Can birds swim? (Past)

Year og time: End winter, start spring, 2014, 06:35
Place: A big lake in North Rustico, Canada
Weather: Approximately freezing point, cloudy, slight wind
Sorroundings: Trees, water. Few birds and fish – nothing in particular
Outfit: Greyblue blouse, brown pants.
Dedicated to: @Kasumi He

Notes: 180 cm, 69 kg, doesn't have his heart, no memory at all

A small explosion in the middle of the sky would make most people look up. At first glance, it might look like a rusty red missile on its way to ruin the Canadian city in the morning darkness, but the observant eye would be able to see legs, arms and somewhat rusty red wings speeding towards the ground; or rather a giant lake.

Birds flew away from the lake, as soon as the missile-angel collided with the surface of the lake. He had been unconscious, and every limb had been moving freely as he had been falling from the sky. Going under ice cold water made his eye open, and as soon as the eyes realized where he was, they widened and every limp – even the wings – started fighting to get the head over the surface.

Splashing. Splashing.

A big hoarse gasp for air sounded as soon as the darkhaired head had its mouth over the surface. The wings were retracted, being way too heavy to deal with while they were wet. The arms continued to fight to have the head above the surface, and the legs continued to kick frantically beneath him. As soon as he had somewhat control of his face, he looked around for the nearest shore and started swimming towards it.

He finally felt a surface under his arms and legs as he swam like a dog. He was panting, clearly exhausted from swimming. As soon as the water was low enough, his legs collapsed beneath him and he needed to pull himself forward with his arms to get onto the shore. His vision was blurred from the water and his ears filled with water making him somewhat unable to see or hear anything around him. Exhausted his limbs gave up and let him lay on the somewhat muddy grass with his torso, his legs still in the lake. If he could just rest for a while, he would probably have the energy to get up and get some kind of help. Right now, he was too cold and exhausted to do much.

His clothing was completely soaked, making the cold skin even colder. It numbed the skin and he therefore didn’t feel much until he was put onto his back, which made him cough. The sight got clearer and clearer and water ran out of his ears, making some popping sounds only he could hear. Are you okay? The cold, pale face frowned slightly. “What?” it was a hoarse and almost silent voice.

The pale body had been wounded, seemingly not by the fall but from wherever he had come from. Gun wounds and small wounds were spread across the body, as if someone had tossed him under truck on a highway. In his unconsciousness he had been stabbed and sent away with no memory of being hurt.

His light brown eyes finally caught onto a young girl almost hovering over him looking quite worried. Even with the worried expression, she looked so holy. Angelic some would say. She spoke again talking about his clothes. It let him to believe he needed to help her and therefore he, with a very exhausted movement got up, so he could lean on his elbows, but as soon as he saw the blood on the grey blouse a slight panic formed in him. “Am I dying?” he asked with the same almost silent voice, even though this time it was slightly lighter. As the shirt was rolled towards his head, he did his best to stay in the half-laying position while he lifted his arms so the shirt could be pulled of him. The shirt being wet didn’t make it easy. Letting his muscles work in a static motion also hurt a whole lot, letting him leave pained groans. A soon as he got an arm free, he stuttered, “It’s cold.”

Her expression didn’t make him any less worried. He knew it looked bad, but was it that bad? Clearly not, since she said he was going to be fine. It was a relief, even though the pain was still  roaming his body, making her words hard to believe. “Good,” he sighed. He rested his head in her hands, closing his eyes, as if he was ready to go to sleep. Yes, the body was hurting, but not dying today was good enough for him to rest. He wasn’t in danger.

They had to move and he opened his eyes slightly unwillingly. “I-I don’t think so,” he said, but even though she seemed to get him to his feet. He didn’t walk with full strength, but they got going by him leaning on Kasumi. He didn’t even think about where they were going – she seemed to have a good heart and mind that it didn’t matter to him. He was safe with her.

With a grunt, he leaned against the giant rock, feeling its cold hard surface against his bare back. It almost tickled him. “Okay,” he mumbled as she told him that she was going to leave for a short while. His eyes were closing unsymmetrically. Feeling her hand on his cheeks, made him blink symmetrically a couple of times before he saw her again. Such a beautiful and pure face she had. Her radiance muted her words, so when she suddenly ran off, he raised a hand in her direction, as if he wanted her to come back.
He looked down at his stomach, almost feeling defeated. Why did she leave? Oh yeah, she said something about their clothing. His eyes stumbled upon the biggest of his wounds. The water had made the blood thin out and had spread over his torso. Not knowing what he was doing, he did what he thought was smartest and placed his hands on top of the wound in order to lessen the blood leaving his body. Closing the holes seemed like the best idea, right? Once again, he groaned in pain, but he let his hands stay.

