Rae brought Michelle home early that day. The Academy had called just as both parents were giving Lucas a bath. Had Michelle been hurt? No, not particularly, but she was to be taken home and tended to. She'd trusted bath time to Tracy and, heart in her throat, hastily explained to him what she'd been told and rushed to meet Michelle at the Garden Gates.
She sat there with her back pressed firmly against one of the pillars of the arc, wriggling slightly. When asked what the problem was, Michelle merely answered, "My back burns," but her mother could hear the obvious discomfort in her voice.
There wasn't much to do until they arrived home, save for asking questions.
Why does your back burn?
I don't know.
What were you doing?
Sitting in class, waiting for the instructor to call me for the demonstration.
When was this?
Half an hour ago.
The questions yielded no useful answers, and by the time the two got home, Rae took matters into her own hands, moving them into the bathroom and having Michelle remove her dress and face her back to the older woman.
The mother gasped when she saw the cause of her daughter's ailment: fine purple feathers sprouted from her skin, in the same pattern that they decorated her husband's back. A thick white substance clung to the down, matting it to her skin, which was peeling.
"What is it?" Michelle asked.
Rae had no good answer for this, as it happened. She told her daughter to remain in the bathroom as she stepped out, seeking Tracy, who had just put Lucas back in the crib – the infant was often tired after baths. She rounded the door frame of the nursery, and he turned to face her after he'd locked the gate in place. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Is she allright?"
Another question that she didn't have an answer to. She tried to answer, her mouth opening and words barely forming. "Just… come on, you're up for this one." She sighed, leading her husband back to where their daughter waited patiently.
At first glance, there was nothing wrong with the girl, but when Rae turned her around, and Tracy could see the fine feathers lining her spine and shoulder blades, he sounded off and gave a clap, afterwards fearing that he might have woken the baby in his excitement. He crouched down to her, resting on the balls of his feet, bouncing slightly as he explained to his wife and daughter. "This." he said, pointing to the area of irritation on her back, "This is the beginning stage of wing development!"
It all took a moment to process for Rae. Wing development. Of course, she knew it was going to happen at some point, given her DNA, but her daughter was growing wings. It was almost as surreal as the night Tracy – who, at the time had been a sketchy stranger who she was so sure was a Tooth Fairy – had whisked her away to the realm she now called home. The thought cycled through her head a few times before a wide grin crept across her lips, replacing her blank expression.
Both parents knelt and hugged their child together, kissing her cheek in turn, and Rae could tell just what this meant for Tracy, someone who had gone his whole life ridiculed and put down by others for the lack of the very thing his daughter was graced with.
The girl between them wriggled slightly in discomfort and her parents all but sprang into action,Tracy pulling a white wash cloth from the cabinet he was positioned next to, running the tap and waiting for it to warm up. Even though he hadn't grown wings, this was something that every fairy experienced, the spontaneous growth of the fluff lining the base of the wings.
Rae sat herself on the floor, behind Michelle, and was handed the wash cloth once Tracy had run it under hot water, pawing gently at the light purple fluff that lined her spine and shoulder blades. A white gelatinous substance matted the stuff to her skin, which was raw and peeling around the lines, as if she'd sustained sunburn.
Tracy leaned against the counter in the bathroom. "You're going to have beautiful purple wings, just like your mam had." He said excitedly.
His daughter looked up at him. "Am I going to lose my wings, too?"
"No, sweetheart," Rae answered, standing and washing the gunk from the rag, moving Tracy out of the way. "No, my wings weren't permanent. I'm not a fairy, like daddy. I could only have them for a little while."
She moved back to her daughter, sitting and resuming the work.
"Will it hurt? Growing wings?"
Rae paused for a fraction of a second, looking up at her husband. Her wings hadn't been natural – they'd been magic and hadn't been grown, per stuttered, unsure of how to answer it – he had no wings of his own! "I – I, uh… no." he offered. "No, no it shouldn't."
Tracy was a wingless fairy, true, but he'd grown up with two older sisters, both winged – neither one of them had experienced any pain that he was aware of.
As Rae wiped the white gunk from Michelle's back, the warm water of the rag matted the fluff further; as it dried„ it stood on end. "Don't you worry, flower." He said, stooping down and hooking a finger under her chin to lift her gaze. "You're a faeid – this is completely natural." He reassured her.
Michelle's eyes went wide as her mother began gently rubbing away at the torn skin on her back; it was an uncomfortable sensation at first, but she eventually relaxed. "How come you don't have wings?" she asked.
Tracy felt his face pink slightly and swallowed his pride. "Never grew any," he answered. "Some fairies just can't, you know. Wingless fairies."
The little girl nodded, accepting his answer in understanding.
When Rae had cleaned her daughter's back, she ran her fingers gently through the fluff to separate the feathers. "There," she said finally, and Michelle pulled her dress back over her head.
"Your wings should grow in soon," Tracy said, picking her up and helping his wife up from the floor. "And they're going to be spectacular, I can tell."
The morning was still; Rae was feeding Lucas, who was spitting everything back up. Tracy was making tea, and Shell was still asleep.
"D'you think she's still alive up there?" the woman asked, taking a cup from her husband with thanks.
He snorted. "For all we know she could have sprouted her wings in the middle of the night and flown away!" he joked, sitting down next to her; he took the spoon and baby food from his wife and spun Lucas's high chair around. "'Lo, bud! How's the food here?" he asked the boy as Rae got up to wake Michelle.
Lucas wasn't having any part of breakfast that morning, spitting out whatever Tracy spooned into his mouth. Within the first two minutes, his glasses were pattered with creamed oats – feeding had always been an ordeal at this age, even with Michelle. Still, he merely laughed and tried again.
"Aren't you rebellious, you little pip-squeak! Hate to see what you're going to be like in a few years!" which was a lie, really. He knew that Lucas would grow up well – there wasn't a doubt in the man's mind that he was going to experience the darker side of fairy culture, not with his peculiar family and, worst of all, the still prevalent wing discrimination in society.
A part of him wanted to apologize for that – it was his genetics, after all, that rendered his son wingless and at a disadvantage in a wing-dominant society, but he reminded Lucas – and himself – that there was nothing wrong with being a wingless fairy.
He spooned more oats into the boy's mouth and he laughed, the food immediately making a retreat and dribbling down his chin as he smiled. Tracy pat at his face and removed the mess, peering own into the jar of baby food. "You're almost done, bud, just a little more? For your dad? There you go!" he exclaimed, spooning the rest of the mush from the jar and into the infant's mouth, which he retained.
"Tracy," Rae called from the stairs.
"Yes, honeybee?"
"You were… half right," she said, coming into the kitchen with Michelle at her side.
He looked up and saw his daughter, with delicate purple wings sprouting from her back, glistening in the light that streamed into the kitchen, and he gave a start. "Look at you!" he beamed, going to her and lifting her in his arms, her wings fluttering slightly, which was fairly uncommon for new wings. "You," he said, "are going to be a spectacular flyer." he put her down suddenly. "Congrats, flower! Now go and get dressed, we do have a busy day ahead of us!" he said, and she ran off as Rae took Lucas out of the chair. She came up behind him, balancing her son on her hip, as he watched after his daughter, bounding up the stairs. Her hand came to a rest on his back, directly over the where his own cream-colored fluff had grown, marking where his wings would have been. He looks down at her in a mild surprise, eyebrows arced for a moment before his expression softens and he holds her. "Little girl's growing up, isn't she?"