《Angelpunk》 Hot Spring I crept up to the edge of the rocky outcropping that overhung the hot springs. I could hear voices down there. Thrasher, Moonsinger, one of the witch queens. When I looked down, all three witches were there. Hag, Hiss, and Hex traveled in a pack like the bearded ladies, never alone. Johnny was on his way over to the hot spring to join them. He stayed at the edge of the hot spring, stretching his wings and scratching his narrow hairy chest until Thrasher gave his come-on nod. Sucker. Waiting for permission. Just because Thrasher thought he was the boss didn¡¯t make him the boss. I picked my spot and hopped over the edge, keeping my wings tucked behind my back so they wouldn¡¯t slow my fall. I hit the steaming water with a crash that made everybody scream and jump out and take cover in the trees. I came up snorting water out my sinuses and choking and laughing. Thrasher¡¯s wet fist closed around my throat. He slammed me against one of the boulders that surrounded the spring, foot pinning my thigh, huge purple-black wings beating from either side. He¡¯d already punched me a couple times before he saw who he was hitting. ¡°Punk,¡± he growled, giving me one more good lip-busting thump. ¡°I told you not to do that.¡± ¡°Scare ya, Trash?¡± ¡°Get pecked.¡± He shoved me off the boulder and headed back to his bath. The witch queens and Johnny had fanned out to either side of Thrasher, ready to kill the threat. Thrasher was a beast, bigger than any of us, thick as a tree, hard as a rock, and mean as winter, but the others were all fast and deadly, too. Had to be to survive. They glared at me. Hag clucked her tongue. ¡°It¡¯s always you.¡± I grinned, tasting blood in my teeth. ¡°Miss me?¡± The black and white paint on her cheeks¡ªcolored to match her wings¡ªtwisted in a sneer. ¡°No one misses you, Angelpunk. Ever.¡± ¡°Everything¡¯s nice when you¡¯re gone,¡± Hiss hissed. The way she talked was where her name came from, I assume. ¡°Hex?¡± I pointed at the last witch queen. Sometimes I like to pretend I can¡¯t tell them apart because they all wear that black and white face paint to match their wings, but I can. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. She just rolled her eyes and headed back to the spring with her sisters. ¡°Want to see my mating dance?¡± I called after her. She flapped her wings at me once without looking back. ¡°Anybody?¡± No takers. ¡°Trash?¡± They ignored me. ¡°You¡¯re gonna make him kill you one of these days,¡± Johnny said. ¡°He didn¡¯t even have his spurs out,¡± I said. Johnny shook his head and left for the hot water. ¡°I missed you,¡± Moonsinger cooed. Back when I¡¯d scared them, she had hopped up onto a branch. She was still up there, smoothing her tawny feathers to calm down. Obviously not deadly. But she was smaller than everybody else, even smaller than me, so maybe someday she¡¯d get deadly. Or she¡¯d just keep following Thrasher and the others around to stay alive. Long as she could keep up with them, that was a good plan. She glided down next to me and wrapped me in a side-hug with her little stick arms. ¡°Missed you, too, Moonie.¡± I tugged on one of her orange-red curls when she didn¡¯t let go. She needed reminders sometimes, otherwise she¡¯d just keep hugging. ¡°Want to show me your mating dance?¡± she asked. I laughed. ¡°Let¡¯s get a bath.¡± She found her previous spot in the spring, and I shoved my way in, too. By the looks on everybody¡¯s face, you¡¯d think I was there to take a dump in the water. Still mad because I¡¯d scared them. They would get over it. It just took time. ¡°Found a berry patch south,¡± I said, sinking lower in the hot water. ¡°And a god drop on the way. Good spot. Lots of loot if you want it.¡± Thrasher gave a grumpy snort, then nodded and went back to splashing water on his shoulders. ¡°Under cover?¡± he asked. ¡°Plenty of trees, brambles, everything.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll check it out today.¡± Leaves rustled behind me. All the females went still. Johnny, Thrasher, and me jumped out and crouched on the boulders, wings flared and shedding water, ready to give a monster a beat down. ¡°Hey guys,¡± came the slow drawl. It was just Moose waddling in. Big as a cliff and dumb as a rotten log. One of the bearded ladies followed him, practically hanging on his arm. The others probably weren¡¯t too far behind. I really can¡¯t tell those girls apart. They all four look alike, with their silver hair and beards, gray eyes, and blue splash wings. What I could tell, though, was that this one and Moose had just mated. You can¡¯t count on the ladies to have good taste, obviously, or a lot more of them would¡¯ve wanted to mate with me. ¡°We¡¯re going to forage south today,¡± Thrasher told them, rolling his shoulders so the muscles would jump and flex. Probably mad somebody had mated with Moose instead of him. ¡°Some berries and a god-drop down that way.¡± ¡°I found them,¡± I said, since he¡¯d conveniently left that out. Moose looked at the bearded lady. ¡°Should we tell the others?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll go get them.¡± Unlike Moose, she was a fast talker. Fast mover, too. She headed off lickety-split. ¡°Hey,¡± I yelled after her, ¡°Want to see my new mating dance?¡± ¡°Get mauled,¡± she yelled back. ¡°I¡¯d like to see your mating dance, Angelpunk,¡± Moonsinger said again. ¡°I can sing you a song to do it to.¡± I splashed the little joker with water. ¡°Sing us a berry song while we¡¯re eating berries how ¡¯bout.¡± Rainy Day God Drop I led everybody to the thicket where I¡¯d found the berries. ¡°You ate some?¡± Thrasher asked. ¡°A couple handfuls.¡± I¡¯d had a lot more than that, but I wasn¡¯t going to tell him so. All he wanted to know was I was still alive after trying them. He nodded and pushed his way to the closest bramble, picked a few off, and chewed them up. ¡°Good,¡± he declared. Everybody spread out through the thicket, picking and eating. I perched on a branch, watching for trouble. It was getting dark, but it didn¡¯t feel like night. The rainfrogs screamed out, singing down the rain. Moonsinger joined in, unable to stop herself when she heard a good song. Working together, they got it to sprinkle some. After a while, Johnny took my lookout spot, and I picked and ate. The berries were sweet and warm, everything you could want. You could taste the sun in them even though it had disappeared behind gray sky. Thunder crashed, and all that gray spilled fat drops of water everywhere. The rainfrogs screamed with joy and Moonsinger joined them, trilling up to the top of her range. I laughed. All you could see was black and white, dark blue, gray, and silver and blonde as the witch queens, Johnny, Moose, and the bearded ladies split, heading back toward the usual haunts to find some cover. Moonsinger ducked under a tree and waited to see what Thrasher and I would do. I could tell she wanted to stay out, but she wouldn¡¯t do it unless we were still out. ¡°I¡¯m not going to hide because of a little rain,¡± I promised her. ¡°You should,¡± Thrasher said. ¡°I¡¯m going back.¡± ¡°What about the god drop?¡± ¡°After that,¡± he said. ¡°I need to go to the god drop, too,¡± Moonsinger said. ¡°I want a new shoe.¡± She showed us her bare right foot. Her toes curled, crunching the dead leaves. The god drop was back through the trees a ways. I saw a couple trampled trails through the foliage and places where Moose¡¯s wide wingspan had lost some gray feathers, but it didn¡¯t look like he¡¯d stopped at the pile to pick anything out. Some angels just don¡¯t like rain. The gods had dropped off a bunch of stuff this time. Weird plastic squares, a couple new outfits that Moonsinger picked through. She found an airy sundress that hung off her little body like longmoss off a tree branch. I grabbed a pair of shorts to replace the ones I was wearing through. They were pretty big, but I found a belt to cinch through the loops and tighten them up. Thrasher found a thick pair of pants with rips in the knees and back of the legs for his spurs. We kicked through the plastic stuff for a while, ignoring crinkling bags and useless squares that just sat there doing nothing. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I found a glass bottle that¡¯d be good for drinking from and stuck it in my belt. Then I found another belt, girlish, so I tossed it to Moonsinger. ¡°Try this.¡± Her cheeks turned pink under the freckles. She took the belt and tied it around her stomach. ¡°It¡¯s perfect,¡± she said. She spun around, lifting her wings so I could see the dress front and back. ¡°How do I look?¡± ¡°Like you need a shoe.¡± I kicked some more plastic junk out of the way. Something shiny caught my eye. ¡°Hey.¡± It was a knife with a blade as long as my hand, tied up in a piece of cloth with sunflowers on it, like its very own little knife carrying pouch. ¡°Need a knife, Moonie?¡± I held it out. Her green eyes went wide. Thrasher snatched the blade out of my hand. ¡°She doesn¡¯t need a knife. She¡¯s got us. We need knives.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got spurs, Trashbrain.¡± I kicked the back of his leg and tried to grab the knife away, but he threw open his wings to knock me back. Then we were on the ground and both our spurs were out. Thrasher swung his elbow spurs at me, six-inchers. Moonsinger screamed and ran. She wasn¡¯t going to stick around where a stray spur could injure her. I ducked and jumped for his gut with my heel spurs, keeping my wings beating at him the whole time. Mine were only four-inchers, but I was smaller and faster. I fought back until Thrasher got me across the nose and started going for my throat. That¡¯s when I realized we weren¡¯t just scuffling over a knife. Thrasher was in this to the death. I flipped onto my stomach and buried my head in the god drop pile. Some of those plastic things fell on me. Good, cover me up. Protect me more. Thrasher hacked at my back with his heel spurs. One scraped my right wing, breaking off some feathers and ripping a cut across it. Better the wing than my guts, though. I wiggled farther into the pile, trying to get my soft spots into the plastic junk, but he grabbed me by the foot and dragged me back out. Maybe Johnny was right, maybe this time Thrasher was going to kill me. I curled around my gut and kicked and slashed at him with my spurs. ¡°I submitted,¡± I screamed. ¡°You¡¯re the king. What is wrong with you?