He could hear someone approach and he looked up from the ground he sat on. She approached with both furcoat and his blouse. She placed her hands on his head, only to wrap him into the furcoat. It was cold at first, but got more and more comfortable to have against his naked torso. While she had been gone, his lips had gotten slightly purple.
She asked for the rest of his clothing to come of and he looked at his pants. Slowly he lowered his slightly bloody hands from the wound to his pants and tried to unbutton them. He had no sense of feeling in his fingers and he felt weak. Subconsiously he noticed how she found twigs and sticks and started a fire. He tried to hurry as soon as she reapproached him, but it just seemed like his fingers were slipping and way to weak for such finesse. “I-I can’t” he said and looked apologizing up at her.

He let go of the button and watched her as she took of his shoes and socks. That might’ve been the smartest thing to start with, now that he thought about it. It could be quite difficult to pull his pants past his shoes. He leaned as much as possible back against the stone, so she had some space to unbutton his pants. As she asked for his help, he did his best to lift his ass of the ground, by letting his hands press against the ground. Once in a while, he complained a little more about feeling cold. His skin was starting to feel sore to touch and the anything slightly rough gave him a small pain. Finally the pants were off and put near the fire to dry.

She undressed herself and crawled down next to him. He felt her arms around his body. Warm; or at least warmer than himself. His arms almost immediately wrapped around her body pulling her closer, almost greedy for some warmth. She closed the furcoat around them, making their bodies almost disappear underneath it, leaving only their heads visible to the forest.
He exhaled, once again exhausted, as she said he could sleep if he wanted. Being cold and wounded didn’t really make it easier to fall asleep but he nodded slightly As she laid her head on his shoulders, he gently let one of his arms wrap around her knees, to gently pull them over his own legs, before he tilted his head backwards against the cold stone.
Even though he was completely sure he wouldn’t fall asleep, having the fire across from him and this young woman warming him, he fell asleep immediately. Exhausted. His head even readjusted itself to lay itself as well as possible on top of hers.

_______

The angel was so tired, that nothing really woke him up, or at least the first time his savior had tried to wake him up. Neither did he react much to the fact that she build a small hut for him, made out of roots, leaves and plants. He slept through everything. Like an exhausted baby, he curled up in the furcoat, enjoying the warmth.



As if the angel had never slept in a more comfortable bed, he continued to sleep uninterrupted, not even her low voice asking if he was awake woke him up. He was peaceful right now. Or at least, that was how he looked. He looked like a child having his best dream ever, though what his mind was putting up wasn’t categorized as a dream.

He was falling for a whole long time. Eternity.
Something sorrunded him. Cold. Very cold.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but one round light ahead of him.
His body was deep under water.
He felt how he couldn’t breathe.
Something pulled him deeper and deeper.
Panic started to spread in his body.

He needed air.
He needed to fly.


And then everything went black.


As soon as his nightmare had turned to panic, he had started rolling from one side to another, and when he had wished to fly away from the bottom of the water, his giant red tinted wings spread out. Almost immediately he opened his eyes and quickly sat up with a gasp. Where was he? This didn't look like the place he had fallen asleep - but he was still wearing the furcoat. If his rescuer wasn’t already by his side from the sudden spread off wings, he would let his light brown eyes look after her. “W-where am I?” he asked slightly out of breath. It was quite clear on his chest, that he had had a nightmare. Heavy breathing and slight sweat – at least he wasn’t cold anymore.

She seemed so calm and her presence seemed to influence the state he was in after the nightmare. The brown eyes looked at her hands as she rubbed them against each other, wondering what it was for. He frowned slightly as she parted her hands and put them on each side of his face. They were warm and comforting.

North Rustico, Canada. He nodded slightly. “Thank you,” he breathed out. He could remember her appearance and that she had helped him keep himself warm under the furcoat. His breathing was already much more controlled and calmer. His wings lowered themselves  so they rested on the ground before he slowly pulled them back. He nodded when she asked if he was alright and removed her hands. He sank the lump that had somehow appeared in his throat. “Yeah. A lot better,” he looked into her eyes. “I eh… Name’s…” he tried to think about what his name was, but nothing seemed to be clear and fresh in his mind. His eyes sought to his lab where he had placed his hands. Looking shiftily at them as he tried to remember. “…-el” he mumbled with a thick voice, frowning. He clearly had trouble remembering his name. He was quite sure his name was short. He tried going through the vocabulary in his mind, clearly very focused. Ael. Iel. Oel. Uel. Yel? Oel… Uel… Oel… Almost as if he remembered he straightened his back a little before he looked back up at Kasumi. “Joel!” he presented himself. “Name’s Joel,” he nodded quite sure of his choice of name.

