Before, Then, and After [MAR-APR 2024 8CC LIST]

10 - Darker, Deeper

[Past].

Quince and Danica battled in the air, wings moving to and fro with loud, violent vigour. The air was lingering with a cool humidity, the wind lapping at their faces and combing through their hair like a spray of water from the ocean. Danica sent a punch at Quince's face, skimming her cheek, and she became delirious through the swift, high motion and the force of her body. Down the two went as they fought, fist to fist, wing to wing, stomachs twirling about in a nauseating dance.

The speed at which they fell was like lightning. Quince's wings were violently moving, trying their very best to pull her up, her chest and arms terribly sore and shaking; but they just couldn't quite make it with Danica's weight pouring down on top of her, and the two flipped around as the world whizzed past them in fury. Then, it was Danica's wings which were so desperately trying to act as a parachute and keep her from colliding with the tall pines below, but Quince held her down. They tugged on one another's clothes, throwing punches that never landed their target for the swinging, moving chaos of the moment. Down they went, heart in their chests and their stomachs dropped below with the sudden fall.

The two writhing women crashed with pressure into a pine's limbs, and the limbs cracked and splintered beneath them, allowing them a hitting pause and then continuing to spiral to the shaded forest floor. The branches hit Quince's back, and her breath was taken from her, gasping with pain for air. One of her wings smacked another, and a bruise formed beneath its feathers, and Quince cried out in breathless agony. Danica was fairing no better, twigs scratching both of her cheeks, and an upturned branch actually catching one of her transparent wings, impaling it and hoisting her into a still suspension with a sudden stop, knocking the wind from her with a frightened and pained gasp.

Then Quince continued to tumble beneath her, leaving Danica stranded, hung to her certain death by one wing in the treetops above. Quince fell below those very trees, those very tall pines, smacking twigs and piercing needles and thudding branches, many cracking and splintering and falling alongside her with the speed and weight. Then, her wings curled up, protecting her head and spine, and she landed against the moss of the forest floor with a loud thud, twigs bouncing up in her wake. Then, it all settled: the noise, the speed, the cold whipping air, the cuts and bruises and pain and air. It all stopped, as if frozen in time, and everything was beyond utterly silent.

Quince could not breathe for a long moment, but soon her lungs expanded and she was able to sigh a struggling inhale. Her back was aching with swelled agony, a throbbing pain shooting up her spine like poison. Her wings were an entirely new story; bruised every which way, black feathers fallen from their skin and scattered about, several stranded in the trees or wind far above. She could hardly unfurl her wings, and she wasn't quite sure that she even wanted to. Instead, she sat there in that bitter, pulsating silence, listening to the rush of blood in her ears and the intense pounding of her heartbeat, which slowly normalised. Quince did not move for fear of the sore pain, which seemed to be at its least whenever she was absolutely still, laying down on that mossy bed, the sun dappling across her black skin and feathers. The air that filled her lungs was cold and sweet.

Overhead, there was Danica, an angered and pained expression wrecked across her face, eyes flaring in dark anger as she swung there from that upturned pine branch. She kicked her legs and wavered her arms, pulling on another branch and allowing her wing to slip of the impaled one; but Quince watched in confused and frustrated awe, her sight a bit blurred, as Danica's shimmery, translucent wings melted before her eyes. In no other words could it be described; as liquid or goop, they melted from her form and then faded into nothing wisps, and Danica was free. Though, most unexpectedly, her agony clearly was not, that same look of intense horror mounted upon her, her eyes angered, her eyebrows close together, and her mouth downturned in a nasty scowl. Her silver hair was frizzy around her horns, her clothes stained and ripped in a few locations. A few bruises and cuts welted across her skin, as did Quince's with a persistent stinging, and Danica's pale face turned red. Though, it quickly turned pale once again as she realised just how far she was from the ground.