what the swallow said

Who is the third who walks always beside you? 
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you? 

-     V. What the Thunder Said, The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot

THEOPHANES was gasping in pain as they crawled into the bush, stopping only when their worldview narrowed to a palm-sized slit in the bushes, flickering and illuminated dimly by the passing lamplight. Their body was still forming at this point, more animal than human. Mercifully, they had lost all sensation from the chest down and therefore had not the slightest idea what they looked like. This was fine with them, as Theophanes had no desire to know. 

Still, an involuntary fascination crept up on them as their forelimbs twisted and grew. Their form was becoming quadrupedal very quickly now, and finally the involuntary terrible wracking noises stopped as their gillslits closed up, first into knotted seams that melted into cool mammalian skin. When Theophanes were sure they had fingers they wiggled them, half in disbelief, and slid out from under the bush like a snake. 

They had not formed naked, as they had expected, but with a thin long undershirt clinging to their chest like a layer of vapour. This was almost worse, as Theophanes could see how their new muscles shifted, unspeakably viscerally, as they breathed. 

Theophanes looked away with difficulty, and catalogued themselves. It was easier to count instead of touching, to see if they were really all right. Their new body had formed with two wings, dark-feathered, sleek with dew from the bush; two long-fingered hands connected to thick wrists with the skin an unmarked off-white, and finally two legs currently hidden by black pants but presumably the same colour, ending in ten crooked toes. 

When they could finally look past the instinctive coiling panic of having a tangible form they realised they could still feel power deep inside them: not nearly as much as before, when it spilled out of them in a blinding, glowing light, but just underneath their skin, waiting. It was a jarring yet comforting reminder that this form wasn’t permanent. Theophanes was in Limbo, and that was far better than Hell. 

But now they had to get up. Theophanes took a deep breath with human lungs and pushed themselves to their feet. Their wings smacked painfully into an overhanging branch, and the resulting curse was so vitriolic that it made the tree’s branches wither. They glanced at the blackened leaves with dismay and pressed a wet hand to their forehead, feeling for their sceptre with the other, half a mind to return it. It was gone. They tried to summon it, but it didn’t come: either it had not formed with them, or Theophanes had lost it when they fell. Neither possibility was particularly appealing. 

The nearest convenience store was just across the street. The cashier gave Theophanes a disinterested glance when they came in, then did a double-take: their drenched shirt briefly reflected the green of his apron, and seemed to be flickering with indecision between the neon red of the convenience store sign and the steel grey of the aisles. They hunched in their wings when they saw him staring, and in an instant they were monochrome again. 

“Sorry.” they mumbled, and disappeared behind one of the taller stacks of ramen. The cashier blinked, wondering if he’d imagined the change. And the feathers. “It’s fine.” he said, and glanced at the clock despite himself. It was three in the morning. This was worrying: perhaps he was hallucinating. Hopefully it had nothing to do with how his girlfriend had chastised him for going without sleep just yesterday. 

He got a closer look at the wings when they stepped out again with a basket full of ramen. They looked real, but some of the feathers were twisted and out of place, and crumpled as though they had been stepped on.

He cleared his throat as they handed over a credit card. “So, cosplay gone wrong?” he said, and winced when their head jerked up to look at him. He gestured with one hand at their back.

A moment passed, just long enough for him to feel distinctly sorry for asking, until he heard them mutter a “Sure.” 

“Oh.” He handed them their ramen, in a plastic bag. “Don’t eat all of that at once. They say it rots your stomach.” he said. He had meant it as an aside, something lighthearted considering the hour, but the dark brown eyes that met his were serious, considering. 

“I won’t.” they said, and strode down the steps into the dark, wings casting faint shadows from the streetlights. 

-

The apartment was dark when they came in. The door was unlocked, the key left in the keyhole, and they switched on the lights one-handed, dropping their new schoolbag at their feet.

The last time Theophanes had been on Earth was during Comnenus’s reign in the late Byzantine era, nine hundred years ago. They had lived with the humans in the royal grounds, playing in the multitude of rooms where at some point one royal or another would sit for a portrait in every one. Time meant nothing in Heaven, only duty. Theophanes had been barely a century out of their siblings’ feathers, deemed ready for an assignment only with practical supervision. 

When they weren’t bothering the old painter who had been their inheritance, they would go outside and be submerged in the riot of colours, sounds and smells. Twenty paces from the palace and one could smell spices, rich topsoil, the sea-salt of dye, and on top of it all the irreplicable rank of humans living atop each other in an era that had forgotten aqueducts. The world was a lot cleaner, now. With the balcony door half-open Theophanes could actually smell the petrichor.

