Isn’t that how the strangest days always start?
The black-winged boy wakes in that slowly-stirring hour before dawn, when the birds start their sleepy morning song and dewdrops glimmer like diamonds on the grass. The new day stretches and yawns, touches its celestial toes, starts the pot of ambrosia coffee. The boy is blinking sleepy eyes on the balcony, watching how the horizon tenses in the east, feeling the watchful presence of god.
Just like any other day, he unfolds his wings, stands there for the space of a breath or two, and then, with hardly a sound, he takes to the sky.
He did not often feel possession of things. He did not wear jewelry or accessories, he did not decorate his living space with gaudy things, he didn’t even own many books or scrolls or works of art (having access to the library was more than enough for him). But when he was in the sky over Delumine and the sun made its grand celestial entrance, that was his time. That was his sky. It was intangible and irreplaceable and it belonged to Mateo, if only because he was the only one bold enough to claim it for himself.
He flies high over the sea, catching the updrafts that swell up from the shoreline cliffs, then he turns and swoops low over the Illuster Meadow, low enough to feel the tall grass tickle his belly. He hollers loudly at the still morning air, and with a few strong flaps of his wings he rises again, tall enough to crest the treetops.
The sky lightens, then it burns, and the great mountain casts its long, long shadow across Delumine, and then… a most beautiful song catches his ear. He looks around, startled, and finds a small red bird soaring next to him. He whistles her song back to her, or a rather weak interpretation of it, and to his surprise words fill the air in return–
“Follow me…”
Just like that, it was no longer a day just like any other.
The little bird (fast and strong, for such tiny wings) leads him lower into the forest. Eventually, instead of repeating her song back at her, they sing together– he providing the rhythmic, harmonic undercurrent to her lovely treble. The hair begins to stand up at the base of his neck… there is something undoubtedly holy about this encounter, he feels it stirring his soul.
To his dismay, she is gone when he lands in the foggy clearing. Without thinking, he whistles two high notes, a question– are you there?
An unnatural stillness descends. The trees, the air, his heartbeat, all of it so very still, everything except his soul, which is stirring now even faster than before, swaying like the waves of the ocean, mounting higher with every swell. When he closes his eyes he hears her again, and the darkness behind his eyelids is suddenly painted with swirling, dancing lights. The forest seems a cathedral now, a temple of colors far stranger than any sunrise he’s seen before. He follows the birdsong deeper, not daring to think, not daring to ask himself is this a dream for fear that the answer is yes.
Next is a doe, who disappears almost as soon as he catches up to her. As he looks around the clearing she brought him to, the sunlight suddenly streams in, and where it touches his skin he fills with music. Spaces inside of him he did not even know were there, they swell with holy music, symphonies of light and magic.
Then comes scent, and touch, and, as he lowers his head to the dew-rimmed grass, taste. His senses explode and mingle, overlap and entwine like the roots of a great, ancient tree. Tears are running down his face (they sound like violins and smell of bonfires) and he looks to the sky, or what he thinks is the sky. All the colors of the sunrise are running together, running away. “Thank you,” he cries, overcome with the beauty of it all. He has never felt so close to god.
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@Random Events <3
