Winged

Caged in the Past

Those words, the threat, my men wake at this. They scramble from their beds and form their lines. Some struggle with their shoes. Others run to find their swords. I stiffen as I feel them stiffen. My men, my words, are ready to defend at any cost.

The woman sits in front of my cage, gracelessly. Her arm grabs the loose rope attached to my wings. Her eyes ponder the grass lightly as she weaves the rope around her arm, and then un-weaves it. I stare at her intensely. Something about her appearance is shifting. A shimmer coats her face, turning her skin from haggard and wrinkled to smooth and clear. In the same way, her hair seems to take on a reddish hue when she moves. Strange magic must coat her, just like the strange magic in the pots surrounding me.

She doesn’t seem to care that I am staring. Her mind spins in her head.Her lips move wordlessly. Somehow, her gentle posture and her thoughtful mind makes me less fearful and more curious. My men stand down, but only slightly. Who is this woman? What is she?

“Girl, what is your name?” Her voice is soft with her words, treating them like a lover might. I let a pause breathe in the air.

“Azphira.” My voice is heavy with tears.

“I need to tell you a story, Azphira.” The woman’s face shifts again, showing her as aged and weathered down. “There was a boy who lived in a castle. This boy could see through walls and skin. He could see the mush inside you and nothing else. Everything scared him. And his parents, who loved the boy more as a trophy than as a son, were disgusted by the boy’s fear. These parents had no gift of sight, or hearing, or light. Powerless, and ignorant. The boy’s parents one day called upon a witch, a magic seer, to solve their son’s problem. And this witch did just that. The boy was freed from one problem, but met with another. The boy could no longer see into people, yes, but now he was terrified of powers in general.”

Her eyes are dark as she tells the story, as if reliving a memory. I assume she is the witch she speaks of.

“So the boy grows, and his parents die, and he inherits their home, and their money, and their crowns, and the boy orders the witch to solve his problem once again. This time, the witch must end magic for good. The witch refuses, but the boy makes a vast offer, and a cure is made. A terrible terrible cure made of false magic to delete true magic. And time goes on, and the cure is taken, and encouraged, but now the boy wants more. A crusade begins to end all of those with magic. And a war begins where those who want freedom and individuality must fight against those who do not.”

Her voice drops off, and I lean back, taking in her words. 

“Now, that story is not a story but true. While you and your father hid in the country, this war began and the crusade grew. The magic side fights valiantly, but we are losing. Losing our powers and losing the war. You will be our weapon. And since your bloody mother started this mess, you are the one who is going to end it.”

She looks up to me, and her eyes flash red. The shimmer on her face flashes quickly, showing the silhouette of horns on her head. As quickly as it appears, its is gone. My mother did what? She made the cure? Why doesn’t it work for me? Why is this my problem? How are they going to make me a weapon? I look at this woman for a second, and open my mouth, but the only question that spills out is “Who are you?”

“What do you mean?” Her shimmer flashes a halo on her head just as quickly as the horns. I stare at her, my brows drawn.

“What are you?”

A smile shifts her face, and the shimmer on her echoes back my reflection. I see the soot on me, the ash. I see my wings held down by rope behind me. 

“I am the one who is taking your wings.”

I shift back. I feel like I’ve been punched. I knew my mother did something bad. My father used to say as much when I would ask. Her being a part of some war tale doesn’t surprise me. But my wings? She is mocking me. Taking my dreams and using them as bait. I flap my wings, watching their strength pull her out of her sitting position and onto the ground. 

“Don’t give me false hope.” My men spill into my words, swords ready to fight. My words are stronger than I feel. I mean them though. 

“I’m not.” Her eyes flash wide and scared for a second, and then return to calculated. She un-loops her arms from the rope. “Like I said, you’re our weapon. I take away your wings and you’re a human. Then we can put you onto the Emperor’s fleet to give us intel. You will be our magic little spy. And, if you spy for us, I will make sure you never have to worry about your wings again”

The smile that coats her face is sinister. I am tempted to flap my wings again, but she stakes the rope back to the ground before I can. 

“How will you take my wings?”

The woman stands and grabs the largest pot in her collection. Slowly, she wattles towards me, and proceeds to dump the steaming liquid all over my wings. 

A scream tears itself from my body. The liquid feels like molten metal as is slowly drips down my wings. I hear my feathers sizzling as they are in-cased is this silver solution. I curl in on myself, the pain mounting more and more with each second. So much pain. Worse than when I tried to cut them off. Worse than when I plucked them dry. No this is true pain.

As the liquid reaches my final feather, the pain stops all together, and a sugary sweet smell fills the air. I turn to look back at my molten wings, but they’re gone. I still feel the wings. I straighten them and flap them and feel the wind echo back. Yet the ropes surrounding them have dropped, and the woman stands exactly where they should be. 

My wings has disappeared for everyone except for me.

“I cannot take them away fully, but I can move them to a different plane. You can still move them, use them, and even fly. No one will know though, as they aren’t technically here.”

I move my wings again, intent on touching the woman, and she staggers, yet my hand passes across my back with no stopping. 

“As long as you have intent, they can exist here, but without such intent, they do not.”

She moves back in front of me, and begins removing the bars of my cage. She reaches an arm in towards me, her hand out flat.

“This will not last for more than a few hours, but I do have a version that will last months. Do we have a deal?”