Fleeting on Dragonfly Wings

Refraction

I woke up in the tent, wondering outside into the morning light. I'd much rather be here with anyone else besides Avery or Nox or whatever the fuck he wanted to be. 

"Let's get a move on," Avery moved his way out of the tent after the sun had risen.

"Fine," I slipped back in, getting my clothes on. I had really learned to love watching the sunrise while in my pajamas, which just happened to be underwear. In this remote area, hiding because of the fae our team contained, I was safe to do this. 

I slipped a bag around my shoulders, wandering off into the woods with Avery. He paused in absolute silence, looking around. He walked off one way, I followed closely behind. Ever since I'd gotten together with Sal, Avery had been harder to find. Whatever heartbreak he felt because of me was something I didn't understand. I didn't even think he liked me. Maybe if I hadn't fallen for Salvador, I would have had a nice romp with Avery. However, he smelled an awful lot like Kane, the Ice Queen. I didn't quite understand why.

"Here we are," Avery walked up the steps. 

Before us was a tall tower, its top crumbled away to age. We were sent after the Gold Medallion, trudging up flights of stairs, crossing across rooms to get to more stairs. They spiraled to the top. The sun glared down on us, causing something hidden beneath a table to shine. We pulled it out together. I had to force my hand in to help, Avery wouldn't ask.

"We've got it," I looked down at the medallion.

"Halt," two masked fae, their cloaks muddied and brown stood before us, blocking the stairs.

"Caius," Avery glanced back at me.

"Yeah," I commanded my daggers to float behind me.

"Careful of their weapons," he narrowed his eyes.

I launched myself between the two of them, pulling out my navy blue dagger, long since forgetting what half of my daggers stood for and just placing two to replace the ones that Sal broke. This one turned my body into liquid fire. Aether. I had forgotten about this one, it was a tough one to make. Aether was flammable. And when mixed with water, it could spread further. I still had my fire dagger.

"Avery, water," I commanded.

He drew water up from the deep underground well. I spilled my Aether self through it, all while commanding my daggers to swipe at the two masked fools before us. I whipped down my fire dagger then, relishing in the screams of agony.

Something shattered along my back after I had pulled my daggers from the ground. Pain rippled across my body, excruciatingly. That's when I saw them, the tiny pieces of glass-like substance raining in the air before my eyes.

My wings.

You've been here before, Caius.

I had. The memory of it was so repressed, so far away, it was out of my reach. It took control of me now, while the pain still spread across my back as if slowed to the millisecond.

My father my father my father my father. He had thrown me, stepped on my wings. The crunch and the shatter. The pain so blinding I couldn't see straight. I screamed, my mother screamed. Analeise was only five, Nintia was there, and Clara had just come along. She didn't understand, none of them did. But they saw it, they saw it. I couldn't move, the pain too overbearing. It wasn't like anything I had felt before.

And between it all, that damn cane was raised over me. He brought it down on me, the pain sudden.

And I woke up with my wings intact, pushing this all down as some horrid nightmare. I protected my wings. I was so scared to lose them. I had only learned how to fly so little ago, they were precious. Losing them meant losing my pixie self, becoming nothing but a crawler as they called them.