Angel falling from the sky. That was correct, yes. He had wings. Therefore, he was an angel. Yes. But had he been falling? Of course, he first woke up when he had his head underwater, so it was a possibility that he had been falling. “Yeah,” he said, slightly mumbling, confused by the fact. He frowned for a short moment before the spiral of names started.
He smiled widely as she questioned his name, but he only approved it with repeating that his name was indeed Joel. He took her hand with pleasure, “Nice to meet you too, Kasumi,” he said with a warm and welcoming smile as he shook her hand. He didn’t think much about the fact that they had laid almost naked glued to each other.

A smiled formed on his lips, as she said she had something for him, even more when she explained it was clothing. “Oh, thank you!” he said and let his eyes follow her on her way out, not really paying attention to what his eyes was looking at. When she came back he took the clothing with a smile on his lips and started dressing himself slowly. Do you know where you come from? He glanced over at her while he was trying to get the pants on in the hut. “I eh… Like you said, the river. Or… Well… The sky,” he answered even though he didn’t really have any clue about where he came from. Without realizing it, he activated his confession inducement as he looked at her. “Are your brothers okay with me borrowing their clothing?”

No. He had just closed the pants and looked at her, frowning slightly and tilting his head just a bit, wondering why she had let him borrow clothing that her brothers didn’t want him to borrow. Her mouth reopened and started telling something about her family and her relationship to them. His eyes widened quite slowly as she explained. She had stolen candy from her brother and blamed it on the cat. He found it funny, but he didn’t laugh, since it seemed like she felt somewhat uneasy with what she was sharing, almost as if she was forced to confess to him.
She had lied to her brother about where she was going to stay for the next week. She was going to hunt; she had told him. A hand covered her full pout. Slowly he squatted down to pick up the shirt she had brought him. “And you are not going to hunt?” he asked slowly as he straightened his body up again, slowly turning off his power to force confessions. He put on the shirt, making it cover the necklace he was wearing. The pendant was an adder stone with the total of three holes. A gift from his younger sister, which he no longer had any memory of – neither the gift nor his younger sister.

Joel lifted his eyebrows just a bit as she explained, “Oh, thank you,” he said to the fact that she was going to be hunting to feed them both. She started to explain why she had lied to her family, and she liked to get away from them for some time. He nodded slightly. As of right now he didn’t really remember anything about family nor how annoying siblings could be. “It sounds like I gave you a good hidden reason to get away,” he said smiling a bit. As the shirt was pulled down, covering his torso, he eyes the movements she made in the dirt. Flowers seemed to sprout from the trace of her fingers. It was magical to look at, and he wondered what the limitations were to this ability not really realizing that she had built the hut.
Are you hungry? The question made him look up from her fingers to her eyes, slightly breath taken. It was almost like he had to repeat the question in his head, to figure if he was indeed hungry. “Uh… Yeah, yeah. Quite hungry,” he said letting one hand fold around his own body. Not really knowing what he had been doing the last couple of days, but only knowing that he came from the sky and into the lake, he was quite hungry. He had been using a whole lot of energy, but thanks to Kasumi, he was not as pale as when she found him and in general seemed to be feeling better.
She stood up and bumped her head into the roof, “Uh- are you alright?” he asked, almost about to get to his feet, when it seemed like she tried to focus on letting the walls get bigger. Uriels light brown eyes looked around as the branches curled and swirled. He giggled slightly, impressed by the sight. As it seemed like she stopped he turned his gaze towards her and finally stood up, surely with room enough for him to stand up straight. He followed her as it seemed she was heading outside. “Did you build this?” he asked quite impressed gently touching the ‘doorframe’ as he stood in it looking at her.

He smiled softly as she replied that she was fine. It rested his soul a bit. As se explained that she had indeed built the hut, he couldn’t help but smile even brighter. “It’s a really great job!” he said, complimenting it before he stepped out of the hut completely as she explained that she thought it had been a good idea to build since she had to go. “It was a very good idea,” he continued to compliment before he placed himself next to her looking at the vegestables she was chopping up for the meal. He looked up at her as she asked if he had any allergies. “No allergies,” he assured her before his eyes looked down at the chopped vegestables, “What are we having?” he wondered, followed by, “Can I do anything to help?” he said spreading his arms a little away from his body to signalize that he would offer anything to help, grab wood, hunt peel potatoes – anything! Though most of those things would probably lead him to some kind of trouble.