We, who have all the time in the world, soon grew weary of the world. This endless drag of Time! It sucks dry all the newness of things, turning all things old and tired, destroying all new and novel things the moment we touch them.
        We have lived in every city, dined at every court, we have tasted the pleasure of every age, and seek endlessly for the next. For novelty is our only merciful friend, pushing from our minds, of only for a moment, that torment which is out existence. Pleasure is all we seek, that it might banish for a moment our thousand pains...
        But oh, my wings! My feet grew so tired, my legs stumble, and I have so longed to feel again the rush of air and expanse of the sky... I am caged by gravity, which quells the song of every bird; gravity which tries every moment to pull me to the earth, and grind my face into the dust, but such is not my place! I was born before the stars took breath, it is the children that are Men who belong to the dust.
        And my wings were so lovely... the largest of anyone's, radiant in the sunlight, the feathers so soft against my skin... and against her skin, oh temptress Eve! that thy daughters should be so cruel! She wrapped herself in my wings, pressed her perfect body to mine, my wings draped gently around us both, ensconcing is in a world of quiet, soft white, a world no-one else would see, a world where only we were needed, for she so fully engaged all my thought in her strange and enticing newness...
        Ah, that I could be so careless! So new to the physical realm was I, so little did I know... and that cursed child was born and all was changed. Cast into darkness, out children twisted and abhorred, and soon slaughtered out of existence.
        Yet we remained.
        And our eyes slowly grew accustomed to the darkness of this realm, we grew to see in this shadow of a world... and we found comfort here, of a sort. Oh, but not true comfort, only distraction, all is and ever will be mere distraction from our shame, our pain, why have we lived so long! We bleed, our fragile flesh tears, our wings are long-gone, yet we will not die. I once felt these lungs could no longer draw breath, I had counted a million inhalations and knew that I had taken billions before, and I did not see that my body could continue its ceaseless labor. A body was not made to live so long. And my lungs ached, they were clogged and dirtied by the air of so many cities of men, breathing in the grime and stale exhalations, stagnant in the heavy air so near the ground. I knew I must die, or find some way to clear the pollution from my lungs. I traveled to the highest mountains, where the air loses some of its weight, but even there gravity chained me, and I could feel it pulling at me, warring with me against every inhalation, holding me still close to the ground of dust. I grew so weak, my lungs felt so heavy, I needed my wings! I had to leave this earth, I had to wrest this body free of its grasp. I needed my flight restored, I needed to breathe the clear, bright air...
        I sought devices made by of the most brilliant among men, but none could sustain the weight of this wretched body. I suffered the fate of Icarus a thousand times, I fell from the sky again and again, each fall an echo of that first and most horrible one... (Though at least I suffered no pain when these false wings were destroyed! Oh that agony which haunts me still!)
        The mathematical sciences of men were desperately lacking, they had not the scope to address all issues at once. Oh that damnable creation of Tim! If only it did not so bind me, I knew that I should find my answers... but I could not wait for Man to learn all he needed to learn. My agony grew worse every moment, and none could resolve my pain, none could free my chest of its stiff constraint.
        I turned to the realm of spirits, for I knew they were not bound by man's limitations. But I had been too long on the earth, and could no longer call as loudly as I once could... oh that ease which I once had with such things! To call upon the spirits working the heavens and earth and stars and hell, and to have them answer my every request, with scarcely a thought and certainly without effort.
        But that is a skill which physical beings have to learn, and my body had abandoned the talent it once knew. We had, long ago, taught men some art which could in time approximate our once-latent ability. We had often laughed at their feeble attempts, at the ease with which devils convinced them they spoke with angels. But ah, it was such a beautiful art we created for them, filled with ritual and elaborate signs... incredibly difficult, really, but purposely so. Whenever they seemed to have about learned it, we added another detail to the ritual, another line to the drawing, adding more and more complex elements and rules, simply to see where they would give up in frustration and fail! But Man is such an odd beast, he is able to learn far more than we had expected. Finally we grew tired of the game, and left them to devise their own additional routes, for we had thought them enough to begin.
        I found that they had expanded greatly upon that initial art, and it had changed so much that I could recognize very little of it. The symbols and elements, the words, even the purposes had changed in the passage of generations.
        But I made my way along the secret hierarchies, until I had found one who promised to be the most adept of any in several generations. I could wait no longer, I went to him and gave him my command.
        I wanted my wings returned to me.
