Author's Note: Talu was first introduced in a story that was included in the November 2015 Newsletter.
Happy reading!
Fairy Balloons
By Nalini Singh
Talu was a child of Manhattan, a city girl through and through. She'd grown up watching angels sweep across the sky on wings of ivory and starshine and striking blue and deepest black. Sometimes, they went so high they were far beyond the tops of the tallest skyscrapers. Other times, they swerved through the skyscrapers as if they were playing a game with each other that made them laugh and sometimes drop so fast toward the earth that she'd gasp, thinking they were about to crash.
They never did. Not until the Falling, when so many of them had fallen from the sky. Talu had been scared and afraid for them, had wanted to do something to help, anything. But she'd only been a kid, one who'd seen her mom die from cancer. Back then, she'd just been trying to survive herself, but she'd still cried heartbroken sobs for the angels.
Then had come the battle, more angels broken and bloodied.
After Elena rescued her from the streets and introduced her to Honor, Talu had asked Honor if any of the angels were still hurt, if she could help somehow. Honor could've told her she was a fourteen-year-old with no experience at being a nurse except for when she'd looked after her mom, but the hunter had put her to work as a runner for the wounded angels who were so badly injured, it would take them months to recover. She'd fetched books from the Tower library, food and drink, whatever they wanted.
It had hurt her to see them so shattered, their wings sheared off, their flesh torn and their bones jagged shards that stuck out from their skin, but Talu hadn't glanced away if an angel looked at her. She'd smiled and asked if they needed anything. Mostly, they'd been in too much pain to ask for anything, but they'd almost always smiled back. People smiled if you smiled at them. Beautiful angels included.
She'd even made a friend. Izzy had been one of the worst hurt. She'd visited him all the time after the healers said it was okay. He was older than her just like all the angels were older, but he wasn't really old. Elena called him a "baby angel." He always blushed when she did that, but it made Talu understand that even though Izzy had lived more than a hundred years, he was sort of like her--a teenager.
Talu thought he might be around nineteen in human years.
She was fifteen and a half now. She'd been one of Honor's kids for almost exactly eighteen months and her life was so different from before that she could hardly believe it. Then, she'd been hungry and dirty and all alone. Now she was an honors student and she had her own small room at the Tower itself because her foster mom was a vampire who was stationed there. Like all Tower vampires, Talu's foster mom was scary tough, but she treated Talu like a daughter. Sometimes, they went out on shopping or dinner "dates" that were fun even if they did make Talu miss her mom until her heart ached.
But she knew her mom was smiling down at her. She'd be laughing at how her little Talu had ended up with an angel for a friend. Izzy was sitting with her on a railingless Tower balcony right now, eating candy corn from a bowl she'd placed between them. She wasn't afraid to have her feet dangling so high in the air that the yellow cabs on the street below looked like ants--she knew Izzy would catch her if she fell. It'd be really embarrassing but she wouldn't die. Last week, Illium had caught Jakob when the other teenager unbalanced while trying to impress a girl. He was grounded because of that or he'd be sitting here with them.
"How come you like candy corn?" she asked Izzy, as the wind tried to tug her curls out from the braid in which she'd contained them.
Izzy looked at her with blue eyes so clear, they were like sunlight on water. "Why not?"
"You're an angel?"
"So?" He took a big handful. "Everyone likes sugar. Mmm, sugar." Stuffing another handful into his mouth, he spoke around it, his words garbled. "Must have more."
Talu laughed and threw a piece of candy corn at his head. His blond hair was curly too, but nowhere near as wild as hers. Her best friend, Nisha, teased Talu about her having a crush on Izzy, but she really didn't. He was her friend, and a lot of the time, he treated her like a big brother. He'd even warned her not to let Jakob get her in trouble. She'd had to roll her eyes at that because Jakob wasn't bad; he just got silly sometimes because he wasn't used to being one of Honor's kids yet.
He'd only been in Honor's foster program six weeks and he thought if he got into trouble or did something wrong, they'd throw him back on the streets--so he was trying to make it happen fast. Because hope hurt when it was stomped on. He didn't yet understand that once Honor took a kid as her own, she didn't let go.
They were safe here.
"Izzy?"
Those pretty eyes looked at her with a smile inside them. Her own eyes were brown, just like her skin. She liked her eyes. They reminded her of her mom; she'd always called Talu her "mini-me." The memories made her smile, especially the ones of how her mom had so often thrown up her hands in despair at getting either of their hair to behave.
