Feather’s Blossom

  Rescuing a crashed ship, she never expected to meet one of her own kind, and she certainly never expected to fall in love.

  Tyhana has lived her life in a farming community; the only winged person she has ever seen is in the mirror. Her family has been a joy and feeling the love of her adopted clan has given her the confidence to become all she could.

  When she is watching a meteor shower and a star comes directly toward the valley where she lives, she finds a man inside the ship who needs her help. He has a dislocated wing.

  Seldrin was on his way to take a post as ambassador when he ran afoul of a meteor. It knocked him out of the sky and into the path of an angel. An angel who snaps his wing back in place like it was the most normal thing for her to do.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Feather’s Blossom

  Copyright © 2013 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-723-4

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Devine Destinies

  An imprint of eXtasy Books

  Look for us online at:

  www.devinedestinies.com

  Feather’s Blossom

  A Sci-fi Fairy Tale

  By

  Viola Grace

  Tyhana flew over the fields, looking for the missing sheep. She passed the flattened grass where Tomas had been frolicking with his girlfriend and made a note to mention it to him. She didn’t mind his love life, but her brother had to attend his duties when it was lambing season.

  She found the stray just as the sun began to dip. The little bleater was curled in a ball and calling weakly.

  “Easy, short stuff.”

  Tyhana settled on the grass, and she moved carefully toward the lamb. There was a wolf pack three hills over, and they were heading toward the plaintive bleat.

  Ty scooped the lamb into her arms and stood, using her wings for balance as she pushed off with her mind. After a few awkward moments, they were on their way back to the farm, nestled in the most inhospitable valley on all of Orion’s Rest.

  She found the worried mother and put the lamb down next to her. Ty watched as the weak baby toddled over to its mom and started to acquire dinner. She sighed in relief as the mother and baby renewed their bond.

  Ty brushed at her gown and returned to the farmhouse. Her family looked up from the dining room table as she entered and she gave them a quick thumbs-up before she washed her hands.

  Dinner was placed on the table as she returned, and she took her place at the foot of the table. Some folk thought that it showed her lack of place in the family by putting her at the foot, but in reality, the reasoning was far simpler. It was the only seat where her wings didn’t get in the way.

  She sat across from her father, and when the entire family was assembled, he gave the nod for the family to start.

  Food flew, plates filled and cutlery clattered. Fruit water circulated around the table, and there was silence for ten minutes.

  Ty spoke to Tomas, “How is your courtship of Wendiala going?”

  Tomas froze. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

  She smirked and said two words. “Crop circles.”

  Tomas was suddenly the focus of his younger siblings asking for an explanation.

  Ty’s mother smiled and looked at her, “Did you have a nice flight?”

  “It was very nice. I here that there is going to be a meteor shower this evening. May I fly to the peaks to watch it?” Tyhana took the dark vegetables off Leonara’s plate with a casual move.

  Her sister smiled in relief.

  Ty looked around the table at her six siblings and had to rejoice in her luck in being found by Niira Roper. Ty had been in her small shape at the time, and she had been lucky that the keen-eyed Niira had spotted the baby in the flowers outside her kitchen window. The moment she had touched the tiny fairy in the flowers, a winged toddler had appeared.

  Ty still enjoyed switching from large to small form, but she didn’t have clothing for when she was tiny, so she kept those shifts for the warm summer nights and daylight hours.

  “When will you be home?”

  “Dawn. If I am running later, I will send you a ping.” As the eldest of the family, Ty had privileges that her other siblings did not.

  Orwait looked down at her. “Take knives and the master com. I want to know if anything happens of note. In fact, take the compact vid camera. I believe your siblings would benefit from a little more education than we can provide.”

  “Of course; though, if I pick up too much stuff, I might not be able to lift off.”

  Her brothers and sisters laughed at that. She could lift close to two hundred pounds.

  Dinner finished with dessert, and by the time the dishes were done and everyone finishing their lessons, Ty was ready to go and watch the meteor shower.

  She had her pack of supplies slipped over her arms and settled on her chest. She tucked in the youngest two and headed out through the window that had been expanded into her own personal aerie.

  She stepped out onto the tiny balcony and carefully closed her door behind her. She looked out at the night, and she fell from her tower, spreading her wings and gliding away to approach the peaks that guarded their little valley.

  Nineteen families made their livings in the harsh hollow between the mountains. She flew over their homes as she made her way toward the ideal spot to view the shower.

  The wind ruffled her long skirts around the leggings she wore for the sake of modesty. It had taken a lot of trial and error for her mother to find a comfortable and proper style of dress that allowed Ty’s wings to move freely.

