Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To humans, the clouds above look like palaces. Giant, ever-shifting, buildings of white fluff, formed in towers, halls, and spires. Of course that could never be. Clouds are only moisture, and totally at the mercy of the weather. For them to be such huge castles, or even smaller buildings, is absolutely preposterous.

But the humans have forgotten the truth of their imaginations.

Amongst the clouds live a race known as the Cloudwalkers, having long since faded out of the minds of their earthbound relatives. Legend says that long ago that race, living amongst the clouds and manipulating the heavens, waged a war with the humans, and they lost. They were driven back to their homes, out of reach and scattered, and there they stayed. The mighty race of winged humans, with lightning and rain at their fingertips, faded out of existence.

And the Cloudwalkers are happy to let the humans believe that.

I stare over the edge, laid out on my stomach on the cloud, watching the village below and the tiny black specks of the humans wandering around it. We're high enough up - my fathers always insist on raising our home when we pass over human settlements - that I can't make out anything definite, not even with how far I can see, but I like watching anyway. I've never been allowed to go farther than a mile from my home, and only under the cover of storms, and absolutely never close to the ground. My fathers handle the gathering of food, what little of it we need, and while I may long to wander, I respect them too much to disobey their wishes. The humans, to me, are mysterious creatures, specks of black, brown, or blonde that I've only seen pictures of. They've told me of the war, the slaughter that drove our race back into the clouds, where we allowed the humans to forget us.

We might have been the stronger race, given our ability to control weather, but the humans are physically stronger than us, and there were simply more of them. We couldn't have won. These days we only exist in their old myths and legends, completely forgotten by the average person. I don't see the necessity of hiding ourselves, not anymore, but our councils have insisted we not reveal ourselves to the humans.

"Staring at the ground again, Ichigo?" comes a voice from behind me, and I spread my wings, giving one strong flap to lift myself far enough off the clouds that I can get my legs under me.

"Yeah," I admit, turning to greet one of my fathers, Shinji. He's about as tall as me, with straight blonde hair hanging around his jaw and brown eyes. His wings are nearly the complete opposite of mine, covered in large feathers the color of burnished gold. Mine are leather, and jet black. Us being unrelated couldn't be more obvious. "My work ended two hours ago, and both of you were gone. Not much else to do."

We don't have jobs, exactly, but most Cloudwalkers rotate duties. With the exception of some solid positions, like Shinji's spot as captain of our guard force. Since I'm not yet considered an adult, not for another half a year, I'm not allowed to leave for any of the off-cloud jobs. I'm confined to reinforcing walls, spinning new clouds, or various other menial tasks. Knowledge and practice that I need, but it's pretty dull. Our community, a spread out collection of cloud buildings and homes, is planning a storm, so I spent all day using my powers to darken the bottom layer of our streets and homes with rain. Kind of exhausting, but I'm one of the strongest in our entire community, despite my age. It could have been much worse if I was weaker.

"Come on inside, you'll want some rest before tonight's storm. It's a celebration," he reminds me, and I wince.

"Yeah, I know. Do I have to participate?" I hate how much my voice sounds like a whine, but I also hate flying in these celebrations. It's a courtship storm, cover for our ceremonial flights, which means I'm going to spend all night working my ass off to dodge the many people that will be chasing me. Because of my excessive power, I'm kind of sought after.

"Yes, you do," Shinji says sternly, turning to lead the way through the arch into our home. "You're a submissive over sixteen, you're required to participate in every courtship storm until you find a mate."

I glare at his back, despite it not being his fault. I'm, unfortunately, a submissive. During a courtship storm any dominant that can pin me and lay claim to me - thankfully that just means a painful bite, and not sex - can bind themselves to me if they want to. The idea is that when I hit the age of maturity, eighteen, and my body starts its first heat as a submissive, I'll already have someone to control me as a mate and work me through it. I've been lucky as far as I'm concerned, most submissives my age are long since claimed, but I've managed to escape it, so far. Shinji taught me to fight, and my other father, Kisuke, made me one of the best fliers in the entire community, so I've been able to outmaneuver or outfight every dominant to come after me so far. Since I've been through ten of these already - we do them every two months - and they last the whole night, that's pretty impressive.

The fact that I'm one of the only bat-types in our community has only made them come after me more persistently.

When a child Cloudwalker reaches the age of five, we're transferred to a different cloud community. To diversify blood, an old remnant of the days we'd been all but wiped out. I came from a bat community, this is a bird one. Both of my adopted fathers are birds, Shinji a golden and Kisuke a green, so I'm about as different as they come from the main sub-race here.

"Come on!" Shinji calls, and I grudgingly follow him inside. He is right, as much as I dislike it. If I'm going to repeat my miracle again, I need to recover from today's work, which will only come through a good deal of rest. "Go to bed, Ichigo," my father says as I come through the door, "I'll wake you before the storm."

"Alright," I grumble, heading through the arches of clouds to my room. A few flaps of my wings raises me to the level of my bed, attached higher in the tower-like structure, and I lay down on my stomach. The layer of fluff over the harder, condensed structure of the frame, is beyond comfortable. I didn't make it, I'm no good at fluff, but Kisuke is great at it. I stretch out, curling halfway and letting my right wing spread out to cover me. I don't bother undressing, my loose black clothing is comfortable, all-purpose and easy to move in, and there's no point getting out of them when I'm just going to have to put them back on for tonight.

I can only pray I get through tonight unscathed.

I spin through the air, circling and rolling over my current chaser, faster than his larger frame can easily turn, before speeding off. The rain is cold against my skin, flattening my orange hair to my skull and running off my wings in droves. I have an advantage against all my pursuers in that respect. Their feather-covered wings are heavier, and will hold a small amount of water, while mine won't. I'm faster, and I'm agile. I'll be damned if any of them are going to catch me.

The thunder over me rings in my ears, and lightning crashes down not ten feet away. Lightning will sting, but as a Cloudwalker I can just channel it through me and out somewhere else, it's no real danger. I catch a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and pull my wings in to drop down as another bird flashes past the space where I was. I snap my wings back open, glancing over to see which chaser this is, and my eyes narrow.

Noitora. My fucking favorite.

His wings are black as well, even if they're feathered, and he's decided that makes us the perfect fucking match. He's a sadistic, cruel piece of shit though, and I would rather be with literally anyone else. Unfortunately, he's also fast, strong, and nearly as powerful as me, him being a fully-fledged adult. He's also not above using that power in underhanded and nasty ways. He grins at me, white teeth flashing in the dark along with his one eye, and I speed up. He won't be easy to shake. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone else will take him out for a chance at me, that's happened before.

I can't hear him behind me, not past the rain and the occasional thunder, and I don't dare anything more than a brief glance to check. That gives me about half a second's warning that he's not where I expect him to be before someone crashes hard into my back. I spin, out of control from the impact, as arms wrap around my chest, holding my arms to my sides. Wings beat painfully against mine, doing something resembling steadying us, as the arms tighten around my ribs. I snarl, lost in the sound of the rain, as the world spins around the pair of us, recognizing the black flash of wings in the corner of my eyes as Noitora's wings.

Somehow, the bastard got on top of me. I kick out at him, hearing from the shout in my ear that I've probably hit something like his knee, before he bites into my shoulder. I give a shout of pain, arching and throwing my head back in an attempt to headbutt him. The fucker is just trying to hurt me, he has to bite the front of my throat, over my windpipe, for the instinctive part of me to force me into a mating bond. So the teeth in my shoulder are totally useless, and when he digs them in farther before ripping them out of me, dragging a cry of pain from me, it's not for any purpose but to hurt.

"You're mine this time!" he shouts into my ear, to be heard over the rain, and I bare my teeth. Oh I'm going to hurt him. I've only ever escaped Noitora, but this time I'm going to make sure to leave him with some aches to remember me by.

I jerk one arm loose, slamming my elbow into his ribs, and his grip loosens enough for me to pull free. I don't get more than a couple feet away, trying to steady myself, before his hand closes over the top of my right wing, pulling me back against him once more. We've stopped dropping at least, though we're still spinning, held up by the beat of his wings, since mine have no room to get any kind of proper lift.

"Get off me!" I snap, throwing another elbow backwards. It connects, and pain blacks out my world.

I come back to myself falling through the air, plummeting towards the ground, and as I blink my eyes open I realize how scarily fast the cover of treetops is approaching. My wings are already open, dragging through the air and slowing me somewhat, and I force myself to beat them, trying to stop my fall. A scream wrenches itself from my throat at the utter agony that takes over my right wing, and my vision erupts in spinning spots of white and black. I'm not going to be able to stop, I realize. I'm too close to the ground, and something is terribly, terribly wrong with my wing. I'm going to smash into the trees and that will be the end. If I survive, which is really, really unlikely, I'll still be injured and stuck on the ground. No one will look for me, at least until the storm ends.

Something grips my right arm, nearly wrenching my shoulder from its socket, and I give a shout. I twist my neck, looking up, and Noitora's black feathers and white teeth fill my vision. He has both hands closed around my upper arm, pulling, and while it hurts I don't fight him, because I have no hope of stopping my descent on my own. His wings are beating, hard, and we are slowing, but it doesn't feel fast enough to stop a collision with the approaching ground. He curls, all but bodily throwing himself backward, and a strangled cry of pain gets torn from my throat when one of his feet slams into my injured wing. I can feel something bend how it's not supposed to, and stay that way.

When we hit the trees it's not nearly as bad as it could be. My side smacks into one thick branch, spinning me through the air and pulling me out of Noitora's grip, and I feel smaller branches rake over my face, arms, and wings as I fall through them. I hit the ground on my back with an unforgiving thump, driving any pretense of air I'd recovered after the first smack out of me again. Noitora slowed us enough that I'm pretty sure nothing got broken from the impact, but my whole left side aches and there are a fair number of sections of my skin that sting, where I'm pretty sure the branches have cut or scraped me up.

I heave a breath in, coughing and praying for my lungs to accept the air, as what little rain is making it through the treetops patters down on me. I push myself up on my left arm, as I'm pretty sure Noitora fucked my right shoulder up trying to stop the fall, and grit my teeth as my right wing, outstretched on the muddy ground, violently protests the movement. Suddenly, Noitora is in my face, coming out of the darkness as though from nowhere, and slamming me down onto my back with a hand on either of my shoulders. Pain gets shoved to the background as he grins down at me, teeth coming down towards my throat.

This happens and he's still trying to claim me? Bastard!

I lash out, slamming my hands into his chest to push him away, jerking myself to the side so his teeth close a few inches away from my neck. He's raked up too, blood leaking down his cheek from a slice under his left eye, but the hard snap of his wings, buffeting me with air, proves that he's more or less uninjured. At the least, his wings still work.

He digs fingers into my right shoulder, thumb hooking up to press into the bite on my shoulder, and I give a snarled shout, fighting the urge to throw my head back in pain. I will not bare my throat to this bastard. His hand pins my left arm to the ground, by my forearm, and I drag my right hand up despite the pain, accessing my power and pulling wind to my fingertips, blasting him in the face. It whips his hair back, and he winces, but his only reaction is to drag me up a few inches by my shoulder and then slam me back down into the mud. My shoulder twinges, but it's almost completely drowned out by the impact of my weight back onto my wings, and the sharp agony of my injured right wing.

