Angel's Wish

Thump. A felt two solids catch my back and below my legs. The impact knocked the wind out of me, but didn’t do much worse than that, as they only slowed my fall quickly until I stopped altogether and regained altitude.

Oh great, I thought. I slowly opened my eyes reluctantly.

“You,” I said icily.

“Glad to see you too,” the angel replied, acting as if he didn‘t previously drop me from a hundred kilometres in the air. “So, did you miss me?”

“YOU JERK! YOU TRIED TO KILL ME!” I yelled, then added, “And yes, I missed you about as much as I miss falling to my death.”

He pondered my words, letting them sink in for what seemed like hours then smiled happily and said, “So you missed me that much? I’m flattered. Oh, by the way you look horrible.” I wanted to wipe that delighted smile off his annoying face. I would have, but I didn’t want to chance him dropping me again.

“I see you prefer being the centre of flattery instead of being the flatterer.” I grumbled. I looked furious, and I was, but I was also really upset that he dropped me and was just acting all happy-go-lucky about it.

Apparently my mask of anger didn’t fool Aradrian long. A hint of something resembling concern and guilt tainted his smile. He opened his mouth to say something, probably to apologize, but I didn’t want an apology, I didn’t want his pity either.

Before he could say anything I said, “What’s with the smile anyway? Happy doesn’t suit you.”

He was silent for a moment, then ignoring my question, murmured, “I’m sorry for dropping you.” I turned around to look at his face and saw he was sincere for once. “Don’t say ‘it’s okay’ because it’s not.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I grunted. “An apology isn’t going to cut it.”

“Then maybe an explanation will,” he continued. “The demon and his dragon were still chasing us, but they concealed themselves in the clouds.” I frowned at this piece of information., a flower of realization beginning to bloom in my mind.

“I sensed them creeping up on us almost before it was too late,” he continued. “I had to do something- without them sensing that I was aware of their presence.”

“So you pretended to be a jerk and let me go freefall,” I scoffed. He nodded sheepishly. He was really acting out of character, so much that I wished he would go back to being the annoying teenaged brat he was. “And you honestly thought that the demon believe that an angel would allow me to plummet myself to death?”

He stayed quiet for a moment then replied, “Well, it worked didn’t it?” After that we both stayed silent, lost in our own thoughts. Flying was such a pleasant feeling, especially after experiencing the heart-stopping plunge toward the ground. The wind blew back my hair, flipping the dark brown strands past Aradiran’s shoulder. My hair glowed golden when the sun illuminated it from behind me. Behind me. It struck me that the weakening light of the setting sun was facing the other side it had been. Also, we hadn’t regained much altitude since Aradrian caught me, soaring among some of the lowest clouds.

I was about to enquire about it, when something caught my eye. A figure was flying towards us with alarming speed. Not again, I thought. They don’t seem to give up. I was about to was seeing. The figure hurtling towards us wasn’t a demon or a dragon- it was another Aradrian.

“B-but it can’t be,” I mumbled, looking from the angel holding me, to the one rushing towards us and back again.

‘What was that?” the Aradrian carrying me said absently, giving me a brief look. Noticing something was wrong, he looked back at me again, then seeing my shocked gaze directed behind us, he quickly rotated his head and twisted his torso a little to look behind him. He gave a strange growl of surprise as he watched the other Aradrian ram into his back. The force knocked me out of Aradrian’s arms, sending me for the second time barrelling to the earth. I gave a strangled scream as I the wind was knocked out of me from the force of the other Aradrian’s blow and the impact of wind pressing my back.

I then groaned , more annoyed than scared of my current situation. Would this never end? Then I realized it would probably be over soon since we had been flying lower than before, giving me less time to fall, thus only granting me a few minutes until I made a crater in the ground.

Deciding not to look down like last time, I stared above. The other Aradrian had knocked the wind out of the Aradrian who had been carrying me, and was taking advantage of his momentary handicap: a punch in the face, a knee in the gut, and several punches and kicks later Aradrian-who-had-been-carrying-me was plummeting toward ground ten times the speed I was. I wasn’t sure whether to be glad or worried. The victor of the battle folded his wings in and dived towards me, unfolding them after he had me safely cradled in his arms. Unlike the other Aradrian, he didn’t take the courtesy to allow me to absorb the impact, and I had the wind knocked out of me again. His grip on me was tighter than the other’s, and he held me a little closer too. His tight grasp on me frightened me. I was very unsure of whether this Aradrian was the good one or the bad.

We had turned around to the direction we had started and were regaining height. After several minutes of nauseating flight, we finally slowed down to a more bearable speed. Aradrian’s grip slackened a little. He looked down at me with a weary look. I guess all the flying, carrying and fighting was draining him quickly.

He managed a smirk and panted, “Well, that was exciting. Have fun?” I looked at him questioningly. “Ah, you’re wondering why there were two of me.”

“Two of you or two of him?” I frowned.