  Ty swept up along the walls of rock until she reached the plateau. With precision, she flipped out her blanket, her bedroll and the hot tea that her mother had prepared. Now, there was nothing left to do but watch the sky.

  The stars appeared one by one, peeking through the curtain of the atmosphere. When Ty was six, her parents had reported their finding of her to the local authorities during one of the rare trips out of the valley.

  No one had ever come looking for a lost girl with wings, so Niira had cuddled her and just said that she had been meant for them all along. Niira and Orwait had prayed for children and the moment they found Ty, they thought their prayers had been answered. Two years later, the natural children had begun and Ty was heralded as the catalyst that tipped the scales. There was not a day in her household that she didn’t feel loved.

  She leaned back on her wings and smiled when the first star streaked across the sky.

  With the vid recorder aimed at the sky, she settled in for a good show.

  The lights took on different colours as they streaked through the sky, each denoting another primary mineral in the rocks that burned on entry into the atmosphere.

  It was the rock that burned toward her and didn’t shatter into nothing that had her sitting u
p. “Oh, crap.”

  If she didn’t miss her guess, she was witnessing a crash.

  The ship was coming down hard.

  She rolled up her stuff and rammed it into her bag. She clipped her vid recorder onto the exterior of the bag and took off, following the flight of the ship and its rapid descent to the surface.

  The impact sent a shockwave through the air that spun her around, but she refocused and continued toward the crash site.

  The ship was about a hundred feet long, so it was a short-range vessel. The power cores were ruptured, but the containment foam shell had been discharged to seal them.

  Ty knocked on the hull with her fist and listened for a sound. The slight ticking of the metal was all the warning she got when the door flew off and skidded across the rock face.

  A man covered with blood crawled from the wreckage, one of his black wings was hanging at a painful angle, and Ty hissed in sympathy.

  “Let me help you.”

  He grunted and didn’t look up. “Thanks but unless you can relocate a wing…”

  Ty moved behind him, put a foot in his back and snapped the joint back into alignment. He screamed, but she held him in place while his wings flapped until they relaxed.

  “There. It will be sore for a few days and you will have to sleep on your stomach or flat on your back, but you should be fine.” She bent down to look at his features, and his angular chin, cheekbones and nose gave him the appearance of a bird of prey.

  He was still gasping for air. “Help me to my feet.”

  She got in front of him, and as he pushed up with his hands, she pulled up at his shoulders to help him rise to a kneeling position.

  Once he was on his knees, he stared at her. “You are a flier.”

  She smiled. “I am aware of that. Now, let’s get you on your feet. I can’t fly with you, but I can call for help.”

  “Where am I?” He looked around from his position on his knees.

  “Orion’s Rest. The farming valley of Timmuur.” She went to his uninjured side and helped him to stabilize on his feet. “Can I bind your wings? The muscle will heal better with support.”

  He was two heads taller than she was and twice as wide. It was a miracle he could fly at all.

  He frowned and then nodded. “There are med kits and supplies in the shuttle. Put the straps on me, I can carry them while you lead.”

  She nodded and tucked her wings in while she searched through the twisted metal. She came up with two med kits and enough supplies to last them for two weeks. Walking, it would take five days to reach the Roper farm. If he could heal quickly, they could fly and be there within hours. As she remembered the last time she had injured her wings, she decided that they had better get walking.

  She had the kits over her shoulders on long straps and the survivor was leaning on his arms against the shuttle. “Are you ready for me to wrap you now?”

  “Have you done this before?”

  “I have had it done to me, yes. My mom was a master of wrapping wings by the time I finished my rebellious phase. Do you mind if I call my family? They might be able to get you some help on an intercept course.”

  He nodded. “Please.”

  She picked up her com and called her father. She sent three pings, waited and sent another three pings.

  Orwait opened the com a moment later. “Ty, what is wrong?”

  “I have intercepted a crashed shuttle, Dad. The pilot is wounded and needs help. Oh, and, Dad, he has big, honking wings.”

  “You are kidding.”

  “I am not. Big black wings, dark hair, sharp features and bright blue eyes.” She paused and looked at the bemused crash victim. “What is your name?”

  “Duke Seldrin Avedos of the Haldoth.”

  “Dad, his name is Duke Seldrin Avedos of the Haldoth. Is that what I am?”

  “Yes, honey. I will head to the broadcast station and send the message immediately. Click again if you need me.”

  “We are making our way south on a straight trajectory from the crash site, so you can add that to the briefing. Take care, Dad. No worries.”

  “Take care, Tyhana. Answer if we ping you.”

  Ty disconnected the link and sighed. “Okay, now you.”

  “Your name is Tyhana?” He winced as she began the flat figure eight between his wings.

  “It is. Tyhana Roper. My mother named me the moment she found me. Feather’s Blossom. I was small and sleeping in a flower.”