        He spent years in research, and I gave him every aid I could devise. He learned more from me than he had in all his long years of study - for I knew the very origins of that strange power he sought, I had helped to create the very channels through which he reached. I had drawn the symbols from which all his were derived. I had lived among the very stars through which he charted his paths, I had breathed in that rarefied air of a realm his fingertips only brushed against...
        And there are none who better understand the speech of spirits than a spirit itself, and I had been so long among men that I could act as a perfect translator between the two. Though I no longer had the power to reach into that stream of pure existence, I could interpret what he found there, I knew the directions in which to seek.
        Sacrifice was made, years were lost, materials and wealth were consumed, and I watched the man age before me. (Such a wretched process! The One who created such a thing has a truly warped sense of aesthetics.) And at last the paths were laid, and the words written out, and the angles and intersections measured. We made ready every preparation, lit the candles in the proper order with the proper incantations, and the maps were laid on the floor for the spirits to follow and be caught between.
        I could feel the spirits grow thick in the room, not a heaviness as of dust but as one of spice and incense, only lighter, as the empyrean air of the mountaintops. My heart raced, my lungs drew breath eagerly, and I tasted the first hint of that clear, celestial air I had sought for so long... ah, how my soul yearned so to immerse itself in it! And it grew so near!
        I was laid on the table, and he drew the symbols on my back, incising the skin and pouring in the ink, that the patterns became a part of my flesh, binding the energies together. The pain was nothing to that which I had felt for such millenia, and I scarcely noticed it, so drunk was I with the nearness of that other plane of being. I could hear the voices of the spirits swirling about us, so faintly but I could hear them again after so long! I wept with the nearness of them, as a mother weeps to see again her children after some separation...
        ...though I should not use such a phrase, not knowing myself what it is to have children. For I never knew that child she bore from me, we were swept apart so soon, and I gave it no thought in those days.
        The paths were laid on my back, the intricate patterns drawn, which should make a path into the past and into places intangible, and draw out again that which I had lost.
        He continued his low chant, the words in tongues he had not known, which I taught him carefully until he spoke them as smoothly as one who had known them all his life. Ancient words, words which Man had forgotten but I had not, for I had brought them into being so long ago. Streams were stirred which had not been disturbed in long generations, and the air grew brighter, thinner, and I do not know if my heart beat faster or if it stopped altogether in its rapture. He breathed heavily, his lungs unused to such atmosphere, but it did not matter for the words were nearly said, I could feel the motion of unseen things tangling in the inscriptions upon my back, I could feel the strange frigid heat of them, the effervescent flames, and again I wept for the joy which seemed so near, and the anticipation I could no longer stand.
        He gasped out the last words, and collapsed to the floor, his breath stolen away by the rush of unearthly air, the spirits flooding the small room, and oh I was again among them! I danced again among the stars my brothers and they laughed for joy at my return, and my wings unfurled, oh the glory of their expanse! Muscles were open again which had been so long unused, I was no longer crippled, oh to be so set free! My body free and unconstrained! And I soared I soared through open skies...
        And then the laughter changed.
        There was a flash as of lightening, and the smell of scorched atmosphere, and I vomited from the stench of my wings rotting from me no no no not again not again this can not be! I screamed and clutched at the feathers which fell around me but they rotted in my hands and my skin was coated in the slick grime of their decay, I fell I fell and the spirits laughed in derision and perverse mirth, taunting me as I plummeted from them, my eyes cast in vain around me for some sign but all was the scarlet of blood and the black of decay, the room was in flames and blood mixed with the ink in my flesh and all was stench and terror and agony---

        It is some time before I am able to end the uncontrollable weeping, which shakes my body and tears my lungs and burns my eyes. I am exhausted by memory and the expuregence of feelings which it always, always brings forth. I am so tired... oh that wretched girl, to have forced me through it all again! I shall certainly have some torment of even worse degree thrust upon her for this.
        ...oh but what worth would it have, nothing could be worse than the shame in which my existence is buried. I have tried every device known, and nothing will remove the stains upon my back, they shall remain with me as long as the scars they cover. There is nothing to be done.
        And so I sigh, and wipe the streams of tears from my face, and compose myself. I find a hidden bell-pull, and ring for a servant. I shall have a glass or two of wine to refresh myself, and then rejoin the party - I am certain to be missed by now, and am certain to be missing things of interest myself. I shall find diversion there, I am sure, Meres is so wonderful at providing entertainments, and really, the room was too lovely, it would be a shame not to enjoy its splendors this evening.
        I shall never truly forget my pains, but I can hide them away again for a time, covering them over with some little pleasure or another... and so keep at bay this endless despair.