Fowlhunter [GL]

~~~ INTERLUDE ONE: GOLDEN GIRL ~~~

Interlude 1.1 Good Child

Fourteen Years Before the Battle of Fifth Peak.

There had once been a time when Ennanis closed her eyes to the night, and opened her eyes to daylight.

Her days began like this: she was always the first one out of her bunk, descending sharply to the ground with a slant of her wings, while her bunkmate below her yawned and rolled his head into his pillow with a groan. Ennanis flew past him and into the bathroom, where she put her hair up. It had always been left long, but in the old days she’d worn it in a resplendent pink ponytail that split across her shoulderblades. Meticulously, she would rub sun-absorber into her skin, scrutinising herself in the mirror to ensure her own tidiness, and then swept out the bunker as the rest of her platoon were still dragging themselves to their feet.

Pew! Peeeewww! Pshow!

Soleki beams roared across the empty field, popping as they struck the targetboards, peppering the bullseye one after the other. The young angel was the only one in the sprawling outcrop, wings flaring as she flipped and soared and stabbed the air with her stave, while the air sang with her magic.

After an hour or so, the fields began to fill up with other practising angels. Many paused to watch her practise, transfixed. It was a performance in itself, the way she flew and fought the targets, beautiful rose in the sunrise of Casca.

Angels cheered loudly as they watched. Everywhere you could hear things like: “Look at her technique. It’s stunning… there’s nothing like it.”

“Forget that, look at how fast she can move! And the amount of Soleki she can control… is that even real?”

“Did you see her insignia? The red ribbon? She’s only thirteen and already a Lieutenant! That’s amazing.”

“That’s the Golden Rose for you. There’s really no one like her.”

None of them, however, ever approached her or offered to practise with her; they carefully kept their distance. It was shortly after that Ennanis glanced around at the densifying field and the many pairs of slitted eyes on her. She stopped mid-air and lowered her blade.

“Sorry, but can you all shut up?” she said. “I can’t concentrate.”

Everyone fell awkwardly silent. Eventually, the crowd dispersed, shuffling towards the other practice stations.

It was soon after that Ennanis took her leave, fluttering into the cloudy distance. And it was then that the more… unsavoury comments began to stir.

“Man, who does she think she is…”

“Just because she’s talented doesn’t mean she can be so rude towards others. No wonder she has no friends.”

“She’s always alone. It gives me the creeps.”

Ennanis was known for her exceptional ability, but also for her… difficult personality. For an angel so deeply blessed by the sun, she was terribly frigid. She didn’t seem to have very much interest in other people at all.

“Why do you all still pretend to be nice in front of her?” someone, a new cadet, asked.

“Uh, because she’s of higher station?” said a sergeant. “If you want to get ahead in the ranks, you have to suck up to your superiors. And, if you get on a superior’s bad side, they can demote you anytime. Or you’ll just go without promotions for so long that you end up in the Graveyard.”

“Fuck, man, I’m already one bad day away from being thrown in there… I can’t risk any more in the way of transgressions.”

Everyone shuddered thinking about the Graveyard. One of the most common ways to end up in the meatshield division of the angelic troops was by not receiving promotions in too long a time, which indicated poor performance and progress.

“She’s not even a good leader,” another said. “She’s always off chasing her own targets instead of waiting for her platoon. She thinks she’s good enough to handle it all on her own.”

“Ugh, whatever. Let’s just go have breakfast…”

In the distance, an angel walked past.

It was a tall female angel. Pure white robes draped her form, hem stirring at her ankles, the formal attire of an angel of the Royal Division—a Warden. The Warden had freckled dark-brown skin and red hair, loose and wavy down her back, as warm as a bleeding sunset.

Overhearing those comments, she tilted her head in curiosity.

Thoughtfully, she turned toward the mess hall that the group had departed towards.

~~~

"Oh, Ennanis?" the nanny said, looking up from the crib she was attending to. "I remember her."

"What was she like?" the angel Warden with long red hair asked.

"I'm surprised you would want to know, Amanita," said the nanny. "Are you looking for a new apprentice?"

This Warden’s name was Amanita Zoleil. She was a very powerful angel, her age numbering in the several hundreds, and her accolades in that time were several and impressive. On top of being an upstanding peacekeeper in the undercloud, her disciples were some of the very best Mount Casca had ever seen. Yuyin Zoleil, who had prevented Archizoun's coast from being decimated by a typhoon two hundred years ago. Ceston Zoleil, who stopped a group of Beasts from assassinating the queen of Fenlin a hundred fifty years ago. Augustus Zoleil, who had led a troop of angels into stopping a deadly landslide in Kanch thirty years ago. All of them were accomplished enough to make it to Paradise.

Her latest disciple, the eighth, had been no exception. After he'd gone, Amanita now searched for her ninth.