  He blinked. “That is really small.”

  “Apparently.” She kept working while he was distracted. “I have two forms. This one and one that is about the size of your smallest finger.”

  He craned his head around, but she grabbed it and made him face the shuttle. “Keep still. I have braced your joint, but now, I have to tie it in the gliding position. That is going to hurt.”

  She had to go up on tiptoes to wrap between his feathers and over his chest and shoulder. She wrapped his wings flat to his back with even tension. When she was done, she patted the middle of his back. “There you go. I will have to rewrap you after you have a bath, but that will hold you until then.”

  “It feels fairly comfortable. You did a good job. How did you learn how to do this?”

  “I tended to jump off high things without properly bracing my wings. My mom had to wrap me a lot, and this was the best configuration. It gives support, warmth and, as you mentioned, it is comfortable.” She lifted the kits and the supplies. She paused, “Did you have a beacon or something that folks will use to track you?”

  He grunted. “In the cockpit, but I doubt you can get in there. It took the brunt of the impact. My com unit was shattered.”

  She grinned. “Give me a minute. Don’t leave without me, there are predators and you are ground bound. You need me to survive.”

  He raised an arm and saluted. “I will wait. It is still too dark to move here anyway.”

  “Watch the rest of the meteor shower. I will be right back.” Ty ducked into the ship, went down the hall until she wasn’t in his line of sight.

  Her boots and leggings hit the ground, her pack and gown were with them a moment later, and she was less than four inches tall zipping through the wreckage of the broken ship. The beacon was under the command console. She grabbed it with her tiny hands and hauled on it. It came out of its housing, and she zipped back out, following the trail of blood that the duke left behind.

  Her ability to lift far beyond her size was just one of the mysteries of her origin. Some days, she wondered who her birth parents had been, but then, she realized that they hadn’t actually been interested enough in her to try to find her.

  She fluttered around and finally set the beacon down next to her clothing. It took some doing to put the clothing back on in the narrow confines of the space, but she was decently covered with the beacon in the pack when she emerged.

  “That is an interesting technique for carrying cargo.”

  She blushed. “It is the best thing I came up with. This way, I can manoeuvre faster. Anything else tangles me when I go out after sheep.”

  “Sheep?”

  “My family are farmers. This valley is isolated and our wool is prized. I learned how to weave when I was little, and I spin when we are backlogged.”

  “Only then?” He smiled and loaded up the supplies and packs.

  “My wings get in the way.” She verified that her load was balanced and looked to her companion. “Duke? Are you ready to start?”

  “You can call me Seldrin. May I call you Tyhana?”

  “Works for me. Shall we?” She waved toward the visible path down the side of the rock face, and he nodded.

  “I will follow you, Tyhana.”

  “Call out if you need me to stop. You have already travelled quite far today.”

  “Where is our destination?”

  “We have four hours of walking to the hot springs, which will help your wing heal. We will rest there.”

  He nodded and that was eno
ugh for her. She turned and headed down the rock face, trying to keep her wings folded so she could approximate Seldrin’s balance. No sense in going anywhere he couldn’t follow. This wasn’t tag with her siblings.

  She made the descent as fast as she could, given his condition. She didn’t want him to fall on her, but she could hear his laboured breathing as they made their final few steps to the green plain of the valley floor.

  Ty fell into step beside him and directed him with light touches to his arm. “You are doing well.”

  “Really? I feel like I have been trampled.”

  “You probably suffered a lot of bruising. The hot springs have restorative powers. You will be sore, but it will accelerate your healing.”

  “I can hardly wait. So, how many in your family have wings?”

  “Oh, I am the only one. I am a foundling in case you didn’t guess.”

  “Really? Did they attempt to find your family?”

  “Of course. When they made it out of the valley, they filed a report of my finding with the local authorities and instructed them to contact all off worlders. No one came forward.”

  She didn’t add that it was six years after her finding.

  “Well, for my sake, I am very glad that you were there. If you hadn’t reset my wing, I would have gone into shock, and had I been alone, I could have been dead by now.”

  She wrinkled her nose, but he wasn’t wrong.

  They plodded along as the sun rose in the sky. She caught a whiff of the mineral-laden water and relief rippled through her. “We are almost there. A hot soak, a meal and some sleep. You will feel like a new man when you wake up.”

  “You have been most helpful so far. Thank you for your efforts, Tyhana.”

  Forty-five minutes later, she led him up a ramp and into a series of caverns. She led him through the narrow hallways and into the room lit by glowing moss.

  “Do many people use this cavern?” Seldrin asked, and his voice reverberated in the room of water and stone.

  “Nope. There are hot springs closer to most of the farms. I found this one during one of my flights.”