Shadow's note: Once upon a time, I told Firebird about some vague wings!AU idea I had. It turns out that she is very enthusiastic about this AU, and is also amazing at worldbuilding. And so, here we are, co-writing the thing! (Like she says, you can probably tell who wrote what.) And yes, like she says, we're posting it on her AO3 account, as well, and we'll probably be updating every two weeks. I hope you all enjoy the story!

Firebird's note: I've been obsessed with this AU since Shadow came up with the original idea, and slowly wormed my way into a consulting position by being extremely enthusiastic about worldbuilding for it. At which point it was decided that I might as well just help cowrite the thing! (You can probably still tell who wrote what, despite attempts to edit for style...)
Anyway, I'm really excited for this~ We're also posting this story on my AO3, under the username hinotorihime.

There was a world of mountains and oceans, and in that world there were people with great wings on their backs: people who, with their great wings, possessed the ability to soar above the clouds if they chose, or to hover below them, close to earth. The members of the seven different tribes could be distinguished most easily by the color of their wings, and so each tribe knew at a glance whether a strange flyer was of their tribe or not.

Or so it ought to be, but for the black wings that seemed to appear at random among the fledglings of certain tribes. And although these black-winged flyers were rare—or, perhaps, because of their rarity —they were shunned and known to be cursed, for how else could a child of Gold, or any of the rest, have been born with black wings?

Or perhaps only the Goldwings thought of black wings as cursed, and there were other tribes whose black-winged children—if there were any black-winged children in tribes other than Gold—were accepted as true members of the tribe. But in Gold at least, few questioned the idea of the curse. As far as one very small Goldwing knew, he was the only one to ever think that curses were utterly silly and quite cruel, and to believe that the supposedly cursed being was a perfectly normal person.

A perfectly normal person who kept bumping into things far more than was normal, but that could easily be explained by the fact that the black-winged boy was not very good at flying, and the little Goldwing, whose name was Raivis, was not very good either.

"You're getting better, though," said Raivis, as the black-winged boy made a very clumsy landing, dark wings beating frantically. "You didn't bump into too many things today, Eduard."

"I couldn't tell how close I was to the ground," said Eduard. "I thought I was higher up."

"Usually I can tell when I'm high up," Raivis said. "I don't really know why you can't tell how high you are."

"That makes two of us." Eduard's wings folded in, and he sat down next to Raivis, sighing. "Are you going again, or is that all for now?"

"I'm a little tired," Raivis said. "Let's rest a little. That's one thing, Ed - you're a lot stronger than me, so you can fly longer."

"Not better, though," Eduard said. "You have better form."

"I had lessons," Raivis informed him, and instantly regretted it.

'Oops. Ed didn't have lessons. We don't bring up lessons.'

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I forgot."

"That big mouth is going to get you into trouble one of these days," Eduard said, not for the first time. Raivis' big mouth had become a sort of joke between them.

"Well, be glad you don't have a big mouth. Then you'd be in twice as much trouble."

"Not only shunned, but cast out completely. Thank you for that ray of hope, Raivis."

"You don't have a big mouth though, so you'll be fine," Raivis said. "We'll just be shunned together."

He glanced at Eduard, who did not look particularly hostile at the moment, and flopped down on top of the other boy, sighing.

"I'm sleepy, Eddy…"

"Well, you can't sleep here," Eduard grumbled. "Get off."

"But you're warm," Raivis said. "So I'm staying."

Eduard glanced up at the sky, and Raivis, following his gaze, saw that the sun was close to going down.

"It's time for you to get back," Eduard said. "You need to get something to eat so you can grow."

"I don't think I'm growing anymore," Raivis said. "I'm fifteen, so I think I'm just stuck like this forever."

"You might be surprised. Now get off me and get going. You're late."

"Aren't you coming too?" Raivis asked, blinking up at Eduard. "It's going to get dark soon. Something might eat you if you stay out too long."

"I won't get eaten, and I'll be along eventually," Eduard said. "See if you can save some scraps for me, or something."

He started to stand up, and Raivis slid off of him, landing uncomfortably on the ground. Eduard bent and hoisted Raivis up, then pointed him toward where the smoke of a fire was just barely visible against the pale sky.

"Go on now."

And, clumsily, Raivis did, flapping his wings hard until he was up high enough that he was confident of not falling unexpectedly into the ground. Wobbling unsteadily, he glanced back at Eduard, seeing the older boy sitting alone on the rocks where the two of them often met, staring after him.

"You can still come along now!" Raivis yelled. "Hurry and catch up, slowpoke!"

