1) The gang are all 'human' in the respective that they eat, sleep, bathe, yada yada. The wings they have are not used to fly and the halos…well I'll save that for my epilogue. 2) Charcoal grey is very light grey but not quiet white. I hope that answered your questions :D
Disclaimer: I don't own it. None of it. Not a inch nor a mile do I own for I am broke! Seriously a penny looks at me and laughs! Stupid penny…I could have money…I choose to be broke…it's a life style…like thigh high socks. Which I do own a pair of! *someone throws a brick at the ranting girl* okay imma shut up now. ENJOY! Oh yeah don't forget to join the Save The Jungle Movie group on Facebook! We're almost there guys! FIGHT FOR WHATS RIGHT!
Wings
"Cool your names Arnold Shortman!" Helga grinned and he looked confused for a moment.
"Wait…my name is Arnold?" the boy asked for a moment, suddenly unsure of his outburst.
"Well sure. You can change it if you want. It is your name bucko." Helga shrugged putting out her cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table.
"But my name is…" the boy began and his mind blanked. He couldn't remember; he couldn't remember anything before waking up in this room other than that strange dream. "I don't… remember."
"Well that's how it is. There is nobody in this room that knows who you were before you appeared in that room." Helga said solemnly. "Yourself included. So if you say your name is Arnold then who are we to say otherwise?" she turned to the girl with glasses who was holding a circular iron like thing with a hole in the middle. "Pheebs do your Halo Bearing thing so we can move on with the explanations."
"Okay Helga!" the girl chirped stepping forward. "Hi my name is Phoebe by the way." She opened the iron and inside was a glowing halo; just like the ones floating above the. Phoebe picked it up with a pair of tongs. "New feather Arnold," she began in her petite voice, "To help guide your future as a fellow Charcoal Feather, I bestow upon you this halo." When she finished she put the glowing halo over Arnold's head.
He watched with wide green eyes as the halo floated over his head wobbling slightly as it tried to gain its bearings over its new home over Arnolds head. "A Charcoal Feather?" he asked reaching up to try and touch the floating ring as it began to teeter over his oblong head.
"Be careful!" Phoebe said as the ring tried to spin but continued to fail. "It's still hot."
"Uh…Oh no!" Arnold said moving his head as he tried miserable to keep the halo afloat over his head but it fell off his head, bounced off the bed and rolled on the floor.
"Crimeny I thought for sure it would stay over his football head!" Helga said slapping her palm on her forehead as Arnold blushed with embarrassment. Helga saw Arnolds discomfort and blushed herself before patting his shoulder. "Hey don't take the 'football head' comment to heart. Think of it as uh a term of endearment and all the crap." She smiled sheepishly at Arnold and after a moment he smiled back.
"Oh so when you call us paste for brains and chuckleheads and buckos those are really pet names?" Gerald smirked and Helga glared daggers at him.
"No Geraldo. Those are insults." Helga snapped.
"How come Arnold gets a 'term of endearment' and all we get are some insults?" Gerald leered.
"My knuckles itch. How about I scratch them with your face?" Helga scowled and Gerald chuckled under his breath as Phoebe elbowed him. She looked back at Arnold who was watching the exchange between the two with great interest. "Anyway we need to find a way to keep that halo on your head."
"We could always do that whole halo holder thing," May yawned getting up from the end of the bed. "I can go get some tape and stuff from my room."
"Oh no you don't!" Helga growled as May sat back down and ran her hand through her curly hair. "If I let you go we won't see you for hours! I have plenty of tape and junk in here."
"Yeah whatever." May sighed, collecting small things and a headband. She tapped the halo with a finger before picking it up and setting all the things on the table. After a few moments she turned around with the halo in a weird holder connected to the headband. She moved next to Arnold and put the headband on him. "That'll work."
"Uh I don't like it." Arnold said as his hair started sticking up at odd angles reaching for the halo.
"None of us liked it bucko." Helga smirked tapping her own halo which moved back and forth before finding its center again. "Get used to it."
"Don't worry Arnold. It'll stick in a few days." Phoebe said reassuringly as a loud bell rang.
"I'm ever so sure that's the noon bell." The red head called Lila said. "I have to get back to the nursing home!" she jumped off the bed and smiled brightly at Arnold. "It's been oh so wonderful meeting you Arnold!" and left the room with a bouncy strut.
Helga sighed and shook her head as Gerald looked out the window. "Man I gotta get back to the clock tower."
"Hurry along Quaismoto. No body's stoppin' ya." Helga snickered as Gerald turned and glared at her before walking to Arnold's side.
"It's good meeting ya Arnold. It'll be nice to have another dude my age that's not Helga." The boy pounded Arnold's fist and wiggled his thumb. Arnold followed suit and smiled. "See ya later. Oh and by the way my names Gerald." Gerald waved goodbye as he left. I think I'm gonna like that guy, Arnold thought as he waved back.
"I'm afraid we haven't been able to give you much of introduction but I'm sure you'll be able to meet everybody later. If you don't see us tonight we'll all talk tomorrow after your wings have grown." Phoebe smiled. "I have to head back to my job at the bakery. Welcome to Old P.S.118!" she waved to Helga and Arnold before leaving the room.
