No real warnings this time, more cute than horrific.
Ariel never knew why, but angels were attracted to her.
The first time, she had been five, and a young male had gotten tangled in the power lines. She had run for her mother, crying about the 'pretty birdy' needing help, and the woman had helped him down and cleaned him up before sending him on his way. Ariel had saved one of his feathers, a secondary covert that was a blindingly pure white, and had saved feathers from every angel she had seen since.
She had honestly gotten rather blase about the whole thing, and her collection of feathers had gotten impressive, from secondary coverts to the rarer primaries. Only a few had lost those, but in angels as well as birds, losing them threw off their balance in the air, so as she had gotten older, she had set up a guest room for these rare guests to use for the few days it took to grow them back.
All these facts raced through her mind as she took in the damage before her, groceries hanging loosely from her fist. A power pole was down, a good fifty yards of corn field was torn up, and half a block of sidewalk was destroyed in a furrow of concrete rubble and shredded weeds. She rolled pale brown eyes to the sky, blue-dyed hair falling in a sheet behind her as she overlooked the crater with her newest guest. "Why? Why me?"
Her guest was in no shape to answer, not that angels were ever that talkative. An older male with chocolate hair and golden feathers, he was a lovely specimen of the Holy Choir, save for the cuts and bruises that littered his form. He was also unconscious, knocked out from his trip to the surface. With a sigh, the young woman hefted her bags higher up her arm and climbed into the crater to collect him.
Luckily this one didn't weigh very much, maybe as much as her books back in college, so while ungainly, it was easy to shift him into a fireman's carry, head resting on her shoulder and wing tips dragging on the ground. Others she had helped in the past had been larger, heavier, even armor-clad. That one had been a nightmare, an eight-foot female who was clad in golden armor with a spear as long as her, and what had to have been a twenty-foot wingspan. Drooling on her shoulder or not, this one was a dream in comparison. "Well, here's hoping you don't snore," she snarked as she climbed out of the crater and aimed her feet for home.
The guest room was cool and clean, white walls and white sheets that she dumped her guest onto. Light as he was, it had still been a long walk, so she was relieved to get him off of her back. She sighed, stretching out the kinks in her back before manipulating crumpled wings into a more natural position. Fingers ran through feathers, preening them back into proper order, plucking loose or separated feathers out of the mess. She set a secondary to the side to add to her collection, when a pale hand reached out and clamped down on her arm. She jumped, but didn't let loose more than a squeak, well used to them awakening in loud or startling fashions. Ariel just patted that hand for a second before gently peeling pale fingers from mortal flesh. "Calm done, you're safe here," she offered absently, preening the feathers and the base of the wings. "You lost some secondaries, but your primaries are still intact. You'll be fit to fly in a day, two tops."
His eyes were as golden as his feathers, and they softened at the gentle words and careful preening. "Why?" he finally croaked, only to blink in surprise at the sound of his own voice. A hand slid up to rub at his throat, his face a mask of annoyance at the pain in his ethereal form.
"why help you?" the girl offered, shrugging as the male offered a short nod. "You're not my first angel," she dismissed, free hand coming up to thread through chocolate threads. She flicked a few pieces of rubble away into a corner as those gold wings relaxed from their mantled position, eyes fluttering back into sleep as she hummed lowly.
Once he was finally asleep, she eased herself up, grabbing her grocery bags from their place by the door and headed for the kitchen. Angels didn't eat much when they were healthy, but the more injuries they acquired, the hungrier they got. And she would swear that they were really Divine Hummingbirds, because it was sugar that did them the most good. As such, she made sure she always had the ingredients for her grandmother's fruit-fluff around, and she grinned wryly as she grabbed the coconut and whipped cream. Time to make a fresh batch!
Honestly, it was wonder that she wasn't wide as a house, considering how often she would sneak bites of this stuff. There was a scratch at the door, and she didn't even pause as she reached for a kitchen knife, slicing open the bag of coconut flakes. She ducked down, opening the cabinet for a bowl, humming to herself.
A creak of a floorboard right behind her, and she didn't even hesitate, twirling around with one of her mother's old cast-iron skillets.
BONG!!!
She huffed at the crumbled form on her clean floor, scowling at the newest dent in what used to be part of an heirloom set. "I take care of angels," she lectured to the twisted form of the demon who had thought her an easy meal. "You think I haven't run into your kind too?" She set the skillet down on the counter to drag the hell spawn out of her kitchen by an ankle, snatching up a jug of salt along the way. "You live, this time. But if I see you around here again, I won't be so kind," she warned, kicking him down her steps and drawing a thick line of salt across her threshold.542Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBfGIrsHpwq
Her angels were pleasant guests. It was the demons that made her life unpleasant.
ns3.136.19.165da2