"Bastard!" I scream into his face, my left shoulder arching off the ground, and I kick my legs out. It's useless, he's straddling my hips and there's nothing for me to hit. He dives back down, coming for my throat again, and I jerk to the opposite side, his teeth sinking into the side of my neck. It's not the right angle, it's not threatening enough for a claim, and he draws back with blood staining his teeth and a savage grin on his face.

It's only a matter of time till he gets my throat, I'm too badly injured and I'm not going to be able to avoid his teeth forever.

There's a roar of sound, and I freeze in tandem with Noitora. His head whips around, and I manage to twist my head to look under his arm and past him. There's something standing there, metal glinting in its hand, and a second or so later there's the flash of lightning and the boom of thunder. The light doesn't get all the way through the trees, but it's enough to paint the thing standing there in scattered spots of light. If I wasn't panicked before, now I definitely am.

It's a human.

He's holding what looks like a blade, not a sword, but more like a knife, and he's half-crouched, threatening. He shouts something, no language that I can understand, and Noitora all but jumps off me. A moment later and he's launching into the sky, wings beating as he slips through the cover of the trees and back into the storm. I get to my feet, adrenaline muting enough of the pain to get me standing. I try and take off, spreading my wings and snapping them down, but the pain drives a scream from me that's nearly drowned out by another crack of thunder. I collapse to one knee, jerking my head to the side to look over at my wing, and horror joins the pain.

It's broken. My fucking wing is broken. My breath comes fast, black creeping in at the edges of my vision, and then it overtakes me completely.

I fucking hate the rain.

I was supposed to get back to my home before the storm started, but it looks like it started early. I've still got at least a mile to go, through the forest, to reach my cabin. The rain's just pouring down, and the lightning is at the same time as the thunder, so the storm's directly overhead. Everything looks different in the rain and darkness, and the ground is almost completely mud now that the storm's been going for a couple of hours, so it's a bitch to walk through. I'm no stranger to traveling these woods in the dark, that's just a daily thing for me, but the rain's fucked everything up. I got lost, briefly, and I only just got back on track.

I was selling off my extra furs to the closest village, still about half a day away at a slow pace, and I'm thankful that I chose to just get gold, and not trade that in for anything. It would be completely and utterly soaked through by now, even with the trees overhead absorbing some of the rainfall. I despise rain, always have. I hate the feel of being damp unless I'm actually washing off, and now I'm going to be damp for at least a day before everything somewhat dries. What a fucking pain in the ass.

I pull my cloak down further over my head, despite how fucking useless it is now that it's soaked through, and bare my teeth as I glare up at the dark sky. I get that it's Fall, and we should be expecting storms more often now, but this is going to just muck up everything. I haven't got traps set anywhere, I'd noticed the clouds moving in yesterday and made sure to take them all down, but once it's over I'll have to go out and set them all back up again. Well, at least I've got some extra meat for tonight, soon as I get back. There's some dry wood inside my house, it might be smoky, but at least I'll be able to do some cooking.

Movement catches my eye, on the ground and not like the jerk of leaves in wind, and I stop, turning to face it. There's two shapes struggling on the ground, one pinning the other to the mud, and I shrug my shoulders. Two wolves, most likely, or a wolf and its prey. Then the top one wrenches the other up, slamming it back down as if to knock the air out of it, and I still. That's not the kind of move a wolf makes. One screams something, in a very human sounding voice, and I reach for my knife. Maybe this is something I should get involved in.

That feeling is confirmed when the top one dives down, going for the pinned one's throat. It jerks aside, but the intention was clearly to rip the bottom one's throat out. That's fucking savage, and not something I'm okay with watching happen. I give a roar when the top one straightens up, pulling my knife, and both of them freeze for a moment before the top one's head whips around to look at me. Lightning flashes a moment later, a boom of sound crashing overhead, and the breath leaves my lungs at the briefly illuminated figures. The top one has wings, huge black wings, which explains why I didn't recognize the shapes as humans, but they definitely are human aside from that.

"Get off him!" I shout, and the top one leaps to his feet, backing away. A moment later I watch, stunned, as his wings spread and beat down, and he disappears into the sky.

The other one gets to its feet, a little slower, and I see wings on this one too, though they're a little smaller and look lighter. They spread, beat down, and the thing screams. Thunder crashes halfway through, drowning him out and illuminating the winged human for a brief moment, and I see it collapse to one knee, still very firmly on the ground. One wing is held up but the other is hanging, looking wrong even from my distance. The thing kneels there for a moment, before slumping to the ground.

It takes a moment for me to get past my shock far enough to do anything, but then I slowly approach the downed, winged, human-thing. It's a he, I realize as I get closer, mud-covered hair plastered to his skull from the rain, and eyes closed. Unconscious. I stow my knife away and sink to my knees next to him, looking over his frame. He's smaller, thinner, than the other winged human, and clearly pretty badly injured. He's too coated in mud to really see what's wrong with him, but I can see blood mixed up with the dirt in some places. His wings are large, feel leather to the touch, and seem to be black beneath the dirt. He's half on his left one, but his right is spread out over the ground. I can't see his other, so I can't compare, but the limb just looks wrong. It's definitely damaged somehow, and badly if it stopped him from flying at all, if it forced him to pass out.

Well... damn.

I'm not one for strays, it's a fucking brutal world and if you can't cut it you don't belong here, but this didn't look like much of a fair fight. I suppose since he's not an animal, as far as I know, and he's pretty seriously fucked up, I can make an exception this time. Just to patch him up, just until the storm ends. Now, how the hell do I carry him with those wings of his?

I end up doing the only thing I can think of, loosely binding his wings to his back with a strip of cloth from the bottom of my cloak. His wings bend to his back naturally, the injured one not doing so as easily, but he doesn't even stir when I force it a bit, which further cements my belief that he's badly injured and firmly unconscious. I brace myself, lifting him from the ground, and very nearly fling him into the air before I catch myself. He's light, absurdly light, even for his smallish size. I guess that makes sense, thinking over it. A human is heavy, nothing that wings like that could lift, he must be internally different somehow to allow for flight.

I'm used to heavier loads, so his weight won't be any kind of problem. It's probably only another half hour or so to my cabin, and then I can get a look at him out of the rain and in better light. I tighten my grip around his ribs and legs, and glance up at the sky before heading out. If that other bastard comes back, I'll just have to gut him. If you're going to kill someone, just fucking do it.

I wake slowly, light shining on my eyelids, and give a groan. Everything hurts, absolutely everything. What the hell?

I remember the storm, the courtship ceremony, getting chased by Noitora. Oh that fucking bastard, he knocked me out of the sky! And then the fight, him persisting in trying to claim me despite us being on the ground, and... I passed out. I stir, immediately regretting it, and slowly open my eyes. Am I back home? Did someone find me? Did Noitora act like a decent fucking person for once and lead them to me? Or am I going to have to murder the bastard for claiming me? That, I'll do without fucking hesitation. I'll take prison time over being chained to someone who broke my wing to make me his.

Brown meets my eyes, and after a moment of staring I recognize it as wood. What the hell? Where am I? I force myself up to sitting, breathing past the sharp ache in my left side. My eyes flick over the room, and my blood runs cold. Wood floor, wood ceiling, a square window with light pouring in and trees visible through the hole.

I'm still on the ground, I'm in one of the human dwellings. Oh god, the human from the storm, that had forced Noitora to run. My head snaps to the side as footsteps reach my ears, and someone brushes in past the flap of leather covering an archway. The human. Oh, my fathers are going to kill me, if the council doesn't get to me first, if the human doesn't kill me first.

He's tall, as tall as Noitora or Kisuke, but much thicker than either. He's shirtless, and that gives me a mildly terrifying view of thick, hard, muscles in a chest nearly twice as big as mine. His legs are covered in brown leggings, the tops tight against thighs equally as muscular, and his feet are bare. He's got light blue hair, nearly the same color as the midday sky, and darker blue eyes that immediately fix on me. They're intent, focused, and they flick over me from head to toe in a moment.

I jerk up after a moment of shock, and fear, gathering my legs under me to crouch on the bed or whatever I was lying on, and automatically spreading my wings to intimidate. My left snaps out, but my right only responds with a burst of pain, it doesn't move from my back. My breath catches, and I fight the urge to crane my head over my shoulder to see what's going on as the human straightens up. His hands rise to either side of his head, a gesture I recognize as stop, or wait, and he says something. It's no use, the humans must speak a different language than us, I can't understand him.

I bare my teeth as he steps forward, reaching for my power and dragging electricity to my fingertips. I can't summon a lightning bolt, that takes at least three Cloudwalkers working together, and I haven't been trained in anything but the basics of how to reroute, but I can do a spark or two. Not enough to hurt anyone of my own race, but maybe it'll give the human a nasty zap.

"Stay back!" I snap, brandishing my right hand as sparks jump between my fingers. My shoulder sends a sharp knife of pain into my chest and I suck in a sharp breath, my concentration snapping. The sparks vanish, and I clutch at my right shoulder with my other hand as my head dips. The flex of muscles remind me of the bites on my shoulder and the side of my throat, with a painful throb. It's a harsh reminder that Noitora fucked me up pretty badly, and if the human is any sort of a fighter - unless all humans look like that, he must be - I'm kind of screwed.

He raises his hands a little farther, and then slowly lowers his left and points over my shoulder, to my wing. I watch him for a moment, debating, and then risk a quick glance back. What little I can see of my right wing is bound tightly in white strips of cloth, bandages, which explains why it wouldn't unfurl. The human tied it to my back, and that freaks me out just a little. It was broken, I need to see a healer and have them set the bone if I'm going to have any chance of ever flying again. This human couldn't know how to set a wing correctly, could he?

The human says something and slowly steps back, pointing over to one corner of the small room I'm in. I follow his gesture to a large mirror, propped up against the log wall. He backs away, to the wall beside it, flicking his fingers in a beckoning movement.

Well, if he wanted me dead I'd probably be so already. There's not much point to helping someone you intend to kill. I slide off the bed, cautiously, and nearly collapse to the floor as my legs buckle beneath me. They don't hurt, my legs aren't injured, but I'm just feeling so weak. Pretty much everything above my waist, with the exception of my left wing and arm, hurts, and I don't know how bad it is yet. I risk a glance down and find out my shirt is gone, though thankfully my pants remain, even as covered in dirt as they are, and most of my left side is black and blue. It still doesn't feel like any of my ribs are broken, but it's hard to imagine that they're not, with bruising like that.

I pull my left wing to my back, there's no space for it in this room, and carefully approach the mirror. I only get close enough to see most of my reflection, not getting within arm's reach of the human. My jaw clenches as I study myself. I look like shit, pretty much. With the exception of where my shirt was covering me, I'm streaked in dirt and the occasional small smear of blood. My side is bruised all to hell, and my right shoulder is swollen looking and hot to the touch. They're half covered in dried mud, but the two bite marks on my shoulder and the side of my neck are equally nasty looking. Great, just fucking fantastic. My wing's broken, my dominant arm is fucked, and I'm not going to be able to even move without my side yelling at me.

