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If you asked Oli what he was, he would simply answer just “Oli.”
He would not answer Fae , or faery , or nymph , no; he would answer that he was Oli and leave it at that. And so Oli was all that Oli would ever be.
For now, though, Oli was content in playing the part of an enderian– no, he was not one of those either, thank you, but he would play the part, because after all, who else would be stupid enough to drown as their first death in a temporary world? Certainly not an Oli .
And so Oli used his Oli-magic to ensure that that never happened again; that is, he made himself invulnerable to water. No, he did even better: he made himself made for the water, but not at the expense of his safety on land. That was just something that every Oli could do – forsake their god-given talents for ones better suited to them.
And when lightning decided that a creature such as Oli was not meant to work so flawlessly with the water? Well, he would just work with the earth itself instead, then.
It felt like a relief to use his natural powers. He’d spent so long forging himself more and more fantastical powers to match that of his friends, he’d forgotten just how much he loved his own.
His own was what had given him the more fantastical ones, though. That talent of his was still pretty cool… and he may have given himself just a few extra powers this time, as well.
But when Oli went searching for a friend – a friend that had since left the confines of this world, or imitation of one – he made a mistake. He stumbled through the caves before falling victim to a pit of blazing fire…
…and waking up unable to will the forest to come to his aid.
And when he fell and woke up even after that, he still could not access the depth of his magic.
His magic .
Because as much as Oli wanted to be known as nothing more than Oli, he couldn’t deny the fact that within him, he held vast amounts of magic. He’d met few others who could claim such a thing.
But now he couldn’t reach it – Oli couldn’t reach the magic that had always surged within him, stored deep inside his heart.
This dream-like world had suddenly become much more of a nightmare.
Each time Oli died, he woke up grasping for his magic. It was never there. He grew desperate, and began to wonder if he would ever feel the tingling warmth beneath his fingertips again. He began to wonder what would happen to him when his death count reached ten, like all his friends’ had – where had they even gone? Would he go there, too? Would he end up in the void, throat raw from screaming pleas that no one would ever hear?
So when after one death Oli woke up with magic coursing through his veins and power pounding in his blood, he knew that he had to act fast.
The risk of falling and becoming Icarus himself was high, he knew, but now, he really had no other choice.
The sky was where he had sent his friend – the angel – and so the sky was where he hoped to find him.
What felt like years ago, now, Oli had blinked and found himself in a world filled with gods. He had discarded his true magic in favor of play, but now trampled play in lieu of true magic. What felt like years ago, Oli had watched his friends, each granted the gift of godhood, fall into the void the same color as his eyes.
Now, though, Oli flew away from the void – he flew into the light. He flew into the light on wings that were not his own, and on wings he did not understand.
Oli wished desperately for his own wings back.
Oli did not wish to nearly crash land on an island floating somewhere between Heaven and Earth in the middle of the sky.
And it was not that he didn’t wish to find his angel, he just… wasn’t expecting a goddess as well.
Maybe goddess wasn’t quite the right word, though. She certainly looked like one, adorned in a flower crown of sunflowers with a beautiful ensemble to match, as those beautiful blue wings unfurled to envelop the angel… to envelop the angel as he knelt by her side and sobbed.
Oli watched, perched outside the window of the modern-day house – modern, that was something he hadn’t seen in a while – and rustled his not-quite-truly-his-yet wings as the angel spoke to the goddess.
“But why,” the angel asked, “why can’t I stay here with you? Why can’t you come down and stay with us ?”
Oli’s heart almost broke as the goddess gave her answer, voice as soft and gentle as he would expect. “Because,” she said, eyes welling with tears, “my magic only extends so far. It takes everything I have to track you.” She closed her eyes for a moment, wings and body shuddering. “...To remember you.” The goddess then joined the angel in kneeling on the floor, and drew her giant blue moth wings around him in a hug – around his wings of the same color. “I don’t want to lose you. Not again.”
“Not like last time,” the angel whispered. “Or the time before.”
The goddess’s grip tightened on the angel. “No. No, never again.”
And as the goddess offered the angel a room, but only for a couple of nights, Oli couldn’t help but wonder what trouble had befallen the duo so as to cause them such pain and worry.
While the angel rested, though – Oli was satisfied that the goddess had nothing but his safety in mind – Oli concerned himself with the topic of his wings and, more importantly, his height.
He hadn’t noticed it, having been left all alone on a world, but while this new being he’d evolved into had magic, it was not nearly as tall as Oli would like. So Oli focused his attention on returning to his preferred form, stationing himself in the branches of a wisteria tree on the goddess’s island in the sky.
