#I also had a gag about the plants “molting” at the end

[jessfandrawer]

Trigun Birdles 🦜

Companion to this post. Naturally.

Look up "birds playing dead" on Youtube to see where I got the ref pic for the last one.

The black palm cockatoo picture came from Unsplash.

[acatpersonapparently]

Jemtoria Angel AU: part 3

i.

The scent of freshly cut grass and ripe tomatoes surround Victoria in the sweet soft morning. Her hand gently works the wing of a mourning dove. Over the blade of the scapula and soft coverts. It has been three days since her newest little bird entered her coop.

She doesn’t even know why she did that.

Even after so much time, human still sits in a distorted shape in her throat. The bird in her lap stirs and coos, she’s not sure how to even exist near someone else. A dry breeze ruffles the air, blowing her hair into her eyes. She pushes the sudden blonde curtain away with a sigh, turning her gaze to her garden.

There’s the warm glow of bright red hair hiding behind her vegetables. If Victoria had to guess, the girl got up with the sun and busied herself in the soil before her alarm woke Victoria up. The dove in her lap chirps and fusses. Victoria hushes it and resumes her gentle ministrations.

How best to heal this bird?

ii.

Jemima has lived at the house with the blue door for a week and she already knows how every day will go:

-She will wake up first and head out to the garden.

-At 8:00AM, Victoria’s alarm clock will go off and some time in the next thirty minutes, the scent of bacon will waft out the kitchen window.

-By 9:00AM, her silent benefactor will step outside to greet her birds and tend to them, filling feeders and water bowls, examining hurt wings. That’s when Jemima will tend to flower bushes on the far side of the yard.

-10:45AM is the latest that Victoria leaves for work. Jemima can then head back inside before the sun gets too high and hot. She’ll find some leftover bacon on a plate left for her.

-Most of the time while Victoria is at work, Jemima reads or watches TV. She tried snooping around, looking around the house for anything fun or weird, but there’s nothing. No knick knacks, pictures, paintings. She couldn’t even find a stray ID or a letter.

-Sometime after 11PM, the door will slowly creak open and Victoria will walk through, open one of the beers from the bottom shelf of the fridge, and melt down into one of the wooden chairs at the small dining table. Jemima will lower the volume on the TV and, when she’s feeling brave, says hello. She never gets a response. The first time they spoke is also the only time they’ve spoke. She will get a polite wave or, if she asks a question, a nod or a shake.

-Victoria will wash out her bottle, place it in the bin, and shower at midnight. The soft shuffle of her feet always preceding Victoria before she appears to give Jemima a nightly goodnight wave and following her off as she heads to bed.

(There’s a few unexpected moments during her days. During a sleepy morning, she sees Victoria through the flowers, she sees her smile as a mountain bluebird nuzzles against her cheek. From peeping over a rosebush, the image is ethereal. If her father was half as resplendent, she understands why her mother was drawn in.)

iii.

Victoria didn’t mean to do it.

She didn’t mean to see anything.

There was some lemonade leftover at work so she brought it over and just wanted to know if Jem wanted some. She didn’t find the redhead in the living room so she had to be in her bedroom, so she just opened the door.

(She should not have opened the door.)

Victoria knows what her own back looks like. Catching brief glimpses of it in the mirror before stepping into the shower. Bone and blackened tissue that ached heavily, a rotted shadow of a symbol of Heaven’s glory. If Father’s intention was a mark of shame, he did a pretty damn good job.

Jemima’s was different (worse?)

White feathers molting, red raw patches, tufts of down sprouting up and down her back and across her shoulder blades. The waif was surrounded in a circle of white like fresh fallen snow. Victoria gags. Her stomach in instant upheaval at the sight. The tips of her fingers go numb as the moisture leaves her mouth. Her feet acted before she could think and she ran.

(She should not have ran.)

The birds open their wings and take to the sky when she reaches outside. She breathes deep, her chest aches, she tries to focus her thoughts. Her mind parsing through every microdetail with as much scrutiny in her panicked ability as she can get together. She looks up at the night sky and into the eyes of all the bright twinkling stars and, for the first time, she feels like they’re looking back at her.

Oh God, she’s not alone.

iv.

Jemima knows what happens next. She stuffs her bag with all of her belongings. All she needs to do is find another place to live. It’s fine. She’ll be fine. Her eyes watch the open doorway of her bedroom.

And, eventually, just like she expected, Victoria reappears with red eyes.

She waits for the cruel familiar sting of monster but Victoria just stares at her with these eyes, this cruel pitiful expression.

I- I can just go. I’m sorry. Jemima lowers her eyes and moves to push past the other girl. It’s all too bitterly predictable.