Fuck all of it, I'm going to beat the hell out of Noitora on principle when I get back, before I make sure he spends some time in one of our prisons. Breaking another Cloudwalker's wing is a major offense, and I know the fucker did it on purpose. So when I get home...

Something terrible occurs to me, and I step away from the mirror, ignoring the questioning something that the human calls after me as I brush through the leather-covered archway and into a bigger room. I spare only enough of a glance around to find a propped open door that leads outside before I head for it, moving quickly as my side will permit. I crane my head back as soon as I'm outside, raising my gaze to the sky. Only blue air meets my gaze, and as I spin on the spot, I only find more of the same. The sky is clear, the community has moved on. My heart sinks into my stomach, and I take a single step forward before sinking to my knees, my gaze fixed sightlessly on the sky.

They're gone. The community has gone, and left me behind. I'm grounded, even if the human did set my wing correctly - and I can only pray that he did because I can't do it myself - it will still take months for the bone to heal, not to mention the time it will take after that to get enough strength into it to fly again. Noitora will lie to them, of course he will, so they won't know where I went missing, only that I did. My fathers are respected, but enough to turn the entire flight plan prescribed by all our councils on its head for one person? Not likely.

I lower my head, hating the feeling of the damp ground beneath my feet, eyes squeezing shut as I fight back the tears burning in my eyes. Not much point to it, is there? There's nothing I can do to change anything, so I might as well just suck it up and pray they come back. The human set my wing, so he can't be all bad, and it's not like I have much of a chance of surviving without him. This badly injured? No way. I'll just have to take my chances with him.

There's a pointed cough behind me, and I turn my head to find the human leaning in the doorway, watching me. I get to my feet, slowly, grimacing at the fresh layer of dirt over my lower legs. I turn, and watch him back for a moment, just studying. I move to cross my arms and then immediately decide otherwise as I get twin pulses of pain from my side and my shoulder, letting them hang at my sides.

"My home is gone," I inform him, getting by the slight furrow of his brow that he doesn't understand me, but it doesn't matter. "I'm stuck down here, and you're kind of the only chance I have of ever getting back one day." There's no point in asking him any questions, he won't be able to answer them, but at least I can throw out some kind of gratitude even if he won't understand it. "Thank you."

His eyes widen briefly, and then he gives a grin that nearly makes me rethink sticking around. He's got massively sharp canines, and I don't know if that's a human thing or just him but it's kind of scary. "You're welcome," he answers, and my eyes widen.

We haven't been understanding each other, so our languages must be different, but maybe we share common words between them or a root or something. His accent is weird, so mine must be equally as strange to him, but maybe communication won't be so impossible. I don't know about him, but I'm a decently quick learner, maybe I can learn his side of the language while I'm stuck here. Maybe, this won't be so awful.

He's freaked out, I get that much from his behavior. I can't understand most of what he says, only the occasional word that slips through, but he keeps looking at the sky like he's searching for something that should be there. I get it, really. I fixed his wing as best as I could, setting the bones so they matched his uninjured one, before tying it up in the best version of a splint I could manage. Who knows if he'll heal any different, but bones usually take months to heal before you can even start to rebuild the muscle. He's stuck here.

I have no idea what happened to his side, but it didn't feel like any of his ribs were broken so I left it alone. His shoulder's fucked up, somehow, but I don't have the knowledge to figure out if it'll heal on its own or not. I only really had time to fix his wing up once I'd gotten him back, before I had to deal with myself, and there was no way in hell I was going to wash him off by myself. Cleaning his wing off was enough of a pain in the ass. Now that he's awake, and a little settled, he can clean off so I can see if there's any serious cuts on him. It doesn't look like it, but better to be careful. Better he's clean, too, before I bandage up the rest of his injuries.

Currently, he's looking thoughtfully down at the bucket of water and rag I've given him. Not confused looking, but more just... thinking. It's kinda irritating.

"Hey!" I bark at him, and his head snaps up to look at me. "Are you going to fucking use that?" I point at the bucket to enforce my point, since there's no way to know how much, if any, of my words got through.

He rolls his brown eyes, and sinks down to a crouch beside the bucket. It hurts him, I can see the tremble in his hands, but he only winces. He's got a pain tolerance, I'll give him that. His hands come together in front of him, and his eyes close for a moment, before he begins spinning his hands together in small circles. I'm about to ask him what the fuck he's doing, before I see the streams of white coming from his fingertips.

Clouds. He's spinning fucking clouds.

He grins, continuing the motion in larger circles till he's got a large section of white cloud about twice as big around as he is. He grips it like it's something physical, maybe to him it is, and drags it over the bucket. He dips his free hand into the water, and I watch in stunned disbelief as the water streams up through the air and into the cloud, turning it a darker and darker grey till the bucket is empty and it's a dark black.

He shoots me a smug look, grabbing the rag before pulling the black cloud up with him as he stands, only the tiniest flicker of his eyes betraying his pain. He guides it over his head, and with a snap of the fingers on his left hand it starts to rain on him. He winces a little, maybe at the temperature or maybe at the impact of the water against the open bite marks on the right side of his neck and shoulder, but casually starts to scrub the mud off himself.

Hot damn. That looks tremendously fucking useful. It's not a downpour, more like a sprinkle, but it's more than enough to be effective.

So now I've seen him bring sparks to his hands, control water, and spin fucking clouds together out of thin air. What else can he do? I wish I knew what the hell he is, but I've never heard of winged humans with those kinds of powers. Maybe...

Him, and the other one, had showed up in the storm yesterday. Was the storm artificial? Is all weather artificial? Does whatever race he belongs to make that storm? Oh man, talk about fucking throwing my world on its head. Shame we've only got a tiny bit of understanding, or I could ask him all these things. Maybe I can at least figure out his name or what his race is called, while I bandage him up. I should probably tell him my name too, come to think of it.

I should also get him something to dry off with, and some clothes. His pants are going to be soaked through, and his shirt's laid out with my own clothes and cloak, not dry yet. I think I've probably got some old pants that might fit him if he tied them tight enough, though he might just have to deal with being shirtless for now. The shirt I pulled off him had four sets of ties to hold it together, tying around the top and bottom of his wings. So it's not just a case of cutting holes in the back of a shirt, his wings are probably too wide or big for that. As he scrubs the dirt off him, I can't help staring a little.

I knew he was pretty small, but with the mud off his torso I can see it's because he's lean and muscled. Maybe that's part of how they fly, is that they're all built thin. I'd never get off the fucking ground with my kind of musculature, not without some serious problems anyway. His abs are clenched, shuddering occasionally, and even though I know it's likely from his bruised side it's still a nice effect. He goes after his hair last, with only his left hand, and as he scrubs the mud out I get to see that his hair barely brushes his shoulders, spiky and cut in layers, and that it's bright orange. He's young, too. With his face not streaked in dirt I can see that he can't be older than twenty or so, and probably younger.

Right, stop staring and go get him some dry pants.

I head inside, and I do find some black leggings that close with ties, ones I outgrew years and years ago, down in a corner of my chest of clothing. I honestly don't know why I even still have these, I must have just forgotten about them. I grab a larger, spare piece of cloth for him to dry off, and head back outside. I stop, once again finding myself shocked by the winged human. The cloud is gone, and he seems to be quite literally air-drying himself. A wind that isn't touching anything else is moving his hair, and his eyes are closed as he stands still against the force.

His eyes flick open as the wind dies down, pinning onto me. He looks more or less dry, with the exception of his pants, and I approach, offering him the cloth and the leggings I'm holding. He takes them cautiously, and I back away to give him his space. He throws both items to rest over his left shoulder, before looking up at me pointedly.

I give him a grin, but do turn away, leaning into the doorway to give him privacy. It's a minute or so before he says something, calling my attention back, and I turn back around to face him. The pants hang low on his hips, it can only tie so tight, and he's got the wet pants bundled up inside the cloth I'd given him. Seeing him now that the mud's gone, he's worse off than he looked before. He's got a bunch of scratches on his arms, and a few on his face as well, and a number of bruises scattered all over him. They don't look like strikes, most of them aren't anywhere that someone would hit to cause damage, so I don't know where he might have gotten them. The cuts all seem scabbed, or at least none of them are outright bleeding, so they should be just fine without any kind of interference. I should probably look at his shoulder though, and put something over the two bite marks - one on his right shoulder and one on the right side of his neck - that look much nastier against his tanned skin now that they're clearly visible.

I straighten up, flicking my fingers to beckon him over as I head back into my house. "Are you coming?" I throw over my shoulder. I reemerge from the room I'd stored him in, a spare room, with the bandages I'd set aside once I was finished with his wing, at the same time as he comes through the door. He sets the bundle of clothing and the bucket he's carrying aside, near the door, and straightens up to watch me. "Sit down," I demand, snapping my fingers and pointing to my table.

He does pause for a moment, but then slowly approaches, circling around and sliding up onto the edge of the table with a momentary clench of his teeth. He's leaned forward some, and I almost push him back to straighten up before I realize that he physically can't with his wings. They're too big, they come down to the middle of the back of his thigh folded as they are, and he's leaned forward to give them space to jut out along the table. That can't be comfortable for him. Oh, fuck it, I'll suck up the bench being too short.

"Come on, kid, move over to the bench," I tell him, with a gesture of my hand towards the plank of wood as I shove it back with my foot a few feet from the table. That's really all it is, when it comes down to it. Hard to find anyone else to make things for me, this deep in the forest, so I make do with what I can make with my own two hands, or lug back from the town.

He gives me a look that I'm pretty sure is grateful, as he carefully edges off the table and sits down on the bench facing it. He can sit up straight on that, at least. I set the bandages down, gently gripping his upper right arm, and he grimaces, saying something. I don't catch any of the words, but the tone comes through just fine. Braced, and resigned, he expects pain. Well, he's definitely right.

"Yeah, this is going to suck," I answer. I fucked up my own shoulder once, when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember what the healer that my father took me to did. She called it range of motion, but it just felt like a fucking cruel test of how much pain I could take. These days, I get that she was testing the limit my arm could go without pain, to see how badly it was injured. I remember mine, and she'd put my arm in a sling for it, so if he turns out anywhere near the same I can just do that.

I slowly rotate his arm, feeling his muscles twitch beneath my hands, as I test how far up it'll go. When he sharply inhales, his other hand clenching, I let it go a different direction. Once I'm finished his head is bowed, the muscles in his neck tensed against the pain, and I'm all but certain that he'll definitely need a sling. I don't know what the hell happened to it, but I get the impression that his arm pretty much doesn't move without pain, and pulling it any more than about a foot away from its natural position invites much worse. It should at least stay immobile until the swelling's gone down. I let him go, and he looks up as I reach for the roll of bandages.

"I'm going to wrap up your neck and shoulder first," I tell him, more thinking aloud then for any kind of communication, but I do flick my hand at my own neck to try and get some of the point across. He catches on, dropping his shoulder an inch or so and tilting his head to the side to expose the injuries.

