Angel Dust by Aurora Morgenstern (summer beach reads .TXT) 📕

"The pleasure is all mine", the words sound too formal coming from him and it is all I can do not to smile. He´s quite dorky for an angel when he isn´t busy being gloomy. "Oh right I almost forgot, if you want the colibri to come to you to deliver a message you concentrate on the feather and conjure up a mental image of her as best as you can. It can be a little tricky at first but you´ll get the hang of it, the connection of the feather on your skin should be enough", he explains to me and I have to admit it sounds a little dodgy but then again everything in this place is more than a little dodgy when compared to human reality. 

"I´ll let you know when I´m done training then?"

"I´ll be waiting", he says promisingly and hugs me tightly before he leaves. At this point i have figured out how angel hugs work and that the main thing is not to touch the other party´s wings. Hugging Nathaniel is less awkward than hugging Michael in the sense that Nathaniel seems to enjoy the proximity, however there is this odd sensation just at the back of my mind everytime we touch. Almost as if there is something off, something profoundly wrong. I push the feeling to the back of my mind and lock it in an imaginary box, I have no need for unreasonable paranoia and I certainly can´t start questioning the one friend I have. Nathaniel takes off, his exit so much different and yet so alike Michaels. Unlike Michael his wings don´t reflect the light, they seem to swallow the light. His messy brown hair falling into his eyes as the wind catches onto him in flight, I can see him smiling and he waves down to me before fixing his eyes back on the sky. I watch him get smaller in the distance and I swear that  can see a small flock of birds joining him on the way. I sigh heavily, feeling strangely alone walking back into teh house. It feels so much more empty with Michael gone and Nathaniel gone back to his house, maybe I should ahve taken Michael up on his offer afterall. I wallow in self pity and loneliness for a moment before making a promise to myself not to be miserable, I had been living on my own for two solid years before the accident. I used to like being alone, it was so much easier not having to pretend not to see them look at me, judging me. However it was much more painful when they stopped looking, I have to admit, when I became just something constant in the background, forgotten about. It was Shauna who pulled me out of my misery and state of symbiosis with the wall behind me, she walked into my life one day a bubbeling ray of sunshine and decided that it wa sunacceptable for me to sit there all by myself. To this day I am unsure why exactly she decided this, it wasn´t that she had a lack of friends or admirers but it must have been her good natured soul. Thinking about how she must feel makes me feel so much more alone and I soon forget my solemn pledge not to wallow in my self pity. 

Raphael makes quite the entrance upon his arrival by almost flying into the glassfront of the house, stopping mere inches infront of it. He smiles a killer smile as he spots me and gestures for me to come outside. Slowly I make my way outside, giving him a quick once over while I think he isn´t looking. Raphael had Michaels strong warrior like muscular build and reminds me of a celt for some reason. This impression may be due to the fact that his hair is a copper coloured mass od hair that seems deliberately messy. His eyes are green and seem to dance wirth excitement. I can see that he has a hard time standing still, waiting as he is tapping his foot to an inaudiable rythm inside his head. His wings are white, something I can now definetly narrow down as an archangel trait, all other angels I have seen have displayed all different kinds of shades but never this resplendent white. The tips of his feathers are covered in bronze dust that seems to attemot to mimick his hair colour unsuccessfuly. 

"Take your time, love. I am quite used to lasses staring at me", I can´t help but gape at him as he speaks in a thick welsh accent. Turns out Nathaniel was not kidding when he said Raphael speaks like a welshman. Arrogance seems to be something the two of them share as well.

"I´m guessing you´re Raphael then, hi I´m Felice", I try to extend my hand to him but he has already pulled me into a bear hug. Personal space obviously is not one of his priorities. 

"I know who you are, love. Let´s waste no time with formalities ´cause we´ve got work to do! You better get changed into something more practical while I set up", he throws a bundle of clothes at me and waves his hand frantically, indicating I hurry up. I run inside and into the nearest bathroom to get changed. Turns out the clothes he has given me are aromor like, thick dyed black leather. To my surprise they are fairly okay to move in, a little stiff maybe but sizewise thesy fit like a second skin. Which thinking about it has me a little concerned as to how Raphael knew my dress size. Slightly creeped out I emerge from the bathroom and make my way back outside. While I was gone Raphael has marked out a fairly large, squared piece of lawn and a rack with a lot of lethal looking weapons. I swallow heavily, what exactly is Raphael training me for? He notices my presenc eimmediately and waves at me, a big smile on his face. He seems to really enjoy this sort of thing, I admit that while I am a little scared of what exactly is going to happen I am also pretty excited. 

