You’re a mystery to me. I’m not sure I like that.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Lost in Translation
Characters: Summer Windis
Race: Halfling – Angel / Sprite (Air)
Age: 148, physically about 16
Current residence: Ventspils, Latvia
Final Word Count: 780 words
 

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Over the last year or so, I’ve caught glimpses of Rai. Over the first few months of what I figured was his break-up with Alia, he looked just tired all of the time. Not that I saw him much, but what little I saw of him, he looked like he just wasn’t sleeping well at all. I wanted to talk to him, but I’d only ever crossed him a handful of times in the time he and Alia had been together, and I doubt he even knew my name.

After a couple of months, the few times I would catch glimpses of him, he seemed to be doing a bit better. The dark circles that had been under his eyes had faded a bit and I even saw him crack a few small smiles. I almost feel like a stalker when I think about it but it’s not like I go out of my way to find him; this place is big, but I think it’s near impossible to not come across someone at least once or twice every so often.

Recently, I’ve seen him a bit more, but I think that it’s mostly because Alia’s gone. I doubt she’s gone very far but a few weeks ago, she had a friend come and help to move her things elsewhere. I don’t know where she’s gone but she can’t be very far. Not that I really care. Family or not, I never got along with her, and she always treated me like I was lower than low, it was exhausting.

In a way, I wonder if that’s not why I’ve seen more of Rai. Their last fight, last year, was pretty bad. I know she’d been playing him for most of the time they’d been together before that, but I just don’t know that he ever saw it. Not that I could have really done anything about it.

If I had any friends, I’m pretty sure that they’d all be giving me this look like they think I’m a lovestruck puppy for worrying so much about him and thinking about him as much as I do but it’s not really what that’s like. I just know what my half-sister was like. She might not have thought I was worth much of anything, but I still knew what she was like, and it wasn’t healthy for him, the way she treated him. I was just worrying. It’s a thing I do, I guess. I’m weird, I know.

The last time I spent any amount of time with someone was years ago. We’d been training together. Most of the pure-blooded angels I’ve come across don’t care much for half-bloods like me. I know I haven’t met all that many, but I’ve met a fair few and they think pretty much like Alia. This one, though, she was like me. A half-blood. Though she was half-angel and half-elemental. She still was tied to the air, though, like I was, so we worked together, we studied, we just spent time together.

When we were mostly done with the studying that had been set out for us, she gave me this long, studying look, and told me that I was a mystery to her and that she wasn’t sure she liked that. Those were her last words. She just turned and walked away after that, and I have to assume she was transferred elsewhere because I’ve barely caught glimpses of her since.

Her words stayed with me for days, actually keeping me somewhat awake. I’d never imagined myself a people’s person, but I didn’t think I was so strange that someone would somehow seem to think that I was a mystery and that they didn’t know whether or not it was a good thing. Those weren’t her words, I know, but it came down to that, in the end.

It was more than a decade ago and it still crops back up in my mind. I can’t help but think about it every now and again. I know I’m not outgoing. I know I’m different. I know I’ll probably never truly befriend anyone, and this is going to keep my existence as a very lonely one, but it’s not as though I can force anyone to befriend me.

Maybe, in a why, it’s why I’m so focused—in a partial way—on Rai. It’s not that I could do anything about things. It’s not that I could keep him safe from Alia but knowing that he was doing better was a good thing for me. It made me realize that she no longer had a grip on him. That has to count for something, right?

You tangled your fingers in the strings of my heart and played me like a puppet.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Lost in Translation
Characters: Summer Windis
Race: Halfling – Angel / Sprite (Air)
Age: 147, physically about 16
Final Word Count: 662 words
 

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I wish he’d be able to let go. I still remember their big fight from a year ago and for a long time I really thought he’d stay away but I’ve seen them spend time together on and off in the last year, every time they do, it usually only lasts a few days at most and then they’re fighting and they’re not together anymore.

The room right next to mine is Alia’s and I wish it wasn’t. Every time these two fight, she ends up coming back into her room to scream and yell ugly things about Rai and I wish I could let him know but then he’d likely just give me this look as though asking me what I think I was doing eavesdropping on something so private. It’s not eavesdropping when she’s ranting just one wall away with her windows still open wide and her door likely not even shut properly.

A few days ago, though, I think they might have finally called it quits—by that, I mean that I think Rai finally got fed up enough that he really called it quits. I wish they wouldn’t have their fights in her room but I suppose it’s closer. I don’t even know where Rai’s room would be and it makes sense, we’re not really friends though we’ve talked a little more in the last year than we have in the last decade.

The last time they had a fight, he was angry but he wasn’t yelling. It was in his voice, it’s hard to put it into words. The one thing that really marked me was when he told her that she’d tangled all of her fingers tight into the strings of his heart and she’d played him like a puppet from the start. He mentioned a few names—none of them familiar to me—and that alone seemed to set her off the edge. She started screaming and ranting even worse than when she usually does when she’s alone.

I heard the sound of shattering things—lamps and trinkets, I guess?—pretty much against my wall and again, that door slamming shut and silence. There hadn’t even been any tears on her part this time, not really. Nothing but anger. I have to assume that there were others she was seeing as well but I wouldn’t know. I’m not exactly well versed in these things and I don’t know that I ever will be.

I haven’t seen Rai since and I wish I could at least get a glimpse of him just to know he’s all right. He’s the closest thing I have to a friend and we’re not even that close. I know it’s my own fault for not making more friends but it’s just really hard for me to manage. I’ve tried, I really have, it is just one of those things and nothing will change that.

As far as Alia’s concerned, I’ve seen her around, hanging onto the arm of someone else and she glares at anyone who looks like they might say anything.