¡± Thrasher wasn¡¯t hearing me. His spurs were already dripping with red. It was splashed all over him. But his eyes were holes, sucking in everything and not giving it any meaning. Something slammed into my side. I tumbled across the god drop and slammed into a tree. My head rang. Thrasher grunted in pain, so at least he¡¯d been hit, too. He was lying dazed against a fallen trunk. His eyes were back, though, so he probably wouldn¡¯t still try to kill me. A god stood next to the drop pile, staring down at us. Almost as tall as the trees, wingless, with smooth, shining skin. We¡¯d all seen them before. They came and went through the range. Sometimes they left behind these piles of stuff for us, sometimes they dropped food or drinks or chunks of mineral to chip pieces off of and eat. Seeing them is a terror, but not like an attack from a monster. It¡¯s a terror like not knowing what to do. The god said something. You can¡¯t understand a god when they talk. That¡¯s like trying to figure out what thunder is saying. But I knew it was talking because its mouth moved as it looked from Thrasher to me. It was talking to us. Then it stepped toward Thrasher, long legs gliding up, up, up, then down, down, down. Thrasher let out a strangled scream, then thrashed his wings and shoved himself to his feet. He ran into the trees. The god turned to me and knelt down. It was still talking. Its hand on the end of its long arm stretched toward me. I crouched, ready to run, too. But my back was against that tree. The hand kept coming. Its fingers slipped across my bloody face and onto my cut wing. I whipped around and bit the finger as hard as I could. The god¡¯s voice rose, shaking the ground, and it jerked its hand away. I stood up, spurs out, with god blood in my teeth. It tasted like mud and those mineral chunks. The god held its hand up to its shining face, inspecting the bite. It looked at me. I jumped at it, foot spurs out. It slapped me, and I went skidding in the grass. The god shook its head and clearly said ¡°Angelpunk¡± in that thunder-flooded-river-driving-snow-tornado voice. Then it stood up and left. I flapped up into a tree, shaking and shedding drops of wing blood, and collapsed on a high branch where I wouldn¡¯t have to move again for a while. The Night Sleep The sun went down and darkness swam into its place. I pulled my knees up to my chest and huddled in the joint of the trunk and the branch as the night sleep came over me. The stone crept up from my toes. Covered my knees and thighs, stomach and shoulders and my wings. My spurs were back in already, so it flowed over my ankles and up my legs and over my arms without jutting out. My face was up staring at the oranges and reds and pinks and blues in the sky when the stone covered my throat. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. I hate night, and I hate to sleep. Every night lasts forever. It goes on and on and on while the black water flows between the stars. I hate those stars, too. They¡¯re small and mean and they never stop glaring. I never know when they¡¯ll go away. If they¡¯ll go away. I wish they¡¯d get sucked down into that black water they¡¯re floating in, but they never do. If the stars or monsters or the gods come after me while I¡¯m in the night sleep, there won¡¯t be anything I can do. My body can¡¯t move until morning. But I watch anyway. Better to see death coming. Rejoice Forever later, gray crept into the black water sky. That doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s morning yet, but that does mean morning is closer than it was. It starts to feel like forever is almost over when you can see the gray coming. Soon the warm came back into the world. My legs started to feel again as the stone broke up. That¡¯s the best feeling ever, knowing I survived another night. I flexed my toes, wiggled them. The warmth flowed up my legs and into my stomach and arms and wings and I moved all that, too, stretching and flapping. Finally the sun rose and the last bit of stone over my face fell away. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I stood up on the branch and crowed at the top of my lungs. I survived again. The stars didn¡¯t get me. Nothing got me while I was stone, and I wanted to tell the whole world. I¡¯m still here, Angelpunk is still here. Off in the distance, Thrasher crowed. He made it, too. I crowed and he crowed back. Johnny joined us pretty soon. Then so did Moose. Us guys all made it. I hoped all the ladies made it, too, but for whatever reason they never holler out to let us know. Maybe it¡¯s smarter not to make too much noise in the morning. The gods sleep, but the monsters don¡¯t, and there are some that like to eat first thing with the sun. I never could keep quiet about being alive, though. Sunny Morning Frenzy First place I went was the berry patch, but it was pretty much picked clean. Moose and the bearded ladies had had the same idea. I shrugged my wings at the gals. ¡°Want to see my mating dance?¡± Moose kept sifting his hands through the brambles when I asked that. He wasn¡¯t as territorial as Thrasher, probably because he wasn¡¯t fast enough to fight anybody off. He also wasn¡¯t smart enough to know he had territory to defend with the bearded ladies. He blinked when a thorn caught in his fingertip. ¡°Ouch.¡± One of the ladies snatched his hand and plucked the thorn out. ¡°No, Punk,¡± she snapped at me in that fast-talking the bearded ladies always use. ¡°We want food.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll spread out across the range,¡± another one said, talking in the same big hurry. She bobbed her head, silver beard wagging. ¡°Holler if you find something good.¡± Moose and I stayed on the edges of the spread. We mostly watched for monsters. The ladies would find something to eat as long as we kept them alive. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s snakes!¡± a bearded lady screamed. ¡°Come on! Come on! It¡¯s a whole nest of delicious snakes!¡± Wings flapped and feet pounded as everybody closed in on her spot. A fallen tree had been turned over, and the soft wet dirt underneath crawled with snakes trying to hide themselves. The girls dove in. They snatched up snakes and sucked them down. ¡°Think it was a God or a monster?¡± I asked Moose. That tree hadn¡¯t turned itself over. He stared at the slithering mud between gray feathers. ¡°Don¡¯t know.¡± The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°I¡¯ll keep watch out this way. You go over there and look out.¡± Moose meandered to where I¡¯d pointed and stretched up tall like that would show him more through the trees. I climbed up onto a branch and spread my wings in a patch of sunlight while I looked. The ladies were still sucking down snakes. Dirt got on their lips. Their black eyes glittered, and they made excited noises. Something moved in the brush. I put my spurs out and crouched to spring. ¡°Moose.¡± My warning voice made the bearded ladies go still. ¡°It¡¯s over there.¡± The brush shuddered. A hairy back stuck up behind the leaves. Moose might not be fast, but he isn¡¯t stupid either. ¡°Go!¡± He flapped his wings hard and stretched up on his toes, making himself look bigger. The bearded ladies took off in all directions, screeching. The monster jumped out when they took off. Moose hit it from the side, and I landed on the back of its hairy head. Our wings beat on the monster. I couldn¡¯t see what Moose was doing, but I spurred it a good ten or twenty times, aiming for its eyes. I crowed over and over again, so everybody would know there was a monster and we were fighting it. After a minute, Moose did it, too. The monster twisted and yowled. Swiped at me with its claws. Its teeth cracked together. Something crunched. I didn¡¯t see what, and I couldn¡¯t stop fighting to find out. It wasn¡¯t me, though. Finally, my spurs tore through its thick hide. The gash poured blood. The smell of wet, red life got bigger than the smell of mud and scared snakes and berries. The monster started backing away. It tried to scrape me off on a tree trunk. I kept spurring and beating my wings. It growled, then dropped and rolled. I jumped out of the way. Caught sight of Moose back there on the ground. Before I was back on my feet, the monster took off running. I went after it, crowing in the direction it had gone so everybody would know. It lost me past some vines and a cedar tree, so I headed back. Thrasher ran into the berry clearing at the same time as I limped in. ¡°Where is it?¡± ¡°Gone.¡± I put my hands on my knees while I breathed. Shook some sweat off my face. ¡°I chased it that way, but it outran me.¡± Thrasher stopped beside Moose. ¡°He¡¯s pretty bad off.¡± Moose was still breathing, but one of his wings was all bent wrong. Blood was coming out of his mouth and nose, and a bone stuck out of his leg like a white stick. He tried to say something. I reached scratched behind my ear. Sighed. Put out my spur and cut his throat. After some shaking around and throwing blood on me and Thrasher, Moose relaxed. Gone The girls all wailed about Moose, except for Moonsinger. Some tears dripped out of her big green eyes, but she mostly just sniffed. Later on, she sang about how he liked berries and mating in the sunlight and how brave he was when the monster came. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The bearded ladies were the most upset because Moose was theirs. But we all knew being dead was better than being stuck and unable to get into a tree when the night came. I didn''t ask the bearded ladies if they wanted to see my mating dance, but I should have. They all left with Johnny when they were done crying. Hot Spring Again The next morning, one of the witch queens didn¡¯t show up to bathe in the hot spring. ¡°Where¡¯s Hex?¡± I was asking Hag, but Hiss answered. ¡°None of your business.¡± ¡°It¡¯s my business if she doesn¡¯t come back.¡± ¡°Oh really? You don¡¯t look like Thrasher.¡± ¡°Thrasher¡¯s not here, so it¡¯s my business.¡± You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Hiss flapped her wings, flipped her black hair over her shoulder, and turned away from me. ¡°Don¡¯t act like you moved up in the flock just because Moose is dead.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have to move up. I¡¯m already at the top.¡± ¡°Top?¡± Hag wrinkled her nose, making the black and white paint on her face twist into new shapes. ¡°You don¡¯t have any females and you won¡¯t get any females, Angelpunk. You¡¯re at the bottom and you always will be.¡± ¡°You wouldn¡¯t say that if you saw my mating dance.¡± She hopped into the water. ¡°Besides, you won¡¯t find Hex, even if you look. She¡¯s nesting.¡± ¡°With a monster around?¡± Since they were both getting in, I got on the rocks with my wings to the cliff and stretched up to watch the trees for anything that shouldn¡¯t be there. ¡°I told you,¡± Hag said, shuffling in the hot water, ¡°her nesting spot is well-hidden. Nothing can find her.¡± Found Her I found Hex before the light was straight overhead. She hunkered down in her nest of leaves and long grasses, a dead tree leaning over her back and hung up in the branches of another tree. ¡°This is where you picked to nest?¡± She stretched her wings out and fluffed her black and white feathers up. ¡°Go away, Punk.¡± She crouched lower over her babies, covering the stone children with her arms. At that size, they couldn¡¯t even break free of the stone. Their arms and legs and wings were all tucked in tight to their tiny bodies. ¡°This is a terrible nesting spot.¡± ¡°Nothing can find me here.¡± ¡°I found you.¡± ¡°Monsters can¡¯t.¡± ¡°You¡¯re dumber than Moose was if you think that.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Get lost!¡± She bit at me, then stuck out a leg to kick. I backed up out of her reach and waited. Moonie showed up. ¡°Hex,¡± she gasped. ¡°You¡¯re nesting?¡± ¡°Make Punk leave. He¡¯s going to give away my spot.¡± ¡°Somebody¡¯s got to watch for danger,¡± I said. Moonie settled on a branch of the fallen tree, humming and swinging her feet. ¡°It¡¯s the gods you have to watch out for when you nest, anyway,¡± Hex said. ¡°They¡¯re definitely going to find you,¡± I said. ¡°No they¡¯re not!¡± ¡°They are if you keep screaming.¡± She quieted down after that, cooing and clucking to nestful of stone. I tried out a few lookout spots. The widest view was up there beside Moonie. I perched a couple branches above her. From there, I could see the ground in every direction. The leaves were getting thin. Soon, we would be losing the daytime warmth, and the dark would turn to killing cold. Maybe not before Hex¡¯s stone babies hatched, though. Moonie cocked her head and stared out into the leaves. ¡°What do you think they do with the babies?