Focus

These past few days have been very interesting.

I thought that as I recovered, my growing strength would make me restless, and that I would wish to be back at the hunt.  But the mystery, and therefore much of the fear, has been taken from me, and I am content to wait until the time is right.  In the meantime, there is much for me to do.

If I thought that it was difficult to train Freya in the art of fighting as angels do, I have learned otherwise in the days since I took on George and Kara as students.  Or perhaps it is simply that since we began together, Freya and I, we have learned how to easily match our wills and align our purposes.  It certainly does not hurt that now she can see me, which makes my intentions clearer to her.  With the others, it is very different.

“George,” I said for the fourth time in an hour, “please focus.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, shaking his head.  We were in his and Kara’s backyard, which is more spacious and more private than Freya’s.  George and Kara both were sitting on the steps of the back porch, trying to work with me as I went through my training.

I summoned my bow and arrow, lifting it to aim at the target Freya drew on the wall.  Even as I drew back the string, though, I felt George’s attention waver again.

I sighed and lowered the bow.  “Ask your question, George.”

“I’m sorry, just—where does your bow and arrow go when you’re not carrying it?” he asked, leaning forward. 

“It is always with me, but not always manifest.”

“Can you explain that?”

Kara groaned and slumped back against the steps.  Freya, sitting just behind them, put her head in her hand.

Rachmanes grinned at me.  “You meant it when you said he was curious, brother.”

“Even I did not realize how much,” I answered before turning my attention back to George.  “My weapon is an extension of my soul—an addition to God’s original creation, if you will.”

Kara snorted.  “Second draft,” she said.

“Revisions,” Freya laughed.

I did not mind the distractions so much if they brought laughter.  “Precisely.  And so it is always with me, but it manifests only when I have need of it.”

“And how do you—manifest it?” George asked.

I thought about this for a moment before finding the words.  “In the same way that you might take a deep breath or gather your courage before a difficult encounter.”

“Huh,” George said, leaning back to ponder this.  “Okay, so—God can add things on to people’s souls?  Does that imply that his creation is not perfect from the beginning?”

“Perfect is a subjective term,” Rachmanes said.  “There are things that you would consider perfect that others would not.”

“Your wife, for example,” Freya quipped, and Kara swung around to slap her leg.

Rachmanes was dismayed.  “Such an implication is unkind, Kara, and I would never—”

“Easy, Rack, I know,” Kara sighed, rubbing her eyes.  “You angels gotta learn about our humor sooner or later.”

“I will try,” Rachmanes assured her, and she sighed again.

George, undistracted by this exchange—if only he could devote such focus to his training!—looked back at me.  “So if it isn’t manifest, even to you, then does that mean that there are levels of reality?  Like, you are real, but we can’t touch you, and then when your bow and arrow aren’t manifest, you can’t touch them—”

“George, if you don’t shut up,” Kara said sharply, “I swear to—”

Therai prodded her before she could profane the air.  She is getting quicker as she gets to know Kara.

Grumbling, Kara sat forward.  “Can we just finish this up, please?  I have a ton of writing to do.”

I considered her scowling face.  Where George is perhaps too focused on the strangeness of angelic life, Kara has trouble focusing at all.  She knows the danger and is committed to fighting it, but at the same time, a large part of her resists what is abnormal and strange.

I glanced at Freya, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged one shoulder at me.  I could see that she trusted me to find a way.  We two had done so before, had we not?  And we did it by understanding Freya’s own nature and what worked for her, specifically.

“Let us try something different,” I said, coming back to stand before George and Kara and putting my hands over their heads.  Accustomed to me now, they almost didn’t flinch.  “Instead of fighting the impulses that you feel, lean into them.  George, think about your curiosity and wonder at the universe that has been revealed to you.  Open yourself to that wonder, and use it to guide you into protecting what is wonderful.  Kara, consider that you are writing—when you move beyond words in order to find the right words to portray your reality.  In that same way, shape the beyond into what you wish.”

I could see it, then—the brightening of their auras, the sharpening of their intentions.  Though she couldn’t see it herself, Freya smiled at me, and then she closed her own eyes, joining her will with theirs.

Threads of light and color followed me back to the place I had been standing.  I could feel them with me now, strengthening my limbs, narrowing my focus.  I summoned my bow, raised it, drew, and loosed.

There was a shattering of wood, and all three of the humans jumped to their feet.  One of the saplings by the back fence was snapped almost in half, its crown already sagging.

“Impressive,” Rachmanes said.  Therai hummed her agreement.

“Fuck yeah!” Kara cheered, punching the air.

“That was the target?” George asked.  “My mom planted those.”

“Easy, George,” Freya laughed.  “I bet we can get some help to make it better again.”

If anything, his dismay encouraged me.  “I hope I have not misused your trust,” I said, “and I will certainly help repair the damage, but don’t you see?  That we made such an impact even on the physical is an amazing thing.  In battle I may have taken down three Fallen at once with such a strike.”

“Fuck yeah,” Kara repeated, this time in quieter triumph.

I beamed at her.  “There is still work to be done, but this proves that we can accomplish wonders.”

George was still studying the broken tree.  I worried for a moment that he was more upset than he let on, but then he turned to me with a smile.  “You know us just about as well as you know Freya, don’t you?”

“I know no one quite so well as that,” I said, smiling at Freya, “but I do know you, George, quite well enough, and I am glad to.”

He lifted his hand in a gesture that all three of my human friends have come to use in the past few days, his arm curved to mimic the way that I curl my wings around them in comfort or companionship.  “Likewise, Ace.”

I turned to Kara and inclined my head.  “Thank you for your time, Kara.  You may go to your work now.”

She hesitated.  “I can stay a little longer, if you want.”

I accepted the offer as the kindness she meant it, but waved her away.  “It is enough for today.  Let us see if you can find that feeling again after a rest.”

And so she went to her work, and George went to make dinner, and Freya came to sit with me, while Rachmanes returned to heaven to fetch a Cultivate to help the poor tree and Therai did a sweep of the perimeter.  “That was pretty cool,” Freya said to me.

“It was.”

Hearing the serious note in my voice, she looked up at me.  It is still odd to me that she looks directly into my face.  “Will it be enough to help with Asoharith?”

It is not yet, but it gives me hope for the future.  I smiled down at her.  “It will be,” I said, and I put my wing around her and settled into the quiet of the evening.

It seems strange, knowing what I have been through—what we have all been through—and what is still ahead of us, but I am content.  I am grateful for this feeling, and the peace we are enjoying now, all the more knowing that it will not last.  And I will not be such a fool as to waste it.