When Wings Break

The Muzzle Led Birdie

The Muzzle Led Birdie

"Oy! Casanova!" Bunny continued to whistle as if Saleh had not figured out he was the one being ludicrously called. He finished off with the last stretch, and a whole class of children followed. After about a week of physical training fitness, any young child grew to be a little less questioning and a lot more about how to avoid getting tossed over by a flying ball.

Agility training; his best class. He would miss it.

"Yes, gorgeous," Saleh breathed out, feeling back muscles snap. His weren't the only ones. Some gasped at the euphoria, winds pushed from flighty wings rustling what hadn't been trapped down.

Bunny eyed him over her glasses. "Nice try. In fact," she placed her hands to her waist, "why didn't you use that sweet-nothing tone last night? Like, last night?"

Problem one. Saleh turned his gaze towards the training grounds. "Ah, why don't you guys go on ahead? Team captains, grab some balls. Aim's to practice dribbling."

"Oh, come on. We never hear adults getting beat down," Ebony pouted. She'd given up posh things a long time ago. One or two jewels in her ears, a nose ring, a single ring, but the rest was a vest and some tights. She'd grown in the past two weeks already. "Minus mum and dad."

Saleh rolled her eyes. "Know what? How about two rounds as a warm-up."

"What?"

"Ebony!" Sheldon complained. Ebony blushed, but she crossed her arms defiantly and harrumphed.

Saleh rustled her hair. "Fine. Convinced me. One lap. Anyone complains and I'm making it ten." Wings were quick to beat in tandem with the warning. Each took them higher and further in the sky as a race to see the last began. Ebony did not move. Saleh arched a brow. "I'll do it."

She harrumphed again. "I know. Just, well, um," she looked away, cheeks growing rosy. As pale as her skin was, she might as well have been advertising she was uncomfortable. Saleh and Bunny shared an amused look. "Fine. Here I go. How old is Roan?"

She quickly turned her head away, then down. Saleh could have bet it was Christophe she was interested in. He huffed. "Uh, nineteen? Which makes him... what? Four years too old for you. Christophe was about ten years. If you ask about me, same as Roan--"

"Worst person ever! Argh!" Raven wings beat at a quick burst of speed and off Ebony went, growing smaller and smaller the further she went. Roan, who'd been too far for normal human hearing to pick up, questioned Saleh with a brow arched and an amused smile.

"Your girl would rip you to shreds," Saleh warned. Bunny's shoulder shook as she tried her hardest to hold back her laughter. "What?"

"Worst person ever!" she demonstrated the arms tossed upward in the same way. Saleh smiled. "Poor girl. Probably thought, y'know, with you and Roan being so close."

"Worst person ever." Saleh received a smack of his arm on that one. "You shouldn't have encouraged him." He interrupted her next words. "I'm betrothed. He lives in Sweden, I'm a student here."

Bunny's gaze narrowed from her initial surprise. "I just heard two more excuses after that."

"Bunny."

Her eyes rounded once again. "Oh, gosh!" she lifted her hand to her mouth as her eyes took him in. "You love him."

"Bunny!" It wasn't the tight edge in his voice that made them both tense. A shadow, familiar in its wing shape, appeared above them. Saleh and Bunny both looked up and found Christophe doing what he did best.

"Oh, ho! I see treasure to behold!" He dove right through the racing masses, the best obstacle against children learning to use their wings. They called out surprises, but before long they were chasing after Christophe, their initial task forgotten.

Saleh shook his head. He'd given them a task, hadn't he? As always, there went Christophe, being a child when there were things to be done. "I mean, why?" he asked, kicking at the ball in front of him.

"Saleh." Bunny looked at him as if he had grown a third arm above his head. Christophe always had ten other limbs waving here and there, and that was normal. No one so much as blinked when he did something absurd.

"I'm fine," he said. But he couldn't help the frustration. "Why?"

"Why what?" she asked cautiously. "Why can't you marry him... instead?"

His heartbeat increased with the surprising surge of hope that slammed into him with that question. All the scenes in his mind, all the hopeful memories. Christophe had made him marshmallows that whole week when he had proven useless at roasting them. Christophe with chocolate every day they had met as he nursed his own injuries.

There the goofball had been, and one look at Saleh's sad face one rainy morning and Christophe had gone into a complete goofball mode. Christophe. Christophe. Christophe. A female sight caught his attention down the bleachers. She wore a pink head wrap beneath a black scarf, her full hijab prominent in the daylight.

"Can you do me a favor?" Bunny shrugged back her surprise. "That's Amina, my betrothed. Can you take care of her while I remind my class they're children earning a license?"

"Be nice."

Saleh huffed. "Am I never?" Before she could respond, Saleh lifted into the sky. If he spoke to Amina now, he would be mean. Thank Allah she was with Jaiyana.