¡± ¡°Take them,¡± Hex said, scuttling down lower like just saying that was a threat to her babies. ¡°But why do they take them?¡± Moonie wanted to know. I shook my head. I couldn¡¯t guess. ¡°They won¡¯t take mine,¡± Hex said. I¡¯d never heard of somebody hatching their stone babies before the gods took them, but I was tired of arguing with her, so I just watched out for monsters. Moonsong The light fell out of the sky, and the dark came crawling in. Moonie and I stayed with Hex. The night sleep came on the witch queen first, down on the ground under her dead tree where the dark got darkest earliest. Moonie looked at me. Her legs were already turning, the swinging slowing down until her knees were solid and it stopped altogether. ¡°Angel, will Hex and the babies¡ª¡± The stone covered up her mouth before she could finish asking, closing over her head and swallowing up her wings. The answer was probably not. If something came at night, there wouldn¡¯t be anything I could do. But I told Moonie, ¡°I¡¯ll protect them,¡± anyway just before the stone flowed up and over me. Her face couldn¡¯t change, but I could tell she felt better hearing me say it. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. That night stretched out longer than any other night I¡¯d lived through. I watched the piece of the forest floor I could see with my frozen eyes. Things moved in the dark, but I couldn¡¯t turn to find out what made the noises. Then I got to worrying that maybe it was the stars moving. Maybe they were swimming down from that cold black river. Maybe they had just been waiting for me to look somewhere else so they could catch me unawares. I hurt I was so scared. Every second the stars didn¡¯t attack, the pain clenched tighter. When the music started, it was such a shock that I almost moved. This hot sizzle shot through my guts and legs and shoulders, and the stone over my littlest finger cracked. It filled back in right away. The music floated up from Moonie. It was her nighttime song. I¡¯d been thinking too hard about Hex on the ground and the stars creeping behind me. I¡¯d forgotten where Moonsinger got her name¡ªshe sang when the moon came out. It wasn¡¯t a mouth-moving song. The music came out from the stone, like her whole body was making it. I couldn¡¯t see the moon yet, but the way she was looking, she must be able to. The fear pain eased then. The moon was good. It would fight the stars off if they tried to come. Take Wing Finally the night stretched too thin and the black water ran out of it. Green and yellow and orange light climbed into the sky, and the stone around us broke away. We had survived. I leapt off the branch, flapping my wings to shake off the last shards, and crowed glory at the top of my lungs. ¡°Shut up, shut up!¡± Hex screamed, huddling over her babies. Somewhere far away, Johnny crowed back. Thrasher came in on the tail end of Johnny¡¯s. I waited for Moose. It sounded like we all were waiting. Then I remembered he wasn¡¯t going to crow and let loose again. ¡°You¡¯re going to bring the gods!¡± Hex hopped off her babies and chased me a few strides from her nest, swinging fists at me and beating her wings, then ran back. ¡°No I¡¯m not.¡± The gods never came when we crowed. ¡°They¡¯re not looking for us guys, they¡¯re looking for girls.¡± That shut Hex up. I was right. No gods showed up. Thrasher did, though. ¡°You¡¯re nesting?¡± He scowled at Hex, her stone babies, and her dead tree. ¡°Here?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good spot! You wouldn¡¯t have found it if Angelpunk wasn¡¯t here yelling.¡± He glared at me. ¡°Get out of here. Hex isn¡¯t yours.¡± The witch queens weren¡¯t anybody¡¯s. Not really, not like the bearded ladies had been Moose¡¯s. They went with whoever they wanted to whenever they wanted to. ¡°Why? I was going to show her and Moonie my mating dance.¡± Hex rolled her eyes. Moonie perked up on her perch, a big smile on her face. ¡°I¡¯d like to see that.¡± This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Thrasher¡¯s spurs came out. Muscles jumped in his arms and chest. He raised his purple-black wings up over his head because he wanted me to remember how much bigger than me he was. Like I had somehow forgotten. Like I wasn¡¯t always measuring the difference. I stood up tall, puffed up my chest, and stretched my wings out to their full span. The light falling through the thinning leaves made my black feathers gleam with green. Warmth soaked into me where they caught the sun. Then we were crashing across the dead leaves and snapping twigs and cold dirt and small plants while Hex screamed at us to get away. My spurs caught Thrasher a few good warning shots, but his kept coming like I was a monster and he had to kill me or run me off. His eyes said he wanted that first one to happen. He didn¡¯t even yell at me while he slashed and jumped and beat his wings. His everything was focused on killing me. A spur ripped open my jaw. That was way too close to my throat. I was going to die or get injured too bad to fly up in a tree at night. That couldn¡¯t happen. I took off, running blind. Thrasher tore through the underbrush behind me. I jumped up and flapped, banked through a narrow copse. My feet hit the ground on rock and I pushed off again. My wings caught an updraft. I had jumped down from a cliff. The breaking branches and crackling stems tapered off behind me as I whiffed into the shade of some more forest, but I hit the ground still running. I could feel the wounds now, cold spots opening into my hot insides. When had Thrasher got me in the stomach? I didn¡¯t remember him tearing open my thigh, either, but it was right there, dangerously near my groin. I slowed down. Limped a ways, looking at the trees and panting. I didn¡¯t recognize the white bark peeling off these trunks or the yellow leaves fluttering down around me. A few paces later, the trees ended in a thicket of berry bushes. Over the thorny canes, I could see forever stretching out in tall grass. No sound or sign of Thrasher. No sign of anybody. I picked a few berries and looked closer. I was alone, plus I could always heal when the stone sleep came over me. I might not always be able to find something to eat. The berries were the red and black kind that left your fingers bright, bloody magenta and made you vomit and dump for hours. I chucked the ones I¡¯d picked over my shoulder. Two bounced off my right wing. I slipped through a break in the brambles. The tall grass swayed and twisted like a giant wingtip was smoothing across it. The wind whispered through the bobbing seed heads. I had never been in that kind of tall grass before. Its tops tickled my face and chest and arms as I walked into it. There was no tree cover. Anything in the sky would see me, and I wouldn¡¯t be able to hide. But there was a hill up ahead. From the top of that, I could figure out where I was and find my way back home. Grassland Journey At the top of the hill, I spotted the cliff I had jumped off of, way back on the other side of the yellow leaf forest. But off in the distance in the opposite direction, there was something I¡¯d never seen before. Stone cliffs lined up like trees. Every edge of them was sheer, straight, the tops were perfectly straight, and none of the cliffs leaned at all. A forest of stone. I wanted to see more of it, figure out what it was about, so I went that way. I had to stop once and duck down in the tall grass, because a shadow passed over me, but it was just a cloud covering the sun. When I was sure the cloud was leaving, I got back up and started moving again. The cliffs were farther away than they looked. I panicked a little when I realized red water was running into the sky behind me. Night was coming. I turned in a circle, looking for a tree or something I could climb up on before the stone covered me. Nothing. The woods had disappeared in the tall grass, and the only high thing in any direction was those straight cliffs. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I took off running, opened my wings, and pounded the air until I was half flying and half leaping through the waving grass. Thistles and seedheads smacked my legs and slapped my shorts. Between hot, short breaths, I hollered. No words. Just a sound to call somebody to me so I wouldn¡¯t die alone on the ground when the night sleep came. Nobody came except the dark. The shadows around the tall grass swallowed me up, stone right on its heels. It pulled me down, down, out of the air. My legs dragged, feet tangling in the knots of dead grass. My wings flapped as hard as they could, trying to keep me up, but finally the cold stillness bit into my wings and I fell out of flight. My shouting stopped against my will, and I lay there silent, sidelong, my face pressed to the settling, jagged pieces of broken-off grass. Darkness climbed over everything. I knew the stars were bobbing up in their black water, glaring down at me. This was when they would do it. While I couldn¡¯t watch them, they would finally get me. And if the hateful stars didn¡¯t come tonight, the monsters would. I was right there, lying on the ground where anything could get me. Easy food. The fear pain was so bad that I stopped being me and became just that endless, sick, deep-down screaming ache. Moonie, please start singing. Please see the moon. Please let me hear some music. Please. Please. Please. Silent Song The moon came out and saved me. My stone-covered face was turned the wrong way to see it appear, but its silver light made shadows out of the grass all around me, so sharp that they looked like a new kind of grass I could touch if I could move. Somewhere back in the woods, our woods, with the right colored leaves and the safe high branches and the hot springs, Moonie would be singing to it. Maybe her song was what convinced the moon to protect me. I didn¡¯t know any other reason it would have to look until it found me all the way out there. