Freedom

Disclaimer: I own all in this, so no stealing, thank you very much.

If anyone had looked closely at the tour group, they would see a young man amongst the middle aged tourists and débutante's. He is not overly tall, and fair of hair and eyes, like sunlight and ocean water at it's calmest. His clothing is the same as any other teenager in the city, worn blue jeans and ragged sneakers, an over sized shirt and a bulky boat over it all. His demeanor, however, was quite the opposite.
He walked through the museum, paying attention to every word that the guide said as if soaking it up like a sponge, or hungry for it. His eyes were wide and open, looking around like he had never seen a place such as the museum, but he treated it all with a kind of respect and grace that none of the twittering tourists had.
" This is the room where some of our most mysterious, and most beautiful, pieces are kept." Said the tour guide, a new woman, young and attractive, but she knew her stuff better than some of the people that had been there near half her own life, so the company had hired her.
She walked near backwards, keeping one eye on her group and the other on the room, bringing up the information of the works in here in her mind. There were many paintings done by artists long dead, most of whom didn't have seemed to have left their name with anyone. A few odd pieces of pottery that looked like it was thrown and painted by a child, and even a mirror that was rumored to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, with a mythical ghost of a bloodstain up in the left corner.
All of this seemed to amuse the boy, for he now had a small smile on his lips that was strangely tilted. Then they came to the last, and the most beautiful, of the works in the room.
" The Angel is what we call her." Said the guide, drawing abreast of the white sculpture. " No one knows who carved her or when, not even the person that donated her to us. The donor said that she cries every once in a while, but we have never seen tears from her, so she's not one of those anomaly statues."
The group laughed as it was supposed to and moved on. All but the boy. He remained by the statue, looking at it with a sad expression in his eyes. The statue was a beauty, it was true. The woman was indeed an angel, marble white wings stretching out from behind her as if she had landed crouched as she was, one knee tucked under her while the other hung off the side of the square pedestal that she was on. One arm steadied herself on the block while the other stretched out with her palm up, as if reaching for someone to pull her up. Her face was slightly turned up like she was looking up at someone, and that brought her face into full light.
Her face was oval with a slightly triangular chin, giving her a look of soulful impishness with her large eyes and pert nose. Her hair drifted down her shoulders and front like a waterfall of silk, the artisan that created her must have worked so very hard, because if she had been colored, you would have expected her to breathe and blink and move.
The boy was enthralled, stepping towards her as if in a trance, his lips moving but no sound was coming out of them. It was like he was praying, worshiping this beauty in front of him. He reached out his hand to touch hers, covering the milky stone fingers with his own and it was like a great burden had been lifted off him. He stood up taller, his shoulders no longer hunched in, his step was surer and lighter. He looked around quickly and then stooped to touch her face, his hand tender and loving as if it were a real person.
He dipped his head to look into her eyes, and he sighed as he bent down a little more and touched his lips to hers. He pulled back like something was supposed to happen, like Sleeping Beauty and her prince, but nothing did.
" Another dupe, I knew it." He whispered to himself, straightening himself up but not taking his hand away. Tears poured down his cheeks as he bent down again, looking for something that he might have missed, even though he appeared that he didn't know what it was.
His tears fell upon the pedestal, and the angel's face, and it was like the world had taken a breath. He did not let go of her, even though something was apparently happening to the statue. It was taking on color, somehow becoming not marble, but flesh and blood and cloth and feathers. Her skin became a light pink, the color of peaches in the apex of summer, her hair taking on the darkness in the room until it had taken all the shadows and twined them about every individual strand of her hair. Her eyes became as grey as the clouds outside, and she took a breath.
" Who is it that has awakened me?" She asks, her voice sweet enough to make even the hardest killer weep to hear.
The boy finally takes a step back and rids himself of his coat. From under it burst two soft and snow white wings as the girl has. Her eyes light up and she slowly smiles. " Ian, you have come back for me after all this time."
He reaches out to her and takes her hand, helping her off her pedestal and letting her lean on him to get used to standing after all the years of sitting on a block of cold stone. " Always and forever, my lovely Thera." He says, his blue eyes brimming with love at the girl holding so tightly onto him.
Thera looks around as if searching for something herself, and then her eyes alight on something, obviously having found what she wanted. " Alver, it is your turn now, as was decreed."
I stepped out of the shadows that were still left, bowing to the both of them. I nodded and shed my security uniform, my tunic of old appearing on my body as the human clothes were shed. For the littlest of moments, I let myself bathe in their love, not knowing how long it was going to be until my own love found me and released me from the stone prison that I was going to.
" Alver, if I find Tourmaline, I will send word to her, I promise you." She smiled once at me and they disappeared as I blinked.
I sat on the block of stone as it became rougher and turned to a granite grey as I knew I would. Thera was white marble, innocent and wrongly accused of something that had caused her imprisonment, but me, I was truly a transgressor of the law. It's been so long that I've had to guard Thera until Alver came that I do not remember what I did, but I can feel by the weigh on my soul that it was something terrible and unforgivable.
My wings settled themselves into a rather comfortable position, one crossing over my chest to keep it warm and to keep the tourists from seeing the scars that are there, the other slightly up and out as if reaching up to touch someone much taller than I. I pulled one of my legs up and wrapped my arms around my knee, letting my hands rest atop one another at my ankle. My head was slightly bent so that I looked at both the wall and the floor at the same time, and a small part of my bangs brushed over my eye in the charming gesture that Tourmaline loved so much.
I smiled, a sad smile as I thought of her and the magic that had released Thera descended on my, freezing me in place and turning me to grey stone. I knew that I would still be called the Angel, the statue always was, but I did not know who was to come and guard me. I would not know either, until Tourmaline came and saved me, because the stone took my mind and my body away from me, leaving me truly a statue.