“Oh please, stop scowling,” Winter scoffed, lowering her hands to her hips and glaring at Hazel. “It’s not like I don’t know how to control myself.”
“You are untrained.”
Hazel realized she may have misspoken when the Archangel leveled her with a look. It was not happy, nor was it particularly mad, but Hazel certainly knew which of the two it leaned more towards.
“I did have a life before coming here, you know. People I didn’t want to hurt.” She looked like she may have wanted to say more, but Hazel wasn’t sure. She didn’t necessarily trust that her life prior had been a good teacher, either. All the same, she decided admitting to her doubts would not have been wise, so she tried to calm her expression and redirect the woman’s attention.
“I’m sure you are skilled enough,” Hazel sighed placatingly, though really she was hardly at all confident in the woman’s abilities, “much like your flying. You have talent, but that is no substitute for proper instruction.” Winter huffed but made no clear objection to the statement.
“Alright then, miss teacher’s pet, instruct me.”
Hazel stared back, scowling. She was not quite sure about the girl’s tone. But as Winter kept watching her, eyebrows raised expectantly, Hazel let it go.
“Open your wings.” The Archangel blinked a couple of times in rapid succession, her head angled just barely to the side, but she did as Hazel asked. Hazel thought she would do best to be less trusting.
Hazel circled her slowly, making note of what she could. Winter’s feathers would make her a louder flyer than Hazel, as she lacked the silencing owl-like adaptations Hazel had; her wings were slightly smaller, but their shape and build were both very similar to her own.
“You will have to learn to fly quietly on your own, but otherwise I can teach you what you need to know,” Hazel said, having completed her circle of the Archangel. Winter frowned, letting her wings relax.
“You can’t fly quietly?”
Hazel’s jaw tensed irritatedly as she opened one of her wings.
“I have low-turbulence plumage; by nature, I am a silent flyer.” The Archangel nodded slowly, looking intently at Hazel’s outstretched wing. Hazel wondered how deeply her sense of curiosity ran, and if it would resurface in the future as a weakness or a strength. Likely, as she had clearly lost most sense of caution, it would do more harm than good.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a magpie?” She chuckled.
“No.” Hazel sighed; she thought maybe once that Megan had said something about magpies, but she often tried her best to forget about her.
“Really? It’s uncanny.” Hazel hummed back noncommittally, refolding her wing. “So, why are you here? The Angel Program, I know, but I figure anyone with half a brain and an ounce of empathy would stay as far from this place as they could, so why— how— do you do it?”
Narrowing her eyes, Hazel opened her wings nearly explosively and lifted herself high above the startled Archangel. From her higher vantage, she watched the other girl scowl up at her. Winter spread her wings, and without flapping, began to rise. Vertical take-offs were no easy feat, so when Hazel saw the air around the blonde distorting with heat, she was not surprised; skeptical, yes, very skeptical, but this was expected.
“You rely far too heavily on magic,” Hazel shook her head, the Archangel now close enough that she could rest fairly easily on radiant heat.
“Jesus Christ! Hazel, what the fuck was that?!”
Hazel stiffened, and she felt herself dipping as her plumage ruffled involuntarily.
She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her name out of any mouth but her sisters; both of which had specific, acutely distressing implications. It sounded almost alien, like a piece of clothing she had long since grown out of. She didn’t linger on the notion; it wouldn’t have been productive.
“If you didn’t want to talk you could have just said so,” Winter rolled her eyes. Hazel was suspicious that the Archangel was aware that she’d found a sore spot, and that she was purposefully redirecting the conversation. “I didn’t think you could hover.” Hazel pursed her lips. “How did you even get up so quickly— hey wait!”
Hazel had, by the time Winter realized what she was doing, reoriented herself, and tucked one wing in to make a steep decline into the forested area of the range. While she maneuvered swiftly through the canopy and landed on a thick branch, Winter was left sourly riding a thermal at the edge of the forest, glaring down at the Angel with a twisted veneer of irritation and something foreign. What that secondary emotion was, Hazel only knew it wasn’t overtly negative.
She certainly recognized the annoyed twist to the Archangel’s lips as she landed and trotted over to the trunk of Hazel’s perch, then stood with her arms crossed, glaring up at her.
“You cannot rely on hot air to do all the work for you. Consider that your first lesson.”
Winter growled back, opening her wings and bringing them down as hard as she could, without magic, to lift herself off the ground. She repeated the action three more times before letting her wings droop, realizing she couldn’t muster enough lift. Hazel would have been quite surprised if she had; it took no small degree of skill or strength to take off without a running start, qualities the blonde girl had yet to develop.
“I don’t see why I have to. It’s not like I’ll ever be without magic,” Winter snapped frustratedly, crossing her arms.
“If nothing else, knowing the fundamentals of flight will allow you to find weaknesses in your target. Knowing you could not get off the ground, I could easily ground you.” Before Winter had a chance to react, Hazel had dropped from her perch and pressed her, stomach down, to the ground, one knee between her scapulars, stopping her wings from moving.
“Oof,” Winter grunted as the wind was knocked out of her, “are you kidding?! Get off me!”
“Make me.” Hardly before she’d finished, she was slammed with a blast of hot air that sent her backward like a kite. Righting herself, her landing spurs left deep gouges in the dirt as she came to a stop. As Winter stood and again glowered at the Angel, dusting off her jeans and top, Hazel shuffled her wings and quickly recovered from her surprise.
“Hiding your advantages until they are most necessary is vital, especially since you have little else to defend yourself with. If your opponent knows you can use magic, they will be far less likely to position themselves to your advantage as I did.”
Winter’s lips were tight in an effort not to retort. Though, even if she clearly wasn’t happy about it, Hazel could tell she was listening; her stare was sharp and followed her every move far too intently for her not to be.
“Did you really have to knock me over to demonstrate?”
“If I hadn’t, you would not expect it in the future. Now, when you are in a more challenging situation, you will not be as surprised. Undoubtedly, you will be trained in hand-to-hand combat as well as flight, and I have no doubt you will be expected to know how to fight in the air. Therefore, it becomes my responsibility to prepare you.”
Winter scowled and opened her mouth for a brief moment before closing it again, staring at Hazel for a moment longer than Hazel thought was appropriate before responding in a somewhat tired voice.
“How old are you?”
“What does it matter?”
Winter stared on for another second, then shook her head with a deep, slow breath.
“It doesn’t— I expect it wouldn’t— to you. You can’t be that much older or younger than I am, but,” the Archangel’s voice trailed and her eyes fell to the ground. “I’m not a fighter, Hazel, and I don’t pretend to be. If you have to teach me, fine, and if I have to learn, so be it, but don’t expect me to put my values aside for anyone here. That includes you,” as she lifted her gaze back to Hazel’s, Hazel swore she saw something dangerous in her; something that seemed to burn hotter and deeper than anything she had ever felt herself.
Something she could use.
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