As I lay dying

Maia rubbed the small totem in her pocket, feeling it slowly lessen the numbness.

The tent flapped with the wind as she stared at the creature in the cage. "Please," Maia tried again, stretching out a hand. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"It won't understand."

Maia turned to Lachlan, feeling the tears in her eyes. "What?"

His eyes were fixed on the creature huddled in the dirty, bloodstained cage. "Its kind doesn't speak, not like we do."

There was a creak, and Maia saw the creature's warm, gold eyes.

She dragged a hand across her face. "Every time I think I've gotten stronger...your father does something so terrible that..." Her fingers tightened on the totem. Maia let its ridges bite into her palm.

"It's not weakness for horror to shock you." Lachlan said tonelessly. "It's a lack of experience."

Maia had no reply to that. "Is it an angel?" She gestured at the curled, torn wings.

"No. Humans saw them and assumed, but they're just like unicorns, or eagles. Not human or higher somehow." Lachlan stopped as a scout hurried in.

"Lady Grenfeld, the soldiers wish to ask how you will dispose of the prisoners?" The scout asked breathlessly, his hands on his knees.

Maia stood, eyes dark. "I'll come with you." As Lachlan began to turn, she grabbed his arm. "Can you stay with it? I-"

Lachlan didn't want to, but he nodded. He knew what she was remembering right now.

He heard Maia's steps leave and slowly turned back to the creature in the cage.

In his village, they were called the Winged Ones. That didn't tell him anything about babysitting a traumatized one.

"You don't have to be scared of her." Lachlan drew up a chair and slumped down in it. "Maia. All she wants to do is make you feel better." He had no idea how much the creature understood, but he also wasn't going to stand here in silence.

"She will do anything to fix you." Lachlan sighed, taking a swig from the flask on the table. It was cold and bitter, but he choked it down anyway. "A few weeks ago, we found a village. Everyone in it was dead. They'd sent a beacon but we...anyways," Lachlan took another sip of whatever was in the flask. "We got there, and for a moment, I thought the village had red dirt. But that was just the blood in the snow. All over the snow. We kept looking, Maia hadn't broken yet. And then..."

Lachlan watched the creature inch forward a little through the opening in the cage. He'd spent time with horses all his life. Even those who didn't speak understood what soft words meant.

There were cuts and slices all over the creature's skin.

"And then we found a little girl." Lachlan coughed, trying to clear away the sip he'd taken too fast. "She-she was alive. Alive and clutching this totem. Children carved them in Kifka to ward away demons." He could see it now.

The little blue lips, quivering words of a prayer. Her tiny fingers, trembling on that totem. Blood blooming slowly, dully out of her stomach. It took Maia seconds to be by her side, to wrap her tiny body in her coat.

"My friend sat with her for hours. After the girl died. Hours. In the cold. Just holding her hand. Maia will do the same for you, smother you in love and warmth until she makes you better." Lachlan reached out a hand, and the Winged One hesitated.

"That's right," Lachlan murmured. "You know I'm not like her. She saved me too."

Finally, the creature reached out and Lachlan pulled it clear of the cage. There was a clang of metal as a chain on its wings pulled it pack, slamming the creature into the cage.

"Well shit." Lachlan withdrew his sword and the creature growled.

"Hey hey, relax. I am not going to hurt you-"

At the mention of hurt, the creature twisted its way back into the cage.

Lachlan cursed. The Winged One probably heard hurt from its torturers.

But he wasn't going to terrify it more by entering the damn cage. So Lachlan went around it, placed the metal gauntlet back on his hand and started hitting where the chain connected to the cage.

The creature flinched every time he hit the metal, which Lachlan hated, but couldn't do anything about.

Just like he couldn't stop people hating him because of his father.

Just like he couldn't help Maia forget the kid.

Just like he couldn't free the brother he'd abandoned at the castle.

The dent got bigger, and Lachlan's breath clouded in the air. "Come on-"

It snapped and Lachlan's head dropped back, eyes closed.

Rustling made him open them and he stared right back at the creature that made its way out of the cage. "I can cut the other end off your wings?" Even as he offered, he knew the creature would never let him.

And it wouldn't help anyways. The wings were damaged beyond repair, nearly torn off from the back in gaping wounds. Feathers trailed everywhere, falling slowly off the wings.

