09-07-2016, 04:56 PM
Ashley had learned to sleep with his eyes open.
To be in the position that he was in, to be a part of another generation, and surrounded with creatures that he needed to get to know and understand…He was, to most of them, a walking relic—an ancestor. And yet he walked among them with little care of their lines or lineage. It did not matter where they came from, but what they chose to make of themselves. Though, now without their abilities, it seems that they are without that as well.
It was apparent to him that he simply did not belong here; among them. There was just no space for him and his old-world ways among this new generation, and yet, there were still a few who hung to the old world, remembering (or having been taught) what things were like way back when. Tiphon had always struck him as one who understood the world from a higher plane. With his wings and his ability to lift himself off the ground, he could view them all as they were—pawns for the giving and taking of life and pride. Ashley coughed a little as the thought of his own wings—loss of, for he had been blessed with immortality as to keep the rest of his body in tact—reminded him that he was stuck on the ground.
It was true; they were agitated. They were angry. Men of power, men of knowledge; reduced to peons for the pleasure of another. It was demeaning—it was emasculating. And so as Ashley approached him with the knowledge of the other man’s dark attitude, he gave the angel-man his strong shoulder, slightly guarded. There was no worry in his attacking, but he would not have been himself if he had not approached ready. It is who they were. The need to protect; to conquer. It does not simply go away with the change of your blood. It just simply makes you an angry fallen angel.
“The world is not fair, Tiphon. But what the all-mother has done to us, to expect us to make that climb again. It’s demeaning. Patience is one thing. Embarrassment is entirely another. They were not as they are now in my day. I dare say the hubris of power lies with them—and not with us, as they say.”
ashley
I walked the path, it led me to the end.