Winged (Aetharian Narratives)

by Sofia Vargas

  After a few seconds he looked at me. “What do they smell like to you?”

  The question was so strange, but for some reason it also felt like a very personal question. I could feel my cheeks turn a little pink.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, whipping his head forward. “It’s not my place to ask.”

  “No,” I said when his pace started to quicken. I grabbed his arm involuntarily.

  He looked at my hand in surprise. I let go of it so fast you would have thought he had turned to fire.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I—I didn’t mean to do that.”

  His pace slowed down again.

  “It’s okay,” he said in a much nicer voice than I thought he was capable of.

  “I wanted to tell you that I didn’t mind the question. It smells…”

  Another gust of wind blew through and I breathed in the scent more deeply this time. I smiled as a few snowflakes landed on my cheek.

  “It smells like comfort.”

  He gave me a sideways look. “Comfort has a smell?”

  “As of now, yes, I believe it does,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.

  “Hmm,” he said, walking on.

  I hesitated for a moment but figured he’d probably be okay with the question. “What does it smell like to you?”

  He frowned. “I don’t remember.”

  “Pinpointing the smell is difficult before you lose it,” I said with a nod. “It’s like trying to remember a dream—”

  “That’s not exactly it,” he said. “I haven’t been able to smell the trees in a very long time.”

  I didn’t quite understand what he was saying.

  “Can you not smell things?”

  He rolled his eyes and rapped the top of my head lightly with his knuckle. I was thrown for a loop at how familiar the action was but couldn’t help but smile at it.

  “My sense of smell is in perfect working order,” he said, not able to hold back the grin on his face. “It’s the trees in particular that I can’t smell anymore. If you smell something for too long you become accustomed to it and can no longer differentiate it from other smells.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a bit dumb but more saddened for his loss of the fragrance. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be able to smell them again one day.”

  He looked around at the trees. I could tell that it was something he dearly missed.

  “I’ll tell you what they smell like to me at that time.”

  I couldn’t recall a bigger smile than the one that spread across my face at those words.

  “Deal,” I said.

  He cleared his throat and directed his attention forward again. In no time at all we reached the stone structure I had seen earlier over the top of the trees. It turned out to be a wall.

  “This is the outer wall of Castle Larnex,” Dresden said, jumping on the change of subject. We edged along the side of it. “It encloses the main castle as well as the market place. The gates are open from sun up to sun down to anyone who has business to attend to in the market or the castle. It has to be specially requested for the gates to be opened at any other time and will only be granted for good reason.”

  We approached the front entrance where various people were walking in and out of the gates on a dirt road.

  “Please wrap this around your hair and head,” he said, pulling a black scarf out of his jacket pocket.

  I took it from him.

  “We do not need to draw too much attention to you at this point.”

  “Right,” I said, tugging at a strand of hair that had fallen over my shoulder. I wrapped the scarf over my head, around my hair, and tucked it into my jacket so it wouldn’t fall off. I pushed in the loose strands around my face.

  “Good,” he said. He walked toward the gates.

  The closest thing I could compare the market to back home was a fair. Everything from blankets to vegetables was being sold. The unusual thing was that a lot of the time instead of selling something tangible that one simply walked away with, quite often people were selling their talents instead—not for the buyer to take, but for the seller to make an appointment to come to the buyer.

  One man was selling his ability to communicate with animals. A woman was making an appointment for him to come to her house and to get rid of the mice that kept eating her grain. A lady was selling her talent to grow plants quicker and bigger than usual. She was also selling oversized vegetables, fruits, and flowers.

  There were people using their strength to lift things others couldn’t. There were various food stands, metal works, and glass shops. People sold their ability to teleport objects. A lady used her telekinesis to form a one-person band. I swore I saw a man selling his ability to sprout extra limbs, although I wasn’t quite sure what this particular ability could be used for. I was so distracted by the sight of him growing two more arms out of his ribcage that I ran into a girl setting up a tent.

  “Ow,” I said, falling to the floor. The girl spun around at the surprise of having someone bounce off of her.

  “I am so sorry,” she said, reaching out to help me up.

  “It’s okay,” I said, taking her hand. “It was my fault. I’m the one that’s sorry.”

  “Please try not to be a nuisance to everyone around you,” said Dresden.

  “I’ll try,” I said, doing my best not to stick my tongue out at him.

  The girl was staring at my left hand as she held it.

  “Um, thank you,” I said to her.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, shaking her head and letting go of my hand.

  She discreetly looked at Dresden’s left hand as it perched on his hip while waiting. She chuckled and looked at me again.

  “At least it’s not a nuisance you are to him,” she whispered with a wink.

  I looked at her. “Wha—?”

  But she turned back to her tent and again busied herself with setting it up.

  I walked toward Dresden. Once I had reached him he turned toward the castle and started walking, too. I looked back at the girl in confusion. She put up a sign and went back into the colorful tent.

  I read the sign, “Fortune telling?”