No. Victoria grabs her wrists so fiercely Jemima is sure that she’s about to be dragged into town to be burned at a stake. Please, stay.

And Jemima did not expect that.

v.

Between the two of us, we probably have enough for a set of wings, is the first thing Jemima says to her when Victoria shows her the withered afterimage of her wings. Victoria doesn’t know how to react in any way but laughter and it feels rusty in her throat, but good, really good.

Turns out holiness isn’t a factor in being a good dad and that seems to be a universal truth.

Victoria grabs two beers from the bottom shelf of the fridge and the two of them lay out in the garden, drinking to stories about how the shadow of divinity has taunted them. They yell into the void of the night sky at fathers that have fucked them over and what’s the point of abandoning them with enough holy to bitter the blood? Victoria grabs them another round when they start talking about how humanity is just another set of stone shackled to their ankles.

They’re still wiping away the tears from the last set of ab-aching laughter when Jemima asks Victoria what heaven feels like.Victoria hums to herself, a little tipsy, and sinks into the grass.

It feels a little like this, I guess.

vi.

Jemima has lived at the house with the blue door for three months. Long enough for hot dry summer to roll in and for the summer plants to start blooming. She has no idea how her day is going to go.

Last week, Victoria took her into town to get her new clothes. A few days before that, she came home with a blanket and a tub of ice cream for her. They had stayed up late that night because ice cream is received with enthusiasm, even by former servants of a deity.

(The two other colours are two different flavours? This Neopolitan guy is really smart, Jem)

Jemima finds herself waiting at the dinner table, an open beer at the seat across from her, waiting for someone to fill it. The clock hits 10:30 and the front door bursts open. Victoria rushing in to hug Jemima before helping herself to her beer.

Jemima had no idea that someone being excited to hug you could feel as good as a hug itself

That night, they curl up in front of the artificial glow of the television. Victoria offers to share a blanket with Jemima as the redhead scoots under it with pink-tinged cheeks. Throughout the night, Victoria’s breath warms the side of Jemima’s face as she leans in to whisper the occasional question about the television.

(Jemima is suddenly worried about spontaneous combustion cause that’s what this feels like, right? Right?)

Jemima wakes up before the sun rises like she always does. She doesn’t move an inch, coveting this moment in a never-ending form. The soft babble of the television, Victoria’s warmth snug against her, birds chirping outside. She looks around the small house and she can’t believe how much light its contains

Victoria’s eyes flutter open way too soon but it makes Jemima brighten up with what feels like the goofiest smile. Victoria returns it.

Good morning.

Good morning to you too.

What are you thinking about?

Do you know what happens at 4:30AM? You turn gold.

vii.

Victoria hit the earth crying for heaven. Her halo rests crooked.

Jemima's earliest memory was of the sun. Her mother is tearing fistfuls of feathers from her back again.

The girls are wrist-deep in the warm rich soil, worms dripping from the gaps between their fingers in every handful of dirt. They've managed to turn the air into music, permeated with the singing of birds and bursts of deep chest laughter. There was nothing in any hymnal that could rival it. Victoria sits back on her knees, removing her wide-brimmed hat to push down her sweaty hair. She looks up at the sky, vast and inviting.

(What’s wrong?)

It’s not easy, it hasn’t been easy. Half-angels and monster-girls creeping along the spine of the world made for Adam and Eve. There are dark moments: their bed brimming with nightmares and past memories on darkest nights, flinching and holding each other tighter when they’re in town, fat wet tears running down Jemima’s cheeks the first time Victoria acts on the urge to kiss her.

(I’ve been so lonely and so angry and so angry about being alone. I’ve been angry for so long that I- I’m not sure who I am without it.)

But, those good moments, those good glorious moments. Victoria has gawked at rapidly expanding nebulae, she’s stood with her brothers and sisters as gravity collapsed in on itself in an instant and formed neutron stars and black holes, she’s blown the last wisps of steam from a black star cupped in her palms. None of them are as good as Jemima waiting for her when she gets home, or when Jem reminds her that a proper diet includes more than bacon. The light dripping from those big brown eyes every time she showed Vic another sprout pushing to the sun from under the damp earth was something Victoria could savour until the world tires of spinning.

(I can’t promise you that I know who you are without it either, but I can promise that you’ll never be lonely again. A-and I’ve technically been a part of a hivemind since time began, so maybe we can find out who we are together? If you don’t mind staying here a little longer, that is.)

Alongside a narrow dirt road, fifteen minutes from the edge of town, there is a house with a blue door and a beautiful front garden of newly blossoming life and birds taking flight on recovered wings. The doormat has bright yellow lettering, written by two different hands, together.

Heaven is a place on earth.