The aurora shifted above us, its colours softly bleeding into one another as we lay side by side on the blanket. After a comfortable silence, Alice turned her head, a thoughtful expression on her face.
"You know," she began, "I don't think I've ever said this before, but... it feels unfair. You seem to know so much about my nature, yet I feel like I know almost nothing about yours." She paused.
I smiled. "And how does that feel? Not knowing?"
"I like it as much as I don't," she admitted. "It's interesting... but there's an uncertainty I'm not used to. My gift usually gives me far more than I saw about you. You had a lot of blind spots."
"All right," I said, turning slightly toward her. "Let's make it fair. What assumptions did you and your family make about me?"
She pushed herself up onto one arm, leaning over me slightly, her expression thoughtful.
"I spent a long time looking through mythology, old manuscripts..." she began. "The closest comparisons I could find were an eagle shifter, a harpy, or..." She hesitated. "...an angel."
The last word lingered in the air between us, and a small, involuntary smile formed on my lips.
"I didn't bring that one up with my family," she added quickly. "At first, I was completely sure you weren't one, but... when I learned your name is Samael..." her voice softened, "I started to wonder."
It was reasonable. If I were truly an angel, it would make real things most people preferred to keep abstract: God, Heaven, the soul. There may be a certain comfort in believing, but knowing it is something else entirely. Confirmation wouldn't simply challenge their understanding of what I was - it would collapse every quiet assumption they had made about the nature of existence itself.
"No," I said gently. "I'm not an angel. The name is coincidence, nothing more."
Something in her expression eased.
"Good," she murmured, more to herself than to me.
A brief silence settled, but her curiosity soon surged back, even brighter than before.
"So," she said, tilting her head, "are you like them? The wolves?"
I glanced at her. "You mean the shapeshifters?"
She blinked, then smiled faintly. "Right, shapeshifters." A small pause. "So... are you one?"
I exhaled softly, searching for the simplest way to explain.
"Yes... and no."
She stared at me for a moment, then let out a soft laugh. "That's not a very helpful answer."
"I know." A smile touched my lips. "What I mean is, I don't simply shift into a different animal. It's more than that. And I think you've already noticed some of the differences."
Her expression lit up instantly.
"Yes! You're incredibly fast," she said, sitting up straighter. "Even I have trouble moving that quickly through the forest, and you didn't even-" she gestured vaguely "-shift."
I nodded slightly. "That's one difference. The other has more to do with the nature of what I shift into."
She leaned forward, completely engaged.
"When you mentioned an eagle," I continued, "you weren't entirely wrong."
I could almost see the gears turning in her mind. "So... partially eagle," she said, testing the idea.
She went quiet, her gaze briefly unfocused, then her eyes widened. "Wings... eagle..." She stopped. "A gryphon." She straightened up fully, excitement breaking through. "You're a gryphon! You have to be, that explains everything: the growl, the speed, and it means you're part lion too, aren't you?"
The speed of her deductions, the brightness in her eyes, it was impossible not to enjoy.
"I can see you like that idea," I said, smiling. "But... no, I'm not a gryphon."
"Yet," I added, "I am very close to one."
"A gryphon is half eagle and half lion," I said. "But in my case, one side dominates the other, more in terms of form than nature. It appears less often in mythology, though you might find it under a few names." I paused. "Vapula, pteroleon, or the Lion of Saint Mark, which is the most recent reference I came across."
The first name meant nothing to her. But with each one that followed, her expression shifted, recognition gathering slowly.
"I prefer something simpler," I said. "Winged lion describes what I am well enough."
She stared at me for a moment. "You're a lion?!"
"A winged lion."
"Right." A quiet laugh escaped her. "A winged lion." Then, softer, "Wow."
She paused, then tilted her head. "Is that what you meant, then? That you're not like those wolves?"
I shook my head. "Partly. You mentioned seeing my wings in your visions. But tell me, can the wolves transform only part of their body?"
She thought about it, then shook her head. "No. From what I know, they can't." A slight tension crept into her expression. "We're not exactly... on good terms with them," she added quietly.
"Don't worry," I said, catching it immediately. "Whatever stands between your family and the wolves has nothing to do with me. That we share a similar nature doesn't mean we share the same side."
The tension vanished. She smiled and leaned in, resting against the curve of my neck, and without thinking, I tightened my arm around her.
"So," I said after a moment. "Let me show you another difference."
I raised my free hand between us, palm upward. "Watch."
Her gaze dropped to it immediately. At first, nothing. Then, slowly, my nails darkened and lengthened, curving into large, sharp claws. My hand grew slightly larger, fur rising in a soft, dense layer across the back.
"Wow," she breathed, and reached out instinctively.
I drew my hand back slightly. "Careful," I warned. "They're sharp. Very sharp."
She stilled. What struck me was that she didn't test it, she simply trusted me. I hadn't expected that. She had spent her entire life in a body that could shrug off almost anything, and old habits like that usually didn't pause for a quiet warning. But she had.
She reached out again, slowly this time, and took my hand carefully in both of hers, turning it over with open, unhurried fascination.
"The skin is so tough," she murmured, "but it isn't rough at all."
"No," I agreed, "and that's not all."
The transformation continued, spreading up my forearm. My hand grew larger, its shape shifting into something closer to my werelion form, only smaller.