I'm not fantastic at it, but I've had to wrap up my own injuries enough times that I can do a decent enough job. It's remarkably easier to do on another person, I find out. I layer the white cloth over the bite marks, wrapping and tying them to keep them in place, before reaching for his arm again. He winces, but lets me have it. I fashion a makeshift sling, hooking the bandages over the back of his neck, and when I'm satisfied that it will at least support his arm if he doesn't move it, I tie that off too, setting the bandages aside.

He shifts, testing it, and everything holds together. Good. He bows his head a little, and I offer him my hand to stand up. He takes it, and, forgetting how much lighter he is than me, I pull hard to get him off the bench. He snaps up with a startled cry, impacting with my chest and bouncing off it, and I automatically catch him.

"Oh, fuck! Sorry."

He gives me a nasty look, brown eyes narrowed in irritation, and snaps something that I can only assume is less than complimentary, given how he says it. He shakes out of my grip, and as he steps away I try and figure out a way to explain my mistake. He stalks, clearly offended and probably pretty in pain too, over to the spare room and brushes inside, out of my view.

Oh, damn.

I sit on the edge of the bed, my left hand loosely wrapped around my ribs. I can feel myself faintly trembling, and I grit my teeth and grip a little harder. I feel so amazingly useless, and helpless. The human pulling me up had driven something home that I'd only heard of, that humans are significantly physically stronger than we are. It doesn't really scare me, he doesn't really scare me, but I've spent the last year and a half being the best and the strongest to keep my freedom. Being so badly hurt, being so helpless, just goes against what I've been taught my whole life, and what's been reinforced since I turned sixteen.

It hurts to breathe, and I'm just so tired. I probably shouldn't have used my powers to clean off, or to dry, I definitely don't have the energy to spare, but I'd just wanted to prove that I could still do something. Damn it, I'm not this weak. I should have beaten the crap out of Noitora. He's bigger than me, but I'm so much better trained than he is. I should have been able to evade him, easily. Him breaking my wing fucked all of that.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse. He could have managed to claim me before dragging me back up to our community. Well...

Would it have been better? If he'd managed it, I could have dragged him in front of our council for breaking my wing. Some minor injury is allowed during a courtship storm, but nothing like what he did to me. I honestly don't know what happens then. Most people aren't the kind of bastard that Noitora is. Would I have been stuck with him, or would they have thrown him into a prison and set me free again?

Is that a better alternative than being stuck down here? Hard to say.

The leather leading into this room brushes aside, and I get to my feet as the human comes in. My legs don't want to hold me, but I force them to. He holds up his hands in a peaceful gesture, before holding out his left hand. I stare at him for a moment, before releasing my ribs and reaching out to take it. I don't honestly think that he wants to hurt me, he patched me up after all, but the sharp explosion of pain from him pulling me up had made me snappish.

I watch in some confusion as he lays his left arm in my hand, at the elbow, before releasing his grip. My hand drops under the sudden weight before I can stabilize it, and my eyes widen.

Oh.

His arm is way heavier than I thought it would be, and it can't be just the extra muscle he has. Maybe something is integrally different between humans and Cloudwalkers, maybe they're just flat out heavier than we are. That would explain why they're stronger, too. More weight to throw behind things. So maybe he expects me to weigh what he thinks a human my size should weigh, which explains him all but wrenching me out of my seat. If I'm, inversely, that much lighter than he expects, I understand what happened.

I nod, signaling my understanding, and let my arm fall back to my torso. His blue eyes fall to where my arm is wrapped around my stomach, before rising to meet my gaze. He says something, starting with a statement and ending with something that sounds like a question, and the only word that comes through is 'will'. I shrug and shake my head, communicating my inability to understand him. That's something I should work on.

His arms cross for a moment, and then he gives a nod of his head and breaks out in a complicated series of gestures. After some staring, and two repetitions, I get the vague idea that he's leaving the house. I assume, since he's bothering to tell me, that he won't be back for a while and he'll be heading out into the forest somewhere. Well, alright. He's definitely got his own life and probably some kind of job as well, that makes sense. He can't stop everything just for me, and I wouldn't expect him to. I should really sleep, anyway.

Oh, fuck it.

"Have you got a book?" I ask, miming the act of opening one, and after a moment of staring at my hands, he nods.

He turns around, heading back out into the main room, and after a breath to steady myself I follow him. I move slower than he does, and he disappears through another leather arch and returns while I wait in the center of the room. He's got a moderately sized leather-bound book in his hands, and he passes it to me. I flip it open, and give a small grin. Most of the words don't make much sense to me, but I recognize all the letters. Looks like our languages go off the same system, and I can definitely pick out a few of the words on the first page that I recognize. I should be able to go through and make a list of all the words that cross over, and maybe even figure out the rest of it. Maybe some of them are just pronounced differently between our languages.

"What about something to write with?" I ask distractedly, before looking up and doing my best to impersonate writing something with my left hand. It's awkward, and if he does have anything my handwriting is going to be absolutely terrible, but I'll work with what I've got. He disappears back into the room, and returns a moment or two later with a couple of what look like rough pencils, and a roll of paper. Wonderful, that should do nicely. I take both items from him, and turn to the table and the accompanying bench.

I shove the bench back into place and slip onto it, laying out my supplies on the rough wood of the table. I pin the paper down with one side of the book, and take up one of the pencils in a grip that feels completely wrong. Oh, this is going to be a pain in the ass. Ah well.

I can hear him move around me, but I ignore it, devoting my attention to the book. I don't have the energy to pay attention to much more than this, not right now anyway. Finding out if we can communicate easily is important, but admittedly I'm also avoiding sleeping. The energy will be nice, but I can't imagine that lying down, regardless of how I do it, will be anything but really painful. I'll just work on this until I absolutely can't stay awake any longer, maybe then I'll be exhausted enough that the pain won't stop me falling asleep. It's a few minutes before I hear him cross the room, and hear the wooden door close.

At some point, I suppose I should really find out his name.

Chapter Text

The kid's name is Ichigo, and I nearly have a heart attack when I find out, a month or so into his recovery, that he's seventeen. This whole fucking time I've been checking him out - he'd made himself a couple shirts out of my old ones, but he needs my help to get them on around his injured wing, so he tends to go without - and enjoying the view, and he's not even really an adult yet. Fuck, I knew he looked young, but that young?

He is smart, I'll give him that. He figured out the differences in our languages within a couple weeks - not like he had anything else to do - and a limited selection of words that they share. Beyond that, he's been learning the human part of the shared language, and really quickly too. These days, three months into staying here, he saves speaking in his own language for comments that I'm pretty sure are insults. Most things he can communicate easily enough now, so there's much less charades in our conversations.

I didn't ask him to, but I didn't exactly complain, the day that I came back from a trip to the village and my house was spotless. Clean from top to fucking bottom, not a speck of dirt anywhere. He was sitting there over his parchment, the one littered with the notes that he'd copied over once he could use his right arm again, and when I asked him what he'd done, he'd only shrugged and commented, "I was bored." I don't know if he's just using it to combat going stir crazy, or if he's doing it as some way of paying me back for keeping him here, but it's pretty cool. Everything that I generally don't have time to do gets done, just like that.

He also eventually, once he had a decent store of words, told me what actually happened the night of the storm. The bastard I'd saved him from wasn't trying to kill him, like I'd thought, but trying to 'claim' him. He hadn't gone into what that means, but I spend enough time around animals, I think I get the concept. He'd called the storm a 'courtship' storm, and said that the other member of his race - Cloudwalkers, and specifically Noitora - had broken his wing while in the air, trying to force him to give in. The large bruises on his ribs - that have finally completely faded - make a lot more sense after that. Who knows how high up they were when he fell? He'd almost laughed in my face when I said some decidedly nasty things about his race, if they'd let someone go to extreme lengths like that.

Apparently, they don't. What Noitora had done was illegal on several different levels, and Ichigo has plans to beat him all to hell when he gets back home. The unspoken 'if' is loud, but he's never said it. He misses his home, the clouds that he's coated his room in are obvious enough proof, but he never says anything. It takes me a kind of pathetically long time, almost two and a half months, before I wonder if he has family up there. Learning that he does, two caretakers that have raised him since he was a child, makes me regret asking. I doubt he wants to think about it.

He doesn't talk much about his home, and honestly it's probably better that way.

"Ready to test it?" I ask, and the kid winces.

Every other injury has healed. The bruises are gone, as are the bite marks, without any lingering proof they were there, and his shoulder did eventually heal itself. The only exception is his wing, which has been painful every time I've had to jostle it to swap out the bandages for fresh ones. But it's been three months, and the bone should be healed by now. He knows that as well as I do, and we've been talking about it for days, but I've finally got some spare time. So, now it is.

"No," he answers bluntly, "but it has to be done." His voice curls around the words in a completely unique, smooth, accent, one that I fantasized about before I realized his age. Alright, I still fucking fantasize about it. He might be young, but he was participating in what sounds to me like essentially a marriage ceremony, in his own culture he's clearly considered more or less an adult. That makes it alright, right?

I approach his back, and his arms cross as I reach for the bandages. I unravel them, completely unbinding his wing, before backing away. His wings are fucking amazing, I'd realized that. They aren't just a tool, not like how I'd thought of them, they are legitimate limbs of his. He's clearly been off-balance with just the one, but he's been managing. I've seen him use his single left wing as a support, as a blanket, as a shield when he doesn't want to talk to me, and he'd straight out hit me in the face with the tip of it once. Granted, I was being a dick, but it had still rendered me speechless.

He renders me speechless a lot more than I'm comfortable with, really. He's smart, attractive, completely different than I'm used to, and he's got a temper on top of it. The first time he'd - I assumed - cussed me out in his own native language I'd been totally shocked, but then it had just brought a grin to my face. It's been a very long time since anyone stood up to me, I'm intimidating to most of my fellow humans, but this kid, half-crippled and totally living on my pity, had the nerve to not only stand up to me, but to get aggressive. He simply does not do things he doesn't want to, and he calls me out on it when I'm being an asshole.

I don't tend to get along with people, and I live in the forest for a reason.

He pauses for a second, teeth gritting, before he moves his right wing for the first time in months. It stretches out in tandem with his left, to its full potential, and while it trembles slightly, and he takes in a sharp breath, he doesn't stop. He flexes it in and out a few times, slowly, before giving a tentative flap. To my eyes, it moves smoothly, and as far as I can tell the bone structure is correct and not any different than his uninjured wing.

"It looks alright to me," I comment, and his arms fall to his sides as he turns to me.

"Only one way to find out," he says, glancing up at the sky, and gives a shaky laugh. "For the love of the gods, if I fall, catch me?" I nod my assent, and he gives me a grateful sound before his legs bend and he leaps, wings beating down with a power I didn't know they had. It's fucking amazing to watch, the rush of wind blowing the few rebellious strands of my hair away from my face as I stare. I knew he had to have enough strength to get off the ground, to lift all his weight and get it into the air, but I hadn't really considered how that would physically translate. I think it would probably be pretty accurate to say that his wings are the strongest part of him.

