~Serana⚜

I was standing on a cliff edge, wings slightly outstretched catching the cool breeze. The sun hitting my dark onyx wings making the golden highlights scattered on the thin quills of my blood red flight feathers visible, in a speckled pattern through the levitating masses of rock connected by vines and foliage or nothing at all.

It had always amazed me how the mountainous rocks managed to soar up in the sky without wings to lift and yet stay stedfast as a lake. Sure they moved, they were ever changing but they never fell. They never faltered in their trek through the sky. Flying as far as they could but never to far. Fearing of getting lost they stay true to their tethers linking them to the depths of the ocean and rising from beneath its shimmering surface, as their untethered children float away aimlessly searching for their resting place.

Looking down I could see the ocean. I was far, far from it, high within the safety of the moving forest, but I had gotten closer than I ever had to the endless water.

"Serana!" I hear someone call from behind me. Turning my head I look over my shoulder and move the arch of my wing to the side slightly to see Treale, a boy from my village and my only friend, a few yards away. "Come on we still need to find more food. We don't have enough to return yet and I don't want to stay out here any longer than I have to." He says turning away from me and motioning with his gray and green speckled wing to follow.

Turning back to the open cliff edge I peer down at the small flashes of rich blue between the tree covered rocks shifting below me before turning and following Treale into the forest.

~💠~

The sun was setting as the sky lit aflame marking the end of the day and our return home from hunting. Not much was brought back, a few skirte, small black tree rodents with two a-posable thumbs on either side of their paws, and one tuvey, large herbivores with a dark brown pelt with green speckling and large three pronged horns. Not the most bountiful meal but when combined with the other hunting party's it was enough for a meal for the small village.

The houses were made of large sturdy stones glued together with thick gray clay and roofed with wood and large leaves from the surrounding trees. The village was a scattering of houses on a rigged rocky stretch with a patchwork of bright grass close to a cliff but not so close as to cause great fear of the young flightless children to fall off the edge. The houses sat on lots flat enough for their foundation before the land dropped off or rose sharply, ranging from a foot to ten feet.

Letting Treale and the rest of my hunting party take the kills to be cooked for dinner, I split off in the other direction towards my home. It was a bit farther out than the rest of the houses. Residing closest to the tree line where's the other houses were closer to the cliff.

Walking through the crooked old wooden door I see my nani sitting on an old wooden chair the tall thin back coming up between her plush dark gray wings only big enough to span about three inches across the small gap between her wings that ran down the length of her back. They started at the top of her shoulders, at the back of the shoulder-blade, lined up perfectly with the curve between neck and shoulder, leading down in a gentle arc to the bottom of her back stoping in line with the top of her hip bones like almost all Angelo's did.

She was eleven centuries old and only had about four more left. The Angelo and Deamon life span was roughly fifteen centuries before the aging, which had stopped between the ages of twenty and forty when our cells went into a stage of immortality, started again once we reached around our fifteenth century when our immortality expired and our body's aged at a rapid rate, commonly referred to as expitra.

We never really looked different but when the process begins the person becomes weaker and their body starts to shut down all at once. Most die within two to three years from the time of expitra but there are a few who live longer. No one was allowed to exceed five years as the pain is too great at that point to justify letting them live and suffer.

I was only rounding my one hundred and seventeenth year. My body had reached the immortas stage in my earlier years around twenty-four.

Nani was faced away from me when she began to speak, "How was the hunt? Find anything interesting?" She ask with a slight smile in her voice.

Unhooking my bag from around my hips and dropping it to the ground, "Yes, I got to see the ocean." I answer excited but cautious of her good mood as I set the wooden bow and arrows in my hand down with my bag against the wall. Nani was rarely in a good mood with anyone, especially me. With a quick glance I made sure no one else was in the house before taking a seat at the table.

Looking up briefly, "That's quite the long journey to go far enough to see the ocean and back." She remarks turning her gaze back to the cloth before her.

Nani was our village's clothes maker. My own clothes were a dark brown made of leather with a thick distinct red line painted in sharp curves just under the top of the thick band that covered my breast coming up around my neck and two more pieces wrapped under my arms to hold it their. My shorts were also made of tough brown leather, but without the red line, coming up only high enough to hit the base of my spine and stopping only a little ways down my thighs.

"It was a long journey but we managed to get a tuvey so it was good." I answer pulling my dark onyx black to chocolate brown hair over one shoulder.

