azrael
Elena is his safe harbor in a storm, reeling in his boat as it tosses in a sea of confusion. It is her voice which pulls him back, her whispered shushing quieting his mind as he pinches his turquoise eyes closed. He tucks her beneath his chin, grateful for the closeness, holding her tightly against him as she soothes him with her words muffled against his chest. Who is she? “I don’t know,” he responds honestly… “but she needs me. She needs us both.” For Elena had a power of healing which the magician did not possess.
He is steadier now as they continue into the unknown, pressing toward the haunting voice as the itching in his mind grows stronger. Azrael had been here before, in a dream, but it had looked different… clearer, as if he saw through the eyes of something which was built for the night. He had heard sounds which he didn’t think possible, down to the quiver of a mouse upon a fallen leaf, as clearly as he heard Elena’s voice now. It was strange, but then, dreams didn’t always make sense.
Azrael does not know who waits for them as they stop in the mist filled glade, only that she waited for them here. Fog grows thick, magic thicker, and Elena’s voice sounds much too far away when she asks him what was happening. But before he can reply, the gut-wrenching screech takes his breath away. And those eyes – so like his own – find his.
In her eyes, he knows her pain… but Azrael also sees something else. Mine. something in him seems to say, even as he steps toward the strange eyes, brushing aside the limbs which shelter her. In that moment, the two stare at one another, everything else falling away… but the union is short lived, pain clouding her eyes once more as she cries to the star-shed, the sound a bit quieter from the reassurance that he had come.
“Elena?”, Azrael whispers, moving aside so she could see. In the brush, the eyes become a bird, tawny grey with a heart-shaped face. Unlike her gaze on Azrael, she seems wary of Elena, blinking slowly as she looks to the stallion for reassurance. “It’s okay…” his voice is gentle and soothing as he reaches forward to tenderly stroke her feathered cheek. “No one will harm you.”
She chirps quietly, as if reassured by the star-shed’s promise, seeming to make the decision to trust his companion as she fights through the pain to step into Azrael’s light. At her side, a wing hangs lifelessly limp at a strange angle, crusted blood staining the delicate feathers. “Can it be mended?” He hopes it is not asking too much of the healer, knowing that bird bones were frail and hollow, sometimes difficult to repair.
But if he could put his faith in anyone, it was Elena. Even if she could not heal the bird, he knew she would do her best, and that she would offer soothing comfort – for he had seen it before. No one had more heart than the golden girl, so the owl would be in the best hands possible.
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