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- Signature Author
- 08/28/2013
- 2,065 Words
- 6,740 Views
- 11 Comments
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Take Flight - 1. Chapter 1
This story is from my weekly flash group, the Wednesday Briefers, that posts on my off-site. You're getting 2 weeks from that event in each chapter here.
“Always racing as fast as you can,” he muttered under his breath. He remembered the first time he saw Birch running.
They’d been young. He was tall and muscular in ways most kids his age weren’t. Birch was new, a whip-cord thin boy so fast with his bright blond hair flying. The smaller boy had kicked his butt at the dash on field day. Shocked, never having lost a race before, Sayer marched up to Birch and announced they were going to do the three-legged race together.
A few kids had laughed but Birch had glowered at them and they’d quickly shut up and turned away from his glare. On his nearly perfect face the expression became evil. Tied together, Birch’s shoulders barely came up to Sayer’s ribs.
They’d run together, Birch counting the steps in a sing-song voice. Sayer’s wings had fluttered behind them to the tune of their bodies moving in sync. Even after they won he could feel it. The shoelace might not have been around their ankles anymore but they were bound.
***
A tiny gold box tied with a clumsy knot on top showed up on Birch’s pillow when he went to bed that night, the first of the long summer vacation stuck at home. Inside was a rock that glittered in the setting sun.
“Wow.” Birch knew it wasn’t from his parents. He glanced out the window, cracked to let in whatever breath of air the sultry night might offer to cool the small space. The rock, nestled into his palm, was only about the size of a dime. He could hide it.
It was his special treasure. His secret.
Summer passed as slow and dreary as he expected it to, as it did the year before and the years after. But though Birch stayed small and quiet, he was no target. He was the fastest of all the boys, which earned him some playground respect. Those who might have cornered him where his speed couldn’t save him soon learned no teacher could keep them safe from Sayer.
Birch soon had a small collection of trinkets join his rock. Each appeared on his pillow in a gold box tied with the same clumsy bow. He found a wood box with a lock and small round key at a garage sale one day when he’d earned two dollars weeding for Mr. Wallird and the kerfed edges had fascinated him with their incomplete cuts showing the lighter inside wood under the clear stain.
He’d even talked the old lady selling it, her blue eyes twinkling as they haggled, down to a dollar so he could buy himself a lemonade icy pop. He’d buried his treasures, worried his mom would find them otherwise, the wood box in a bag, safely in the roots of an oak tree with a gnarled branch just right to sit on. He never told anyone of his treasures, not even Sayer.
***
“What in the hell did you do to your hair?” Sayer asked. He was frowning, staring at the short dark strands that took the place of Birch’s flaxen curls.
Birch shrugged. “Just wanted something different.”
“I don’t like it.”
The smaller teen looked up at him with an open mouth. “What?”
“I like your color and your curls. You don’t look right without them.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Birch frowned up at him. “When did you become so critical?” An air of hurt hovered between them. The boy tightened his lips into a harsh line.
Sayer felt his wings tremble against his back. He wanted to take Birch in his arms but he wouldn’t. As much as he coveted the other boy, he couldn’t capture him yet. New times called for new laws. A changeling could never fool anyone.
“Come on, let’s go pick up our caps and gowns.”
Four more years. Just four.
He could wait.
Birch was worth it.
***
“A full ride!” Sayer blinked down at him. “You didn’t tell me!”
“I wanted to surprise you. I wasn’t sure if I could get the housing and work study worked out, but I can’t let you go away with me.” His parents had never cared what he did. Birch had only one person who gave a rat’s ass about him.
Sayer.
Now he and his best friend would be attending the same college. Birch licked his lips. Maybe they’d even get to room together. Birch ran his hand over his hair, now back to its original golden hue, though the lack of curls couldn’t be fixed as easily as washing out dye.
“I’ll work this summer and then head up this fall. Are you going home again?” Summer always dragged without his best friend’s company. Birch looked up when Sayer sighed.
“Yeah, no choice. We have to head back to the old country, as always.”
“You’ll be there though. August twenty-fifth, right?”
Sayer pulled Birch into a hug. They’d both seemed to grow so that Birch was never any taller compared to Sayer than always. His head always nestled against his friend’s chest.
“I’ll always come back for you.”
***
But Sayer hasn’t come. Not that September or any of the following three while Birch got his environmental biologist degree. The city seemed like a lonely place in a way the slim young man had never experienced before, even surrounded by people.
Birch never stopped looking for him though, hoping each year only to be disappointed. Now he was leaving the city to move back home and start his first post-college job.
He’d packed all morning. His jitters, wondering if he’d run into Sayer in the small town nestled in between the rolling hills, finally got the better of him. A run was just what he needed, then he’d finish packing up the bedroom and bathroom of his tiny apartment.
Dripping with sweat from the harsh sun, sucking at the nearly empty water bottle, Birch didn’t see it at first.
A gold box was nestled on his pillow.
