She's going to die.

       Goddammit, Dara, don't just stand there!

       Don't be a ing idiot, save her before she leaves you like your father did.

       Save her because she deserves to live.

       She deserves it more than you do.

       Sacrifice yourself for her.

       Sacrifice yourself.

       Sacrifice.

       Dara can move again. Her vision tunnels onto Chaerin's cowering, trembling, curled up figure on the ground. The Light magic blends into the background, along with everything else in the room. Dara's wings beat on their own and she flies at lightning speed, landing at Chaerin's left side.

       She wraps her arms around Chaerin, burying Chaerin's head in her shoulder. The Barrier shoots up through her neck, the wildfire spreading so fast through her skin and organs that her entire body is instantly in pain. But she doesn't allow herself to let go, in fact her embrace tightens. Her grip on reality fades but her wings still know their objective.

       Sacrifice.

       They fearlessly wrap around Chaerin's body, encasing both of them in a protective embrace, ignoring the Barrier exploding through their feathers.

       And it's at that instant when his Light magic travels the distance, and it's at that instant when it impacts Dara's left wing, and it's at that instant when Dara finally allows herself to howl and scream and yelp in pain, and it's at that instant when she falls limp and Chaerin opens her eyes to see pure hell in front of her.

       "Dara!!" Chaerin collapses on the ground next to Dara, who is laying in a crumpled heap of burnt insides and a broken black wing, shuddering slightly but otherwise completely still, with hooded eyes.

       "Goddammit Dad, take off the Barrier!" she screams urgently, looking up at her dad with pleading, teary eyes.

       Her father is stunned. She protected her. He can't believe it. She loves her. Nothing is processing. He feels like his soul has just left him; everything he thought he knew was wrong. Shaking and stumbling, he mindlessly waves his hand a little and Chaerin feels something lift off of her. She doesn't care to ask him what he just did but she knows he listened to her and she cups Dara's face, leaning down and ignoring the fact that tears are falling from her eyes onto Dara's face. Dara groans a little but manages to open her eyes to look at Chaerin, and she even smiles a bit.

       "Your tears are tickling my cheeks," she chuckles a little before groaning again, her fingers twitching. Chaerin sighs in relief that Dara isn't going through pain from her touch anymore, but another sob gets out anyway.

       "What the Dara, this isn't the time to make jokes!" she insists through her tears, leaning down and picking up Dara's weak body. "I'm taking you back to Minzy, she'll know what to do."

       Dara doesn't care about anything anymore. She was expecting to die. Instead, she revels in the warmth that is still-alive Lee Chaerin, she revels in it so much that the absolutely crippling pain dissipates just a tiny bit and she finds it in herself to lean her head in closer to Chaerin's body. Despite being too weak to move any more than that, she feels more than content.

       Chaerin kisses Dara on the crown of her head, on that beautiful brown hair, before looking up at her father. He looks broken. Chaerin doesn't know what to feel. She looks at him for a slight, disappointed, intent second before turning around and leaving without a word.

       Alone, her father finally learns the true feeling of regret.

       By the time Minzy opens the door and sees Chaerin with Dara in her arms, Dara's left wing has lost almost all of its feathers. Her right wing beats weakly in distress for its dying companion. Dara is unconscious. Breathing, yes, but barely.

       "Barriers and Light magic aren't the best combination for a Dark Angel," Chaerin explains weakly before pushing past Minzy and into the house, her white wings automatically extending outward. Minzy blinks her wide, shocked eyes before hurriedly closing the door and following Chaerin into the extra bedroom, where Dara is set on the bed with the gentlest of arms, her left wing dangling off the edge and her right wing sprawled across the other side of the bed, twitching powerlessly.

       "I'll die if she does," Chaerin murmurs, stepping back to let Minzy see her but never taking her eyes off of that dying left wing and that beautiful sleeping face. Minzy doesn't need much more to see that she had better ing make sure Dara doesn't die, for both Dara and Chaerin (and herself).

       Chaerin walks numbly to a small couch in the room, her body not tired despite half-sprinting half-flying all the way to Minzy's in the late evening with a Dark Angel limp in her arms. Her wings stay completely still on her back. She pulls out her phone from her pocket, meaning to call Bom, but she stops when she sees her hand.

       It's trembling. Not a nervous, anxious shake but a traumatized, destroyed, utterly terrified convulsion. The phone drops through her fingers and her head falls into both of her hands.

