Hello dear ones,

I must apologize. I know I have been missing for some time. I have received so many messages asking about my well being and the pulse of my stories. Let me tell you all that I am well or as well as a person can be with severe terrifying writers block.

Switch-a-Roo, Meet Cute, Into the Black and Paint With Words have been stagnant for me for a little while. Only this week have I started to feel the stirrings for them a little. I cannot guarantee that I will update soon or that it will be any good when I do. I can guarantee that I have not given up on them though. :)

Other ideas have been festering in my mind with a little more energy and so I may indulge those, in the hope of breaking my block on all the others.

This is one of them. Also, I wanted to post something so that you guys would know I am in fact still alive and not disappearing for another decade.

Much, much love.

Inky

PS.

This fic has no set number of chapters, and a very loose plotline. It is an attempt at aggressive world building, as I have not done any in a very long time. I can see weaknesses all over the place already but always welcome more input from readers.

Notes on the fic:

-Elbow blades are short swords about forearm wide, that have a hilt that comes out of the blade in an L shape. They are spun in the hands of the wielder. In the most popular version of them they are used by a character named Talim in SoulCalibur.

-A glaive, for those of you who don't know is a heavy rod with a soft curve blade at the end- not a scythe or a spear. It has a counter weight on the other end, sometimes as a smaller blade.

Bloods

In a sky star-pricked and brooding she watched the sailing shift of the humanoid comet searing towards the soil below.

Eyes blessed with the sharpness of predators traced it's descent until the limbs were visible within the flames, until the agony he endured for birth into their atmosphere was tangible through the fall.

The wings would be charred black by the inferno of crossing into the Veil Lands. It would take more of their elegant curves to have the same potency as their pearl counterparts but no matter.

After 100 years of waiting for the fall of a star one could not be picky about the details.

"Young. And with a heart full of darkness and hate I fear." Her voice broke the stillnes of their souls poised to the trajectory of the heavenly body ripping through the navy sheet and clouds.

"At least we will not need to feel guilt for slaying him to take his marrow then." Her sister's smile graced her face like a blood stain in the dimness and Hinata breathed in hard.

Twirling the glaive expertly above her head to cut the air and disperse the glowing dragonmoths intent on sucking their blood she sighed, tucking the heavy weapon under her arm, close to her side and next to her heart.

"Ready to hunt?" Hanabi stood, gathering with slow careful breaths the energy and primal raw pulse of magic from the soil below through the soles of her feet.

Behind her the fallen star exploded into being in sparks of crimson and indigo as it crashed into the ground. The world was set to trembling, and the long lemon grass swayed making the smell of earth and citrus and heat rise around them.

Swallowing hard Hinata nodded, poised to release the coil of tension in her body. Still smiling, her sister unsheathed the elbow blades at either hip, the metal settling to her forearms with a comfortable anticipatory clink.

"For our glory." Hanabi prayed.

"And those of the Hawk Eyed Blood." Hinata countered.

With a breath they shot into the darkness of the swaying trees where the smoldering angel had fallen, their bodies cutting through the grass, raptors aimed to slaughter.

He came from the heavens. He came from the darkness, where the stars fight for dominance, in a world where light is wielded to killing blows, where stardust is shed like blood. The fire and inferno of being soilborn was not something that agonized so much he could not bear it, but his heart already fragile with the hatred inside it shuddered and groaned.

The ashes and the dust, the fire and charred woodland hissed and spit, the water that hid within the fibers of the trees evaporating split the trunks as it boiled from the explosion of heat of his landing.

Breathless he stirred, gathering his wings along himself, gazing with a face so pale the soil smeared along his cheek looked like a berry stain.

"Obsidian." His whisper was strangled and with shaking fingers he touched one long razor sharp feather as the wings moved and fretted behind him, adjusting to the air, to the weight of the soilpull, to the touch of the breeze.

Bare chested he studied his body for wounds and finding nothing of interest listened intently, hearing with ears too keen for the world he now resided in the rapid fire steps of something approaching purposefully and therefore cunningly.

They exploded from the foliage in a hiss of power and breath, their bodies elegant and daring, their lungs dragging ragged tattered breaths even as their weapons hissed through the oxygen.

He braced himself as the first threat alighted on him, blades flashing in the night.

