The Winged

2- Council

The boy had a grin on his pale face despite the serious tone and was leaning his shoulder against the door. Arms crossed. I looked up at him with zero-expression in my face, refusing to give rise to the teasing smile. His blonde hair looked like the sun even in the low light. A few tufts brushed his left eye. His right, my left. I love the sun.
I could see his pointed wings hanging slack behind his ankles, relaxed. They were strong, that I knew, but they were ever so slightly smaller than mine. I was faster than him. Much to his annoyance, and my delight. Ha ha.
"Late again..." he went on in that same stupid voice, "What will the Elder think?"

I had to hide a smile as I shoved past him, "Be quiet."
He chuckled and shoved the huge doors shut when I entered. "Well, aren't you?"
"Maybe a little. But it isn't again. I'm never late, I just... had a busy morning."
He only shrugged. Aspen fell into step beside me and feigned interest in the arrow he was twirling about his fingers, not doing a very good job considering that he was looking at me in his peripherals. Searching. Trying to work out where I had been. He brushed his fingertip against the pointed arrowhead. "Whatever you say." He flashed that unbearable grin, "But you are late."
He wasn't going to let that go, was he? Fine.
"Then maybe you haven't realised, but so are you. And unlike me," I jabbed his side, "You actually are always late." With that said, I picked up the pace and strode towards the meeting area. "Maybe you should worry more about yourself."

First surprise, then irritation sprung onto the boy's face and he hastily trotted to my side again.
"What are you talking about?"
It only annoyed him further when I didn't reply, or even do him these decency of looking at him. He glared expectantly, waiting for my response. I didn't give him one.
"Azure!" He shoved the arrow into the quiver on his back. "I'm not always late."
I decided it was an appropriate time to change the subject.

"You know, I spoke to your mother on the way here."
Our footsteps echoed through corridor.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face turn serious. Aspen didn't make a sound as the two of us walked, just pouted at the floor. Now it was him who was refusing to give me any sort of response.
I sighed, "You worry her too much, you know that? She's always stressing about you. It isn't fair."
He did nothing but frown at his shoes and grumble, "She worries about everything."
"Az," I scolded, "She's your mother. Of course she's going to worry about you." I nudged his arm, "You're lucky that she looks out for you like she does." In my opinion, he took it for granted. The Blaze had taken a lot from people our age. Having a mother was something some of us would wondering about all our lives, and Aspen knew this, yet his only response was a groan, "It's not 'looking out for me'. She just doesn't like me being in charge of things, she thinks I'm still five years old. I don't need her to get involved with everything I do. It's annoying."

As much as I would have liked to stop and argue with him, we were already late. I marched through the wooden hall with a reluctant urgency. We passed a few leaves and berries that had been freshly strung up and hung from the ceiling, but I didn't have time to look at them too closely.
"She has a right to worry." I continued anyway, unable to drop the subject of his nagging mother, "You know she's just scared of what might happen."
That earned a snort from him.
"What might happen," he mimicked, unhidden sarcasm in his tone, "Yeah, okay. She's so paranoid. Everyone is. We haven't seen one of them for years... might as well be made up."
For a moment, I couldn't respond. Them. He could have been referring to anything. Air creatures, land creatures, it seemed like everything in the woodland wanted to kill us... of course, that was just nature, but it didn't change the fact that it made life harder for all of us in the tribe. But Aspen wasn't referring to any animal, and we both knew it. People didn't worry much about animals when there were other threats, far bigger threats, lurking around the forest.
"Just... try not to worry her, alright?" Was all I could say through a tight throat. Aspen really could be stupid. The thought of him tangling with a human...