The rain was falling slowly, though the whole day itself seemed to be that way. There wasn't very much traffic, though it was Saturday and there was doubt that many people would like to go outside during the fall rain. Everything was gray in the city, the cold drizzle not making it any better. A long black coat swept along a few inches off of the ground, revealing heavy black boots beneath black pants. Dark brown hair with a touch of red in it was long enough to spill into the neck of the jacket and disappear from sight beneath it. Stormy blue eyes stared around himself, wary of anyone and anything that might be around him. It was habit to be wary. It had become that way a long time ago. It was that which made him turn into that small alleyway. To most it was just an alleyway. They were allover the city, full of trash or animals... but because this man looked all around himself, he saw what nobody else would have noticed. He stopped, staring into the alleyway suspiciously. That couldn't have been what he thought it was. Could he be seeing things? In that pile over there, the one made of boxes, bags, garbage... and a single pure white wing. It looked like the wing of a dove, but was much too large. A swan perhaps? But what would a swan be doing in the city? He moved closer, an unnatural curiosity taking him over.

The alleyway was in no way, shape, or form a clean alleyway. Dirt and mud covered near everything. But something about that wing made him wonder. Was it alive? Was it dead? The pile twitched slightly, a hand protruding from it. A human hand. The man nearly cried out in surprise, but stopped even as he jumped. He leaned forward, tapping the hand with his own gloved one. Even through his glove he could feel heat in the skin. Whomever it was was still alive and breathing. He tugged the hand slightly, trying to get the person to move.

“Hey,” he grunted out, “move... wake up.” He didn't see this very often. He knew what to do with a dead body. He knew what to do with an injured person. But he didn't even know what this creature was. Without warning, blue eyes lifted, terrified from the pile, head full of dirt and looking more like a bag of garbage than anything else. The mouth opened as though to scream, but no sound came out. The another hand arose from the garbage and the two hands pressed tightly over where the ears appeared to be beneath that dirty, matted hair. It was evident that the winged creature was panic-stricken. He drew back slightly, lowering his voice a bit. “I won't hurt you,” he said, trying to sound gentle. That was a switch. He'd trained his voice over many years to sound harsh and demanding as his life needed him to be. But now it was just working against him. The creature became so frightened that it seemed t pass out, suddenly going limp in the garbage again. He couldn't just leave it there, could he? He had half a mind to walk away and act as though he'd never seen the creature, but something stopped him from taking those few steps to the end of the alleyway and heading home.

He reached out again and this time began to dig. He pulled the creature free of the garbage and found that it was a young man, just with the wings of a bird. A very unclean young man. There were wounds all over a perfectly muscled body, the hair amazingly long, but terribly matted. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around the body of the man, lifting him from the ground with ease with his strong arms. Though the thought in his mind as he began for home was 'what are you...?'