Winter, as Hazel learned almost as soon as she had settled into their new routine, was the single most peculiar creature in the Academy by an impressive margin. Even when she hid her magic, which she often did for reasons Hazel had not yet identified with full confidence, she was odd. In the field, her wings were striking, and she always seemed to have an arm around her stomach; though what was far more noticeable was her blatant and passionate hatred of trees.
“Open your wings! How do you expect to fly when you are afraid to use your own wings?!” Hazel growled; she was perched on a thick branch of oak, watching with a roiling mixture of frustration, incredulousness, and exhaustion as her charge shrieked and narrowly avoided crashing into a tree trunk.
“Excuse me for not wanting to shatter any bones tonight! You may have been hurling yourself through forests since your primaries came in, but I’ve flown through more trees in the last hour than I have in my entire goddamn life!” Winter snarled back up at Hazel, ruffling her wings and picking out pine needles and bits of foliage from her plumage with a grimace. “Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take me to clean up after this?! Christ almighty, I’ll be having nightmares about digging ticks out of my feathers for months!” She pulled her hair back frustratedly, redoing her bun for what had to’ve been the seventh time that hour. Her hair was a mess, and her skin was flushed bright red with exertion; her once gray shirt was now mostly dark with sweat, and Hazel had no intention of letting her leave until she got over herself. Fear was not something she had any experience training anyone out of; she’d never seen it taught, as her peers never had to overcome it. She herself had long since abandoned the idea of crashing. She was confident she could fly well enough to avoid damage, and so she was not afraid to take risks where they were necessary, much unlike the timid Archangel.
“You have magic. I should think instinct alone would disallow for any accidents,” Hazel rolled her eyes, “again. This time, open your wings and use your momentum to carry you through the undergrowth, rather than flapping about in a space that will not support your wingspan.”
Winter growled back a few ugly words under her breath, but took off anyway.
Moments later, Hazel heard the whistle of wind between the Archangel’s feathers as she approached the course Hazel had designated for her. As she was now consistent in doing, Winter cleared the descent through a narrow gap in the forest canopy with relative ease, and managed fairly well until she started to slow on her approach into a sharp turn. Again, she made the mistake of trying to flap in a tight clearing, and overcorrected a moment before ramming into a tree, launching herself into a mess of branches and leaves. Hazel pinched the bridge of her nose and bit down a groan.
“Are you not listening to anything I’m telling you?” She snapped with as little frustration as she could manage, gliding down from her perch and meeting the fiery glower directed at her. The Archangel sat herself stubbornly on the forest floor and lifted her chin resolutely, letting her wings fall into a heap onto the ground.
“I am done with trees. I’m done with this course, I’m done with this training, and really by now, I’m quite done with you. I’m tired and sore, and I’m not getting any better like this.” Hazel grit her teeth so hard she heard her molars creak. As she met the Archangel’s eyes, she weighed the chances of the girl actually doing any more work, no matter how hard she was pushed.
It didn’t take long for Hazel to decide the odds weighed heavily against her.
She turned her back on the Archangel, walking tensely to where she had deposited her bag when the two had started training far earlier that day. She clipped the bag into latches on the hips and shoulders of her uniform, letting it rest snugly against the small of her back, and waiting despite herself for the Archangel to grab her things. Winter did not know the way back to the Academy, and Hazel would not be responsible for losing the girl, so she waited until she had scrambled up and collected her belongings; Winter hadn’t brought much, only a small hip pouch and water bottle, and the hoodie she was now using as a towel, so she was ready before Hazel’s patience had fully depleted. However, as she stood, she paused to check the time on her phone— Hazel had questioned her about the device on the second day of their training, and, nearly a week later, she still was unsure whether or not the girl was actually allowed to have it— and let out a frustrated hiss upon seeing the time. It was nearly midnight, if Hazel’s calculations served.
Hazel did not question the girl’s reaction, because she did not particularly care; the Archangel had a penchant for sharing unwanted information anyway, so Hazel was nigh-on certain she would hear about it.
“I had plans, you know.” Hazel rolled her eyes, opening her wings and waiting for Winter to summon a thermal; she was still very weary of the girl’s magic, but Winter was reliably lazy with her take-offs, and Hazel had quickly learned to take advantage of that.
Rising through the break in the canopy, Hazel breathed in the cold night air and faced towards where she knew, in the distance, was the Academy. She had been on countless expeditions and field practices with her team, so she knew the area surrounding the facility fairly well— certainly well enough to know that they were to be heading north by north east.
With Hazel in the lead, the two flew in silence, excluding the whistling of Winter’s feathers. Occasionally, Hazel would notice the girl lagging behind, or dipping when hit by an unusually cold section of sky.
“Will you be able to make it back?” Hazel sighed as the girl faltered against a section of cold air. She slowed herself and fell back until she was over the Archangel, eyeing the state of her with chilly disdain.
“What? No, I’m fine,” Winter snapped back, her left wing dipping again. Hazel noticed that she was distracted— why else would she not be using her magic?— but was more so concerned with how stiffly her wings moved.
“Stubbornness is an easy way to get killed. I’ll ask again; can you make it back?”
As if to prove a point, Winter managed three strong strokes before groaning, her movements becoming even clumsier than before.
“I might— fine, I might need to rest for a bit,” she admitted almost mutely against the wind. Hazel hummed an acknowledgment and descended back to take the lead.
The two were, luckily, still a good distance away from any human settlements, so it was fairly easy for Hazel to locate a decently large clearing for them to land in.
