Broken Wings

In his tiny acorn-cup bed, lined with spider silk and tufts of early green moss, Bugul Noz began to stir.  The sun had set several hours before and the sky was aglimmer with ice blue stars dangling like delicious dew drops from a blackbird’s wing. Bugul Noz could just spy them through the jagged hidey hole of the tree trunk he called home.  He stretched his scaly limbs and rubbed his dry tongue over what was left of his pointed crooked teeth.  Oh what thirst! How he wished he could reach up and grasp one of those mysterious twinkling droplets and bury his face into it, leeching up every last morsel of its cool wetness.  The daydreaming of it just about drove him wild! How long had he slept? It could have been months for all he knew.  He kept no calendar and, being a nightcrawler as he was, never saw the changes of the seasons in the vibrant colours of daylight.  No, the forest in which he lived, come summer or fall, was forever cold at night. Frosts came and went, yes, but beneath the ancient, silent pines, no flowers or berry bushes could grow and bloom to signal the start of spring.  The consistency of Bugul’s surroundings pleased him very much and he was often entirely alone for years.  The odd squirrel, a little lost fawn or an army of beetles may strut about the base of his treehouse, but as for visitors, he had none.  Besides, he dared not face them even if a caller did come knocking at his little doorway for he was Bugul Noz, the most wretchedly hideous being to ever roam the good green Earth, so utterly unbecoming that even the slightest glimpse of his horrible face would strike the onlooker dead in an instant. And so, he kept well to himself, going about his business in the shadow of night.  It suited him nicely.  He had never uttered a word to another soul and wouldn’t be able to muster the courage even if he wished it.  

And tonight was just the same as all the others before it in the Great Forest; cold, quiet and entirely Bugul’s for the taking.  He clambered to the entrance of his hollow and unfolded his tattered, papery wings. Dust powdered about the air as he did this and immediately Bugul let out an enormous sneeze.  The sound boomed about the silent wood and bounced its way back to him.  “Bless you!” he muttered to Echo.  “Thank you, but it was not I who sneezed,” came a whispery reply from just above his head. Bugul’s eyes shot up at the seemingly endless tree trunk towering above him.  There, clutching onto the sides of the tree he could just make out a tiny blue creature with long limbs and near-invisible silvery wings criss-crossed with shimmering veiny filaments, fine as gossamer thread.  It seemed female, it’s voice light and body so dainty.  It had not looked down to see Bugul who immediately darted back into his hollow, heart pounding, mouth drier than ever with fear and utter astonishment.  

What was this creature? How had it come to be here? And why of all the trees in the Great Forest had it alighted upon his very own pine tree home? Bugul’s mind raced with questions, but he dared not ask a single one.  He wished he could slip away, burrow his way right through the trunk and allow the damp mossy soil to swallow him up at the tree’s roots, but he was trapped.  The sound of scratching began on the trunk outside, slowly getting nearer and nearer and with horror, Bugul realized the creature was trying to make its way into his hollow.  “Come no closer!” he shrieked without thinking.  His raspy voice, hoarse from disuse barked the command which blasted about the forest.  Bugul shrank further back until his wings crushed against the rough wooden wall behind him. But the scratching continued as whatever it was clawed its way down the tree towards him.  “But I must,” whispered the little voice.  “My wing is torn and I cannot fly.  I must rest here and try to mend it before I continue on my journey.” And before he could utter another warning, a tiny, elegant blue limb reached down into the hollow, pulling the rest of the little creature in along with it.  Bugul shielded his face with his rough lichen coat and cowered in the corner.  He longed to peek at the mystical being which had just invited itself in, but he could not allow it to see him.  A visitor was one thing, but a dead visitor… As much as he loved solitude above all else, Bugul did not wish the first person he encountered for as many moons as he could remember to die the moment it cast eyes upon his face.   

He listened as the little fae (for surely it must be one of these fabled beings, so delicate and breath-like?) scrambled into a comfortable spot on the floor of his dusty home and let out a sigh like tiny bells tinkling.  “Safety at last,” she said.  “I flew straight into a heavy cluster of pine needles and shredded my wing but luckily I tumbled close enough to this trunk to reach out and catch myself.  Do you perhaps have a needle and a thread? I have my work cut out for me.”  Bugul, shivering now, tightened himself ever more into a little ball, breathing quickly, blind panic raising the hairs on his knobbled kneecaps and elbows.  

“I know you are there,” whispered the little voice again, closer this time.  “I can hear you panting away.  Do not fear me. I am a friend in need, I have not come to harm you.  I ask only your assistance.  My name is Alette.”