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. It shined on me all night. I heard things moving in the far-off grass, but none ever came close to me. The moon kept them away. Stone Forest I crowed for a long time when the night sleep left. Not just because I was happy I¡¯d made it to morning in the worst spot possible, but because I wanted to hear if anybody else would join in. No sound came back to me but the wind smoothing across the tall grass. If Johnny and Thrasher had survived the night, their crows were too far away for me to hear. I needed to get back, to find Moonsinger and tell her how her song had kept me safe. Maybe I could do something for her, like find that knife me and Trashhead had been fighting over and give it to her. Surely she would have the sense to keep it hidden from him. Then it would be like I was protecting her when I wasn¡¯t around. A girl angel that small could use all the protection she could get. But the only thing I could see in any direction was those cliffs, straight up and down at the edge of the world. From the top of one of those, I ought to be able to get up high enough to see my way back home. I didn¡¯t mess around this time. Walking was too slow. I still had a ways to go, so I took off at a run, then snapped open my wings. The warm air coming off the grass lifted me up. I let it. I didn¡¯t see any dangerous shapes flying overhead, but if I did, I could dive down into the tall grass. It was the most beautiful feeling to fly out in the open. No branches or trunks to avoid. I could glide in a perfect straight line forever. I shut my eyes for long times and felt the wind and the sun rushing past. They ruffled and warmed my hair and feathers at the same time. I only looked around me now and then to make sure there were no monsters flying overhead or following me on the ground. The forest of cliffs got closer and closer. They were darker than the cliffs back in my woods. A dark gray. And straighter. Not just sheer, but straight up and down, and bits of them glared and sparkled in the sunlight. The sun was just past its highest perch of the day when the tall grass ran out below me. In its place was a shore of black sand, but I didn¡¯t see any creek running alongside it. I angled my wings and glided down. The sand didn¡¯t shift and move when I landed. It was solid as dried mud, and it burned my feet. The black had taken in the sunlight and stored it, the same way my black feathers did. I ran a few steps and took off again. I needed to get into the shadow of the cliffs, where the ground would be cool. Heat shimmered and rose from that black beach, easily lifting me up. When I made it to the closest cliff, I saw those things that had been sparkling in the sunlight. They were squares of clear stone. In one, I saw my reflection and behind that, a guy angel with white feathers and a soft poof of yellow hair. ¡°Hey.¡± I whipped my wings, turning myself around to meet him. But I was flying alone. I turned back. He was frowning at me from the clear stone. His lips moved, but I couldn¡¯t hear him. I reached out and touched his face. It was stone. Flat, not in the shape of the face I could see. I hung there flapping, trying to figure him out. He stood in the clear stone of the cliff, trying to figure me out. This guy didn¡¯t look like the angels I¡¯d seen before. His pants were long, and he was wearing a shirt. I had only seen ladies wear shirts. His body was shaped different than mine or Johnny¡¯s or even Thrasher¡¯s. Wide and soft-looking. Before, Moose had been the fattest angel I¡¯d ever seen. His belly had hung over his shorts a little, but that belly had been hard as a rock, and his arms and chest had been all stringy muscle. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. This guy was wide all the way around, and all of it looked soft, like puff flowers before you squeeze the fluffy seeds out and watch them float away in the wind. There was something else about him. He was too clean. There was no mud on his feathers or burrs in his hair or clothes. And he had shoes on his feet. How was he supposed to use his ankle spurs? Moonie was the only angel I¡¯d ever known who wore shoes, and just because she liked how they looked. They weren¡¯t good for anything real. He pulled a plastic square out of his pants pocket. I¡¯d seen tons of those in god drops. They were more useless than shoes. This one, he held to his face and started silently talking again. I was getting annoyed with not knowing what he was saying, plus my wings were tired. I didn¡¯t usually fly so long in one day. I banked and circled back until I made it to the bottom in the shade of the cliff face. There, the black sand was warm but not hot enough to burn my feet. ¡°Watch where you¡¯re landing!¡± a thick girl angel snapped at me, then strutted off, swishing her long blue skirt and shaking out her white wings in irritation. Now that I was down on the ground and looking, I could see white wings everywhere. Every angel around this forest of cliffs had wings as white as new snow during the killing cold. They all had shoes on, and even the male angels wore shirts. Lots of them were looking down at plastic squares in their hands or holding them to their faces and talking. A few scowled my way, wrinkling up their noses, without slowing down. I backed up until my wings were pressed against the stone. There were so many angels in just that small space around the cliff that it made my skin crawl. How many of the guys were like Thrasher and wanted to take a piece out of my hide for no reason? And the noise. It was like a rain of talking. Everybody¡¯s words were falling out at once. I couldn¡¯t see how they could understand each other, or if they were even trying to. ¡°Oh, hello.¡± A girl angel had stopped beside me. She was smiling at me, not wrinkling up her nose in disgust. Her eyes were the warm dark brown color of the ground under dead leaves, and her feathers were that bright, perfect white. Long white hair waved down around her round shoulders and huge breasts. She wore one of those sundresses like Moonie had found in the last god drop, but it clung to the swell of her chest and her wide, curvy hips instead of hanging like moss on a stick. This girl looked so soft. Like if I put my hand on her, it would sink in. All the ladies I knew back home were wiry and sharp. Even their hair looked tougher than hers. Their feathers were made for blending into the underbrush. Hers glowed in the sunlight. ¡°Um, I said hello.¡± ¡°To me?¡± I couldn¡¯t believe that. She giggled. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°H-hi.¡± ¡°Hi.¡± Her skin was as pale as everybody else in this place, but red splotches were growing in her cheeks. ¡°Are you too hot?¡± ¡°No.¡± She tucked some of that wavy white hair behind her ear. Then she shrugged. ¡°Well, maybe. It is hot outside today.¡± ¡°You should open your wings,¡± I said. ¡°You get more breeze that way.¡± She looked around at the other angels, then lifted her wings a little. ¡°Like this.¡± I stretched my wings up and out to their full span. I was overheating, too, but not from the weather. The air slipped between my feathers, but didn¡¯t do much to cool me down. I¡¯ve got pretty impressive feathers, though, especially when they catch the light, so I didn¡¯t fold my wings back in yet. ¡°I¡¯m Angelpunk.¡± She looked at my wings, then ducked her head a little, the flush in her cheeks darkening. ¡°It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you, Angelpunk. My name is Cherie.¡± ¡°Do you want to see my mating dance?¡± She cocked her head. ¡°Mating dance?¡± ¡°It¡¯s like¡­¡± I tried to think of a way to explain something everybody already knew. At least, I¡¯d thought everybody knew what it was. ¡°It¡¯s when a male sort of spreads his wings and shuffles and stomps around a female to so she¡¯ll know how¡ª¡± She laughed hard that time and reached for my face. Her hand felt even softer than it looked when it covered my mouth. Softer than down feathers. As soft as sunny-day clouds. ¡°I know what a mating dance is,¡± she said. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize anyone did them in real life. I thought they were just on the ][][] and in ][][.¡± I blinked. I wanted to ask her what those words were that she¡¯d said, but I also didn¡¯t want her to take her hand off me. I snuck my tongue out from between my lips and licked her palm. With a yipe and another laugh, she yanked her hand back. She held it in a fist against her round tummy. ¡°A guy has never done a mating dance for you?¡± I asked. She shook her head. ¡°You¡¯ve never seen one at all?¡± The red spread down around her chin and up to her forehead. ¡°I mean, I¡¯ve watched ][][. Everybody has, haven¡¯t they?¡± She shrugged. She looked up at me. Her brown eyes were so dark under those long, white lashes. I couldn¡¯t get enough of them. ¡°But I¡¯d like to see one in real life. I¡¯d like to see yours.¡± {cave} Cherie lived in one of those cliffs. I¡¯d thought they were solid all the way through, but she led me up to one that had a clear piece of the stone next to the ground, except bigger than the one I¡¯d seen that guy in. I didn¡¯t know what she was doing. Angels were all around us, some of them glaring at me, but most of them ignoring us. She pushed on the clear stone. It went in. There was a cave back in there. She stepped inside, then pressed her wings back against the piece of clear stone and looked at me. ¡°Aren¡¯t you coming?¡± ¡°How did you make it go in like that?¡± I frowned at the stone. ¡°I pushed that one up high on the cliffside, and it didn¡¯t move.¡± She grinned. It was one of those confused bearded lady grins, except prettier. ¡°The what?¡± Cherie couldn¡¯t be stronger than me. That¡¯s not how muscles work. Girls don¡¯t get more of them than guys, and the ones they have aren¡¯t stronger. Even a scrawny guy, like Johnny, was stronger than Hex, and she was the strongest girl I knew. I didn¡¯t know how to say what I meant about the clear stone, though, so I just shrugged. I cared a lot less about figuring out the answer than I did about Cherie wanting to see my mating dance. Better not chance her changing her mind. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. I followed her inside. It was big for a cave, and dry. Just like the outside, everything line weirdly straight. She followed me away from that pushed-in clear stone and it fell backward, until it closed off the cave entrance. I stopped where I was. ¡°You can get that open again, right?¡± She giggled and nodded. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she pulled the clear stone this time. That looked like it took a little more work. ¡°Good.¡± Then something else occurred to me. ¡°Can monsters get in, too?¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s protected against anything but angels. See the [][][][][][?¡± She pointed at the clear stone when she said it. ¡°This?¡± I pushed it. It didn¡¯t move. ¡°No, this.¡± She grabbed my hand, separated my fingers, and stuck one on the stone at about my waist-height. There was a dip there, almost too small to see, but my fingers could hook into it. I leaned back like she had and pulled. It opened. ¡°There¡¯s a [][][][][][ on the other side, too,¡± she said. ¡°You push that one. Well, if you¡¯ve got fingers, you can. Monsters don¡¯t have fingers, only claws.¡± ¡°Tell me about it.¡± I grinned and pointed to the scars raked down my side. She gasped, pressing a delicate hand to her lips. ¡°You¡¯ve seen a monster?¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t?¡± ¡°They don¡¯t often come this far in, and never before dark. Everyone¡¯s inside by then.¡± ¡°In a cave?¡± ¡°In their []][][[.¡± Maybe that was just how they said cave. ¡°So what do the guys do around here? Just find food and god drops and stuff?¡± That sounded pretty good. She laughed. ¡°The gods put our food in our []][][[.¡± {cave} I said in my head. Cherie went on talking. ¡°No one has to look for it.¡± She rolled her dark eyes and shrugged, giving a little shimmy of the wings. ¡°Unless they¡¯re really dumb. Then the gods kind of have to push them toward it. After a while, even the really dumb ones start to recognize that it¡¯s their food.¡± That didn¡¯t sound like the gods I knew. Maybe they had different ones here. ¡°So, do you want to see my mating dance now?¡± I opened my wings and raised my arms. Cherie¡¯s face turned that pretty red again. ¡°Wait! Come to my {cave}. No one will see us there.¡± Flying I¡¯d thought we were already in her cave, but Cherie¡¯s cave was actually way in from the entrance, completely out of the sunlight. We climbed up a steep tunnel¡ªall straight, perfect lines again¡ªfor several long minutes. Twice, Cherie needed to stop so she could catch her breath. She smiled while she leaned against the wall, but wouldn¡¯t quite look in my eyes. ¡°Sorry I¡¯m so slow,¡± she panted. ¡°I used to climb these ][[[][] so easily.