Returning to Land

[featherborn]

The eagle circles one final time over the trees, wings stretched to their full. Freedom at its best. There is a slow spiralling dissent onto a tree in the middle of the forest. Moments later the eagle vanishes, and there is blond woman sitting in its place. Katya settles down on the study branch, swinging her legs while she reaches for the backpack she left there earlier.

She ties her hair back and slides the old faithful baseball down shading her face. Well, back to be landlocked for another day or so. She rips open a Mars bar with her teeth and toasts the skies and spits the wrapper to the ground cursing her employers at the circus.

If she could have her way, she would live in the forest where she could fly every day and ignore the rest of the world.

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[featherborn]

A sound that Julie picks up on as she creeps back hugging the wall. She pauses nervously, before scurrying along at a faster pace. Down one set of stairs, three doors along and she puts her ear to the door. It is still. Very still. Fingers trembling, she opens the door.

Dad on the couch, mum in the bedroom. She can see the light under the bedroom door. Quietly, she puts the blanket over her dad who barely makes a noise in response. There are bruises at his throat this time.

She shivers and walks to the window, looking out as though she could escape through it.

[lovestofly]

That sound again, louder now, a heavy rustling sound from above. Then the figure appears, floating slowly down from above and coming to hover outside the window. Long dark hair. Kind hazel eyes. And wings, pale and bright against the dark of the night.

He holds out his arms, beckoning and welcoming.

[featherborn]

Startled, Julie takes a step back. Her mouth forms an 'o'. The image of the man is straight out of the stories her dad told her, that there would always be an angel watching over her. Slowly she steps forward and opens the window. There is a cigarette burn visible on her wrist as she stretches her hand out.

"Are you real?" she whispers.

[lovestofly]

The angel's eyes doesn't so much as flicker to the girl's wrist. He doesn't need to. He knows what's there. For a moment he can almost feel his own back crawl and burn in response to it.

He nods in response to the girl's question, and then speaks. "Come fly with me."

[featherborn]

She hesitates and turns her head back towards the couch. "Dad...."

He hears her. With an effort he raises his head enough to see the scene at the window.

"The angel has come like you promised."

Mark smiles a tired smile, he doesn't know if his mind is playing tricks on him. It is an answer to prayers. If it is a delusion, it is the happiest one he's experienced in years. "Yes...yes he has. He will take better care of you than I could." His eyes contain gratitude for the winged man as he lowers his head again.

Julie bites her lip and pushes the window fully open. It's a fire window and easy for her to come and perch on the ledge. "What is your name?"

[lovestofly]

For a moment the father's and angel's eyes meet, and there is an understanding. No fear. No fear.

The wings beat slowly, even though it's not needed. The laws of gravity doesn't apply here.

He considers not answering the girl, worried that it will trickle to the young lady next door. But here and now he doesn't want to deny the girl anything, and he won't lie.

"Casper," he says, and repeats his previous invitation. "Come fly."

[featherborn]

No fear. Simple relief. Peace. All he wants for his daughter is to be safe. He's stayed to protect her, knowing that he would never be granted sole custody of her.

Julie holds out her hands to grasp his. "I have never flown before, even on a plane."

[lovestofly]

"Really?" He smiles warmly at her, then grins. Taking her hand he pulls her up, right into the air as if she weighs no more than a feather. "Then it's about high time, I'd say. Hold on tight."

He brings her closer. With his arms around her securely his wings beat harder and faster, sending them to soar up through the air.

[featherborn]

Her head twists to look back at the window, watching it become smaller. Bye dad she thinks to herself and turns her eyes up to the sky. "Where are we going?" she asks a little shakily. "Mum is going to be mad."

[lovestofly]

"We're not going anywhere in particular. Just out for some air and some new sights for a bit." New sights indeed, as he takes them higher. It should be cold up here, but strangely enough it's not.

"Don't worry about your mom. It's going to be alright."