~~~<>~~~
Birch froze. The water bottle fell from his nerveless fingers. He’d long ago come to the conclusion that his treasures could have only come from one person, though he had no idea how.
“Sayer?” he whispered.
His advertised as ‘efficient’, which meant ‘tiny’, apartment couldn’t hide anyone. If Sayer had been there Birch would have smelled him. He’d always known when his best friend was close; his scent, like sharp ozone filled the air like a crisp breeze rushing through the room after a storm. It smelled … cool, somehow. Biting.
The air was thick and smelled like disturbed dust and cardboard, plus a bit of sweat. There wasn’t the faintest hint of Sayer. Yet the package was still there, almost glowing against his white sheets. Birch skirted the bed and rushed into the bathroom.
A shower. He needed a shower. Shucking off his shorts, Birch started the water then shut the shower door. The burst of heat against his face made him gasp. He hurriedly turned the hot water down. When he stood up he banged his elbow against the inside of the shower door. It went numb for an instant and then ached fiercely.
“Damn it.” The tiny space was almost impossible for him and he was still on the small, slim side. Birch didn’t envy the next guy to get this housing assignment. He fantasized about his dream bathroom; the large soaking tub inside a glass enclosure, the taupe and bronze tiles with old-fashioned light fixtures. He turned to rinse his hair and grunted when his already sore elbow grazed the door again.
He’d probably have a permanent bruise on the bone after living in the miniscule apartment for his senior year. Still it’d been better than the dorms.
The shower wasn’t nearly long enough to prepare him for facing that box. Padding into his bedroom naked he tried to avoid looking at it while getting a pair of shorts to wear. Freshly showered and dressed, sweat beaded on his forehead as Birch gingerly sat down on the bed and reached for the box with one shaking hand.
***
Sayer waited motionless though it was hard when Birch said his name. The shower was an excruciating wait until Birch came out naked. That took what breath he might have had away.
Finally, Birch untied the ribbon on the box. Inside lay a gift that would finally begin the end of their courtship. The slim man’s nimble fingers slowly slid aside the black silk padding. Birch gasped when he pulled the feather from the box. Tiny, the down was exquisitely soft, a smoky gray, and the flat oval at the top had colors were more brilliant than any found in the mortal realm.
Sayer’s back still stung at the base where his wings joined between his shoulders. That feather was his first; grown during his first year of life, it proclaimed his status among the Fae as a sylph. Born of an Air sylph and an Earth gnome—the Earth gnome, leader of all Fae—his wings had been a source of great pride to his mother just as his solid build and analytical mind had been to his father.
“Wow,” Birch said on a soft breath. He plucked the feather out of the box and twirled it in the afternoon light. It threw a rainbow swirl of color against the wall as if it were made of stained glass. Gingerly Birch brought it up to his face, lightly stroking it down his cheek. His eyes fell shut. “Oh.”
Unable to wait any longer, Sayer swayed forward. The curtains along the window belled outward and he flowed across the room from the window to where Birch sat on the bed. The massive amounts of modern architecture prevented him from taking human shape but he stroked his face along Birch’s slightly raspy cheek.
“I’ll be waiting for you when you come home.”
***
Sayer slumped into the blood red throne carved from a giant ruby. Magic warded their home dug high into the side of the highest peak in the area. Transformed with all the Fae races in mind, it layered through the hill from the airy top to the deep center where a pool of magma welled up from the center of the earth surrounded by an underwater lake that was so still it reflected the glittering stalactites so well one could hardly tell it was truly water and not a solid surface.
“What happened?” Croll asked.
“Nothing.”
“Finally tired of waiting, are you?” He smirked and leaned against an opal pillar. “You know, any other Prince would have just let his parents trade out a changeling for their beloved and never let them out of their sight.”
“The old ways are not the right ways. Our magic is powerful but the human world is growing wise. Many of them have discovered us. It will only be so long before we are revealed. That is why I spent so many years growing alongside my Birch as a mortal.”
“And why you let him go off to college without you?” Croll raised a sculpted eyebrow.
“I would have gone with him had we not lost my parents. I had a plan.”
Croll’s grimace was out of place on the smooth, unlined skin of his face. “I apologize, my liege, for reminding you of their loss.” He bowed with a flourish.
Sayer rolled his eyes. “Damn it! Don’t call me that and stand up.”
“It is what you are.” Croll rose smoothly to face him again. “Besides, it annoys you.”
“Ass.”
His best friend tutted. “Such language! The human realm has clearly had an uncouth effect on your manners.”
“Oh ancestors preserve us.” Sayer laughed. “You’re going to keep needling me as long as I sit here, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.” Croll studied his manicured nails painted purple to match his iridescent hair. “You know you shouldn’t stew. He’ll be here soon.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s go for a flight.”
This story is from my weekly flash group, the Wednesday Briefers, that posts on my off-site. You're getting 2 weeks from that event in each chapter here.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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