The warm hands carried me through the city, covered in faltering wings, hiding me from the smiles that burned through my chest. The laboring of breath as my grandfather tried his best, as I held onto him for dear life. Eventually, I could feel it, that same levity of home, the right amount of air high up in the city, brushing against me with familiarity.
A voice breaks through my warmth, filling me with ice once again. “I-is sister okay?” I bury myself deeper in my grandfather's feathers as he sighs, pushing past the body of someone who I thought only just this an hour earlier loved me, would never betray me, as I would never him. “I-its not what you thi-” I feel grandfather turn, then back as he walks me to my room, before pulling me under the blankets, the light of the day having so quickly fallen into darkness, at least inside myself.
I hold the blankets close as my wings lay stagnant at my side. Words going in one ear and out the other as grandfather tries to tell me it's going to be all right, his voice faltering as he says the words. Knowing full well that it won’t be. It won't ever be alright again…
The covers on the winds are pulled shut, and the door clanks closed, within seconds I plunge into sleep. Only to once again wake the to the sound of my door clanking, this time the mechanism for opening, jarring me back to the world of the dying.
I hear the talons of my brother as they try their best to be silent on the metal floor just outside my door, the inside of my room is fully carpeted and fluffy to the touch, having to learn how to not catch any sharp bits of your feet on it. I hear him approach, and then stumble slightly, having to pull his leg up to untangle himself.
He breaths awkwardly and mutters under his breath before speaking, softly and with purpose. “S-sis it’s not what you think. It’s better that I'm in the administration you know, like there was no reason for me to stay in the family, there can only be one Keeper anyway… and it’s not like I was ever asked if I wanted to be the Keeper…” He starts faltering towards the end, the rage building in me, my wings twitching in anger.
I pull myself up from the bed and throw myself at him, screeching across the room, talons drawn as I connect with him, grabbing him by the legs with my feet and holding myself aloft as I pin him to the ground. I scream at him, feeling my head hurt and tears pooling in the tufts around my eyes. “They are going to take away everything from me, from the family! There will be nothing fucking left Swift! And all you fucking care about is yourself!” I stare into his eyes, they stare back, the only emotion there being fear. Fear for his own easy life.
I reach down with my hands, seeing something in his mouth. He realizes what I’ve seen and tries to get away from me, in distress, but not for his well-being. No. Not from fear of me hurting him. I throw my wings down, pilling his hands and wings against the ground.
Pulling up his lips with my fingers, I bring up blue, that chemical blue that I’d seen so many times walking the streets, the same blue that is ruining our city from the inside. I recoil in disgust and lift myself up with a gust of wind, blowing my brother back slightly. Landing on my feet he scrambles to his own, I turn around, trudging back into my room, slamming the door behind me. I sink to my feet and smash my head against the cold hard metal.
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His words travel through the door, hollow and distant. “Sis it’s not what it looks like, it’s just for a bit of fun… and it helps me sleep, take away the nightmares of mum and dad. It just makes everything better… At the administration, I can have anything I want, be anything I want to be. Dawn-Son can give me so much and he can give you lots as well!” I scream, pain ripping through me, the betrayal on the stand feeling so much more fresh now that I see why everything turned out this way. My whole life was ruined just so that my brother could get high more?! Just so that he could forget the fucking pain we went through together?! I HAD TO FUCKING CARRY THEIR BODIES HOME AND HE IS THE ONE GETTING FUCKING HIGH.
He thankfully stops talking, the words having no meaning anymore anyway, I have no family, no life, and no brother. The only thing I have left in the world is my grandfather and he stopped being alive so many years ago now… It was just the job… and keeping everyone in the city safe. There's no point to that now… with Dawn-Son as the Keeper… we are all dead regardless…
…
I dreamed a dream against the cold of the door, my only solace was that the rugged floors drifted up with warmth. I watched from the depths of the city, down near the burners, the heart of the city, the roiling of the flames my only companion as everyone around me avoided me like a plague since I was sent down here, exiled from the top layers. I watched over the horizon, feeling the wrongness of it all, but not saying a peep… there was no point. I could see Dawn-Son at the post of the Keeper, my once desk, nursing a headache from the night of revelry before.
This was my revenge, on the city, to the people who turned their back on me… will they even notice? When we go too far when the bells start ringing, will they know why?! Their Keeper will know what to do right?
I laugh, hands tight against the railing, many looking at me crazily. That is until the breath will be sucked from my lungs, our bodies, oh so used to the high atmosphere breaking down on us. When our wings are unable to keep us afloat in the air. When there is no air. When the people around us start suffocating. I can only be happy that the ones up the top will suffocate first. That at the bottom of this hell, I will have the last laugh.
I start to choke, crying, laughing, and choking as my revenge for their incompetence is complete. That as soon as I let go of those controls, what I was thrown down here was bound to happen. They thought there was no point to the Keepers… where did they think all the changes to the ship came from… countless messages to the engines and instruments a day, balances, loads… so much work to count.
It should have been me and my brother, swapping shifts, learning together, adapting… I can only imagine the amount of shame they brought my grandfather as they continuously pushed for this… it was because of us both that we were maintaining the ship, not just one Keeper. It was a position for two… one mentor and one to train, swapping and changing over countless hundreds of years it was the same. And now that my parents were dead, grandfather was on the verge of descent… and now my brother was gone… Will they realize that they will need me at some point and what… threaten to kill my brother? They have nothing on me now.
The tearing of my lungs finally gives out as spots appear in my eyes. Blackening my vision as I wake up, feeling the air rush into my lungs once again. Grasping at the warmth of the floor. I'm here, I'm still alive, I still have time… I still have time… But time to do what… I have no real choices now…
The light from a new day, a day in which I have to make a decision dawns…
Maybe I throw myself off and let the winds take me, maybe I will land somewhere… just welcome the poison and die on the way down… I laugh sadly, tears pooling in my eye tufts again. I brush them away and stand up. Fight Gale… fight.