This Isn't About Reya

Chapter Eleven

Reya smiled through her day at school.

She smiled through geometry, despite her hatred of math. They were calculating the surface area of cylinders, and every time she looked at one, it reminded her of the shadow in the woods, that great billowing column of smoky rags. 

She smiled through history, imagining that if the shadow had been present when Adolf Hitler stormed the Russian border, the shadow would have flitted through the ranks, tearing asunder and rending the ranks of Russians, securing Germany, collapsing Russia, saving her from all their cruelty.

She smiled in art class, fingerpainting the boy's face, blending the greys and the creams and conjuring the pale, ashen flesh, and his piercing eyes were bright blue and rang with the songs of the stars.

Throughout language arts, Reya wrote about him along the fringes of her hardlight sheets, describing his dark cloak and the way he floated along the ground and flitted between the trees. Her professor lectured on proper grammar and such, and her mind lingered on the way his voice had sounded, like a cool spring breeze.

And in biology, she didn't even try to pay attention. How could anyone, when the mysteries of the universe hid behind those obsidian folds of fabric?

She was so excited to learn about him. Or it. She still wasn't sure. But she had convinced herself that she was not falling in love with him, she was merely entranced by the sudden explosion of excitement and goings-on. The thrill of something new, and that something had deemed her special. 

At the end of the day, she danced down the road between the walls of pine trees. The snow flakes were beginning to waft down from the clouds, mingling with the scent of cold air and copper blowing in the wind.

Copper?

Reya's eyes flashed open and she turned towards the trees. 

The shadow shifted and backed away from the edge of the woods.

Reya felt a tingle of nervousness, felt her blood run cold, remembering the early experiences with Azrael. The fear she had felt then. She was still afraid, but only briefly, and it felt wonderful. She was afraid in the most amazing sense of the word. And she dashed towards the trees.

The shadow backed further into the boughs, daring her to follow. She pushed past the low-hanging limbs, feeling the soft needles tickling her fingers. "Azrael!" she called.

"Reya Chernykh," he hummed. He was pleased to see her. 

Reya felt it in the air, his presence thick like a hanging blanket.

She swung around the trunk of a particularly thick pine and came to a small clearing. It was only about ten feet wide, but the trees were far enough apart to let some sunlight shine through, glistening off of the fresh snow piled in the middle, unprotected by the branches of the great wooden towers.

Azrael stood in the center of the clearing, his cloaks picking up with the wind and swimming in the air. In the pillar of light shining through the trees - with the birds singing sweet nothings in the boughs, the wind blowing cooly, gently, the air suddenly not so cold, but refreshing - in the serenity, Azrael stood, his head bowed, covered by the shadows of his cloaks. He was tall, so very tall, and thicker than any of the trees, yet his face was so small, so pure. 

Reya approached him, stepping lightly across the red-orange of the pines, coming to stand in the clean whiteness of the snow. He was in front of her, and Reya marvelled at him and the woods. The forest was not so scary when its protector was your own.

The girl looked up and smiled at him, shifting her hips side to side, swinging the skirt of her school uniform in the wind. The air was brisk and sent goosebumps across her legs - or was it Azrael doing that?