Wingspan

Alley: jewel (iii) please

I grabbed the root of his wings tightly.

A sigh escaped him.

My angel!

I no longer had wings. I had been damaged beyond repair. I had been made to live on blood, to feed on the lost and lonely ones.

He shall suffer! I swore.

And yet...I paused, holding his wings. Would I inflict this agony I have borne on another angel? Could I truly damage another as I have been damaged? Would I do it? Could I? Was my hatred strong enough?

Ah, the sweetness of another's wings!

Perhaps my hatred was not enough. But my pain...my long and loving pain.

That might do. Oh yes.

I have pain to spare.

My lover, my tormentor. Descend into my hell. Share with me.

"Set me as a seal on your heart,
as a seal on your arm;
For stern as death is love,
relentless as the nether world is devotion;
Deep waters cannot quench love.
nor floods sweep it away."

And in the moment before I began to pull, I loved him. Loved him more deeply than I have ever loved another. In that moment. We could not have been closer.

I bent to kiss him.

His lips moved.

How I hated. How I loved. How I hurt!

Of course I can do this. Of course. Of course. It is everything I have wanted, everything I have waited for...here, delivered into my hands.

The torment ends here. Now.

He will not hurt me again.

I was prepared. I was ready. I began to pull slowly on his wings. Slow. Slower. Slowest. Draw out this perfect moment...his loving agony. My tender revenge. Precious, precious...

If I had known his name I would have said it...

My angel!

Girl blood boiling burning singing in me my invisible rainbow wings the last perfect part of me touching the tips of the surrounding buildings nearly touching the polluted night sky nearly scooping up the obscured stars I vowed to destroy the destroyer this beast this stormbringer this life-taker this blood-drinker...

My angel spoke. In the absolute silence, in the ragged breathing of our consummation he spoke. He breathed into my mouth:

don't don't don't. Don't hurt me anymore. DON'T HURT ME ANY MORE.

he said.

I recoiled. Stumbled back. The blood in my veins was slicing my soul.

What was I doing? WHAT WAS I DOING?

My angel cried "please."

The knife slipped from numbed fingers, the clatter impossibly loud in the dank alley. My hand caressed his feathers as I pulled away. I felt the incredible softness of them slipping from my grasp. So glorious, so wondrous...that part of him.

I stood trembling before his bleeding body. I could see each and every precious wing. Each feather. Each pinion. Each shaft. His soul, his self. Bare and perfect.

With wonder and love, with hate and despair, I gazed upon him.

How far I had fallen! To come to this...

I was compassion. I was made for surcease. I was not vengeance. I was not murder.

You can't change what you are.

I am not vengeance. I am mercy and love.

It was what I was made for. And the absence of wings makes no difference in my soul. Or my blood.

And yet, with bitterness in my swollen heart, the dark part of me asked:

And then, the darkest part of me asked:

YOU

"Mercy"

I whispered. Asking, telling, commanding, or begging, I did not know.

"Please"