Chapter Fifteen
The she-angel stumbles forward, deeper into the heart of the crumbling city. Her reddish brown wings tremble, as if she can detect something in the air – as a matter of fact, so can I. There is a presence surrounding the area, an aura so powerful it can reach into my dreams and still inspire the tremor of fearful respect. It is almost as if a god's breath muffles the area, their very soul draping it in mystery and power.
Her surroundings are regally depressing and carry the bearings of former glory – white and silver marble carved into collapsed houses and temples, pillars shaped like pencils still soaring to the sky, their pointed edges dulling slightly with each new breeze to whip through the chilly place. Even the floor she so cautiously treads upon is riddled with ominous cracks, not nearly as deep as the broad canyons and narrow crevices so large that mist shields the very bottoms of their pits from sight, but still dangerous if one were to catch a foot in the snare of cracks. Overhead, the ceiling is rocky and patchy, as if the cave this desolate city is hidden in has been compromised – perhaps it is a Chaza, a Nephilim Temple, one abandoned much before ours. Whatever the case, frosty white sunlight shafts from multiple holes in the ceiling, providing atmospheric lighting.
Audiat's particular location is on the main road, like the one we travel. Two cracks in the skin of the earth run on either side, wide enough that it puts the Colorado River to shame, probably deeper than any of the other cracks. The peninsula she cautiously approaches the edge of only grows riskier and riskier as she draws nearer to the point of the triangle, the ridges and crevasses crisscrossing the stone becoming increasingly unstable. More and more pebbles rattle off the edges, bounding off the sides of the massive canyons.
Despite the obvious fear in her eyes and the lack of weapons on her person, Audiat continues, treading lightly down the center of the path. As the presence's weight seems to increase to me, I can only imagine what she might be feeling at this moment.
The little angel's bravery astounds me – she plods onward, hopping over rocks and sliding beneath toppled pillars without stirring her feathers once. With head held high, she approaches the edge of the peninsula.
At the very tip of the triangular stone section, an out-of-place green bush grows, the only color besides Audiat herself in the austere landscape. A stream with crystalline waters encircles the bush, constantly moving in a circle despite the lack of gravity's sense. On the far side of where the two canyons connect, a mighty churchlike construction stands, with brilliant crumbled pillars and collapsed statues. It is closer than the other opposite banks had been, but still, very far.
Audiat truly begins to shake as she approaches the bush. Her feet slide over the rubble. Dropping into a crouch, she struggles to continue walking, as if the bush is warding her off, keeping her away. The presence's weight on my soul grows with every step she takes in the direction of the bush. Upon reaching the outskirts of the circular stream, she collapses to her knees, bowing before the bush.
"Please." Voice like a fragile swallow in the storm, Audiat lifts her head to allow a slight increase in volume. "Please, Great One. I have heard so much about you, about your teachings – wisdom, they say, forms your armor, and instead of flesh and blood, they poured gold into the mold of your heart. I know you have heard so much from other passengers and ignored them. Why should you not shake the ants from your hide? But please, please help me. The need is dire. I need your help."
The room shakes. Cascades of dust fall from the ceiling. But before Audiat or I can fully get a grip on the situation, the quivering stops, put at rest once more. Swallowing, her breaths as shuddery as my heart's pulse, Audiat calls out once more, "Please! It isn't just I who requires your judgment! I speak on behalf of the she-angels! On behalf of the humans! On behalf of the beasts!"
At this, the room quivers a little longer. It almost seems this time as if something is crawling from the depths of the canyons, claws rocking the mountain with each step it takes forward.
"I need your guidance," Audiat continues, her voice choking. "Not just on professional matters, but on personal. The beasts – they are led by you, they say, but I only ever see them following that man with his billowing cloak. He's vanished. His wisdom has failed us. I do not know what to do. If trouble has fallen upon him, I am never to forgive myself."
A curious hiss sounds from the depths, echoing mightily. It rebounds off the stone and distorts the noise until the entire room is hissing at Audiat.
