Fowlhunter [GL]

It was just a few doors away, but still Jemi insisted on showing Ennanis to her room.

“Here’s your keys. You can pack for Kanch, but try not to stay up late. We have a long day tomorrow,” she instructed.

Ennanis looked down at the key placed in her hand. Again the other woman’s hand had lingered several seconds too long while handing over the keys.

“Alright,” replied the angel.

Neither of them moved.

“Well… goodnight.” At last Jemi broke the silence. She turned away and began walking back down the hallway.

With the key, Ennanis turned the knob of her room and entered it. She looked out over the dark little space, even smaller than the other Beasts’ room had been.

Pocketing the keys, she closed the door. She latched it shut behind her.

Then, without turning around, the angel called out into the darkness:

“What do you want?”

A silence. Then, finally, something moved in the shadows.

It was Jemi Garen, of course. Her dull-gold hair and muddy-hued clothing blended into the wooden walls, the only exception being the blood-red scarf around her neck. Compared to the lit hallway, in the darkness she looked like a different person. Her features were drowned by shadow, but her smile was full of teeth.

“You’re observant,” she purred, stepping towards her. “Just like I thought.”

“What do you want?” repeated Ennanis as Jemi came face-to-face with her.

The room really was small. When Jemi surged into her space, Ennanis stepped back on instinct, but the angel found herself back to a wall. Meanwhile, the other woman all but draped herself on her, and Ennanis could feel the rise and fall of their ribcages pressed against one another. Jemi’s cloak shed to the floor, leaving her in just a tight, long-sleeved tunic. Her left hand had come to rest on Ennanis’ midsection, sliding back towards the ends of her wings.

“I want…” Jemi said breathily, “to make amends.”

“...Make amends?”

“For injuring you, of course,” Jemi tilted her head. She was slightly shorter than Ennanis was, but was doing an impressive job of crowding her nonetheless. “I’m really sorry, you know?” Her hand carded through Ennanis’ feathers. Meanwhile, Ennanis watched all this with an unmoved expression.

“We’ve only just met,” the angel uttered finally.

Jemi laughed. She drew back a little, and revealed her other hand, which was holding a tin of ointment. “What did you think I meant? I was just applying some medicine for the wound.”

Ennanis stared back at her flatly. “Angels heal quickly. There was no need.”

“Like I said, I just wanna apologise,” Jemi said, grasping at her grey belt buckle. “Now for your midriff-”

Ennanis finally pushed her off. “Stop,” she said.

“Why?” Jemi asked. “You shy? We’re both girls.”

“......”

When Ennanis didn’t reply, the corners of Jemi’s lips lifted.

“Don’t worry. I know why,” she said. “I could feel your heart pounding just now. The way you’ve been looking at me… is the same way men look at me, you know?”

Ennanis’ stare was never-ending. One could not tell what the angel was thinking in this moment.

Eventually, she regathered her breath and said, “I don’t know you.”

“Again with this? Do you really have to, for this kind of thing?”

“You said yourself not to stay up late tonight. And you said I would have this room to myself.”

“Did you really think I meant that?”

Ennanis paused.

“If you want me to trust you,” she said slowly, “you have to make your intentions clear, Jemi.”

The name was heavy on the angel’s tongue. A name so simple it sounded like a nickname, but the way Ennanis spoke it made it carry an odd weight. On hearing it, Jemi stiffened, and stopped trying to undress the angel. For the first time since entering the room, she seemed at a loss for how to react. But it was only for a few seconds, for soon she was back to giggling.

She doubled back, then fell backwards, spreading herself over the bed—what was meant to be Ennanis’ bed.

“Hahahaha… come on. Can’t you have a little fun once in a while?”

“Are you going back to your room or not?”

Jemi stretched her hands behind her head. “Hell no. I can’t sleep anyway.”

“Then why are you in my bed?”

Jemi blinked owlish violet eyes. She patted the mattress beside her, grinning. “Maybe if you slept with me, it would help. I’m afraid of the dark, you see.”

“...........”

“Just kidding,” Jemi giggled again. “You really ought to stop taking things so seriously, nox.” Her laughter trailed off as she felt another weight settle into the bed beside her. “Ah- huh? I said I was just kidding!”

“I told you to make your intentions clear,” Ennanis reiterated. Folding her wings, she shifted around on the mattress to find a comfortable position. Next, she pulled the blanket over the both of them, trapping the other woman below the cloth. “Now, go to sleep.”