"Good. Good, I'm glad you enjoyed it." She says giving me a slight smile. Narrowing my eyes I study her face trying to read what's put the ornery woman in such a good mood. "Stop looking at me like that child. Can't your nani be in a good mood for a change?" She says looking up at me for a moment with a gleam in her eyes.

"Why are you in such a good mood?" I ask with a cautious tone, as I lean back in my own chair. The back of the chair hits my wing causing it to flutter slightly as I readjust to the chair.

"Oh no reason." She answers, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned. Before I can say anything she starts talking again, "Well not really anyways."

Not liking her response I narrow my eyes before speaking, "What is it and why won't I like it?" I ask crossing my arms under my breast and atop the two slight ab like bumps of powerful muscle used to aid in flight and lift-off.

My questioning earns me a scowl and glare from Nani's dark red-orange and slightly black eyes. I meet her fierce gaze with one of my own, my red-orange eyes boring into hers.

My eyes were the most distinct trait I got from the woman before me, and the only proof I was even hers as this eye color was extraordinarily rare. Skies know the woman never showed that I was her daughter through her actions.

In fact this was one of only a few traits we shared. We had the same hair color, and our skin tones were close, but mine was a bit darker bronze. And as I stopped aging early around twenty-four, she stopped in her mid to late thirties. Her jaw was stronger and a little thicker than most women where mine was a gentle curve do to my slightly heart shaped face. The smaller fangs on either side of her two flat front teeth, the longer ones framing those, and the smaller bottom set coming up slightly between the two top sets were thicker and relatively short, mine were a little longer and thinner. Her wings were a mostly dark gray lighter grays dappled here and there, where mine were jet black at the top and bled down into the veins of my flight-feathers before turning bright red across the large lower feathers. We were both slightly taller than average but she was still taller than me if not barley.

Letting out an agitated huff at my stubbornness, another trait we both share, she answers my earlier question. "Satir has asked permission for your mating." she says with a tone of approval masking the annoyance in her voice.

I can feel my eyes go larger than the sun with shock, "Wh-what?" I splutter in disbelief.

Taking my response as good she gives a smile and raises her chin up, "Isn't it lovely? Once the two of you are joined, all that nonsense jibber jabber will stop. You'll have a high place in the village." She says happily turning back to the previously forgotten cloths on the table.

Making a sound somewhere between anger and disbelief, "No it's not 'lovely', it's awful!" I all but shout. Uncrossing my arms, I lean forward onto the wood table.

Turning her angered gaze back to me, "Now you listen here. You will accept his offer for mating. Skies know you won't get a better one. He is the son of the village avocet and future avocet himself, no one else could be a better match. Who knows why he chose you, but he did and you will accept his offer!" She says, her voice firm and steadily rising in volume.

I stand up sharply, sending my chair tumbling behind me with the force. "No! I don't wish to spend the rest of my life with that goody little prick. He can find someone else." I shout back.

Looking up at me with a death glare, her voice rang with barely contained anger, "This is not up for discussion. You will be mated to Satir and that is my final word on the matter." She turns back to the cloth in her hands to signal the end of the conversation but I wasn't done yet.

"Your final word?! What about my word?" I shout in anger, long black talons unsheathing from my hands and feet, each half as long as the finger they came from and the distance from the ball of my feet to my toes, as my anger steadily turns into rage. "It's my life, I still have another fourteen centuries, you only have four!"

She stands from her chair and whirls around on me so fast I stumble back. She pins me with a glare so intense I fear being burned by it. "Yes." She hisses, "And I'd rather us both live to see them to the end."

I look back at her with confusion but she doesn't explain and I'm too shocked and angry to make a sound. So I storm past her grabbing my bag and bow as I roughly shove the old sagging door open.

Putting one end of the bag strap to my left hip I reach behind me to find the other strap and put it on while making my way to the band of houses.

Letting the leather bag hang around the upper part of my hips in a slight diagonal, I start looking around the familiar faces for Treale.

I walk to the center of the village, a roundish flat platform with a pool in the middle dug out over a millennia ago by the founders of this village. Constantly being refilled with fresh water brought in from a waterfall a few miles away. We couldn't live next to the waterfall do to the creatures that frequent it but we couldn't live too far from it as we needed the source of water, so everyday a group would go with leather pouches and clay pots protected by the hunters to bring back water. The water was then dumped into the pool to be brought back out to the houses for bathing or to give the children or those who couldn't fight drinking water since they could not go to the fall themselves for water.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch light gray wings. Looking fully at them I make out the green spots on the wing, speckling the skin of his shoulder as well with the green specks.

