Niala73

“Seven,” I told him. I hoped for the barracks, but it was the Missouri oddity museum. I didn’t like Missouri because I didn’t look like many people there. I got strange stares, more so than we usually did. Even though I stood at a more ‘normal height,’ I didn’t get looks like Gaff started to, or that Kiromir always did.

“Think we can get a few more hours of sleep before we head out?” I asked.

Gaffriel tilted his head a bit and thought. I think he wanted to say ‘no,’ but he could see my exhaustion plainly. I grasped my hands around my knees. My cheeks felt so hot, and I felt kind of heavy. Even my mana boiled, and I knew I could take the rough light at least a half dozen times before I felt the strain. Gaff took from me, mitigating my fires with melding, but it felt awful. I felt cooked from the inside and so exhausted.

“Yeah. I’ll watch out for you.” He reached over to hold onto my ankle. I think he gave me the most contact he could stand, so I shifted in my spot and let my tail roll free. It was safe enough here even if my wings weren’t. All the feathers that could have fallen from it already had, and I brought my tail down and wrapped it around his wrist. He moved his hand from my foot and smiled back at me. His cheeks went a little flushed, himself. I looked away and closed my eyes to settle into sleep. I needed to get some rest.

I don’t remember when I fell asleep or stopped hearing the gentle roar of traffic below. My dreams became strange things, lonely and filled with whispers, more nightmare than dream, but a ‘good’ dream might have tipped something in me too far.

I never had a molt this bad before, and I wondered if this could be my final childhood molt. Maybe my kind matured faster? No. My fires were too new, but this deep itch and ache that I couldn’t scratch just kept storming me.

When I opened my eyes, morning light peeked at me, early morning but still. Gaff sat by me. He’d moved closer but had his back to me, and my tail wrapped possessively around his waist as he gently snoozed.

“Gaff?” He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled a sleepy grin. I’d slept too long. He pulled away from me as my tail slipped back in.

“You were having a nightmare.” He rubbed over my leg a little and patted it a few times. I could feel the mana beneath his skin on every touch like pricks of lightning. The wholesome sensation made me shudder with delight. I craved this new touch, but I also wanted out. I stretched as much as I could, but my wings wanted out, and they twinged within me.

I coughed as my breath caught in my throat. Gaffriel gave me a sympathetic look and reached for my hand.

“Come on, wake up so we can leave. I want oblivion on when we get there.” He didn’t have to even ask. At the word, my oblivion rose around me.

It felt different than the times before, where we hesitated. I held my hand to his and let my mana bubble to the surface, letting him connect to me that way. I felt the sensation of him pulling mana free of me, and we left in a flash.

Gaffriel remembered secluded corners better than anyone, and we arrived in an unlit bathroom. I blinked the stars from my eyes and could smell male, urine, and worse. I scrunched up my face as he opened the door to check if things were clear. Nothing greeted us, and we emerged from a grody door on the backside of a gas station. In the dim light of morning, I recognized where we arrived by the smell alone. We were so close to that damn papermill that every inch of the town was hard to smell. Kiromir avoided this place because of me. Gaffriel had a one-track mind and had me by my wrist, tugging me in tow behind him. My oblivion ran at its max, and we stumbled free of the building and down the road. I knew the area, but I wasn’t familiar with the directions. Gaffriel’s brow furrowed, and his step softened. He wasn’t letting go of me, and I barely noticed the dazed-looking people stopping around us, completely ignorant of our presence.

“How do you never feel alone when you’re like this?” He asked me as we rounded a cobbled street corner past old-fashioned gas lamps. The sidewalk had an unwashed oily feel, and I already felt the rising anxiety that came in waves when I spent too much time around humans. I know I shouldn’t have been as afraid, but two nights prior just cemented everything I knew about people. The only thing that I felt sure of was that humans were predators that we had to avoid and outsmart.

“When have I ever been alone?” I couldn’t remember a time I’d gone out without Gaff, Kiromir, Thanus, or anyone at my side. I didn’t crave the solitude that a lot of Wildlings did. Even Gaff had moments he wanted to be by himself. I had times I wanted to be left alone, sure, but not isolation, never.

Our eyes trained on things we passed. We watched for cars rolling by, scents in the air and the sensation of mana. I wrinkled my nose as we whipped down a sidewalk and passed by an old car dealership selling cars older than Yarrick.

We came to a stumbling halt as we approached the building where the oddity museum stood, and we bent to catch our breath. It was the same dim and dusty thing it had always been with hokey little displays in the window. Falling apart—a collection of poorly taxidermied animals, a few wax sculptures of b-list celebrities, and the odd display of different mythological creatures including—

“Mothman.” Gaffriel grasped my hand tight, and we approached one of those sculpted chainsaw statues of a strange towering creature with ragged wings and red glowing eyes.

“Jeez, ada…” I muttered beneath my breath as I saw the thing.

“Looks pretty spot on to me save for the eyes. His are always gold or blue.” Gaffriel squinted at it.

“You’ve seen him go blue?” I turned my head to him with surprise. Of course, we kept that an open secret.

“Hah! He was so angry over me testing your fires. I saw blue.” Gaffriel’s grin spread wide.

I closed my mouth and pursed my lips. I almost forgot about their fight.

“I got a couple of good licks in that time.” His made me smile, and I noticed that his missing teeth had come back in fully, white and pristine, a little different than the teeth around them. It’d take a few weeks for the color to equal out.

“Yeah, but you’re the one that ended up on Letti’s kitchen table.” I squeezed his hand sharply, and he hissed a bit in response.

“Okay! Maybe I have some work to do.” He didn’t pull his hand from mine. My oblivion spiked up, but he didn’t hold my hand to remember me. It felt nice to just hold his hand, no fire, no mana, just him. He wouldn’t forget me if he let go. Gaff had learned to work around my aura within six months of me joining the wanderers. He could never forget me, just like he could never make me cry, not with his aura at least.

I nodded. “You’ll have to be better because when I take the left for you, Kiromir is going to go berserk.”

I didn’t look at his face and slipped my hand from his. I had work to do as I unlaced my wristband and approached the base of the stature. The foundation of it prickled rough and uneven as my wrist glided across it. The prospect of putting my mark on the statue of what was essentially my father felt disgusting. Gaffriel seemed to understand, but he went that pensive kind of quiet again.

When I looked back, his cheeks tinged pink, and eyes trained on me. My ault smell affected him again. I wrapped my wrist up quickly and cleared my throat. Then again, I had essentially just proposed to him in our roundabout way, telling him I would take his left.

“I don’t smell mana or ault here. We should move on to the next one to tag,” I said, speaking fast.