Echoes of Forgotten Wings

Chapter 6: The Winged Ones

In a cozy yet disorganized hut of hers, the fire continued to burn low while it threw a few sparks now and then to the stone walls enhancing the warmth within. Then again, beyond the walls, there was a deafening sound of winds from the trees, more akin to the cries of a beast that was injured and far away. The tempest had advanced to within sight of the village for the clouds were thick and black in color and heavy on weight, but so far all was well within Alm's cabin, a bubble frozen between the past and the future.

Ivo sat opposite the elderly woman, his chest still heaving with the weight of the tales she had already told him. The place on his arm, where the mark had been branded beneath the sleeve, throbbed in pain. The feather that he had put in his scout bag seemed to come alive with some sort of energy and so it naturally was waiting and listening.

Alma's blind gaze drifted over him and into a room beyond him. She spoke in a low and almost inaudible voice; however every utterance of hers felt like a sound that was heavy in the air."They used to be referred to as the Skyborn," she took a pause, her bony hands on her lap. "Wings made of light, infused with the stars. They were not deities, no – they were something almost revolving – sentinels of equilibrium, wardens of the sky. They presided over the land from the astral plane, out of the sight of men, always in the presence with their wings over the sky."

Ivo's attention was engrossed in the vivid picture that enveloped her expression as she pictured Ivo leaning forward. He had seen them in his bedtime fantasies – the avian warlords embroiled in vicious combat far up the sky over a bruising fiery globe. The sound of male voice parrying swords could be so loud, one could hear it through the sound of wind and beating of wings.

"They were magnificent," Alma went on quietly with almost a wistful connotation in her tone. "They had wings that were golden at the edges with shades that no one can even begin to fathom. They were also intelligent. Much more than any living being that ever walked down the earth. They were there, high in the sky, for centuries, balancing the worlds and making sure that neither light nor dark overcome the other."

Ivo's visage darkened. He detected the sorrow in her words, the loss towards which something or someone longed for, and he realized that there was more to the truth. "What truly happened to them?" he enquired almost inaudibly.

Having heard that, Alma kept silent pressing her lips together and there was barely anything left of her beautiful face... A moment of disconcerting silence engulfed them, as if the reality she had outlived was too much to bear. "Humans, Ivo, is what happened."

The statement remained for a while, bitter as the sentence seemed, it was still hard to get past."Skyborn were wise, I say, but in one, they made a serious blunder." Alma turned her hands clenched together in her lap. "They revealed their existence to us, soliciting the denizens of the land. It was only meant as an optimistic gesture, a way of connecting the two of us. But, the thing is - people. People are always hungry. They saw more about the Skyborn - the beauty of the wings, and the glorious light and power that came with it, and they were ready to possess it."Ivo felt an unwelcome tingle within his spine. The fact that Those Exquisite Donalds, who had once been able to soar so high, above all worlds, were treacherously unappreciated by those they tried to assist, cast a great gloomy cloud over him.

"Some among the Skyborn thought that their magic could be used for good: to help in the advancement of man and bring him to them." Alma went on yet her lips quivered. "But that was a mistake. Instead of thanks, it was the other way round for the moning men. They wanted to fight them for the winged magic and to possess it."