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The sun is lowering beyond the horizon, streaking the sky in red and orange. It makes her feel nauseous.
Wind whips past her wings, blowing the carefully woven feathers from her wings into the rapidly darkening sky. She screams, voice hoarse and sharp like knives in her throat, reaching out to grasp them only to find each feather sharper than a knife. They disappear into the distant horizon, leaving her alone.
She clutches her hands close to her chest, staring at the blood covering each finger.
The blood on her hands is not her own blood. She can taste it in her mouth, sticky and bitter, and she feels so much like a monster, her hands clutching her shoulders, nails leaving stinging crescents on her skin that don’t quite break through.
Her eyes whip up, tears streaking down her face, before her vision seems to shut off in a sense, the sun dipping below the horizon, the world going dark-
With a sharp gasp and a hand to her throat, Emu snaps awake. For a few sickening moments, she finds herself unable to breathe, before the room stops spinning and she gains enough control of her body to curl her wings around her trembling body. She cocoons herself for a long moment, her breathing ragged, before she finally feels brave enough to open her eyes a little and peek out from behind the bright pink feathers blocking her view.
No matter how many times she combs her fingers through each and every pink feather adorning the wings on her back, no matter how many times she arranges and rearranges the feathers of light purple, green, and gold interwoven between her own, she finds her wings fluffed up and out of place less than a minute later. Again, she tries, but her trembling hands only pluck healthy feathers, knocking a few of the ones from her groupmates out of place. She does not weave them back into her wings- she’s in university now, she doesn’t have time for such sentimentality. Plus, she has class at eight tomorrow.
Emu’s gaze drifts over to the setting sun outside, casting an orange-pink glow over the sparkling snow blanketing the ground. With a shiver, she presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, before curling back up on her bed. These naps were getting more and more frequent, and more and more exhausting.
Falling into a fitful sleep, Emu does not dream. She floats in an empty void, her senses dulled, and rests silently.
Morning comes. At least, with the sky still dark outside, Emu can only tell by the dim light of her phone reading 6:47 AM.
Forced to face another day, Emu rises, pats her hands against her cheeks a few times, and tries to wipe the sleep from her eyes.
-
Emu finds herself in quite possibly the most uncomfortable position, as her body shudders under the stress. She tries to make herself as small as possible at her desk as if to hide from the half-filled test sheet in front of her.
The atmosphere in the classroom is deeply oppressive, the air thick. Every breath she takes is a fight against her own lungs to take in any meaningful amounts of oxygen. She feels dizzy, her vision blurring at the edges from tears pricking at her eyes. She can’t understand a single word on the test sheet in front of her, and every glance up she takes at the clock on the wall only results in her eyes landing on the very person she’s been trying to avoid for the last three weeks.
Mafuyu. Beautiful, beautiful Mafuyu, smart as ever, filling out her test sheet at a pace that’s quick enough to be impressive but slow enough to show that she’s paying close attention to every single question. Emu feels one of the tears brimming in her already red-from-sleep eyes slip down her face, and she resolves to simply press her forehead against her arm on the desk and pray that the class ends quickly.
She doesn’t care what grade she gets on this stupid exam anyways. The time ticks by agonizingly slow, each second pricking her skin and giving her pins and needles down her spine. Every feather on her wings feels out of place, and she stretches her back to try to clear her head.
She must look so deeply unkempt that the people around her are surely judging her for it.
Disgusting. Tears soak the fabric of her cardigan that’s barely keeping her warm in the cold room. This university’s heating works about thirty percent of the time, and during the other seventy percent, each room is hardly any warmer than outside.
She’s not sure how much time has passed when she feels a hand on her back, right between her aching shoulderblades. The cold always makes them ache worse, but she doesn’t have time to dwell on that. The person who’s come up to touch her back is speaking to her now.
“Emu?”
Startling at the touch, her head snaps up. She’s barely able to process who’s beside her until purple wings wrap around both of them, shielding her from the harsh halogen lights of the lecture hall.
“Emu, class is over. Are you doing okay?” Mafuyu’s voice is low and tinged with a flatness that never quite went away from high school. Emu has always found her voice beautiful, and her face reddens and she looks away all the same. With a quick shake of her head to give herself a moment to collect herself, she looks up at her companion with a too-fake grin.
“I’m fine! Is the test over? I must’ve fallen asleep!”
In the back of her mind, her earlier nightmare creeps. She can still faintly feel the tackiness of blood on her hands, and some sick part of her tells her that it’s Mafuyu who she made bleed by pushing her away. Emu finds she can’t stop herself from pushing her away even still.
Mafuyu’s facial expression doesn’t change, though there’s a brief flicker of understanding in her eyes as her grip tightens on Emu’s shoulder.
“Emu.”
“Yeah? I’m fine, really, I just doze-”
“Emu.”
The tone in Mafuyu’s voice causes Emu to stiffen automatically, and she averts her eyes. Her face is burning, but she can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment, shame, or a mix of both. Mafuyu uses this chance to haul her up out of her seat, and from there, everything becomes a blur of cold white and the same fog around her eyes that never quite seems to go away.
She’s ushered out of the exam hall on stumbling legs, and the rest of her movements are a mere blur.
