Chapter Text
The windmills were one of Reki’s favorite spots in Glie, ever since she was young. Quiet, calm, peaceful. Metal structures that moved with the air and never seemed to stop. She came there when she wanted to clear her head, or to calm down, or to think, or to just check up on them to see if any damage had occurred. Really, she just made whatever excuse in her head and went to the mills.
Her head leaned back and softly settled on the windmill's metal surface. She’d brought a hammer, but she knew it’d sustained no damage whatsoever. They never really seemed to weather away regardless of the outsides conditions. The grip she had on her hammer softened to let it fall to the grass. It’d been a while since she’d gone here.
She’d read up a lot, about the history of the Haibane, and of Glie. As much as she read, she was always saddened at the fact she could never find real origin points for anything. Not even the windmills. Even when she asked Nemu about them, the sleepy airhead didn’t know anything and couldn’t find anything. The myths weren’t enough.
She’d gone to Kana about it— that girl knew about mechanical stuff after all, with her clocks. Nothing, because Kana was focused on the clocktower anyway. And, the others, wouldn’t be of much help too. To Reki, she guessed the windmills would just be another mystery of Glie and Old Home that she’d never find proper answers for. Like the Walls, the Haibane, why she was born that way.
A sigh escaped her mouth as she reminded herself of that again. Somehow she still managed to keep coming back to thinking about it. She’d gotten better, she’d hoped, she’d thought, but it still ate at her incessantly every time she managed to let herself wander in her mind. She didn’t know what to do to get rid of it fully, if she could even fully rid of it at all. Thinking was annoying.
Rakka. She made her feel a little better, she thought. It was a month or so since she came here, now. The new-feather Reki had discovered herself, a bit late into her growth but still before she hatched. Rakka had adjusted very well, better than Reki had herself when she was young, even if she was still out of a proper job. She’d been helping the others instead of finding anything certain.
Not that she necessarily needed one in the town. If she wanted to be the role of an assistant helper that’s all she really had to do. She herself just stayed in Old Home for the most part, keeping care of the younger feathers and making sure they didn’t go off and cause issues like they always did.
Her head rolled down, and her legs pulled up into her arms. A sudden sense of tiredness hit her as she stared out into the field. The sun was almost down- the sky’d turned slightly orange and the sun was starting to disappear behind the horizon and the walls. She could see the shadows cast by the sunlight getting caught in the clouds.
It would have been better to go back to Old Home now. For sure. She was just tired, and wanted to cool off outside. They’d know, probably, and wouldn’t stress out anyway. Her eyes shut.
Reki was dreaming, she thought. Sounds of wind. Texture of feathers in her hands. She was walking somewhere. It was night.
“Reki?”
Cold, her skin felt stung by the air and the wind going through her hair. Her eyes were open, she was seeing something. She couldn’t fully grasp it, but she still saw it. Dark and cloudy, grass under her feet, or was it dirt? Pebbles?
No, now it was metal she walked on, then it was something wooden. She was staring straight ahead at darkness, and felt wind blowing at her back. Light hit her face, and a horribly loud sound with it.
“Hey, Reki!”
The black-haired girl awoke with a shake, flinching as her head shot back up and she accidentally hit her head against the metal of the windmill she had forgotten she rested against. “Gh- ow!” Her hand went up, grabbing at the back of her head as she adjusted to waking up again and stared her head up.
“AH! Sorry!” Rakka. It was Rakka. “W-why are you out here?” The girl's hands went up as she stared down at Reki, a confused look on her face and her mouth stuck open.
“It’s fine…” Reki rubbed the back of her head, legs falling back down to the grass as she took a second to catch her thoughts. “Just, uh…” Her eyes fell down, staring at the hammer that she was meant to use to ‘fix the windmills.’ Right. Sleeping made her forget about that. Not that she really used it for that.
“Fixing. Checking up on the wind mills. I do it every now and again, to make sure they keep going and don’t mess up.” Her eyes went back up to the brown-haired haibane. “I guess I got tired, though.” She went to rub at her eyes, despite probably not having been asleep for a while.
“...You only brought a hammer, though.” Rakka leaned down, sitting herself down across from Reki in the grass. Her hands ruffled in the grass blades. “I guess I did.” Reki stared back, her head tilting a little. “Why are you out here, then?”
“Oh, uh.” Rakka’s head moved up to stare at Reki, her arms moving up to rest on her knees. “I like to go out here. To think. It's nice and calm.” Her head tilted to match Reki’s head tilt. “I just saw you sleeping, and didn’t wanna leave you there, even though you seemed calm.”
Reki blinked, her gaze breaking off to the horizon for a few seconds before settling back on Rakka. It was right at dusk now, the sun was almost gone from her gaze. She’d barely really slept at all, huh. “I get that. It’s nice out here, nobody ever comes out here unless they are just passing through. And it’s only us who pass through here, too.”
“And, for the better you woke me up. It’s gonna rain in a few hours, right?” Reki straightened her back up against the windmill, her hand going down to retrieve the discarded tool in the grass. She really didn’t care about repairing them at all, now that she thought about it. Reki just brought the hammer as an excuse.