"I was the one who struck out," Audiat explains, regret sharp on her tongue. "He was being a good leader. Trying to stick by his people. He let himself get captured by the he-angels, allowed himself to be shackled and carted off like a mad dog so his people could get away in time. And I disapproved of that. I said some things I'd rather not tell. He's gone missing, and I'm afraid that something terrible will happen to him. Please, Dragon, help me."
Responding to the little angel's pleas, the beast rises from the gloom.
All I see is the long coil of neck, thick and sinuous. From the mist it comes, rising to an impressive height. Tendrils of fog hug the rough scales. Muscular shoulders are half-shrouded by the pit's mist. Slitted eyes peel open, bright and chatoyant in the dim white light. Beautiful horns curl from the back of its head, the grooves imprinted into the horns almost making it seem like it was carved from a tree. Starting between its horns, long, thin bristles with broad sides cascade down its nape, almost like a small mane. Its scales seem to be have been all forged from tiger's eye, gleaming mystically, bronze and gold and brown all overlapping one another in an impenetrable armor. I should fear the long muzzle and the ivory teeth that undoubtedly lay underneath the dragon's lips, should fear the flare of its broad nostrils as they taste the air. But those broad, expressive eyes and their grandiose bronze pupils seem to excuse all of its brutality.
I cannot think of this beast, with its display of both elegance and strength, as anything other than beautiful.
Of course, I could probably span out over its eyeball and not even reach from lid to lid. Even Bryon, with his unnatural height, couldn't even span from lid to lid. The dragon is massive, and it could snap Audiat up on the slightest whim.
Lowering its brilliant head until it's level with Audiat, the dragon breathes out through its nose, as if it is inquiring her what she may want.
Audiat's eyes are blown wide with stunned awe. Her expression isn't even slightly controlled, the amazement keeping her mouth open and her hands limp by her sides. At last, she whispers, "You're so much more beautiful than the legends describe you to be, King. Magnificence seems to have been woven into your entire being."
The dragon tilts its head to one side, but otherwise, does not respond to her compliment. A question gleams in its eyes, goading her to describe her troubles.
"We are on the brink of war." Audiat swallows, looking at her hands. "The he-angels are – they're rallying, slamming their swords to their shields and such. Their forces are much superior to ours. They have the sky, and much of our neighboring territories. The continent for which we brawl over is far from here, over a sea. The only reason I came here was to recruit help, and we need it dearly. We have the humans, but we know not how they can be of use to us. True, their brains are clever little things, but they have lived in fear of the he-angels too long. From this continent, though, I equipped the beasts. But now, they are in disarray – their leader scattered them for their own protection, which is cunning, of course. However, they are reluctant to crawl from their holes without his guidance."
The dragon chuckles. It starts out a slow, quavering growling, gradually gaining rhythm and volume. He tosses his head up, shaking the cavern and baring his teeth to the sky to allow his laughter to escape. Gasping, Audiat shoots to her feet in recognition of the laughter. I, too, know that melodious chortle.
"Do you think I have abandoned you?" thrums Bryon's voice, as he lowers his head back level to Audiat's. His voice is somehow even more glorious, chords of beauty with each word he breathes. Chuckling in amusement once more, Bryon inches slightly closer to her ledge.
"Bryon?" Audiat's voice squeaks. "Bryon? You're… you're the dragon on the mountain...?"
A piercing shriek fills the air as Bryon lifts his head and shakes his neck like a horse may flick its mane, causing the bronze scales to rattle against each other. The white sunlight dances like moonbeams between his two horns, shafts of light dappling over Audiat's awed face.
"But…" Audiat is at loss, staring up at Bryon with confusion. "The dragon has been known to overshadow that little mountain town at the foot of the hills for centuries, overseeing them and warding off evil and things like that. They say that he's the wisest creature to have ever walked the earth. I thought… I thought that…" Disappointment hardens her voice. "I thought the dragon could help me. I thought it was true, everything."