"Cold?" Lachlan panted, then shrugged off his coat and threw it over to the miserable thing anyways. "I've seen others of your kind."

The creature didn't look at him as it wrapped the coat around itself.

"You teach your young how to fly by throwing them off cliffs."

That got it to look up and Lachlan went on. "But you don't catch the ones that fall. My father would approve, he nearly drowned me teaching me to swim. One of my brothers died getting thrown off a horse my father put him on."

The creature's brow furrowed.

"I found one of your failures. It landed, hard, near the castle I grew up in. It was dying, and I watched it, hold its hand up to the sky, bleeding out gold blood everywhere." Lachlan sniffed, running a hand through his hair. "Why?"

It said nothing. Just peered back with its large gold eyes, a bruise darkening under one. "Why." It parrotted back and Lachlan's brows shot up.

"Angel. Wings. Nobody. Hurt. Water. Why." The creature rattled off, its voice hoarse. Each word had a different voice accompanying it. "Nobody. Angel. Hurt. Why."

"I don't understand."

"Wings. Nobody. Water. Hurt. Why. Angel." The creature's face twisted to recreate each voice. Each torturer, or whoever said those words. "Why. Why. Why. Why-"

"Stop." Lachlan closed his eyes.

"Stop." His own voice agreed.

When he opened them again, he noted the bleeding. The infection where the wings used to connect seamlessly with its back. The cuts on its arms, and the one that hung down uselessly.

"Your people are not a people that allow weakness," Lachlan said carefully. "You can't go home, right? Or you would've tried already."

The creature waited, staring at him. It used to have dark hair, but it had been shorn off at the scalp. It was clutching at its injuries, making period sounds of agony.

Lachlan wondered what it saw in him. "You're hurt, badly. And I can't watch my friend sit by your side for hours. Days. Healing and suffering, and tearing open her own wounds."

"Water." The creature declared suddenly and Lachlan raised an eyebrow, surprised.

"Maybe you understand some things." Lachlan carefully reached for the water skin and added in a small dose. He handed it to the creature. "It's open."

The creature gulped it down, old blood lifting off its face as it drank. The bag hung lifelessly in its tremoring hands.

Lachlan found no human-like understanding in the creature's eyes. That almost made it easier. "I don't want you to suffer more. But you will in this camp. Nobody will understand you."

"Nobody." The creature echoed, eyes brightening with recognition.

"You'll be alone, miserable. The only difference would be Maia trying and failing to heal you. You might lose your wings." Lachlan paused, waiting to hear something. Something that meant it understood.

"Nobody." The creature repeated in another person's cruel voice.

Lachlan scrubbed at his eyebrow. "I am not like my father. He wanted power, because power is everything here. I'm trying to be better. To have reasons, and not just do things because I can."

"Why?" The creature asked, shaking with pain. Its wings disturbed the ground, flapping weakly. It was sickening watching one of them bleed and ooze, pulling at exposed muscle.

Lachlan took a steadying breath. "I am doing this for you, to spare you suffering. I am doing this with no gain of my own, to spare my friend." He moved towards the creature, and it didn't move.

"I can't fix you. I'm not strong enough..." Lachlan stood, and this time the creature didn't flinch.

There was deep exhaustion in its limbs, and it looked up, fearlessly as Lachlan got closer to it.

"I am sorry." Lachlan murmured, and caught it as it swayed.

The creature gently patted him on the shoulder, its eyes closing. Lachlan avoided the painful wings, wrapping the coat around it.

"I want the world to be better," Lachlan confessed, as the creature started labouring to breathe. "I don't want people who fail to get hurt, or thrown off horses, or suffer. Power shouldn't be the only thing worth living for."

"Water." The creature murmured, touching one of the tears on Lachlan's face.

"Does it hurt?" Lachlan breathed, past the lump in his throat.

"Hurt. Stop." The creature looked up at him, with dimming gold eyes.

"Okay." Lachlan nodded. With great difficulty, the angel reached out, its hand pointed towards a single opening to the blue sky above. Then its eyes closed, arm dropped, and its wings stopped uselessly fluttering.

The wind howled through the tent, filling the space around Lachlan and the cooling body in his arms.

"Okay." Lachlan breathed out, closing his eyes.