The wind outside screamed and howled with pent up fury and rage. The sun had set countless hours ago and the night had settled in; its unmarred grace covering the world in darkness. The trees swayed to and fro in the storm’s robust winds and the autumn leaves fell to the ground gracefully with little sound. No sane person would venture out in a storm like that, not with the danger of the winds and the lightning.
No one, though, was going to object to the black haired teenager who was standing under a large oak tree, his hand resting on the damp bark of the trunk, appearing to be deep in thought. His grey eyes sparkled majestically when a sheet of lighting flashed across the horizon, brightening up the stormy sky. The wind swirled around his figure, making his dark clothes rustle around his slender but muscular frame. He smiled, his smoky eyes smiling at the world around him, taking in its rugged but fragile beauty as another swirl of grey came falling down next to him with a soft thump.
He knelt down in the moist grass under the tree, shielded from the unforgiving winds. His hands cupped gently around a small black bird, bringing it close to his chest, away from the swirling gusts around them.
The bird’s eyes flitted up towards the boy’s kind face and it relaxed in his comforting hands. One of its fragile wings was bent at an odd angle, obviously causing the small fledgling unceasing pain. Its ebony feathers were matted from the evening’s previous rain, the boy noticed as he gently brushed off a few spots of dirt from its ungraceful fall from the air.
The bird had probably fallen out of its nest a few seconds before as a particularly strong gust of wind had swirled around them, rustling the boy’s hair and catching his attention. He cupped the bird lovingly in his hands, sheltering it from another large surge of wind. He held it close to his chest, trying to share his warmth with the shivering bird unsuccessfully.
A blast of wind encompassed them as the bird looked up at the boy with both trust and pain in its eyes, asking for hope. The rain started again in small spurts, dampening the boy’s dark hair, covering his eyes. He squinted at the bird through rain-covered eyes, marveling at the petite beauty of the winged creature in his hands as it softly chirped at him. His grey eyes shone with kindness as he warmed the bird in his hands, blowing gently on its feathers to dry them from the rain.
The boy smiled at the bird, happy to find something to take care of on those lonely, stormy nights. No one had noticed that he was standing outside, and no one ever would. The bird looked up into the boy’s grey eyes with fear, even though it was young, it knew that its pain could mean death. He whistled, but his melody was lost in the howling wind, comforting only to the spirits, unfazed by the gales.
The boy’s damp ebony hair flew across his face, hiding his glistening eyes from the world. He bent his head down close to the bird and kissed its limp and misshapen wing. A final flash of lightning brightened the calm sky as the wind died down around them, the boy and the bird; man and beast.
The bird looked up at the boy for the last time; pain now a thing of the past. The sorrow gone with the stormy winds which faded away into the sky. Its onyx wings perfectly folded around its slender form. The boy grinned at his work, lifting the bird above his head as it flew back up into its nest, high in the trees. He sighed and stood up, his knees stiff from kneeling on the ground with the bird. His hands felt oddly cool without the warming presence of the fledgling, but he felt relieved, as another creature survived the night.
The winds and lighting gone, the sky a dark navy blue, the boy smiled softly in the cool night air. He stretched his own ebony wings, which had been perfectly folded across his back, hidden from the uncaring world. With one last look to the massive oak tree, and the bird, he flew off into the darkness, away from pain and suffering at last, only a cool wind taking his place.