Bryon bristles, the long metallic strands on the top of his neck pricking. "Who says that I am not the dragon of which you have heard in legend and lore?" The cavern shakes, as if he's lashing a tail somewhere down in the depths of the caves. "Who says that I have not slumbered here for centuries, imparting knowledge on those who pass? I am the dragon you have heard of, Audiat. I do not deserve many things the locals give me, I but my reputation is one thing they haven't strayed far on. I am wise. I will help you."
"When was this going to come up in conversation?" she whispers, staggering forward towards him in utter amazement. "Certainly not before I had to dig up all that research and speak to creepy natives. Of course not. Because that would be stupid."
"The less my allies know about me," Bryon answers, deeper voice somehow sexy despite his alien appearance, "the more I can hide from the he-angels, namely Raphael." His nose begins to slightly reach for her, perhaps to catch her scent, perhaps reaching for a stroke.
"I understand the points from which you are coming from," Audiat acknowledges, "but why namely Raphael?"
Bryon chuckles darkly, turning his eyes to the sky, as if one might be listening. "Raphael has not a clue of what I am capable of. I do not wish for him to awaken my dark side, out of mutual wellbeing."
Upon the last word of his speech, the bush before him bursts into flickering orange flames, all by itself – the strangest thing, however, is that, although the bush burns and fire laps at the wood, the green leaves do not crinkle or wither beneath the blaze.
Something new happens. With a feeling like my gut is being barraged with razors and my head assaulted with laughing gas, I find my dream has a new focus.
"Simon," Raffe questions while straightening an article of his bizarre clothing, tightening the band around his neck while staring into a mirror, "what is most powerful to you?"
Bryon comes into focus, holding something in one hand behind Raffe, as if he's waiting on the archangel. A manservant, I realize. In response to Raffe's question, Bryon blinks twice. "Sir, I am not sure by what you mean by that."
Raffe sighs heavily, pivoting in the mirror. "It was not that difficult a question, Simon. I mean, what is the most powerful force in the world? The most powerful emotion, whatnot. The most powerful… element."
"Well, sir," Bryon answers thoughtfully, "I think that love is the most powerful thing in any world."
"Love?" Raffe's voice is delightedly amused, as if such an answer is humorous and innocent to him. "That's strange to hear from you, Simon. I would've answered hate, but I'm intrigued. Why is love such a powerful force?"
Bryon broods for a second before answering. "Because love is the most powerful force. From it springs happiness and joy, a feeling like you truly belong someplace. From love can come life itself, the little infant's bawl. Partners united by love are inseparable, and love that is true in every regard is to be feared indeed."
"Feared?" Raffe's voice is still delighted. "Do exaggerate!"
Bryon's gaze is filled with emotions I'm not sure I've quite comes to terms with in him. Shame. Anger. Hate. "Love is terrible in the same regard that it is beautiful, sir. Everything else comes from love, not just beauty. Every dark thought in the world can overwhelm you when you're in love. The wrath of love is the one thing I fear. It's dangerous to be in love – dangerous for those around you. Love may be the opposite of hate, sir, but it is also its irascible mother. Love makes monsters of us all."
Raffe is silent for a very long time, adjusting his collar and odd sleeves in the mirror. "Wrath of love." He smirks colorlessly. "I am Wrath of God. And you know something, Simon?"
"No, sir."
"Neither of us said that God is the most powerful force in the world." Turning to leave, he claps Bryon once on the shoulder, not even glancing at his face. "Whether it's love or hate, we'll have to see, won't we?"
"Yes, sir."
This time, the switch of dreams seems more natural, gentler, as if instead of a raging torrent, I am tossed down the swift waters of a small creek.
Bryon chuckles bitterly. He leans on the balcony's railing, watching the stars with raw pain in his eyes. His smile quivers, then drops completely. "You are wrong to trust me so completely. You know not what I am. You know not what I have done."