       There are no more tears left. So she just sits in silence, allowing the fire of guilt to consume her insides, allowing herself to acknowledge that the painful flame is nothing compared to Dara's, allowing her heart to break up into little tiny pieces, allowing herself to feel a little bit like she just died and woke up in inescapable limbo.

       She isn't really sure how much time passes. Thirty seconds, three hours, five weeks, seven years? She's woken up from her trance by a bright flash of magic coming from where Minzy is tending to Dara. Chaerin stands up and walks up to the bed so she can see Dara again, sighing in relief when she is greeted with Dara's still-peaceful sleeping face. She climbs up onto the bed and settles in next to Dara's resting right wing.

       Minzy doesn't greet her and Chaerin doesn't greet Minzy, just watches in silence as Minzy periodically uses her white Pixie magic on the surface of Dara's body. Chaerin's wings flutter a bit in affliction.

       "I'm healing the burns on her internal organs from the Barrier," Minzy whispers, distant with concentration. Chaerin nods absently, losing herself in Dara's facial features, her hand touching the beautiful black feathers for the first time. She was right when she saw them initially: they shoot this amazing power through her. Chaerin can feel the wing breathing. She feels connected to Dara as she repeatedly runs her hand along the wing and senses it relax under her touch.

       Chaerin can't bear to leave Dara's side anymore so she pulls out her phone for the second time and calls Bom right there on the bed. Bom picks up in half of a ring.

       "Hello?" Chaerin's shoulders sink in relief involuntarily at the sound of Bom's voice.

       "Bommie, come to Minzy's house. I'll text you the address and...explain everything when you get here. Just hurry," she says, tired. She can almost visualize Bom nodding with confused, worried eyes.

       "Okay. I'll hurry." The phone clicks and the call ends. Chaerin quickly, with surprisingly nimble fingers, sends Bom the address and then drops the phone into her lap like it's a rock. Almost immediately, her hand returns to Dara's wing.

       Chaerin and Minzy both stay in the bedroom for half an hour in complete silence, Chaerin watching with tired but widely awake eyes as Minzy meticulously heals every tiny injury Dara has, internally and externally (the Barrier causes many more injuries than Chaerin thought it did).

       She can't bear to think about Dara's shortened lifespan. And she can't help but notice that Minzy has been avoiding that left wing.

       When Minzy is almost done tending to all the wounds except the virtually trampled wing, Bom bursts into the apartment panting. She sees a flash of Pixie magic coming from a room down the hall so she sprints over there as fast as she can.

       When she walks through the door, her breathing halts abruptly seeing Chaerin on the bed next to Dara's limp wing, Minzy with furrowed eyebrows using her magic with steady hands, an unconscious, pale Dara, and a small pile of black feathers beneath a destroyed, hanging heap of dried blood and mangled inner feathers that are waiting to fall off.

       "Ch...Chaerin," she exhales, devastated. Chaerin looks up, her own face mirroring Bom's because she knows more than well the condition of Dara's wing.

       "She protected me from my own dad, Bom. She sacrificed herself, despite the Barrier and despite the Light magic." Chaerin looks exhausted, mentally and physically. Bom opens to say something but suddenly Dara sharply inhales, her back rising up off the bed, as if in instant response to that word.

       Sacrifice.

       Chaerin snaps her head back to look at Dara and she leans down to cup her face, seeing if Dara woke up. Minzy stands up straight, watching Dara cautiously, and Bom flinches before quickly walking up to the bed to stand next to Minzy.

       Dara doesn't wake up but she moans faintly in pain and when she settles back into stillness, her eyebrows are furrowed. Chaerin runs her hand through Dara's hair in exasperation. Minzy clicks her tongue anxiously and Bom waits with bated breath, trying to stop looking down at that growing pile of feathers.

       "Chaerin, we have to do something about that wing."

       "What...what do you mean?" Chaerin replies with hesitance. Not her wing. Please.

       "The magic is still within the structure of the wing. The longer we leave it there, the more it will spread until it affects Dara's entire body," Minzy explains systematically, glancing at Bom and bowing her head a little. Bom nods in return. No more greeting seems appropriate to either of them.

       "Can't you take it out?" Chaerin asks desperately. Minzy shakes her head.

       "Your dad's magic is too strong," she says quietly. As the other two realize what needs to be done, Bom stumbles, taking a step back and putting her hand on the wall for support. Chaerin straightens up from where she's sitting on the bed in distress.