He gets airborne quickly, rising up above the treetops and high into the sky. His wings beat evenly, until he does something that makes my stomach fucking drop to my toes. He curls into a ball in one quick move, wings slanting downwards, and he falls for a heart stopping moment before taking off with a speed that I couldn't imagine him moving, stretching out horizontally. He leaves my sight, but quickly slips back in, looping around in a pattern that makes me dizzy just looking at it. He's only up there for a minute or two before he heads back down. He levels out vertically, sinking down into a slow descent that drops him a little with each pause between the beats of his wings. He settles back to the ground, a legitimate smile twisting the lips I've had terrible, terrible thoughts about. There's a hint of strain in the tightness of his eyes, but it's the first time I've seen him look legitimately happy.

"Feel good?" I ask, and he lets loose a laugh that's all but bursting with joy.

"You have no idea," he claims, his wings folding to his back.

"Looks like it hurt some," I point out, and he shrugs.

"Not serious, just aches. Should be fine once I work the stiffness out of it."

I force a small grin. "You can go home now." Somehow, that doesn't make me nearly as happy as it should. I've gotten used to the kid being around, to his snappy, snarky comments and his presence in my home, even when he's not interacting with me.

His smile falls a little, and he glances back over his shoulder at his wing. "Not yet," he says, a tinge of regret in his voice. That tinge clenches my stomach in something like bitterness, but I force it away. I've got no fucking right. "I can fly, but not for long, I've lost too much muscle. I'll need a while to retrain it, to hold me for any length of time. I can't do anything serious either, I don't think my wing would hold under a snap trick." He doesn't explain what that means, and it's probably easier that way. Without the words to explain more complicated methods of flying, which is something that the human language doesn't get specific with, the best he can do is try to mime, and most times I still don't get it.

"So, what, you're going to fly off and search for it?" He'd told me, eventually, that the Cloudwalkers had that name because they could literally do that. They live in communities made of clouds, on an ever rotating schedule designed by their 'councils'. Wanderers, but also very much not. He'd confessed that the chance of finding his own community, wherever it might be, is pretty low. He'll likely have to search for weeks to find any community, before then heading where they tell him his community will be located.

He shakes his head a little, eyes falling to the ground. He says something quietly in his own language, before answering me in mine in a louder tone, "Maybe. We'll see."

It wasn't until I deciphered the calendar pinned up against the wall, the parchment thick and pinned down by all four corners, that I realized my own situation. It was one of the last things I translated, and until then I hadn't really thought about it. Four days before I tested my wing, I realized what date it was. I'd spent three months down here waiting for the bone to heal, waiting to be able to fly, and now I have to retrain myself to do even that with any kind of skill. I remember everything, but every time I start to dip into a dive, or a spiral, or any of the hundred different maneuvers I know, my wing aches with the strain and I have to back off. It's frustrating. It's been years and years since I was anything but the best flier in my age group, and even more since I had to do basic, short, flights like these.

Why did this have to happen now of all times?

I haven't told Grimmjow yet, my blue-haired and blue-eyed human, but since I'm still stuck here I'll have to. It's been over three months, we're right at the start of summer, and my eighteenth birthday is looming closer, barely two weeks away. I should be up on the clouds, getting ready for my first heat and choosing a mate. That's one of the reasons I was so adamant about escaping during the twelve different ceremonies I would be forced into. If a submissive gets through every storm, they have the right to choose any unclaimed dominant in the entire community. I was well on my way to that.

Fucking Noitora.

I don't think I can get my wing up to shape, up to where it was, before my heat starts, not unless a community just happens to wander overhead. As I am now, I probably couldn't even make it halfway up to the height of a cloud community. I'm on a timer, and if I don't have a dominant to work me through my heat it's going to be two weeks of hell. I don't like being a submissive, it's not in my nature to pander and spread my wings for just anyone (like I'd seen others of my kind do), but I accepted a long time ago that it was just how things were. But damn the lot of them if they thought they could force me to do whatever they wanted. My father, Kisuke, had reinforced all my ideas.

He's a lot more subtle than I am, he has a way of making the dominants think his ideas are their own. I've watched him wrap Shinji around his fingers as easily as a cloud, more than once, and while it's obvious to me, Shinji never seems to notice. Kisuke taught me some of the same skills, but I generally prefer to just punch pushy dominants, that tends to teach them. I blame Shinji for that. Kisuke might have taught me to run, or to dodge, but Shinji taught me to fight.

Fuck, I should stop avoiding this. Grimmjow will probably notice soon anyway. I've already started the changes leading up to my heat, and I'm going to be all over the place. I already am, in fact, but I can hide it for now. My emotions and reactions have been ricocheting all over the place for the last few days, and I'm starting to not be able to control it. He'll probably notice that eventually, even if he doesn't notice anything else. Not that he's not perceptive, just...

I drop my head into my hands. Fuck.

I do know that the near-animal lust will point me right at Grimmjow, as the nearest person and the nearest dominant. As of two days ago, I can smell it on him, and everything in me wants to go after him. But he's human, and I have no idea how or if that will effect anything. I have no idea if humans are like us when it comes to sex or mates, Grimmjow is at least a few years over eighteen and he doesn't seem real interested in anything. I'd gotten some wanting grins at the start, but those had stopped pretty quickly. He hasn't seemed to show any interest, and I know that I'm a prime catch in the Cloudwalker communities. But then again, it's not like he has any others to compare me to, and maybe he doesn't know that. Not that I want him to, of course! Probably.

I mean, he's human! And he can be such an ass sometimes, and he's just an irritating bastard. But, he helped me. He's also the only dominant that hasn't gotten offended or confused by me in years. I'm a submissive, they expect me to act the part, and when I don't it tends to throw all their plans and sweet words into the air for them to try and pull themselves together. Grimmjow might have been surprised when I yelled at him the first time, or when I smacked him in the face with my uninjured wing for not leaving me alone after I'd asked, repeatedly, but he doesn't stay that way. He just grins and does what I want him to, or stops doing what I've asked him not to, and it's... refreshing.

Fuck.

At the very least, I have to give him the option to kick me out on my own. It's already starting to affect me and my judgment, and my emotions are the start of a tornado. I'm going to be a bitch to deal with in the next week and a half or so, I know it, and he should have the right to decide if he wants to deal with that or not. I'll manage on my own, somehow. I have two weeks to find a community, and after all, any community will do at that point.

No more stalling, damn it. Right now.

I straighten up and push off the bench, heading outside where I know Grimmjow is, somewhere. He hadn't left to trap, so he must be around the clearing somewhere. The sight that greets me makes me halt in my tracks, and I push down arousal as my wings flutter against my back. I manage to keep them from spreading any, barely. Not that he'll know what it means, but it's the gesture of the thing. If I can keep control of them, then I have control of myself.

He's shirtless, and there's sweat glistening on his skin under the midday sun. It's dampened his hair to a dark blue, clinging to his neck, and I'd managed to walk out right in the middle of him dumping a bucket of water over himself. It streams down his skin, all but fucking sparkling against the sun, and I swallow a groan as he shakes his head and water goes flying everywhere.

I feel my wings shift, half-rising, and bite my tongue to hold off a curse.

He drops the bucket and reaches for the large scrap of cloth laid over the drying rack he has outside his cabin, toweling it over his head as he catches sight of me. "Hey," he greets, with a grin. I make some sound that could be taken for a hello, not moving any closer until he's dry, and he's pulled a black shirt over his head.

"We should talk," I say, with apprehension, and he stills, looking at me.

"Yeah, sure. Here, inside?"

I glance down at the now muddy ground around his feet. "Inside," I decide. I turn first, trying to get the image of his dripping torso out of my head, with pretty much no success. I do manage to flatten my wings against my back again, and I count that as victory enough for now. We'll see how well Grimmjow takes any of this.

He questions, and I start explaining. I lay out the dominant and submissive nature - and the human language I've gone through doesn't have a word for it, so I end up just using my language's words - of the Cloudwalker race, and the capability of either gender to be either nature, and learn that the humans aren't the same. They only have male and female, and that makes me mildly nervous when I tell the human that I may be male, but I am a submissive, and that makes me capable of creating life. He looks more than a little shocked, but he eventually gestures for me to go on. I lay out our system of relations, one dominant to a submissive, generally, before throwing out the big fact that submissives enter a period of heat - the only time they can make life - and their first occurs the moment they fully mature, at eighteen.

He gets it faster than I thought he would, to his credit.

"You're seventeen, right? So when do you turn eighteen?"

I wince, resisting the urge to pull my legs up into my chest to make a smaller target for the larger man. "A little over two weeks," I admit, and he nods. His expression is strangely blank, and after a few moments of silence I continue. "If you want me gone, I won't complain." It's his choice, he has every right to throw me out of his home.

"Why the fuck would I do that?" Grimmjow asks bluntly, and I snap my gaze back up to meet his eyes. He leans against the table, one hand ruffling through his blue hair. "I keep you here for over three months, half of it where you're mostly crippled and totally useless, and you think I'm going to force you to leave now?" He snorts, giving me a small grin. "Whatever, you can stay as long as you like."

Hope flares sharp in my chest, but I crush it down. No. Don't even think that way until he knows what he's agreeing to. "It won't be fun," I warn him, my lips pressing together. "I'll be hard to deal with for the space between, and once it actually starts you'll pretty much have to tie me down to keep me from doing anything really stupid. It won't be fun, but it'll keep me out of trouble."

His blue eyes are narrowed, and he studies me for a moment before speaking. "You're going to be in a lot of pain, aren't you?"

I hesitate, but nod. "From what I've heard, it's supposed to be agony for an unclaimed submissive. A dominant can ease it some with sex, but..." I shake my head, jaw clenching. "It doesn't matter. There's not another option. I don't think my wing will be strong enough for me to travel."

"Don't suppose I count, do I?" His words, just slightly questioning, shock me. His tone is casual, but his eyes are fixed unwaveringly on me. That's not so unusual, Grimmjow tends to look intense even when he's completely uninterested, but there's something to his gaze that makes me take his words seriously.

"Are you a choice?" I ask cautiously, and his eyes widen slightly.

"I'm not a Cloudwalker," he says, as if I need the reminder, "so I don't see how I could be a," he pauses for a moment and then tries to pronounce my language's word for dominant. His accent is terrible, but he mostly manages it.

Should I tell him?

My mouth is moving before my mind can decide one way or another. "You smell like one." He gives me a weird look, and my shoulders lift in a shrug as I take in a deep breath through my nose. His scent feeds into my head, and my eyes flicker shut for a moment. "Been hard to concentrate the last couple of days," I say in a low voice, letting my eyes wander over the muscles of the human's neck, and then to the thin sliver of exposed collarbone. "You smell so good, makes me want to show you the things I've been thinking about for the last month." He watches me warily as I edge closer, tilting my head to one side to bare the skin of my throat. An invitation.

I give him a small grin, feeling my wings flutter behind my back, and then it hits me what I'm doing. I jerk off the bench like I've been burned, backing away till my wings and back hit the wall. I cover my eyes, taking in several harsh breaths in an attempt to control myself. It's close to a minute before I feel secure enough in my control of my emotions and the arousal burning low in my stomach to risk sliding the hand up through my hair, looking back at Grimmjow. He's turned to face me, still leaning on the table, and he's watching me with something close to worry.