"I know that you're a Nephilim." With sparkling eyes, Audiat steps beside him, mimicking his pose, leaning on the balcony beside him. "I know that you've hurt people. But I know that you won't anymore. You've changed."
Agony enters Bryon's eyes as he meets her openly expressive gaze. "I am a monster." Shame forces him to glance back down at the ground. "I have done more horrible things than I dare say."
"That was the past." Cautiously, Audiat lifts a hand, laying it on the left side of his chest, right over his heart. Through her, I can almost sense the glorious thudding of his lively heart. "I know you, Bryon. You've trusted me even when Ariel thought I was crazy, about that whole white wolf issue. You're a good man, with good morals and a good sense of right and wrong. That's all that matters to me. I don't care what Gabriel says, I don't care what Raphael says. Heck, I don't even care what the world says about people like you. I just know that you are a good man. The best man, perhaps. And nothing you've ever done or ever will do will change my opinion of you."
Bryon's eyes melt at her words, and, immediately, I feel as though I'm seeing something I wasn't meant to see. He, too, reaches out and brushes his fingers against her heart. There is nothing steamy in the moment, of course, but the tenderness in which he regards her feels private.
"You may be the only one to ever think that," Bryon whispers, voice thick with emotion.
"So be it. It simply means I know you better than anyone else." She looks up at the sky, memorizing the speckling stars. "Just between you and me, Bryon, I think that it's the ones that hunt you that are the monsters. I think you're just the good man caught in the crossfires."
Again, I am thrown into the jumble of dreams, emerging in the same place I had before with its white walls riddled with grey cracks and the fog creeping up from the broad pits. This time, though, instead of Audiat, Bryon is stumbling, crippled, blood leaving a crimson tail in his wake, and Raffe is behind him, approaching with Pooky Bear in hand and wings raised.
Bryon is wheezing, his panting having a strange, reptilian rasp to them. He's doubled over, hiding from Raffe, as if he's afraid to show what's happening to him. The cloak pools around his legs, somehow spotless despite the battered quality of the rest of his clothes. The pain in each hobbling stride tightens my heart.
Raffe is directly behind him, walking forward with steady, threatening strides. His facial expression does not quiver, his hands do not readjust around Pooky Bear's hilt. His snowy white wings are held pricked, not bobbing with his pace, but still and baleful. Wrath of God.
They're almost to the bush – Bryon's staggering towards it steadfastly as he can, as if it is his only chance at life. But progress is slow, and Raffe's advance is as steady as the beat of a drum. It comes to the point where Bryon is casting glances over his shoulder, boding him off with palms spread behind his back.
With a wet cough, Bryon stumbles uncoordinatedly, bracing himself against the crumbled foot of a pillar. Squinting against the white light, Bryon stares back at Raffe, imploring expression glazed anguish.
"You don't understand," Bryon hacks, huddling into himself once more. The pain carried on each note of his voice strains the words, turning each into a thick, raspy gasp. "It's coming. Stop, stop it!"
Raffe's stride does not falter – his wings, though, do perk slightly higher, held like a pair of sickles to the pale grey sky. He approaches, black garbs a shock against the pastel surroundings. His frozen expression, contorted revoltingly by rage and hatred, doesn't so much as quaver.
Bryon staggers closer to the bush, groping the stones with fingers missing nails, clawing at the floor with rabid desperation. His attempt to escape is strange to me – there is a puzzle piece astray, something I do not quite understand in the situation before me. Raffe is a predator, cornering his prey against sheer cliffs; but Bryon frantically plods towards his trap, and his demeanor is not that of the wounded animal.
"No." Bryon cuts off with a breathy gasp, reeling, sucking air into his lungs. For the first time, I notice the gaping wound in his belly as he cranes for air. "Leave! You're… it's coming!" The deepest pang of shock hits me as a tear traces down Bryon's cheek, smacking against the stone floor. "Leave me alone!"
"Why?" Raffe's voice is brutal as two knives scraping against each other. "So you can return and kill hundreds of people?"
