Grounded
Never fly in a storm.
This was the first rule that she had disobeyed.
The second was, never fly with strangers.
Holly cursed eloquently, using words that only come out when one is overwhelmed. She cursed copiously, and for a long time.
Her back was a mess. Her left wing was immobile, and bent at a disturbing angle. Feathers covered the sand, dancing gently in the breeze. She reached back, fingered it gently, and bit back a cry of pain. Definitely broken, then.
Holly examined the rest of her body, and deciding that apart from the bloody, bent wing and a lot of bruising, she was more or less fine. Her left wing had taken the brunt of the impact. She stood slowly, on legs still shaky from shock and pain, and took a few small steps inland. The island had looked small from above, but then again, she had been flying higher up than she should have, and storms distort the senses. Still, she hoped to find some sort of shelter - a cave, or a large tree or rock to hide behind for the night.
She guessed she had been unconscious for a long time. The storm had been an evening storm, and now it was evening again. A slight breeze brushed her auburn hair into her eyes, and a cotton-candy sunset was just beginning to paint the sky.
She wondered about the boy.
He had worried over her, fretted that the storm would take her down, that her wings weren't strong enough to cope with the high winds and torrential rain. He had offered to fly her home. She had accepted.
After all, he had been nice enough.
Well, at least until he had flown her into the wind. That, she thought, wasn't very nice at all.
Still... she hoped he was all right.
She limped into the trees, past strange tropical fruits and even stranger birds that inhabited the island. The birds looked at her, saw her wings, and ruffled their feathers, imagining her pain. They were silent until she passed. She could hear their whispers behind her. They rarely saw Angels, Holly guessed, and even more rarely did they see an Angel in pain. She grimaced.
She wondered if they had seen the boy.
She doubted it.
She continued at her agonizingly slow pace until she reached a small hole, a tiny natural shelter between a tree trunk and a large fallen branch. She tried to sit slowly, but her legs gave way and she collapsed with a small whimper.
At least, she thought, it was a good windbreak. The breeze no longer ruffled her too-thick hair. She closed her eyes, resting on her right side so she wouldn't disturb her injured wing.
She lay there for an hour or more before she slept.
.....
Varr touched her face gently. He saw the mangled left wing and grimaced. That was his fault...
He had only wanted to help.
Flying over open waters in a storm is one of the most dangerous things an Angel could do. Everyone knew that. And yet... when he had seen her, making her way carefully through air currents, through patches of rain, he knew that he should help. Or at least try to help, anyway.
And he had failed.
Neither of them would be flying much now, he guessed. Not for a long time. His own wings, once so powerful, were bruised horribly. Feathers were gone that shouldn't have been; blowed oozed out of the remains of vaned feathers that wouldn't have molted for another couple of weeks, at the very least.
But her wing...
It was completely mangled. Bloody vanes distorted the actual wound, but still he could see it was bad.
He brushed her auburn hair out of her face, feeling quite sorry for her. (What had she said her name was? Helen? Holle?)
Varr sighed, sitting down to watch over his new companion.
(Holly. That was it. He was sure of it.)
It was going to be a long night.