Reality can be such a drag with all its stupid expectations. It makes total sense that people want to escape into a realm of fantasy. Who wouldn't want a break from a world that seems to have forgotten how to be kind?
Ratelsi's realm was the sky; an infinite blue, always wide open with nothing but freedom waiting on its breezes.
From an early age, she'd been aware of her place in the world as an anomaly who didn't belong socially or biologically. Normies could get pretty suspicious, and most of them practically recoiled at the thought of her kind existing at all.
But Ratelsi had wings, and that changed everything. Flap!
Just like that, she soared high above all that judgment and negativity. Honestly, if you had to ask, she'd argue that being stuck on the ground was fine for everyone else. But for her, once she felt the exhilarating rush of flight, the boring, solid ground lost all its charm.
Especially with all those cold, ugly glances around - Normies acting like they have the right to glare just because someone's got scaly skin or can move things with their mind.
Like they weren't into that kind of stuff in the movies.
If Ratelsi got an Aure every time Normies made her feel like curdled milk, she'd be rich enough to buy the entire city two times over and still have Aures left to stroke the Primarch's ego.
But Ratelsi didn't lose sleep over shit like that.
They could scowl all they wanted.
The opinions of others were the least of her concerns. Leaning into that awareness was what she preferred to softening herself to make others comfortable. She owned the sky, and there was no way anyone could take it away.
Flap! Flap flap!
Ah, wings… Huge, stunning obsidian feathers. They weren't matte like a crow's, but vitreous, with a glassy sheen, their material defined by its relationship to light.
Instead of soft, frayed barbs, running a hand over the flat of her feathers felt as smooth as polished marble. They resembled conchoidal fractures found in knapped glass. However, moving against the grain would be lethal - the edges were capable of slicing skin.
Permanently cold to touch…. an odd feeling really, obedient too, as if they were meant to be extensions of her own body.
It was wild how, simply by focusing her thoughts, Ratelsi could command them to levitate or multiply before her very eyes. Her peculiarity allowed her to soar anywhere she desired. But because of the limitations, most of her flights took place within the safe boundaries of Argona's force field.
More often than not, she flew above the most beautiful place in Argona, which was the capital, Balun. Then there was the Sector Belt - Elvio, Sayge, Kakkis... But they came with a shit ton of ridiculous rules and tiresome responsibilities enforced by the Cura and their police force - the Paladins.
Paladins were recognized by their navy blue and black uniforms featuring long, flared sleeves, a high collar, and black trousers over boots. Their most distinctive feature was a long, gold V-shaped visor that completely covered their eyes.
Holding large detonators - long-range rifles with glowing blue accents near the chamber - Paladins strutted around like peacocks basking in the fear they created.
Sometimes they patrolled the skies on Strider Mk. Vs - an aerodynamic machine with a fin-like rear - flaunting their badges and detonators as talismans of authority with the arrogance of those who knew they'd never be held accountable for their actions.
Almost every street was a checkpoint, and every Peculiar was a suspect.
Hilarious, really…
As she pondered this with a smirk, a sudden buzz broke her train of thought.
Vrrr.. Vrrr…
Ratelsi glanced at her HoloSmart, a metallic cylindrical smartwatch. The outer edges glowed faintly with a soft cyan-blue light, syncing with the neural net embedded in her spine. Small, illuminated icons circled the rim.
Every Argonian had one, and hers was now vibrating to signal an incoming call.
A gritty outfit accentuated her toned physique nicely: olive-green tank top with dark, micro shorts strapped with a leg harness. A studded belt cinched her waist, and helix earrings traced the curve of her pointed ears.
Defined shoulders gave her upper body a graceful yet powerful silhouette.
With another flap, Ratelsi landed on a shabby rooftop, crunching dusty, loose shingles beneath her chunky, weathered boots. The narrow streets formed arteries of steel, brightened with neon lights above colourful walls.
At the street's end, a holographic light glared in a red slash across the outline of a pair of wings. It was a signage warning: NO-FLY ZONE. With a heavy sigh, Ratelsi's eyes glowed brighter as she recited:
Alas Recondere..
Once the spell was cast, the broad span of her wing fractured along pre-existing magical fault lines. The obsidian plates slid over one another with a sound like shuffling glass as the feathers nested.