Walking over to him I begin to hear his conversation. He was talking to another man I couldn't see behind the edge of a building.

Walking up to them I hear Treale talking heatedly about something. I don't bother to listen enough to know what.

"Treale, hey can I barrow you a moment?" I ask coming to stand by him. Glancing to the side I see who he was talking to.

Satir. The sight of him causes a snarl to rise up in my throat. I barely manage to swallow the sound before it can leave my sealed lips.

"Serana." His voice was light with a subtle happiness and the ever present hint of arrogance that preempted his voice. Listening to his voice, it rang with naïvety. He was like everyone else in this village, they knew how to survive and mistook it for living.

I barely spare him a glance and mumble, "Satir." before turning my gaze back to Treale expectantly.

He looks at me for a second before turning back to Satir, "Excuse us." He says waving off the other man.

We start to walk away when I hear Satir call behind us, "Serana, I wish to speak with you later. Meet me here after dinner." He calls after us. My only response is to quicken my pace to put as much distance as I could between me and him.

Treale follows close behind me, not saying a word. He was three years older than me, and stopped aging around twenty-two, and had been my friend for as long as I could remember. We weren't particularly close but we were always there for one another for company and to have a distraction away from the mindless idiots that occupied our village.

"What's wrong?" He speaks up from beside me breaking me from my thoughts. By now we've reached the nearby cliff-face. I wasn't aware we had even been walking toward it.

Letting out a deep breath through my nose I take purchase on a large rock right on the edge of the cliff. Instinctively the talons of my feet unsheathe and grip the rigged edge of the rock.

Taking another deep breath I keep my gaze on the lower platforms of rock, watching the last rays of sunlight turn the world around me gold.

"Satir has asked Nani's blessing in my mating." I say in a flat even tone.

Taking a cautious step toward me and the cliff, "And you do not wish his mating?" He ask in confusion.

"No!" I all but shout. "He's a mindless babbo I don't want to spend the rest of my life locked to his side. I don't want to stay here!" I exclaim in exasperation. Babbo was a perfect description of the man, they were medium sized canines that lived in the trees with long square snouts decorated with three inch serrated fangs that protruded from their upper lip and short pointed ears on the sides of their head. They ran on all fours but were more than capable of picking things up and throwing them at you from the trees. 'Why does no one understand? I can't stay here, it's too.......mediocre, too numbing. It's all the same, everything is always the same.' I think to myself looking out over the trees below me, watching them turn from brilliant gold to dull gray.

"Then where would you go?" Treale ask me, shaking me from my thoughts.

Pausing for only a moment of thought, "I don't know, Kenysiz or maybe Algrie." I say with a shrug flicking my wings in the cool breeze.

"Algrie!" My friend exclaims in shock and slight terror. "Haven't you heard of what the guard there is like? The queen issuing searches and raids on anyone who inadvertently threatens her!" He's now shouting in a mix of fear and anger coloring his voice. His anger wasn't pointed at me but the actions of our queen, but his fear was wholly pointed in my direction and what could happen if I went to the Angelo capital city.

Turning to face him my anger rises as well but mine was pointed entirely at him and his cowardice. "They're only as threatening as you let them be." I snarl at him stepping off my perch and stalking a few steps toward the boy.

He wasn't blind like everyone else in the village who believed that if they behaved and did what they were told they could live in peace. Treale knew better but he was a coward and too fearful of the queens guard to ever act against her rule.

"That doesn't make them any less dangerous!" He argues back.

He was right and I knew that. Just because you didn't let someone threaten you didn't make them harmless. Letting out a dejected sigh I turn back to the cliff looking at the mountains dotting the dark purple twilight as the stars awoke from their daily slumber.

"You're right." I sigh, "It was just a thought." my gaze remains on the darkening sky, hidden behind mountains of dirt and rock, a moment longer before I turn to my friend. "Come on dinner should be ready."

Sighing his shoulders sag and he wraps his arm over the base of my wings, pulling me into his side by the neck. Letting him crush me to his side, I don't complain as we make our way back toward the village center.