Alice ran her fingers slowly over the fur. Then she stilled, a shift in her expression. After a moment, she glanced up at me. "May I?"
I understood immediately. "One moment,"
One of the few advantages of that form was the ability to retract my claws fully.
She watched them disappear, eyes wide, then let out a soft, delighted giggle.
"I really need to get used to the fact that my boyfriend is a lion," she said.
"A winged lion."
"Right." The corner of her mouth curved. "A winged lion. My sincerest apologies."
Without further ceremony, she brought my hand to her face and pressed her cheek into the fur, closing her eyes. She moved slowly, unhurried, clearly just enjoying the sensation.
"It's so soft," she said quietly, almost to herself. Then, after a moment, "And so warm."
Her eyes opened again, a thoughtful look settling in her expression.
"Before," she said, "I couldn't smell anything particular from you. But the moment you transformed..." She paused. "Now I can."
I raised an eyebrow. "And?"
She lifted a finger to her lips, considering. "It's nothing like the wolves," she said finally, after a moment of thought. "Nothing sharp or unsettling. It's warm and grounding somehow." She glanced at me. "And there's something wilder underneath that I can't quite place, but it's not unpleasant. Not at all."
"So you like it," I said.
She smiled. "I do."
...
We were sitting now, facing the ocean. Alice had been telling me about her family.
She told me how she had found them, a vision of herself among them, a future she had chosen to walk toward before she even understood what it was. She had gone to them without memory of who she had been before, only the certainty of where she was supposed to be.
"We call ourselves vegetarians," she said, a faint trace of irony in her voice. "We only drink animal blood."
She paused, then added more quietly, "Unfortunately, it doesn't bring real satisfaction. It only makes the absence of human blood easier to bear."
I didn't say anything immediately. There was nothing to add.
After a moment, she tilted her head, gazing at the sky. "What does it feel like?" she asked. "To fly."
I followed her gaze upward, considering how to put my intentions into words, but then I stopped.
"Why describe it," I said, "when I can show you?"
Realisation dawned on her face as she turned to me, and she was on her feet before I finished the thought.
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Yes, absolutely!"
I rose slowly, and my fingers moved to the buttons of my shirt, undoing them one by one.
Alice didn't speak, her eyes following the rise and fall of my chest as my shirt parted. They lingered on the lines of muscle beneath as the fabric slid from my shoulders. I laid the shirt on the blanket and glanced back at her. She hadn't moved, her gaze fixed on my bare torso as if she'd forgotten everything else.
I stepped closer. Gently, I reached out, my fingers grazing her jaw before lifting her chin, guiding her eyes up to mine, though it took her a noticeable moment to pull them away.
"Still want to fly?" I asked.
She nodded, then seemed to catch herself. "Not that I'm against any of this," she said, "but why did you take your shirt off? It's a bit... distracting."
I smiled. "We're not in a fairy tale, dear. The shirt wouldn't survive if I released my wings."
Her eyes widened slightly. "That makes sense," she said.
"I thought so."
Then my wings emerged from my back in a single motion, vast and golden-white, each feather catching the faint, shifting light of the aurora above. Even folded, their span changed the feel of the space around me.
Alice took a small step back, but then immediately stepped forward again, her hand reaching out, fingers moving slowly along the edge of one wing, tracing the feathers with careful, unhurried wonder.
She looked up at me. "I thought..." She shook her head slightly. "I thought they couldn't be more beautiful than in my vision." A pause. "I was so wrong."
I let her linger for a moment, then said, "Let's go, dear," and swept her up before she could protest.
"Oh-!"
Her arms went around my neck instantly, her expression a mix of indignation and anticipation.
"Ready?" I asked.
She nodded quickly.
I unfolded my wings to their full span, close to five metres from tip to tip, bent my knees, and pushed off the ground. We rose sharply into the cool air, and then I beat my wings in long, steady strokes, lifting us higher above the cliff edge, above the tree line, into the open sky.
The wind moved differently up here, not the static cool of the clearing below but something alive, shifting in currents I felt through every feather. I climbed steadily, angling toward the cloud layer that had softened the aurora from below.
Then we broke through the surface, and the world opened.
Above the clouds, the aurora ceased to be a filtered view. It danced directly overhead, so close it felt less like a natural phenomenon. Beneath us, the cloud layer stretched like still water, and in the distance, the scattered lights of Port Angeles winked through the breaks, small and quiet against the dark coast.
Alice said nothing.
She gazed at the view for a long moment, arms still wrapped around my neck. Then she turned to me and, without a word, kissed me, deeply and unhurriedly, her fingers pressing lightly at the back of my neck.
When she pulled back, she wore a smile I hadn't seen before.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "This is more than I could have dreamed for a first date."
A warm feeling settled in my chest, "Then I'll have to keep setting the standard," I said. "There will be many more."
Her smile widened. "Yes." She hugged me tighter, resting her head against my shoulder. "Yes, there will."
We lingered above the clouds for a long while. I steered us south along the coast, our altitude rising and falling with the currents, the ocean occasionally visible through gaps in the cloud cover. Once, I brought us low, skimming just above the treeline, the rush of cold air sharp and immediate, before climbing again.
By the time we turned back north, the lights of Forks had appeared in the distance, pale and familiar against the surrounding darkness.
"I should take you home," I said.
She sighed softly. "I know," she said, and tightened her arms around me, reluctant to let me go.
We began our descent.