"Now, whatcha think of that darling? Don´t worry you won´t actually use any of those just yet", eh says as he sees my worried glance toward the weapons rack. "I just want to give you a short intro as what each of them are used. You can give them a try if you want, but we won´t get down to the actual fighting with them", he says encouragingly and walks me over to the weapons rack and away from what I mentally refer to his little pit. He picks up one of the many swords on the rack and balances it out on his outstretched hands. It looks very heavy, but for someone of his stature it mustn´t weigh much. 

"This love, is a scottish two handed claymore. I forged this one myself a couple of centuries back. You hold it with your best hand on top and the other underneath liek this", he demonstrates the prper way of gripping the sword and shows me a few swift swings with it as to demonstrate technique. "Here come on ande give it a try", he hands the sword to me. I was right it is very heavy, either that or possibly more accurately I am simply too weak. I try to mimick his demonstration of the proper grip and the sword almost slips from my grip. Raphael, who has snuck up behind me apparently, places his arms around mine and repositions my hands to have a steadier grip. It appears that like Natahniel he has zero inhibitions when it comes to other people´s personal space. He helps me lift the sword and does a few practice swings with me, despite his help teh weight of the sword still puts quite a strain on my arms from holding its weight. Raphael steps back and takes the sword from me, carefully placing it back on the rack like something precious. Next he lifts a long, metal staff from his rack of death. The ends are sharpened and look menacingly sharp. "This is a quarterstaff and has the tactical advantage that you can keep a fair distance from your opponent. Remember it´s not used like a spear despite its similiar looks so don´t throw it. The spikes at the end are self explanatory I believe", he explains patiently.  Again he shows me how to properly hold the staff and demonstrates a shot sequence of jabs and blocks before handing it to me. The staff is a bit too long for me but not quite as heavy as the claymore and I enjoy my small success in wielding the staff in a bad mockery of Raphael´s clean, systematic sequence without hitting myself with it. Raphael smiles approvingly. 

"That´s pretty good for a first try, love. Now let´s try this one!", he takes the quarterstaff from me and hands me a weapon I can actually name, a Morningstar. For once i don´t follow his explanation quite as attentively since I already know about its origin and use. My granddad was a big collector of medieval german items, among them a morningstar or Morgenstern as it was called my the germans. Raphael seems impressed when I tell him this. 

"I believe I would like to meet your grandfather some day! I don´t think there´s any point in trying to get you to swing it, you wouldn´t be able to lift it", so instead of handing it to me he simply places it back on the rack. There is still a few weapons left but Raphael tells me that we will get to them the next time. "That´s quite enough theory, let´s do some fighting!", he sounds almost giddy. He orders me to stand in the middle of his pit and demonstrates a stance. He watches my attempts to get it right and when he isn´t happy with teh result demonstrates it again. From there on he just has me switching between different stances for over an hour until he is happy with the way I stand. He tells me taht this is quite an essential part and quite crucial for my further training, all I can see is that my legs are beginning to hurt from a lot of lunging and holding tension. Next he teaches me a short sequence of jabs and kicks until i have a hard time lifting both arms and legs. Throughout the process Raphael encourages me, but he isn´t always as patient as he was with the weapons. I could hear him getting frustrated with me more than once and my spirits are diminished by the end of the session. In my current state I just want a hot shower and to crawl into bed and preferably die, I don´t even want to think about how I´m going to feel tomorrow. The whole exercise wouldn´t have been so strenous were it not for the wings adding to my body weight and messing with my sense of balance. 

"Same time, same place tomorrow and I don´t want to hear any whining about hurting muscles and such. You´re well capable", Raphael tells me before leaving. "You did good today, but don´t rets on thos laurels. i´ll expect better tomorrow!", while that may seem a little harsh I´m willing to accept it as a compliment. Raphael smiles broadly and walks out the front door to my surprise rather than taking off flying. He left the equipment in the garden and I question wether i should move it or not for a minute, but my aching limbs make that decision very easy for me. I head for a long, hot shower. When i return to my room, wrapped up in