Once again she nodded, satisfied with her answer as she continued to pick at the bread. "Any more questions?" She asked, quite in the mood to sleep but not knowing if she was to stay in this room for the night. Adira pushed the other food on the tray around, trying a tiny piece of the cheese but still not touching any of the pastries since she didn't know what was in them.
I really need to stop making more of these..(Open, 0/0)
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Rain shook her head. "I do have more but they can wait. You look exhausted, and for good reason. You've been through a lot." She said, standing up. She grabbed the tray and moved it from the bed at a table that sat next to the bed. "There will be guards outside the door, so you may ask them if you need anything. Do you need anything else before you go?"
"No." She said simply, watching her get up and trying to figure out the easiest way to sleep without hurting her wings. Adira wasn't used to beds with straight edges and as she tried to lay down, the ends of her wings hung off the edge of the bed since she couldn't tuck them in. If she was going to be here until her wings healed, a circular bed would definitely have to be found or made. "Rain…..thank you..for the food and help." She quickly said before Raina could leave, pulling the blankets over herself as she figured out the most comfortable way to sleep.
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"You're welcome, Adira. Try to get some rest. Goodnight." Raina said before slipping oof the room.
"Make sure there is a rotation on this door for tonight." She quietly a dressed the guards before heading off to her room.
When she arived back at her room, her handmaid, Alyssa, was waiting outside the door.
"Are the rumors true, my lady? Is there really one of those winged creatures in the palace?" Alyssa asked, following Raina in as she went into her bedroom.
Raina let out a soft groan, only imagining the rumor's that might be going around. "Yes, Alyssa. There is." She answered as she changed. "She doesn't seem to mean harm. She took a real beating from the storm and one of our soldiers." She explained.
Alyssa nodded, pursing her lips. "What does this mean? Will more come after her?" She asked as she helped Raina get ready for bed, even though it was obvious she didn't want her help.
Raina fell into a silence. "I don't know." Shr said after a bit. She climbed into bed. "Thank you, Alyssa. You are dismissed."
Alyssa nodded. "Thank you for answering my questions, my lady." She said before leaving.
As exhausted as Adira was, she couldn't fall asleep for quite a while. There was too much noise outside her room, scratch that, there was too much noise in general. The storm that had blown her in was still going, even if it was down to just light rain, and the guards she guessed were outside couldn't seem to shut their mouths. She slowly reached for the knife she had swiped, pulling it out from where it had been tucked in her clothes. The wrapping around it was nothing more than the thickest section of her old clothes that she could find to protect the blade and she stuffed both under the pillow on the bed. That helped her calm down at least and soon she passed out.
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Raina had similar troubles falling asleep. She couldn't stop thinking.
What would the Royal Advisors think? What would they want to do? What would her father think? How many people knew about her being in the castle? Will other's cone looking for her? What will be done with Adira? Should we send her back?
After awhile of thinking non stop, she ended up dosing off, thinking of the winged creatures
Her hand rested on her knife all night, comforting her as she slipped into dreams that woke her up time and time again. They weren't dreams as much as they were nightmares, but she preferred calling them dreams, people were less worried when she said she dreamed all night. Adira woke with the sun, naturally waking herself up then in preparation for the early morning training of becoming a soldier that she had finished only yesterday. It was weird to think it had only been a day since she was back at the island bickering with her brother and going through flight exercises.
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Raina had a dreamless sleep, like usual. She couldn't remember the last time she had a dream, though she used to have them all the time as a child.
Rain woke up about an hour before dawn to get a few tasks out of the way. She also sent out a request to meet with the royal advisors later that day.
She decided to grab breakfast for Adira. The servents were a bit wary around her and Raina wanted to talk to her again anyways. She gathered a varitiey of fruit, seeing that she liked it last night and a pastry for herself, as she hadn't eatan breakfast yet.
She arrived at the door to the room that Adira was in, she nodded at the guards before knocking at the door.
"Come in," Adira called when she heard the knock on the door, her knife already tucked back away in her clothes. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her arrow pierced wing stretched out alongside of her as she carefully ran her fingers through the feathers. It was similar to a bird preening as she weeded out the broken feathers and gently set them in a pile next to her wing.
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Raina entered the room. "Good morning!" She said with a smile as she can in. She was about to sit down on the bed before she saw what Adira was doing.
"Oh. Am I interrupting something?" She asked, wanting to make sure she wasn't being rude.
She shook her head, still focused on the task at hand as she answered simply, "Nope." Her other wing stretched out behind her, looking almost like a wall diving the top and bottom half of the bed and leaving plenty of room for Raina to sit. "Good morning, what do you want?" It was straight to the point and not sarcastic in the least, a serious answer even if it was blunt and could be seen as unwelcoming. Adira couldn't care less if she was in here, as long as Rain kept her distance from her wings that was.
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"I brought you breakfast." Rain offered, not fazed too much by her blunt remarks. "Figured you might be hungry." She shrugged as she set the tray down on the bed, but remained standing.
Adira nodded simply, tearing her gaze off her wing for a second to see that she was still standing there. "I have a feeling that's not the only reason you came." She said, gently pulling out the last few broken feathers she could see before stretching the wing behind herself and scooting to the other side of the bed. It wasn't so that Rain had room to sit as she pulled her broken wing out straight, settling into a rhythm and starting to go through feathers again.
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Raina remained standing, giving her plenty of space for her wings. "It wasn't." She admitted. "I wanted to ask you a few more questions about your…race." She admitted.
The only information on the winged creatures came from her grandfather's stories and a few book on the war thathe had found tucked in a corner in the palace library.
