Touch

By The Queen of Blueberry Toast


The sea they hovered on the edge of had no name- it was simply one of a 
thousand stretches of water strung through heaven like glass beads.  Raziel 
did not try to think of what to call the endless cerulean reaches of its 
surf- he did not do anything but mourn the stuttering engines of their ship.

Restless, he wandered the salt along the shore.  No one followed him who 
was not already in the midst of ghosting over the pearly sands.  He carried 
his coat and tried not to walk on the wet patches the sea had left at 
its brink.

The nameless sea gave birth to little breeze, few clouds.  It was all blue 
as far as he could see, no matter where he strode, what rocks he climbed 
to look down into the first hints of its depth.  Not a single seashell 
washed up along his footprints, and no ruined husks of starfish.  The water 
lived, but nothing lived within it save the color of the sky.

Raziel was not surprised.  He was, however, by the time he neared the 
furthest promontory easily made out from where they had landed, rather hot, 
and the water cool, so he pulled off his shirt and sat for awhile where 
the meager wind could touch him if it liked, bear some of the winged 
droplets the waves spawned to his cheeks.  

The only two white clouds he had seen passed over him as he waited for the 
morning to wane, and then another pale shape, this one flitting too fast to 
be a cloud.  Through the reflection that the ocean held, he made out three 
swooping gashes, and knew at once that his non-cloud had a name.

"Katou," he groused, "what are you doing up there?"

The crest of the latest swell shattered in a few places, and he saw there 
the human boy lit upon the sea's tiptoes by the grace of the three wings 
not quite his own.  "I was tryin' these out, whatddya think?" he laughed- he 
was shirtless, and his legs wet though Raziel had not seen him dive.

"You shouldn't be so careless.  What if someone sees you like that! And 
besides, it's embarrassing the way you're acting."

Over the azure chasm he treaded until the sand sang under his toes.  
"Embarrassing? How?"

"Your wings, you act like they're just there for your amusement!" The very 
thought of having to correct someone on a matter he himself was perfectly 
well-acquainted with made him so mad, he struck one of the silicate boulders 
leading up to the cliff.

"Aren't they?" Katou asked.  With a quick glance to either side, he groaned 
and glided over to the very stone his companion had taken his offense out 
upon, and dripped all over it.  

"No, they aren't  They're your connection to the astral plane! You should 
show them more respect."

That got him a wet and slimy toe on his back.  "Oh yeah? Well, if you respect 
yours so much, lemme see 'em.  Don't you know I've never gotten a good look 
at a real angel's wings? You make me think you people are fuckin' ashamed to 
show 'em off."

With a sigh, Raziel picked himself up from the place where he had been resting.  
As he rose, the skin across his shoulder blades grew as translucent as the 
thinnest foam along the shoreline- his muscles nearly peered through it, but 
just before they would have shown, the flesh beneath curled forth like a flower's 
petals, arced, and shattered into long, luminous feathers tinged here and there 
with cherry red.

Katou hummed absently to himself, and pulled one of his own wings around for a 
quick inspection.  "Well how 'bout that.  The look like mine, 'cept mine have 
these purple specks on the pins."

"Of COURSE they look like yours!" Raziel groaned, burying his face in his hands.  
"There's not much different between angel wings.  Don't you know that either? 
Just because I have two and you have three... just because you weren't born 
with yours... oh! I give up."

"How about that yours are wet and mine aren't?" Katou asked.

One of the spindly waves had purled around the tips of the angel's feathers- 
covered his boots and the first few white shafts that would have born him into 
the air.  In his exasperation, apparently he had not noticed.

"So what?"

"So..." and with a few steps left uneasy by the salty air, he approached, and 
he snagged Raziel by the arm.  "So, can't you feel anything with 'em?"

"Of course not! That's silly."

"Really? 'cause I can."

"I don't believe you one bit!"

Saying so, he crossed his arms and started marching off in the direction he 
happened to be facing, which lead him out into the aquamarine splatters where 
the tide pools should have been.  He would have gone on his way, perhaps until the 
lifeless ocean drank him down, perhaps until sense lead him back to the ship which 
had begun to sing again in their absence, but as things were, he suddenly felt a 
presence at his side, a cool shadow.

Looking up, he found Katou hovering just over his head.  The boy had his lips 
pressed to the center of one of his wings.

"Just checking."

Raziel chased him all the way back to where Setsuna waited.

And he flew.