Wings

I jostled past her table, and overturned her drink, and didn’t even see her until she grabbed my wrist and pulled it, sharply.

“Hey –“

A girl like that can ignore a clumsy man in a bar, but she didn’t ignore me. Her eyes – the bluest I’d ever seen - accused me, but her hand still held tight about my wrist, and although her mouth was open to harangue me, there was something else.

A girl like that doesn’t get the attention of a stranger unless there’s other attentions far more threatening. That was what I thought.

“Look, it was an accident, ok?” I put to her. She could take it or leave it there –

She took it. “Sure. Think you can just push over any girl in this city, don’t you?”

The grip on my wrist was getting painful. “I didn’t say – let go, will you?”

“I bet you’re not as tough as you make out. Here –“ And she pushed me down into the seat opposite, banging my arm hard against the table. “Try this one, newcomer.”

I rolled my eyes. “An arm-wrestle? You might be strong, but you’re not that strong.”

She did look strong, but there was no question I was stronger. She didn’t let go, though - instead, she twisted my wrist and I found it flat against the table.

“How’d you do that?” I asked, interested.

She laughed, then, a soft laugh, and answered, “If I told everyone I wouldn’t win many bouts, would I?”

But then she consented to wrestle again, and I saw how she turned my wrist past its rotation, so that I couldn’t push back. It was a good trick; she didn’t need strength to win, just cunning.

“And how’d you know I was new?” I asked.

“Your voice – you’re not from the city, maybe not even from this country.”

She was right – but I didn’t say that I was from no country at all, that I was one of those who could be bought to fight on whatever side I needed to, and that I never chose one or the other. She didn’t need to know that.

“I just came into the city today,” I admitted.

A new lot of customers had come into the bar; it was growing dark, and all the locals were pushing in after their day’s work, laughing amongst themselves. It was becoming a little crowded, a little rowdy.

“How about we find somewhere quieter?” I suggested, as yet another couple pushed their way roughly by us.

“You know someplace?”

She didn’t hesitate; so I knew, then. I shrugged, nodded, and we threaded our way through the crowd out into the streets. I had a room, anyway. A girl like that didn’t go back to a man’s room, if she had anywhere else to go. So that was that. I led her along the back road to the inn, and grabbed my key, and we went upstairs.

It was one of those places where people stay a night, or at the most two; plain and impersonal. Basic. There was a bed the wall opposite the door, and a new candle on the table beside it. A chair stood under the window, to hang one’s clothes, I guessed. I’d been told there was a room down the hallway with water.

We stood in the middle of the room for a moment, motionless. I felt a little silly; then I moved over to the window, to push it open.

“No –“

I looked back, and I must have looked surprised, because she coloured. Then I shrugged, and she stood taller, and began undoing the buttons on her shirt. It was a man’s; a rough linen shirt, white, and she wore a long dark skirt underneath it. She half-turned away from me to undress, and that’s when I saw her back.

“What’s that?”

I stepped closer, but she started, and pulled off the shirt and skirt in a quick movement, facing me, so that I couldn’t look anywhere except at her naked body –

She was thin, too thin, because I could see shadows at her ribs, and where her hip bones jutted out. She stood like a soldier. She stood like someone paying for a room for the night, and I didn’t know what to do.

“You’re beautiful.”

Because she was beautiful. Her dark hair tumbled over her narrow shoulders, and over her breasts, pale and perfect, and she stared at me with those blue eyes wide and patient. I knew she would give me herself without even asking, but I wondered whether if I asked I would get even more.

I didn’t know what to do, so I stepped forward, and took her in my arms, all clothed as I was, and held her in a quiet embrace. She was tall, but I was taller, and I looked over her and waited a little. Then I drew back the covers on the bed and left her there, and went to the room where I could wash.

I took my time washing – standing in the little tub and pouring the jug of too-cold water over my body, scrubbing at my arms with the rough cloth the innkeeper had provided. I even lathered my hair; and I wondered how she washed hers, how she dried such a mass of long dark hair.

As I’d expected, she was asleep by the time I returned to the room. She was curled up like a child in the bed, against the far wall. I pulled aside the covers gently and looked more closely at her back.

It was terribly scarred. There were two dark wounds – they looked like something had clawed or gouged her flesh; but also, by the darkness of the marks, like she had been burned. I moved my hand to touch her skin; but I was afraid I might wake her, and so I simply slipped into the bed beside her, and laid my head on the pillow, and watched her sleep. Then I slept too.

She was up and dressed – perhaps washed, too – before I even stirred the next morning. It occurred to me that she had probably not had as much to drink as I had – especially as I’d knocked over a nearly full mug.

“You’re new to the city, let me show you around,” she suggested.

