Kumpania

“So where to?”
Apollo points. I have to blink several times - my eyes are still very blurry - but finally I’m able to focus enough to identify lights not far in the distance. “What are those things?”
“Some kind of wagons. You good to walk?”
“Of course. Let’s go.”
Even though I’m gingerly stepping over every fallen branch, praying I won’t fall flat on my face, it doesn’t take us long to reach the lights. As we get closer, we can hear music, several different melodies, all emanating from different spots in the gathering. I feel like it’s pulsing in my soul, calling to me like a song never has before. My body is responding, and can’t stop my fingers from twitching in time to the beat.
It’s impossible to tell how many wagons fill the clearing. Light is spilling out of every window, but only a few feet above them the darkness yawns. I can’t tell where the clearing ends and the trees begin again.
We stand at the edge for a few more minutes. I think we’re both afraid to take a step past that invisible line, and neither of us would ever admit it. Smoke drifts through the air, swirling around these… wagon… people. I have no idea what species we should even expect, but I’m sure Asteraoth didn’t make us wear cloaks for no reason. He doesn’t give a fig leaf about our health, but he would hate to have to train up new servants.
“So we’re keeping the wings tucked and the halos extinguished, I presume?” I mutter out of the side of my mouth in Apollo’s direction.
He jumps about a foot in the air, and I worry he’s going to break the ‘wings tucked’ rule right now. When he responds, his voice is strained.
“Sorry, sorry. I just… this is something else huh. But yeah, of course. Keep our heads down, find this ‘Guts’ place, and wait.”
“Find some guts. Got it.” I mutter, more to myself than him. But I’m surprised to hear him snort in response. Normally my stoic brother wouldn’t even acknowledge a snarky comment like that.
With our only lead being a single four letter word, I expected a lot more trouble locating this mysterious ‘Guts’ place. But it was no trouble at all. We girded our loins and crossed that invisible line into the wagon city. The people who inhabited it were like nobody I’d seen before - but also not nearly the monsters I was expecting.
None of them were angels, that was for damn sure. Which meant they all had to be ‘Others’. Human, Hellion, Fae, who knows what else. We’d always been taught that anything other than Celestial is beneath us. Not even just beneath us, but savage beasts, barely able to control their own base impulses. My whole life, I’d been torn between fear of these loathsome creatures and an undying curiosity about them. Now that I’d seen them in the flesh, I was almost disappointed.