Angel Wings

Chapter 10.1~The Peace In Our Stars

AZA

Aza burst out of the Sanctuary's door into the cold night air that whipped at her face and blew her hair back. She ran down the rough steps into the dark, slightly damp grass. It felt good the coolness against her bare feet, but it wasn't enough to calm her. She glared up at the sky where a small crescent moon hung limply in the darkness.

She screamed at it. It felt better, letting her shrill voice pierce the silence of the night, ruining the peaceful stillness. Finally she just collapsed in the wet grass, hearing the small chink of her mother's charm in her hair as it bounced on the ground. Instinctively her hand went to it, to feel the worn metal that she so often rubbed for comfort. It was the gift that first person to show her love, had given her. Slowly she lowered her hand to the grass that she now lay on. She stared up at the heavens, reaching for the eternities, the pin pricks of light in the night sky, circling the faint smudge of a moon, illuminating her surroundings.

Aza was glad that the moon was dim tonight it meant she could see them clearly. Stars. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes; her heart began to beat normally. Stars always made everything better. When she had first moved to New York and discovered that stars were never seen in the highly polluted state, that had been the worst. After her father's rages, she would find refuge in the billions of lights that dotted the blanket of black. They became far more than a part of nature to her. They became a part of her darkened, damaged soul.

Aza slowly opened her eyes again, but the stars were gone. Instead a pale face with dark hair and large swimming pools of violet were staring down at her. Aza nearly jumped out of her skin. "Whaa-?" She clutched at her heart, the finally eased beating completely forgotten. "Would you stop doing that?" She glared at Del and his stupid silent ways.

"What? Existing?" He grumbled.

"That would be a bonus." Aza put her arms back to her side.

"What are you doing out here?" The shadow boy asked glancing around as if he was nervous he would get caught talking to her.

Aza turned her head away from him. "I could ask you the same question."

"But I asked you first."

Aza glared at him. "What are we five now?"

Del's cold stare was so freaking annoying, especially now as he stared down at her in silence. A part of Aza wondered if her judgment of Del was based off of that awful boy from middle school. They dressed the in the same dark clothes and had the sharply defined features that all the girls melted for, but admittedly there was a difference in the boys, and it wasn't just the color of their eyes. It was their vastness. The stupid kid Aza had known's eyes were up front and shallow. You looked into them and they just ended, but Del's were the opposite. Those violet eyes held a million eternities inside them. She looked into his eyes and would keep going, never finding an end to the universe they held.

Yuck. Aza thought, disgustedly. Honestly brain? You're really thinking crap like that? "Fine," Aza closed her eyes. She was now feeling that sense of exhaustion she had lacked earlier. She was just too tired to argue with him. "I like the stars." She said finally. "They're my... my peace, I guess. When I just can't handle anything anymore I go out and look at the stars. For some reason they just calm me down, give me my peace."

Aza opened her eyes to once again an immense, cosmic sky filled with and eternity of her peace bringers. She felt the air move around her as Del, to her surprise, settled on the grass across from her, so that his head was above hers. When she looked at him, all she saw was the top of his dark head as he too stared up to the stars.