Chapter 6: Earth Together

AJ met Sid by Devlok's front gate at eleven in the morning — Earth time, because Devlok had no mornings. The gate was: magnificent. Carved from a material that existed only in the pari realm — a substance that looked like marble but that hummed when you touched it, the vibration of: boundary. The gate marked the edge between Devlok and the atmosphere — the sixty-two miles of thinning air that separated the fairy realm from: Earth.

Sid was already there. Leaning against the gate with the casual posture of a pari who descended to Earth: regularly. Easily. The ease that AJ: envied.

"Ready?" Sid asked.

"Ready," said AJ. The word that was a: lie. He was never ready. Every descent was: a gamble. But he was not going to tell his first friend that the journey they were about to make together was, for AJ, potentially: fatal.

They flew through the gate and into the atmosphere.

The descent was: brutal. Not for Sid — Sid glided with the effortless grace that intact wings provided, his body cutting through the thinning air like a knife through: ghee. For AJ, the descent was: work. Every wingbeat required calculation — the broken wing generating sixty percent of the lift that a healthy wing produced, which meant AJ had to compensate with his body angle, his breathing, his core muscles, the entire machinery of his small body working to overcome the deficit of: one damaged appendage.

The atmosphere thickened as they descended. The air changed — from the clean, energised air of Devlok to the heavier, more complex air of Earth. AJ could feel it in his lungs: the weight of human: emotion. The air on Earth carried: everything. The joy and grief and boredom and love and frustration of eight billion humans, all of it suspended in the atmosphere like particles in: water. Pariyan felt this — the emotional weight of the human world pressing against their skin the moment they entered: Earth's atmosphere.

"First time?" Sid asked, noticing AJ's expression.

"First time with someone else," AJ admitted. "Usually I'm too focused on not: dying to notice the atmosphere."

Sid laughed — the mid-air laugh of a pari who found AJ's honesty: refreshing. "You won't die today. I've got you."

They descended through clouds — actual clouds, the water vapour that humans saw from below as: white shapes and that pariyan flew through as: mist. The mist was: cold. Wet. The specific wet of clouds that humans never experienced because humans were: grounded. AJ had experienced it hundreds of times but it was different today — different because Sid was: beside him, and having someone beside you while flying through clouds was: the difference between being alone in the cold and being: accompanied.

They broke through the cloud layer and India appeared below.

Pune. The city that sprawled across the Deccan plateau like a map of: ambition. The old city — narrow lanes, temples with orange flags, the smell of incense rising even to this altitude. The new city — IT parks, glass towers, the Hinjewadi tech corridor that had transformed a farming village into: Silicon Valley's younger cousin. And between old and new: the schools. The colleges. The places where young humans gathered to learn and argue and fall in love and resist the canteen food and decide: who they were going to be.

Mahadevi Verma School appeared below them — the building that AJ knew intimately, the building where Harini and Jai attended Class XII, the building whose roof he had sat on: dozens of times.

"There," said AJ, pointing. "That's where my two humans are."

"Show me," said Sid.

They landed on the school roof — the flat concrete roof that Indian schools universally possessed and that was used for: nothing official but for: everything unofficial. Water tanks, satellite dishes, and the occasional student who had climbed up to: smoke or cry or be: alone.

Below them, through the building's open windows, the school operated. The sounds rising: chalk on blackboard, teacher voices, the shuffle of five hundred students, a bell ringing for: period change.

AJ led Sid to the window of Sharma Ma'am's Maths class. They perched on the windowsill — invisible, weightless, the pari ability to be: present without being: detected.

Inside: Sharma Ma'am was writing on the board. The students were copying — some diligently, some reluctantly, some not at all. In the middle row: Jai. Untucked shirt. Empty bag. Borrowed pen — today borrowed from the girl to his left, who had handed it over with the specific resignation of someone who had lent Jai pens: before.

In the back row: Harini. Glasses. Precise handwriting. The notebook that contained: not notes but: plans.

"Which one is which?" Sid asked.

"The boy in the middle — that's Jai. The girl in the back — Harini."

Sid looked at them. The way pariyan looked at humans: with love. Not romantic love — the specific love that the pariyan carried biologically, the love that was: their purpose. The love of a species that existed to: protect.

"They're interesting," Sid said.

"They don't know each other yet," AJ said. Then corrected himself: "Well, they know each other. They've been in the same class for five years. But they don't: know each other. They haven't: connected."

"But they will?"

"I think so. There's something —" AJ paused. Tried to articulate the thing he'd noticed. The thing that pariyan sometimes sensed about humans — the potential for: connection. The invisible thread between two people who hadn't yet realised they were: linked. "— something between them. An energy. The kind of energy that produces: something."

"Something good?"

"Something: important."

They watched. Through the window of a Pune school, two invisible pariyan watched two visible humans attend a Maths class, and the watching was: not passive. The watching was: care. The active, attentive care of beings who had been created to: observe and protect and guide — not through intervention but through: presence. The pariyan didn't change outcomes. They didn't manipulate events. They: watched. And in watching, they: held space. They held the space around humans the way the atmosphere held the space around: Earth. Invisible. Essential. The thing without which: everything would scatter.

AJ's broken wing ached. The descent had cost: energy. He could feel the clock ticking — the internal clock that every pari with a damaged wing possessed, the clock that counted down from: full to: empty. When the energy ran out, the wing would: fail. And a pari who couldn't fly on Earth was: stranded. Stranded on Earth was: death for a pari with a broken wing. The atmosphere between Earth and Devlok — sixty-two miles of increasingly thin air — was: unforgivable to a wing that couldn't: sustain.

"I need to go back soon," AJ said.

Sid looked at him. Not with pity — with: understanding. The understanding that AJ's limitation was: real and that pretending it wasn't was: more insulting than acknowledging it.

"We'll come back together," Sid said. "Tomorrow. And the day after. However long you need to watch them, I'll come with you. And when your energy runs low, I'll fly beside you on the way: up."

"You don't have to — "

"I know I don't have to. That's why it: matters."

They launched from the windowsill — two pariyan rising from a Pune school's rooftop, climbing through the warm afternoon air, the air that carried the smell of the canteen's frying pakoras and the sound of a teacher's voice explaining trigonometry and the weight of five hundred human lives being: lived — and they flew upward. Together.

AJ's broken wing protested: every metre. But Sid flew beside him — matching his pace, not surging ahead, the specific kindness of someone who understood that speed wasn't: help. Presence was: help. Being beside someone who was: struggling and adjusting your pace to match: their struggle — that was: help.

They made it back to Devlok. AJ collapsed through the gate — exhausted, his broken wing folded against his body like a prayer — and lay on the terracotta tiles. Sid sat beside him. Not speaking. Just: sitting.

"Same time tomorrow?" Sid asked.

AJ closed his eyes. Smiled.

"Same time tomorrow."