"I, I'm sorry," I manage, feeling my face flush in embarrassment.

"I don't mind," he says bluntly. "You alright?"

I take a moment to consider before answering, "Mostly." My inability to control my behavior is frustrating, but it does give me some idea of why other submissives always seemed so... wanton, to me. This is only going to get worse, and I'll probably have less and less control over how I act. That's not to even touch on what I'll be like during the heat itself. Gods, how come no one ever warned me that it was like this?

"So, I do count then?" His voice is a low rumble, and I force away the shiver that runs down my spine.

"Maybe," is the best answer I can give. Grimmjow might smell like a dominant, to me, but that doesn't mean he can actually do anything. "I don't know anything about humans. It probably can't hurt." I don't even know for certain if the human has the ability to claim me, or me to claim him, but I have to trust him not to. I don't have much choice.

He grunts out an affirmative noise, and stands up off the bench. "It's not a great option," Grimmjow says quietly, raking a hand through his hair, "but I'll do it." Equal measures of want and something resembling anger rise, and I bite them back. So, what? He doesn't want it, but he'll be self-sacrificing and just take one for the team? What a hero.

I tilt my head back against the wall, struggling to force down the gut reaction. No. Regardless of his intentions, or if he doesn't actually have any interest in me, he's helping and I should respect that. Without him, I'd just be forced to weather it on my own. He might be able to help, he might be able to make it tolerable. Don't snap at him for this, he's under no obligation to help or even keep me here.

"Thanks," I manage, not looking at him, before I revert to my language to mumble, "Fuck, this is not how I thought my first time was going to go."

I thought I was going to get my choice of mates, and have a fantastic start to the rest of my life with two weeks of total bliss. I could even have chosen not to mate at all and have a trained dominant help me through it, I had the right, if not for fucking Noitora. I was supposed to be the biggest catch in years, trained and raised by two of the most respected members of my community, with a huge store of power that I haven't even fully grown into. The first heat will unlock the rest of my potential, and I heard the theory from my fathers - when they were talking to each other and didn't think I was paying attention - that I was probably going to be the strongest Cloudwalker in the entire community.

I wasn't supposed to get stranded on the ground, separated from any other member of my race, and forced through my maturity with a human. This is a fucking disaster.

Grimmjow makes a questioning noise, and I drop my head to look at him. "Nothing," I lie. "It doesn't matter."

I could have done this better. A few days passed after I'd said I would help Ichigo through his heat - by fucking him, and I don't even have to feel guilty about it - before I realized that the way I'd volunteered had been kind of, well, like an ass. I was trying not to seem overeager, which I was, and like I'd just been fucking waiting for an opportunity, and I'd ended up on the opposite side of the scale. Which is why the kid's been bouncing back and forth between one step away from jumping me - which is nice, if out of character - and coldly snippy, for the last two weeks. He jumps from one to the other in an instant, and seemingly random things will piss him off to the point that I've been sure, a few times, that he was going to try and throttle me.

He's restrained himself, so far, but then over the last couple days I've only talked to him when he comes in to eat. Otherwise he's in the sky, or sitting at the table with his book and a 'come near me and fucking die' aura. It's the latter at the moment, and I'm watching him from the doorway. He's deathly still, apart from his constantly twitching wings. They rise just a little, starting to unfold, before flattening back out, over and over. That's been going on for a while now.

He hasn't explained it, and I haven't figured it out, but his wings definitely only started doing that when this whole thing started. I'm curious, but it's probably not a good idea to ask with him in his current mood. I have to wonder if this is just him, or if all the Cloudwalkers of his disposition are like this. I'm sure part of it is because I shoved my foot in my mouth and made myself sound like an ass, but the rest of it is in his own head, and I've got absolutely no idea what the hell is going on in there.

I'll need to face his anger at some point soon. He's been more or less avoiding me, so he really hasn't told me anything about his upcoming ordeal, and I should probably know. What to do, what not to do...

"What?!" he snarls at me, looking over his shoulder with narrowed brown eyes. If looks could kill.

"We should probably talk about this, before it happens."

He glares at me, all but bristling, before visibly taking in a deep breath and attempting to control himself, both hands slipping up to pull through his hair. It's longer now, then when he'd showed up, brushing against his shoulders. He hasn't cut it, and he hasn't asked me to. There's another flick of his wings, and a tremble in his shoulders, before he slowly nods.

"You're right," he admits, as though it pains him. "Sit down?" The request is quiet, and I slowly circle around to the opposite side of the table from him. Partially so I'm out of range, and partially because I've seen how he reacts to me being near him these days. I don't want him trying to jump me while I need actual information from him.

"So, what do I need to know?" I ask as I sit down.

He stares down at the table, hands still in his hair, and then slowly clenches his eyes shut for a few moments before opening them again. "You'll need to be careful. We don't know how much stronger you are than me, and I'd really like to not get hurt again so soon. If you have to restrain me, just tie me down, don't pin me." That's actually a point I hadn't considered. We didn't physically interact much, even before he'd gone into this, so the issue of me being so much stronger had never really come up again after that first time. "Don't bite me, and don't let me bite you. You'll need to gag me anyway, so that shouldn't be much of a problem."

"Why?" I ask curiously. I can't imagine much being better than watching Ichigo lose his mind, but listening to him is pretty damn high on the list. Why the hell would I have to gag him?

He looks up at me, giving a shaky bark of flat laughter. "I'm going to have no control over myself. I'd really rather you not hear what I'll ask from you." There's an edge to his voice that cuts off any argument I might have had, and I get it with sudden clarity. His anger isn't at me, it's at himself. He hates being so out of control, and even though this might be a fucking wet dream come true for me, it's not for him. He doesn't have a choice in it. He hadn't shown any fucking interest in me until this started, maybe this is just the better of two terrible options in his mind.

"Did you want me before this started fucking with you?" I ask, unable to help myself. It doesn't sit well in my stomach that he might just be taking this as an alternative to two weeks of agony, and is otherwise all but unwilling. I'd probably take this over that too, but I'd hate every second.

His eyes flicker in surprise, before he sits up a little, hands leaving his head. "Why do you care?" he asks sharply.

"I'd like to know," I answer, unable to stop the slight growl in my words. These last two weeks have been confusing and frustrating, and this is a damn important question.

He doesn't react well to my tone. He's on his feet in a second, eyes narrowed and teeth bared, palms braced on the table. "What does it matter?" he asks in a snarl, wings flaring angrily behind him. "It doesn't change anything either way!"

"Then why not answer me?" I ask, following him to standing. I'm a good deal taller than him, and he takes a step back and straightens up, glaring at me as I look down at him.

"You -!" he uses some word I've never heard before, but I'd guess it's a curse or an insult of some kind. He starts ranting at me in his language, anger obvious in his tone, hands gesturing in clearly accusatory ways, but I have no idea what he's saying. He's speaking too fast for me to pick out any words, and I'd never bothered to learn his language like he'd been learning mine. He's yelling, and when he finally stops for a moment to breathe, his eyes are wide and fevered. He gives a final, wordless sound of anger and what I'm pretty sure is hurt at me, before taking another step back and all but collapsing to sit on the floor, drawing his wings around to almost completely hide him. The back of his shoulders and the back of his head are visible, but the rest of him is wrapped in his black wings.

Well, this is new. He's been angry, and cold, and lustful, but he hasn't done this before. I take a cautious step around the table, and when he doesn't react I take the last few to close the difference, sinking to my knees in front of him.

"Ichigo?" I ask cautiously, and although his wings tremble slightly he doesn't answer me. "Are you alright?"

"No!" he snaps sharply, only slightly muffled by the barrier between us. "I'm -" another word I can't understand, "great, clearly!" From this angle I can't see him, but his wings part just enough for him to spit, "I did, alright?!" at me, before closing again.

What? I stare at the solid wall of black leather in front of me, confusion narrowing my eyes. What is he talking about? His wings tremble more noticeably, and then he speaks through the barrier of his wings in a small voice.

"Are you going to make me leave now?" I answer negatively, still all kinds of confused, and his wings part a fraction to reveal a slice of his face. "Really? You're still going to do this, even though I wanted you before?" His voice is quiet, wary.

Oh, well now things make a hell of a lot more sense. "Of course," I answer easily, with a tiny grin. The clenching feeling in my gut vanishes, eased by the knowledge that even if all Ichigo might have wanted from me was sex, at least he wanted that much. This isn't totally against his wishes, he isn't just being forced into it by circumstances, which means I can enjoy myself.

His wings don't part any farther, and his voice doesn't get any louder, but he does speak. "Did you want this?"

I lean back, bracing one hand against the ground. "Not like this," I say with a shrug, "it sucks that you've got no choice. But if it were just something you wanted? Fuck yes."

His wings give one last tremble, and then he folds them away against his back, leaning forward some into his knees to make room as he stares at the ground. "I hate this," he admits, and that clenching instantly reappears. "I was supposed to get my pick of anyone I wanted, or have the right to not choose anyone at all. You wouldn't know, but I was the biggest prize of anyone, at home. I'm different, better trained, and stronger than everyone else, and I should have won my freedom to pick. But I'm stuck down here instead, and if I ever tell anyone about what's going to happen, it'll ruin everything." My gut clenches a little harder. Is that what I am to him? Something that will ruin his life?

"Why?" I ask, to distract myself from that terrible feeling, and he gives a small, hopeless laugh as he looks up at me.

"A human? We're not even supposed to get seen by you, let alone talking, or what we're about to do. I don't think anyone will want me after this, if they know." Oh, yeah. I might actively avoid people, but I can see how going from the favored son to the outcast might suck.

"If you'd rather, I can not help," I offer, totally sincerely. If the kid really thinks that this will totally ruin his life afterwards, I don't want to be the reason it happens to him. He seems to contemplate my offer for a second, before shaking his head and lowering his gaze back to the floor.

"No," he says, with a small lift of one shoulder. He says that word again, and I'm starting to think it's probably his language's version of 'fuck', "- them, you know? Not like there was anyone interesting anyway, and it's not like I mind. You treat me better than most of them anyway."

"What the hell do they do to you?" I ask incredulously. If I, the self-titled jackass, treat Ichigo better than most of his race, I can't imagine how fucking terrible they must act around him.

He gives a small smirk, raising his gaze to mine, and shakes his head again. "No, it's not like that. They treat me like what I am, a submissive, but I was raised differently than most others of my nature, so I don't act the way they expect me to. It frustrates most of them to be challenged, and you know me, I can't keep my mouth shut. They expect me to avoid, or to run, and they really don't expect me to punch them when they're being annoying. My," he pauses, apparently searching for the right word, "parent, Shinji, taught me to fight. Most dominants don't teach their submissive children to do that. It also helps that my other parent, Kisuke, is one of the best fliers in our community, and he passed that on to me. I can outrun or outfight just about anyone."