  “Hmm?” Dresden said. "What was that?"

  “Nothing,” I said.

  We were pretty much right in front of the castle now. It was made out of the same grey stone as that of the surrounding wall. I hadn’t seen many castles in my life, but it wasn’t as tall as I imagined most were. It had substantially more floors than an average building, but it was more wide than tall. The entire outside wall seemed to be comprised of large round turrets covered in windows. The tops of all of them weren’t pointed; they were rounded, sort of like the buildings in Russia but without the embellishment.

  We walked up a wide staircase to the big wooden double doors. Dresden used a metal knocker on the left side to hit the door three times. I was wondering how many people it took to open and close the giant doors when a smaller door within the left door opened. He gestured for me to enter first.

  I walked through the smaller door and was surprised to find that the room I stepped into was very well lit. Knowing that the entire outside was made out of stone I assumed that one would feel very enclosed inside. Though the inside looked just like the outside, the windows in the turrets filled the gigantic room with natural sunlight. Apparently the turrets weren’t real. The inner wall was quite flat and fell into the turrets where they occurred, so they were obviously only half turrets.

  “Miss Larnex,” a voice said when I entered. “It is a pleasure to have you home.”

  The sunlight bounced off of the long, bright blond hair of a man approaching us. It was streaked with white but still suited him very well.

  “I am Professor Elias,” he said with a kind smile. “I will be conducting your learning process.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. “What exactly am I going to be learning?”

 
“Everything,” he said. “Well, I suppose not everything. There really isn’t enough time for that. For right now you will be learning everything that is crucial for you to know at this point in time. Perhaps when all this war stuff is behind us you can learn about Aetheria in a proper manner. For now we are going to have to settle for a crash course on, well, everything.”

  “Ah,” I said. “So you mean like history and stuff?”

  “The bare minimum of it,” he nodded. “Time will not allow us to go into too much detail, but it’s important that you understand where Aetheria is right now. Who we’re fighting, how long it’s been going on, why it’s going on, things of that matter.”

  “I see.”

  “Things seem to be going well here so I’ll leave and let you get to it,” Dresden said. “I’ll return later to take her back to camp.” He walked back out of the castle.

  “Certainly,” Professor Elias said, walking to the door with him. Dresden exited out the smaller door and Professor Elias closed it behind him.

  “You know, years ago he was one of my best students,” he said, placing a metal beam into holders that secured the door.

  “Hmm,” I nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least.” I stopped nodding my head and looked at him. “Wait, what do you mean years ago? He looks like he should still be in school.”

  “Ah, well that’s one of the perks of having the ability you two have, isn’t it?”

  I stared at him.

  “You know,” he said, seeing my confusion. “Those with wings have the ability to heal themselves and don’t die until they are done fulfilling everything they need to in life.”

  I still stared at him.

  “Which causes the body to age much more slowly than an average person’s,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  I thought about Ms. Riley and the fact that she was a couple hundred years old and yet didn’t look older than someone’s grandmother. Then I remembered my father telling me Dresden was some sort of commander in the army.

  “That would explain why I’ve never broken a bone and why cuts and bruises heal so quickly.”

  He nodded at me.

  “Exactly how old is he?”

  “You know, I don’t quite remember,” Professor Elias said. “He must be pushing thirty by now.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “He looks like he’s still a teenager.”

  “Yes, well, people with wings start aging more slowly once they reach their teens and continue to age slowly until their time ends.”

  I stared at the door where Dresden previously had been standing.

  “He used to be one of the funniest, most fun-loving boys in his class.”

  I looked back at Professor Elias. “You’re kidding.”

  “War changes people, Miss Larnex,” he said. “The change varies from person to person, and a lot of the time it is a change you never wished to see.”

  “That is why this one has to end,” said another voice.

  I turned and saw Ms. Riley standing in another doorway.

  “Yes,” said Professor Elias. “This war needs to come to an end before it changes us all. This way please, Miss Larnex. We have a lot to discuss.”

  He started walking toward her. Ms. Riley stood aside and let us into the room. The room looked much like the classrooms I was used to with a few exceptions. The walls and ground were made of stone, there were maps of places I had never seen or heard of before, and there were diagrams of strange creatures and a few strange rodent-like or buggish creatures in jars and tanks. I tapped on the glass of a furry looking beetle that was about the size of my palm. I normally was not one for bugs, but the one I was looking at could pass for a pet.

  “Please have a seat,” Professor Elias said, indicating the rows of chairs in the middle of the room.

  I sat in the center chair of the front row. I felt extremely unprepared. I had no idea what was going to be taught to me; I didn’t have any textbooks or a notebook to write in. I sat there with nothing to look at but my teachers.

  “Now, Emma,” Ms. Riley said, “we are going to do this a little unorthodoxly so it would probably be best not to go into too much detail when asked what you are learning by others outside of this room.”

  “All others?” I said. “You don’t want me to tell anyone exactly what I’m learning?”