Smaller plates slid beneath larger ones until an entire wing had compressed into a single spine of stone.
And then the other...
As the wings fully retracted, her skin along the spine ripped open like a surgical incision with a wet tear to receive the structure.
First came a gasp, then a choked snarl.. but it sounded more like a stifled laugh.
Clenching her trembling fists, Ratelsi let out a breath, nails biting into her palms as she braced herself for what was to come.
Then her posture broke!
Her spine arched violently in a reflexive spasm to create space for the incoming mass. Her knees buckled under the sudden density of the stone moving inward.
Malachite pupils dilated until their irises were a thin, golden ring in a black void. While her nerves drank in the sensory overload, a tear ran down her cheek, but she didn't blink it away.
"Mmmmffghhh.." Moaning softly, Ratelsi listened to the sickening sound of her muscles shifting and bones sliding as the wings tucked into the muscular sheaths behind her ribs.
It hurt a lot. It hurt a whole fucking lot! It felt like a row of cold knives being driven home simultaneously. But she was used to the pain.
In fact, she... enjoyed it.
A slow, languid smirk pulled at the corners of her lips, eventually parting them to reveal gritted canines in a death mask grin. She tasted the copper of her own tongue where she'd bitten it, swallowing the blood as if it were nectar.
Flushed across her cheekbones and throat, her fingers clawed the dirt as the last of her feathers found home in the hollows of her back. She remained there for a short moment, trembling, enduring the aching aftermath of her skin healing shut.
Ratelsi then let out a long, shuddering sigh of disappointment that the torment was over before her expression fell back to its deadpan stare.
Vrrr... Vrrr..
Another persistent buzz pulled her attention to the HoloSmart on her wrist. The screen's glow revealed a digital readout of the time. 3:45 pm. She rose to her feet, scoffing amusedly when she realised only ten minutes had slipped by during the haze of the spell.
By all accounts, it was a personal record; it wasn't long ago that a full wing retraction would leave her in agonising, leaden exhaustion for half a day or more.
Now, Ratelsi simply shook out the lingering tension in her shoulders, impressed that her body had finally learned to snap back so quickly.
"I guess all that Praesidium training paid off, huh?"
Then she swiped to accept the call.
The holographic interface projected above her wrist as radial patterns morphed into a phone icon.
"Yooooo, Rat!! Are you draggin' your wings or what? You're not takin' a detour, are you?"
This loudmouth through the speaker belonged to her best friend, Timoth Kornt, a cheerful personality who had a knack for making the mundane feel bearable. He was maybe also her only friend, but that's beside the point. Timoth's boisterous shout sliced through the air, making Ratelsi tilt her head back to crack one eye open.
Malachite-green with slitted pupils fixed on the screen with a deadpan look.
"Honestly, I'm really impressed you got me thinking about ripping out your tongue," she drawled in a smoky voice.
"Never have I fantasized mutilation so quickly."
"Wow, that's delightfully barbaric. Shall I offer my vocal cords next? Or throw in a lung while I'm at it."
"Don't tease me, Timoth. I might just take you up on that."
Timoth's projected laugh filled the space. Calm and soothing, a sound she held dear.
"Yeah, yeah…you say that, but with your tendency to get easily distracted when flyin' ten seconds could stretch into ten days before you make it to Oakeman."
Ratelsi waved a dismissive hand and let out a light-hearted "Pfft."
But she couldn't help the grin that crept across her full, pouty lips as memories of how they met at the Praesidium flooded her mind.
Back then, before she mastered the spell to make them vanish, her wings had felt like a curse rather than a gift. They were massive, always catching the sun, and seemed too sharp to carry around other students, always bumping into desks or bruising shoulders in the crowded halls.
To the bullies who took turns to corner her on the rooftop every afternoon, that extra space she occupied was an unpardonable offense.
She remembered the weight of them pinning her down, the stinging insults about her "clumsy, oversized sails," and the sharp ache as their heels ground into the sensitive primary feathers of her left wing, cracking them.
Then, the heavy steel door had creaked open to reveal her saviour...
Eight years together in that segregated academy for branded Peculiars, with its bleak, monastic environment, was where they trained to harness their inhumane abilities through spellcasting for the "common good" and the "safety of society."