"No." Bryon's voice cracks, and, to stem more tears, he squeezes his eyes shut. "So I won't kill thousands. Go! Please!"
Raffe doesn't respond with more than a slight clenching of the jaw.
Collapsing on the riparian stones, Bryon's panting grows increasingly ragged as one of his hands sinks to the bottom of the circular stream protecting the bush, staining the placid waters red. It decreases into panicked gasps as he collapses by the bank, lifting his hand from the stream. Holding both up with shaking breaths and trembling limbs, he stares in horror as before our eyes they gnarl, skin sharpening into ridges and scales, fingernails thickening into curling black claws. His repeated blinking draws attention to the slitted pupils replacing the round ones.
"It's starting!" he wails, throwing his gnarled hands over his head, clasping at his temples. Between his lips, his teeth seem to lengthen with each pant. Crawling on all fours, he staggers ever closer to the bush. "Lord, dear Lord, save me. Do not let it win, do not let it –"
Raffe grabs Bryon by his cloak's neck, dragging the cloak off of him and tossing it elsewhere. Though the cloak is unharmed, it lands on the bush, draping over the scruffy splay of limbs with choppy disorganization. Without his cloak, some other ghastly features of Bryon's are revealed. Long, flat, and scaly hairs emerge from his nape, each a like bronze-tinted mirror. His ragged shirt reveals the beginnings of his refined chest breaking into belly scales. I'm willing to bet that the bulge at the rear of his pants is the beginning of a tail.
Before Bryon can reach his bush, Raffe seizes him by the front of the shirt and lifts his above the ground. The frayed fabric does not rip, holding sound. With glazed eyes, Bryon focuses his attention on Raffe as Raffe walks him steadily over to the edge of the cliff.
I want to shout. I want to scream. I know that Raffe is no match for a dragon of such size, a dragon that is only refrained by the fragile skin of Bryon.
"You don't understand," Bryon nearly sobs as Raffe hefts him over the cliff. "You don't understand. It's coming. I can't control it, Raphael. I can't. Let me go, and I can stop it. I can dam the flood. Please, please, please" – Bryon starts clawing desperately at Raffe's hands – "set me down on the ground before you piss it off any more. Don't let me hurt anyone."
"You can't hurt anyone ever again if you're dead." Raffe's voice is neutral, indifferent to the struggles of the filth before him. "Don't try to barter with me, monster."
"I'm not a monster." With pleading eyes, Bryon tries to grasp at Raffe's hands. "I'm not. Let me try to prove that to you. I'm not a monster. I'm not!"
Raffe laughs with bone-chilling cruelty. "You are, little demon. You are. You see, there's nothing you can do about the bare essentials. I will always be the Wrath of God. And you will always be the monster I hunt."
"It doesn't have to be that way." Bryon's eyes soften with pity, despite the fact that he's the one hanging over the cliff. "Raphael, you can change, just like I did."
"There's only one problem with your cute little theory." Raffe's eyes harden, his hand growing tauter with pre-release stress. The hand bracing Pooky Bear coils into a better striking position. "You have not changed in the slightest. No matter how much you may try to run from that truth, you can't. And now, you're at the end of the line. So, may my last words to you be this." Raffe's voice drops to a whisper, and, with one simple motion, he stabs Bryon through the chest. "You always will be a monster."
Flicking the gurgling Bryon away from him like a man may toss garbage into the can, Raffe turns his back. Bryon makes no noise as he plummets, something that truly frightens me – I know Bryon, I know he survived. I am utterly sure that, whatever Bryon was trying to keep deep in his gut, isn't going to be happy about being thrown into a cliff.
Raffe shows no regard to anything until, abruptly, the bush Bryon had so desperately been crawling towards randomly bursts into flame.
His blue eyes reflect the blaze of the sudden inferno. With a sensation like a slap to the face, the presence I had felt earlier, in an earlier dream, slams into me again, this time with the anger of a million lives. Its scalding heat reaches from one reality and into mine. Raffe scrambles backwards, away from the flame, casting out one hand to bode it off.