People believed what they wanted to believe, or that was how the spiel went. It was difficult for humans to look at divinity directly, so Theophanes was only speeding the process along. They had gone clothes-shopping the evening before, with their one-piece suit sticking inorganically to their skin. Now they laid out the crisp school gakuran, then the other uniform, a sweater vest in navy and white. They had gotten the wool caught on one of the back zippers earlier, and it was already beginning to unravel. They picked it up and stared at it critically.

The tailor had been a woman, the skin under her eyes the colour of walnut shells and finely wrinkled from smiling. She ignored the wings even faster than the cashier had, and had only laughed at Theophanes once, not unkindly, when they asked her how to tie a tie. They thought she had been a little sorry for it after, showing them how with sure, slow movements. 

“What’s your name?” she had asked, and as Theophanes glanced at her in mute panic, “You don’t have to tell me now. I need to know what name to embroider on the hems, that’s all.” 

That’s not necessary, Theophanes had thought, but it was quickly replaced by what to tell her. “Arawareta.” they’d said, quietly. Japanese for arrival. Already their hands were itching for a piece of paper to spell it out, to have it written and confirmed. “Please.” 

She had looked at them oddly, but Theophanes had been unable to bring themselves to care. Everything they did to fit in felt useless, suddenly, and all of it came back to the fact that they weren’t human. Even shorter, their shoulders sloped artificially slighter, Theophanes was a parody of a schoolchild at best. Something about their eyes and the pale gash of their closed mouth reflected a solemnity that few teenagers had. 

The woman must have been humoring them, earlier. Everyone would be able to tell at a glance what Theophanes was, even if the geas let them ignore the wings. The doubt they’d felt then came rushing back as they stared at their new clothes. Would their classmates even care? Did humans care about these things? Theophanes had worn the things they’d been given, long ago. Every choice they’d made here alone had been agonising. 

If they failed again, with the second chance they've been given… it was too horrid a possibility to consider. 

They wouldn’t know how hard it was until they began. A lesson that grew no less apprehensive or painful, for all that it was true. Theophanes - Arawareta, now - tied their tie firmly around their neck, and tried to ignore the despair lying heavily on their shoulders. 

Time to get going. 

-

The school was just down the block from their apartment, one Orijinaru High School. District government funding meant that Theophanes was left regarding the peeling linoleum floors with faint distaste as the secretary checked their paperwork for discrepancies. Naturally there would be none: even before calling the school they had known they were registered, with the causal certainty that marked the divine. 

They were registered as a second year, whatever that actually meant. The town was small enough that there were only two classes per grade, and one floor reserved for each. Theophanes’ new class was 2A-1, on the second floor. 

They suffered the teacher asking them to introduce themselves (“My name is Arawareta Akeye, I’m a transfer student, it’s nice to meet you all”), repressing a shudder whenever a pair of eyes glanced off of their wings. It was hard not to feel exposed and distinctly unreal, and it was difficult to pay attention as the teacher chirped enthusiastically on. 

“You can sit wherever you want!” she said finally, motioning to the only empty space left in the room. It was tricky to navigate the pileup of desks in the back row, but they made it and sat down. Their new deskmate was a boy with headphones, his hooded jacket zipped up to his neck. The bright blue sticker on his desk read Kuroyanagi Hisoka. 

“It’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?” he said, catching them looking. “It’s just Sin.”

Theophanes had opened their mouth, but they closed it, feeling a slow dread crawl up their spine. It was too late to pretend ignorance. They’d known him for what he was as soon as he started to speak. They fell silent. 

“Arawareta-kun, right?” the demon said, and they bristled. “Don’t call me that.” they snapped, and turned half-away. 

“What am I supposed to call you, then?” he said. It was the note of injured hurt in his voice that rankled, rather than the tone. They whirled, Nothing or I’ll kill you at their lips. The demon’s eyes widened, but they were saved from a homicide charge by a new teacher’s voice telling the class to settle down, settle down. Their conversation hadn’t even been heard. 

Theophanes glared straight ahead. They ignored the demon’s stare, finally dropping their head to their work when they heard the soft huff that marked his giving up. The next hour passed with dead silence between them, as awkward as rival knights at a hastilude. 

Two minutes before the bell rang they checked their schedule: Chemistry, English, Japanese, Math, and then the hour of homeroom they’d just had. At least they wouldn’t have to sit next to him in all four. The monotony of the work did very little to suppress how every mortal cell in them burned with the desire to strike the nearby demon down. It was a slow bone-deep hate, righteous and instinctual, an ache to the point of pain, and as soon as the chime began they leapt from their seat, tucking pencils and paper into their bookbag with shaking hands. They did not look at the demon as they slung it over a wing and walked away.