Page 51 of Why Broken Wings Fray

A car, travelling much faster than the posted limit, screamed at us both and blew a gust of wind in our direction that flared Killian’s hair in all directions. Grumbling beneath his breath, his snarl was beast-like in every way as he gathered the remnants of his hair and tossed it above his head into a knot.

Shit. His ears.

I glanced around, my eyes scanning the length of the stone roadways and the few people flitting by on their daily walks, and realized that in this world, the real world, it was unlikely anyone would pull themselves out of their own heads long enough to notice his ears. And if they did? Well, the ears matched the cosplay story that we were rolling with.

It was as Raegan had once said, “You humans have this phenomenal ability to very rarely care about anything beneath your own noses.”

I had scoffed at him, then. But now, well he was right. Of the few people that had happened by us in the few minutes since we stepped out of the building, not one had looked in our direction.

“What was that!” Killian roared, stepping backwards until he was hiding behind me. It was adorable, in the way that he was a battle-seasoned pixie warrior capable of shredding someone apart with his bare hands, yet a small, on-its-last-legs hatchback sent a pang of fear through him. He would’ve been horrified to hear that I had been hit by not one car, not two, but three. That was a story for another time.

“It was a car,” I laughed, my humour only furthered when Killian stepped to my side and interlocked his hand in mine. For safety, I assumed. “They’re transport. Like… horses?”

“What a rude car,” he huffed, frowning in the direction it had sped off in. “It saw me and continued on!”

Having to explain the concept of the car not being sentient and therefore did not see Killian seemed like a conversation for another day, so I just laughed and tugged on his hand, beginning to drag him down the street.

His sudden gasp threw me into a panic, turning to face him only to see his large arm raised and his finger pointed at a house behind me. “That building! It is on fire!”

He was, of course, referring to the smoke rising out of one of the chimneys.

“It’s not on fire.” I continued to giggle as I pulled harder at his suddenly very-still body. “It’s inside.”

Another gasp. “The inside is on fire?” Then he was pulling on me, starting to drag me towards the house. “We must save them, then.”

“Killian,” I said through laughter. “It’s just… Heat.”

“Heat?”

“Yes.” I laughed some more as I wound my arm around his and yanked him back in the direction I had wanted to go. “To keep them warm.”

“To keep them warm,” he repeated.

Our walk continued more or less the same, Killian stopping every few feet to point something out or become unnaturally enraged over something he didn’t understand. As we passed a pub on our left, it was the TV that he saw through the window. As we passed a sweets-shop on our right, it was amazement and then rage when he saw a cardboard print-out of some celebrity that was looking at him weirdly. Next was strolling down a long alley of pencil-thin connected homes all of which with cars parked out front, each of which Killian growled at and warned them to stay away.

My heart grew to a new, unnatural size when he stopped outside of a pop-up flowery, grabbed onto three sunflowers, and extended them to me.

I shot a somewhat apologetic look to the owner of said pop-up, pleading silently for her to not make a big deal.

“For you,” he said, eyes wide and heart beating on his sleeve.

I nodded, sucking my lips between my teeth before I did something stupid with them. “Thank you, Killian.” With a true, overly raw smile, I took them from him and placed the petals to my nose. It was a relief to smell something other than the overwhelming scent of sea-salt from Mount’s Bay, or the distinguishable aroma of mossy-stones of Marazion.

When Killian grinned, overly chuffed with himself, and turned away, I mouthed an apology to the elderly lady behind her cart and placed them back where he had taken them.

“Keep them,” she whispered, following her generous offering with a wink. My eyes softened as I tried to accept such random kindness from someone who, upon second glance at the two of us, seemed rather unfazed by our attire and Killian’s outlandish presence.

I mouthed a thank you and trotted away from her, catching up to Killian before he had the chance to throw a fist through a window when he saw a mannequin bothering him, whatever that meant.

Our stroll became comfortable in a way that walking down the streets of Marazion with a dozen-decade old pixie shouldn’t have been.

“I can show you some of the different things that we do–”

“No,” he said, cutting me off and turning into me in one motion. “Show me what you like to do.”

My brows twitched as I tried to keep the truth from my face. There wasn’t anything I liked to do. I liked to rot on my couch and throw sunflower seeds at the wall, making Urram fly to catch each and every one. I liked to flick through different TV channels in hopes that one of them would allow me to feel something. I liked to lay in my bed, stare up at the ceiling, and pretend I was back in Saoghal.

But Killian was Killian and I wasn’t sure he would ever understand that. I wasn’t sure he’d ever understand that part of me.