Four Wings

4. Explanations

Syrena

I'm lying on my back on Kan's floor after we decided to do our homework upstairs, and my head is reeling.

There is so much I didn't know. I thought I saw wings when Dakan first found me, and again when Ailani took us inside, but I thought that was just because my mind was confused. Then, later, they explained that they weren't human, and I might not be, either, but I never considered another world that we could have been from.

I'm not human. I'm not from Earth.

That explains so much. I've never really felt I was like the other kids, and I have a weird memory of a woman talking to me, a bright flash - and then, blackness. Nothing else, just the woman and the blinding light, until I opened my eyes in a storm in a twilight woods and saw a boy my age.

At least the Guardian thing explains why we had to move suddenly. No way someone would move halfway across a country just to work at a different job, especially when it wasn't even a business trip or anything.

I raise my head from its upside-down position, and ask Dakan, "Did you know about Ostara before?"

He spins his chair around from the desk and flops down on the floor next to me. "Sort of. I never really thought about it too much. Mom just said it was where we were from, but I've never been there, and we live here now."

"Do you think we'll ever be able to go there? I mean, if your mom and Menara are here, there must be a portal nearby."

"I don't know. We would definitely have to learn more about the portals, not to mentions a whole other world, before we'd be ready."

There must be so much to learn, and I'm kind of excited to know more about where I might be from.

"According to your mom, since only faeries can pass through a portal, that means I'm definitely a faerie, right?"

"Yeah, you're a faerie."

Okay then, but also... "Does that mean I'll have wings?"

He laughs, "Maybe. Menara is a wingless faerie - an Áptera, but they're relatively rare. I have a feeling you'll have wings."

"What do you think they would look like?"

"Mom's told me about a bunch of different kinds. There are Ávia - feathered, like hers and mine, Éntoma - butterfly or moth-like, and Mageía - translucent, magical ones. Mageía are the least common, and Éntoma are the most common. Ávia aren't really rare or common - kind of in the middle."

They all sound so amazing. I wonder if you can choose, or if they just appear, or how you get wings. I sit up and itch between my shoulder blades, wondering if they appear there. "Can I see your wings? Or do you prefer to keep them hidden?" How do they work? I'm so curious now.

Kan stands up, and I scramble to my feet and perch on the edge of the bed. "Nah, you can see them. It gets tiring to hide them for too long."

He closes his eyes in brief concentration, and suddenly, wings appear on his back in a swirl of black feathers.

If I have wings, I want them to be half as beautiful.

They look black at first glance, but as I tentatively get up and look closer, I can see they are slightly iridescent, with faint rainbows dancing across the midnight feathers. They are nearly as long as he is when they are folded (I wonder how wide his wingspan is when they're extended?) with a talon on the carpal - wrist - joint.

He extends one wing toward me, and I reach out a hand hesitantly and lightly touch the feather at the end. It's so soft, it feels like it's made of air, but at the same time, it feels indestructible.