Shota

Shota

Shota

Allester strode through the softly lit halls of the commune’s main living quarters, his footsteps muted to silence by the thick red carpeting. The rich dark wood paneling that lined the walls reflected the warm yellow glow of the candles in their brass sconces spaced along the hallways so there was small pools of dark between them. The quiet of the midnight halls was broken by an odd soft bleating sound, much like a spring lamb. Allester paused in his musings, stopping before the door of their newest family member. The boy was an odd one, not entirely human, for certain. They had found him after a lab had gone under, and the boy was abandoned in a field, frightened and persecuted. But not for long, thankfully, Allester thought with a smile. He knocked on the door softly, leaning close to hear his distress through the thick oaken door. He could hear him squeak in surprise, a thump, then his unusually throaty voice calling out. “Come in.”
Allester entered the darkened room quietly, opening the curtains just enough for the moonlight to show where his candles were. He sat on the low bed beside the lump under the feather comforter he knew to be the kid. With a soft scrape, Allester lit a match and the candle on the bedside flared to life, illuminating the small, comfortable quarters.
He waited a long moment, he had no reason to rush, and all night to talk, so he let the boy come to him on his own. Soon, a small head peered out from under the blanket, kittenlike, and warm, deep blue eyes full of tears gazed up at him. Allester smiled encouragingly.
“Allester?” the boy’s voice was quiet, thickly accented, choked and raspy with tears, and oddly deep for a being he knew to be little more than maybe 8 years old.
“Yes, Raziel?”
The boy sighed deeply, a sound that tugged at Allester’s heart like a silver fishhook. “Am I a freak?”
The young scholar smiled again, shaking his head, his jade green eyes full of mirth. “Not for a minute, shota-kun. Did you need to talk?”
“Do you have a minute?”
“For you, anytime. What happened?”
Raz crawled out from under the blanket a bit reluctantly, but if there was anything Allester had taught the boy it was that you should always speak your mind, and never while hidden. Allester was taken again with the boy’s odd, otherworldly beauty. Covered in a soft layer of goatlike reddish brown hair, his body was thin, though muscular in the way young animals are. His legs were long, powerful, digitigrade, tipped in splayed, three-toed, clawed feet. A long, tufted tail curled around his knees, the long black endhairs of which he fussed with delicately clawed human fingers. The hair on his head was long and shaggy, dark brown and curling, and all but obscured his unusually large and sensitive blue eyes, long, pointed ears that drooped sadly and the vague nubs of tiny horns on his brow. Even the magnificent, batlike wings that sprouted from his lean shoulders sagged under a great weight this evening as he curled with his knees drawn up to his chest on the bed. Named for the angel of Mysteries, he really was a beautiful boy, if perhaps the oddest thing Allester had ever seen, and was sensitive, intelligent and clever.
The scholar looked him over closer, and noticed a purpling bruise over Raz’s left eye that was starting to close it, the blood from the wound matting his fine, curling hair. Allester went to the wash basin in the corner of the room, filled the bowl with water, grabbed a clean cloth, and sat beside the boy again, cleaning the wound gently despite the initial hiss of pain.
“I was attacked,” he said without preamble. Matter-of-factly, even. Almost as though he had expected it, somehow, though he didn’t meet Allester’s eyes. “Some kids outside the compound caught me out walking, and threw stones at me and called me a freak. I tried to make them understand, but that only seemed to make them angrier, so I ran. They were going to break my wings if they got close enough. I know I don’t look anything like them, there is probably nobody in this world that does, and I can accept that. But, Allester, I’m not a freak, am I? I’m not bad for being different, am I?”
He smiled, brushing the curling dark hair out of the boy’s eyes and bestowing a tender kiss on his forehead that seemed to melt away the tension in his hunched little shoulders. “There is nothing in the world wrong with being different. You are a beautiful creature, Raziel, and they simply don’t understand you. Humans fear what they don’t understand, and what they fear they seek to destroy. You are not at fault for being what and who you are. You should be proud to be so unusual. Those kids do not know how intelligent, how loving, how perfect you are, and I am afraid they might never learn. You just remember how loved and smart and good you are. You are a good kid, Raziel. We all love you very much.”
A tiny light seemed to glow softly in the boy’s dark eyes, and now he looked up at his mentor with the first hopeful spark of a smile on his delicate lips. It melted the scholar’s heart as easily as it did the day he was brought in 6 months ago, bedraggled and wet and crying like a little lamb. He had cleaned and healed him then, too.
“Do you love me, too?” the boy asked softly.
Allester gathered the gangling little body into his arms, breathing in his musky, clean, good scent, and buried his face into his impossibly soft hair. He could feel the boy’s clawed fingers in his own long, pale brown hair, and held him closer. “I love you, Raziel, the way the sun loves the rose. The way the rain loves the earth. You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life, and I can no sooner imagine my life without you now than I could without air to breathe. You are safe and warm and loved, little one, never forget that.”
“I won’t ever forget again, Allester,” Raz said with childlike sincerity, his voice thick with tears again. “Please, don’t leave me tonight…”