The burning bush.
From the depths of the pit, a roar echoes off the stone, filled with rage. From my vantage point, I can see the cloak as it flutters down the gorge, returning to a fallen master.
Raffe goes white. The presence seems to terrify him – the sight of him so rattled is alarming especially to me. It prompts the question of just how powerful the flames and the presence are. Hastily shoving Pooky Bear into a scabbard, Raffe takes to the air, flapping off in brisk sweeps of his beautiful wings. The black and billowing smoke of the burning bush stains a few white feathers grey, and the tongues of the flame leap after him, rearing on their hind legs and snapping their jaws at his heels.
Raffe sighs as soon as he is in the air, leaving a snow-capped mountain behind him. I, myself, release some of the strain on my heart as the flame's red glare disappears in the blankets of white, left behind to burn emptily at the stone chamber. Wistful appreciation fills my heart as I watch Raffe relax the beats of his wings, as I watch him begin to gracefully swoop and dive through the air. The little mountain city at the base of the hills screams as he passes overhead, but even that is reassuring, a sign that he is leaving Bryon's "dark side" behind.
Perhaps, though, he isn't.
A belligerent roar echoes over the valley and the sole wintry mountain among all the green hills. The top of the mountain collapses and crumbles, drawing more screams from below. Raffe pivots in the air to stare with horrified awe in his eyes as a bronze dragon explodes from the mountaintop, sending avalanches down and boulders toppling. The mountaintop shatters as the dragon pulls his body through the debris, the fragile structure that'd been riddled with cracks and nearly pounded to dust breaking into rubble at the dragon's prompting, crushed beneath his mighty weight. He gleams like a copper penny among the whiteness, his roar so tremendous it instills fear in I, the invincible overseer. Tail wrapping around the mountain like the dressing to a wound, Bryon's searchlight eyes land on Raffe, the faint wink of bronze visible from such a distance.
The exquisite beauty is that of a predator as the dragon climbs from the depths of the mountain, each muscle terribly beautiful. The hunter's instinct flares its nose, pricks the hairlike scales along the nape of its neck. Superiority seems to have built the creature and all its grandeur glamour as it roars a challenge at Raffe, the triumphant bellow echoing off every hill of the valley, heard for thousands of miles around.
In this moment, I realize that the tides have changed.
Raffe is hunted.
Bryon is the hunter.
And I realize in the moment after that Bryon is every bit as merciless as Raffe.
Scruffy's huffing nose grazing over my forehead, over my sealed eyelids, and down my temple to my cheek stirs me from my deep sleep – his tongue caressing my nose and sculpting into the concaves of my face. Flicking my eyes open, I start to stir – only paused by Hugo's desperate face as he slams one finger to his lips repeatedly, expression intense.
Scruffy retreats from me, padding silently back into the shadows. Hugo is crouched on the opposite side of Raffe, exigently urging me silently to keep still and quiet. In one hand, he clutches a can of shaving cream. My mouth opens upon realization of what the boy's probably trying to do.
Raffe is still slumbering without an inkling of grace – you'd have thought that an angel would be remarkably poised and balanced in sleep, but the case is not so with Raffe. Somehow, Hugo's scuffling around does not wake him either.
Crawling like a cat, Hugo scurries around until he's behind me. Raffe's arms are wrapped me, cradling my body to his as if I'm his blanket against the cold tunnels. His hands, however, are slack behind my back. The hiss of the can rasps behind my back, and I can almost feel one of those hands filling with shaving cream.
Moving back into my field of vision, Hugo smirks, hushing me once more, gesturing me to be perfectly still. Then, patting Scruffy on the shoulder, I watch as his oh-so-original prank take wing.
Scruffy starts sniffing at Raffe's face, not licking him, merely allowing the tips of those irritating whiskers skating over his cheeks and up his nose. Sure enough, Raffe starts to stir, groaning from the pit of his throat. A candid mixture of dread and apprehension chokes up my throat as Raffe's arm stirs, lifting from its placement wrapping around my torso.