  “Right,” Professor Elias said. “It would actually be best not to tell anyone anything. It wouldn’t be taken well.”

  “Why?” I was starting to become alarmed about what was going to happen.

  “Well,” said Ms. Riley, “when we heard what role they want you to play in the impending war we were a little rattled. We feel it is necessary to take some measures to make sure, for lack of a better way to put it, that you don’t become the person they want you to be.”

  “Wh—what are they planning on doing with me?”

  Ms. Riley looked over at Professor Elias. I did the same.

  “They want you to take a military position,” he said.

  “Military…? As in fight and kill people?”

  “Not quite,” he said. “More like order and lead people.”

  “They want to put me into some sort command post?”

  “Something like that,” he said with a nod. “They want to make you some sort of a high ranking officer to help command the troops.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “I wouldn’t know how to take command of troops. I wouldn’t have any idea what to do or say.”

  “This is exactly why Dresden agreed to let us take over your training,” Ms. Riley said. “Everyone thinks he’s the one handling things so let us also work on keeping that thought going. Though they weren’t planning on kicking out a general and having you take his place, they realize that you wouldn’t have a clue what to do in a post like that. They want you on the sidelines.”

  “Why? I honestly don’t think I’d be any help at all. What can they possibly gain from having me there?”

  “Inspiration,” said Professor Elias.

  “What are they hoping I will inspire?”

  “How to win the war, of course,” said Ms. Riley.

  “I still don’t see how they are expecting me to do that.”

  “They have legitimate reason to think that you will,” Professor Elias said. “And that is where your education begins. We are going to start by teaching you exactly who you are. Tell me, Miss Larnex, what is your ability?”

  “I—,” I looked over at Ms. Riley who smiled and nodded at me. “I have Dragonfly wings.”

  “Right,” he said. “Dragonfly wings are only born in times of war. Excuse me, not in times of any war, but in times of substantial war or other extreme situations in which the people of Aetheria are in need of one. It has to be a heavy-hitting war to require the aid of a Dragonfly. Has Celeste explained what a Dragonfly does?”

  “She said I was a protector,” I said, thinking perhaps I was more prepared than I thought I was.

  “Ahem,” Ms. Riley cleared her throat. I looked over at her and she raised her eyebrows.

  “Right,” I said. “She said I was the People’s Protector.”

  Professor Elias laughed, “I’d expect nothing less. The thinking that the Dragonfly is the protector of the people is a new way of thinking. What is normally taught is that the Dragonfly is a military muse. This is believed because one of the requirements to be a Dragonfly is that the person in possession of the wings is a particularly inspired and insightful person. They think, feel, and know things that others may not.”

  “I don’t feel particularly insightful,” I said. “Maybe there was a mistake in giving me the wings.”

  “There are no mistakes in the handing out of abilities,” said Professor Elias. “There is a predetermination when it comes to the abilities of Aetherians. There is a sort of order as to what abilities are present at any given time.”

  “You mean it’s planned?” I found it hard to believe that something like tha
t could be coordinated in any way.

  “Somehow, yes, it is,” he said. “We don’t know how it is planned, but knowing what we do about our abilities makes it very hard not to believe in some sort of higher power. As of right now Aetheria is split in two: North Aetheria and South Aetheria.”

  “As of right now?” I said. “Meaning that the split is new?”

  “Relatively,” he said. “It happened three hundred years ago.”

  “And that’s ‘relatively new’?”

  “Well, yes, cosmically speaking,” he said. “Up to then for the many, many years Aetheria had existed, it was one country.”

  “Why did it split?”

  “That’s a very good question. The answer will show you why this world is not as different as the one from which you have just come to us. As you have noticed, all Aetherians are born with blue eyes and blond hair; but as geography changes one other aspect of the people changes with it. Can you guess what that change is?”

  My mind immediately snapped to Oak. “Skin color,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “The people of South Aetheria have a significantly different skin tone than those of North Aetheria because of the climate change. It is colder in the north and much warmer in the south much like what you are used to. This castle has housed every king and queen of Aetheria. Since the split it has become sort of the central nervous system of North Aetheria.

  “The most obvious difference that sets Aetherians apart lies in what ability they have. But when that gets old they start to look for other differences. The difference that is now being focused on is skin color. Kingship usually runs through a bloodline. It isn’t often that there is a need for it to waver from a bloodline and develop elsewhere, but it happens. Your father will be the last king of your family’s bloodline.”

  “Wait, so why will my family stop ruling?” I said.

  “Because you are the only heir to the king,” Ms. Riley said. “And you were born with Dragonfly wings.”

  “So it’s my fault?” I said. “For not being born with Butterfly wings?”

  “It’s not any fault of yours,” Professor Elias said. “We can’t control these things. You were chosen to be the Dragonfly and Arabella was chosen to be the Butterfly. It very easily could have been reversed, but it wasn’t. If you were meant to be the next queen then you would have Butterfly wings, but that is not your destiny. You, I am afraid, have a much more troubling road ahead of you.”