Against my better judgment, I did end up treating the source of my headaches. It took about a month, though she had me put the blood in a cup. In the mean time I taught the brat more about how to spot illnesses and the different cures for the ones I knew. 

           I could count my regrets on one hand. One was from when I was a child, one from my years as an active solider, and two from meeting her. This newest one makes a total of five.

           "Since you don't like my Gemi, I made five swords you can pick from!" She popped up with around ten "swords" in her arms, bare. Just, in her arms.

           "No serrated blades, no halberds, no hooks, no...." I paused, looking specifically at one of them, "whatever that is."

           "Aw, I thought it was such a good idea..." Shuffling the rest like a bunch of puppies to one arm, she held the perpetrator with the loose hand. "It looks like a tree! Stab your enemy fifteen and a half times with one poke!!"

           "Can you make a normal sword?"

           "Can I!" she popped up, "Can I?" she popped down, "Probably!" 

           She was about to pop up again when I gently gripped her head with enough force to crack a hole in space. We had a small battle as she tried to go up and I held her down.

           "I'm going to get firewood." Velris glanced at us and rolled his eyes before walking out.

           "You try to hold me down, but no force alive can stop an angel from bouncing!"

           "I wonder where I put the sedatives."

           "You went through them all last week!!!"

           "I'll let you go if you stop popping up and down like that."

           "Though my life may be short,"

           "By whose standards?"

           "and therefore insignificant, I, this humble one, can give but a promise...an oath, to do my utmost to fulfil my dear friend's last request."

           "My what?"

           "I should make one with knives in the tang! They'll never see it coming..." She ducked down with my hand and popped away like when you're trying to drown someone and your hand slips.

           I grabbed her again, this time her hand with the hope that I would to get her to sit down long enough to play a game of chess. 

           "I call demons! I like the queen, she seems familiar somehow. It's nice how she has a pose that matches Bell's." She held up both queens briefly before I snatched them both.

           "Play."

           "Pity you got her wrong though."

           "...What?" I looked up from putting the pieces back on the board.

           "Bell, her wings are normal sized."

           "I though you said you were identical." I tapped on the piece.

           "We were, in every single way." She smiled dreamily to herself, making me wonder if something was mixed with the sedatives. "Except our eyes and wings. And personalities. I also think my skin was darker, but that might have just been me."

           "What was she, a corpse?"

           "I had dark skin when I was little! Anyhow, her eyes where blue and her wings were 'perfectly proportioned' as they would always say." Aena scrunched her face like she was trying to smother her nose.

           "...sure. So, how many other angels had large wings?"

           "Oh, a few others do now, but it's a rare trait as I'm sure you know. Only my fourth child inherited mine and that was one reason he became a scholar. The other was they had free lodging and food. But when I was a child, even when I was a young adult, it was only me. I think they used to kill infants with big wings, but they buried everything about the era before I was born."

           "...I see." My head sunk into my hands as I regretted ever asking. That makes six, and I can no longer count my regrets on one hand.

           "Why-yyy? What is it? What transpires? Blackie, why do you look like a man who found out he has but ten days to live and all his children scattered to the wind and his wife cheated on him with his much less attractive cousin and he knows no one will take care of his pet fish so he went to his neighbor's home only to find out that they moved out and his mother-in-law moved in?"

           "Oddly specific."

           "One of my subordinates, after the neighbor he showed up at my door."

           "That poor soul."

           "Yes, I ended up taking him to- hey, distraction via conversation is my technique. So, tell me why your mood dropped like a, a...like a flyer getting shot?"

           "Your analogies need work."

           "Please? I'll be quiet for a whole hour if you tell me..." Plopping herself half across the rock I carved into a table, she gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.

           "...fine, but if you make noise during that hour you have to start over."

           "My mother had the same rule, so you won't trap me so easily." So this was an old tactic for her then...

           "...just to be sure, did you ever go to the human realm when you were young?"

           "I would sneak out a lot!"

           "I'm sure your mother was devastated."

           "Only when I came back."

           "What did you do while you were there?"

           "There was a hot spring that was close to the entrance that was very popular. I would always go close to twilight to avoid crowds since I wasn't technically allowed out."

           I sighed, it seems it was true. "...yeah I thought so..."

           Her eyes which been bouncing around since the rest of her couldn't, suddenly locked onto mine. A large, annoying grin spread on her face.

           "Now that I think of it...I do remember on my last trip, I saw a demon. One with large wings and green eyes..."

           "Imagine that. I remember an angel with dark skin with a faint red tone like mahogany and light cream hair. I wonder if that rings a bell with a certain old sun-bleached feather duster."

           Velris walked in with wood under one arm, and we paused to look back at him. It looked like he'd also found some plants that we were running low on that grew in the area. He sent his harvest on the ground by her forge and gave us a sidelined look. Aena was trying her best not to laugh while still half crumpled on the table, looking at Velris she almost burst, but put a hand over her mouth to hold it in.

           "Vel, come listen..." She tried desperately to wave him over. 

           The boy look at her, then at me,"...I think I missed a tree..." and walked right back out.