I wish we weren’t related. Not that it changes much in the long run; I might be older than her, but she treats me like I’m the lowest of the low. She looks older than I do and I’ve asked Seraphiel about that. He told me that looks usually are based both on genes and a little on emotional and mental state. So I guess I’m stuck like this until who knows when. It’s fine, I guess. I mean, it has to be, right?

On some days, I wish I could just fly away, find somewhere else and start all over again but I know that people like me—wings and all—aren’t welcome everywhere. I’ll never be able to forget the wing incident and that has soured what I think about humans, no matter that I know that this is a huge generalization. I can’t help it, not really.

I have given you everything. What more do you need?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Lost in Translation
Characters: Summer Windis
Race: Halfling – Angel / Sprite (Air)
Age: 146, physically about 16
Final Word Count: 677 words
 

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I still don’t spend a lot of time around humans; it’s just not safe for me. After the feather fiasco—more like the wing fiasco and it was a painful one—I decided that while I liked watching humans down there, at the same time, I couldn’t trust them. I hadn’t found an area in particular where I could just sort of land and spend time with them. I wish I could, though, it’s always been fun when I find little places that are filled with good people but I don’t know how to hide my wings, they haven’t taught me yet, so I know I would stand out.

Still, now and again, I watch them because it’s just one thing I can do. While my feathers were growing back, I couldn’t do much of anything up here, I was pretty much stranded. Being stranded meant I couldn’t even go down a few levels to watch them, so I had to stay inside and watch the happenings in our gardens and in our community.

For the most part, it was pretty boring and mostly sort of lame. I was bored to tears most of the time because I don’t have a lot of friends. I suppose it might be because I’m just half-angel and a lot of people still turn their nose at the sight of us. There’s a small settling where most of us end up and when we’re together, it’s not so bad but there still are a few higher-placed angels who don’t care for us at all and I just, it makes me sad.

A few days ago, there was a pretty big fight going on up here. Now, I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped but they weren’t exactly being quiet when they were arguing and it’s hard not to listen in when people are arguing and it was happening in a room just down from mine at the time, so it was even more difficult to ignore them. I don’t have the things they do down in the human world, that thing they put around their ears to listen to music so that they can ignore others.

I think it was Alia and Rai who were arguing, it sure sounded like their voices but it was mostly him I was hearing, there was sobbing and I assume it was hers. They’ve been spending so much time together over the last few months that it only made sense to me that they would be ones arguing together on the other side of that wall. It was confusing, really. Rai kept on asking her what else he was supposed to do, what else did she need, something about he’d given her everything and she’d just kept on crying harder and harder. I know she screamed something back at him at some point and started sobbing louder still.

It was sort of heartbreaking and I didn’t try to take any sides but I know how demanding Alia is, I’ve seen her around others, always turning their nose up at them if she’s not paid just enough attention so I honestly don’t know whether or not her tears really were genuine. It went quiet after a while and I figure it’s the door to that room that slammed shut and Rai’s storming footsteps that echoed down the hallway.

She wasn’t even crying anymore, at least not in any audible way and, well, I didn’t chance going over there to see if she needed anything. For one thing, she hates my guts, no matter that we’re technically family—same father, different mothers—and for another, that would have been admitting that I’d been listening in to their maybe not so little spat and I might have been naive but I wasn’t that stupid, nope.

I haven’t really seen much of her since that day and I don’t know whether to feel relieved or not. I’ve seen Rai; he’s even talked to me once or twice so I think he might be okay, in the long run.

Who is your contact?

Timeline/World: Main Profile
Characters: Summer Windis
Race: Halfling – Angel / Sprite (Air)
Age: 144, physically about 16
Final Word Count: 510 words

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Humans are so strange, not in a bad way, but I still believe they are strange and just watching them run left and right to get to this appointment or that appointment is something that I never tire of watching. Sure, it is a little boring to not be able to really interact with them but my feathers are still growing back from that particular encounter so I’m in no rush to head down lower than I am now.

Just a few days ago, I was watching a pair of odd little men, they were wearing dark suits, cruising around in dark cars and half of them spoke with funny accents. There was a bit of violence to the meeting of two of the men in the dark suits and one poor sap even ended up hogtied up to a chair, being beaten senseless while one of the guys was constantly asking him who his contact was. What kind of people are these folks, seriously?

Why do men hurt other men this way? I mean, I know it’s not just men, some women do it too but these people in dark suits, and I’ve mostly seen men. Always yelling or waving guns and threatening, it’s sad. It doesn’t really make me want to go down there and meet people.

Of course, I know these people are usually the minority. Or so I figure. There are a lot of nice people, men and women who give up their seats for someone else who needs it more on the bus, men letting pedestrian crosses the road on a stop sign instead of running them over though I’ve seen that too. I’ve seen people share what little food they have with others and yet I’ve seen people with so much food they couldn’t possibly eat it all just hoard it and then throw away the leftovers.

The world is not balanced. It breaks my heart when I think about it. I don’t know that the world will ever be balanced. Too many people hoard what they have and others just starve, or freeze at night or die because of sickness.

Not that our world above is better, there still are groups and separations but no one that I know of goes hungry at night or sleeps without a roof over their heads. There still are those who fight and those who yell but it is not to the point of those in the world below us. Those born without wings to reach the skies and feel the winds on their feathers.

I don’t know how I feel about humans. I know there are more than simply humans wandering these streets, these grounds and sailing these waters but in the end, the final point to it all remains the same, the world is an ugly place and I don’t believe I would survive very long out there. It just is so heartbreaking, why does it have to be? I wish it wasn’t so but I know it isn’t mine to try and change.