Cura Noemie and her Acolytes made sure to teach that Peculiarity was less a gift than a biological trauma. That it was a condition born of the Storm, one that only Liyuen possessed the power to soothe.
Many times, it made Ratelsi wonder whether the Goddess of Arcana truly saw Peculiarities as aberrations requiring divine oversight. Did she really have the time to dwell on such petty human things?
At Praesidium, her friendship with Timoth blossomed as a stroke of luck in her otherwise exhausting life, and they've been kindred spirits ever since. Two years had passed since they graduated.
"Yunno, it's almost four, and we've got deliveries rollin' in, right?" his smooth tenor pulled Ratelsi out of her thoughts, reminding her that time wouldn't be on their side for long.
There was that signature playful urgency in his tone. She rolled her eyes, quipping. "Yeah, I got the memo already."
Another chuckle from Timoth softened her annoyance; its soothing sound always had a way of lightening her mood. Plus, he basically had a radar for detecting her half-baked plans and fibs, so there was no way to lie her way out of work.
She decided to say, "If that glorified trash heap offered anything remotely resembling a good time, I might actually pretend to be excited. As it is, I'd rather watch paint dry than pretend that place is worth my time."
"Aw, c'mon, don't get all snippy with me, Rat." He grinned.
"You know Broco's gonna throw a tantrum again if we don't get these deliveries out before midnight." Then his voice dropped into a tease.
"He hasn't stopped watchin' you since that whole Mhode thing, yunno. I swear, it's like he's salivatin' for a slip-up." Another chuckle, and she could almost picture the mischief in the vivid sky-blue of his eyes.
Ratelsi hummed, unwilling to torture her thoughts with the consequences of what happened last week.
It was unnecessary to dwell on that drama; she felt no ounce of regret. Her lips curled into a thin line, in what resembled a smug smirk as she relived the sensation of her talons digging into his cheek, tearing the skin open.
For the next few days, the sound of Mhode's heavy breathing and pained groans became her new ringtone.
Man, it was easily one of the most gratifying things she'd done in ages!
A little reminder it was to that dimwit who thought he could be all touchy-feely with her whenever he felt like it. And it sent a clear message to Styx and Vesir that if you mess with the raven, you'd better be ready to get clawed.
Still, she had to admit, racking up more enemies wasn't exactly the smartest plan right now.
"Hey, just to be clear, our deal with Broco ends tonight," she said.
"I'm not sticking around one second longer if I have to deal with his crap. He disrespects us, so he shouldn't expect us to keep running his errands for peanuts and kiss his damn feet."
Ping!
"Uh, Ratel…" Timoth's voice interjected, sounding a little strained. "Actually, it's three deliveries now. Broco just couldn't resist paddin' the list."
Her malachite eyes darkened and took on a phosphorescent glow, like sunlight filtering through a heavy canopy of moss.
"What!? Why?" she blurted out, a little high-pitched.
Nearby, a flurry of startled birds took flight as Timoth inhaled sharply through the line.
"I know, I know." His voice crackled through the speaker, rushed and uneven. "Sorry, really."
The faint scuff of boots in the background suggested he was pacing. "But…Broco's swearin' these clients are whales, and he's danglin' double our pay in front of us."
A nervous chuckle bled into the static. "Double, Rat! That's hard to ignore! You know how long we've been talking about movin' to Sayge. This gig could actually be-"
He cut off abruptly as Ratelsi hung up the call with a frown creasing her face.
Tch.
Just how naïve could he be?
Obviously, Broco was lying through his teeth. Again.
Like they were too dumb to catch on. How dare he treat them so disrespectfully?
Eyes narrowed, she scoffed, "Double our pay. You could at least try to be more original, wanker."
She kicked a few gravel stones off the rooftop.
Their satisfying tumbles didn't really help with her annoyance, though, so Ratelsi turned her attention to the scenery before her. Golden rays scorched down on a thousand corrugated tin rooftops, turning the vast urban sprawl into an aluminium mirage.
The air itself felt thick and viscous, like a convection oven baking the maze of buildings below.
Yet, even under this brutal, natural illumination, the Underdistrict fought back with its own gaudy, electric heartbeat.
Streetlights, prematurely lit with dying power cells, struggled to make their presence known against the sun's glare. Bright neon signs - blood reds, electric greens, and hostile magenta - sputtered and glared down the grimy alleyways.
