“Oceani” by Helena Tadros
A shadow fell over the soft grass before me; the long lime strands swayed and darkened in the warm breeze. I felt an unwitting smile curl the tips of my lips upward at the familiar silhouette. A rush of air came down on me and almost whipped my long, obsidian curls out of their braid.
The Oceani appeared in the air before me and gently floated to the ground, beating his four wings as he came down. Caelum was beautiful. His bright topaz feathers cascaded in soft layers all over his body, a mesh of colored wisps clinging to him and hanging off the strong, hollow bones in his wings. Whispering at the ends of the longer feathers were hints of violet and faded emerald. He didn’t look like he wore feathers; he looked like his hide had been woven entirely from soft silk. God must have woven the plumage with His own hands. An eagle-like head sprouted forward from his body, led by a broad, sharp beak carved from onyx. He craned his neck to meet my eyes, my glazed honey staring into his barely present, icy gray. However, the color—or rather, the lack thereof— never touched his gentleness. His eyes looked human. I reached up with both hands and rested a rough palm on either side of his head, then pulled his neck down to me and hugged him. He bent forward to hug me back. I’ve missed you, I whispered. I pulled back, and his pupils plunged into mine as if to tell me that he’d missed me, too.
Then, he brought the ten-foot length of his back low enough to the ground for me to scramble onto it. Finally. I’d been waiting for this all day. He waited a moment for me to get a good grip on the feathers at the nape of his neck, shifted a little to make sure I sat comfortably. I took half a moment to appreciate the dark olive of my thin hands, rich with golden undertones, against the topaz of his feathers. I was always noticing silly little things like that, things that really didn’t matter.
His four wings crept upward into the air, so, so slowly. As two rose on either side, his shoulder blades poked up a little in front of me. The wingspan was so long it extended far beyond the limits of my peripheral vision. The feathery curtains hung in the air for a moment, while anticipation brought my heart into my throat. For a split-second, I felt as though I were already floating. All I could hear were my heartbeat thudding behind my ears and Caelum’s coarse, deep breaths. I became strangely aware of the expansion and contraction of his lungs, wrapped in a rib cage and tucked safely away from the world within his body.
Finally. Freedom.
We darted into the sky. The rest of that day passed as a blur, but I distinctly remember a roar of laughter tearing its way out of my mouth—as we soared and spun and flew upside down and up high and banked to the side hard enough for me to get an almost sideways view of the ground. I remember biting, cold wind slamming into my face, stinging my eyes and making them water. My stomach rose as we tumbled through the air, and if we had lingered in the heavens for just a moment longer than we did, it might’ve rushed up my throat and left my body completely. Everything about this world of flight, even the atmosphere itself, seemed to glow.
This is all I remember of my fifteenth birthday. Yesterday was my eighteenth birthday. I awoke long before the dawn and lay silently with a single remnant of my dream still clouding the corners of my mind: a vision of silver eyes. When I saw sunlight peek into our barracks’open window, I swung my legs over the side of my bunk and tentatively descended the ladder leading to the floor. I slipped on my combat boots, tiptoed through the stone hallway leading to battered wooden doors, and strode down to the shore, where my gaze fell on the horizon. From the edge of the crimson sand, the open ocean could not have been mere salt water; it looked like a sea of liquified death, slinking back to haunt those who had caused so much of it. The water was ribbed with maliciously sizzling acid. It looked black and turned muddy and lethargic when it washed up onto land, even with a reflection of the infant day grazing its surface.
Although I stood right before the vast expanse of sea, I couldn’t help but feel that the air about me was completely barren of moisture, barren of life. As I took in the solemn view, something flashed across my vision, quickly once, and then again, twice. My head swiveled to the left to see a feather riding on the wind down the length of the beach. I jogged after it and when I was not ten feet away, the wind brought it back to me and dropped it into my open palm. It was a dash of topaz with hints of violet and faded emerald whispering at the ends. A hardened drop of something that looked like honey sat in the center, riding on the feather’s back. A smile wrinkled the stiff skin around my eyes, even as I felt my heart twist in agony. The hand that wasn’t cradling this delicate memory drifted its way up to the back of my scalp. Only what could generously be called a crown of stubble remained from the obsidian curls that had been sheared from my head. I found myself comparing the topaz with the dark copper of my thin hand. Its rich, golden undertones had long since wasted away. The copper was darker now, charred by days spent training under a scorching sun, and slashed through by a pale scar that cracked through my skin from the first knuckle of my thumb, up my arm, and all the way to the sharp curve of my shoulder.
Caelum was beautiful. The only thing I am sure of is that wherever he is now, he still is.