“It is?” Rakka turned and stared out to the clouds, before her head went back to Reki. “I guess we still have a ‘few hours’ outside, still.” A tiny smile formed on her mouth as she stared at the black-haired girl. Reki’s head tilted further even though she knew what the other girl meant. “You want to stay out..?”
Reki’s shoulders shrugged, and she sighed. “...I guess it’s fine.” Reki waved her hand, focusing her head back to Rakka. There wasn’t gonna be any rain, anyway.
“To be honest, I’m really just out here to think too. The mills never really need to be repaired.” She silently swore at herself for lying like that to her, even though it was so inconsequential. “Just know we’re going back when I say, though.”
“Really?” Rakka’s eyes widened a little, staring at her. Her smile got just a little bigger too. Reki, by proximity, felt her expression change to something warmer. “...Still don’t see why you brought the hammer, haha..”
“Its just an excuse I can use.” Reki muttered, still having her hand around the tool in the grass.
“I’m sure the others wouldn’t really mind.” Rakka started scooting closer to the side of Reki, going to position herself against the windmill. “Is it just because you want them to know where you go…?”
Reki moved a little off to the side to give her space. “I guess so. Would be weird to just walk off by saying ‘I wanna go think,’ right?” Her head turned to stare at the other girl as she put her back against the windmill.
“I don’t find it that weird, Reki.” Rakka responded, sounding reassuring. Her presence was something she was really valuing recently. Reki silently nodded as she pulled her gaze back, staring down at her hand in the grass and the thing it held. The thing she was using as an excuse. The thing meant for repairing. Her grip tightened further.
She last went to the windmills eleven months ago. She went there almost year round when she was younger, but now she just did it in the warmer months every now and again. Walking out as the sun was going down, bringing something along, with her explanation as she always said, that she was checking up on them.
Of course, Reki didn’t even repair them. She didn’t really know if she could repair the windmills if she actually had or wanted to. And, she only ever brought one thing, anyway. A blunt tool and nothing else in her hand each time she walked out to that field, kept tight in her palm as she slid under the shadows of the machines.
Reki didn’t know why she did it, why she used that excuse and why she went there specifically. But, it was a routine she’d ingrained in her mind and done so often that it just became natural to go out there. The windmills calmed her a lot, but even then, she still felt like she had thoughts she had to use secondary methods for.
The thoughts of her body that always bit into her like the black of her feathers or the absence of memory for her dream. A physical issue that she used physical methods to try and correct and dampen and forget about or punish herself for. It helped her take her mind off it, she swore.
She was a coward when it came to striking the tool. She couldn’t put all the force she wanted to in her hand even if she wanted to put enough force to break something when she swung it down. Hammers were a tool meant for prying stuff and hitting things deeper and destroying stuff every now and again, and that was how she always used it.
Like striking in the nails on a train track, or breaking through wood, or keeping a sign stable, or fixing dents, or piecing a door back together, or repairing a windmill, or hitting flesh again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again…
She blinked. Her mind had blanked out and she’d thrown the hammer she’d just been clutching away from herself in that time she’d been absent. It was gone from her vision, and she could only see her hand up in the air with its fingers splayed. It slowly reeled back down towards her body again after staying in front of her for a few moments.
Reki blinked again, brain slowly processing and thinking. Her eyes felt watery. She had to blink away any signs of her weakness quickly. Why did she do that? In front of her, too? Why did she do that? She felt familiar soreness and pain in her arms even though she hadn’t even touched them in months.
“Sorry. Sorry.” It came out as a disgusting mutter from the bottom of her throat at first. Her body slowly untensed itself and went to rest back on the windmill agonizingly slow. Was her perception just making it out slower, or was it actually slow?
She heard Rakka shuffle closer. She was dead silent still, but she heard the other girl stop right next to her, and heard her breathing as she closed the space between them.
“You didn’t… say anything bad. Don’t worry. Just a me thing.” The older haibane, slowly, caught herself and her emotions and her words again. She felt her heart and mind settle like disturbed water going back to stillness.
Reki very nearly flinched and blanked out again when she felt a warm limb go around her shoulder with a cautious motion. She didn’t go to move Rakka off herself, she’d kept completely still. Like a statue.
“It’s fine… You just threw something, really.” Rakka still sounded so nice. Something about the way she spoke signalled to Reki that she was truthful, that she wasn’t mocking her, that she did care. She wanted to respond properly, yet she couldn’t find any words in her brain or her lungs, and she didn’t say a word.
Instead, they sat there. Silent.
…
…
“We can go back whenever you feel like it.” Reki muttered something basic, something easy, after what felt like a silence that lasted for a few lifetimes.
“Okay.” Rakka responded. Even though it was so simple, Reki held onto that ‘okay’ and everything else the girl had done in her mind as they sat there with the fading sunlight and the drone of the windmill. This was nice. She wanted it to stay like this for a while.