She was a small bomb of energy and magic, her blades a sparkling fuse lit and shortening. He screamed, a sound like the tearing of bone, the boiling of blood. Shifting hard to the right he let the two spinning blades on the girl's hands slam into the glass he had created with his impact into the sandy soil and it splintered and split, exploding around them in painful shards that made her shriek in pain.

With a grunt of pain himself the fallen angel flashed his wings, batting away the bitterly sharp glass. Gasping the thin oxygen he spun at the sound of the glaive in the other attackers hands cutting through the air with the whipping speed of a hummingbeasts wings.

The grunt coming out of the girl's voice as the glaive cut through the air was strained. She snapped to every spot he tried to occupy, always a second too late. His energy ebbed, his limbs were heavy and worn. He needed sustenance and from the sound of her heart hammering in her chest there was the chance that his attackers too were exhausted.

He had to end it quickly, before they realized he was not at full strength.

Batting hard at the flashing fiend with the glaive with his wing he hissed at the bite of her weapon's edge and grunting hard grabbed at the first and smaller of the girls now sitting on the ground. She gasped, blood rushing from a wound on her shoulder and side from the explosion of glass.

With a cry the young one twisted hard, and blood spluttered from her shoulder over his hands, coating his fingers in the red hue. So different, so foreign.

He stared at the sticky warmth of her life, aware of the frozen glaive wielder standing before him only vaguely.

"Release my sister." Her voice however drew his gaze, pulling his attention from the shimmering redness on his fingers, staring with eyes black and empty as the deepest caves at the frightened girl before him.

"You were not trained well enough to capture one of my kind." He responded amiably, and he watched with curiosity as her pearl colored eyes flinched hard, watching him suck the blood off his fingers, savoring the new flavor of metal, earth and spice.

In his arms the wounded blade wielder grunted hard, repulsion and animosity coming out on her breath. Also fear. It left a tang in the air stronger than the flowery living scent that wafted from her dark hair.

His words were true, for he was not a liar and even more importantly, his kind were repulsed by lies. As he cleaned the redness from another long digit he eyed the older sister in front of him some more, watching as her pale gaze shifted over the situation, calculating.

Behind her the sky was a splash of violent purples and dark blues, stars had once been numerous and distant, a scattering of sparkles across the heavens.

Now there were only handfuls, so close they were holes punching through the smoothness of the heavens. Behind it all the orb of their moon glowed bright, it's shattered left corner sending splintered bits of rock along the heaven's to reflect the sun. It was a piece of glass perpetually breaking to a million pieces.

He thought for a moment, how the eyes of these two hunters resembled that moon.

It was then that he realized he had made a mistake.

Eyes flashing to the face before him, he gripped the wounded body of the girl against him harder, just in time to duck as the glaive sailed with precision and force towards his head. It sliced the air, tugging on a bit of his cheek as it passed by his snatched features, ripping open a red sneer along the high cheek bone on his handsome face even as he snatched himself from it's murderous intent.

It took his breath away to see her coming after the glaive with speed he had not anticipated from a creature of the Veil. Her face was a mask of smooth lines and there was something ferocious about the lack of expression in it as she launched herself at him fists raised, the dagger flashing in her grip.

Growling deep within the confines of his being he shoved forward, throwing the girl in his arms up not as a shield but a projectile.

Even diminished as he was, she was easily flying through the air and as her elder sibling watched, eyes widening a fraction, the knife that glinted so sharply was suddenly dropped.

They crashed in a pile of arms and legs to the glass covered ground, and he was on them in seconds.

Brutally he kicked hard, sending the already wounded one onto her back. The sound of cracking ribs and choked wet gasps that tinged her lips crimsonberry red echoed in the stillness over the tinkling of the shattered glass crunching beneath his feet.

"No." The elder was up again, scrambling over to them, agile despite the wince of pain on her face. "No, don't touch my-"

"Sister, yes I heard." He grunted, and the wings which were spreading wider encompassing all of the sky in the ebony black of his darkness batted her away with such ease as to call forth a curse from the broken one now beneath his bare foot.

Even gasping for breath, even curled against the pressure of his heel on her broken rib, even bleached white as the pearly eyes in her face the spirited little thing clenched her teeth.

