Similis

Haze's arms locked back around him. Clinging instinctively to Haze, Clark felt a surge of panic. The angel's wings beat strongly around them, pulling them both back onto a level course.



'You did well.' Haze approved, holding Clark against him again.



"No, I blew it!" Clark was annoyed at himself for losing control.



'You had good control until I interrupted you.' Haze disagreed. 'You only need to regain it. Find your centre, Clark, and fit yourself back into the air. There are always unexpected events, it's never to early to learn how to cope with those too.'



"I'll never get the hang of this!" Clark complained.



'Perhaps you're expecting too much of yourself, too soon?'



"I should be able to do this!" The protest was childish, even to Clark’s ears, but he couldn’t help himself.



'Why?’ The angel regarded him tolerantly. ‘Is there a schedule that says 'fly perfectly by ten thirty pm tonight or fail at everything'?'



Clark rolled his eyes. "I guess not." He admitted.



‘Then it doesn't matter if you don't master this at the first try. It's hardly life and death, is it?’



"You say that, but you can do it! You can do anything, Haze, and you make it all look so easy!"

'Ah.' Haze was amused. 'Clark, you weren't there when I first flew… Believe me, I've seen plenty of novice flyers and you're doing very well. At least you didn't smack into the only piece of rock within five light years…’



"You didn't?" Clark could not believe it. He glanced up at Haze, and found his friend looking uncharacteristically flushed.



'I did. I lost control, and instead of looping around the asteroid, I hit it, dead on… In front of all of my flight mates.' Haze shuddered. 'It was one of the most stupid and embarrassing things I have ever done. I also snapped so many flight feathers that I was unable to move until I could regain enough energy to heal. '



"What happened when you got off the asteroid again?" Clark was over his own embarrassment, and curious now.



'I was in the process of amassing enough energy to blast the asteroid to rubble when my mentor came along and very quietly asked me if I had a good reason for having a personal grudge against that stone. I realised that I didn't, and he advised me to remember that little detail the next time something went wrong.'



"Did you?"



'I did manage to avoid hitting the asteroid again, or destroying it, so I suppose so, but the memory stayed with me.' Haze sighed. 'Still, we all have to learn, and to mature. I believe that's what my teacher was encouraging me to discover.'



"How come you're so patient with me?" Clark demanded.



'Why are you not?'



"Because I hate being a freak!"



'You're not a freak, Clark, you're special.'



"Special, different, freak, same thing…"



'No.' Haze was gentle but firm. 'You're a very wonderful person, Clark. Whatever your origins.'



"I don't feel all that wonderful." Clark admitted.



'Then I'll just have to find some way to help you with that.' Haze decided.



Just as Clark was wondering quite how to take that, light burst around him. Turning, he found himself squinting at the rising edge of the sun. Seen from up here it was totally staggering. Absorbed in the glorious sensation of solar energy bathing his body, Clark stopped thinking and allowed himself to simply feel.







"Haze." Clark looked along his arm, to where their hands were still loosely joined. He wasn't ready to give up his 'safety rope' just yet. "How do I land?"



'Finding the ground with your feet is going to be reasonably easy.' Haze predicted. 'A controlled landing requires a lot more skill though, and you should be prepared that you may not achieve it perfectly the first time. As to how, I would suppose that you should simply slow yourself enough to lose forward momentum and then let your feet touch down. After that your body ought to remember how to respond to gravity, it has been used to doing that for rather a long while after all.'



"How do you do it?" Clark wanted to know.



'Much the same, except that I back-beat and drop the last foot or so. Feathers are too delicate to chance having any of them touch ground so I prefer to keep them up and out of the way once I'm near enough.'



Clark remembered something. "You don't keep them out when you are walking either."



'No. The tips of my primary flights scrape along the floor unless I deliberately hold the whole wing up and out, which isn't all that comfortable for more than a few minutes. Even brushing the ground lightly sets my teeth on edge. Like ... ' Haze searched for a comparison. 'Like when you licked the wooden stick inside your ice-popsicle?' He suggested.



"Eeww, yuk!" Clark shivered with the remembered feeling. "Yeah, I can understand that." He aimed them both towards a series of small white dots in the azure sea below. "You're really sure that no one else is around?"



'What you're thinking of as moderate sized islands are actually only low sandbanks,' Haze replied. 'They're smaller than you think. If there were people anywhere around here we would definitely see them.'



"How can you tell that, Haze?" Clark squinted. "About the size and the distance?" That sounded like something he was going to need to know about, now that he could do this flying stuff for himself...



'Experience’ Haze told him.



“Great! And how do I get that?” Clark sighed. Why did everything have to be so darn difficult?



‘It’s not that complicated, Clark.’ Haze took pity on him. ‘Look at the length of the white foam lines on the waves, compared to the ripple marks left by the wind on the shore. Plus you can practically see the sand ripples in the shallows, so we're quite close now.'



Clark circled them in over the mounds of sand, realising that Haze was right. Concentrating, he let go of Haze and lowered himself deliberately, slowing until his feet were almost touching down on the sand, then he switched off his flight ability.



"Hey!" He called up to his circling companion. "Not bad!" He pulled his feet out of the ankle-deep sand and chuckled. "I did it!"



Haze dropped out of the sky and landed with a soft thud just a few feet away. 'Yes, you did.' He approved. 'And upright too! Excellent form for a first effort.’ Folding his wings back he shivered them away.







Safely grounded, Clark pulled off his t-shirt, wrinkling his nose at the unpleasant way it smelt. "Why didn't you tell me how bad I smell?" He asked.



Haze shrugged. 'I didn't notice.'



