Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

“I wanna see them!” Sakura whined as she rolled around on the ground, grass and leaves catching and tangling into in her cherry hair. “Just show me!”

“I can’t. I’ll get in trouble,” Ren told the fidgety child. It was spring and after an extremely cold but with little snow winter, the boy wanted to sit outside and read on the first nice day. Of course, that meant that he’d be followed by his little stray fox. It hadn’t been a year since the girl came to live with them, and she’d been like the boy’s shadow the whole time. For the most part, he didn’t mind but today she was getting on his nerves.

“But I wanna see! Just show me!” The little girl had moved onto back bends and was trying to push her feet straight into the air. Each enthusiastic attempt resulted in her crashing onto her back before she tried again, getting a little closer each time.

He closed his book in annoyance. Not like there was any chance of him reading anything with the demon around. “Will you stop being so whiny? All you do is whine.”

“Nooooo! I don’t,” she whined.

“Go play with the chickens. Or go to the creek. Go find a pest. Do something other than bug me.”

“Not until you show me your wings!”

Ren looked around. “Fine,” he gave in. “But you have to promise not to tell Raz. He’ll get really mad at me.” He paused and glanced away, considering whether or not it was something he really should do. “And you can’t get scared of them. Okay? Promise?” Most of the village already avoided him, and the thought of the girl doing the same was harrowing. Other than Raz, she was all he had.

Sakura gasped and fell hard out of her back bend. She rolled over and quickly scurried over to him. “I promise.” She nodded furiously, ignorant to the angel’s hesitation and solely focusing on her own elated anticipation. “I’m not scared, and I’ll never tell anyone ever.”

“Okay.” He looked around one last time and took a deep breath before pulling the bracelet off of his wrist. Onyx wings sprung out behind him, framing the boy in the darkness and making him look small in comparison.

The girl gaped at him with wide eyed amazement, completely captivated by the wondrous sight before her. “Ahhhhhh! They’re so pretty!” She ran her hand across the soft feathers. “Can I touch them?”

Ren smiled. “Go for it.” The boy had become accustomed to the girl’s ‘do first, ask later’ habit, and her favorable response was such a relief.

She bounced around him, wiping her hands up and down the wings, trying to touch each and every feather. “Let me see your bracelet!”

He handed it to her. “Don’t lose it,” he warned as she slipped it on her wrist.

“I won’t. Can you fly?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” The boy had never tried. He had always been told to be cautious of reveling his wings and this was the first time that anyone had ever encouraged him to expose them. The first time that someone gazed at them in wonder, and not horror.

“Do it!” she demanded. “Fly!”

Ren pumped his shoulder blades, pushing the wings in and out. He slowly increased the speed until his feet started to leave the ground in an awkward sort of quivering movement. He kept at it until he was a couple of feet off the ground, his body unsteady but holding place decently.

“Wow!” Sakura lifted her arms towards him with a smile too big for her face. “Now fly with me!”

The boy attempted to land, stumbling a little on impact. “I can barely get myself in the air! How am I going to fly with you?”

She nodded, determined to get what she wanted. “Do it!”

“I can’t!” Ren argued.

“Yes you can. Do it!”

“You’re too heavy!”

“No, I’m not.” The girl wrapped her arms with a vice grip strength around the boy’s neck, her eyes challenging him. “Do it! Fly!”

Ren knew there was no getting out of it now. “Fine!” He wrapped his arms around her waist and flapped his wings as hard as he could. It took some time and a lot of work, but they were soon floating a few inches off of the ground.

The fox looked down, completely awe stricken. “I’m flying! Now go as high as the trees!”

The angel released his hold and the girl fell on her behind. He landed, a bit more stable this time. “That’s enough. Give me my bracelet.”

“Raz is an angel, so he has wings, too,” Sakura chirped, the realization suddenly hitting her. She may be too heavy for Ren, but Raz was much larger and stronger and older than the two of them. He could fly her anywhere her heart desired!

“Well… yeah… but…” Ren didn’t have the chance to finish before the demon was sprinting full force towards the house, screaming at the top of her lungs for the man. “Wait!” he yelled, chasing after her. “Sakura, stop!”

Raz barreled out of the cottage, his heart racing at the thought that something terrible had happened to have Sakura screaming the way she was. The terrifying visions in his mind quickly dissipated to anger as he saw the girl wearing Ren’s bracelet and his wings out in the open. She ran up to the towering angel, grabbing at his shirt, and jumping all over his feet.

“I wanna see your wings, Raz,” she begged. “Fly with me! Please! Please! Please!”

