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“They threatened to torture your baby? Oh no, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes tear up. “You and Lyla were both experiments of crazy scientists? That’s why you’re on the run and hiding?”
“Yes,” I answer, knowing it is time to tell her the full truth. “I was captured as a baby and taken to Hurlia and they implanted me with these wings. I didn’t live in an actual cell. They gave me a bedroom with all the modern conveniences, and they fed me well. I had sunlight in the yard, but there was a force field overhead to keep me enclosed so I couldn’t fly away. I was educated and allowed to read. But my knowledge was very narrow and curated, until I was able to break past their firewalls. That was when I truly became angry. For most of my life I was docile and in their control. I didn’t know what they’d done to me; I thought I’d been born this way and they were caring for me because I was special. I was going to work for them as gratitude for all they’d done for me. And then I discovered I’d been kidnapped as a baby and I had an actual family and I wasn’t born this way at all, they’d grafted wings onto me as a child and gave me a whole series of painful surgeries and experimental serums, causing my body to accept the wings and have them grow with me.”
She reaches for my claw and threads her tiny human fingers through mine. “It is going to be difficult for you to find somewhere to live where you won’t be considered ‘different,’ considering you’re the only one of your kind. There aren’t any other beings who can fly, besides you and Lyla. Do you think if you had offspring the old-fashioned way, with another Hyrrokin for instance, that your future children would still have wings?”
“I do not know. Lyla was created to be my exact likeness, but if I gave my seed to a female and filled her womb and the child grew in her womb, this would be different—a merging of our genes.”
“You have a family on Tarvos?”
“Not really. My mother has passed away long ago, my brother moved off planet, and my father is in prison.”
“That sounds as bad as my own family.”
I crook an eye ridge at her.
She shrugs. “I have no one. My father was snatched by the Hurlians just prior to when we were freed in the war. Then my mother died in an accident when I was a teen and I was sent to a multigod orphanage in Singapore run by Gravians on their mission, and I lived there until I was able to leave for school off-planet. I’ve been on Salo ever since. I like living here, with the Gravians, because I have good memories of how they took care of me in the orphanage and allowed me to come here to further my education. I feel like they sort of took me in during my time of need and I’m grateful. I even went so far as to gain my Gravian citizenship.”
“Both of us were raised by beings who were not our parents,” I remark.
“Yes, but the difference is that the Gravians who raised me wanted me to grow and become independent and wanted the best for me. I cannot believe the Hurlians are still out there kidnapping beings and experimenting on them. They must be stopped.”
I nod in agreement.
Evie reaches out and brushes the tips of her fingers along the edge of my wing which causes a shiver of delight to race along my back. “Can I ask you something personal?” she questions.
I want to pull her into my arms and spread her thighs, but my female seems focused first on talking. “Of course.”
“Now that I know you weren’t born with your wings, but they were implanted on you without your consent…I’m wondering, can your wings be removed? Do you want them removed?”
My breath catches in my throat. No one has ever asked me this before. “I don’t want them removed. They are a part of me now. I know that there are no other beings like me, which is isolating. Only Lyla and I are Hyrrokin with wings. I wonder if I returned to Tarvos if we’d be the subject of ridicule, or instead the subject of curiosity. I want neither of those things. I simply want to be free to raise my daughter and to quietly work.”
“Is…is it wrong that I love your wings? That I love Lyla’s wings too?”
I grin. “No, it’s not wrong. And my own secret admission is that I like the wings. I like the freedom of flight. After being able to fly for so long, it would be hard to do without them. I wouldn’t even know what it was like to not have wings.”
“Is my house too small for you?”
“I am able to fit, but I cannot move as freely as I’d like. It’s true that I dream often of a home that is built with large windows and doors, that is on a mountain, near a valley, not close to civilization, where I could fly when I want.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It does? It sounds nice to a human?”
“Yeah. As you’ve noticed, I live here at the edge of town. I like that it’s quiet. I’m not much of a city girl, but I just can’t get farther out because I live alone.”
Maybe she would move with me to my dream location?
“Does it bother you that I don’t have wings?” she questions, “and that I’m not Hyrrokin and just…human?”
“Of course not. You are beautiful.”
Her eyes water. “You think I’m beautiful? Just the way I am? I’m not sure if you understand that I’m considered overweight.”
I place a claw on her hip. “Overweight? What does that mean? You are thick in all the right places. You are perfect.”
“Thank you for saying that. But still, I’ll never be able to fly, like you and Lyla can…”
“This does not matter. I will carry you in my arms so you can experience flight with me.”
