A great cry. A tempest of wind. A lightning flash of fire across the cold, breaking, burning the cold and pain.
Proginoskes Xing.
Wings. All the wings. Stretched to their fullest span. Eyes. All the eyes opening and closing, opening, dimming –
Oh, no –
Going out –
No –
Flame. Smoke. Feathers flying. Proginoskes flinging his great cherubic self into the void of the Echthroi who were Xing Mr. Jenkins and Calvin and Meg – * It hurt. It hurt more than anything he'd ever felt before, like he was frozen and freezing, and it was so cold it was burning, which made no sense whatsoever, especially to such a logical mind as his. He blinked out at some point, unable to hold his physical form, and whistled on through the darkness in a haze of pain and anguish.
Meg!
Proginoskes threw the word back into the void, wondering if he'd done the right thing, wanting to make sure she hadn't come with him. There was no answer. Maybe it was over. Maybe they'd won after all. Or maybe he'd failed. Maybe he'd sacrificed himself and now he was the safe one and the Echthroi had gotten to the rest of them.
Silence threw itself back at him, and pulled away some of the pain. A single flame flickered into existence in the darkness, burned tentatively, and then flared more brightly. A single eye winked open. It was yellow, and bright, like a cat's eye. The manifestation didn't hurt, and there was a faint rustle before white wings unfolded in the darkness, the shadows slipping between the feathers until they looked like slivers of knife blades against black velvet. He was still moving, but he couldn't tell where he was going. He couldn't stop it either.
I want to go home. I want to go home. Where are the stars? This isn't right. This isn't where I'm supposed to be.
And then the darkness fell away, into gray and dark blue and fuzzy yellow lights. It might've been stars. It might've been a solar system far, far away from Earth. He might've been dancing along Orion's belt.
There were sounds, next. Car horns, screeching brakes, trash can lids, the sound of a radio somewhere, people talking, a distant gunshot, maybe. Nothing so serene as space, where anything that might've made noise took years and years to form.
Earth.
Proginoskes felt his heart drop, heavy within the bundle of wings that protected him. He was still on Earth. All of his eyes had opened to this new place, and now, one or two at a time, they blinked closed. Wings drooped, disappointment in every little movement he made. Earth.
All he'd wanted was to do the right thing, save the boy, and go home. He hadn't wanted to be celebrated, or Xed, or anything in between. He was a Student, and he had a lesson to complete. That was it. And now he was back here again.
Meg?
There was a crashing noise from somewhere nearby, and he flinched, wings folding in tightly around him, before simply disappearing. Better this way. Unseen, unheard, protected by invisibility and fire. Proginoskes wandered down the street, invisible eyes blinking open and closed at every sign of movement.