That the boy didn't reach out and touch his feathers rather surprised the angel. He sat down on the other side of Alcuin, let those fingers reach wherever they wished to go in the grass without his vessel getting in the way. As if inviting him to touch the wings he seemed to decide he might dirty just by his presence alone, or perhaps just to protect him from the rest of the world, he stretched one and curled it around his very distant relation.
"If you hurt even a hair less by the time we are done here, it will have been worth it, or even if you simply hurt slightly differently." He looked out over the glade with him. "Content sometimes seems a far more attainable goal when happy sits at the top of a mountain that refuses to be scaled." He knew. he knew more than most, and with a gesture, he removed his own collar. Even with it on, there was no way they could truly talk as equals in the D'angeline's eyes, but perhaps they could speak as family.
"I remember when they fell," Samandriel said even softer after some moments of silent. "Elua's companions. I remember when each of those who were lost fell in their ways. We were not forbidden from them, though. If we had been, things would have likely ended far differently, but we weren't and so the Nephilim were permitted to live no matter that the first generations were declared abominations in the eyes of Heaven. Anael. Eisheth. Shemhazai. I hate to think what would have become of me if I had been ripped from them so soon after losing Lucifer. Eisheth in particular...even before Elua was made, she got me through so much." He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of Alcuin's head, wrapping that wing a little closer. "Reposer et être guéri," Some familiarity had to be better than none. Someone who understood the land and custom Alcuin came from had to be better than those who merely read of it.