¡± In my head, I translated ][[[][] to {steep tunnels}. I didn¡¯t know why she was embarrassed. Her breasts looked beautiful heaving like that, and the red spots on her pale cheeks were pretty. ¡°How far up is it?¡± I asked, but she was puffing too hard to answer right away. ¡°Why don¡¯t you just fly?¡± ¡°Fly?¡± Even out of breath, she sounded like she didn¡¯t understand the word. Like how I would if I tried to say ][[[][]. I opened my wings and flapped up a few tunnels, then glided back down. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I started to say, ¡°Like that,¡± but when I got back to her, her eyes were full of tears. Her harsh panting broke for a second while she swallowed, then started up again. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Her hand shook as she reached up and scrubbed her eyes with her wrist. ¡°It¡­ You¡¯re just¡­ When you did that, it was so beautiful. You¡¯re so beautiful.¡± I laughed. ¡°A guy can¡¯t be beautiful. Girls are beautiful. Rain flashes are beautiful. Pretty-berries are beautiful, if you hold them up to the sun. Not guys.¡± ¡°You were.¡± One more tear dripped from her white eyelashes. She craned her neck to look up the steep tunnel to where I¡¯d flown. ¡°What you did was looked so perfect and right.¡± She pressed a hand to her soft belly. ¡°I could feel it inside of me. Can you do it again?¡± I looked up the tunnel. ¡°Sure.¡± I picked her up with my arms around her waist and wrapped her legs around my hips. That pushed back the skirt of her sundress, showing off pale pink thighs like early morning clouds. ¡°Hang on.¡± I jumped and really stretched out my wings, slamming the air with everything I had. Cherie yelped and smashed her face against my neck. I grinned. She was heavier than a log or a stone or Moonie, but she wasn¡¯t sharp or rough or awkward to carry. Cherie fitted perfectly against me, her softness squishing in all the right places. I flew us up until the steep tunnels ended. Realizing we¡¯d stopped, she raised her head and looked around. ¡°Oh. My {cave} is down there.¡± She pointed. ¡°You missed by three {steep tunnels}.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all right, we¡¯re not done yet,¡± I said. ¡°Gliding is the best part.¡± I angled my wings and jumped out into open air. She screamed. The Same After we made it back down to her cave¡¯s level, Cherie was still breathless, but it was a lot better kind of breathless. A hungry sort of breathless. My heart kicked and crashed around inside my chest from the excitement and the hard flying and more. I squeezed her tight to me. She sighed in my ear. I wanted to keep squeezing until she popped or smashed into my skin and became part of me, but I set her down so she could stand on the ground. Cherie grabbed my hand, her brilliant white wings trembling. ¡°This way.¡± She shouldered in another stone. Unlike the one outside, this one was gray, and the tunnel on the other side was dark. But she pulled me along it, turning a couple times, before shoving one last stone out of our way. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The stone ground shut behind me. Then her soft, wide lips were all over my face, and I was backed up against the cave wall. It was like she felt the same way about smashing into my skin. Like maybe she and I wanted all the same things and we could both tell what they were. I spun us around so she was against the wall. I squeezed and kissed and mashed my face against her cheeks and shoulder and breasts. She giggled and breathed and moaned and rubbed her hands over my face and shoulders and chest and arms like she wanted to feel all of me at once. Just like I wanted her. We want everything the same. We¡¯re the same. Maybe I thought it. Maybe she thought it. Whoever did, it made me want to crow with happiness. We didn¡¯t get around to the mating dance then, but I showed her later. Safe Night I didn¡¯t know it was getting dark out until the numbness and stone started creeping up from my toes. She sighed, ¡°Good night, Angelpunk,¡± and nestled deeper into my arms. ¡°You¡¯re sure no monsters can get into this place?¡± Her hair slid against my skin when she nodded. Before the stone closed over my face, I did a quick search for some sort of opening to the sky, but there was nothing. The stars could never find us in this cave. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The whole night through, I listened to make sure she was right about the monsters. She was. We were safe. Really safe. Hours later, when the stone started to break away, I jumped out of Cherie¡¯s arms and crowed at the top of my lungs because tomorrow night I wouldn¡¯t have to listen or watch for anything. I wouldn¡¯t have to wait, dying in terror, for the stars to creep down from the black water and drag me up to drown with them. She was grinning up at me like sunshine. ¡°What was that for?¡± I snorted. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me your guys don¡¯t even crow. What are they for?¡± She laughed and pulled me back down into the nest with her. Differences We were hungry later, so Cherie showed me her food. It was all together in one place, in a big stone hollow in the corner. I skimmed my fingers through it. It sifted like sand. ¡°Did you collect all this?¡± ¡°A god brought it.¡± I put a tiny pinch of it my mouth. It tasted like the grain heads you eat when you can¡¯t find any meat or fruit. ¡°You can have more than that,¡± she said. ¡°If it gets low, a god will refill it again.¡± I couldn¡¯t believe that. ¡°The best they ever bring us is some clothes or a knife.¡± Her pale eyebrows stretched up toward her hairline when I said that. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re supposed to have a knife,¡± she said. I shrugged. ¡°Then why did they drop it for us?¡± ¡°I-I don¡¯t know.¡± She blinked and shook her head, pulling back a little. ¡°You don¡¯t have a knife here, do you?¡± ¡°Nah, it got lost when I fought with Thrasher¡ªanother guy on the Range. But I¡¯ve got my spurs, so I don¡¯t really need one. You¡¯d think a girl would want some kind of weapon since you don¡¯t have any spurs.¡± Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°We don¡¯t need any. The gods protect us.¡± ¡°That must be nice,¡± I said, thinking of the night before, hidden away from the stars and monsters. ¡°It is.¡± She offered me a handful of food. Since there was nothing else and I didn¡¯t know where to find better stuff, I ate a couple handfuls. It was easier to chew than grain heads, but it made me just as thirsty. ¡°Is there a stream in this {cave}?¡± I asked her. She giggled, then asked me to say {cave} again. ¡°Did I say it wrong?¡± Cherie shook her head. ¡°I like the way you speak. There isn¡¯t a stream in the {cave}, but there¡¯s water over there.¡± I stared at the shiny stick she¡¯d pointed at. It sat on the ledge of another stone hollow. ¡°Here?¡± ¡°Here.¡± She pushed the stick. Water fell from it into the hollow. She kept pushing until it filled the stone to its ledge, then she pulled it. The stream stopped. She scooped out a handful and sipped it. Everything Cherie did was so dainty. Even shaking the excess water from her hand. She smiled self-consciously when she saw the way I was looking at her. ¡°What?¡± She wiped her lips with the back of her wrist. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Nothing. You¡¯re just great.¡± With the food and water and each other there, we could¡¯ve stayed right there forever. We didn¡¯t leave all that day. ¡°Why do you think the gods don¡¯t bring you food or protect you from monsters?¡± Cheri asked later on. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe they don¡¯t like us as much as they like you.¡± She frowned. ¡°But why?¡± ¡°Maybe because our guys have spurs and like to crow and our girls are always trying to hide their stone babies in the woods so they can keep them.¡± I thought about the time a god had stopped me and Thrasher fighting, how it had picked me up, and I¡¯d bitten it and gotten thrown me across the clearing. Then I looked at Cherie¡¯s soft white feathers and downy hair. She was so different from us. Getting kicked around by a god? That would break every bone in her body. I hadn¡¯t seen much of the guy Angels around here, but I got the feeling they wouldn¡¯t even survive a spurring. ¡°Maybe they know they¡¯ve got to take care of you,¡± I said. ¡°I would.¡± Promises We stayed in Cherie¡¯s cave for four whole days and nights. I didn¡¯t see the sun or the moon that whole time. I didn¡¯t miss them. I never even thought about them until the stone sleep came or left. All I thought about was her¡ªsqueezing her soft body, smoothing my hands over her feathers, rubbing my nose against her silky white eyelashes. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯ve been here this whole time and I never knew it,¡± I told her. ¡°Right? Doesn¡¯t it feel as if we should have felt each other?¡± She scrubbed her round cheek against my chest. ¡°As soon as I saw you, I felt like I had been waiting my whole life for you to find me.¡± I laughed. ¡°Sorry I took so long.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°I¡¯m just glad you¡¯re here now. Stay with me?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll stay ¡¯til you¡¯re just bones picked clean. Or I am. One of us.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She kissed me. ¡°That¡¯s forever. Nobody dies here.¡± ¡°I might.¡± You could tell from her face that she didn¡¯t like me saying that. She pushed up on her elbows so she could look into my eyes. ¡°Why might you die?¡± I shrugged, and the movement of my wings rustled her nest underneath us. ¡°The Angels where I come from died all the time. Monsters got them, or they ate something bad, or got sick or hurt, or walked off into the woods and never came back. It just happens.¡± ¡°But monsters never come in this far, and as long as you get inside before the night sleep, nothing can get you. All my food is safe, and so is my water, and no one here ever gets sick. As long as you don¡¯t walk off, you¡¯ll be safe with me forever.¡± ¡°All right,¡± I said. ¡°I won¡¯t walk off.¡± Me promising made her feel better. She settled back down and snuggled up to my side. ¡°I won¡¯t either,¡± she promised. ¡°Maybe I couldn¡¯t feel you before we met, but I would now if I lost you.¡± Chosen Every now and then, Cherie¡¯s square piece of plastic would make this weird trill like a rainfrog someone had squeezed. Whenever it did, she picked it up and stroked it or talked to it, and it calmed down. ¡°Do you have to feed it, too?¡± I asked her. She thought that was hilarious, even though I really wanted to know. ¡°You don¡¯t have ]][[]][ on the Range, then?¡± she asked, meaning the square of plastic. ¡°I¡¯ve seen them in god drops.¡± ¡°Maybe the gods put them there so you would take one. They give all of us {squares of plastic}.¡± I couldn¡¯t imagine carrying around a piece of plastic I had to take care of. It was enough work just keeping myself and the girls alive. ¡°What would I want one for? I get sick and tired of talking to just Thrasher and the others, I don¡¯t need a piece of plastic I¡¯d have to talk to on top of them.¡± ¡°But if you had a {square of plastic}, you could talk to other Angels even when they were far away.