I agreed – after all, I had nothing else to do. So she spent the day explaining to me about those odd little winding streets that seemed to go nowhere, and about the main thoroughfares, and the best markets, and where various people lived, everyone except herself. She didn’t talk about that, and I didn’t ask.

When we came back to my room later on – armed with an array of odd fruits, which I’d never seen, and a new knife that I’d seen her coveting, and a pair of sturdy boots for myself - it was just twilight. Someone had been in, and tidied the room, and they’d left the window wide open. We saw all the colours of the sky as soon as we came into the room, and then, against the sky, a flock of great white birds.

They looked like nothing I’d seen before – larger, stranger –

“I’ve never seen such birds . . .” I moved enthusiastically over to the open window, but she was there before me, shutting it hastily, and then she moved into my arms and kissed me.

I knew she kissed me to distract me, but I also knew that her mouth was so soft under mine, and that her narrow body fitted me perfectly, so that my arms around her enclosed her, and she was part of me, and her sweet warm tongue inside me, and her breaths breathing for me and her heart beating as hard as mine.

When we pulled away we were both breathing hard shaky breaths, and we couldn’t meet each other’s eyes. This time she went to wash, and I lay down to sleep, trying to still myself, wanting to wait for her a little longer. When she came back I was awake, but I closed my eyes and took slow deep breaths.

She did something strange, then; she slid beside me, then laid her hand along my shoulder blades, where they jutted out, fitting her long fingers around them. I bit my lip, not wanting to cry out at the feel of her skin on my flesh. Then she pulled away; and lay still, and slept. But it was a long time before I followed her.

“I know what we’ll do today,” she announced in the morning. Our eyes couldn’t help but meet, and our lips couldn’t do a thing except smile, that morning.

“Oh? Will you question me about whether the Straight street really is straight, or Fishmongers alley actually holds fish?” I teased.

“Perhaps,” she returned. “Or perhaps I’ll take you right out of the city altogether –“

And that is what we did. She knew a place where we could hire horses, and we spent a good part of the morning choosing our beasts; she knew more about horseflesh than the captain of the cavalry, and drove a hard bargain which left us all grinning.

We didn’t leave through the gate by which I’d entered, only a day or two before, or by the gate through which I would leave, the wide road north. There was another, narrower, way, where we passed a herd of goats, and a swaying, lazy camel. A few shabby hovels stood outside this gate, and then the road petered out, and it was just grass and trees.

“The river’s over that way,” she indicated, nodding. “I thought we could eat, there –“

“And maybe swim?” I suggested, and she laughed.

We had ambled through the city, but in the open space our horses took on a brisker pace, until we were cantering through the fields, growing faster and faster, eyeing one another, laughing a little, until it was no longer a game but a race; and we were yelling, and urging on the horses, and letting the wind roar past our ears, and finally halting at the water, unable to agree who had won and who had been a second behind.

There were little children playing by the water, so we didn’t strip and swim, just ate, and splashed the urchins, throwing them into the water and rescuing them when we discovered they couldn’t do more than paddle. When the children grew tired of the game they ran off, and we just lay beside the river and were quiet together. I, who had no home or country, and never wanted either, chose that place that day; I did not want to leave.

It was late before we came inside the city walls that evening.

I heard an odd cry, and I looked up, to see the flock of strange birds that I’d seen the night before. Before I lifted my face I saw that she was pale, although it was I staring up at the moon.

The birds winged by –

Except they weren’t birds, I could see, they looked like people not birds, but for their great white wings, which stretched out against the sky.

“Beautiful,” I said again. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful –“

Except I was looking at her again. And now her eyes were wide and astonished and her mouth was open in an enormous smile. I could not do anything but look at her blue eyes, open and amazed and joyous.

There was no thoughts of washing when we came to our room that night, just of pulling shirts hastily over our heads, and kissing wildly in between, so that we were tearing off skirts and pants with our arms occupied, kicking off clothes, laughing and falling onto the bed.

“Is this what you want?” she asked again and again and again I would answer, “yes, yes and yes,” except it wasn’t what I wanted because I was too impatient, and was lost and overcome long before her –

But then it was all right, because she was in my arms, and I could ask her the same, and hear her answer, broken, “yes – yes, yes and yes!”

And when she came, she transformed – she was golden, and I didn’t know what I held in my arms, bird beast girl cloud or mountain, nothing or the whole world, but I think it was the world.

I got to wash her hair after that. She sat in the big wooden tub, hugging her knees, looking out at the wide open window. I poured the jug full of warm water over her, watching her hair darken, watching the water trickle over her face and shoulders, drip from her breasts. Then I bundled up her hair on top of her hair, and saw her bare back. I laid my fingers over the slight bumps beneath her shoulder blades, and she moved her own hands over mine.

“My wings are growing back,” she said.

Then she turned her face to mine. She smiled; and I knew I loved, and was loved.

...h.o.m.e...
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