A World Like That

Chapter XXX

-Dantalion-

He was reaching for a banana in the tropical forest when he noticed a black line on his inner forearm. Thinking it was dirt, he tried to rub it off. When the dirt didn't budge, he brought his arm closer to his face to examine it. He shuddered when he realized the black wasn't sitting on the surface of his skin. It was underneath.

He traced the black, seeing that it followed one of the veins in his arm. This must be the warning his father had given him about his blood clotting in his veins. Even though he knew his father wasn't lying about this, he had allowed himself to hope that it wouldn't happen. The time he'd spent so far with Ariel in Heaven had been incredible, and he didn't want it to end, not now or ever.

"Dante!" Ariel called.

He quickly dropped his arm, making sure to keep the inside of it turned towards his body. He didn't want Ariel to see it and start asking questions.

"I'm over here!" he called back.

"We're going swimming in one of the waterfall pools. Come join!"

Smiling, he grabbed his basket of bananas and ran in the direction of Ariel's voice. He'd think about his own problems later.

-

The breeze ruffled Ariel's feathers, and he reached out to touch them. He and Ariel were laying on the giant lily pads in the sun so they could dry off after their swim. He was already dry, but Ariel's feathers took quite a while to dry out.

"The lily pads are one of the first things I showed you," Ariel murmured.

"I remember. We had such a good time that day."

"All of our days have been good."

"They have." He pushed his hand under Ariel's top layer of feathers to reach the soft fluff underneath. It was still slightly damp.

"I also remember that you growled at me when we were splashing each other in the water. I was terrified," Ariel admitted.

He laughed. "You were. I felt bad for scaring you."

"There was a lot we didn't know about each other then."

He fell silent at Ariel's words. There was something important Ariel didn't know about him now, and he was beginning to feel guilty for keeping his fate a secret from Ariel. He'd been thinking about telling him, but the moment never seemed right. Ariel was so happy, and he didn't want to take that away from him and make him worry about something that was out of their control.

-

However, a new symptom appeared the next day. He bumped one of his wings on a marble gazebo, and it hurt more than it should have. Once he was alone, he pulled the wing in front of himself to examine it. There along the edge was a slightly darker spot he hadn't seen before. He ran his fingers over it, and then quickly pulled them back. It hurt to touch that spot. The skin was warm and moist, and when he looked more closely at it, he could see that it was thinning. When he held the wing up to the light, he could almost see through the spot.

He felt a lump in his throat and tried to take deep breaths. He didn't want to die. He wished he could lay in Ariel's arms and close his eyes and have this all go away, as if it were simply a nightmare. Ariel would make him feel better. 

For a moment, his resolve faltered and he almost ran to Ariel to confess everything. Instead, he forced himself to curl up on his side and lay there alone with his thoughts. This was his problem and no one else's.

-Ariel-

He'd been keeping a close eye on Dante lately. He could tell Dante was tired most of the time and not always feeling well, despite Dante's efforts to hide it. He often had to rub Dante's wings after they returned from Earth. He was glad to do it, but he didn't like that Dante was hurting. There had been no mention of his wings when Dante told him that Heaven would make him sick and make his eyesight worse. He hoped this wasn't an unforeseen complication.