“You really are quiet, damn,” Winter exhaled stiffly, wiping under her eyes with her wrists. She let out a long, ragged breath, her wings drooping to the floor, and her head rolling back onto the tree she was sitting against. “I don’t know how the hell you get on like this. Hardly been a week and I’m falling apart,” the girl released a humorless laugh that sounded like it had been dragged through gravel, dropping her head back between her knees and eyeing Hazel with a weighty look the latter hadn’t a clue how to unpack. Her first instinct was something like repulsion, but she forced herself to stand her ground without lashing out; pushing the girl farther would clearly have been unproductive.

The two stared at each other for some time, both trying and ultimately failing to understand the other. Hazel was trying to calculate her next actions, but was getting nowhere. Without knowing what her charge was thinking, Hazel could not guess what would come of whatever she did. Winter, meanwhile, was somewhere between pity and envy; pity that the Angel didn’t seem to understand her own capacity for emotion, and envy that she could bury it all so well. She was desperately clinging to the hope that she wouldn’t be here long enough to resort to that.

Eventually, Winter lowered her eyes to the dirt and swallowed the lump in her throat as best she could. She massaged the ache in her gut with one hand almost unconsciously, and appeared to Hazel to be far older and far more deeply exhausted than she had been before.

“You have no idea what it’s like to miss something, do you?” Hazel was, by now, consciously repressing her tells; she forced her feathers to stay smooth and tried not to show the tension in each of her muscles.

Pausing again to watch the young Angel, Winter eventually shook her head and drew herself to her feet, beating her wings a couple times to shake off the forest debris.

“Let’s go,” she sighed, catching Hazel somewhat off guard.

“Stretch before you try flying again,” Hazel said offhandedly. She was still trying to process everything that had just happened, and paid little attention to how Winter was trying to process her just as well.

. . .

It was almost two in the morning when the pair finally landed at the Academy’s gates, and Winter was practically dead on her feet as Hazel offered her wrist to the blacklight scanner at the doors; they opened with a quiet hiss and the two girls made their way to the dorms.

They were both housed in building C; an accommodation made for the fact that they were in the same squadron, though Hazel’s dorm was higher up, likely because the faculty wanted more eyes on the Archangel. The only way to leave from the lower floors of the building was the ground floor doors, while Hazel had access to a landing balcony on hers.

Winter was almost leaning on Hazel as the latter went to leave, making her stumble, hitting Hazel with her wing; she mumbled an apology that seemed half put together, dipping in and out of consciousness. Reluctantly, and fairly irately, Hazel decided she had to make sure Winter got to her room, so she rolled her eyes and, despite the girl’s sleepy protests, grabbed Winter’s wrist for the ground floor entry point. She was surprised to find, when put under the light, Winter hadn’t been marked.

“How do you get in?” Hazel growled as the Archangel leaned against her, fishing into her hip pouch to withdraw a keycard, handing it off lazily. Hazel scanned it and reached across the Archangel to return it to its bag, zipping it since she had forgotten.

“Ow, no,” Winter mumbled, making an attempt to swat Hazel’s hands away, wrapping her arm around her waist once she’d decided Hazel had removed herself sufficiently. She scowled.

“You’ve been doing that as long as you’ve been here; are you sick?” Hazel steeled herself for an onslaught from the girl, assuming she would be even more talkative than she usually was. As the two continued speaking, Hazel began inching the girl into the building.

“No.” The Angel’s glare deepened when Winter said nothing more.

“What is it then?”

She giggled quietly. Hazel’s lip curled into a small sneer at how entirely girly the sound was. She couldn’t wrap her head around both halves of Winter at once; her seemingly immense power in magic, and her utter naivety. Her femininity was also something Hazel took notice of. She hadn’t encountered anything particularly feminine for a long time, certainly not once it intersected with deeply ingrained relationships as it seemed to with the Archangel.

“Binding charm.” Winter seemed amused by this. Hazel decided she would ask her more about that in the morning, when she could properly explain it. “Night, Zel,” she chuckled as the two reached her door. Hazel distanced herself from the Archangel so quickly, Winter stumbled and nearly fell. Hazel had almost gotten used to her name again, but she hadn’t heard anyone call her that since the last time she’d seen Megan, and the sound sent a dangerous chill up and down her spine. She was brought back, for just a split second, to that bus, to the look on that girl’s face, and the way she had hesitated.

She turned and left without another word. 

- - -

[Hello to anyone reading this, I do believe this is the first official author's note I've put in this story, and unfortunately, it is an apology. Life has been... complicated for me, and it only seems to get more and more tangled as time goes on, and though I'm trying my best to keep up with writing, it's hardly ever easy to find any words at all, and for that I am sorry. I'm glad you've found your way here, and that you care enough to read this note, and I want you to know that I am trying, and that this story is not forgotten; none of my stories are. Now with all that said, another huge thank you, and I hope you're doing well, or at least, I hope you are getting better <3]