"Then who were you going to choose?" I ask out of curiosity, tilting my head to one side. If most of the others of his race expect him to be something that he's not, and get mad when he isn't, that sounds like a recipe for fucking disaster to me. Even with just this time around him, I know that Ichigo doesn't let anyone tell him what to do, and doesn't take shit from anyone.

"No idea," Ichigo says, brow furrowing slightly. "I had four months to think about it, at the time, so I didn't. And I'd rather not think about it now either, honestly." He sighs, and starts getting to his feet, raking a hand through his hair. "Can we finish what we need to? While I have some mild control over my state of mind?"

I nod, standing, and fold my arms across my chest. Well, it's the best either of us can do in a bad situation, and that will have to be enough. "Sure, what else is there?"

Being in heat is a lot like the one time that Shinji had accidentally given me alcohol, except with a burning in my veins and not the dizziness that the liquor had forced on me. I know the situation, I remember all of it, but my body and mouth move and speak without my consent. I'm a little voice in the back of my head, wincing at every muffled plea that makes it through the cloth gag, and every rise of my outstretched wings as Grimmjow presses against my back.

It hurts, but I knew that would be the case. Only a claimed partner can fully erase the agony of the heat, and while Grimmjow is certainly easing it, making it bearable, he's not enough. There's still a bone deep ache, and if he leaves me for more than a few minutes it turns into a painful throb that I can feel under every inch of my skin. He doesn't have to be fucking me, though the pleasure of that definitely helps wipe out the pain, it's just the contact of his skin that's necessary. My hands are bound to the upper corners of his bed to keep from ripping off the gag or clawing whatever skin of his I can reach, both of which I've tried even with my arms secured, but my legs are free.

The slap of his flesh against mine is loud, and the press of him inside me is still one of the greatest things I've ever felt, despite the number of times it's now happened. Part of it is definitely the hypersensitivity from the heat, but I'm pretty sure this would be pretty nice, at the least, even without the added sensation. It might even be better. Most of the extra sensation is pain, not pleasure, and the mix of the two is confusing. I'm not a big fan.

I jerk against the rope - luckily, Grimmjow had taken the step of wrapping my wrists with cloth beneath the rope beforehand, or I'd have torn them all to hell - and my eyes clench shut as the human's hands clench on my hips. Not being able to control myself is the worst part of all of this. The sex, fine, the pain, I could handle it. But being reduced to this writhing mess of lust and reactions? That sucks.

But of all things, I'm strangely glad that this is happening down here. I can't imagine choosing someone I respect, who respects me, as a mate, and then having them witness me like this. To totally fall apart in front of them? Yeah, I don't fucking think so. Maybe it's just something that every submissive has to get over, maybe we all have to accept that at some point, our mates will see us completely undone like this, but no one can make me like it. I've always been aggressive, in control, but now I'm a total mess. Even if it was fucking Noitora sitting there, I would be throwing myself at his feet and begging for him. The thought sickens me.

Would it have been easier if I'd been raised like most submissives? To be quiet, and accepting, and run instead of fight? Probably, yeah. But there's no point in thinking about it. I was naturally this way to begin with, and it was encouraged. My teachers didn't like it, but they had no say in how Kisuke and Shinji raised me, and both my fathers were damn determined that I would never get stuck with anyone I didn't want.

This isn't quite what they were thinking, I'm sure.

My orgasm comes sharp and fast, arching my back and forcing my wings to give several desperate flaps. It's not enough to lift me, not against the weight of Grimmjow, but it's purely instinctual and there's nothing I can do about it. I shiver, easing down into the bed, only held up by Grimmjow's grip on my hips. It's only a few more ragged thrusts - thankfully, as far as me and my over sensitive nerves are concerned - before he's leaning down over my back with a groan, hips jerking against mine as he spills inside of me.

He relaxes down against me, careful not to lean too much weight on me or my wings. His hands smooth over my sides, and then he carefully guides my left wing to fold back against me so he can tilt us both down on our sides, pressing against my back. His breath is harsh against the back of my neck, and he carefully strokes his hand over the leather of my still outstretched wing.

There are no words for how much I appreciate him being gentle. I could probably work up the concentration to tell him that he was using too much strength, or hurting me, but I don't know how long it would take or how much damage he would do beforehand. Better that he just be careful to start with.

"You doing alright?" he asks, voice a low rumble that clenches my stomach in arousal. Gods, that voice of his.

I force a jerky nod through my fevered mind, biting down on the cloth filling my mouth. His hand strokes over my wing, then down to my back and thigh. It's nice, soothing, and I tilt my head against the pillow to relax some. I'm messy, and I'm gross, and I don't even care right at the moment. Grimmjow will take care of me, I know that.

I just have to make it through another week of this.

I hear Ichigo's shout of excitement moments before he's racing into the house, grabbing my arm and dragging me outside. He couldn't actually move me, I'm too heavy and his lighter frame doesn't have the strength, but I let him. He pulls me out, a wide grin on his face, and points upward.

"Look!"

I tilt my head up to follow his point, and my eyes fix on the white mountains of clouds high in the normally clear sky. My stomach drops some, but I offer the kid a small grin as he releases me, dropping his arms to his sides as his wings twitch and half-rise in excitement. I figured out, eventually, that the movements of his wings are linked to his moods. When he's excited, or aroused, they expand without his consent, when he's angry, they flare to make him look bigger. When he's genuinely afraid, they lock tight to his back and won't move unless he forces it.

"That one of your cities?" I ask, shielding my eyes against the glare of the sun as I study the clouds. The sky has been more or less clear, only the faintest threads of occasional white to disturb it, so this is pretty much out of nowhere.

"Yeah," he says, joy obvious in his tone.

"Yours?" If it's his, then he'll go.

It's been another two months since his heat, and after a week of flushed cheeks and inability to speak to me, Ichigo had flat out told me that he'd highly enjoyed it, and wanted more. I, of course, agreed without a fucking moment of hesitation. Maybe I don't get to keep the Cloudwalker, but I've been enjoying our time together as much as possible. He's even better when he's not out of his mind under the effects of his heat, all fire and challenge, and I honestly think that it's refreshing for him to be able to be himself without worrying. I like his attitude, and I think that's been more relaxing to him than anything else I've done.

But now he's back up to full strength, pulling off tricks in the air that honestly make me wonder if he's not looking to break his wing again. There's no reason for him not to go home, not to rejoin his kind, and I don't have the right to hold him. We live together, sleep together, but he hasn't asked for anything more and neither have I. He's fucking amazing, and I'd take it, but I don't want to keep him on the ground for me. I might be a selfish bastard, but he doesn't belong here and I know it.

"Maybe," he answers, lifting his head to study the clouds with me. "I'm not used to seeing it from the bottom, but it looks like the same shape. I won't know until I'm up there."

"Go on then," I coax, nudging his arm. "Your family could be up there, right?"

He gives me that bright grin, and his wings flare, ready to beat down, before he stops. He pauses, looking over at me with a small frown, and then steps towards me, wrapping one hand around the back of my neck as he drags me down to kiss me. It's deep, searching, and I wrap one arm around his waist to pull him closer to me. His nails scratch along my skin, wings flaring wide and curling around my shoulders and back, enveloping us in a small cocoon of black leather. He pulls back an inch or so, his free hand bracing against my chest.

"Thank you," he says softly, "for everything."

He starts to pull away and I can't help the low growl that starts in my chest. He gives me a slightly confused look, and I lower my head to press my forehead against his. "I don't want you to go," I admit, not releasing my grip on him. "I want to keep you here, with me."

His face lights up with a smile, an honest smile, and he tightens his grip on my neck for a moment. "I'll come back," he promises, giving me a soft kiss. "Even," he pauses, "even if it's just to say goodbye. I'll come back." I don't like that idea, but I knew this could never last from the very start. I let him go, and he steps away from me. "I swear," he says again, quietly, before turning and leaping into the sky.

I watch him rise, towards the clouds that are his natural home, and fight the urge to somehow, someway, bring him back down. He's his own person, and he has the right to make his own decisions. I have to let him go.

I land in the clouds, relishing the feel of the soft surface under my feet for the first time in months, but don't get more than that moment before I'm being dragged away by my arm, along our streets. The Cloudwalker at my side is tall, dressed in the all-white uniform of a guard, and would be imposing if I hadn't spent the last six months with Grimmjow. Since I have, he almost looks scrawny to me, even though I know that he's probably stronger than I am. My arrival had been noted, and before anyone else could approach me this guy had called that I was to follow him to the council. Or, you know, get dragged there.

I get it. I came from the ground, and that makes me really suspicious. I'm almost certain this is my community, since the guard looks familiar even if I can't recall his name, and that means its likely they came this way on purpose. Even if my fathers had told everyone to be on look out for me, they still have no idea what's happened to me in between.

"I can walk on my own, you know," I say, just a touch sourly. It almost feels weird to be speaking in my home language again, after so many months with Grimmjow, speaking in his.

"Quiet," the guard snaps, and I bite my tongue not to snap right back at him. I let him manhandle me, even if it irritates me, across our formed streets and towards the palace of our council. As soon as he escorts me in, I know I'm in the right place. The five stern faces looking down at me are just as I remember. "Kurosaki Ichigo, raised by Hirako Shinji and Urahara Kisuke," he announces, roughly releasing my arm before stepping back and away from me.

I step forward, to the circle of smooth cloud before them, and they look down at me from their high seats. "Council," I greet, sinking to my knees.

"You may rise," the one in the middle says, and I can hear the disapproval from him. I get to my feet, and await their questions. "You disappeared in a courtship storm, six months ago, why is that?"

I scowl at the reminder, hands clenching briefly by my sides. "Noitora," I explain. "He was chasing me, grabbed me, and broke my wing when I got out of his grip." I can hear the murmurs, and the one sharp gasp, but I continue. "He all but dislocated my shoulder, and chased me to the ground when I fell out of the sky. He tried to claim me there but failed, and I've spent the last six months grounded, waiting for my wing to heal."

They share glances, and then one off to the left, a woman, speaks. "You turned eighteen and experienced your first heat on the ground, correct?" I nod. "How did you survive? You could not have fended for yourself, not with the injuries you are describing and the timing."

"I didn't. Noitora only left because a human came across us struggling, that human tended to me and took care of me while I healed." I can instantly see the reactions. Disgust, wariness, anger.

"And your heat?" the man in the middle asks sharply. "Did he tend to you as well for that?"

I flush, but fight down the reaction. I have nothing to be ashamed of. "Yes," I state bluntly, watching them recoil. "There wasn't a better option, and I trusted him enough to make it possible."

"A human?" one of the others says, with a sneer. "You allowed a human to not only see you, but you stayed with him, and let him touch you?"

"And what's wrong with that?" I protest, throwing one hand out as I fight the urge to flare my wings in anger. "Does it bother you that-?"

"Quiet!" one of them orders, and I snap my mouth closed. "You will keep your comments to yourself, submissive, or we will silence you!"

Oh, I'd forgotten it was like this. I forgot how much my status influenced my ability to be heard, or be taken seriously. Being with Grimmjow for so long has gotten me used to being able to say whatever I liked, whenever I wanted, with little to no backlash. I flatten my wings against my back, biting my tongue not to let any of the words in my head escape my mouth.