       "No. No, no no no no. You can't amputate it," she protests, crawling off the bed and standing up. Minzy gulps.

       "Chaerin, we don't have any other ch–"

       "NO! Those wings, they – she loves – you can't just – dammit just please!" Chaerin begs, unable to form a sentence. Her hands come up to grasp her head as tears start to fall down her cheeks again like waterfalls, and Bom and Minzy watch with crying, crying eyes and bleeding hearts.

       "Chae, I know like you do how important Dara's wings are to her," Bom says calmly, calculatedly, stepping forward toward Chaerin. Chaerin doesn't respond, just shakes her head vigorously and looks down, trying to block it out. "But in order to save Dara's life, Chaerin. To save her life, we have to sacrifice this."

       "There's too much ing sacrifice today! I've had enough of Dara sacrificing her fears and her life and her wings for me! I'm not ing worth it!" Chaerin yells, collapsing to the ground and disintegrating into a ball, burying her head in her hands and repeatedly shaking her head. Minzy quickly kneels down next to Chaerin and hugs her close, and Chaerin adapts quickly into the crook of her neck. Her tears stain Minzy's shirt but she can't care less.

       "She loves them so much," Chaerin whispers with a crippled voice. "She loves them so much." Minzy nods like she's placating a child, runs her hand along Chaerin's hair.

       Everything crashes into clarity. Suddenly the entire world is crumbling around Chaerin, so fast and so violently. The fragments of her life are shards of broken glass, they fall and they stab Chaerin in so many places and they carve pain onto her bones and they engrave agony on her organs, and Chaerin is diminished into a ball of crushed emotions and a pathetically failed attempt to make everything right again. But she knows, somewhere along those carved bones, that there's no solution, there's no way to make everything go back to normal again. She can try to get it as close as possible but Dara's left wing isn't coming back, she knows it.

       Dara's sacrifice isn't going to end with her dying. Not like this.

       Chaerin doesn't get the chance to say, "Fine," before the destruction around her disappears into blackness.

       When Chaerin wakes up, she's lying on the bed right next to Dara, and Dara's black wing is embracing her tightly, as if it knows that its other half is about to leave. Dara is still asleep.

       Chaerin blinks her eyes open and sees Minzy and Bom sitting on the couch nearby, talking in hushed tones. They look up and their mouths drop open a bit when they see that Chaerin has woken up. Quickly they rush over to her.

       "I fell asleep?"

       Minzy and Bom nod anxiously. "We haven't amputated the wing yet," Minzy says softly. Chaerin's eyes widen.

       "Why not?!" She knows they have to do it. Quickly, before Dara is affected on a larger scale.

       "Dara wouldn't do anything without asking you, I know that for sure," Bom says, nodding at Dara. "We couldn't amputate it without your permission. We just couldn't."

       "I...thanks," Chaerin says, nodding. "But please. You have to do it. I know that now."

       Minzy takes a deep breath and nods once, setting her jaw before heading over to Dara. Bom clenches her teeth, helping Chaerin off of the bed. Both Chaerin and Bom press a kiss onto the tip of Dara's full, right wing before glancing at Minzy warily.

       "It might be better if you...stay outside," Minzy whispers hesitantly. They both nod. "Oh, and...despite what might happen...Dara won't be awake for any part of this. I'll make sure of that." Chaerin's heart rate quickens.

       "What do you mean 'despite what might happen'? What the is going to happen?" she asks indignantly, protectively.

       "Sometimes pain infiltrates dreams," Bom murmurs with no further explanation.

       Sacrifice.

       Hollowed out, Chaerin follows Bom numbly into the kitchen. They sit at the table in complete silence.

       Chaerin's world is burned to a crisp when Dara begins to scream.

       Chaerin almost blacks out from the anguish she's feeling just listening to Dara's echoing shrieks and shrill howls come from the bedroom. Each sound pierces the air and forms a fist around her heart, squeezing it and suffocating it and crushing it. Her lungs are collapsing and her stomach is twisting and turning and her head is exploding and her heart, her heart is dying like no death imaginable.

       After what feels like a million years, the screaming stops and half an hour later Minzy pops her head out of the doorway, beckoning for Chaerin to come in. Chaerin peels her hands away from her ears and rubs her completely drained, dry eyes and squeezes Bom's hand tightly. Bom looks up at her and her eyes tell her to go in alone. Chaerin bites her lip but nods and squeezes Bom's hand once more before walking to the room.