“Me you dunce. You really believed that atrocious creature was me? I’m much more handsomer than that.” He gave me a mocking insulted look. I gave a large sigh of relief, this was definitely Aradrian. His pig-headed attitude was the real deal.

For some strange reason, tears were clouding my vision. Tears of relief. Aradrian looked taken aback then mocked my tear filled eyes good-humouredly. I ignored his idiotic comment and clasped my arms around his neck in an awkward hug. He strained his neck against my pull, trying to pry away from my embrace. Finally I gave him back his neck.

“You’re a jerk,” I grinned.

“Oh what? Still angry about me dropping you?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted my acknowledgement.”

“In that case, I would prefer that you went back to ignoring my existence.”

“Suit yourself.”

We travelled silently for about ten minutes. By now the sun was down and we were slowly plunged into the darkness of night, which was illuminated by a sliver of moon and a scattering of stars. The silence was pleasant at first, but it began to become eerie, until the point that I could no longer stand it. I had about a million questions in my mind, and I was getting horribly bored.

I started with a simple question, “Where are you taking me?” Aradrian didn’t answer. I asked again, thinking he may not have heard me. He still didn’t answer. Ugh, he’s ignoring me, I thought. I asked the question repeatedly, first at intervals, then over and over again. After about the thirtieth time I asked, his face began twitching irritably. I grinned. He was beginning to give in. I kept at my annoying interrogation.

Finally he spoke, “What is that irritating droning?” Despite his comment I continued my annoying chant. Aradrian put up with it, but not without the occasional irritated twitch. After many minutes of repeating the same question over and over again, I gave up.

I needed a different approach. Grinning, I popped a finger in my mouth, making it moist with spit. Aradrian didn’t take note, he was too busy enjoying my silence. When my finger was spit-slimed, I quickly shoved it in his ear. I know nobody does them anymore, but since I couldn’t think of any other way of getting his attention, a wet willy would have to suffice.

Aradrian yelped in shock, disgusted. He turned to me and scowling, fumed, “What the heck was that for?! That’s disgusting!”

Pleased that I had finally caught his attention I innocently said, “You weren’t answering me.”

“You wanted me to ignore your existence,” he shot back.

“You weren’t doing a very good job of it,” I replied. “Now that you’re talking to me again, would you please tell me where you’re taking me??

He sighed. His face and neck were slick with sweat. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered him. I didn’t expect him to answer, but he murmured, “We’re almost there, okay? I’m not in the mood of explaining everything right now, but you’ll get answers eventually.”

Despite my sympathy for him, I wasn’t satisfied with the answer. “I don’t want to know everything, I want to know where we’re going.”

“You’ll have to wait and see.” And with that, we suddenly changed direction, shooting straight up into the night sky at speeds I didn’t know Aradrian was capable of, fatigued or not.

BOOM. The deafening exploding sound nearly gave me a heart-attack. I wondered nervously what the sound had been, and where it had come from. I could only tell that it had been close. It wasn’t until the lingering echoes of the thunderous boom had faded away did I realize where and why the sound had erupted.

We had broken the sound barrier.

My ears popped from the extreme air pressure, and my sense of hearing became distorted. And with the ear popping came a striking pain. I groaned, my groan lost in the howling wind. I silently pleaded for the intense soreness and frightening flying to seize.

My wish was almost immediately granted, and we decreased speed in a short amount of time, until we were reduced to a sluggish speed. I didn’t realize that my eyes were tightly shut. I slowly reopened them to a white world. The place was shrouded in white mist, not thick, but not thin either. I could hear Aradrian panting heavily, though he sounded far away, like in a dream. Suddenly he dropped me. I panicked at first, but calmed down when I landed on solid ground. The ground wasn’t hard, but I was still ticked off. Annoyed, I turned to scold him, but stopped when I saw him sprawled on the ground beside me, taking quick painful breaths. I watched silently as he regained a steady breathing pattern, and let out breath I didn’t know I was holding.

I stood up and studied myself- my clothes had become tattered and worn, my back and legs hurt, I had a few bruises, and my hair was tangled wildly, but otherwise I was fine. I probably looked like a barbarian, but it wasn’t like there was anyone around to see me in my current state.

“You look like a crazed caveman.” Nope, not a one.

I turned to Aradrian and scowled. “And you look like a drowned sock,” I shot back. He was sitting up, the familiar smirk on his face.

“Socks can’t drown, dummy.” He got up slowly, his face showing the effort it was taking to perform the small feat. “Though I wish I’d known that when my mom washed my sock monkey in the laundry. I thought he’d drowned and I wouldn’t talk to my mom for days.”

“Good point. You look more like a giant drowned sock monkey. Thank you for correcting my error,” I mocked.

“Shouldn’t have told you that then,” Aradrian said. He was up now, standing at his full height. He towered over me, my head only coming up to his shoulder. His white clothes were damp and wrinkled, and his hair was plastered to his sweat-slicked face. He also looked extremely tired.

“It seems you two are getting along quite well,” a voice from the mist commented.