Sing to the Stars

"Home" (Eboni)

     Hi, I'm Eboni. My parents put me and my brother up for adoption when I was little and only now am I receiving the consequences. My adoptive parents told me to hide, so I did. 

    But...they died. Somebody found out I was half angel and tipped off the demons that I was living there. So the demons killed my family when they lied and said they didn't know who I was.

     Now I'm on the run. Thievery isn't ideal, but's what I got. Speaking of...

***

     "Get back here, you thief!" The shopkeeper shouted after me as I darted away into an alley. I'd walked in calmly, taken a few baked goods (a rarity nowadays considering most Demons were carnivorous), and waltzed outta there. They wouldn't've noticed unless the counter to pay wasn't in front of the door. Which, of course, it was.

    There were loads of Demon officials out, so I was immediately pursued. Sticking a doughnut into my mouth and shoving the rest under my right arm, I jumped to the left, using my hand and foot to push off the wall onto somebody's balcony. Angry shouts sounded from underneath me, but I payed them no heed as I jumped again across the alley onto another balcony, repeating the process until I got above all the apartments onto the roof of the first apartment building.

     Breathing heavily, I paused, using my left hand to take the doughnut out of my mouth. I then proceeded to eat it. The cops would be on my tail, but most of them were burly, or would be tired by at least the fifteenth flight of stairs. I specifically chose to rest on the top of a building without an elevator.

     "Eboni!" The small voice of the youngest of my fellow runaways rang in my feather-covered ears. Pushing part of my black bangs out of my eyes, I ran, still holding the baked goods under one arm. "Coming!" I called back over our magic link as I jumped the space of the alley I had run down earlier.

     Without breaking stride, I kept running across the roof of this building as well, then the next and then next and...well, you get the idea. About twenty-five buildings later, I jumped off the roof and into a back alley that was rarely used anymore. Well, except for me and some runaways.

     "Hey guys!" I called softly, slowing down at what looked like the back of the alley but wasn't. "Eboni?" A male voice called from the other side of the carefully constructed barrier of boxes and cages. "I'm here Leo." I said, standing in front of the door-flap. On the other side, I heard shuffling, then somebody opening the door-flap. 

     "Eboni!" A small shape came barreling towards me, and then wrapped its arms around my waist. "Got the goods." I said, handing over the baked goods to my friends. "Hey, Carla." I said, ruffling the small girl's hair and walking into the fort-like structure and closing the door-flap behind me.

     The inside was dim, with blankets and pillows over the floor and scattered across the ground. There were also a few books laying open or piled up in the corners. Most of them were paperback, with torn or dog-eared pages. 

     Carla let go of me and ran over to Leo, looking up at him pleadingly. He was handing out some of the food I'd stolen. I walked over to the right corner along the back wall and sat down, crossing my legs and taking off my jacket to let my wings out. The feathers were cloudy grey - the shade of clouds filled with snow - and charred from fire in some places.

     "Hi." My younger brother, Crow said, sitting down next to me. From afar, we didn't look that related (or at least that's what I thought). Him with his pale blue wings and ear-feathers, me with my pale grey. Me with long, straight black hair with red streaks, him with short, slightly curly black hair. Him with his piercing, birdlike amber eyes and slit pupils, me with my soft blue eyes and vaguely heart-shaped pupils. But when compared side-by-side, you could tell we were siblings. We had the same eye shape, same hands, build, even ear structure - if you really payed attention to the way our feathers grew in.