[featherborn]

Her grip on him tightens as she dares to look down at the town spreading out below them. "It....looks pretty from up here," she ventures and swallows. "Dad always promises that it's going to be alright that someone's been looking over me. I had almost stopped believing him."

[lovestofly]

"Your dad's right. I promise you that he is." There's no areal acrobatics, no swoops and dives. Just calm soaring through the night air.

"It's not always going to be easy. You're so young that you shouldn't know that already, but you do. But it is going to be alright."

[featherborn]

It's soothing, so much more soothing than she's known. She could stay up here for hours. Scream. Cry. Let everything out.

"I...I'm tougher than I look honest. It was just a bad night. Mum....isn't ....she can be nice."

[lovestofly]

He brings them higher still, up to the clouds. Clouds are just water vapor, certainly not with enough mass to hold anything up. But for now the rules simply doesn't apply, and Casper brings them down to a particularly dense one, setting them down on a surface that feels like snow, only not cold.

"That she can be nice doesn't make up for the times when she's not." He sounds sad, but also sure and firm as he sits down cross-legged on the fluffy surface. "And yes, you are tough. And that is good, because for a while it is going to be hard. Very hard. But it will get better and it will be alright. And, there will always be someone watching over you."

[featherborn]

Julie pats the clouds with a sense of wonder. How is this...she decides she doesn't want to question it in case this all goes away. As she talks she tucks her arms protectively around her body. It is so much easier to focus on what she's had to accept as normals in her life than to give in to hope, that things can be better. "Why? What will make it harder?"

[lovestofly]

It's not for him to tell her what will happen, what is even now happening while she is up here with him. What she shouldn't be around for.

"Things will change," he tells her. "And change is hard. But I can't tell you the hows and whys. Those are for you to discover on your own."

[featherborn]

Another kid, less down trodden might have questioned it further but Julie knows better than to push things. "Okay," she says quietly. "I will be okay. I always am." Sometimes through sheer force of willpower.

"Suppose....will I ever see you again?"

[lovestofly]

"You might. For as long as you need me to be I'll be but a whisper away. I will be there even though you might not always see me." He means what he says. He's involved himself now, and so he won't just abandon things.

[featherborn]

"Thank you," she whispers and brings a hand to wipe a tear away before it can fall. "I am not crying," she says adamantly. A trick she employs, a mantra almost to keep herself in check "I'm not. ...it's just.....you understand. You aren't asking stupid questions."

[lovestofly]

"Hey... It's not a bad thing, to cry." There's a small, comforting smile on his face as he reaches out and gently brushes a thumb over her cheek. "Sometimes it's even good to."

[featherborn]

She is unable to meet his eyes. Tears are bad, they are weak, they make mum angrier. They make things worse. His gesture is so like her dad that it makes her choke on her words for a moment.

"Not going to waste tears on ...on..." and she can't even say her mum's name, afraid she will know even though she is way down below.

[lovestofly]

The angel hums in quiet agreement. "No, don't waste them. But I think you deserve to spend them on yourself, when you need to."

He remembers this, oh how he remembers this. Clenching his jaws until they hurt, stay quiet must stay quiet, don't cry. Years after, when he was growing up in a different place, he'd often thought he'd wished that someone would have told him that it was okay to cry.

[featherborn]

She draws her knees up to her chest. "Why?" she whispers. "They just bring more pain." And she can't handle anymore, she really can't. It is part of the reason she came along so easily, anything, anything is better than this.

She digs a finger into the burn. "I can't....it's...."

[lovestofly]

He takes her hand and gently but firmly pries her fingers away from the burnmark. He doesn't say anything else, not now. Now he knows that tears can ease and shorten the pain, but preaching won't make her see that.

[featherborn]

No one has stopped her so gently. She looks up into the warm, understanding eyes and despite all she's said, she bursts into tears. "Sorry. I'll be good, I promise. I will stop in a minute. Just don't .....hurt me.....please."