she spoke was almost stilted, as if maybe she didn't speak on a regular basis.

“But Line didn’t!” He interrupted. “She rebelled, and she fought for Avians.”

“She fought for Avians that had been abandoned. That’s what a mother does - takes care of the abandoned. But does she fight for Avians in the war?” The woman did not wait for a reply. “I’m running out of time. Even Avians that want to side with Humans can’t, because they are held back. But no one holds dominion over you, Angel. You owe no one loyalty; you are truly free. Free to hide from the war, and free to stop it, to be a chain that binds these warring races. Angel, you are not Avian. You are not Human. You… are something so much greater.”

Taking a knee, she leaned forward and planted a kiss on Angel’s forward. And with a bright flash, she was gone. The Avian looked down when he heard a soft thump. Where the woman had been standing now lay a perfectly round sphere of obsidian, which fit conveniently in the palm of Angel’s hand.

Author's Note

That feeling you get when it's ends at the end of a page. Yasss.

1,877 Words

My captcha is 'landsick'. As in, "I'm so far form the ocean, I'm feeling landsick." This is going to become a thing. Not landsick; me defining my captchas.