CHAPTER FIVE

LONELY COPPER WINGS


Ariel preens over the two archangel pigeons, wasting no time to get the appropriate things for them. Despite getting bird seed, her fridge is full from getting fresh berries, fruit and various veggies to gradually add to their diet. The lack of bird cages at the store didn't phase her, it just encouraged her decision to let the birds freely roam about the house with strict instructions not to enter the kitchen. The two, Copper and Penny she decides, are happy to flutter about the foliage within the house and she leaves the windows open for them to wander about outside if they wanted. She doesn't worry about them flying away, knowing that her voice will encourage them to return to her so she can look after them due to their lack of instincts in the wild.

Thanks for caring, Lucy, she sends the text to her brother with a smile as she settles down outside to enjoy the fleeting moments of sunshine that's left in the day. Copper and Penny are perched on her shoulders with no intention to remove themselves anytime soon. She absently goes to pet under their chins as she sits down with a cup of tea on her back porch. The presence of their weights on her shoulders is comforting, familiar, and eases the weight in her chest. Family, Ariel realizes. While she'll always prefer an animal over a person, she can't remember the last time she's had one actually live with her. She always had such an open door policy with the wildlife, being apart of it herself for a good portion of her existence on earth.

Many animals have come and gone, and she was - is - content with that. But the idea of having a forever presence of the two birds in her home is a welcomed, new sensation of comfort. She'll make sure their time on earth is spent being spoiled, content and happy. Come the time when she will have to bury them, she'll fly their souls up herself - a somewhat sad part of life. Everything goes eventually, some just stay a little while longer than others. Humans and animals alike.

Looking out toward the setting sun, she can see familiar sparkles running through the bushes - too fast to be caught by a human eye, but she can feel the way that the forest parts for them. She counts six of them - one of them has to be Dr. Cullen, she realizes, the rest likely being his coven. A decent size coven, perfect to pass off as a somewhat large family, but not large enough to draw unwanted attention from people or otherwise. She feel curious eyes gazing at her through the treeline, but she's not sure which one of them is watching her.

It doesn't bother her, not really, she's tempted to wave a hello. Maybe mess with them a little bit - a habit that she learned from her little brother in LA, watching the way he played jokes on people is entertaining despite the fact that she rarely joined in on any.

A melancholic peace settles over her as she continues to just watch the horizon line as the sky begins to darken. Animals and humans, she thinks, all have their time, but angels? Demons? She pauses, a small, if sad smile on the corners of her lips as the birds coo in an effort to comfort her. Vampires?

It's a curse, she realizes, for all of them to live so long. A curse and a blessing, she corrects herself, with a bit of a thoughtful hum, her fingers rubbing against the soft, golden feathers of Copper. She supposes it's a blessing to be with your family for so, it makes her almost envious of the coven to have that tight-knit connection with each other, to always be together. Even when she was back home - really home, far beyond the clouds - her family was just stuck together for eternity. Trapped. Contained.

She only ever bonded with Mom and Lucifer while the others just were simply just kinda there. Uriel came close, but Lucifer's teasing and taunting drove Uriel away from her. Uriel was so little then - so young and emotional. Always thought of things as black and white, never understood the gray area. He didn't understand why she loved Lucifer if she loved him, since Lucifer was the one teasing him. Because she couldn't choose a side, a choice was made for her. She didn't see him again after she left home for good the second time, after Lucifer was kicked out. She wishes that he knows that she loved him.

She got along well enough with Remiel, she supposes, though she didn't enjoy the way Ramiel always pushed things too far - always had to have the last laugh, the best kill. Her sister didn't know how to be content, to take only what you need, not what you want. Amenadiel was okay-enough, but their fondness for their father's creations were too different and like the big brother he was, he was too suffocating.

But Lucy? He understood. He felt that crawl under her skin like she did, the need to fly beyond the gates, to explore. He understood wanting to do something, something more. He threw a fit when Dad named her the protector of this new nature - the protector of his plants, his new creature. Lucifer wasn't the only one to be mad about that, thinking to the way Amendial's hovering had lessened back then. She simply left shortly afterward, choosing to harbor the plants of the earth like they were children. She simply went around the gates, while Lucifer decided that he wanted to break them down entirely. She came back just to scream at her father. She screamed at Dad for days. Mom held her in her arms and they cried until all of a sudden, Ariel looked up and the next thing she knew, there was no one to cry with her. So she left to what did comfort her. Earth. Soil. Toes planted in wet soil on solid ground.

It must be nice for the vampires. Dr. Cullen is a nice man - from the weeks she's been there, he's been nothing but patient and kind to everyone, always wanting to do everything he can to make sure no one suffers. He would make a good leader for a coven - collected, calm, having the best interest of his family at heart she imagines. She doesn't know the others, but she hopes that Alice is keeping them on their toes. A real family - not created to become one, but stumbled upon to form one. An imperfect creation that's not forced to be together like her family was.

She hums, focusing on the comfort of the soft feathers of Copper and when Penny pushes her head through her palm, she obliges and gives them both more equal attention. She knows what will happen when the pigeons die - they will, such such, short delicate life spans. They would live their lives simply, freely, and happily until they ascended to go back home. In Copper and Penny's case, she thinks she may fly them up there herself, take a whole day off to make sure they settle in with the other birds. They will, she knows, but it's the thought that counts.

She doesn't know what happens if she dies. She supposes that it would just be the end of her existence entirely. She would just simply cease to exist. She isn't even sure if there are ways for her to die outside of one of the blades made from Heaven or Hell. Nothing mortal, she knows. If there were a mortal way for her to die, she thinks she would've stumbled upon it already.

Vampires, she imagines that they would be judged the way that humans are. They were human once. She doesn't know how the first came into existence - if it was one of her father's creations, one of her siblings, or something else entirely. She was already on Earth when she found out about them, she didn't get to watch them come to existence the way that her family did. But the Cullens are proof that vampires do have a choice - whether to become human eaters or not. She remembers how blood thirsty newborns are - so filled with that bloodlust for their first victim that even she, with her voice to command, can't always get a hold of just one of them. She imagines that the choice that the Cullens made - the one Dr. Cullen makes each day a patient comes in with so much as a papercut, it must be very difficult.

She tsk's at the birds and ushers them onto her shoulders as she wanders back inside. Potted plants that have been moved back in greet her. Walls filled with foliage, green, and so much life. Yet, she couldn't help that easing sense of loneliness.