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Sara's relationship with her wings had been, for lack of a better term, complicated for as long as she could remember.
She knew that she could once use them to fly, vivid memories of soaring high above the forests she had called home resting just on the edges of her mind.
She wasn't able to do that anymore, though, not since the fall. All four of her wings had been broken as she woke up by the roadside, and once she had been taken in by the Kujou clan, and they had given her what treatment they could (too late and too little, she had realised even then), Lord Takayuki had forbidden her from displaying them openly.
They had healed crooked and wrong, and, as she grew, they had failed to grow with her.
She doesn't know if it was because of the lack of use, the fact that the Kujou healers didn't know anything about mending broken wings, or that Lord Takayuki forced her to bind them after she'd scared some visiting dignitary by unfurling them without realising she wasn't alone.
She does know, however, that she'll never fly again, not truly. The most she's ever managed without searing pain shooting up along her entire spine is to carefully flap them while standing on the ground. She's never managed to even as much as glide on them. The fact that she has to use a wind glider whenever there is a need for it is a shame that she has never been able to shake.
She knows that Lord Takayuki is pleased that she avoids using them, but she can't quite manage to forget the feeling of the wind carrying her between and above the treetops and slopes.
Sara is eternally grateful to the almighty Shogun for giving her the vision tied to her waist and the opportunity at a new life, but sometimes, when she's alone, she can't quite convince herself that she wouldn't give it all up to have her wings back.
---
Kokomi loves Sara's wings.
She has been intrigued by them since the first time she saw them, on some battlefield on the shoals of Yashiori.
While the soldiers of the resistance called them an omen of bad luck, like the crows that circled above the war camps, Kokomi couldn't help but to think that they were beautiful, black as midnight, crackling with lightning as they unfurled and then quickly disappeared again.
Following that initial encounter, Kokomi had spent so much time reading about Tengu that she would never admit it to anyone, not even to Gorou.
When he had asked about her sudden request for treaties and legends about their kind, he'd thankfully accepted her excuse that "it's important to understand the capabilities of your enemies, Gorou. If Tengu think differently than humans, it's to our advantage to know."
She didn't actually know why exactly she wanted to learn more about Tengu wings, but she did enjoy learning things. That was the conclusion she decided to run with.
Once she had gotten to know Sara, however, it had quickly become apparent that her admiration wasn't one that they shared. Sara was always quick to, in her typical (endearingly awkward) fashion, attempt to change the subject whenever the topic was raised.
She'd let it drop every time, of course. Sara was skittish about talking about emotions, and she knew that making Sara uncomfortable would make her return to the laconic and tense woman she'd been when they first started interacting.
She could tell that the topic was a sensitive one just by the way she stiffened and avoided Kokomi's eyes whenever it was approached.
They'd get there eventually though. Kokomi knew that Sara, while apprehensive, was warming up to her.
She' just have to be patient.
---
Meeting Kokomi, Sara had long since concluded, did nothing to help her on the issue of her wings.
Unlike practically every other human she had ever met, Kokomi did not seem to view them with suspicion and fear. On the contrary; she held a great deal of interest in them, often asking questions about Sara's heritage and, at times, asked her about them directly.
Sara was hesitant to answer at first. Kokomi would no doubt react with the same revulsion she was used to once she saw them for herself, realise her mistake, and then distance herself in fear.
She knew that she was incompetent when it came to making acquaintances that were willing to spend time with her, and she was reluctant to let go of the progress she had, surprisingly, made with Kokomi on the matter.
She would try to steer the conversation away from her wings at every opportunity, and she knew that Kokomi was simply humouring her in allowing it.
Over time, as the negotiations on Watatsumi wore on, the cause of her reluctance shifted.
She no longer worried about the reaction to her wings in and of itself.
Instead she worried that Kokomi would lose interest in her.
Sara had preciously few friends (none, but admitting that, even to herself, would be an unthinkable failure) between her schedule, position, and lack of experience in interacting with people privately.
She was almost a bit embarrassed about how quickly she'd latched on to Kokomi's company once it had been offered to her.
She had ultimately given in during the final weeks of the peace negotiations on Watatsumi, hoping to extend Kokomi's interest in her, one evening when they were sharing tea in Kokomi's cave to destress from the day.
"Kokomi" she'd started. She'd almost changed her mind as soon as Kokomi hummed softly and looked up from her teacup, but she had braved through it. Kokomi's smile as she continued asking her if she would like to see her wings had made the anxiety worth it.
---
When Sara finally decided to show Kokomi her wings, Kokomi had been ecstatic. Not only did she finally get to see them up close, she also knew that allowing her to do so was an extension of trust.
Sara, in turn, had seemed surprised that Kokomi didn't shy away from her as she unfurled them.
"Most humans I have encountered find them unsettling." she said in response to the questioning look Kokomi gave her, eyes not meeting Kokomi's. "Besides, they're not very impressive. Not as they should be, at least. I have some trouble preening them on my own, given their ungainly position, and I have never developed a habit of asking for assistance in the matter."
There was an unmistakable melancholy in her voice as she spoke. Sara had obliquely implied that there was something wrong with her wings before, but she had never elaborated.
Kokomi thought Sara's wings looked pristine, but she supposed that she wasn't an expert on Tengu wings. The topic did present an opportunity, however.
"Would you like some?" she asked, breaking the short bout of silence. Sara looked taken aback at the question. "Help. With preening your wings, I mean. If you show me how to do it I'll help you."
Sara was again silent for a moment, before moving to sit down in front of Kokomi and explaining how to care for them.
She was tense as the string of her bow as Kokomi placed her hand on the joint of one of the smaller pair, but as she continued to carefully realign the feathers and apply the oils as she had been instructed, Sara had soon deflated and relaxed.
