“What do you want to do with these?” I shifted through the bag of feather we got off the wannabe merchants. Half of them were fake, but there were a lot of real ones.      

          “The owners are dead, see the tip of blood in the stems?” She was crouching next to the bags while the brat was asleep on the bed. It took a while for him to settle down.        

          “I noticed. Odds are they were scavengers that followed battlefields. Anyone who goes missing gets put as war casualties and bodies aren’t guarded. I would guess that since the ceasefire they’ve been low on work and wanted to go straight after selling the last of these.”

          She rolled a smaller plume in her hand as she weighed the options. Velris’s soft breathing stubbornly reminded me he was there. I glared at him and noticed that the blanket was slipping off.

          “Aww.”

          “Shut up. Humans get sick easily and it’d be a pain to deal with.” We were both speaking at a low tone humans couldn’t hear, otherwise the kid would’ve woken up ages ago.

          “Yes, it would be quiet worrying.”

          “That’s not-”

          “If we bury them, they be dug up. We’ll have to burn them.” Her voice was calm and she nodded to herself. I could almost hear the mental, ‘yes, good decision.’

          “…and the special fire you can only get by burning angel feathers is not a factor in this decision at all, right?”

          “I am shocked, and quite frankly hurt- by your insinuation. Somehow, my decision to burn the sad remnants of dear friends is a ploy in your eyes to get a pretty flame.” A hand dramatically draped across her chainmail about where her heart would be.

          “Just for a pretty flame? No. I was talking about the smithing properties. I don’t know much myself, but I do know a few smiths that would cut off their arm for a pile half this size of feathers.”

          “…special what now?”

          She’d been half joking before, but now her gaze was a bit…

          “…I really don’t know. It was probably just an excuse for them to make more demands. ‘Probably really just make pretty flames. Great way to honor the dead, I’ll take care of it and you can watch the kid. Great? Great.”

          “Special what now?” Her eyes began to glow.

          “…really nothing.”

          “….maybe that could be the key…I never tried with different flames…of course that would have an effect…why didn’t I think of this before…” Those gleaming eyes turned from the feathers to the hiding place of a certain monstrosity I had quietly stowed away.

          “No.”

          “Yesssss”

          “Think of the kid, he’s just a boy.”

          “Of course I’m thinking of our dear, sweet child.” A smile hovered like the crescent moon over an ice sealed tundra with all the madness of thousands of years of existence tuned by failed trial and many errors.

          “don’t”

          “A boy needs a weapon, a friend, after all…” Chuckles morphed to maniacal laughter as she tilted her head back and let her whole body shake as if to defy the whole world.

          At least, that would have been the effect if we didn’t have to keep it down. Without actually being able to laugh out loud she just looked like she was having a seizure.

          “No, seriously. Do not make another of that.”

          “Okay. What do you actually know about the special properties of the fire?” Straightening with a cheerful, untrustworthy smile, she dropped her theatrics faster than my mother dropped me after my birth.

          “If you succeed in making another of that, I will move out.”

          Boney rolled her eyes. “I swear on my mother’s grave I will not keep two of Gemi under the same roof.”

          “Fair enough.” After that it would be someone else’s problem. “All I know is angel and demon feathers are used in demonic forging. So is blood, and other useful bits; guts, bones, brains…but I really don’t know the specifics.”

          “Demon feathers too? Hmmm.” She eyed my wings.

          “If any punks show up, you can have them.”

          “Fair enough.” She tilted her head as if trying to get a better look at me. “Blackie?”

“What?”

“Do you like children?”

          “…now you ask?”

          “You already told me you’ve never raised children, but now you’ve got one. So, what do you think so far?”

          “Brats aren’t like cookies. You don’t decide you like all cookies after eating one.”

          “You can’t eat the child. By the way, your food was delicious! You’ve got to be the best cook I’ve ever met!”

          “Real high bar there.”

          Aena just smiled, head tilting and eyes slightly smug as she sat next to me, actually dropping a conversation she started. We quietly sorted the bird feathers from the angels’ with the only sounds being the rustling and the faint beathing.

          “…I guess, it isn’t so bad to have someone to teach.”

          “Yes, that is true. My youngest was especially happy to help me in the forge. A bit slow, and they make mistakes, but it is a happy thing to watch them grow.”     

          “You let someone who made mistakes into your forge?”

          “…It was a learning experience for us all.”

          “Hm, only your youngest?”

          “…learning takes time and something can only be solved with experience.”

          “The others screwed up and you never let them back in?”

          “…my forge is my happy place.”

          “A couple of your kids went ‘rouge’ and joined the scholars even though you’re a warrior family.”

          “…The scholars apparently provided meals.”

          “…seriously, what did he do?”

          Soon we had a new pillow, not that we were running low, and dawn quickly approached. We let the brat sleep as long as possible as we separated off to our own areas. The chess set was pretty much done, only the paint and the demon queen were left.

          The form was easy enough, I just copied the angel queen with a few…minor changes. Honestly, with just adding a pair of horns and changing the expression to match a certain someone…she made a very convincing demon.