Those With Wings

Before

Luanna

No one here is normal.

Compared to you humans, anyway.

Compared to the rest of us here, well...I'm not normal. I guess I'll never be normal or find normal.

"I'm trash, a waist of life, a nothing." I've been called that so much, it seems...normal. But I don't need your sympathy to tell me otherwise. Not being normal is perhaps the best thing that has ever happened to me. 

Because if I was normal, could I do this?

From where I stood on top of a huge rock, I spread my snow white wing span out to its maximum length of fourteen feet. The same as my "human age based on appearance." I really was 149 years old, but even that's too young for me. My wings may have been "angel wings" but I'm not an angel. Get the idea that I'm your "perfect little guardian angel" out of your head right now. It won't help you at all.

I let the wind rush past my luscious golden blonde hair. The magnificent sun made it shine even more majestically. I had to push it out of my face so I could see better. My other hand had to keep my simple white royal garments from flying up. Nice pretty white dress, but the golden ribbons were perhaps not the greatest.  They were itchy, seemed to never fit right, too loose. Yes I was dressed in white royalty, but I was no royalty. I was working for the kingdom so they had to make me at least "look" the part of an "intelligent creature."

I wasn't the only one with my job. I live and work with my brother in this kingdom, high in the sky in the clouds above earth. You call it the paradise that everyone wants--when in truth no one gets it. The place is called Rosseletta after the Rosseletta family, the current ruling family. 

Everyone is a part of a family here, a total of eight families.

Or should I say seven.

My brother and I are the last of my family, the last of the ones with wings.

And yes, that is a good thing, perhaps the best thing that could happen to us.

Because then no one else has to suffer.

But in the end they will bring down another family and make them serve like we do. Through another war. That's what tore us apart in the first place. A stupid war.

My name is Luanna Issola and I am an angel.

But hold on.

Before you take this the wrong way, I want to explain, because I'm NOT an angel like I told you before.

We are not what you think.

We are called angels because we are the guardians of the whole kingdom.

Well, the two of us: my brother and I.

We have to guard this place with our lives.

The reason we are called angels is because of our wings and are beauty. Even while we're protecting the place, we still have our innocent charm and beauty.

My brother Alex and I were the only family we had, whether it was before the stupid war, before our mother died in that stupid war, and even before our father abandoned us. We may be "trash," just because the others are jealous of our beauty, but because we still have each other, my brother and I still are able to stick together through thick and thin. We find a makeshift happy. 

We have a home, a roof over our head, and we have someone who understands us. What more could we possibly need?

Well, besides we needed to put that stupid war behind us. The vivid images of it still flood my mind.

My brother, mother, and I hid from the fighting as long as we could, along with many others. Over the thirteen years war, everyone was gone. Alex and I woke up one day to find out we were it. We were alone. There was nobody left like us but us. 

Why was this stupid war so stupid? There was a rumor of children with unpure blood of the demons that we fight and protect the kingdom from existed. Demon blood was dangerous. It creates a dark side within a person which can take over and destroy the kingdom, which of course, is "bad". I guess they didn't think that eliminating the rest of my family was "bad" then.

We managed to hide for a while, actually. It took them quite a few years to realize that we still existed--that was my brother's mistake. 

Then we became the nobodies. The oddballs. The freaks. We weren't even allowed to go to a school, to learn the vital skills. We had to learn everything on our own. 

I hated it at first, but I soon grew accustomed to it and believe it or not, I became okay with it. It just meant I could learn anything I wanted, no one but myself to hold me back.

"You are the disgrace to this world." They'd tell me. Lies. They may have burned most of our books, thought they taken our pride and everything that made us happy, but they didn't take our hope and our faith. We believed we could still be alright, so we were. They couldn't stomp out our motivation and the skills my brother and I learned. After all, we were the best in our class in survival skills and demon fighting.

My brother Alex and I guard the kingdom now from demons and anything else that poses a threat against our home.

Hey, it was definitely better then garbage collector.

So we chase the demons out of here and back to hell.

Sounds fun?

Well, it's not.

In this kingdom there is a place in the outskirts of the kingdom called the edge. The edge is a cliff. If you fall off, you don't come back up. It's too hard. My wings could hold out probably if I tried, but it would be hard. I'd have to spend weeks training but I don't even know if it's possible. No one has ever done it. The Dragunda family has a way of commuting back and forth, however they keep their ways to themselves, just like every other selfish family here.

So in retrospect: you fall, you're never coming back. The end. You're done for. Hope you have a happy life.

Not like anyone would survive the fall, anyway.

Today was another typical day. My brother and I chased a demon all the way to the edge, but it somehow turned out to it chasing us instead of us chasing it...

"Luanna watch the edge!" Alex shouted to me in caution, but it was too late this time. We were flung off the edge by the demon unconsciously as we fell down to earth.

TWW / Prologue / End