Broken Feathers

Dirty Paws

Chapter Three: Dirty Paws (Of Monsters and Men) 

   

"What the hell are you doing?" Kalem growled as he came through the door, slamming it loudly behind him. I jumped, looking around in confusion. What felt like mere moments ago, it had been half twelve and I had just picked up my paints. Now, the clock behind Kalem's head read five and the expression on Kalem's face read pissed. 

"Fuck off," I muttered, suddenly realising what this was about. So I had left school early. Big deal. Both of us knew it was a fucking miracle I had even turned up in the first place. Nevertheless, Kalem took a furious step towards me, shaking his head. 

"We aren't here for me to learn to straighten up and fly right!" 

"I never wanted to fly at all," I hissed back, bristling. The thing with Kalem was that he could never quite relate to me. He'd lived his life before – being here was a punishment for him. So what could be more punishing that having a charge that refused to do what he was told? Hell, I was giving the big guys upstairs a run for their money in the punishments department! I was doing them a favour 

"Why did you leave?" Kalem demanded. 

I shrugged, mixing a mint green with a salmon pink on my palette. It was childish, and it would probably result in a scolding, but talking to Kalem was literally the worst thing I could do. He always had the ability of making me feel like even more of a fuck up. 

"Jay?" 

"...She essentially told me where to go," I muttered quietly, hoping that he wasn't going to need more elaboration than that and let me lick my wounds in peace. 

"Who?" He wrinkled his eyebrows. "Star?" 

"Yes." 

"So you left?" 

Was that not just fucking obvious? I shrugged again, going back to my painting, in which Princess was standing on top of a hill and was throwing spears down at unsuspecting men. "She's just another girl!" Kalem exclaimed, looking completely disbelieving that this was what it was all about. 

"She is not just another girl." I stared at him, wishing that he would cotton on to the similarities between Star and the girl. And when he continued to look at me blankly, I shoved a recent picture – any picture would have done; he was just so fucking dense. How could he not realise who she looked like when he was constantly surrounded by pictures of her – at his face and waited. 

Kalem's eyes darted across the painting, thick eyebrows jumping about in surprise. For such a stoic creature, his face was very expressive. 

"That might not mean anything!" 

"Bullshit," I grumbled, rubbing my face tiredly. "My muse hates me. Fucking hell." 

"Perhaps you just made a bad first impression, hmm?" Kalem asked dryly, and he was fucking lucky that I didn't just put his head through a window there and then. What the hell did he know? His body probably didn't even know what attraction was! He was the most- I didn't even have words for what Kalem was. 

A twat. 

We could just leave it at that. 

"IS that a "yeah, I made a twat of myself" face?" Kalem asked condescendingly. Ha. Joke was on him, because he was the twat in this room. 

"No, that's the face of "fuck off and leave me alone"," I muttered, pushing past him and making my way towards my wardrobe. 

"You're not getting left alone." Kalem rolled his eyes. "We've got to go." Ah. As if Kalem would ever forget a dinner with my mother. Sometimes I just sat and wondered if he would just like to swap names and be done with it. He was, of course, every bit the loving son I would never be. Hell, maybe I could have just done us all a favour and disappeared for good next time.