-
Emu isn’t quite sure how she ended up on a couch wrapped in a blanket, but she nestles further into the plush fabric, her wings ruffled. Mafuyu sits on the couch beside her, looking relaxed as ever as they watch whatever’s on the television in front of them.
She feels a bit despondent. Time feels like thick molasses, and every breath remains a struggle as she fights against her own body’s urges to give up entirely.
The wintertime is always difficult for the entire Otori family. The family business, now having expanded to three separate theme parks across Japan, experiences a severe rush every Christmas season. Her father is stretched thin, and that stress transfers to her brothers, and it results in the environment in their home being tense and outright hostile.
Hostile. She grew up like this. Sure, yes, a loving household, but one that could easily turn cold with one wrong step from anyone in the house.
A house, not a home.
Emu shivers, burying her face in her arms and trying to will herself not to let any more of her tears escape. A few slip down her face anyways, and she sniffles quietly.
Mafuyu scoots over, putting an arm around her shoulder and purring softly. The sound comes from her chest, and Emu instinctively curls closer to it, muttering a half-hearted apology. She’s not even really sure what she’s apologizing for.
“No, no need.” Mafuyu murmurs, pulling their bodies flush together. “Come on, let me help you get cleaned up. Your wings, they’re…”
“Filthy?” Emu dryly laughs, but Mafuyu hums in disagreement.
“No, they’re just a bit ruffled. Come.”
Emu, finding herself powerless, allows herself to be dragged by the hand to the bathroom. Once inside, Mafuyu’s gentle hands ease her cardigan off of her shoulders. Emu flushes, a deep red adorning her cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears. Mafuyu doesn’t seem to take note of it, her hands drifting to the bow wrapped around the collar of her shirt.
“M-Mafuyu, I…”
“Hm?”
“I can do this myself, you know.” Emu tries to hide the bits of delight at having such a pretty girl so close to her, but nothing can take the elation from her voice in full. Mafuyu only gives her a tiny smile, unbuttoning the top button of her shirt after untying the bow.
“I know. But I want to take care of you.” Her voice is a low whisper, meant only for the two of them. “Won’t you indulge me a little?”
Before she knows it, the two of them are standing under the warm spray of the shower. It relieves some of the bone-deep ache in her body, and she finds herself standing as close as she can to the woman standing in front of her, despite facing away from her.
Emu barely dares to breathe when Mafuyu begins to wash her wings, her hands rough from years of archery but ever so gentle all the same. She shivers as her hands pass over raw patches where she’s plucked out feathers to punish herself for one misstep or another. When Mafuyu presses a kiss to the nape of her neck, however, she can’t withhold a shiver.
“… Mafuyu, what are you doing back there? That tickles!”
Mafuyu hums softly and kisses another spot, right between her wings on her back. “You’re so tense. Just trying to lighten the mood.”
Emu can barely breathe, but this time, it’s for a different reason altogether. Surely, this doesn’t mean…
This doesn’t mean that her feelings are reciprocated, does it?
Mentally, she kicks herself for even considering that idea, before wincing as Mafuyu begins to preen her soaked feathers with practiced hands. Emu realizes after a few moments that it’s the same techniques she herself had taught her years prior.
“I taught you this.” She whispers, as if she might ruin the moment if she speaks too loudly. Mafuyu hums affirmatively, her hands continuing their adventure across her wings.
Emu looks down at her hands, and finds that they aren’t dripping with blood anymore. It washes away down the drain as her body feels lighter, less painful, less of a hassle.
She feels Mafuyu’s breath on her neck again.
“Beautiful…” she murmurs, before pressing a kiss to the smooth skin there. “Just beautiful.”
Emu relaxes ever so slightly as Mafuyu turns around and flexes her wings to coax her into washing them in turn. She obliges, and takes some soap into her hands, scrubbing at her deep purple feathers and arranging the ones that have fallen out of place. In a moment of boldness, she decides to press a kiss between Mafuyu’s shoulder blades, smiling against her skin at the shiver she feels as a result.
The water feels warm. So does the room.
She shuts the water off once the suds are all rinsed from both of their bodies, and Emu once again allows herself to be led to Mafuyu’s bedroom, where she’s sat on the bed to allow her wings to be dried off properly.
“You should care for your wings more carefully. I’d hate for such pretty feathers to get wing rot.” Mafuyu’s voice doesn’t hold any malice, but Emu still flinches and mutters an apology.
Once their wings are dry, the two of them lay together, never having bothered to put their clothing back on. It’s comfortable to be laid bare like this, their legs touching, Mafuyu’s hand in hers.
She feels a touch along her spine, and she shivers when Mafuyu runs her nails along her back. It feels nice to get back scratches like this, especially when such a pretty girl is so close to her, close enough to touch, close enough to…
It’s only a moment before she feels lips on hers. She leans into the kiss like it’s the most natural thing in the world, pressing her soft body against Mafuyu’s more lithe, muscular form.
The world falls away. The two of them purr in unison, legs tangled together, bodies close.
Emu finds she doesn’t really care about her test grade, or what this means for their relationship. She’s content to just press kisses all over her face, their wings curled together.
She hasn’t felt so light since she first taught Mafuyu how to fly. And now, she feels like she could take on any challenge.
With love in her heart, she could take on anything.