I walked a bit behind Vim, but close enough I could reach out and grab him if I needed to.

I'd never say it aloud, and I knew Vim would never acknowledge it either, but I was stressed. Worried.

Unsure of myself.

And how could I not be…?

His whole village was gone. Not a single other survive had been found. And although Windle himself had not been harmed during the attack, he had watched with his own eyes his whole family get slaughtered. He had watched his village get burnt. His own mother set ablaze.

Watching such a thing happen hurt you somewhere one couldn't explain. Deeper than any wound of the flesh could.

I too knew that feeling. It was not a good one. It was the kind of feeling that made one… change.

And…

Groaning a bit, I reached over and grabbed Vim's shirt. I grabbed it at the back, and clung to it as we rounded a corner.

We were underneath the Cathedral. In Telmik. Although I had been banished, it had been for a reason I no longer was responsible for. I no longer had my wings, so…

"Vim…" I whispered his name as we headed down a quiet hallway, one I myself had never been down before.

It smelled like death.

"It is okay, Lilly," Vim said gently.

No. It wasn't. But I was glad he was willing to pretend it was.

Taking a deep breath, I firmed myself as Vim led me to a half closed door. I could hear shuffling of feet behind it, feet that went still when Vim knocked gently on the door.

"Ah, please come in!" Windle welcomed us, and my jaw clenched at the sound of his voice.

He sounded fine. Happy, even. Like always his voice was pleasant on the ears. Too pleasant. It almost sounded like a woman's.

Vim went ahead and gently opened the door… and once he did, my world went still.

Windle was standing across the room, having stood from a table. He too froze at the sight of me, and I went still as Vim stepped into the room.

I was almost dragged in with him, since I still clung to his shirt… but I held firm. His shirt tugged free from my grip, possibly ripping in the process, but neither I nor Vim noticed as he stepped aside… not even looking at Windle as he went to looking at something else.

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Vim messed with something on a counter, but I didn't have it in me to see what it was. All I could look at was Windle.

He looked healthy. At least, in the face. He was still tall and scrawny, as if he hadn't eaten enough. But he had always looked malnourished. But there was one glaring, obvious thing, which tore the entire idea he was fine out the window. Or rather, two obvious things.

I had already known they were gone. Vim had told me just before we had headed down these stairs. He had told me what Windle had done. What the fool in all his infinite wisdom had did.

Yet I hadn't believed it. Didn't want to. But here was proof. Before me was proof.

Windle had torn off his own wings.

"Windle… your wings…" I whispered as I entered the room.

Like me, Windle had nothing behind him. His large, dark, wings were gone. Completely. By the looks of the way his thin robe he wore fell upon him, he didn't even have little nubs like I did.

Windle without a word turned. At first I was offended, since I had thought he had looked away in shame… but instead he had stepped away. He walked over to where Vim stood, and he grabbed something. Something large. And long… and…

My stomach twisted as I stepped back, aghast over the wings he turned to face me with. They looked utterly huge in his arms, and so out of place it was ridiculous. He carried them over to me… and I felt my hands and toes clench up as I began to panic.

Was he about to offer them to me? Why? As if some sick joke? If he did…!

Windle then knelt down. I stopped breathing as my eyes went so wide they hurt as I glanced down… and watched him lay his wings at my feet.

"You would not join me in the skies… So instead, would you join me here on the ground?" Windle asked.

Without even thinking I flung a hand out and slapped him. Right across the face. I knew I had done it a tad too hard even before he fell over to his side, likely knocked out… and I didn't wait to hear Vim shout at me as I spun around and ran out of his room.

Running with all my might… I did everything I could to ignore the terrible panic filling me with dread.

He had not lost his wings during his village's attack. Vim had told me already. I had heard once we were here.

Windle had flown here. To deliver the message to Vim of what happened.

It was after he had lost his wings.

Purposefully.

With his own hands.

Pulled off.

Not because of some terrible mistake. Not because they had been burnt off and torn to shreds from war, as mine had. Not because he needed to do so to survive amongst humans. Not even because they weren't working properly, or some other benign reason.

He had torn them off for one singular purpose.

For me.

To join me on the ground.

Since we were all that was left.

"Lilly!" someone shouted my name, but I ignored them. I ignored them all… as I ran from the man who had just proved himself worthy… and had done so in a way that would torment me for the rest of my life.

He had gone to such extremes because I had forced him to. Because he, like me, knew we were the last. And thus knew he had to be good enough, to become good enough, to justify my affection and love. And he had done so in the only way he had known how.

I had forced him to this. Because I had spurned his affection before. Because I had thought him lesser. Because I had been too proud and foolish, blinded by my own hubris.

They were right all along.

I was Lilly of the Skies… not because I belonged to the sky, or claimed them… but instead because I stole them from everyone else.

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