¡± ¡°If I¡¯m far away, it¡¯s because I don¡¯t want to talk to them.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Cherie set her piece of plastic down and climbed back into the nest with me. ¡°I like how strange you are.¡± She licked my bottom lip. ¡°How you don¡¯t think you need anything you don¡¯t already have.¡± ¡°If I needed something I don¡¯t have, I would¡¯ve died without it a long time ago.¡± Maybe she needed her piece of plastic, though. Maybe that was another reason the gods had to take care of the Angels here. She trailed her hair across my face as a joke, and I twisted my fingers in its silky white strands and tugged her down for a kiss. Later on when her {square of plastic} started yelling again, she told me, ¡°There¡¯s a [][][]]]][[]]][ nearby tomorrow, and I was chosen for it.¡± She held it up and pointed to it. ¡°A [][][]]]][[]]][ is like our version of a god drop, except the gods stay there to hand things out to the Angels they¡¯ve chosen. Do you want to come with me or stay here?¡± Before I could answer, she rolled her eyes. ¡°It¡¯s going to take hours. I wouldn¡¯t go, except I¡¯ve been dying for the new {square of plastic}. Every time I walk past somebody, it seems as if they already have one.¡± Something about the way she said it made me feel bad for her, like nobody wanted her to have the one thing she wanted, like the gods and everybody else were against her. ¡°This is the first time I¡¯ve ever been one of the chosen.¡± I would¡¯ve rather stayed there in her cave, just us, but I did want to see what their god drops were like here. Anyway, if Cherie was going somewhere, I wanted to go with her. Maybe it really was safe in the stone forest and nothing could get her, but I wasn¡¯t going to take any chances and leave her alone with nobody to protect her. ¡°All right,¡± I said. Then, to make her laugh and forget about the pain of never being chosen before, I tried to repeat the words she¡¯d said. ¡°Let¡¯s go to your {god drop} and get you your new {square of plastic}.¡± Changing Season The air had changed when we went out the next morning. Our breath turned into puffs of white and drifted away. I shivered. Cherie pulled her round face down lower in her heavy red coat. I puffed up my feathers to trap some heat around my wings, then cupped my wings around my back to stop the wind. Angels all around us were bundled up like they thought the killing cold was already there. They hunched down inside their clothes, hurrying to wherever they were headed, every now and then throwing sidelong glares at me. I watched them go. It got a lot colder than this on the Range. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°I could ask for some cold season clothes for you,¡± Cherie said, eyeing my bare arms and chest. ¡°I¡¯ve heard that a chosen one gets to ask the gods for anything they want.¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. Anyway, there¡¯ll be jackets and stuff at the god drops soon. There always are around this time. I¡¯ll get one then. This is your chance to get the new {square of plastic}.¡± ¡°But¡ª¡± I shook my head. ¡°We¡¯ve still got some warm afternoons for a while. I won¡¯t need a coat until the killing cold comes and it¡¯s frozen all day long.¡± Her lips were hidden behind the top button of her coat, but her scrunched up pale eyebrows gave away the frown. She stuck her arm through mine, puffy from her coat and the natural softness of her body, and pulled me along. ¡°Come on. It¡¯s this way.¡± Cold Day God Drop Their god drop wasn¡¯t scattered out in a clearing somewhere like ours. It was inside another huge straight stone cliff with a stone that opened so you could get into the cave inside. Outside the cliff, angels in heavy coats were lined up, shifting from foot to foot and puffing up their feathers to keep their wings warm while they waited. The angels who were just arriving were cramming themselves into the line wherever they could. ¡°There¡¯s a spot!¡± Cherie pointed, but it was already being taken by a guy twice as wide as he was tall. She started to look for another, but they were filling up fast. There wasn¡¯t time to stand around and look, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her along. Over there. I shouldered us into a spot between a guy wearing a black coat with white sleeves and matching black and white shoes, and a girl with coat past her knees that buttoned all the way down. ¡°Hey!¡± the girl snarled. ¡°What?¡± I said. She made a disgusted sound in her throat that reminded me of the witch queens, but instead of telling me to get pecked, she crossed her arms and scowled at a stone cliff in the opposite direction. The guy in black and white glared over his shoulder at us, but when he met my eyes, he turned back around, muttering to his square of plastic. Cherie hugged my arm and her wings gave an excited flutter. ¡°Oh, I hope I get in!¡± she moaned. ¡°If I could just be chosen¡­¡± ¡°I thought you already were?¡± She bit her lip. ¡°But what if they stop the {god drop} before I make it inside? What if they run out of the new {squares of plastic}? What if¡­¡± The tops of her cheeks were already red from the cold wind, but they blushed darker. ¡°What if I get inside and the gods un-choose me? What if they don¡¯t want me?¡± Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I squeezed her to my side. ¡°Who wouldn¡¯t want you?¡± The line of angels inched forward, the guy at the front disappearing through the swinging stone. This one wasn¡¯t clear like the one on Cherie¡¯s cliff, but a shiny gold like the sunlight. All around it, angels had been carved into the stone, their wings stretched high above their heads like they were about to take off, except that all those shiny gold angels had all been carved upside down. I laughed and pointed it out to Cherie. She didn¡¯t think it was very funny. ¡°I don¡¯t get [][[]. Why do they always have to make something wrong with it? That doesn¡¯t make it good.¡± ¡°You think they put them upside down on purpose?¡± She looked up through her pale lashes at me. ¡°You don¡¯t?¡± ¡°If it was me, and I was embarrassed that I¡¯d made it wrong, I would say I did it on purpose, too.¡± That got her to laugh. The sun¡¯s light shined on the tops of the cliffs, creeping slowly downward toward the ground between them. You could tell from the intensity of the glare that it was going to feel nice when it reached us. A little bit at a time, the line of angels moved forward. Nobody fought or threatened each other. Nobody talked to each other, but some angels talked to their squares of plastic. Most of the rest stood there stroking them so they wouldn¡¯t make noise the whole time. The angels around me and Cherie kept glaring our way. We weren¡¯t exactly keeping it quiet. I liked making Cherie laugh and I liked holding onto her, so I kept doing both while we waited. Big deal if they didn¡¯t like it. The guys were probably just jealous that I had a girl like her, and the girls were probably jealous that they weren¡¯t her. As we got closer, though, Cherie laughed less and stared more at the gold stone letting angels inside the cliff. When there was nobody left between us and the door but the guy in all black and white, she couldn¡¯t hold it in anymore. ¡°I know you don¡¯t want me to ask about a coat for you,¡± she started. I let my head fall back on my shoulders. ¡°Ah, not this again.¡± ¡°But I¡¯m going to.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t even need one yet. See?¡± I held my hand out. ¡°The air¡¯s already warmer. When the sun gets overhead, it¡¯ll be hot.¡± She frowned. ¡°I don¡¯t like only getting something for me.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need anything.¡± I squeezed her again and kissed her on top of her soft, wavy white hair. ¡°I¡¯ve already got everything I want right here.¡± Open The golden stone swung open with a scraping sound and the guy in black and white went into the cave. It banged shut behind him. There was no one left between me and Cherie and the god drop. She looked at me, her dark eyes shining with excitement and anticipation and still a little bit of that fear of being rejected by the gods. Her white lashes fluttered, and her soft body shivered. She took a deep breath, but she couldn¡¯t say anything. I hugged her. Over Cherie¡¯s wing, the woman in the long button-up coat looked disgusted. I gave her a nasty leer, and she turned away, nose in the air. Too easy. Nobody was going to look disgusted at my girl. I kept one arm around Cherie¡¯s waist and reached out to touch those gold upside-down angels surrounding the golden stone, curious what they felt like. The gold looked like it should be warm from the sun, but the upside-down angels were cold. There weren¡¯t any bumps or rough patches. Like a rock in the river or the front of Cherie¡¯s square piece of plastic, but even smoother. So smooth it made my fingertips feel oily. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. I was going to tell Cherie, but when I looked at her face, I could see she didn¡¯t want to talk. We were too close to the thing she¡¯d been waiting for her whole life. She might be scared, but she was also thrilled, and she just wanted to feel that thrill. She was beautiful. When she saw the way I was smiling at her, she grinned and leaned into my side, folding one of her soft white wings around my back. The golden stone swung open. Cherie made an awed cooing sound deep in her throat. I couldn¡¯t talk or breathe, I just stared. Golden light shined out of the cave, making the upside-down angels on either side of the swinging stone glint brighter than the meanest rays of sunlight. Somewhere past the paralyzing wonder, a part of me thought, But they¡¯re still cold. Touch them. They¡¯ll feel as cold as ice on the creek. And slipperier. I rubbed my thumb over my fingertips again, remembering that oily feeling. Without looking away from that golden light, Cherie laced her fingers through mine. She took a deep breath, straightened her clothes, set her wings and shoulders, and stepped toward the open stone. Together, we walked inside. The Cave of the Gods The light shining out of the god drop was too bright to see anything but each other, but as soon as we stepped inside, my feathers prickled and stood on end. That stink. Blood and something worse¡ªthe insides of a body, outside. I yanked Cherie to a stop beside me. ¡°Angelpunk, what¡ª¡± ¡°Get out.¡± I shoved her behind me and flared my wings, high and wide, even though I knew I couldn¡¯t intimidate that smell away. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Cherie sounded amused, like she thought this was another time where I didn¡¯t understand something from her world. But I understood the stink of fresh death. I had never smelled so much of it in one place before, but I knew what it was. I put out my spurs. ¡°Get out of here. Go!