Finley Cai Aies Hall March 30th, 20XX

I wasn’t sure what I’d thought the weather would be like in another world, but it seemed like too nice of a day to fall to my death.

It was still late winter/early spring in the human world, so it threw me off to feel the hot warmth of the sky hit my skin and burn at my eyes. I’d spent most of my time inside, or in an indoor courtyard, so I hadn’t noticed it before now, but the sky was pink.

Well, in the two hours I’d been outside, it had flipped from green to bright gold, to an angry scarlet and had now settled on a soft pink. There was a sun, but it was much brighter and harsher than the one in the human world. Its light refracted against the gold sparkles in the air, making it slightly harder to see than normal.

“Your highness, stalling will not help you.”

Cambridge’s soft voice and her small hand at the small of my back almost made me feel safe. Then I turned to my left and looked down into the rocky peril that awaited my unconscious body.

We’d started in a gymnasium, for lack of a better word, and Cambridge had continuously pushed me off a ledge and onto a bed of soft pads. It had been terrifying at first, but my wings had stayed closed shut and I’d taken the impact with my body.

My shoulders were sore, as were my arms as I’d tried to catch my fall.

Cambridge had eventually gotten frustrated as I failed to fly, and on my last fall, she’d wrapped me up into a large swath of cloth and had flown me out here.

Flying with her had been fun, sort of like a ride at an amusement park. What had been significantly less fun was when she’d unwrapped me, stretched out my wings on my behalf, and motioned for me to jump off the ledge.

Right now I was about 5 feet away from the edge of the terrifying-looking cliff, close enough to see over it, but safe enough on solid land.

“Your highness, your wings are a part of you! Would you doubt your legs if I told you to walk across a flat surface?”

She lazily hovered in front of me and maintained her position in the air while she tried to convince me. It was a good analogy, but it wasn’t a fair one.

It was more like asking an invalid to get up and run a death march where failing to meet the end line would cause his death.

I took a few more steps back and held out an arm toward her. While I’d decided to go along with everything they wanted me to do, it wouldn’t be at the cost of my life.

She finally gave up on trying to talk me into it and approached me.

“Cambridge! I forbid you from taking another step- no, I forbid you from coming any closer to me!”

I caught the obvious loophole in my words and fixed it. I wasn’t sure if my commanding would work since we’d only met two days ago, but the grimace on her face and how quickly she stopped showed it did.

“You’re forcing my hand your highness.”

Before I could respond or ask questions, she withdrew her wand from her holster and flexed her fingers around its hilt. The already bright particles in the air went into hyper-drive and swirled into a small tornado around the tip and body of the wand. A telltale sign she was using magic.

“Cambridge?”

I didn’t have nearly enough knowledge to know what spell she was using, but I knew it didn’t spell out anything good for me.

My torso twisted painfully as I whipped my body around and kicked my heels up, but it was too late.

She slammed her wand down into the soft but solid ground and channelled the tornado of magic into it.

I felt it before I saw it, but there wasn’t enough time for me to respond properly.

The cliff crumbled into small particles of dust and the support against my feet disintegrated in kind, leaving me up in the air.

My elbows snapped as I flung my arms around and tried to reach for something, anything that could prevent me from falling to a gruesome death. A few particles of the broken cliff brushed by my hands and lightly scratched at my skin as I wrapped my palms around their rough surface, but it was all for naught.

Both the rocks I’d grabbed and I began our descent.

I could see Cambridge from the corner of my eye looking down on me with an amused grin as I screamed my throat raw. She cupped her mouth with both palms and yelled over my desperate screams.

“Open your wings, your highness!”

A muscle that I hadn’t been aware I was tensing snapped loose, and I heard a sound like a parachute unfolding ring in my ears.

It wasn’t like I’d never felt my wings; they weren’t heavy, but they weren’t light either. They usually dragged me down as I walked and got in the way if I didn’t angle them into the holes on the chairs, but otherwise, I didn’t have to think about them much.

However, now they were all I could think about.

They ballooned out of my shoulder blades and the heavy drag wind I’d generated by free-falling strained them so much it almost hurt.

While I wasn’t flying, I wasn’t falling either.

The magic particles increased in density around me and funnelled toward my wings in many thin but plentiful threads.

“Flap your wings, your highness!”

Cambridge’s voice called out to me from her position above me, and my body responded before my mind could fully process the instructions.