That was when she'd break out the fruity-smelling curl stuff and they'd go out with their hair a "beautifully wild halo" around their heads. Her mom's words.
"What is it, Talu?" Izzy asked when she didn't say anything.
She bit her lower lip. "Will you come with me to visit my mom?" The city had buried the person Talu most loved in a shadowy corner where there was no sunlight, but Talu took her flowers and balloons, made sure her grave was neat.
Her mom had hated mess.
Izak closed his hand over hers. "Want to fly there?"
Swallowing the knot in her throat, she made a face at him. "You can't fly me. I'm too big." She wasn't fat, but she wasn't skinny either. On the streets, she'd been hungry a lot. Then Elena had found her and brought her to Honor and everything changed. Jakob did naughty things because he was scared; Talu had eaten too much, afraid it would all disappear.
After a year and a half, she knew it wouldn't, but the extra food was still sticking to her.
"Are you calling me weak?" With that insulted statement, Izzy dropped off the edge of the balcony, his wings arrowed in to make him sleeker in the air.
"Izzy!" she called after him, but he'd dropped so fast he'd disappeared out of view. Face falling, she ignored the candy corn. "I'm sorry!" But the wind whipped away her words.
Sitting with her elbows on her thighs, her chin braced in her hands, she tried not to cry. She'd wanted to introduce Izzy to her mom. She knew her mom wasn't in that grave, so cold and dark, but it felt good to go there, to speak to her.
"Eeee!" The sound was ripped out of her as someone came up behind her and scooped her up in their arms before dropping off the balcony. "Izzy!" She wrapped her own arms tightly around his neck.
He laughed, his blonde curls windblown. Then he turned and swept around a skyscraper with sleek precision. Heart thumping, Talu realized he was in no danger of dropping her. She pushed at his shoulder. "You're strong, you faker!" He'd been making her fetch things for him after convincing her he was still healing.
His grin lit up his eyes. "Hold on."
They dived.
Talu screamed but it wasn't in fear. Her eyes watered from the wind, her plaid shirt pulling up at the back. "This is so fun!"
Izzy turned again.
Ducking her head against his neck, Talu blinked away the wind-driven tears. When she looked back over Izzy's shoulder, it was to find wide-eyed people waving at her from inside an office building. She waved back, sure her smile was big and funny and excited.
When Izzy said, "Which way?" she understood what he wanted to know.
She told him.
They landed at the cemetery ten minutes later. Her mother wasn't buried in the city itself. There wasn't enough land
and they'd been poor. This place only put a small square in the ground to show where people were buried, but Talu didn't need the marker now. She knew exactly where to find her mom.
"Mom, you'll never believe it!" she said, coming down on her knees beside the plot and beginning to pick out the small weeds that had sprouted in the two weeks since she'd last visited. "I flew with Izzy!"
Izzy started to help her clean up the weeds, also gathering up the remnants of the balloons she'd brought last time. "She screamed like a girl," he told her mom.
Threatening to throw some weeds at him, Talu laughed. "I did," she admitted. "It was so exciting!" She took out the tiny bronze fairy she always carried with her and placed her near her mom's name--every time she saw that fairy's smile, she felt a warm feeling deep inside her.
She spoke all about her adventure in flight, remembering midstory to introduce Izzy. "This is my friend, Izak, but he said I can call him Izzy. He's not my boyfriend," she whispered when Izzy went to throw away the things they'd cleared from around the grave. "I'm studying hard. I don't have time for boys. I'm going to be a doctor I think. I'll make you proud, Mom."
Her eyes got all hot and wet.
Returning, Izzy knelt beside her, his wing sweeping along her back and his arm around her shoulders. He tugged her close to his side, held her while she sniffed and missed her mom. "It doesn't hurt so bad now," she said to him. "I know she's happy because I'm happy. I have friends and a safe place to sleep."
"You don't just have a safe place to sleep, Talu. You have a home."
She smiled. "Yes. I have a home." Pulling back, she wiped off her tears using the back of her shirt sleeve, then dug into her pants pocket. "You want to help me blow up some new balloons?"
"Sure."
They sat in the sun for a long time, sometimes blowing balloons, other times just talking. A few other people came to the cemetery during that time, but though they looked startled at seeing Izzy's wings spread out on the green of the grass, they didn't interrupt. Except for a little boy who just wanted a balloon and to pet Izzy's wing.
It was a good day.
(c) Copyright 2016 by Nalini Singh
Nalini Singh, Fairy Balloons
(Series: Guild Hunter # 7.30)
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