Rolling his eyes in disbelief, Clark stared at his companion. "Haze, I reek! How could you possibly miss that?"



'By not having a sense of smell?'



"Ah… Right…" Clark very definitely did not want to go back to his mother stinking like this, if nothing else it was embarrassing, plus there would be Questions…



Better take care of it now, that way Mom might not find out... Kneeling, Clark rinsed his shirt in the seawater and after wringing it nearly dry he spread it out on the hot sand, then pulled the rest of his clothes off and enjoyed the chance to bask in the warm sun. There was no one around, only Haze and they were pretty much used to seeing each other naked by now. Besides, it wasn't as if either of them couldn't get much the same view just by standing and looking in a mirror. Although there were times…



No! Clark very firmly suppressed that train of thought.



Beside him, Haze followed suit, stripping off his own shirt and then the rest of his clothes. He stretched lazily. 'So what do you plan on doing for the next hour or so?' He looked to Clark. 'We should get back after that, or your parent's will start to panic.'



"Swim!" Clark said immediately. There was all of this beautiful clear warm water, why let it go to waste?



'Swim?' Haze sounded less sure. 'Actually submerge yourself in that water?'



"Of course in the water." Turning, Clark noticed that Haze did not seem anywhere near as keen as he was. He had a sudden inspiration. "You don't know how to swim, do you Haze?"



'I've never been anywhere where there was sufficient free liquid. ' Haze admitted. 'I've spent a great deal of my life in vacuum.'



Having thoroughly explored Haze's previous lifestyle at an earlier date, Clark was more interested in the current possibilities. "Can you keep afloat?" He asked.



'I don't know.' Haze blinked and considered the prospect.



"But you can't drown." Clark pointed out.



'I don't breathe as you do, so, no, I can't drown - as such.'



"So you'll be fine!" Clark was suddenly happy. This was something he could do that Haze couldn't. "I'll teach you!" He offered.



Haze grinned and took the bait. 'I'm in your hands.'







For the next ten minutes, Clark kept them both comfortably within their depth, knowing that Haze would need a little time to adjust, but confident that it would not take long before his 'twin' would adapt to the differences between being in water and being up in the air. When he was sure that Haze was confident in his new environment, he moved off, to give Haze the necessary space to enjoy it.



"I'm going to dive down over there." Clark pointed. "You can follow me and if you need anything, just … "



'Scream?' Haze smiled. 'Throw something at you? '



"If you want?" Clark grinned in sheer joy, not minding the teasing. "I am really glad we came here, Haze."



'Me too. You forgive me for earlier?'



"If you forgive me?" Clark offered.



'Deal. '







The two youths spent a few minutes more simply splashing around on the surface, until Clark realised that he could use his abilities to let him dive in, even without access to a diving board. Content, he floated up out of the water and over in the direction of the next island until he judged that the water below him was deep enough.



"Hey, Haze!" He yelled out, catching his companion's attention. "Watch this!" Switching off his flight, Clark executed a perfect jack-knife into the darker channel. Stroking back up to the surface, he walked up the slope of the next atoll and smiled across at Haze. "Well?" He called over.



Haze clapped loudly and held up ten fingers. Clark took a mock bow, before throwing himself in backwards. He felt the tentative touch of Haze's mind on his, but there was no reason for the effort of projecting actual words. Idly, he watched Haze shiver as the angel pulled his wings out of nowhere.



Taking vigorously to the air, Haze flew a long slow circle until he was almost over roughly the same point at which Clark had dived, and then he vanished his wings, angled his body and cut into the water with barely a splash.



‘Neat dive.' Clark sent the thought out, hoping that Haze would pick up the compliment. Treading water he waited for Haze to surface. A minute went by and there was no sign of Haze. Clark blinked. Where is he?



Instinctively Clark focussed his x-ray vision through the glinting water and swept the area. He quickly found his 'twin' down at the beginning of the submarine slope.



Why isn't he heading back up yet? Looking closer Clark decided that Haze was engrossed in examining the edges of the coral reef around which the sandbanks had formed.



He is so nosy… Lucky for him he doesn't need to breathe. At the edges of his vision, Clark noticed a long slim predatory shape. It didn’t take him long to realise the direction in which the shark was heading.



It's going towards Haze! A shiver ran through Clark.



Down in the blue water, Haze remained oblivious, his body language relaxed.



"No!" Clark snatched a breath and dived in, powering his way under the water toward Haze.



’Haze!' Clark shouted the word in his mind, not even sure how well Haze would be able to read him, distance and emotion both clouded the connection and they were dealing with both here. 'HAZE!' He mentally yelled again.



Haze turned, evidently aware now of Clark's summons, but still ignorant of the light grey shape flitting in across the nearby coral. He pulled himself away from his meticulous inspection of the coral structures, 'Look!' He signed. 'Sharp Stone Flower. Unexpected.'



Haze was hurt? The angel might not breathe like a human but he did bleed like one! Clark was aghast, seeing the shark arrowing in ever closer.



'Cut. Small.' Haze responded. 'Wrong, what?' His fingers smoothly flickered the words that their bond could not carry at that distance.



'Behind you!' Clark gestured frantically. He would have yelled at the top of his lungs if only they had not both been underwater.



'What?' The other's head turned, finally seeing the approaching shape, he glanced back to Clark. 'Fish?'



'Go! Up. Fast!' Clark signed desperately, swimming as fast as he could toward Haze while his hands moved in other directions.



'Why?' Haze replied, evidently unaware that all was not as it should be.



To Clark's horror there was a gleam of white, a flash of sudden pain, and, as the background sense of Haze vanished, a fresh ruby cloud puffed out through the circulating waters.