I felt myself sinking and immediately willed my wings to flap.

They were larger than Cambridge’s so they moved slower than hers, but they generated a surprising amount of wings for how thin they were.

“Lean your body forward and try to come up to me!”

I followed her instructions to the best of my ability, but I was having a hard time adjusting to it.

Or rather, I was finding it too easy.

With barely a thought or an inkling of intent, my now-unfamiliar body would shoot up and down in the air.

I took a few more minutes to get used to having my entire body weight supported by the wings and not by my legs.

Cambridge gave me a motherly smile as I made it out of the shadow of the cliff and gingerly moved around in the air. Her small hands created a frighteningly loud noise as she clapped for me.

“Amazing job, your highness! Soon you’ll be as proficient as you once were!”

I didn’t know how I felt about being compared to the infantile version of myself, but I decided I would sort it out later.

Flying, once I stopped fearing for my life, was actually somewhat fun.

Cambridge taught me a few tricks in the air and let me play around for a bit before reminding me it was time to return. I knew she didn’t like me going back and forth between worlds, but she never failed to remind me when the time came.

I was happy, but I couldn’t tell if it was because she valued her promises that highly, or because she valued my words.

She helped me adjust the transporter and affectionately ruffled my hair before sending me off.

Complicated feelings ran through me as I sat in my empty apartment and fiddled with the golden locket I’d taken to wearing around and the bejewelled box I hadn’t been able to open yet.

The hard-cut gems dangerously caressed my finger pads and threatened to cut them open. I held the familiar golden locket in my other hand, but I devoted most of my attention to the box.

I’d gotten to know about my mom, even if it wasn’t a lot. But what about my father?

The video had cut off before I’d gotten to see his face, and every time either Esmeralda or Cambridge brought him up it would be with a repulsed expression.

I knew nothing about him, but I knew I wouldn’t want to learn anything from such biased sources.

I pressed my middle finger against the edge of the hard box and hissed as it broke my skin. While it was an expected outcome, the sudden wound threw me off.

I moved quickly so I could wipe the blood off the gems, but by the time I got there the box was as clean as ever. Even the wound on my finger had disappeared... like it had never been there.

My eyes suddenly swam, and I quickly resumed my spot on the couch. I should have gone to the bedroom and slept properly, but I still had a lot of work to do before work tomorrow.

I only meant to close my eyes for a few minutes before resuming my work, but a dream grabbed my consciousness. It danced on the edge of my mind and promised to leave if I dared move an inch.

Was it an old memory?

In the dream, I was small, probably younger, and I was on a high ledge. My throat hurt as I screamed for help, but the voice I heard was too high-pitched and childlike to belong to me.

Tears blurred my vision and my fingers lost strength from the awkward ledge they’d grabbed onto.

“Calm down Cai! Mommy’s here.”

Even without the verbal indication of her identity, I would have recognized the voice. I’d listened to the video too many times for it to still be unfamiliar to me.

In the dream, I felt warm hands wrap around my small body and a heartbeat that wasn’t mine pounded in my arms. I was still crying and couldn’t stop but I didn’t particularly want to either.

“Ah calm down baby! I’m here, your safe!”

She tried to put me down and distract me, but I clung tight to her clothes and buried my face in her body warmth. It was a childish act, but since I was currently in a child’s body, it should be fine.

She finally gave up trying to pull me away and instead tightened the embrace.

I knew it was only a dream, so it fading away shouldn't have hurt me as much as it did. It wasn't real and was only a combination of events being translated by my mind.

It was all a delusion.. so why did it hurt so much.

My eyelids were heavy as the dream completely faded and my phone’s alarm clock rang loudly, summoning me back to reality.

I reached out to the table and grabbed for the locket, but my hands ended up wrapping around the box instead. My fingers brushed against other objects on the table as I tried to identify the warm metal memento, but it escaped my grasp.

I gave up, not wanting to open my eyes, and hugged the box to my chest. It was weirdly warm for a jewelled box, and the edges seemed to have smoothed over.

So many things were off, but I didn’t want to open my eyes and investigate. Instead, I shut my eyes even tighter and returned to sleep, desperate to chase down the dream I’d just had.

In my desperation to relive the dream, I ended up ignoring a lot of things. I ignored the alarm clock on my phone that incessantly rang out. I ignored the oddities in the box I held, and I ignored the sicking, tugging feeling that erupted from the pit of my stomach.