He stuck his tongue out for good measure, but Eduard shook his head, although he stood up as if he might fly after Raivis. The small boy hovered awkwardly in midair, waiting. But Eduard turned and began walking up the rocks to the top of the cliff, and Raivis turned clumsily and flew home, trying not to fall to the earth. He was shaking a bit when he finally made it home, but he often shook after flying, and he stood still for a moment, allowing his shivering to calm a bit before walking the rest of the way to the cave he called home.

His mother and father had left out food for him, and he ate part of what they had left and then went from the cave, carrying with him the remainder.

He found Eduard in his usual spot, a small not-really-cave some distance away from the rest of the tribe's dwellings, and offered the remainder of the food to the black-winged boy.

"They left a lot tonight," he said. "So, here! Lots of food."

"You're not going to grow giving all your food to me," Eduard said. "Take it back."

"Every single night, Eddy," Raivis grumbled, folding his arms across his chest and glaring in pretend annoyance. "I'm not growing anymore, so eat the food. I'm not going to eat it. I'm all full up."

He turned away, back toward his own cave, but Eduard's voice rang out quietly in the darkness, stopping him.

"Raivis."

"Yes?" He turned back to Eduard, and in the darkness he could barely see the other boy, but he could hear seriousness in his friend's voice, saw Eduard's hand outstretched with something small and dark in the open palm.

"If you're going to lie, be convincing," Eduard said. "If you really gave me food you weren't hungry for, like you say you do, you wouldn't be giving me blackberries, now would you?"

"Ah… I'm e-exceptionally not hungry t-tonight," Raivis stammered. "I…t-there were a lot of blackberries, and I didn't want to get sick, s-so…"

"You're a terrible liar," Eduard said. "You stammer when you're nervous."

'And you've spent way too much time trying to figure out what makes people what they are. You know too much about how people behave - about how I behave. I guess because I'm closer to you, I'm easier to observe?'

He said nothing, and Eduard sighed.

"Take these and eat them," he said. "Or I'll stop accepting food from you. I managed before on my own, and I can do it again."

"B-but…you like me, don't you?" Raivis said, as Eduard pressed the berries into his hand and leaned back into the shadows again. "I mean…you don't mind me being around?"

"No, of course not." Eduard sounded sort of desperate for an instant. "I would never want you to leave, Raivis. But I watch people - you know I watch, I've told you - and in my watching I've learned that people are supposed to look after their friends. And we're friends, aren't we?"

"I'm looking after you, Eddy," Raivis said. "So that's being friends."

"And I am doing what for you, Raivis?"

"You're just…being my friend. You're being my friend, and talking to me, and not treating me like my size makes me inferior to you, and…"

Eduard chuckled.

"Raivis, I'm the lowest of the low around here. I could hardly think of you as inferior."

It was starting to rain, and Raivis shivered slightly. Eduard, with eyes like an owl—maybe he was an owl, a great dark owl with sooty wings—picked up on the shiver, and shifted to the far side of his hollow in the rock.

"Sit down, if you're going to stay here. You'll catch cold."

And Raivis, who did not really want to go back to his own cave, where his parents were probably already asleep, did. There was not much room in Eduard's little hollow, but there was enough room for Raivis if he folded his wings in tight.

"Having a friend," Eduard said, staring out into the night, "is a first for me. I wouldn't give that up unless you were endangered by me, understand? And I count you not eating enough just to give me food as being endangered by my existence."

"But you…"

"Hush," Eduard said. "From now on, you eat as much as you can, and then you can give me whatever's left over. But I won't eat it until you've eaten all you want, all right? I know where to find berries and herbs in the rocks. I can survive perfectly well without getting food from you."

He chuckled softly.

"Although I've never been this well fed before."

"Never?"

"Maybe before my feathers grew in," Eduard said thoughtfully. "But I don't remember much from that far back."

"I like your wings," Raivis said. "They're soft and big and I like them."

"Well, you like anything that will keep you warm, don't you?"

"Mhmm."

He leaned back, feeling long, dark feathers at his back, and hoped that he would not crush Eduard's wing.

"I'm sleepy, Eddy," he mumbled.

"Me too," Eduard said. "We flew a lot today."

"Yeah. Let's do it again tomorrow."

Raivis fell asleep in Eduard's little hollow in the rock, and when he woke again, the sun was rising, others were coming out of their caves, and Eduard was gone.

Raivis was not ashamed to be seen sleeping in the home of the 'cursed' boy, but he thought that Eduard might be afraid for people to find out that they were friends, afraid that they would be separated, and so he left the hollow immediately and went back to his own cave, where he ate most of the breakfast his parents had left for him.