It lifts to his face. The moment is tense.
Groaning, Raffe shoves Scruffy's nose away from his face, slamming the shaving cream unknowingly onto the wolf's snout.
Scruffy starts to sneeze and cough, snorting cream from his nose. With a soft noise of sleepy confusion and a furrowed brow, Raffe blinks the sleep from his eyes and stares at his hand. Bryon's reverberating laughter booms in the darkness after the moment of awed silence. It seems to rock the chamber. Paige seems slightly confused as to what's going on; she smiles and glances around with hopeful eyes, but she didn't seem to fully comprehend what'd happened in the first place. Ogden hoots like a retarded owl, clapping with childish glee.
I join in the laughter fest with an undignified snicker as Raffe flicks his hand to shake off the clumps of cream sticking to his flesh and a speck of it lands on his eyelashes, and another lands on my forehead.
"Well, that went horribly wrong," Hugo howls, "but it was funny. Definitely uploading that to YouTube. Bryon, can I have the camera?"
Bryon tosses it in an underhanded pass, one Hugo catches flawlessly. Chuckling devilishly, he views the film, blasting the volume at my awakening purr and laughing along as Scruffy starts to sneeze. At the replay, Scruffy snorts indignantly, bristling proudly despite the raspy huffs the audio makes.
While it plays, I push away from Raffe, rising from his embrace. Rubbing the shaving cream from my forehead and flicking it somewhere into the distance, I stand shakily, walking stiff-leggedly over to Bryon.
"You knew about that?" I question, studying his face.
Bryon shrugs apologetically, rubbing massaging circles onto Paige's back. "My apologies, but yes, yes I did. You can't just put a cap on Hugo, though. You've got to let him get his energy out in innocent ways if at all possible."
"Innocent?" I chuckle as Raffe rises from the nest, blinking with his white-fringed eyelashes obliviously. "If somebody doesn't get that, he'll be walking around for the rest of the day with shaving cream on his lashes."
Raffe's face wrinkles with confusion. Cracking his neck, he strides over, flexing his wings to return feeling to them. "What are you two cooking up?" Glancing questionably at me then at Bryon, he curls his lip. "More diabolical shaving cream plans? Because I'll foil them every time."
With an odd sense of merriment lifting my attitude, I laugh, striding right up to him. Standing on my toes to reach his face, I rectify, "No, actually, we'd never be that obvious – I'm just scheming about how I'll get that shaving cream off your face." As my fingers reach up to remove the foam, Raffe blinks rapidly and flinches away. "Oh, please, Raffe, hold still; you look ridiculous. Let me fix it."
Obediently, Raffe stills, hardening into a pastiche sculpture of a Greek god in a modern man's garb and the wings of a Christian monster. Plucking at the ends of his lashes as tenderly as possible, the pads of my fingers barely brushing the slender hairs, I pull the clot to the fringes of the eyelashes and then flick it away. It flies into the darkness somewhere, perhaps landing near my own shaving cream clump.
"That, my friends, is a sighting of a moiety." Bryon nudges at Hugo with his elbow, smiling at me. "Take a good long look, they're pretty darn rare."
Hugo's annoyance dictates his previous glee. "How many times do we have to go over the fact that I am not a walking, talking dictionary? What the hell is a mo – uh, a mo-mo?"
"Moiety?" Bryon sighs in enervation. "You know, for Christmas, you're getting a good old-fashioned dictionary, that way, you can walk and talk like one."
"For Christmas," Hugo counters with a cocked brow, "you're getting a Tumblr whether you like it or not. Let's see how long your sanity lasts with hastag-feels."
Basically, the entire chapter was muddling. More background, more dark-side secrets, and a burning bush.
POLL: The foundations of Raffe's and Bryon's initial hate for one another are founded in this chapter. Thoughts?
Ciao,
~wolfluvermh