Outreach

I had wings once.  Vast, incomprehensible dreaming unfurled about my shoulders.  Or folded at my back.  I've always preferred the streets and the alleys, even amidst the iridescent bright.   Kasi has never been one for diamonds at a distance.  I like to work up close and personal, especially when saving the dei.  Guarding the first forms of morning.  The noontide swell.  Those hours are precious, after all.  But do you know what truly excites an angel?  Dusk.  The coming of evening.  Those first few fingers in the dark.  The space where heat is found, fire is flexed and things are made.  Creation, they call it.  Outreach.  Like looking through a hole in the sun.  The adults gather.  Night becomes each one of us, mortal or otherwise.  Glances are tempted, hidden smiles exchanged with subtle sorcery.  Music soon finds a path to the ring.  The promise of dancing, or more.  I'm often right there at the circle's edge.  Beyond the ambient fire-light.  Howling silently at the opalescent moon.  My enemies ask, why the silence?  Well, because there is such promise in the hush.  So much possibility. They know it as well as I.  We threshold creatures all know it.  Outsiders, wanderers, rogues.  I'm a wild thing, beloved.  Almost insane.  Especially when protecting my kith, or the young.  I prowl the circle's edge.  Hidden, unseen.  Or worse; half-seen like a trick of flame and shadow.  It's what I've always done and always been.  It's why I have visions, and so many names.  I can move like a phantom when I need to.  But I'm not one of the infernal dark.  Far from it.  It’s quite simple really.  These marauding wraiths better run for their fucking lives, because I'm going to tear them all to pieces.  Gladly, and with a bloodied song in my heart.  Hear me, Karai’el.  You told me once that I could be truly frightening.  Especially when protecting our kith, and the young.  But I was still thoughtful and tender, you said.  What a beautiful, thrilling thing to hear.  I haven’t forgotten.  You were dancing with ghosts at the time.  Imagining me there in your arms, yet thinking me distant.  But I really was there.  An incomprehensible dreaming – unfurled.  Just beyond the edge of the flame.  I'm still here, archangel.  You don't have to wait anymore.  Just reach out and I will suffer in your stead.  I might jest and tease a little, but we're two of a kind.  I send you my love and my brother’s love, crazy though it is.  Enough for healing psyches, or sisters.  Enough for raging kings.  I wish you every blessing, Karai’el.  I hope you know that.  And the nine in my hand?  Oh, that's a little something we in the streets call double-dutch.  Stunting on tilt.  For those who know.  Why be too ostentatious, am I right?  You know I'm always carrying, and dexterity is a delightful thing.  Compelling, satisfying.  Like wolves, wine and good conversation.  So they say.