Kokomi usually felt drained after interacting with people, but it was nice, seeing the otherwise tense and stoic Tengu woman be so relaxed that she looked like she was about to fall asleep on the spot.
She'd decided then and there that she would convince Sara to allow her to preen her wings again.
---
In hindsight, Sara had concluded that it had been a mistake to allow Kokomi to preen her wings.
She had never allowed anyone to touch them before, not since the Kujou clan healers had failed to save them, and she found herself regretting the choice.
Not because it had been unpleasant, but rather for the opposite reason. When Kokomi had touched her upper left wing, she'd had barely been able to stifle a groan and the accompanying shudder.
The issue had only intensified since then. Kokomi had appeared to be rather taken with the idea of making the allopreening session a repeat occasion, and Sara had a hard time denying her.
She had never made a habit out of granting herself things she desired, so it was only fair that she allowed herself this harmless indulgence.
She had been told that she did deserve to engage in leisure and grant herself various desires, no matter how banal they were, by both Guuji Yae and the Traveller since the end of the civil war, after all.
In fact, most of the turmoil she felt at the time was to blame on the Traveller's floating companion.
When Sara had declared her intent to improve her people skills, the creature had suggested that the first step to interacting with people was to understand how they felt.
It had then dashed away, accompanied by the Traveller, to laden her with a number of books they deemed fitting for the purpose.
The two had almost immediately started to bicker about the accuracy of the books in question, but Sara had accepted them nonetheless.
It was in one of the books, a ridiculous and pretentiously titled "light novel" from Yae Publishing House, that Sara had found the description of the fluttering feeling she felt in her stomach whenever Kokomi preened her wings.
It had taken her a while to accept the meaning of it, but she was self aware enough to know that she was inadequate at expressing her feelings, not feeling them in the first place.
She couldn't let Kokomi know. That would mean risking Kokomi no longer being willing to continue preening her wings, or, if the soldiers she often heard talking about such matters around their campfires were to be believed, become unwilling to spend time with her at all.
She'd simply have to accept her current lot in life, not quite what she wants, but good enough, as she always had.
---
It had become successively more difficult for Sara to keep to her decision to not come clean to Kokomi as time wore on.
Just as the negotiations on Watatsumi were about to end, and continuing once Kokomi had come to Narukami Island to attend the celebrations of the ceasefire, Kokomi had begun also massaging her back. She'd offered when Sara, in a moment of hazy weakness, had admitted that her back often hurt from extending her wings for too long.
In a moment of wistful stupidity, or perhaps obscene desperation to take what she could get, she'd agreed.
She'd almost blacked out when Kokomi had begun rubbing circles at the base of her wings. She would never tell anyone.
That too had been a lie. In another moment of weakness, Guuji Yae had managed to trick her into slipping up and off-handedly mention it as she had told Sara that her wings looked to be in better shape than usual.
What followed was one of the worst conversations of Sara's life, almost as mortifying as the time when the Guuji had taken her aside and explained, painfully in-depth, that while Sara "quite certainly believed" it improper, it was in fact very fine to desire other women, and that it would be a proclivity the two had in common.
She'd wanted to sink into the ground then, and she'd wanted so desperately to simply be able to take to the skies and fly away as Guuji Yae had needled her about the exact nature her and Kokomi's friendship.
By far the worst part, however, had followed Sara's flustered insistence that all Kokomi was doing was helping her care for her wings.
Sara was detached from the customs of her people, she knew. She remembered only scant details about her life before she was thrown off the cliff, and by extension she also remembered very little about the other Tengu living in the forest.
As such, whether out of pity, looking for favours to collect on later, or actual desire to help Sara, Guuji Yae had often (and very generously, but she wouldn't admit the true depths of her gratitude to the Guuji, she was smug enough as it were) answered Sara's questions about her people whenever she swallowed her pride and asked, always meeting Sara's questions with her customary teasing.
Thus, when the Guuji's mouth twisted up into that terrible smirk of hers, Sara had known that she was in for it.
Sara had thought the the previous part of their talk had been mortifying.
The explanation of what precisely the custom of preening another's wings and being, as the Guuji had phrased it, "touchy" with their back, symbolised among her people was, without any doubt, the worst moment of Sara's entire life.
If so held with a sword to her neck she would still stick to the fact that she would rather face the humiliation she had suffered at the hands of the Fatui witch, even falling from that cliff as a child, again rather than speak even a word of it to anyone.
She also, terrifyingly, knew that she had to come clean to Kokomi about the exact nature of the things Sara had unwittingly tricked her into participating in. It was unthinkable to do anything else.
Kokomi deserved to at least know before she, as she no doubt would, distanced herself from Sara.
---
Approaching Kokomi in the guest room she had been staying in at the Kujou compound since her arrival on Narukami had, as many things relating to her had been in Sara's recent memory, been truly terrifying.
She'd concocted a plan to invite Kokomi to one of the more discreet Teahouses in Inazuma City the following morning, to limit how public the inevitable fallout of the entire debacle would be.
When Sara had asked, however, Kokomi had looked far more pleased than Sara had ever dared to anticipate.
"Are you asking me out, Sara? Finally, I've waited for what feels like forever! Of course I'll go out with you!"
She'd smiled as brightly as the sun as she spoke, but Sara had barely registered a single word.
What did Kokomi mean "I've waited"?
`
Was she really that obvious?
Nonetheless, Kokomi's enthusiasm was both endearing and encouraging. If she was so elated to be courted, then perhaps the indubitably awkward confession would be received with far less apprehension than Sara had expected.
Yes. This entire thing was going to turn out great
Perhaps the state of her wings truly was fortunate after all.