“Rest for a while, but we need to be back before sunrise,” Hazel sighed. She was distinctly displeased by the situation, but knew that pushing the Archangel further would be of little use to her, especially if she was more exhausted than she let on. There was also the matter of Winter’s lack of focus, and that was an issue Hazel fully intended to address.
“You weren’t using magic,” Hazel started, earning an exasperated glare from her charge.
“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” Winter snapped. Sarcasm. It was almost an alien concept to Hazel, but she had been forced to learn it quickly as she had spent more time with the Archangel.
“You’ve been distracted all night, and I need to know why.” Winter’s eyes flashed and Hazel thought she saw the girl shimmer dangerously for an instant. She felt herself take a cautionary half-step back, even as the girl lowered herself to sit on the ground.
“You don’t need to know anything,” hissed the girl as she aggressively downed half the contents of her water bottle. “I doubt you’d care anyway.” Her tone was dreadfully bitter, though if Hazel really tried, she could tell there was something more complicated to it; she had no idea what was there, but she knew there was something.
The Angel hummed boredly, unwilling to push for information she didn’t particularly want to bother extracting. So long as the girl was aware her lack of focus was apparent, Hazel could point it out when it was needed. Of course, she also had a feeling Winter wouldn’t be able to keep herself from continuing.
“I haven’t talked to my girlfriend in weeks. We were supposed to be able to video call tonight,” Winter said, somewhere between a sigh and a hiss. Hazel’s lip curled just a little in distaste, though she was a small deal gratified by how predictable the girl was. “I swear, if you’re making that face because I’m dating a girl— and believe you me I have absolutely no interest in you,” she glared at Hazel, her wings puffing considerably. Hazel cut her off before she worked herself up.
“I don’t care, so long as it doesn’t interfere with your training under my supervision. Now that that line has been crossed, I hardly consider it an excuse.” Winter bared her teeth as she stood— ferociously as Hazel thought was possible for the otherwise non-combatant girl— picking a leaf out of her plumage hotly.
“Which way are we walking?” Hazel’s face pinched into a look of disgust. Winter scoffed, folding her arms resolutely. “I cannot take any more of you people right now.” The Angel scowled disdainfully at her charge and briefly considered her options. Winter, if Hazel had to guess, could not have weighed more than a hundred pounds, unless her bone structure was significantly different than that of an Angel; even so, Hazel certainly could not carry her. Even the strongest of elliptical-classed flyers would scarcely be able to leave the ground with that much more weight, proportionally. She absolutely refused to walk, though.
“We are not walking,” Hazel growled lowly, her irritation showing through enough to make Winter flinch. “There is enough cover along our course that we will be able to take the flight in segments.” The Archangel’s wing twitched experimentally, and Winter cringed at the realization of how exhausted she was.
“Fine, but will you please screw off for like five minutes, I need to make a call,” Winter slid back down against a tree, ignoring the wood scraping uncomfortably between her wings.
Hazel growled, displeased, but took off and settled herself into a wide circle above her charge. She was sure Winter was too preoccupied to bother checking on her, and she was certainly quiet enough to get away with it, so as she circled the area, Hazel kept her eyes trained on the Archangel; she watched the number she dialed and committed it to memory, even if she expected it would serve no use.
Winter held her phone out in front of her, propped up between her legs, and made the mistake of turning up the volume as she went into a video call. Hazel hardly had to try at all to hear every word. She wondered, for a split second before amounting it to carelessness, exhaustion, or a combination of the two, why she could hear them at all— why Winter hadn’t used magic to hide her conversation.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Winter immediately spluttered once the call connected during the second ring.
“Love, it’s alright.” The voice that came through was distorted by the mechanical whir of the phone, but Hazel would remember it as well. And though warped by distance, the magnitude of feeling in her tone was enough to give the Angel whiplash. “It’s good to see you.” Hazel’s stomach churned at the hurricane of emotion in her tone, but she forced herself to continue listening, even if her instincts were tugging her away.
“Yeah,” Winter sniffled a little. Hazel rolled her eyes. As she reached the point in her orbit where the phone’s screen was visible, she spent a good deal of focus on the woman’s face. The area’s reception must have been poor, because the image was fairly blurred, but Hazel could still make out her basic features; long, dark hair in a sloppy bun, oversized knit green sweater, wide smile, and large, brown-toned wings shuffling in the background.
“Before the two of you get up to no good,” a third person said, “Winter, it’s great to see you. Micha’s been absolutely dreadful without you here.” Hazel drifted out of viewing range just as the third person stepped onto the screen.
“God, Ellie, you too. I miss you too,” Winter’s laugh was wet and throaty, and both voices on the call cooed their reassurance.
The discomfort got to Hazel, and she ascended enough that the wind drowned out the three women below. Emotion was one of the reasonably few things that grated on Hazel so unbearably that she often had to remove herself from the situation; it made her stomach twist with painful, acute severity.
So, Hazel remained at that altitude until she saw Winter droop as she lowered her phone from her line of sight. She dropped it carelessly on the forest floor, and wrapped her arms around her knees, bringing her head to her chest in a tight ball that, as Hazel descended, she noticed trembled with every breath the girl took.
Hazel took particular care on her descent to maintain her silence until alerting the girl was unavoidable; as her feet touched the foliate ground with a soft crunch, Winter startled and instinctively flared her wings, looking up at Hazel in a panic. Her eyes were watery. Hazel didn’t have the time nor patience to deal with that.
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