Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Paul and Brent intercepted them halfway down the corridor and pulled Michael and Randall into their cabin. Paul looked at them critically while Brent rummaged through the piles of clothing on the bed. “Clearly, we’ll have to use Michael’s shirts for both of you, for now. They’ve both for the closures to fit around your wings.  Michael, I’m assuming you cheated and taught Randall how to walk with those things, but hell. I don’t know. Do those even work like the other ones?” Brent sat on the bed with an exasperated sigh, hugging a shirt to his chest.

Michael laughed softly. “So far. And I’m cheating, helping him balance. They don’t have the same weight the old wings, did, but they still catch air, and they still have some weight. We’ll spend some time on the way home teaching him to do...well, everything with wings. I’d appreciate your help.”

Brent nodded mutely.  Michael looked stricken. “I’m still me. I still need you. You’re my best friends and-”  Randall gave him a shove that launched him across the room, where Brent reflexively jumped to his feet and caught him. Michael grabbed Brent fiercely into a hug and they stood there for a minute crying before Paul pushed his way in, too. “Idiots.”

Brent backed up, sniffling. “It’s just...you look like...some sort of avatar. Like you’re not a person. I don’t know. Your eyes glow, and your wings are there buy they aren’t, but you still tripped in the hall, and-” Paul hugged him tighter.

Michael looked at him sincerely. “I swear. I’m still me. I don’t feel different-”  Randall snorted.

“Ok. I feel different. But not like that. My wings are weird, and I swear some of those stars are moving. And I haven’t seen my eyes yet, because I haven’t seen a mirror, and I’m kind of afraid that I look like a freak, but Randall is still beautiful, but what if that’s because I love him, and he loves me, and you’ll always be freaked out, and Ryan freaks out, and we can’t do brunch and play silly games and sit in the pool, and who will make me leave my lab, and-”

Brent grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in. “You freak. Of course we can. Of course we still love you. I just worried that you would be different, and you wouldn’t be our little disaster anymore.”

“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to call me that.”

“It’s a special occasion.”

Paul smacked him lightly. “Regardless, let go of the naked disaster and let’s get him dressed. There is far too much hugging for no clothes.”

Randall’s emphatic “Amen” from behind them set all three laughing.

In the end, they settled on long kilts, of the style most of the San wore, ending slightly below the knee, in bright colors, with bands of leather horizontally striped along them, and long pieces of leather down either side to keep them from bunching up while flying. Michael was dubious at first, convinced he would be showing his bare ass to the world, but a quick flight down the corridor showed that very little could be seen, above the knee, and anyone who was looking that determinedly would probably be staring regardless. Paul and Brent wisely kept the thought to themselves that anyone looking at Michael had far better things to stare at then his ass. 

For shirts, they wore plain white linen, with long slits that closed with buttons below and above their wings.  Brent looked at them skeptically. “It’ll do for now. But we’re settling on new colors when we get home, and buying a lot more styles of shirts like that. I hate the whole gay twin thing.”

Michael snorted and Paul punched Brent lightly on the shoulder. “You’re just jealous because you and Paul can’t get your hair the same.”  Michael scooted backward out of the room, tongue stuck out, and then darted down the hall soaring, wings folded.  Brent darted out of the room and came to a halt. Randall and Paul followed. “Well that’s new. Should we tell him?”  

Randall shook his head. “Maybe we wait a bit.”  Where Michael had zoomed away, there was a clear trail in the air, a scintillating ribbon of light and stars.  Brent reached out to touch it and Paul batted his hand away. “Behave.”

Brent gave him an incredulous look, then tore off down the hall running his hand through the trail of light, which broke up as he touched it. “Oh, STARBOY!” The small section he had skipped while darting away from Paul began to fade.

Randall looked at it ruefully. “At least it fades.”

Paul nodded. “Sorry. I blew it. If I’d let him touch it, he’d probably have kept his mouth shut.”

Randall snorted. “Nah. he just would have waited until it was REALLY embarrassing.”

Randall lofted himself a few feet into the air and soared a yard or two away, then turned around, flailing a bit for balance. There was no trail. He looked at Paul. Paul looked back. “Well, at least there’s that.”

Paul nodded. But as they started down the hall together, he cursed silently. Just once, Just once in Michael’s life, he wished the boy didn’t have to be unique. He knew Michael was happy that Randall was like him, that there were two of them. But there weren’t really. Whatever they both were, they weren’t the same. A thread of song swept through his mind. “I’m sorry, child. He is still touched by his own destiny, his own greatness, and by my father’s kiss. He will always be unique. But he will never be alone. I promise.”

Paul kept walking down the hall, pretending he didn’t hear, determined to make her promise real.

When they finally got to the hangar, everyone was waiting. Michael was sulking a bit, and Brent was poking at him, trying to get him to laugh. Apparently, Michael had found the trail before they got there, and he didn’t think any of the jokes were funny. Brent was currently referring to the trail as wing farts and encouraging Michael to crop-dust the room so he could see if they smelled. Paul shook his head. If anyone could get Michael to shake it loose, Brent could.

Once they were all settled more or less, Gryth roared them to silence and gestured that Michael should get on with it. For the first time since Paul had first worked with Michael on using his wings at the hospital, Michael looked uncertain. He gulped wildly, and his adam’s apple bobbed up and down his throat several times while he tried to calm his nerves.  Paul got a bit nervous himself, but nodded encouragingly. Gryth, however was having none of it. He was across the room in a hot second, and he smacked the back of Michael’s head so hard Paul was surprised his head didn’t fly off.