Soft snoring sounded from the end of the bed. Helga and Arnold looked to see May sleeping soundly, her wings flapping every so often.
"For craps sake!" Helga mutter getting up from her chair and shaking May awake. "May! Wake up! Don't you have a job to get to!?"
"Oh…yeah the library…" May said as she stood up and stretched. "See you around Arnold and Helga."
Once May left Helga turned to Arnold and the scowl on her face softened. "Finally a little quiet! Alright football head I'm gonna explain everything to ya so open your ears and listen." Helga paused for a moment lost in thought and looked back at Arnold. "Now that i think about it i don't really know where to start. So what do you wanna know?"
"Well uh can you tell me where I am?" Arnold asked quietly. "Oh and what's a Charcoal Feather?" Helga grinned and turned slightly so Arnold could see her back. His eyes widened as her wings flapped a couple of times before becoming still once more. "Whoa are those real!?" he asked in amazement at the light grey wings.
"That's right! And pretty soon you'll grow a pair too." She said in a pride filled voice. "Does your back hurt?"
"Kinda but I thought it was just from sleeping funny." Arnold replied as Helga grimaced slightly.
"I was afraid of that. Turn around and let me see." She ordered as Arnold obliged and she untied the back of his gown. In between his shoulder blades were two large sores. "I'll go get some ice." Helga said softly as Arnold turned to see her looking at him with a pitying expression. "Stay here. I'm gonna go get a rag for you to bite on and some pain killers."
Helga walked to the small kitchenette and filled a bowl with ice and grabbed some plastic bag, a brush and a rag for Arnold to bite on.
When she walked back to the bed she noticed that Arnold was hunched over in pain clutching his back. "Shoot shoot shoot!" she said filling the bags with ice and pressing them against the blistering lumps on Arnolds back. "The wings are coming in faster than I expected. I wanted to get the medicine in you before the fever broke out but it's too late for that now." She nudged him to flip over on his stomach and he gripped the sheets tightly. "Does it hurt?" she asked softly.
"Its…not like its… a really…painful feeling…" he panted as Helga pressed the bag of ice on the pushing sensation behind his shoulder blade. "It feels… like something is… pushing out of my back… like I'm gonna get a cramp."
"I know how you feel. It'll hurt a little when the wing tips break the skin and the fever will get bad but I promise it'll be gone by tomorrow and I won't leave your side until then." Helga said as Arnold squinted at her with pain filled eyes.
"Promise?" he asked as the pushing feeling worsened.
"Promise." Helga replied putting her hand over his clinched fist.
She pulled her hand back and reached into her pocket pulled out a pink elastic. "We're not human are we?" Arnold panted as he watched Helga put her hair into a ponytail.
Helga's eyes darkened a she spoke. "Nobody really knows what we are or if we're human or not. We call ourselves the Haibane or Charcoal Feathers because of the wings on our backs."
"I want to go home." Arnold said in a small voice as Helga gave him a look filled with sympathy.
"We Charcoal Feathers can't leave town. It's a law older than I am; hell older than this building that we can never leave. And even if we could leave, we have no memories so we couldn't find our homes even if we wanted to and your family wouldn't recognize you if they saw you now." Helga said in an emotionless voice.
"Why not?" Arnold asked his vision becoming haze with the pain in his back.
"Just like you can't remember the world you came from before this, nobody in this world can remember you. This is the world that we Charcoal Feathers live in; the world you live in now as well."
"But why am I here?" Arnold asked starting to panic. "Why me? I'm just an ordinary boy; or at least I think I was. I don't know." He rambled. "I'm sure I was nothing special. Maybe my head is a little different but I'm sure I was a normal boy so why me?"
"We've all been asking why." Helga sighed. "But it's hard to get any answers when no one can remember anything." The pain in Arnold's back mounted and he began to yell. "It's starting." She said getting the rag and putting it between his teeth as a wing tip pierced through one of the lumps.
"IT HURTS!" Arnold shouted in pain as Helga ran to the kitchen to get the medicine box. "IT HURTS!"
"I gotcha Arnold!" Helga said running back into the room in time to see a bloody mass pushing out of Arnold shoulder blades.
"AhhHHHHHH" he screamed as the masses pushed out and spattered Helga with blood. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed arching his back as the most painful stabbing pain feel filled his shoulder blades.
The last thing he heard was Helga whispering. "Even if nobody else knows you, I will always be by your side."
AN: There it is everybody Arnold gets his wings. If it had to be described I would say it's like child birth in your back-with no epidural. I know some lady's out there reading this with a cringe on her face going "Poor Arnold!" if you want to see what it would look like here's a video watch?v=KNoKZ_bN2lw warning the scene is graphic and should not be seen while eating. So um yeah. Oh! I'll try and update on Sunday and it will be a little on the short side. Just to say this again, I cannot stress this enough NOT A PAIRING FIC! NOPE! NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Whatever love you thought you saw in this chapter has a deeper meaning to it than what you think. Helga doesn't love Arnold in a romantic way! Nope nope nope nah uhuh naw and heck no. As always one more time for the challenged NOPE! I'll sing it from the roof tops if I have to.
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