Hey, all-- this was a present for my buddy back in December, but yes, I'm a bad person about posting stories. ; Oops. Well, let me know if you think I ought to continue it! (My creative writing teacher said I should...)

One in a Million

By Hazeleyed Everglades

The sunset was a lot prettier than I would have ever thought—much prettier from the ground or even from my window.

I smiled a little to myself. The roof had turned out to be an excellent choice.

The sky was just cloudy enough to turn a million different colors, but not enough to obstruct the view of the ocean only about ten miles away.

An undertow of homesickness created a lump in my throat and threatened to pull me under. My home was near the ocean, more than a million miles away. For all I knew, it was a million years away, too. Nobody here had ever heard of Kali Reverend. Nobody in Volatilis had even heard of Earth. I was a wonder to them, not only because of that damnable prophecy and story about some past life or another, but because I was the only person in the whole city who didn’t have the trademark Angelui wings.

They were beautiful, I had to admit, but they looked too pure to lust after. They looked like angel wings, and though white was arguably the most common color, the rest of the wing colors were as varied as hair colors back on earth.

Shade said I wouldn’t have white wings. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or upset with his assessment.

“How the hell did you get up here?” Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Shade clambered up from the window, using his own obsidian wings to balance himself whenever the wind gusted unexpectedly. “You didn’t climb, did you?”

I smirked but didn’t look away from the horizon. “Well, I sure didn’t fly up.”

He chuckled softly and settled himself next to me. I held back a huff of impatience. I had hardly been alone since my coming to Volatilis, and being alone was what I was best at. It made me claustrophobic to constantly be surrounded by people I didn’t know.

It made me cranky, too, as Shade had pointed out earlier.

“Anybody else know I’m up here?” I asked, glancing sidelong at him. He shook his head, smiling crookedly.

“You and your privacy. No, nobody else knows, unless they’ve been stalking me. They’re all looking for you, though.”

I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said, not sounding sorry even to my own ears.

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, “I’m sick to death of being surrounded by a bunch of beautiful strangers who’re only supposed to exist in books. I mean, come on—Angelui? It sounds like the French word for angel, for pete’s sake! I can’t even take human company for too long. It’s a freaking miracle I haven’t exploded on somebody important for asking me for the billionth time why I don’t have wings.”

“Kali, you know they mean well.” I scowled and pulled my legs up to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. “They only ask that—”

“Because they’ve never seen a freak show like me before,” I finished bitterly.

“You’re not a freak show,” he growled, and I hugged my legs tighter. “Hey. Kali.” I looked up to find him staring intently at me. “You’re not a freak show,” he repeated. “They just never thought that prophecy was talking about a human.”

I looked away. He was right, and he didn’t even have to say anything aloud. I was wallowing in self-pity because I stuck out like a sore thumb and constantly brought attention to myself with my lack of feathery appendages. If I had been home, I would not have bothered with self-pity—I had a reputation to uphold. But it was hard to hold on to those memories when I was so far from my home and friends. “I know,” I muttered. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a rough couple of weeks.”

His dark wings rustled as he unfolded them, and a moment later black feathers entered my field of vision as he wrapped one wing around me, and the other around himself so we were cocooned in a field of feathers. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll get better.”

I couldn’t help but smile a little at the gesture, and leaned my head on his shoulder. He acted tough sometimes, but he really was a nice guy. “Yeah,” I answered. “It will. Thanks.”