A/N: For those of you who read this story beforehand, you will realise I'm re-uploading it. Nothing drastic happened, just a few typos and bits and pieces that wouldn't fix for me. Thank you for everyone who read this, I should be updating daily but we'll see how things pan out. Updates should come regardless of how many reviews I get, but they would be nice.

Carmilla pulled her bag a little higher on her shoulder. The dorm was just a few more doors further down, and in it was her charge. She knew everything she needed to: the girl's name, her curious nature and slightly awkward personality; her protective father and a mother she lost at the age of nine. She's seen pictures, researched old addresses to get the impression she needed before settling in as the girl's new Guardian angel. She closed her eyes as she stopped in front of the door, taking a deep breath as she recalled the flight – or rather, fall – down to Earth.

The wind snarled around her as she stared over the edge of the precipice. A girl with silver hair, tattooed arms and piercing blue eyes set her jaw next to her. To her right, Will gritted his teeth. Carmilla said nothing. She looked out and understood this flight was possibly the most important she'd ever make, and the first major one any of the fledglings had undertaken. Get it wrong and there could be some serious injuries on hand.

Will was – annoyingly – coming with her. They were both being sent to Silas University in Styria, Austria, to meet with – and room with – their charges. Will had some over-muscular human-who-was-really-a-puppy. Carmilla had a girl she had to watch over and take care of. Everything would be sent down as luggage later on, but she had to fly down to Earth herself, and that meant a terrifying two hundred foot drop through screaming winds before she reached the boundary between worlds, which was, in short, a gigantic kitchen sink plughole.

They sure knew how to get young fledglings to think on their feet – well, wings. Deaziel stepped up behind them.

"You're going to have to jump, I'm afraid. The sooner the better."

Will glared about himself, as if daring anyone to push him. Someone behind Carmilla stifled a cough. The girl with the silver hair lifted her wings, the sharp, curved edges and russet-brown feathers gleaming, and leapt over the edge of the precipice, eyes closed and face tense.

For a moment, the others waited in silence.

Then, a sudden upwards burst of wind sent them all stumbling backwards, and the girl rocketed upwards, wings spread and hair wild. Carmilla stared up in amazement.

"I knew it couldn't be too hard," muttered Will.

"If it was so easy, why didn't you do it yourself?" she snapped back. Without waiting for him to reply she spread her wings, feeling the silky black feathers lift behind her, and stepped over the edge.

For a sickening half-minute, she was falling through nothingness, unable to orientate herself and having to force air into her lungs as gusts tore at her from all sides. Then, just as quickly as it began, all the sensations stopped as her open wings caught a powerful updraft that sent her spinning upwards through the turbulent air, everything inside her alive.

She caught sight of the first jumper out of the corner of her eye, the curved red wings unmistakeable, and saw Will's plumage – deep, speckled slate-grey – go hurtling past her as he jumped too. Mist whipped past her, the cold almost singeing her skin, but she couldn't bring herself to care as the thrill of flying coiled and uncoiled relentlessly inside the once-empty cavern of her chest.

Deaziel's voice cut through her thoughts, her mentor hovering in a still patch of air to her left.

"All of you get over yourselves! Flying isn't a game and you have places to be. The boundary will be opened shortly and I doubt anyone wants to get left behind!"

Light blazed from beneath her as she finished, and like moths to a flame the new Guardians gathered in the still air above the boundary.

"It's open. You may go now."

Carmilla snorted as, with one last scowl, Deaziel soared away, back to the cliff they had all leapt off just minutes ago.

"Best of luck, then!"

Carmilla twisted to see a grinning face with too-green eyes and messy blue hair before a former classmate dived past and was gone, the brilliant light swallowing her. The others began to follow: the silver-haired girl dove in and Carmilla, not wanting to be last, tucked in her wings and dropped into a gannet-dive, praying she'd chosen the correct manoeuvre as the winds twisted around her.

The light grew brighter and brighter, until finally she felt a powerful force catch her and drag her in, spinning her round and round and spitting her out at the end, leaving her thrilled and breathless and staring out across broad expanses of blue sky and green earth and lapis-lazuli oceans.

That had been two days ago, and now she had landed, recovered from her heart-stopping flight and finally put all the lessons on hiding her wings into practice, she was ready to meet her charge at last. She swallowed the irregular pounding of her heart and pushed the door open.

"Um, excuse me, but who the hell are you?"