"Be done with it, firebound. Release me from this shell." Her spit was splattered pink and red across her chin and he contemplated the determination on her face.

"Firebound." He mused at the insult, watching a feather sharp as a razor, black as the starless sky tumble through the air to land beside them. "I suppose I am."

Hinata's shriek was a tear in the fabric of the anticipatory calm. "No!" The buzzing of the insects and the whistle of the breeze through the reedy plants of the underbrush paused to breathe as Hinata scrambled to her feet. "

Her chest heaved, and the blow from his wings had left slices across her hands and clothing, across one cheek, neck and exposed a round glowing patch of her shoulder through a rip in her tunic.

His dark eyes peered through the locks of ink black hair, mouth calm and expressionless, even as he glinted with the malicious intent of a kill.

"Please...please don't kill her. Please." Tears.

He watched as the diamond liquid rolled from the corners of her eyes and over the curves of her cheeks, leaving trails of precious magic along her skin.

Tears.

These creatures produced them?

"Starwater." He snapped in surprise, watching the tendrils of liquid condense to a droplet at the soft curve of her chin, threatening to fall.

Two, three of those tears would reduce the pain of his landing, more would dull his gnawing hunger, even more would have him closer to true fighting form.

A continual supply... his gaze flickered to his blackened wings...he might gain back the purity of his feathers, maybe...

Maybe even make it back home.

"Do all you dirt-crawlers produce starwater?"

From below, wincing at the knifing pain of his heel at her shattered bones the younger one hissed out a sharp. "Yes."

The elder however shook her head, jaw pinched tightly closed. "Don't listen to her." Her voice shook like her body did and as he watched he marveled at the control it was taking for her to stay standing. He could see from the blood seeping along the length of soft gray leggings that the sharpness of his feathers had seared a deep wound along her thigh. "Only those of us with weak hearts can produce them." She blinked her pale eyes rapidly, and the glitter of those tears shimmered in the light. "It is compensation. To balance our...shortcomings."

Shortcomings.

Slowly he returned to the broken thing at his feet, her wheezing breath hinting a punctured lung. "She will die anyway."

"No!" And the elder took another step forward, freezing at the murderous flash of his eyes. Hands raised in pleading she shuddered and trembling visibly whispered, "We know your blood can heal us as our tears can heal you. Please." She swallowed and her hand traveled to the slash on his cheek. "Please."

And she said the words he had been waiting for, hoping for. "I offer my life in your eternal service in exchange for my sister."

Even down on the ground, even pressed like a mantisbug to the grass, soil and glass the younger flinched and fretted, her mouth filled with blood and her eyes flashed. "No!" The strangled cry escaped her as more of the scarlet liquid spilled over her lips. "No!"

He would have been a fool to not take the offering. It would have been idiocy to not see what bountiful blessings would come witht he aquired slave.

A slave who could produce starwater.

Before the slash on his cheek finished closing he slid a pale hand along the bone, gathering the remnant streams of molten silver that spilled from the gaping wound knitting closed even as he crouched.

In the shadows he was a giant carrion bird, the wings multiplying his size and magnitude and imprinting the image of his pale bare chest, his luminous glowing skin, and the flash of long cold charcoal of his eyes within his white features to her memory forever.

What had her clan been thinking, sending them out to hunt a fallen star?

How could they have thought that they would bring it down?

Bring him down?

Hanabi struggled in vain, trying to clamp her lips shut even as he gripped her cheeks and squeezed her mouth open smearing the silver liquid into her protesting maw.

Clamping his palm firmly over the now coated teeth of the girl he watched as she tried to wrench herself free without disturbing the damaged ribs, without suffocating in the blood coming from her lungs. Soon the molten silver would wind through her throat, begin to leech into her stomach lining, pulsing through her body in slow waves, and the bone would reknit, the blood would be coughed from her lungs.

Maybe it would take two hours, or four or eight. One thing he did know.

It was not going to be pleasant.

"Do not waste the starwater." He murmured, turning to the frozen withering thing that was the elder sister. Startled she turned her pale gaze from the snarling weakening form that was her sibling to him.

Rivers... she had caused rivers to appear on her cheeks, meandering slowly over the smooth paleness of her skin. Insure of what he meant she watched as her sister finally swallowed right before passing out allowing him to let go of her and move lithe as a stalking beast towards her.