“IS THAT HOW I TAUGHT YOU TO CAST? GULPING AND NERVOUSNESS?  FIRST FORM! NOW! AND IT HAD BETTER DAMN WELL BE PERFECT.”

Michael snapped upright with a vengeance, nervousness vanished from his face. His hands snapped into position and he waited a bare second for Master Gryth to clear back a step. He executed first form faster than Paul had ever imagined it could be done. His hands flew through the required steps and the final construct at the end of the form snapped into existence, perfect, crisp and precise, before Paul had finished a breath. He blinked rapidly and looked at Brent, who had been Michael's primary tutor after that first lesson at the hospital. Brent nodded once. Paul suppressed a small sigh of relief. Apparently this was normal. For Michael. Randall’s jaw nearly hit the floor. He started to lean toward Paul, clearly intending to whisper. Paul shook his head once, as small as he could. None of them wanted Gryth’s attention right now. Randall pulled himself back and gave Paul a look that said, louder than words, “later.”

Michael stood rigidly, waiting for Gryth to tell him to move on, or to release him. Gryth’s snarl picked up in volume. “With. The. Wings. Idiot. Child.”

Michael’s hands began to flash through the air, properly dismantling the construct, working his way backward through form 1, when Gryth’s claws slashed through it, splashing light in all directions, corruscating energy down and into the floor.

“NOW!”

Paul mused, as quietly as he could in his mind, remembering that the old Hrysthaal was an unparalleled telepath, that if this is how Gryth’s teachings usually went, it was no wonder Michael was amazing as he was. His motivation seemed to be holding on to his own skin.

He didn’t have much time to think about it though, because this time, as Michael’s hands moved through the form, his wings moved, too, in the perfect, precise counterpoint that was required. Except that it was completely different. There were no pinions to shift. Instead, inside his wings, stars careened wildly, forming patterns against the background of the beautiful patterns of his wings. Colors shifted where the feathers had been, and light danced along a night sky held in the perfect outline of his wings. Where before his feathers had strangely echoed and counterpointed his form, there was an addition. The glyphs of the form were perfectly recreated in the fields of his wings. 

Michael wasn’t rushing this time. He was clearly demonstrating his precise control, taking time with each step, displaying to Gryth what would occur.  Gryth snarled softly, stepped back and began casting a shield in front of them.

Paul suddenly understood. He grabbed Brent’s hand and Randall’s and at his sharp whisper, Ra’Cha grabbed Brent’s hand on the far side. Together Paul and Brent cast their best shield, and layered it in protections against light.

The primary construction snapped together perfectly, as expected, but oddly small. The secondary construction, like that first night outside, snapped in perfectly as well, although Paul’s hands itched for a measuring device, and he knew from Brent’s startled intake of breath that he did, too. Less than a second later, though, thoughts of THAT scale, left him completely. An immense construct, a perfect echo of the other 2, filled the entire hangar. Where the other 2 were clearly sourced in the etheric energy provided by Michael’s wings and the nearby surgeplate, this one was clearly sourced directly from the heart of a star. As Michael finished and looked at them, it was clear which star. It was the star in Michael’s eyes. They blazed with light, and Paul knew that if he didn’t have a shield, the afterimage would last for weeks, maybe months.

Randall sighed softly. “He’s going to be SUCH a pain tonight,” he whispered. “It was bad enough before, but the look you just gave him. If he weren’t waiting for the old wolf, he’d be halfway to his cabin in a trail of tears.”

Paul whispered back softly. “I’m sorry. I...I don’t know that I could have been ready for that.”

Randall nodded. “I know.” He looked at master Gryth and whined softly. Gryth looked startled, then dismissed his shield.

“Put that away, boy. Clearly, your technique is fine. You need to work on scaling. You nearly peeled the paint off the support beam by the shuttle, and I’d be very put out if my wife had to kill you. Now stop showing off and go to bed.”

Michael opened his mouth and Gryth snarled softly. He shut his mouth, dismantled the construct, and without a word, left the hangar. Randall waited a moment, then followed with a determined look on his face. Gryth sat on the floor with a thump.

“Fuck Me.”

The other three nodded. “He’s gonna be a righteous pain in the ass about that, isn’t he?”

They nodded again.

Gryth sighed so hard his chest rattled. He stared at Brent. “Get him started back through the forms. All of them. Work on scale. With the wings and without. He needs to be more perfect than ever. And see if he can do it without the stars.”

“Why me?”

“Because he’s used to you. Right now he’s afraid of me for all the wrong reasons. He SHOULD be afraid because I’ll pull the skin off him and use it for jerky. But he’s not. He’s afraid I won’t approve. That you won’t.”

Paul looked at him sharply. “Do you?”

Gryth was quiet for a long moment. “That was the most beautiful, precise, well-executed rendition of the first form I have ever seen in my entire life. My master could not have done it better. Thomas couldn’t do that. And certainly not any of the touchy-feely San mages. That was perfection. But...that...” He waved his hand at the ceiling of the hangar. “That...I don’t even have words. I don’t know what to think. I’ve only ever seen one work remotely like it.”

Ra’Cha even looked startled. “Husband?  Where?”

“At the altar of the tribunal, on the homeworld, in the temple of the moon. There is a casting there, they say was made by him. It’s ancient beyond our knowing, and it’s perfect. And it’s made of starfire. Just like that.”  They all stared at the ceiling for a long minute.  

Gryth broke the silence with repetition. “Fuck me.”