Fowlhunter [GL]

“Is it true?” Ennanis demanded.

The girl dithering about in the cell glanced up, faded curls twisted around her finger. Her grey eyes raised as Ennanis drew closer with her lantern. The angel had no food, nor extra items under her arms this time. Only her gold cane, glinting in the dim light. Her posture was stiff as the first time they’d met, guarded.

“I can’t read your mind, Angel,” Chime drawled, turning slowly to face the cell door. Despite the obvious change in the air, the calm smile on her face remained. “Is it true I can chug a whole vase of tequila? Is it true I like boys and girls? You'll have to be more specific.”

“Don’t act coy with me,” Ennanis snarled. She jabbed her stave between the bars at the girl. “Are you or are you not the Cockatrice?”

At the mention of the moniker, Chime’s smile froze a little. But she went on, pleasantly, “What makes you think that?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Hmm,” Chime tapped her chin. “No.”

Ennanis inhaled. The angel was trembling slightly, but she was obviously trying to hide it. “What reason do I have to believe you?”

Chime held up her hands. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not the Cockatrice.”

“Then why,” Ennanis accused, shoving the cane in her face, “did you recognise the name?”

“Many reasons,” Chime replied, shrugging. Even with the point of a cane centimetres from her grey iris, she was unflinching. “The Beasts are well-known in the undercloud. Maybe I overheard the inmates talking. Or maybe… I was thrown in here in place of her.” She draped her hands over her garbed knees, bony fingers playing with the soot-stained hem. “How about that.”

Ennanis stared.

“Think about it,” Chime said. She was still smiling, but below very tired—very resentful—eyes. “A young human girl. Magicless, weak, an orphan with no one to care for her remains. So very easy… to catch and frame for someone else’s crime… so one of you angels can feel good about themselves. Earn your promotions, ascend to Paradise.”

Ennanis shivered, remembering the story about Lark. About Chime.

“I don’t know. Why should I believe you?”

“There is nothing I can say that you, or any one of your superiors cannot refute,” Chime panned her hands. “You could go on questioning me, waiting for me to say something off from sheer fatigue. If I don’t, you might say I’m simply too good at lying, that I used some kind of moon powers to bewitch you. Whatever. You could make up some complete bullshit story about me, and no one would know or care.”

“I’m no judge, and I’ve no testifiers. My fate,” Chime concluded, “my past and future: is all yours to decide, Ennanis.”

“......” Ennanis faltered. “What is your real name, then? If what you say is true, there should be records I can verify.”

“I am whatever you want to call me,” Chime tilted her head, smiling. “Chime, Cockatrice, conniving wretch. I can’t tell you my real name… your heart obviously isn’t mine yet, now is it?” Her eyes sparkled, somehow, even in the dreariness of the night between them, even in a time like this. Just like on the first night they’d met.

Ennanis stared. Stared. And then she sighed, withdrawing her cane from between the bars. She dropped it to the ground with a loud clatter; she sank to her knees outside the cell, pooled in her too-large white robes.

“I have no reason to give you my heart. Why—I still barely know a thing about you,” Ennanis whispered, drawing a hand over her face. Between her fingers, her slitted angel eyes were so very dark. It was utterly disconcerting to her, that you could spend so much time with someone, a year of exchanging words unto the dawn, and still not know them. How much had Chime been hiding? How could Ennanis know?

Ennanis had felt pain before. She had gotten injured in flight accidents, in innumerable duels, in dangerous missions. Severe wounds, nothing she couldn’t angelically regenerate from, but the healing process always hurt like nothing else. And yet, ever since that meeting with General Ju, there had been a twisting sensation in her chest. Like a knife between her ribs she couldn’t yank out, that no amount of Soleki mending had been able to soothe.

She had never felt agony like this in her life.

“You… wanted me to save you, actually,” Ennanis realised, after a start. You only save the ones you think you know, but that you don’t actually know enough about.

The prisoner stared back at her. And finally, finally, her ever-summer smile faded.

“...Of course I do,” her dry-throated rasp was quiet. “What kind of person doesn’t want to live?”

Ennanis Zoleil was silent. At last, she picked her cane off the ground and unhooked the lantern.

“I have to think,” the angel said.