¡± Behind us, the gold stone scraped as it swung shut. It banged into place, and my heart started pounding so hard that I had to strain to hear anything over it. That golden light filling the cave dimmed. As it did, the towering bodies of gods appeared, shining and strange and completely bald of feathers. And covered in blood and yellow chunks of fat. One of the gods held a huge knife in a fist and the angel guy in all black and white who¡¯d been ahead of us earlier in the other. The guy dangled upside down by one leg, his arms and wings hanging over his head, just like the gold angels that surrounded the stone outside. Blood had ran from a slash across his throat, streaking his cheeks and speckling his wings with red. The god with the knife handed him to another god, who started stripping off the angel guy¡¯s black and white shoes and clothes. Onto the pile went his black coat with the white sleeves, his pants, the square of plastic he¡¯d been talking to. Meanwhile the blood dripped down the expression of shock on the guy¡¯s face. I heard the gods speaking, their voices like overflowing rivers and far-off thunder. The god with the knife frowned at me. The clothes-stripping god laughed and swung the angel, naked, pale, and bloodless, onto a wide ledge. The god pulled out a knife, slit open the bloodless angel¡¯s belly, and started scooping guts out with its huge hand. The angel guy¡¯s pale, fatty skin stretched tight over the god¡¯s huge, digging hand. Over the pounding in my ears, I could hear the wet squelching. My head felt hot and like it was full of down feathers. Protect her, protect Cherie, was all I could think. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. On the other side of the ledge, away from the pile of clothes and shoes and plastic squares, was a neat stack. I couldn¡¯t make sense of it at first. I didn¡¯t know what those things were that looked like angels, but with wings made of flesh. Then I saw the god had finished scooping out the angel guy¡¯s guts and had started pulling feathers out of his wings. I swayed on the spot. Red came into the sides of my vision. That was a stack of angel bodies. Bloodless. Featherless. Belly skin hanging limp and stretched over emptied guts. Mouths hanging open like they couldn¡¯t believe this had happened. The gods kept talking, more than I¡¯d ever heard a god talk before, back and forth between them, just like angels do when we¡¯re together. I couldn¡¯t understand most of it, but I heard my name and Cherie¡¯s. She heard it, too. ¡°Yes? That¡¯s me. I¡¯m Cherie.¡± She tried to get around me, but I held her back with one arm. Did she not see what was going on? Could she not understand? She might think no one ever died here, but did that mean she couldn¡¯t recognize death when it was all around her? ¡°Stop it, Angelpunk,¡± she said, pushing back against my arm, fighting to get to them. ¡°I¡¯m here, gods, I¡¯m right here! Ouch!¡± She¡¯d cut herself on my elbow spur. The frowning god moved. Its long, long legs put it right in front of us in a single step. Every muscle in my body coiled tight. I¡¯ll kill it. I¡¯ll kill it. I¡¯ll kill it. The god said something. It was talking to me. Its foot came sweeping sideways toward me. I jumped and spurred the god in the leg, beating my wings. The cave shook with the god¡¯s shout. Cherie screamed. I kept throwing my elbow and ankle spurs and battering it with my wings. The god swung its fist at me. I tumbled backward, feet and hands already scrabbling at the ground for some kind of hold. Finally, they caught. I sprinted. My ears were ringing, and my head kept dipping. Night tried to come over me from all sides, but it wasn¡¯t the right time for the stone sleep. I couldn¡¯t slow down or the pain and the sleep would catch me. I ran harder. Something wide and solid slammed into me. It smashed me up against the wall of the cave, and pushed until all my lungs were crushed flat and it felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head. The other god, the one who had eviscerated the angel guy, was smashing me up against the wall with what felt like a tree trunk. I tried to fight, but only one of my legs and a wing was free. They kicked and flapped uselessly while the blood rushed in my ears and filled my head too full and my chest screamed for air. ¡°Angelpunk!¡± Cherie ran toward me. She didn¡¯t know she was supposed to run away. The guys fight so the girls can run and find a safe place to hide. That was how it was supposed to go. The angels here just didn¡¯t know that. The swinging gold door to safety was right there behind her, and she ran toward me. The god with the knife scooped her up. I tried to scream at it, but I didn¡¯t have any air to make a sound. The night was catching up to me, darkness creeping in, but I fought harder. I had to protect her. I got the other wing free, but it wouldn¡¯t flap right. The bones in it were crushed. The god with the tree trunk leaned its weight on me until I couldn¡¯t move at all. The god with the knife turned Cherie upside down, holding her one-handed by both feet. Her beautiful white wings fell over her head, just like the upside-down golden angels, and that wavy white hair trailed down. Her dark eyes were wide, surprised. She reached for me. Her mouth moved, but I couldn¡¯t hear what she was saying anymore. The god¡¯s knife raised. It was getting so dark. So hard to see. I could just barely make out the whitest parts of Cherie¡ªthe feathers, the hair, the eyelashes. Until the blood started pouring from her throat, down her shocked face, and soaking it all black. Sunset in the Tall Grass Air pulled in and out of my lungs. This wasn¡¯t the stone sleep. My chest hurt, but it could still move. I opened my eyes and flinched. The sun felt like spurs to the head, even though it was red and dying at the edge of the world. Every inch of me hurt. My head sloshed when I sat up, and I had to brace myself with both hands to keep from falling over. Dry grass crackled and stung cuts in my palms. I lifted one hand and looked at it. Saw Cherie hanging there with her white wings and long white hair drenched in blood. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. My spurs were still out. I put them away. Put the hand back on the ground and pushed myself to my feet. Swayed. How did I get there? ¡°Cherie?¡± The wind caught my voice and carried it away, hissing over the tall grass. I couldn¡¯t see the stone forest and its perfectly straight cliffs. I couldn¡¯t see the woods of the Range. There was nothing in any direction but brown, dead tall grass. Bent and broken stalks marked the shining path a god had taken. I took a step. Stumbled. Fell to my hands and knees. My wings¡ªone bloody and bent, with a bone sticking out of it¡ªslipped down on either side of me. I rolled onto the side that hurt the least, rested my broken wing on top of me, and closed my eyes to wait for night. Still Here No saving moon swam in the black water that night. The stars were out alone. I watched them with stone-covered eyes, wondering why they never attacked. They¡¯d had so many chances. They had their chance now. But they just stayed up there. Hungry. Hateful. Glaring down at what they wouldn¡¯t come get. The thought of Cherie on that pile of naked, hollow angel bodies burst inside my head. I couldn¡¯t move, couldn¡¯t make a sound through the stone, but the red open wounds inside me roared until the black water shook. Ripples spread out between the stars. They pulled back, ducking down in the water to hide, like a bunch of frightened angels startled in the hot springs. Hiding from me. When the last of the black water drained away and the cowardly stars disappeared, the stone fell away. I stood up, threw my wings and fists out wide, and crowed. Not triumph. Not joy at surviving another night. A warning. The gashes and broken bones were gone, healed by the stone like always, but that rage was still there inside me. Cherie was gone, stolen by the gods, but she was still there. Still mine. Then I heard it. A distant, trilling song. I took a few running steps in that direction, then jumped into the air, taking off. Moonie was somewhere singing. My wingbeats drowned out some of her song, but I caught bits and pieces, things like how Angelpunk had fought a monster with Moose, how he didn¡¯t care that the witch queens and bearded ladies didn¡¯t like him or that Thrasher wanted to fight him. How he once tried to give little Moonie a knife so she would be safe when he wasn¡¯t around, and how if he wasn¡¯t dead, he should come home already. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Fat wet drops hit me, plips against my face and thops on my hair and feathers. Moonie was singing me back, but the rainfrogs must be singing with her, calling down the rain. It hissed against the tall grass below me, splattering back up to make a low, hanging cloud of wet. Finally, trees appeared at the edge of the mist. Their leaves had all gone red or yellow, but I saw the orange-red shade of Moonie¡¯s hair and feathers, hanging and straggly in the rain. She was perched on a broken branch, picking apart the bark while she sang. I banked and headed for her position. She raised her head, saw me, and went back to picking at the bark without even a break in the music. Then her huge, green eyes went wide, and her song screeched up into ear-stabbing range. She launched herself off her perch, waving both bark-stained hands at me and trilling almost too high to hear. She landed at the tree line, bouncing up on her toes and grinning at me and still waving. ¡°You¡¯re back, you¡¯re back, you¡¯re back!¡± Her arms and shoulders were even smaller than I remembered, like twigs covered in skin. The rain weighed down her sundress and her red hair. She fluffed her feathers up some to get them drying. I landed. She checked the sky for danger, then ran out to hug me. She still hadn¡¯t found a new shoe to make up for the one she¡¯d lost. Her right foot was a lot dirtier than it had been when I left. She was so cold that her freckles stood out against her tanned skin. ¡°I told everybody you weren¡¯t dead.¡± She buried her face in my armpit and squeezed me. The soaked sundress skirt slapped my shins and tried to stick. Her sharp little body was nothing but skin and bones everywhere except her stomach. That felt like a smooth round stone poking out. ¡°The moon would have told me if you were.¡± I¡¯d forgotten how dreamy Moonie¡¯s voice was. Light. It sounded like she would drift away if the wind blew too hard. ¡°Nope.¡± I patted the top of her stringy wet hair. ¡°Not dead.¡± ¡°Come on, let¡¯s get out of the wide-open,¡± she said, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me toward the trees. ¡°Everyone will be bathing by now. Let¡¯s go to the hot springs and show them you¡¯re back.¡± Back, I thought. Not dead. Still here. Underbrush Walk I knew where we were now, I recognized the brush there and I could hear the creek off to my left, but I let Moonsinger lead a step or two ahead, so I could have a better view behind us and all around. Compared to out in the tall grass, almost no rain made it through the branches to the ground. The top layer of dead leaves was damp, but not soaked like we were. I shook out my wings and hair, then puffed up my feathers to get them drying. ¡°Moonie¡­¡± She looked over her pointy shoulder at me. ¡°Are you going to nest?¡± She squeezed through some underbrush, her hard round stone of a belly scraping a tree as she did. It looked out of place on her tiny frame. It was a smaller belly than any of the witch queens or bearded ladies had gotten when they were nesting, but still too big for her. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t show me your mating dance,¡± she said, not looking at me. ¡°Come on, you didn¡¯t really want to see it.¡± Her hands made sharp fists at her sides. ¡°You never take me seriously.¡± ¡°You¡¯re so little, Moonie.¡± I sounded tired, more tired than I could even feel without collapsing again. ¡°You don¡¯t understand how little you are.