It was oft-gossiped about why Amanita herself, who had clearly already served Mount Casca well and long enough to make it to Paradise, would choose not to retire. Some said that she stayed out of the kindness of her heart, her patriotism and dedication to serving Mount Casca. Some said that she had people she had grown attached to here; that was a common reason for some angels to stay.

Some said... that she was still looking for the right disciple. A disciple that satisfied her.

"She was a good kid. A good babe. With how stoic she is now you’d think she popped out of the sun uncrying. Nonsense. She cried just like the rest," said the nanny. "She wasn't always like this."

“Tell me more.”

The nanny lifted a squealing child from the adjacent crib. The baby angel was tiny, its bare back home to a pair of small, yet-to-develop wings—more like bits of quills glued together by lumpy bone. The nursery was filled with many more just like it, just born from the sun, skin still toasty-warm. The nanny unfastened the gold armbraces from the child's pudgy arms. Even as infants, their wrists were secured from the day they were born. It was too risky to leave them uncovered when a slight impact to them could be debilitating, affecting the later development of their Soleki.

"Ah, one of the juniors forgot to clean it," the nanny tsk'ed, seeing the red and raw skin below it. Gently she began to wipe it with a washcloth, muttering soothing words to the child when it cried and flinched. The angels went through armbraces like clothes as they grew. They still had to remove them regularly to clean the dirt and sweat that got trapped under them, lest the skin get infected and inflamed. "There's too many babies in this one ward for one old nanny like me to take care of."

“But you still remembered Ennanis?”

"I only remember her because she was a big troublemaker," she said. "Didn't like to follow no rules. You put her in a playpen to play with the other kids, she grabs a toy and sits in the corner to play with herself. You want her to play a match of flying discus, she scores the goal straight without passing to her teammates. And she has no respect for authority, my goodness. So rude. Always off doin’ her own thing.”

"I thought you said she was a good kid."

"She was," the nanny affirmed. "Merely an unconventional one. Most kids are picked up by angel clans and named immediately, but dear Ennanis wasn’t picked by anyone, so the first nanny to take her gave her a random name. She was the ninth child that day, so ‘nine’. Perhaps the name was a curse too; someone told me in another language it sounds like the word for island." She sighed.

“Hmmm. I heard she’s a problem child,” Amanita said. “Many clan leaders have tried to take her under their wing for her incredible talent, but dropped her shortly after for being too obstinate. Defiant. Anti-social.”

“But you’re thinking about it anyway,” the nanny smiled knowingly. “Somehow, she’s floundered along on her own, but I think she could use someone to guide her, don’t you?” She turned back to the wailing baby in the crib, leaving Amanita to her thoughts.

~~~

After training, Ennanis’ next destination was the mess hall. The mess hall office lady let her in cheerily, and the angel sped to the front of the cafeteria, stomach already growling. Practice always made her very hungry. She added a tall cup of nectar to her heaping tray. It was only instant nectar, but just the fragrance alone made her smile.

Angels sitting along the rowed tables and benches all smiled and waved to her as she passed by them. She was graceful as a countess, even as she flew and carried her piled-high tray down the rows. Several of them called out: “Won’t you come sit with us?” and “Hey, how’s it going?”, but Ennanis…

Ennanis ignored all of them.

To her, their cries were nothing more than the yips of attention-hungry kittens. It all sounded saccharine, false to her. She knew what they wanted from her, and she wanted none of it.

Others might have found it odd, but Ennanis didn’t feel like she needed companions. She found it a burden. Many people, she reasoned, were held back by their friends. Without others, Ennanis was free of any anchors tying her down. She could fly as fast and as far as she wanted, without stopping to wait for anyone else, without ever needing to turn back.

Ennanis was not stupid. She had heard the rumours about herself. She knew that people called her the Golden Rose, after the human idiom ‘a person with a heart of gold’. It was normally used to mean someone who was very kind. But she knew that, for the angels, there was a more sinister meaning to the moniker. They meant to say that she was an object more than a person; that she had a heart made of metal, as opposed to flesh-and-blood—one that could never feel emotion, empathy, or find connection with others.

So what? I don’t care, was what thirteen-year-old Ennanis had decided. She still continued to be promoted by her sheer skill. She didn’t need to lick anyone else’s boots. Finding an empty table in the back, she sat down at it. When anyone tried to approach her, she glared at them until they went away.

Until, a certain older angel sat down beside her, loose waves of long red hair fluttering in the breeze.

Ennanis swung her threatening gaze on the new arrival. Molten gold eyes widened when they met another set of gold eyes; but these were gently-hued, like petals of oleander. Unlike the other blue-clad angels, this one wore the white, long-sleeved uniform of a Warden, a black sash across her front, and a matching, glossy black ribbon threaded at the collar, signifying her status as General. This, and her posture and gaze both, gave her an unmistakable aura of power.

This was no kitten, the young angel realised.

“Ennanis Zoleil,” Amanita said, curling fingers around a cup of nectar herself. “It has quite the ring to it, doesn’t it?”