Nicki Bennett - Flight.pdf - Slash [ENG] - Mojaunicorn

Flight | Nicki Bennett

I don’t know how long I’d been alone in the desert before

I found the angel.

When I first escaped from the mines, my only concern

was avoiding recapture. I’d quickly lost track of how many

days I spent huddled beneath any meager shelter I could

find, hiding from potential patrols and the sun’s blistering

heat; how many nights I spent putting as much distance as I

could between myself and any of the inhabited camps. The

terror of those first weeks is still enough to wake me at

times, my heart pounding in my chest as I remember

running, stumbling, crawling in the darkness in my

desperation to avoid recapture; my thirst growing, my lips

cracking and bleeding, my own acrid blood the only moisture

left in my parched mouth. I’m sure I became delirious,

hearing noises that weren’t real, starting at every touch of

the sere desert wind, until I was afraid to believe the first

oasis I stumbled upon was anything more than another

vicious hallucination. By the time I realized that no one was

coming after me, that slaves were apparently so plentiful it

wasn’t worth my captors’ efforts to track me down, my

careful accounting of how much time had passed since the

slavers raided my world was long abandoned.

I think I had managed to survive nearly as many

months since my escape as I had in the backbreaking travail

of the mines, though I was no longer sure I was any better

Flight | Nicki Bennett

off. At least in the mines I’d been fed regularly, food that was

nourishing if unpalatable. There had been some shelter from

the extremes of heat and cold, but most of all there had been

companionship. The work crews were always a mix of many

races, making communication between the slaves difficult if

not impossible. I’d come to believe this was deliberate on the

slavers’ part, a means of defusing any possible collaboration

between the workers—but we learned quickly enough that

crews who couldn’t cooperate didn’t survive for long. We

looked after one another, as long as we were together,

though each time a deposit played out and we were shuttled

and marched to another site, the crews were shuffled—

another way of preventing any plotting among the slaves.

Still, even if we couldn’t speak to one another, it helped just

to know there was another body beside you in the darkness,

someone else who shared your suffering and cared that you

survived another day, if only so they wouldn’t have to pick

up your share of the work.

As the weeks and months passed, my body grew gaunt

as it learned to function on little food and less water; my

skin burned, peeled, and toughened, turning dark as my

hair bleached pale under the searing sun. I grew more

acclimated to the extremes of daytime heat and nighttime

cold, hardier as I trudged through the bleak desert

landscape in search of the next source of shade and water. I

had little to drive me forward but the stubborn

determination to elude my captors. Even when I slept, in

those brief hours when I found a bit of shelter or my limbs

could simply carry me no farther, my dreams returned to the

horrors of the mines, the anguish of what I had lost, the

empty hopelessness that stretched before me.

Flight | Nicki Bennett

Until I saw the body sprawled brokenly on the blinding

desert sand, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed

companionship. I’ve always been a loner, even on my home

world, but spotting another being in the distance, obviously

not a slaver but perhaps another escapee like myself, set my

pulse racing. The loneliness of my months of solitude

suddenly welled up inside me at the prospect of relief.

Surprised by the urge I felt to run forward, I forced myself to

approach warily, though by now I knew the slavers would

never have set so elaborate a trap; there was nowhere for

miles that anyone could hide, in any case. As I drew nearer, I

realized there were no footprints other than my own in the

sand, and my heart sunk. If the body had lain there long

enough for the erratic winds to erase its tracks, the chance

of it being anything more than a lifeless carcass was slim.

When I got closer still, I noticed the wings.

I hadn’t seen them at first because their colors, beige

and brown and tan feathers melding together, nearly

disappeared against the rusty desert sands. The wings were

long and powerful-looking, and one of them hung canted at

an angle that clearly indicated a break in the main

supporting bone. Almost without my volition, I reached

forward to gently touch the graceful arc; the feathers were

smooth and soft beneath my fingertips. My breath caught as

I realized this was not another dream or hallucination, but a

fellow living being. The touch of something that was not

harsh sand or harsher stone sent a thrill of delight trembling

through my senses.

The angel moaned and stirred. I quickly drew back my

hand.

Flight | Nicki Bennett

There were legends of winged beings on my planet, but I

had no more believed in them than in the deities they were

purported to serve. Perhaps the legends were based in reality

after all, I thought as I cautiously rolled the unconscious

being to one side, careful not to put any pressure on the

damaged wing. The face I revealed made my breath catch in

my throat. The man—for the injured entity was definitely

male—was perhaps the most beautiful being I had ever seen.

His skin, abraded and covered with sand, was a warm

honey-bronze, which had undoubtedly helped protect him

from the sun’s scorching rays. Long, silky lashes brushed

high cheekbones; narrow, finely sculpted lips parted slightly

with each puff of breath; dark tendrils of hair waved from a

smooth forehead, tumbling down the man’s slender neck.

How had such a vision of perfection come to a place of such

barren desolation?

I brushed aside the silky curls, my torn fingertips gently

exploring the soft skin of the being’s throat until I found a

pulse. I had no idea if the speed or strength was normal for

the stranger, but at least it confirmed he was still alive. If I

wanted to keep him that way, I knew I was going to have to

move him to somewhere sheltered, at least until I could

examine the damaged wing and make sure there were no

other serious injuries.

I had planned to keep walking until I found another of

the rare spots where underground water ran close enough to

the surface to support a few stunted trees and smaller

vegetation. I owed my survival to these scattered oases,

experimenting until I’d learned which plants were safe to eat,

digging under the tree roots to reach fresh water, sometimes

even catching a small lizard or other creature. Mindful of the

Nicki Bennett - Flight.pdf

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