8 New Wings

The exclamation was enough to wake Darlae, who immediately jumped up and brandished her shovel, looking for trouble until her eyes fully opened. Once she was sure they were safe, she took a long snort of air and then spat off to the side. "Gods above, Kir, you scared the snot out of me."

"Pretty sure you just spat that out yourself..." Kir noted. Compared to fantasy elves, Darlae was pretty much human. Given elves and humans both lived for about one hundred years in this world, it made more sense to simply think of them as a branch of the human species. Elves were simply more likely to reach their hundreds than regular humans.

"Woah..." Darlae said as she saw Kir. "You, uh, lost your baby fat," she said, leaning on the shovel and gesturing around her torso.

"Yeah, um... I think maybe growing wings took a lot of energy..." Kir said shyly, tightening his belt so his pants wouldn't fall down as much, "And as I taught you, fat is how bodies store energy..."

Darlae laughed hard enough to wake Brigit. "Gods, Kir, not every miracle needs an explanation!"

Brigit sat up and started wiping the drool from her face. She looked over at Kir and then gasped.

Kir blushed uncomfortably. "It's not a miracle... it's science..." A miracle was just science he didn't understand, but still... His wings came in a bit as he felt embarrassed, shifting his weight. That would take some getting used to.

"Regardless, we're happy for you," Darlae said, walking over to Brigit and helping her up.

"What are we happy for?" Brigit asked as she rubbed her eyes. When she saw Kir she had a similar reaction to Darlae.

Kir immediately focused on the brand that marked the back of her hand. He took a step forward and immediately had to stop himself from falling as his wings unbalanced him. His tail did most of the work compensating for it, however, and he was able to take the few steps it took for him to take his moms' hands and look at them.

"I'm sorry I..." He started to say.

"Don't apologize," Brigit said. "We made the choice for you, and you know us..."

"We don't regret shit!" Darlae finished for her, taking her hand back to pat Kir on the shoulder.

"We stick together!" Brigit corrected. "Honestly you are the worst influence..."

"Says the woman who constantly badgers her son about how the world works," Darlae shot back.

Kir laughed, drawing both of their gazes. It was a familiar routine between them that developed over the last three years, but somehow it made him both happy and sad to see them acting normal.

He wiped away a tear and stepped forward, hugging them both close.

"I don't care what anyone says... you're my moms. Forever," he squeezed them tight.

"We still have to deal with your father... Maledict commands the Sixth Kingdom, which specializes in magical warfare..." Brigit said. As was her habit, she sometimes shielded herself from uncomfortable feelings with facts.

"We, err, Brigit mostly, looked him up while you were passed out," Darlae added.

"I don't care." Kir's wings flared out a bit. "He's still just a deadbeat dad. Just because he made me doesn't mean I'm going to let him have anything to do with me... at least not after I'm done getting him to back off."

"You mean after we get him to back off," Darlae rebutted. "We're in this deal too."

"What's a deadbeat?" Brigit asked.

"Uh... you know... like a parent who's absent all the time... I think I read it in a book about... uh... music..." Kir chuckled nervously. "Like someone not playing their instrument during a symphony!" he hastily added.

It was getting harder and harder to claim he'd learned much of what he knew from books when Brigit had scoured her library thoroughly over the last three years. Normally, she would collect books, read a chapter or two, then store them on a shelf and forget about them forever.

Kir had taken to forging entire chapters to cover what he knew and then inserting them into the tomes to cover for himself. It was a secret pass-time he could only pull off at night because his parents both slept like the dead... if only to endure Brigit's snoring.

"Say, uh... I know I should go to the Academy for my future and all... but what will you two do?" Kir asked, trying to bring their focus away from yet another one of his unusual turns of phrase.

Darlae spoke first, "Well, we were talking last night,"

"And we figured out right away that you would be getting a pretty raw deal if you were the only one looking for your birth mother. I mean... most people take five years to graduate from there, so that would already cut your search time in half..." Brigit said.

"So we're going on an adventure!" Darlae announced with a big smile. "Gives you a chance to stretch your wings without us." She laughed. "We'll find Astrolabe in no time."

"It's Aeleas," Brigit corrected. "Daughter of Heaven." She raised her thumb and bit it, as she did when she was thinking.

"Did you figure out any more clues while I was asleep?" Kir asked.

"Hm? Well... it's a hunch... but... if your mother is really an angel, she might be associated with one of the major cities." Brigit's tone rose as it did when she was in an instructive mode. "Tulon, Manheim, Litiat, Earae... most cities founded after the last Heavenswar were created with the help of angels."

"And let me guess... they live on the second moon?" Kir postulated.

"Of course. Why wouldn't they?" Brigit replied.

Kir held his tongue. It felt unnatural to think of Heaven and Hell as actual, physical places he could see on most nights. Not least because the moons weren't called those names. The volcanic moon was called Reddingtide and the green moon was called Verdantide.

"You just want an excuse to go shopping for books," Darlae said.

"Well, it's as good a place to start as any. I gave her a damn scryer wall, we're not going to find her with magic." Brigit pouted.

"Scryer wall?" Kir asked.

"It blocks detection magic," Brigit explained. "Means no one can use the law of resonance to find her with a piece of hair or something she owned."

Magical resonance was one law that Kir had yet to figure into the new view of physics he was developing. It was a problem he would have to solve later though. Of more immediate concern was...

"What will happen to the house?" he asked, feeling more than a little ashamed that his parents were going to subject themselves to a life of travel for him.

"We're not going anywhere for a while," Darlae replied. "We'll figure out something to do with it once you're safe at school."

"I was thinking we'd try adjusting a spell circle for one of those lattice shields..." Brigit's tone suggested she was practically drooling to experiment with one of Kir's spells. Latticing a shield wasn't particularly innovative in Kir's book, just a modification to normal shielding spells that gave them structure and pattern to distribute forces. It was more efficient than simply adding power to shields, and in a pinch, one could just add more layers. "... it'll probably last years... maybe even the whole decade!"

"Just don't forget to leave a key or something," Kir said. "I might want to come home too..." He blushed. "Everything out there is going to be so new to me... It feels a bit overwhelming... and I know a lot of people aren't going to like me just because of how I look..."

Darlae punched him on the shoulder. "You'll be fine. Just remember what I taught you."

"Go for the eyes?" Kir replied.

"No! Well, that, and the other thing. Don't start fights, end them." Darlae aimed another punch and this time, Kir caught it. Her punches felt so light compared to before his wings came in. "And don't forget to dodge."

"Thank you, Mom... I'll remember," he smiled gently.

"Don't thank me just yet. It'll take weeks for us to drop you off at school. That's plenty of time to train!" She laughed.