Clipped

She was falling.

There it was, the frightening sensation of weightlessness; of feeling an invisible force tug at your very soul, pulling you down to the very pits of hell. It was the feeling of doom and fear that chilled a person to the bones and haunted their nightmares before they woke up with a start just before hitting solid dirt. But it wasn't a dream this time, and she really was falling.

She really had no one to blame but herself, she mused. After all, it had been her choice to enter the Forbidden and to steal The Water. Never mind the fact that she had done so only to save another; the price was still the same, the punishment absolute. No one was to steal and no one was to enter the Forbidden. No one was to touch The Water. She was guilty on all three counts.

Three strikes and you're out, huh? She never did grasp the Earthbounds' ever changing slang, unlike her blood-brother who changed his speech every decade or so. That particular phrase was appropriate, though, even if the Earthbounds hadn't imagined it being used in that context.

So she had broken the rules, and all for the selfish reason of saving a life. She had attempted to play God, and this is what she got in return. It was fitting, if a bit disappointing. After all, she hadn't done so much yet, hadn't seen enough in her minuscule six hundred years of existence. And... who would watch over Michael now?

She knew he would live--she had given him The Water after all. Heck, she had had her wings clipped because of that. It didn't mean, however, that he would live a good life. She had watched him be planned, watched as his essence was created from the clouds of her home, as his life was breathed into his form and as he journeyed down to his Earthbound mother's womb. She had watched as he struggled for his first wailing breath of air, as he opened his startling green eyes for the first time and his first smile. She had heard the first Da that had been missed as his Earthbound parents trudged around the kitchen and watched as his bright red hair grew in soft curls around his cherubic face.

She was his Guardian. She wanted, no needed, to know that he was well even if she no longer had the authority to watch over him.

Yes, she had failed him that first time when he had scrambled across the hot asphalt for his wandering ball. She had never felt such horror as she did when she heard the screech of rubber and watched his tiny form fall. But she had not failed him again.

She had done what she had to do, and she was paying the price. No longer a Guardian, no longer a Winged. She had been cast from her home and had been banned from her Charge. But would his next Guardian be kind to him? Would the next one know to comfort him with soothing hymns as he thrashed in his sleep or to guide him down that last, shaky step?

It was a moot point now. She no longer had the choice nor the power to do so. It was her choice and her fate.

As the fires rushed up and wrapped around her fragile frame, licking at her clipped wings, she wished she could have had a little more time to see the child she Wished grow.