"Ask away, I'll answer as best as I can." She said, looking up at her and deciding the rest of picking through her wing could wait. Adira scooped up the pile of broken feathers and set them on her pillow as she stretched her wing out behind herself again. It was obviously an invitation to sit, mostly since she guessed that Raina's questions would take a while to explain.
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Raina recognized the invitation and sat down on the bed. "You don't have to answer any question if you don't want too. I get that you might not want to reveal everything about your race." She assured her.
"Where did you go after the war? Again, you don't have to say specifics."
She paused for a moment to look at Raina, studying the look on her face and trying to decide if there was a hidden purpose behind these questions. "The survivors of the war fled this land, taking up shelter on an island big enough to support our kind as they rebuilt," Adira answered, keeping anything specific to herself so she wouldn't endanger her people or anyone she knew on the island. She took one of the longest feathers she could find from the pile on her pillow, studying it and the broken shaft that left most of the feather bent at almost a right angle.
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Raina nodded. It was incredible vague, seeing that the empire was surrounded by islands of various sizes.
"How many of you are there?" She asked, as she folded her hands in her lap. She was mostly asking these questions out of curiosity.
"I won't give you an exact number..I will say we're still recovering from the war though and our numbers are quite small." She said, once again avoiding specifics. It would take her kind quite a while to get to a good population too, seeing that becoming pregnant was difficult and it took two months longer for a child to form than it did for a human. Adira didn't look away from her feather as she asked a question of her own, "How much of this land does your kingdom cover?"
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Raina pursed her lips as she tried to think of the exact number. "I want to say about 28 thousand miles, with about 12 million people." She said, thinking on it a bit after she said it.
"What is the actual name of your race?" She asked. "I've never heard your kind called anything other then 'The Winged Beings' or 'The Winged People'."
Her eyes visibly widened at the sheer size of Raina's territory and amount of people, trying to process just how quickly the humans had recovered. She knew that they had taken less damage than her people had but still it was a staggering amount. "We call ourselves the Claite, but The Winged Beings works just as well." She said, cracking a tiny smile at the very uncreative and basic name that her people had been given, "How many humans know that we still exist?"
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"Claite." Rain said aloud, mimicking Adira's pronunciation. She nodded her head. It seemed to fit them.
"In genral most of the public thinks that when the war was over, you were hunted to extinction, fled to the skies or something else. At the moment only servents and the guards offically know there is a 'Winged Creature' in the castle." She explained, putting air quotations when she said winged creature.
Adira seemed surprised to hear that most didn't know about her kind, a gently hopeful look passing across her face. Maybe her people being in hiding was good, they could live and prosper on the island without being found out or bothered. "Are you planning on telling anyone else about me?" She asked, not sure what answer she was hoping for as she put the broken wing back in the pile with the others. After she got an answer it would be time to answer more of Rain's questions.
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Raina shook her head. "No. We've informed the people that it was a large vulecture that looked bigger than it was because of the storm." She explained.
"Do all Claite wings look like yours?" Rain asked. This one was purely out of her own curiosity. Adira's wings were stunning to her, even it they were broken and sratched up.
"No, there is a lot of variety in what our wings look like," She said, moving her wing out so she could see the inky black feathers. It was dangerously close to Raiana but she didn't find herself terribly worried, busy explaining wings since they were something she knew quite a lot about. "Within our species, there are several subspecies, each group has different wing styles and coloring. Mine are a mix of my father's cave dweller wings, and my mother's mountain dweller wings. The coloring is purely my dad, but I inherited my mother's giant wings."
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Raina nodded, staring at her wings as she explained. At one point she found herself partially reaching up to touch them, but stopped herself before her hand could get anywhere near her wing.
"How many subspecies are there?" She asked, intrigued after she heard about Mountain and Cave dwellers.
"Six subspecies," Adira replied, ticking them off on her fingers one by one, "Mountain, Cave, Desert, Jungle, Plains, Water." She glanced at her outstretched wing and then at Rain as she went into more detail, "Mountain dwellers have giant soaring wings that are normally gray or white, sometimes light blue. Desert wings are long and narrow for gliding, they are normally shades of browns with unique patterns." In her mind she could picture each set of wings she described, finding herself describing the wings on her fellow soldiers and picturing each of them flying in her mind, "Do you want me to continue?"
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"Yes, please." Raina said with a nod. It was interesting listening about the Claite's wings, trying to invision them as she explained the. Listening about something that you disn't have just made it more intriguing.
Talking about wings made her remember home and she felt strangely calm, a feeling that she latched onto and held tight while she described the wings of her people. "Plains dwellers wings are medium-sized, not quite as large as mine but perfect for short bursts of flight. The coloring is similar to desert dwellers but mist of the time they have some sort of bright color added in. Water dwellers have the best wings in my opinion, large but built for fast diving, plus their wings are always waterproof. They have wings that blend in like no other, dark greens and muddy colors and patterns that help them hide better than anyone." Adira paused, glancing at her own wings and feeling the corners of her mouth pull up in a shadow of a smile. "Jungle dwellers have gorgeous wings. They're similar in shape to Plain dwellers but filled with so much more color. Vibrant reds, blues, greens, you name it and there is some hint of that color in their wings."
She stopped before the last one, hiding the homesickness that came with imagining her father's wings. In all honesty, she had always been jealous of Cave wings, they were different and unique and held an air of power when outstretched. "Cave wings are special. They're not feathered like all the other subspecies," She started slowly, her eyes closing so she could see the wings in her mind, "They're like bat wings, smooth and always black or a gray so deep it looks black. They rival the size of mountain wings, almost as large but much more nimble and quick."
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"Wait. So not all Claite have bird like wings?" Rain asked, astonished. All the tales she had heard only consisted of winged people having bird like wings.
"Which species are you?" She asked, her description not seeming to completely fit any of the descriptions that she said.