(no subject)
Windalf was worried.
He'd spent the last two years worried, granted, but today was a special day for a special level of worry. Darc was two years old today, and it was time to learn to fly. If he was any other Drakyr child, Windalf wouldn't have a second thought. His wings had grown well, they were the right size. But Darc was twenty levels of one-of-a-kind, so Windalf was worried.
Darc was much more talkative now, helpful, eager, and so much less trouble than he ought to be. It's a bad sign is what it is, Windalf could hear his own father complaining, as he would if they weren't fugitives and Williwo wasn't somewhere damning his son and his grandchild in his sleep. Windalf supposed that, logically, Darc didn't really look like himself or his mother; that the two of them had created something completely new. His mismatched looks were a mark of taboo, would be dangerous if Windalf wasn't there to protect him. But he'd stopped thinking logically the moment he'd met Nafia, and in Windalf's eyes Darc looked more and more like him every day, like his beautiful mother. The both of them clearly mixed together in him. It filled Windalf with immeasurable pride.
He'd found a good spot for Darc's first flight - covered in trees, and it wasn't as steep a drop as he'd like so Darc didn't have as much time, but all the best cliffs were too out in the open. As he walked towards the cliff with Darc in hand, Darc let go to cling to his leg as they got closer, eyes wide as he peered over the edge. Windalf put his hand on his head - well, part of his hand, Darc was still so small - and Darc held tighter, his wings flapping cautiously.
"Changed my mind," Darc finally declared, hugging close to Windalf's skirts.
Windalf sighed. To Darc's benefit, plenty of Drakyr children weren't keen on the idea.
Every Drakyr parent, when their child turned two, would take them to the edge of the same cliff to officially fly for the first time. It was a big deal, an early coming of age; the village elder would come see them pass this stage in life, and roosts of other families and onlookers would gather. Elders would complain that they learned how to fly at a much younger age. (Which got younger every time they had the conversation, finally leading to old man Gustafa's claim of "My mother pushed me off the edge soon as I was out of her, and I got stronger wings than all of these whelps!") Children who'd just learned to fly, swirling and flipping in all the joy that had become second nature to adults, would cheer or jeer the child on. Younger Drakyr would stare wide-eyed at the spectacle, counting the days and flapping their own little wings in wonder.
Windalf himself had been flying months prior, and leapt right off for the ceremony, starting a long line of jumping fearlessly into his destiny. Now his destiny was with the child clinging to him, and Darc was a classic case that had barely hovered until now.
Windalf got to one knee beside him and put his hands - which made Darc look so much smaller and breakable - on his shoulders. "Darc, you can do this," he reassured him, and Darc wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "You were so excited last night, remember?"
"It's too high," Darc muttered, stubbornly fixing his face into a glare that was once his mother's. "Don't wanna."
Windalf once again debated whether or not he'd jump with him, just to make sure. Just so he'd know nothing would go horribly wrong. But if Darc knew his life didn't depend on it it could sabotage his instincts, and Windalf believed in him. Darc was his son. Drakyr instinct was so strong that nobody had lost a child in generations. His wings were his own, the mark of his family was on his arm regardless of blood. And if anything, Nafia's blood running through his veins made him all the more stronger. It was easier than walking, and Darc learned that so fast. He could do this. So why couldn't Windalf stop worrying?
"You need to learn," Windalf said to him. "We need to be able to fly together. You're going to grow up strong, right?"
Darc ducked his head, sulking, but he looked torn. He wanted to impress him so badly, Windalf knew. "I know, but, but. . ."
"You can do this, Darc," Windalf smiled. "You can do anything. Remember?"
And then he turned him around and walked him to the edge. Darc flailed and dug his heels in, but Windalf pushed, and held him steady at the very edge. Darc's little chest rose and fell in panic, but he didn't scream. "You can do this!" he shouted to him, and Darc stared wide, fisting his hands, determined not to show his fear despite his frantic eyes.
"Fly back to me!" Windalf said, and pushed him.
Darc screamed then and dropped down so fast Windalf's stomach dropped with him, and panic flooded his head ("If he fell he'd never survive anyway," his father said) and despite living around cliffs his entire life all he could see was Nafia and Kharg also falling fast out of his reach -- but then Darc shot up from the misty trees like an arrow (so quickly, that's my boy) flying in frantic, erratic loops before shooting right for Windalf. He ran into him so hard Windalf fell to the ground, hugged his small, uneven arms around his father's shoulders tightly, and bawled.
Crying after success wasn't so common among the Drakyr, but that was okay. Darc was special. He'd probably stubbornly wipe his face in five minutes and jump off the cliff himself, just to show him.
"There you go, there you go," Windalf said, grinning and patting his boy on the back, his small but powerful wings flapping frantically above Windalf's hand as Darc sobbed and sniffled into his neck. One day those wings would be strong enough to carry him through the darkest of times, strong enough to save the corrupted, war-torn world. Not just Drakyr but all Deimos, all humans. Everything about him, this mismatched forbidden boy, was the hope of the future. He was their prayer for a new peace to come. "There you go. Shhh."
- - - -
"There you go," Darc said under his breath, watching Kharg fly with too many damn emotions mixed his head and too many damn memories. He suddenly didn't have the energy to handle it all. When Kharg pulled away to leave, he let him. He'd already said too much to that bastard anyway. Right?
He walked back to his stone shelter at the corner of camp, passing busybody humans and Deimos alike - he wasn't even sure half the time thanks to this place. Once he was there he pulled his armor off slowly, letting it drop with a clang to the side of his burned-out campfire. He dropped down to sit, pressed himself against the stone wall to rest. His back ached.
He didn't know why he was trying so hard. He was alone, he knew that. Kharg's very existence just made that clearer and clearer. His twin, the one person who could hope to understand what it was like to be a creature in the middle, couldn't and wouldn't understand at all. He understood so little he could take a sword to his own back like it was nothing.
Darc closed his hand over his birthmark, squeezing. He knew what that felt like. He'd experienced pain before, had it etched permanently all over his body, but the slow ripping of his wings from his back had been so excruciating he wasn't even sure if he hadn't given in to the torture thanks to strength, or thanks to simply forgetting there was anything to give in to. He'd accused Kharg of cowardice, but he couldn't even imagine it. That took nerves Darc wasn't sure he had. And it hit him in his guts, slapped across his face to see Kharg's resolve to get rid of them again. To cut off the only thing that linked them now.
Darc buried his face in his folded arms, felt himself try to fold ghosts around his body for the first time in a while. And he thought about his father, his brother, and how far away they both were.