Once again, Jemi was rendered at a loss for words. Eventually, as though she didn’t know what else to do, she relented. Rolling over on her side, she gazed at the starry night beyond the window.

“Oh, Graveyard Commander,” she sighed past the pillow. “I should’ve known not to underestimate you.”

She felt Ennanis shift beside her.

“I said to call me Ennanis,” said the angel.

“Why so disgruntled?” asked Jemi. “That’s who you are.”

A pause. Then, as if after hesitating for a while, she heard Ennanis say, slowly, “You know, I wasn’t always the Graveyard Commander. Before, I was called the Golden Rose.”

Jemi snorted. “Sounds stupid,” she said plainly.

“Laugh if you want,” Ennanis didn’t sound offended. “I didn’t come up with the title. It was just what they called me, for being the prodigy in my batch of angels. I excelled at everything I did. Later, I trained under the famed mentor Amanita Zoleil. I had a bright and glorious path ahead of me, and soon I became a Warden. I was a part of the Royal Division; the highest honour for an angel.”

“...What happened?” Even though Jemi knew, she couldn’t help but ask.

“Ten years ago, the Cockatrice, leader of the Beasts, was captured and sentenced to a lifetime in the sunprisons,” Ennanis answered. “I had just become a Warden then, assigned supervision duty. And then, one day, I freed her.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The wind howled beyond the window.

The angel’s next words echoed in the quiet room:

“Because you feel like someone I’ve known for a long time.”

“......”

Jemi folded her arms around herself, as if feeling cold, in spite of the thick blanket. She continued to gaze hard out the window.

“Well, you don’t know anything about me.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I don’t,” agreed the angel. “Why not you tell me something about yourself?”

“.............”

Jemi Garen was not keen on answering. But the woman couldn’t not answer such an innocent question, for it would seem like she had something to hide. The most natural deceptions were one part lie, nine parts truth. And so Jemi took care to not hide herself too thoroughly, if at all. Yet, some things, she had to step around carefully. It was always dangerous, when the wrong word might give away her identity, compromise the entire mission before it even officially started. Even though Jemi was experienced with putting on disguises, pretending to be someone she wasn’t—she had just seen for herself how sharp the Graveyard Commander could be.

Why Ennanis had agreed to work with her, who’d rejected her friends, who’d been attacked by Jemi, after just one flimsy plea for trust—it was difficult to comprehend. This had been too easy. For all Jemi knew, she could’ve been the one walking right into a trap. But what, and why—it was too early to tell.

Ennanis had always been like this. Taking what the Cockatrice put forth, and flipping it on its head. It would not be the first game they had played.

Deception or not, Ennanis had known her for a long time.

Jemi turned around on the bed. She came face-to-face with the angel, who had been staring at her this whole time. As was expected. Ennanis’ slitted, scorching gold eyes bore into her soul, with that intensity that the angel had never learnt to rein in. Or never cared to.

Jemi looked back into those gold irises with her own eyes: the darkest violet, nearly indistinguishable from the midnight.

Tell me something about yourself.

Most people looked at her eyes and assumed she was a noble. She was a ‘princess’, alright, just not in the way they expected. She was the Beast Princess, who whispered to and frolicked with monsters for a living.

Who was she, if she wasn’t the Cockatrice?

“I was… I’ve been many things,” she answered, making her decision. “But mainly a hunter.”

“I see.” Surprisingly, she asked no further questions. Instead, gazing at Jemi as she did, the angel said next: “It’s nice to meet you.” Then she shut her eyes at last, lashes fluttering in her quiet, slumbering breaths.

Jemi exhaled. Her gaze roved over Ennanis Zoleil, lying centimetres away from her. Peony-hued strands of hair tangled around her face, dyed by the starlight falling through the glass. Her feathery wings folded to her back, rustling gently with her breaths. On her side like this, blissful under their shared duvet, she looked like just another one of Jemi’s lovers. Yet, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

This was the angel that she had butted heads with for nearly a decade. The Graveyard Commander: the Cockatrice’s only match. Nine years of history had given them a strange connection; the kind of relationship forged in sunfire and moonlight and mutual blood.

Jemi looked at her worst enemy and saw her for what she had become: an ally. No matter how she felt about it, no matter what eventually happened. By the decree of her Queen, for now at least, she had to retract her claws, put away her knives, and work as Ennanis’ ally, too.

She breathed deeply through her scarf.

“Nice to meet you, too,” she whispered.

~~~

END OF ACT ONE