Chapter Text
The town was bustling with people, conversations floating around in the air and people pushing through the crowds to get to their destination. Among them was Fruit, carefully walking around to avoid bumping into talking couples and screaming children.
He walked with a bounce in his step, looking in wonder at the several winged people in the crowd.
Ever since he was little, Fruit had loved the stories about the winged people. He would try to get to the front of the crowd at the campfire, hanging onto the elder’s lips and soaking up every word that came out of their mouth.
“Let me tell you the story of the Great Winged Ones,” the elder would start. “Once upon a time, there was a great war. Many people were suffering; countries were invaded, towns destroyed and families ripped apart by the swing of a sword. The fires rose high into the skies, reaching even the Gods up above, who were saddened by the destruction.”
Flames would rise up out of the fire as they threw in more wood to emphasise their words.
“In order to stop the downfall of mankind, the Gods gifted the bravest and strongest people with the ability to fly. Those who were worthy, used their wings to fight the threat and saved their home. Those who were not, those who did not believe in the Gods and their good will, saw their wings decay and fall off.”
The little dolls they had handmade were given wings, some soaring through the skies and fighting off evil, others sinking to the ground under the weight of blackish wings with holes in them.
“Up until this day, only those who are worthy can obtain the ability to fly. Some people claim to have knowledge on the test that needs completing to obtain the wings, however none of it has been verified.”
They would look around with a serious look on their face, staring into every child’s eyes. “Some say that when One loses the will to have their wings, when they no longer view them as a gift given to them by the Gods, the wings will start to decay.”
“Be careful of those people, young ones; decaying wings can only mean that a person has turned their back to the Gods,” they would finish, leaning back into their chair and looking calmer after having warned the children.
Back in the present, Fruit almost trips over a loose wire. Careful now, we don’t have any wings to catch us , he thinks bitterly, before shaking himself out of it.
He would find a way to earn his wings, even if he had no idea where to start. Fruit had searched nearly every book in the local library, spoken to the oldest and wisest people in town; he even went to every market stall that sold books, hoping to find even the tiniest bit of information on how to earn the godly wings.
It’s not like he could just ask a winged person either; nearly all of them lost their memory of how they obtained the appendages, and those who didn’t refused to speak about it. “The Gods will lead you, if they wish for you to have them,” one person had said.
That’s great and all , Fruit had thought, but if they could just hurry up with all that, that would be great .
While he had been walking and mumbling to himself (receiving odd looks from passing people that he did not bother lingering on), he had arrived at his favourite spot in town.
Well… Technically it wasn’t in town per se, moreso on the edges of the forest, but who cares about precise locations.
The flower field was in full bloom now that spring had begun, and all the little bees were buzzing around. A deer was drinking from a water pond a little further away, on the outskirts of the forest, and Fruit made his way over to a fallen tree just in the shade of the forest.
He sat down, and took his newest book out of his bag; some fairytale that mentioned winged people saving the main character. He probably wouldn’t find any useful information in there, but it was worth a shot.
Fruit opened his book, and was just about to start reading when the deer near the pond suddenly sprung up and bolted away, through the flower fields. Immediately, Fruit put down his book and took out the dagger that was hidden in his boot.
However, before he had the chance to turn around and look for whatever scared the poor deer, a weight came barreling into his back and sent him flying to the ground, pinned to his stomach as a heavy weight with a weird, leathery texture covered him.
Fruit tensed, his whole body going into fight mode as he tried to get the arm holding the dagger out from underneath himself. Shit , he thought, is this how I am going to die? Squashed by some mystery animal that ran me over?
His racing thoughts were put to a stop, however, as a voice sounded from above him, accompanied by the weight wriggling to sit up? Stand up? Whatever it was trying to do. “Oh shoot, I am so sorry! I honestly did not see you there! Are you okay? Do you need help? Oh Gods, I didn’t kill a person did I?!”
Fruit groaned as the weight completely disappeared from his back, giving him the space to sit up again. “Can’t you shut up for a moment? I will be dead if you keep up this rambling, Gods!”
After orienting himself, he looked up to see a tall man, completely clad in black with only his eyes visible above a black mask. The man was standing in the shadows of the trees and seemed to have some weird horizontal shadows on both sides of his back.
What the hell are those? Did this dude give me a concussion as well? Fruit thought to himself, before the man moved forward and started spewing out sentences again.
“Oh thank the Gods I didn’t kill you! I don’t know what I would have done! Imagine that headline: ‘Great Winged Person Killed Local Citizen By Barreling Into Them’, I would be done for man!”
That last sentence made Fruit’s head shoot up from where he was looking himself over for any injuries. Now that the man was standing further in the sunlight, he could see what the weird shadows on his back were: huge dragon-like wings sprouted from behind the man, flaring out as they were rambling on about a mob of people from town coming for his head.
“You have wings?” Fruit immediately closed his mouth again as he realised that he had spoken that sentence out loud.
“What?”, came the intelligent response from the man, as he stopped his pacing and faced Fruit again.
“Uhh, sorry,” Fruit scrambled for an explanation to his overshared thought, “I just noticed that you had wings and kinda said that out loud.” Damn it Fruit, couldn’t you have come up with something better?
“Wings…?,” the man made a confused expression for a moment, looking behind himself. “O, those wings! Yeah I do have those, don’t I?” he said, scratching his head and looking a little embarrassed.
Now that confused Fruit as well, enough so that he again blurted out his thoughts without thinking about it. “You forgot you had wings? How the hell do you just forget that? There are two huge fucking dragon wings on your back and you forgot about them ?”
The man recoiled a bit and Fruit caught himself before he could say anything else. Shit, now I’ve gone and pissed off a Winged One, great going Fruit! You might as well say goodbye to your wings!
Nothing happened, however, as the person quickly folded his wings behind his back and smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m not really used to them yet, you know? Still kind of weird that I forget about them though, I’ll give you that. Especially since they got me into this.”
Fruit kept his mouth shut, still not entirely convinced that he was not about to be put into place for his comments.
“So, uhh… What was your name again? I’m Illumina, by the way.” The man stepped forward, sticking out his hand; an offering for Fruit to take and introduce himself as well.
All right then, let’s become friends with the weird tall dude that I literally met 5 minutes ago , Fruit thought to himself as he shook the guy’s hand. “My name is Fruit.”