No. You know what? Fuck it. Fuck them. Grimmjow helped me, and I have no interest in having to watch my tongue.

I step forward, lowering my head and letting my wings flare threateningly. "No," I say with a snarl, "you'll damn well listen to me. As far as I'm concerned, the human, whose name is Grimmjow, is a fucking miracle. How many people, human or Cloudwalker, would take a crippled, injured kid into their home? How many would help a submissive with their heat, without demanding a claim up front, and not take advantage of their state? He hasn't asked for a damn thing from me, he was totally fucking selfless about helping me even when I was useless, or a pain in the ass! You don't get to try and make me feel ashamed for this!"

Oh I've fucking stepped in it now. There's anger on their faces, straight out. Maybe I've blown all chances I had of being able to go home, and it's strange how little I care. I'll miss my fathers, they made me what I am and I couldn't be more grateful, but they're the only real close friends I had here.

"Watch your tongue, boy," the man in the middle says with a growl, "or we will exile you from the clouds."

Once upon a time, that threat was enough to make me cower, but now I only give a bark of laughter. "Then do it," I bait. "I'm not going to stand here and take you trying to make me feel ashamed. If you can't face me as I am, and you're really willing to throw me out over this, then fucking do it. Brand me, I'll take it."

They share glances, as if communicating telepathically - as a kid I was sure they could - before the man stands. "It's done then. You have always been unruly, boy, but this pushes it too far. Guard, fetch a brander."

I hide my nerves, letting my wings settle against my back.

There are two different kinds of exile, and this is the less permanent one. They'll brand me, cover my left arm in a pattern unique to this community, and throw me off the clouds. I can still visit or even live at any other community, but any major offense at that community will earn me an instant enactment of the second version of exile. That's still more than enough to make me sick to my stomach at the very thought. The permanent exile, reserved for only the most absolutely horrendous crimes, is a severing of the wings. Permanently grounded. If you're really, really lucky, you might be able to live on the ground, but you'd never pass among humans, I know that now. Any interaction would betray the difference in weight, and there are only a few words shared between our languages, so there's no real way to communicate. It's pretty much a death sentence, without the council actually getting their hands dirty.

This, on the other hand, is only as permanent as I let it be. I'm banished from my community, but that doesn't mean I can't visit any others, and I'll still have fully functional wings. All this means is that I'll be separated from my fathers, and if the council bothers telling them the truth I'm sure they'll understand. That's not so bad, really.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," the council member starts, and I straighten up and meet his gaze, "you are guilty of breaking one of our most fundamental laws; interaction with a human. Your punishment is branding, and exile. Returning to this community, without exceptionally good reason, will result in a death sentence. You are prepared to submit to this judgment?"

"Yes," I say with a nod, "I am." He nods, and his left hand flicks in a command to someone behind me. A hand presses down on my left shoulder, firmly pushing me to my knees, and I force back a shudder as my shirt - thankfully my original, from when I'd first fell - is unlaced from around my left wing and pulled off my arm, left to hang on just my right side. A hand closes around the back of my neck, and a second firmly pins my left wing to my back. That will be the guard, restraining me from any reaction that might disrupt the branding.

Another hand closes around my left wrist, pulling my arm to be stretched out, and I glance sideways as the owner of the hand speaks to me. "You are aware of what is required from you?" he asks, blue eyes impassive, and I give as much of a nod as possible with my head pressed down. "Any attempt to redirect the lightning," he warns me softly, "will require me to render you unconscious first. Keep your power in check."

I turn my gaze away, to the cloud floor, as electricity sparks at the end of the brander's free hand. His fingers press down on the underside of my wrist, and I clench my jaw against the pain. A 'brander' is just someone who has enough power to create decent sparks of lightning, and is trained in how to use it to burn another in the particular pattern of their community. Usually, they're also part of our guards, no sense in teaching anyone but them techniques like that. Not that it would matter. Every Cloudwalker is at least trained to redirect electricity, otherwise our courtship storms would be fatal more often that not. It's actually difficult for me not to slip it through myself and out my other hand.

Shinji had an interesting teaching style. I got used to being shocked at any or all times, so I learned to transfer electricity completely automatically. So consciously controlling myself, letting it burn me instead of safely moving it, is somewhat of a struggle. Luckily, I've got fantastic control over my power. Equally luckily, pain is nothing new to me. I've had my fucking wing broken, and suffered through a heat without a trained dominant or a mate.

This is nothing in comparison. It hurts, definitely, burns sharper than a fire could, but it's just pain. It will happen, and then it will be over, and there will be no permanent damage to my arm except the scars.

His fingers trail up under my arm, following the winding pattern that I've read of but never actually seen on another person, stopping just shy of my armpit, before restarting at the base of my wrist. The pattern is three separate winding trails, with dashes between. One goes up the underside of my arm, and one goes up either side of the top of it, those ones ending on top of my shoulder. After that he'll put in the dashes. Six short, straight lines between the winding ones, one set of three around my lower arm and the other set around my upper arm. Our particular pattern.

I keep my eyes open, only letting the pain show in my clenched jaw. I'm sure the guard behind me can feel the jitters of my wing and shoulders, but that's not something I can control. That's just a muscle reaction to the spare electricity escaping into my body. Nothing harmful, just enough to make me twitch. At the least, the brander knows this. The guard and some of the council might not.

Like I give a fuck what they think of me. I think I've proven pretty definitely that I couldn't give half a fuck what they think I should do.

The last dash gets burnt into my arm, and the brander and guard pull back almost as one, releasing me. I get to my feet without pause, looking up to meet the council's gazes, a challenge in my eyes. "Escort him off our clouds," the older man orders, sitting back down and turning his head away dismissively.

The hand that closes around my right arm is strong, and I turn away from my old life for a new one as he pulls me back out of the council's palace. We're barely on the steps when two figures come hurtling down from the sky, wings spreading to catch the air and bring them to a hard stop not ten feet in front of us. My breath catches at the distinctive shades of green and gold, and the guard quickly steps away from me as my father Shinji moves towards us with authority. His gaze slips immediately to my arm, and his eyes narrow as he turns them behind me to the guard.

'What's the meaning of this?" he demands, as Kisuke pushes past him to me. I don't listen to the guard's stuttered explanation, closing my eyes as my submissive father wraps me in his arms, carefully excluding my burned limb. I shiver, returning the hug with my right arm and burying my face against his shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asks sharply, one hand sliding through my hair. I nod against his shoulder, and he pulls back just far enough to look down at me, and for me to have to look up at him. Kisuke is taller than me, though not as much as he had been. I hadn't noticed before being next to someone I knew well, but I've grown a few inches while away, in addition to all the other changes. "You survived," he says in a breathless voice, eyes flicking over me as though trying to memorize every last detail, which he probably is. "You're not claimed, what happened with your heat?"

Shinji comes into view to my side, arms crossed and the guard nowhere in sight. "A human?" he asks, and though there's some hesitance in my dominant father's voice there's no outright disgust. "Tell us what happened."

I give them the longer version, explaining my injuries at Noitora's hands, Grimmjow's rescue of me, the subsequent months we'd spent together, and my wing's status at the time of heat. I even decide to tell them, after a moment of hesitation, that Grimmjow and I had continued our sexual relationship after my heat ended, stressing that I had asked him for it. The last thing I want is to give them any reason to hate the human that I'm about to go back to.

Kisuke fusses, his hands stroking through my hair and over my unmarked arm, but he lets me finish my story without interruption. Shinji is equally silent, standing at his mate's shoulder, and when I finish my tale with my encounter with the council, his gaze turns to steel. It's actually mildly scary. I know my father is captain of the guard for a reason, but he's always been light and jovial with me. I've never seen him mad before.

"Is he worth it?" Kisuke asks me, drawing my attention back to him, and I answer without hesitation.

"Yes," I state plainly. "He doesn't treat me like I'm nothing more than my nature, and that's all I ever wanted."

Both my fathers study me for a moment, before sharing a look, and then Kisuke releases me and steps back. "If that's your choice, then it's settled," he says with a smile. I make a noise of confusion, watching Shinji's gaze soften as he gives me a grin.

"You didn't think we'd abandon you, did you, Ichigo?" he asks. "If you're going to ground yourself for this human, and never come back to this community, then we'll just have to become drifters."

My eyes widen. Drifters are Cloudwalkers that don't belong to a specific community and live in their own homes, traveling wherever they like. It's a much harder life, responsible for all your own needs as opposed to sharing the burden with the rest of the community, but you're also completely autonomous. Our community had run across them a few times, but most don't choose a life like that.

"You don't have to do that," I protest, and Shinji snorts.

"Of course we do," Kisuke says softly, smirking. "If that human mistreats you, you'll need a home to come back to. Plus we'll have to be close enough to murder him, naturally." Oh yeah, I'd forgotten how passive aggressive Kisuke is. He's perfectly capable of that, I'm sure of it, and even if he weren't, he'd just set Shinji to do it for him. Grimmjow is going to need to watch his back if my fathers are seriously going to do this. "Besides, I would never give up contact with you, not for a bunch of stuffy old men. Go to your human, son, and watch for us, hm?"

"Also," Shinji adds, grin turning just a little malicious, "I think Noitora might wind up mysteriously absent. We might wish to leave before that happens, to avoid any suspicion that might fall on us." Also, how straight out aggressive Shinji can be at times. If he wasn't such a complete and utter dick, I might actually feel sorry for Noitora. But I don't. Not one bit. "Give us a week or so, then we'll be right back here. Now off with you, you should be gone anyway."

"Thank you," I say softly, letting my lips quirk upwards in gratitude.

I step back, and beat my wings to lift myself into the air, taking off. I fly far enough horizontally to get away from the cloud community before diving, spiraling down under the clouds and picking out the clearing that holds Grimmjow's home. I stoop into an actual dive, beating my wings to gain speed as I rocket towards the ground. My left arm burns at the rush of wind against it, and the flex of my muscles to keep it against my side, but it's nothing I can't just ignore. I snap my wings open about thirty feet from the ground, upending myself to point my feet down and putting force into my beats to slow down. I still hit the ground hard enough to bend to my knees to absorb the impact, but it doesn't pause me for any more than a second.

I move towards the house, and Grimmjow emerges and meets me halfway. We all but collide, and he grips a handful of my hair and pulls me into a kiss, his free arm reaching to grip my shirt. When his fingers touch the skin of my chest instead, the article of clothing still only hooked to my right arm and wing, he pulls back a little. His eyes fall to my chest, and then my arm, and then his eyes narrow dangerously.

"What the fuck did they do to you?" he snarls, and I get a warm rush at the protective display of temper.

"It's alright," I answer, raising my right hand to press gently against his chest, "it was my choice." He doesn't look convinced, the anger still very present, and I give him a small smile. "I've been exiled from the community." His eyes widen a fraction, surprise obvious in his gaze, before the anger returns.

"What fucking right-"

"Which means," I interrupt, "that I'm here to stay. If you'll have me."

I know the answer, but I still wait in high suspense for the few moments it takes Grimmjow to get over his shock, and for him to grin.

"Of course I will."