Bone and Feather

Bone and Feather -3- {Storm}

He squeezes his eyes shut against the brightness of the flames, the torrent black smoke summoning tears from the creased corners of his eyes. It is then, that he waits. He waits for the darkness of death to swoop down onto him and devour his soul, leave his body to the unforgiving blaze. He can see the flames rising, even from behind his eyelids, curling tendrils of orange and red. He cannot hear the girls' ragged breath from behind him. Perhaps she has already suffocated from the smoke, or already been burned to the bone. He does not look though, for fear of only seeing her blackened corpse.

Finally, a bellowing rumble echoes throughout his eardrums and the boy thinks death has finally come for him and now the tears flood freely down his ash-stained cheeks. But these are not tears of smoke, these are tears of joy because after he has passed, he won't have to spend another wretched day on this forsaken earth.

A white light flashes across his eyelids and the rain begins to fall. It's icy cold as it slashes across his cheeks, somewhat a relief from the heat of the fire but not enough to overcome the horrid realization that he is still alive. Even when he shouldn't be.

The rain falls heavy like the tears of a sinner. It falls onto the square, the townsfolk who had been eagerly awaiting his death, and lastly onto the roaring fire. The relentless rain crusades upon the fire, drowning the flames, starving them of dry wood to feast upon, leaving only the sizzling remains in it's wake while the townsfolk scatter like black ants. They claw for the shelter of buildings as a white bolt of lightening splinters across the sky and a growl of thunder only a heartbeat after.

The boy and the girl are stranded in the square, left to the mercy of the storm. Though, not a thought of their comfort passes through the shallow minds of the townsfolk, who shiver in the warmth of their homes. The boy ignores the cold spatter of rain against this skin for why should he care for anything at all? He knows that as soon as the raging storm passes, the townsfolk will crawl out of their dwellings and pick up where they left off. He has not been saved. No. He has been cheated of a simple death. Now, because of the storm, he must wait here, bound to the stake, for death to inch slowly towards him.

"Are we dead yet?" a voice drifts by his ear. It belongs to her, still alive but weak.

He does not answer and tips his head back against the stake, peering at nothing in the opaque sky. For it is all he can do.

The girl is then silent and only the heavy drum of rain on cobblestone rings in their ears. Time passes, each second ticking off with each strike of lightening, seconds ticking off till the flames will be lit once more and all they can do is wait.

Another jagged bolt of indigo lightening shatters across the sky, striking far too close to the water-logged roofs of the town. The momentary brightness blinds him, a hazy grayness shadowing his eyes so that he does not notice the dark figure lumbering across the square through the heavy rain, towards where the two of them are bound.

Muted by the near-deafening ambience of the storm, the figure clumsily climbs the stacked blocks of brittle wood, flimsy soles of his shoe nearly causing him to slip. The boy feels his presence at first, that looming, shadowy feeling of someone hovering close. His heart races, not knowing what he should expect from a dark figure that has climbed up to them in the grayness of the rain. Then, lightening strikes once more, illuminating the silver sheen of a blade held high in the air, arching down towards him.

His instinct is to close his eyes, but he fights the urge to as the knife draws nearer. It seems that time has slowed, like the air has become thick as syrup and nothing can seem to move in the right speed. This is what he asked for, the liberation of his soul and he wants to see it through to the very end.

But when the knife swoops past his neck, past his heart and hacks at the mildewed rope that binds his body to the stake, he realizes he is once again spared and now caught in between feelings of relief and anger.

"Father!" croaks the girl from behind him.

The man hacks away at the rope, fumbling with the knife to free the both of them and another crack of lightening illuminates his auburn hair. It is indeed the girls father, the boy realizes, the one who dragged him heartlessly to his death less than an hour before. Now, he stands here at the torrent mercy of the rain, trying to saw his daughter free.

The rope gives and falls limp at the boys feet and the blood cut off from the tightness of the bond flows back into his hands and feet. His wings pop out from their cramped fold and quickly grow heavy with rain, but to his own surprise, he feels relief.

"Father!" the girl cries once more and flings her arms around the man, almost knocking him off the stack of wood he's managed to balance on. She holds him tight, like she'll never let go.

"We must leave Cora. Before the storm passes," the man said, and began to help her down the stack of wood to the slippery cobblestones below. The boy cautiously followed and once his bare feet hit the slick texture of the street, the rain seemed to relent. Now, a light mist of rain had began to swirl around the three of them, perfuming the air with the somber freshness that swoops in after a storm. The storm had filtered away and they were now vulnerable.

Already, several men and women had begun to crawl from their homes and a few had noticed the girl and the boy with wings were no longer bound to the stake. Their shouts ricocheted off the clustered buildings of the village, drawing more people from their dwellings to witness the unfolding scene. Men began to run towards them, fear-fueled rage burning in their eyes.

The man took his daughters hand and began to run for the shelter of the woods that loomed on the fringe of the town. The boy took after them, trying to sprint quickly on his uncoordinated legs that hadn't caught up with the rest of his body quite yet. The men of the town were close on his heels as he ran, like hunting dogs crazed with the desire to tear its prey apart.

He ran quickly, wings flying back behind him, swinging wildly like useless flaps of skin. He dove into the cusp of the woods, quickly dodging though the narrow spaces of the trees. But it soon occurred to him that the men trailing him had disappeared and when he skidded to a stop to glance around, he noticed that they had simply found easier prey.

The man and the girl were barely seven body lengths away, their figures shadowed by foliage but visible enough to see they were being closely chased. The girl was quick and so was the man but when the girl didn't lift her foot fast enough to miss the jagged roof sticking from the ground, all hope of escape was lost to the night.

She fell hard, so hard the ground seemed to tremble. She had also brought down her Father with her and they both lay sprawled across the forest floor as the men approached. The man scrambled to stand, glinting knife clenched tightly in his fist, pulling his daughter to her feet and pushing her away, farther into the dark arms of the trees where the boy crouched behind a bush bearing bloodred berries, watching.

The group of men grinned. They had their prey cornered.

"Sorry it had to be this way Cornan," one advanced on the man, knocked his flimsy knife from his hands and sunk his own into the mans chest. The girl uttered a scream, a scream that rattled the boys bones, a scream that shook the leaves of the trees, a scream that sounded like she herself was being run through.

The mans eyes were wild as he crumpled to the ground, shirt stained scarlet, fingers trembling in raw pain. His eyes found his daughters and he looked at her with such love that it almost hurt and told her to run. Then, they slowly moved away and locked onto the boys own that hid cowardly behind the bush. It startled him, almost as much as it did when the girl touched him but he did not look away.

"Save her," the man mouthed and then his eyes were lifeless. His soul had parted. The girl hovered for a breath of a second, then turned quickly on her heel and raged into the darkest, most unforgiving portion of the forest where trees sprouted thorns as long as a canines teeth, where every berry was swollen with poisonous nectar, where the witches and other dark creatures dwelled. It was a place that even struck fear into the hearts of the men. The would not venture close to it and wallowed back to their town, dragging the corpse of the girls father behind them.

The boy, taking a deep breath of faith, leapt from his cave of foliage and ran after her, sinking gradually into the velvety darkness.