“Enough!” he snapped, hushing the over excited child in an instant. “Give me the bracelet.”

She pulled it off slowly, afraid to make any sudden movements, and handed it to the man. He snatched it from the girl and handed it to Ren, disappointment written all over his face.

“You know better than this, boy. What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry.” The boy felt ashamed as he put the bracelet back on, hiding his wings as he was supposed to. He hated making his uncle angry. The man had already done so much for him, and Ren always felt like it was such a betrayal every time he let him down.

Sakura tugged at Raz’s shirt, too afraid to raise her head as tiny sniffles escaped her nose. “It’s not his fault,” she whimpered. “It’s mine. Please don’t be mad at him. I made him do it, and then I took his bracelet and ran away with it. I’m so sorry.”

The man knelt down and placed his large hand on the girl’s head, tousling her unruly hair and little fox ears around. “It’s always you, isn’t it? I’ve told you before. People don’t like our wings, so we have to hide them, especially Ren. Don’t make things more difficult than they need to be, girl.”

The little girl looked up at him, her emerald eyes shining, her tiny lip puckered and quivering. “Can I see your wings? Please?” she asked, sweeter than sugar.

“No.” Raz was not impressed by the girl’s manipulations.

“Please!” she whined and pleaded, grabbing his shirt in a death grip as her legs went limp and she hung against him. “Just once Raz! I’ll never ask again! Just fly with me!”

The man looked down at the girl and hesitated. “I can’t fly with you.” He struggled with the confession but managed to keep his voice calm.

“Yes you can! Please! Just once!” she wailed. “I wanna see them! I wanna fly! It’s not fair that you and Ren get to fly and I don’t! Please Raz!”

Raz looked over at Ren, his eye a morose acceptance, before turning back to the distraught child. There was no point in hiding the truth any longer, and he couldn’t protect her from the tragedies that came with life. She had already experienced so many in her short time in this world. What was one more?

“Okay.” His voice had an abnormal softness to it, a weary warning to the child. “If you’re old enough to ask, you’re old enough to know. But only once and never again. Do you understand?”

Her face lit up and she nodded, her imagination running wild with all the fantastic things that Raz’s wings would allow her to experience.

The man sighed, “Don’t you dare start crying, girl.” And slipped the bracelet from his hand.

Sakura’s wide-eyed enthusiasm drained into sheer panic as they filled with tears and her face crumpled, her breath escaping in uneven spurts as she forgot how to properly do so. It was like her whole body had ceased to have feeling, and she stood frozen as a statue, barely able to process the sight before her.

Raz’s wings were not the same as Ren’s. They weren’t black, or white, or big, or beautiful. They didn’t fill her with enchantment the way the boy’s had. They weren’t anything like how she had imagined at all.

They weren’t God’s greatest gift.

They were an atrocity.

The wings she witnessed were devoid of all soft, shiny feathers; each and every one having had been plucked by maliciously diligent fingers. Skin shredded and mangled into frail and punctured strips that fluttered like ribbon in the breeze. Bones cracked and splintered and broken, barely holding form. A reminder of how they had once been something spectacular and tremendous in size. The smell of years of rot unbearable, no longer masked by the magic chained to his wrist.

They were proof of the man’s greatest sin.

And what remained was truly something to be feared.

Raz replaced the bracelet, the remnants of once grand wings vanishing. “I told you not to cry.”

The little girl fell into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably. “Why are you hurt?” she hiccupped.

He gazed down at Ren with a barely there forlorn curve of his lips. “Because sometimes we make sacrifices for those we love. We give of ourselves so that they don’t have to.”

“I’m so sorry Raz! It’s my fault! It’s my…” She buried her face against him, her frantic mutterings unintelligible as her tiny body shook violently in his arms.

“Enough of that nonsense,” the man told her tersely, rubbing her back. “I won’t hear any more of it. Would you like something to eat?”

The girl nodded, her tears soaking his shirt.

“Of course you do.” He stood and carried the hysterical child inside with the hopes that food would calm her.

Ren tugged at his bracelet, spinning it around his wrist. The way Sakura had reacted to Raz’s wings was similar to the way the children in the village had responded to his. But instead of running to him, they ran away. He understood why his uncle wanted him to keep his wings hidden. What they were a reminder and confirmation of.

Of what he was.

Of what they feared.

But she hadn’t been afraid of him.

And Ren didn’t want to be afraid any longer either.

The boy turned and walked away from the cottage and the people who meant the most to him. Ripping the bracelet from his arm, he tried to fly.