       "Dara just woke up," Minzy whispers outside the door. Chaerin gasps in surprise before slowly exhaling, trying to calm herself down. She nods briefly and pushes the door open.

       Dara is sitting up against a pillow on the headboard of the bed. There is no trace of a left, majestic, beautiful, graceful, elegant, perfect left wing. Her golden eyes are staring, emotionless, at the end of the bed in front of her but they shift up to the door when Chaerin walks in. Her pale lips pull up into a slight smile but her eyes are still so hollow. They look dead. Empty.

       Chaerin crawls onto the bed and sits next to Dara on her right side, putting her left arm around Dara. They both sigh with some sort of partial content. Dara's right wing naturally wraps around Chaerin gently, warmly.

       "Does my arm feel...not like a bonfire?" Chaerin asks jokingly but painfully. Dara laughs a little but she's too exhausted to do any more. Chaerin understands so she smiles and presses her lips on Dara's temple. Dara closes her eyes, savoring this moment of simple silence.

       Dara leans her head on Chaerin's shoulder and Chaerin leans her head slightly onto Dara's head and they stay there for a couple of minutes, unmoving. Chaerin tenses a tiny bit when a tear from Dara's eye trickles onto her shoulder.

       "My wing is gone," Dara whispers, agonizingly quiet. Chaerin can tell that Dara isn't looking for some useless reassurance in return because Dara is smart enough to know that her wing is never coming back. So Chaerin just tells her the truth.

       "You're still beautiful. And I still love you."

       Dara nods with a tiny smile and closes her eyes again. Her wing brings Chaerin just a bit closer. For now, her love is enough for Dara.

       After another few minutes of silence, Chaerin asks a burning question.

       "Why would you do that?"

       Dara seems to understand.

       Sacrifice.

       "If I didn't do that then you wouldn't smile." Dara chuckles a little. "Did you forget? You're cute when you smile."

       Chaerin laughs in disbelief and distorted relief as she remembers Dara's words from what feels like eons ago. Those were some of the first words Dara said that elicited some kind of emotion in Chaerin that wasn't accompanied by complete terror.

       "You're unbelievable," she laughs. Dara laughs her tinkling laughter along with Chaerin and they both fall into an amazingly delightful silence. Chaerin had forgotten what Dara's laughter sounded like and Dara had forgotten what Chaerin looked like carefree.

       Dara grabs onto Chaerin's right hand and lets the warmth seep into her and that comforting electricity crackle up her wrist. Chaerin rubs circles on the back of Dara's palm and Dara sinks into her embrace.

       "Let's stay like this for a while," she mumbles. Chaerin squeezes her hand tightly.

       Anything you want. My angel.

       "Dad, do you understand what you did to her?" Chaerin asks with a dangerously low tone. Her father shifts his weight guiltily.

       Chaerin had stayed with Dara, never leaving her side for more than a minute, for a week after the incident. Around three days after Dara lost her wing, Chaerin's father began to call her repeatedly, leaving messages and texts. She was always planning on revisiting him but somehow Dara also joined in the persuasion.

       Why is Dara so nice again? Chaerin shook her head with incredulity when Dara told her to visit her father. He destroyed her and she wants me to go see him again. She's actually a divine creature, isn't she?

       So she's here, boiling mad at her father who looks like a dog that ran away and came back in shame.

       "The recovery took at least three hours, with Minzy's help. But her wing was...amputated," Chaerin forces herself to say. He looks startled. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. Finally, though, he finds the words to say.

       "Chaerin, I know I can't take back what I did. But I'm truly very sorry. I've never felt so guilty and regretful in my life. Trust me, I'll kill myself before I assume a thing about another Creature again. And tell...Dara. Tell Dara that I'm sorry." His eyes are so deeply green and so deeply pained.

       The words sound so scripted and rehearsed but Chaerin believes him with all her heart, even more so.

       They make things right again and when Chaerin returns to Dara's house, Dara is resting and Chaerin crawls into bed next to her. Dara snuggles into Chaerin's side in her sleep and they slumber together until the next morning, when Bom wakes them up with clanging pots and pans and a violent need for them to go out and buy corn for her. Everything returns to how it was before, and just one black wing is more than enough for Chaerin.

       She won't ever need to sacrifice anything for me again.

       I'll make sure of that.

       For her.