Towering above it all, flashy digital ads on monolithic screens cycled through impossibly bright, smiling faces and unattainable luxuries. Their ultra-white glare momentarily blinded Ratelsi as she dared to look up at the skybridges crisscrossing cylindrical structures at various heights.
Even in daylight, Altown kept its glow.
Right then, a joyous cacophony abruptly overrode the ambient noise of the block: the sounds of kids having a blast on their patched-up hover and skateboards.
Ratelsi's brain immediately processed the audio feed like a volumetric, 3D topographical map.
Each shriek of laughter, the abrasive grind of plastic wheels on pitted asphalt, and the frantic, echoing shouts of "Watch out!" were coordinates in space. So loudly that she didn't need to see them.
Pointed ears twitched to the vivid, chaotic burst three blocks east, exploding in her auditory cortex, painting a perfect mental picture of the actions:
The high-frequency whine of a loose grav-plate stabiliser.
The resonant thud of a board hitting a cracked street seam.
The raucous, unfiltered laughter of kids who knew they were pushing their luck.
Tilting her head back, Ratelsi soaked in the wild, chaotic soundtrack as it prickled her brown skin.
What a bummer.
She really didn't want to deal with helping Timoth with Broco's gifts today. But they didn't have many options. Delivery running was, in many ways, as honest as it got in a place like Altown.
Especially when finding regular jobs was a hassle because of their "unpredictable" nature.
For a Peculiar, stable job came from the Cura through an evaluation system called MAP tests.
The Mental, Arcane, and Physical tests were used to filter out the unstable, the volatile, and the inhumane, determining a Peculiar's stability for integration into society, access to employment, and overall freedom.
Passing the tests was the easiest way for Peculiars to find good employment and better living opportunities, which were heavily restricted for unbranded Peculiars - those without the Arcane Eye on their skin. Almost every legitimate work in Argona required evidence of certification that you've passed.
Those who failed were denied better living conditions and job opportunities or were confined to Turris to improve their state of mind. Most times, they never returned, becoming permanent residents of the rehabilitation tower.
But Ratelsi had long stopped taking those tests. She loathed the idea that, as a Peculiar, she was inherently risky until proven otherwise. Or that she must demonstrate stability and utility to earn basic rights that Normies possessed by default.
She also stopped listening to the Primarch's scripted daily speeches about how every Peculiar could save a life today by using their abilities "for the good of mankind." All that talk felt like empty theatrics meant to dress up how they monetised their powers.
However, this choice made her unemployable in the formal sector, reliant on underground work, and living under constant suspicion.
So, no judgment here, right? Cool.
Perhaps, this time, Broco would actually follow through on his promise. And if he ended up pulling a stunt, well then, she'd happily teach him a lesson he wouldn't soon forget. Her long black nails unconsciously flexed in and out as she thought of how she'd handle things if it came to that.
Just hearing his stupid name was enough to bubble her frustration back to the surface!
Ratelsi defiantly approached the eight-storey building's roof precipice, lifting her chin in rejection of the dizzying drop below as she stood on the crumbling edge...
Then, without a breath held or a backward glance, she simply pushed off.
The world instantly dissolved into a deafening, rushing wind. Ratelsi plummeted. The current seized her long, dark hair, streaked with white at the temples and bangs, whipping the voluminous waves into a wild cloud around her round, exhilarated face.
As the descent intensified, evolving to a true freefall, a delighted smile stretched across her lips.
She couldn't wait to unfurl her wings! It was way easier to let them out than to cage them in - a spell wasn't needed for that, only the will of thought.
Flap!
Like ink spilling across the sky, the black of her wings unfurled with the silken crack of a banner in the wind. She tilted her shoulder a bit to the right to transition into a controlled glide, banking with the precision of a raven, gathering the air beneath her like a cloak, and watching the ground blur as she sped.
Carefree. Effortlessly.
Up, up into the afternoon clouds where there was no filth underfoot, no burden in the soul.
A world in the sky.
Ratelsi let out a relieved sigh; she felt unabashedly alive! Adrenaline surged through her veins, making her heart race, lifting her mood, as she stretched her magnificent eleven-foot wings wide. Soaring eastward, the buildings below faded into a blur of shadows and colours.