He was only partially successful, restoring his height, but not his wings, when he elected to try to get some sleep. He was awoken that night, however, to the sound of tears that he recognized as that of the goddess.
When Oli peered through the window of the house for the second time, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see, but it was certainly not the goddess surrounded in light. It was certainly not her clutching a white mask, a purple symbol in the center. It was certainly not the mask emitting a colored projection onto what, if Oli didn’t know better, he would call a television.
Oli could not be looking at the image of a girl with deer antlers and dragon wings, spreading them as she took flight to join both a white dragon and a black one in the air. Oli could not be looking at a boy with wings made of the membrane boasted by phantoms, his face void of any emotion.
Oli could not be looking at two of his friends, who he’d pronounced dead, displayed clear as day on a projection coming from a mask that a goddess clasped in her hands.
Oli could not be watching the angel – his angel – descend the grand stairs in the house and rest his hand on the goddess’s shoulder. He could not be watching – could not be hearing – the angel’s voice, even as it wavered, say what it said.
“Do it,” the angel said, voice full of grief. “I know you want to. And you have to keep them safe, too.”
The goddess looked up at the angel, tear-filled eyes begging the question echoed by her voice. “Really?” she whispered. The angel nodded, and embraced the goddess in a hug as his blue and brown wings blended with hers.
Oli had to close his eyes as the room was filled with light, and when he looked back, the angel was gone. The mask had cracked, and now lay broken on the floor in front of the goddess, who sat in the center of the room alone. Each breath she took calmed her slightly, and so Oli elected to take his leave, wherever that may be.
He didn’t know where the angel had gone. He didn’t know why the mask had split. He didn’t know what the goddess had meant when she told the angel she wouldn’t lose him again. He didn’t know if that promise had been broken, or what the girl with dragon wings and boy with phantom ones had to do with it.
So Oli walked to the edge of the goddess’s island, and he leapt.
Where , precisely, he was expecting to end up he did not know, but it was decidedly not the middle of the ocean. His wings weren’t as they should be – not yet – but they still should have caught him from the fall, no matter the part his magic had had to play in it… and he had wanted his magic to have a play in it.
Once he swam to an island, though, Oli also did not expect to turn around to have no wings whatsoever.
He needed his wings back.
Any wings.
He needed to fly.
And so Oli settled on a beach. And so Oli found a dog, and named it after the angel. And so Oli escaped near-death – he wasn’t sure if he was still playing by the rules of only ten lives, or how many he had left – and lost the dog in the process. And so Oli, amidst the freezing mountains, built the dog a grave, carving a makeshift headstone into wood with the dog’s name, the same as the angel’s.
And so Oli avoided death at all cost, for he didn’t know if he would come back after he died.
When Oli finally came so close to the void he could touch it, he was shaking all over and covered in burns, cuts, and bruises, not to mention how he cradled his arm close to his side. As much as it pained him, it would be easier to come back another time to reclaim his wings; at least now, the path had been paved.
Upon Oli’s return to the surface world, however, he found it was no longer as uninhabited as he’d left it – it showed signs of life . A great stone bridge stood where there was once a chasm, and on his way back to the beach he had begun to call home, Oli stumbled across a village where there was definitely not one before.
Pausing for a night in said village’s tavern, Oli didn’t think much when he took a moment to sing – he deserved the relaxation, after the past week he had been through… not to mention the month of solitude even beforehand, or witnessing the goddess send the angel away.
Maybe now the angel was dead, too. Both his dog and its namesake had fallen victim to the march of time… how poetic.
As he sang, however, Oli failed to notice the sound of approaching footsteps, or the soft rustle of insect wings.
And when he finished his performance and looked up to see the very same girl he had seen bearing dragon wings – the very same girl he had known when she first moved to the world he had lived in – well, his shock wasn’t too surprising.
She didn’t remember him, though, and now she boasted beautiful monarch butterfly wings. Oli startled, and called her by her name, and she answered in nothing but confusion at how he knew.
Oli soon learned that her memories were gone.
He soon learned that she didn’t know how much power the emerald crystal around her neck held, or even where it came from or why she wore it – only that it was important.
He soon learned that it wasn’t just her, either; it was the boy with phantom wings, now hidden deep below the earth with golden earrings on both green ears… an amber crystal charm hanging from one that he couldn’t place, either.
Oli wondered who this sheriff he spoke of was.
If both the girl and the boy were here, maybe his angel was, too.
A bard , the girl with dragon wings – now butterfly wings – had said. He could be a bard. And bards had magic, too.
Oli could get his wings back.
Once he got out of this cage.
Once figured out what had happened to all of his friends.