Perhaps it was her gentle words or merely the fact that Bugul absolutely could not escape neither the place nor the situation that made him relent.  He slowly loosened his grip on himself and, one arm covering his face, he shuffled over to a shelf against the hollow’s wall, roughly hewn from the innards of the trunk.  There, he groped about between pebble pots and spoons and plates carved from chips of bark until he found what he was looking for: a miniature sewing kit – needles made from cured dried pine fronds and bundles of sticky thread bravely harvested from the black widow’s web as she’d distractedly sucked the life out of a freshly caught cutworm. Clutching the objects in one hand and masking himself with the other, Bugul crawled cautiously over to the blue fae resting on the ground right in the middle of his living room.  Bugul suddenly felt embarrassed by his home.  He had not even a moss rug nor a butterfly wing curtain to add some comfort to the space.  Indeed, it was as dry and bare as his gnarled little feet which protruded so obscenely from the bottom of his bony grey legs.  He felt heat rise in his cheeks as he remembered his ugliness.  How could he stand to be so close to this magnificent being? He dropped the needles and thread on the floor and rushed back to his dark corner where he balled himself up again in silence, tucking his toes out of sight.  After a moment there came the sound of light fingers pawing at the items. “Thank you, friend,” breathed Alette at last.  “You have just what I need!  I shall begin my work.” Bugul listened as the fae unraveled the tacky spider silk, sucking on the end to narrow it as she threaded the pine needle.  He heard each crisp pop as it punctured the glassy wing again and again, weaving the web through the wing, making it strong again. 

After some time the fae spoke again.  “Tell me of your life here friend? This is wearisome work and tales of your world will give me strength, if you would be so kind as to entertain such fancy?”  Bugul was mortified.  What could he tell her? His days were as empty and lonely and uneventful as could be. The forest, unchanging and quiet had no secrets to tell and nor did he.  Perhaps he should invent some story, bewitch her with a tall tale of imagined escapades and make her sigh and laugh in wonder.  And oh, what a delightful laugh that would be! Bugul imagined it twinkling like silver chimes and his old heart fluttered a little in his chest.  But then, remembering who he was, he thought better of it and instead, he opened his mouth to speak his truth.

“I am Bugul Noz,” he rasped.  “And of my life there’s not much to tell. It’s quiet and empty and cold here in the Great Forest.  I move about only by night and I sleep by day.  I see no one and keep to my own business.  Your visit is an occasion for which I am not at all prepared..” he trailed off, quite ashamed of how pitiful his existence sounded.  But then Alette spoke again, “Well friend, you are the most prepared person I could hope to find on this fateful night.  Where else in this lonely forest would I find exactly the tools I needed to mend my broken wing?” And with that Alette completed her final stitch, stood up and stretched out her crystalline wing.  Her handiwork was barely noticeable amongst the glistening lattice that roped its way about it and she let out a tinkling giggle of delight. Ah! The sweet sound! It was more exquisite that Bugul had ever imagined! How he wished to embrace this beautiful creature, to see her smile and delight in her wonderous presence and, dare he dream, to make her laugh again! “Good as new!” she hummed as she replaced the needle and thread into the tiny kit and closed it shut.  “Now allow me to thank you, friend.” And before he could shout to her to keep away, the fae had reached for Bugul’s brittle arm and spun him around to face her.  “NO!” he cried in horror as his gaze met hers at last.  All the magic of her laughter that had filled the hollow with such light and gaiety seemed to be sucked from the air around them. He should have recoiled, tried to spare her but he knew it was too late.  The damage was done.  Instead, he looked into her opaline eyes to catch the last moment of her living beauty, frozen in fright at the sight of his face, before she crumpled to the floor, like the last rose petal dangling from an autumn bud.  

Bugul fell heart-broken to his knees and scooped up the fae’s limp blue body in his withered arms. The newly stitched wing grazed the dirty floor as he stood up to carry her to entrance of his hollow.  He peered out into the silent night. A chill breeze rose up and rustled his ragged coat and made the fae’s tiny, still-warm limbs shiver against his body. The moon, high in the sky now, cast mocking shadows about the forest as it toyed in and out of heavy clouds which had gathered above him.  Far off, the rumbling of thunder broke the morgue-like silence of the forest.  To think he could be her friend, to entertain her with his stories, to keep her any sort of company.. oh what a fool!  A bitterness boiled inside him as he released the fae back into the night from whence she had come.  She was feather-light, almost weightless and he watched as her tiny form floated leaf-like in gentle spirals to the bottom of the forest floor.  

“It is done,” Bugul whispered to himself gazing once more at the heavens.  And slowly, one by one, ice blue droplets of rain began to fall from the sky.