Wings To The World

11.

'Preparing.'

Saraiel paces back and forth. "She-She took Isael?" She asks. "No warning...?"

"Well, there was a warning," I say. "A damn bad one, but a warning."

Feraphale looks over her nails, swinging her legs one over the other. "Just a reminder; I do know where she 'lives'."

"And you're taking us," I say. "Once Saraiel catches up."

"Yeah," Feraphale nods. "But I'm also here to remind you that I have friends we can use. Ground angels are used to... drama."

"Drama?" Saraiel asks.

"Yeah," Feraphale shrugs.

"Well," I say. "Introduce us to your friends, then."

-*-

The friends aren't what I expected. When you look at Feraphale, it's slim beauty and short hair. It's kind of like looking at a lioness. Her heart and soul is so fire-filled and forwards that I'm always taken aback for a second. But my eyes settle on the sharp lines and op-shop clothing.

Feraphale, in a word, is beautiful.

She's passionate, creative, and free. Her aura reflects that. It feels like the anxiety of being in friends that are so exposed to the world and yet so closed in. The anxiety of friends that feel like they are the world. It smells of burning, brushing off opinions, and cheering each other on. It feels like a warrior at the beginning of a battleground, ready to charge.

All that, in one angel.

That's a lot. Nonetheless, her aura feels most like passion. It feels like fashion in the highest regard, beauty of every form. It feels like the poetic cinema you'd see if you were to find a poppy blossoming in a house. That same image, and knowing only poppies grow on war grounds.

It's so overwhelming and so beauteous at the same time.

Her friends are the opposite. One angel's aura feels like a black hole- they suck everything in all at once and spit nothing out. It reminds me of nights spent watching the stars and feeling like nothing beneath them. It reminds me of the trail of music spinning in my ears.

That friend, named Griel, looks the way her aura feels. She's nothing like me; her body looks too thin, harmed by something I can't see. I look like I've always been of plush, always filled with stuffing.

Her eyes are beady, thin, and weighted by the bags beneath them. Her fingers are small, her chest is small, and her bones are poking out. She is beautiful, too, but she is beautiful in the way you know she suffered for. And that thought alone is enough to make my stomach swirl.

Griel doesn't speak to us, she nods in acknowledgement that we're here. She leads us down a path and to a bigger room, not once speaking to us. When Feraphale thanks her, she does so with a small smile.

"She's weird," Feraphale shrugs. "Doesn't talk. Ever."

Saraiel nods. "She might be shy."

"It's her thing," Feraphale replies, pushing open the door we stopped at. "I think she wasn't created with a tongue, you know? Never spoke to us, not once."

The room is wooden, the way workshop 7 was. Its walls, its floor, all wood. But there are no windows, and it feels stuffy. At the same time as being stuffy, it's far too cold for me. I shiver, but at the same time my palms clam up.

On one side of the room, a group of two angels stop their work to stare at us. One looks at us through squinting eyes.

I'm conscious of my body in front of this group. Their bodies seemed shaped to thin lines and angular perfection. They lean and fall the right way. All their waists are thin, their arms thin too. They are beautiful, yes.