¡± ¡°Thrasher didn¡¯t think so.¡± ¡°Thrasher doesn¡¯t think. At all.¡± That helped some. At least I didn¡¯t sound tired anymore. I put a hand on a fallen tree and vaulted over it. Moonie stopped walking. ¡°Are you mad at me?¡± she asked, finally looking me in the eyes. ¡°No.¡± She turned around and kept going. ¡°You should¡¯ve shown me your mating dance,¡± she said, picking her way around some baby thorn trees. ¡°I would¡¯ve liked it.¡± Hot Spring Return Moonie was like me, she¡¯d never minded the rain, but most of the other angels did. When we got to the hot spring, they were tucked back under the ledge of the cliff, out of the wet. The bearded ladies fawned around Thrasher or fixed each other¡¯s hair and feathers, all of them talking in that constant fast gabble that only another bearded lady could follow. A witch queen, Hiss or Hag¡ªfrom a distance, I wasn¡¯t sure which one she was¡ªtossed Thrasher a little rainfrog she¡¯d caught. He crunched it down while the rest of the witch queens lounged around and glared out at the mist rising off the hot water like they wished it would stop raining so they could get in. Moonie skipped across the rock to them, singing, ¡°Look, everybody, look, Angel¡¯s back! He traveled across the grass and under the open sky and around the world and back again!¡± Thrasher¡¯s bored sneer evaporated. He shoved to his feet. Muscles in his broad chest jumped and his wings opened. It wasn¡¯t even a warning. He just hated me so much he couldn¡¯t keep his wings down when he saw me. ¡°You¡¯re still alive?¡± ¡°Surprise, Trashbrain.¡± I looked around. ¡°Where¡¯s Johnny?¡± ¡°Dead. Rotting, like you¡¯re supposed to be.¡± ¡°Shoulda killed me, then.¡± ¡°Stick around.¡± He took a step toward me. Under the ledge, Hiss rolled onto her side to watch, her black eyes sparkling. Hag scooted so she could see around one of the bearded ladies, who wouldn¡¯t hold still. ¡°The day after you left, Thrasher fought Johnny,¡± the moving bearded lady said, talking as fast as she could. ¡°Thrasher won. It was a great fight. Thrasher¡¯s so strong. So powerful.¡± His head jerked, confirming what she¡¯d said, that he was strong and powerful. A vein stood out in his temple, making the hair there jump with his pulse. ¡°Sure he is,¡± I said, giving him a nasty grin. ¡°Strong enough to kill a little guy like Johnny.¡± Hag stuck up her nose. ¡°Johnny was bigger than you.¡± ¡°You missed me, didn¡¯t you, Hag?¡± ¡°That¡¯s Hex, can¡¯t you tell the difference, look at the black and white paint on their faces,¡± another bearded lady said, fidgeting. ¡°It¡¯s not hard to tell the difference if you just look.¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°I thought Hex would still be nesting.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Anyway, whichever one you are, you want to see my mating dance?¡± Moonie crossed her tiny arms and turned away from me, pouting, even though she knew I was just asking to make Thrasher lose his mind. It worked. The spurs came out. He jumped, kicking up grit and dead leaves. The rainwater streamed off me as I launched myself at him. The girls all scattered so they wouldn¡¯t get hurt. I threw spurs like Thrasher was the gods taking Cherie. Like he was the stars finally come after me. Like he was the monster that attacked me and Moose, this time coming for the girls. Cold holes opened up in my sides, my legs, my arms. A dull gaping pain followed the cold, but I barely felt any of it. Blood splattered the rock and dead leaves and sliced through the mist, splashing into the hot spring. It wasn¡¯t all mine, either. Always before, there had been something in me that knew I could only fight until I got hurt so much. Go past that level of injury and the risk of getting stranded on the ground as prey was too high. But the level of injury didn¡¯t matter anymore. I could fight until I died. Then Thrasher had his wings cupped around his face and chest, and I was still fighting. Bone crunched under my elbow. My spurs tore through feather and muscle. Thrasher kicked me off and ran. I chased him down. Slammed a foot into his back, right between his wings. He crashed into the ground and skidded. ¡°Stopstopstop!¡± He tucked his head under his arms. ¡°I give up! I submit!¡± I dropped onto his back on my knees, still throwing elbow spurs and beating him with my wings. He curled up. ¡°I quit! You¡¯re the king!¡± I grabbed him by the back of the neck, my hand slippery with both of our blood. His hair was soaked with it. ¡°The girls go with me,¡± I told him. ¡°Any of them that want to.¡± ¡°Take ¡¯em!¡± ¡°If you show your spurs around me again, you¡¯re dead.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t!¡± I shoved his face hard into the churned-up mud and leaves, then climbed off him. This time when Thrasher went, I watched him go. He was half-running, half dragging one leg. Both his wings were torn up, feathers broken and smeared with red. One of them hung limp. He threw a look back at me, whites showing all the way around the one eye that still opened. I made sure he saw me watching until he was out of sight. Now that the fighting was over, Moonsinger, the bearded ladies, and the witch queens started popping up and coming back from whatever cover they¡¯d ducked into. Hiss pulled her head out of a crevice in the cliff and glared at me. ¡°You?!¡± she hissed. ¡°Me.¡± I folded my wings. ¡°Top of the flock, king of the range. You don¡¯t have to stay with me if you don¡¯t want to. None of you do.¡± I pointed at Moonie. She was peeking out from behind a tree at the top of a rise. ¡°Except you.¡± Moonie let out a happy little trill and hopped around the tree, flapping her wings and jumping zigzag down the rise. Her bare foot and flat shoe thumped the loamy ground, one slightly after the other when she landed next to me. ¡°Can we go somewhere?¡± she asked. ¡°Sure,¡± I said. ¡°Where?¡± ¡°To the clearing. Or the creek. I don¡¯t care.¡± ¡°All right, let¡¯s go.¡± She grinned and started singing about Moonsinger and Angelpunk walking to the creek in the rain, victorious and dripping, and how maybe they would find something to eat along the way. Killing Cold The witch queens caught up to me and Moonie before we got too far. They spread out to either side so we could cover more ground. I kept my head up, watching out while the girls looked for food. Slow, cold rain pattered the leaves overhead. Now and then a heavy drop hit me and ran down my back, but it wasn¡¯t a downpour like it had been that morning. You could tell the witch queens didn¡¯t like getting dripped on, but they didn¡¯t run for cover, either. Moonie grabbed my hand and started swinging it as we walked. That wrung my guts out and whispered Cherie inside my head. I almost yanked away before I realized how sad Moonie would be if I did. ¡°New god drop!¡± Hag called, waving us over. My insides lurched, but I went with them and flapped up in a tree where I could see danger before it got to them. The girls dug through the pile, kicking aside silent plastic squares and holding up wet clothes to each other to see if they¡¯d fit. The god had dropped coats this time, just like they always did when cold season closed in. ¡°You should take one,¡± Hag said, showing me a shiny coat. ¡°Killing cold is coming soon.¡± ¡°We still have a little while,¡± I told her, changing positions so I could better see over a boulder with a bush growing next to it. ¡°I¡¯m going to wait for the next drop.¡± Hag frowned. ¡°What if there isn¡¯t another drop before then?¡± I shrugged. ¡°Don¡¯t you like any of these coats?¡± she asked. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Then I want that one.¡± Hex snatched the shiny coat away from Hag and pulled it on. ¡°Oooh.¡± Moonsinger held up a black and white sneaker. ¡°This would be a good shoe for me.¡± I swallowed looked up at the sky. ¡°That¡¯s a guy¡¯s shoe, Moonie.¡± She wrinkled up her nose. ¡°How can you tell?¡± ¡°I just can.¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°Well, it¡¯s too big anyway.¡± She chucked it over her shoulder. Hex found the coat with the black and white sleeves next and tried it on. Before I said anything, though, she decided she didn¡¯t like how it fit, threw it down, and kept looking. The other girls had all picked out cold season coats and clothes before Moonie found another shoe she liked. She had to sit down to put it on because this one laced halfway up her leg. ¡°That¡¯s better.¡± She stood back up and tested it out, shifting from foot to foot. ¡°The bottom is flat and soft like the shoe I already have, and it won¡¯t fall off when I fly.¡± ¡°Do you want the match?¡± I glided down to where the other lace-up shoe was poking out from under a belt, some plastic squares, and a blue glass bottle. Moonie thought about it. ¡°Yes. Then neither one will fall off.¡± While Moonie laced up her other shoe, I dug around the pile until I found the puffy coat. There was still a long, white hair clinging to the inside of the hood. I shrugged my arms and wings into it. ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t want a coat yet,¡± Hag said. ¡°Changed my mind.¡± I buttoned it up, then stuck my nose down inside and took a deep breath. It still smelled like her. Hiss squinted. ¡°That looks like a girl¡¯s coat.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± I said. ¡°I can tell.¡± We stuck around the god drop until Moonie found a warm coat that hung down to her knees. It was too big, but she grabbed a belt and tied it under her little breasts, sitting on top of her growing belly. Then we left. It was getting late, and the light was slipping away. We needed to find a safe place to sleep. I picked an old tree with lots of sturdy branches and some stinging plants at the base to keep monsters from creeping up on us. Moonie scooted up next to me. Her new coat was scratchy where it touched the side of my leg, below the ratty bottom of my shorts. Hex perched on the branch across from us, and Hag and Hiss took the branch below her. ¡°I¡¯m going to nest tomorrow,¡± Moonie told me. ¡°Got somewhere good in mind?¡± I asked. ¡°Somewhere off the ground and hidden?¡± ¡°It¡¯s really good. The gods won¡¯t be able to find my stone babies like they found Hex¡¯s.¡± ¡°They will,¡± Hex said, snuggling down into her shiny coat. The stone crept up over my toes, past my ankles. I thought about Cherie asking me why the gods took care of them and not us, and me saying maybe they liked Cherie¡¯s kind of angel better. About her finally being chosen. About how all the god drops would be full of coats until it got warm again, and how all the girls on the Range always tried to hide their stone babies even though they didn¡¯t know where the coats in the god drop came from. ¡°Show me where you¡¯re going to nest tomorrow,¡± I told Moonie while the stone climbed my legs and up my stomach. ¡°If it¡¯s no good, we¡¯ll find you a safer spot. And if we see another god drop, I¡¯ll get you a knife.¡± ¡°I still have the one you gave me,¡± she said, her hand reaching into the neck of her sundress. The stone covered her arm before she could pull out the knife. ¡°I went back and found it after you and Thrasher left, I just didn¡¯t tell anybody. I¡ª¡± The stone closed over her face. It was flowing down my wings and up my chest, over my chin and the top of my head, about to shut my mouth for the night, but I said, ¡°Good job¡± just before it did. Tomorrow, I would see if I couldn¡¯t find the other girls knives, too. THE END