The tall, thin girl collapsed on the curb, her normally calm face contorted with pain and rage. She held her head to the dismal, gray night sky, stars reflecting in her pale green eyes. Fighting tears, her head collapsed in her hands. Suddenly, she couldn't hold it any longer, and tears burst through her tan fingers that enclosed her face. They streamed down her arms and trickled onto the black, sticky pavement of the street.
'Why does it have to be so hard?' Her words drifted, strangled and broken into the sleeping city around her. 'Why can't it all work? Couldn't it just be simple?' Dripping with tears, her voice echoed out into the concrete jungle, unheard. She put her hands to her face and let her anger and hurt flow out in tears and choked whimpers. The world was such a cruel place! It would be so easy, so simple, to just let go.
Her ashen-gray wings unfolded slightly onto the dirty sidewalk, and a crisp night breeze ruffled their feathers. She lifted her face to the sky and opened her eyes, still streaming. There were tear-streaks in the dirt that dusted her young, beautiful face. Shaking her chin-length light-brown hair out, she took in the night's blanket with sad, somber eyes.
She turned her head toward the sound of gentle, powerful wing-beats. Etched against the starlight was a boy, lanky and tall with blonde hair that swept over his useless hazel eyes. He landed clumsily beside her, folding his own tawny wings tightly to his back. Cocking his head and listening quietly, he sat down beside her. She quivered as he laid his arm around her, pulling her into an embrace against his wiry chest.
She shook her head softly. 'I don't understand, it doesn't make sense,' her whisper was quaking form crying, but delicate and beautiful to him.
'I know, I know,' He spoke softly, his voice quiet and comforting. 'But maybe that's what we're here for.'
'Maybe, I guess'' Her quavering, broken whisper was barely audible, but his sensitive ears picked it up perfectly. She stood slowly, shaking, on her prostatic legs, rubbing where her leg stumps stopped, just below the thigh. The wounds had long healed, but it still hurt sometimes. He supported her, his T-shirt now stained from her tears, and let his long, pale fingers sweep over her shoulder to tell him where she was. Together they unfolded their wings and carefully disappeared into the dark gray of the city's night.