The wings folded heavy behind him, barring her little sister from view, enclosing her in the void of his darkness.

Her trembling resumed, but she kept her pale eyes raised to his, her features straining for calm.

His grip on her chin made it difficult to keep the panic from flashing in her eyes, but there was a valiant attempt at holding her hands stiffly at her sides. Carefully, with the same curiosity of before fluttering over his face he bent down, for she was much shorter than him and pressed his tongue warm and moist to the edge of her cheek, sliding it long and slow until he tickled the flutter of her lashes.

The liquid was sweet, it coated his tongue and seeped into his bones with a warmth that made his marrow feel close to boiling. A welcome sensation after having cooled from shining brightly in the heavens always at a constant burn.

Closing his eyes to savor the heat and magic he let out a breath that almost rattled with a moan.

Almost.

Perhaps she figured it was the one time she would be able to ask, right after having delivered on her promise that her tears would bring him sustenance.

"Will my sister live?"

His eyes flickered open and with their proximity he watched her search his face with earnest, unveiled inquiry. Trust. Whatever he said she would trust it

The smirk that graced his lips was slow in coming and had little of the warmth he felt in his bones.

"Yes. But she will suffer much to get there."

On cue, hidden by the black of his feathers Hanabi's voice cracked with agony, and the crumple of cartilage and bones flashed a wince through the elder sister's face. "Oh!" she groaned and moved as though to step around him.

His grip, so gentle just a second before tightened, and dug into her chin as though to bruise. "No." He shook his head. "We had a bargain."

Eyes wide with sudden panic her hands rose, for a moment there was the flutter of digits aching to form magical seals, the instinct of a warrior with none of the warriors thoughtless intent.

"Please! Please, let me stay with her until-"

He almost laughed then, and his grip on her chin forced them almost nose to nose. "Had I been at my full strength you would have been dead in seconds. As it is, this annoyance has proved to be helpful to me and for that I will let my blood put her back together."

Another creaking sound and then the retching of Hanabi drowning in blood began behind them. An agony with the still broken rib shifting to wrestle straight across her torso.

"But you and I, we have places to be. And anyway," He watched with unabashed hunger as the tears welled in her gaze, glistening on her lashes. "I heard emotional pain makes tears flow as badly as physical." He cocked his head. "Lucky for you I won't have to slice the tears out of you."

There was no chance for a good bye.

There was nothing.

Just the grip of his arm around her waist, the sudden falling away of the soil below, her frantic grip on his shoulders, arms, anything as they rose into the air and her sister's prone form growing smaller over his shoulder.

Then Hanabi was nothing but a smear of gray and gold against the darkness of the clearing ground, and a whisper on her older sister's lips.

Hinata wept, trying not to recoil at the feel of the fallen angel's lips along her mourning face, drinking up the sadness like it was the best honeywine.

It was surely the overwhelming sense of loss that allowed her voice to shift, to whisper and ask even though now she was just a thing owned and kept instead of a person free. "...why did you come?" And the regret was heavy on her tongue as she whimpered. "Why did you come here?"

His mouth leeched the tears that poured from her face for another moment before offering a short furtive answer, uninterested in making eye contact with her as they sailed above the sky in a flurry of fluttering deadly feathers.

"I came to destroy someone." His explanation was curt at least, understandable. "My body would not have been of use to you." He smirked as he continued to feast upon the tears. "Hatred lurks inside me. Had you dried and ground my bones to spread across the fields, the soil would not have produced the crops you yearn for." He shook his head. "Poison would have grown instead."

She did not answer or ask anymore, and after a time of being cold found herself resting limply in his grip, listening to her heart beat in rhythm with his wings.

There was no satisfaction in knowing she had in the end been right. Her soft spoken supplications with the elders of her clan had gone unheeded.

Sometimes it seemed to her that having a weak heart had more than just the tears as compensation. Sometimes, it showed her the truth.

A hate filled thing could not produce abundance.

Now she had paid the price for her clan's arrogance.

When her tears finally stopped but his flying did not she felt the coolness of the night wind drying the last touch of his tongue on her face until her sadness had been consumed completely and with the fuel he continued on.

Soon, too tired from being frightened and saddened she fell asleep in his arms.

And the hateful thing kept flying.

TBC