Feathers

by Erisian

It had been a bad fight that night almost a year ago, the worst we'd ever had. The wings had appeared on our backs that morning - everyone got them, and it hadn't taken long for the significance of the colors to be understood.

If you had been morally good, your wings were white. If bad, they were stained with black. News video of prisons demonstrated that sharply: almost all inmates and too many of the guards had wings smeared and splotched as if with black tar. Most people had a blend of white and grey - some of the patterns were actually rather pretty. You could even glide with them if they were big enough and you were in moderately good shape, and children started figuring out how to actually fly - though there seemed to be an upper limit to how high up they could get. About ten feet or so seemed to be the limit. Physicists and biologists were utterly baffled, of course. Chemists were having a field day in tremendous excitement analyzing the composition of the feathers - but that's another story.

This is about us. Me and my wife. My wings were no better nor worse than most folks; though I could see a few splotches of darker grey mixed in. My wife, Sarah, hers were brighter than mine - except for a couple feathers that appeared rather splattered with black ink.

I wanted us to examine our black spots, and confess them to each other. We had sworn to never keep secrets when we took our vows. And while we both probably already knew what each dark spot represented, I felt driven, irrationally so, that we needed to go over them all. She argued with me then, which got me even more worked up. The temper I inherited from my father took over, and yes I know that's no excuse - it's mine and my responsibility, but I know rightly where I got it from. If he had still been alive I have no doubt his wings would have been a checkerboard pattern of night and day.

No, I didn't hit her. But I did say some things which were utterly unkind and foul, shouting them at the top of my lungs while my eyes failed to even focus properly. And when she pointed out that a new line of shadow was appearing on the top of my left wing due to my rant, I lost it, felt the urge to strike rise with my raised fist, but after a guttural yell I stormed off to the garage instead. Slammed the door so hard that a picture from our honeymoon fell off the wall on the other side, crashing to the floor.

I heard her march out the front door shortly thereafter and her car where it was parked in the driveway start up. She had packed a bag and driven off. And she left her phone on the dining room table, deliberately placed in the center of the spot where I usually sat to dine on the miracles she crafted in our kitchen.

Two days she left me there: the fight was on a Friday, and I had the weekend to spend staring in the mirror and reaching over my shoulder, touching the top of that wing now marked by a moment's rage. It felt hot to the fingertips, the echoes of anger pulsing up my arm and towards my thoughts like worms wriggling up and trying to dive back into my brain. Out of reflex I pulled back, not wanting that rage to be rekindled, terrified of what it would do to me, and in a moment of blind hope grabbed onto the brightest feather I could see on the other side.

A memory flashed through my mind, a moment I knew well. We had just met, her and me, at a party hosted by mutual friends. She was stunning even in simple light blue jeans and emerald t-shirt. So much so that I had only managed to admire her from across the room, trying to get up the nerve to go introduce myself. But one of our host's kids, their daughter of perhaps five, had run over to her to show off a new stuffed unicorn. I didn't want to intrude.

Then it happened - Sarah was kneeling over the child who was clutching her unicorn to her chest and looking a little green. Sensing something was up, I started to cross over to them - when the child threw up all over the poor unicorn, also covering Sarah's shirt with fresh bile and other bits.

But Sarah, hovering over the now starting-to-cry child, didn't miss a beat. She scooped her up - unicorn and all - and carried her to the bathroom, all the while smiling and comforting the child, telling her that it was okay, her eyes sparkling without a shred of discomfort or irritation. And right in that moment I fell in love with her.

Sarah agreed to borrow my flannel overshirt for the rest of the party, as her emerald one went straight into the laundry along with the hapless unicorn. And after I cleaned up what mess had made it to the floor, I refreshed her drink and, well, we spent the next month in a whirlwind romance where each day the sun seemed brighter than the day before, especially whenever that smile and those twinkling eyes of purest sapphire were directed towards me.

Back in my garage I had fallen to my knees, tears flowing down both cheeks, cursing myself for a fool. What did it matter what she had faced in the past or done? The only thing that mattered was her and who she was now, and all those moments which shone through her own feathers. I was sick to my stomach the rest of that weekend, worried that I might have lost her forever.

Sunday late afternoon she pulled back into the driveway. I was in the backyard when she did, trying to occupy myself with pulling weeds and making a bigger mess of the yard as a result. Swallowing my own fears, I walked slowly around the house - to find her standing before the front door, arms crossing her stomach with shoulders hunched over, a figure of sheer misery.

I saw it then, a new darkness had gathered at the tips of both of her wings. Fresh and deep purples fading into black. She was trembling as she stood there, not having heard me approach. I looked down at those new spots, feeling my own sick fears and rage trying to rise yet again, but I ignored them. Saying her name, I wrapped arms around her and pulled her close, wings and all.

She burst into tears, clutching at my offered arms. She rambled on about having gone to a bar, wanting perhaps to do something to get back at me, and she had had too many drinks. She didn't remember what happened. She woke up in a hotel room, one booked in her name, and she said there may have been a man. Someone from the bar. And the sheets looked, and she felt...

I told her it didn't matter. That everything would be alright, and she needed to come inside. Whatever had happened, we would deal with it. Her and me. And I apologized for getting so angry, saying I had been stupid. So very stupid.

Going in together, I noticed the new marks on her wingtips fading as we walked - the sharpness of the darkness easing towards more grey. With a glance over my own shoulder, I saw the same start to happen to mine, every time she pulled me closer.

We made love that night, hesitantly and tenderly at first, which built to a frenetic passion leaving us both in tears at the end. My mark of anger had almost disappeared entirely and one tip of her wings had done the same, though the other still showed its stain. She bit her lip in dismay, but I told her not to worry about it.

A couple weeks later we understood why. She was pregnant, and we didn't know if it was mine or her mysterious bar-stranger. She still couldn't remember what he looked like, but I didn't care. Whether it was mine or his, I just didn't care. Every time my own dark thoughts tried to rise up, I'd touch that one shining spot on my own wing and remind myself why I had fallen in love with her.

So here we are, nine months later, and staring down at our newborn boys. Twins. The world still hasn't figured out why everyone suddenly was given these wings. Experts and doctors, philosophers and priests, all have debated non-stop and gotten nowhere.

But standing here in the nursery, my wife and I look at each other in somber shock. The doctor had already rushed out to call a team of specialists.

One of our sons has wings of pure light. Not just white feathers, but feathers formed out of soft glowing light.

And the other, his wings are forged of blackness. No light reflects from them, and the light around him seems to bend and fade away from his little basket.

I take my wife's hand and say quietly to her, “Whatever happens now, know I love you.”

She grasps my fingers firmly, and as her eyes met mine she whispers, “I love you too.”

And that's all that matters.

Author's Note: This simple short tale was written many years ago, before the Light saga was properly even started. But upon stumbling across it again in the archives, I thought some folks here might enjoy. Thanks for reading!

- Erisian