He ate enough to be convincing, but he did not tell Eduard, when he handed the remaining food to the black-winged boy, that there had been a time when he, tiny Raivis Galante, had eaten all the food his parents allotted to him three times a day, and had still been very hungry.

His parents did not give him nearly as much food as Eduard seemed to think they did.

'Goldwings look after their own, but Eduard is not "one of us" because his wings are not golden, and I am not "one of them"because I am small and weak and can only barely fly. We are "part of them", but not entirely.'

Eduard had finished the remains of the breakfast, and he stretched out his dark wings, lifting his blond head to the sky above.

"Well, Raivis? To the usual spot?"

'To the place far enough from home that no one can hear us and tell us to stop, to the place where we can fly without being ridiculed for our weakness, but also to the place from which we can always return home when we are hungry. I wonder what would happen if we didn't return? I wonder if they'd remember we existed, if they'd notice we were gone?'

He stretched out his tiny wings, shining bright gold in the sunlight, and at that moment, Eduard was in flight, steadier than he had been in previous days, dark wings beating less erratically than before. And clumsy Raivis, wobbling along on tiny, frantically beating wings, followed him.

He drew his knees up to his chest, curled awkwardly on his side with his useless wings pressed against the wall behind him, and he tried not to twist his wrists futilely against the ropes; he knew it was no use but he couldn't help it it hurt so much—

He whimpered.

(It was not a quiet whimper. He remembered a wolf cub he had found once, its leg shattered and a fever mounting, and how desperate and pitiful its cries had sounded. He'd had to put it out of its misery and he didn't need to think about that right now—!)

"You sound like a dog," said the woman softly, echoing his thoughts. "Yelp for me, little pup."

With an impassive face, she took hold of his dislocated shoulder and twisted it. He gave up trying to resist and just let himself scream, tears springing to the corners of his eyes and blurring his vision.

Her long braid brushed his bare skin as she bent over him, mouth twisted into a pretty frown.

"You aren't in enough pain yet," she said, and brought the heel of her hand sharply down on his chest. He felt a rib snap and writhed, gasping, a shriek of agony catching in his throat.

Her knife-blade was covered in brown stains. As he convulsed, she yanked his arm forward, dug the point into his skin, and sliced quickly down, parallel to the other scars that littered his forearms. The wooden bowl sitting ready by her feet was stained too. She pressed it against the wound, letting blood pour into it.

She took more today—the bowl was almost full when she removed it, maybe a full finger-length deep or more. She spared a brief moment to press a cloth against the wound until the bleeding slowed. No sense in being wasteful; no sense in leaving him to bleed out as long as she still needed him.

Then she kicked him casually aside and picked up the bowl again. Her bare feet made quiet slapping sounds on the stone as she walked away.

He tried and failed to steady his breathing, so as not to aggravate the stabbing pain in his ribs, but his wracking sobs remained shallow and uneven. Later, he knew, someone would come to clean him up, splint and bandage his injuries, return his clothes and help him eat something, and then life would return to some semblance of normality and they would all pretend he was just a prisoner until they needed blood again—but for now he closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall and let himself cry quietly.

She ducked outside and went to stand on the edge of the cliff. The sun was setting in the lowlands; the air was crisp as the sky darkened. She dipped her hand into the bowl she held and with one part of her mind she watched silver spread on the top of the garishly red liquid, forming a pool of light around her fingers. The other part was reaching out and around, stretching across the ravine to the caves, where she could feel people moving and breathing. She let the magic flow in that direction: fire to burn through, cleanse and destroy; it poured through the connection and purged through every spirit she sensed like a hurricane.

Suddenly, the rush of power slowed to a trickle; the virtue in the blood was gone. With a heavy sigh she stopped the magic before it could start to rip at her own life force and began to tip out the bowl over the side of the cliff.

"You look tired," came a voice from beside her.

"It is a tiring spell," she replied, turning to face the man who had just alighted. He nodded once and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. His tall, broad frame could easily overpower even the mountain lions that sometimes attacked hunters who strayed too far from the caves, but his large hands were gentle when they needed to be. She leaned against him, letting her wings relax.

"Is it working?" he asked anxiously.

"For now. That boy is worthless in all other respects but his blood is unusually potent."

He shrugged his big shoulders until they strained at the seams of his fur-lined jacket. "I do not like to hear you talk like this, little sister."

"Then you will like even less what I have to say next." Absently, she ran her finger around the rim of the bowl, leaving a red smear on the glossy wood. "Potent or not, it still isn't enough. Magic is about wholes, yes? I think I need a larger whole to work from."

His arm tightened around her, but he said nothing. She looked up at his troubled face and put her bloody hand to his cheek.

"I need more prisoners, Brother."