And she left the prisoner behind in the dark for the last time.

~~~

“Is it just me, or has Kikko been missing a lot lately?”

Lila Perennia said this over coffee one day. Soft piano music was playing from the downstairs, calm and relaxing. With clinks of metal, the lilac-haired angel was stirring her drink, a creamy coffee brimming with condensed milk. Beside her sat Ulysses and Derrick, with platters of lemon bar each, while Sabira sat on Ennanis’ end of the table with a tall sugared nectar coffee.

Ennanis, herself, had poured a cup of black. The entire time, Ennanis had been silent, her gaze distant as the others chattered, drifting out the nearby window to disappear among thick branches of foliage. A V-flock of birds soared past, chittering and wheeling in the blue sky.

“She could be sick,” Sabira offered.

“Nah, it can’t be. It’s been a month. How can someone be sick for that long?”

“People can be sick for that long,” Derrick said. Derrick Truwing was an angel under Ennanis’ squadron. He was a conscientious worker and got along well with everyone, same as Sabira. “Once I had a friend recovering from a flu for five weeks.”

“Yeah, but couldn’t she have given us a blip at least?” Lila moaned. “She said she would join us today!”

“Give her some time…”

“No, seriously, it’s like she’s avoiding us! Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends anymore? Maybe she found new friends?” Lila flailed her hands.

“Don’t fret your lilac head,” Sabira bonked her lightly. “She’s probably just busy. Maybe she’s gotten promoted, who knows? We’ll run into her eventually.”

“But that’s so unfair,” Lila sulked, folding her arms. “If she’s gotten promoted, we should be the first ones she tells. What kind of friend is she?”

“Or maybe,” Ennanis cut in, “it’s not all about you, Lila.”

Silence fell over the table.

Lila frowned at her. “Oh, so now you’re not a mute,” her voice dripped.

Ennanis swivelled her gaze from the window to stare at the other angel. “Is there a problem?” she said flatly.

“Yes, Ennanis, but not with me,” Lila enunciated, thin as ice. “Why do you always have an issue with me caring about our friends?”

Ennanis was silent.

“That’s right,” Lila went on when Ennanis didn’t answer. “You were the one who asked to be friends with us, so why do you always look like you’d rather be elsewhere?”

Sabira, Ulysses and Derrick began to look uneasily between themselves. This was no one-off dispute; Lila and Ennanis had never gotten along easily. Ennanis’ recent, increasingly detached demeanour had soured things even more between them, the spates becoming more often and more brutal.

“You’re the one jumping to conclusions as you see fit,” Ennanis sipped her coffee. “I’m in no mood to argue with you, so please just think for yourself.”

“Think for yourself,” Lila scoffed. “So cool, so calm, aren’t you? From day one, you’ve been an apathetic piece of shit, and it pisses me off.”

“People like you also piss me off,” Ennanis returned darkly.

“Like I care what you think,” Lila said. “I’ve seen how you treat anyone who shows the Golden Rose some degree of care. You don’t return even a fraction of their attention. Ulysses would know. Poor boy has been following you on all your missions, playing errand boy, and yet you never give him any recognition as a disciple. Has he even told you as much?”

Ulysses stiffened. When Ennanis tried to look his way, he got up and ran to the toilet.

Lila huffed. “Yeah. I’m just the only one not afraid to say something to your face.”

“Hey, hey, now.” With a drag of her chair, Sabira Beneste stood up between them, spreading her wings and holding up her hands. “Cool off, you two. Neither of you meant any harm.” Meanwhile, Derrick got up, heading after where Ulysses had scurried.

“Really,” Ennanis said dryly.

“What, you hurt or something?” Lila rolled her eyes. “Aren’t brutal truths your specialty? Hate the taste of your own medicine?” She stood up, leaning over the seated Ennanis. “Then quit shoving it down others’ throats!”

“I just think it’s really funny,” Ennanis replied, “when you barge into other people’s business, make it all about yourself, and call it friendship.”

“I certainly have more friends than you,” Lila spat.

“Probably none that spend more than a minute in your presence without thinking about leaving.”

A hand slammed the table.

“Girls,” Sabira repeated firmly. She slammed the table again, “You’re both idiots! Good Prometheus. We’re all worried about Kikko, so stop taking it out on each other.”

Just then, a familiar voice floated from the door:

“...Hello.”