Chico was being surprisingly supportive today. Not that it was weird in and of itself, because I can’t really remember him being this happy in a long, long time. Smarmy, yes. Gassy, sure. But this burst of pure joy that radiated from him, coursing through his veins, was something I wasn’t expecting--it was too much like how he was when he was first hatched, so new and so excited and so full of love for him, for me, for us, that it brought me to tears at the time.

I was almost to tears now--but it wasn’t from the beauty of his love. He was being so supportive because now that I had no more responsibilities to mask it, now that I had no more excuses to shunt it with, now that the Birdsong breeze blew warm and new and exciting and there was no more delaying my promise--it was time to learn how to fly.

And I was fucking terrified.
Like, I knew the ground. I knew how solid it was, how it felt like beneath my feet, what it felt like to bust my ass on it and get rug-burn. I was friends with the ground; I could run on it super fast, like, you have no idea. I didn’t have that same relationship with the sky, with its...its wind n shit. And I didn’t have the same relationship with my wings that I did with my legs, who were sturdy and honed for asskicking.

I’d always known my wings were there. They were a part of me as any other piece of me, like my skin or my horn or my ears or my ass. But I’d had no reason to use them, cuz if I wanted to move, I walked; if I wanted to go fast, I could run; if I wanted to climb something extra high that was too steep for feet, then I could zpsnk easily through the air, traveling through the currents of time and shock briefly to get to where I needed to go. I had no reason to leave the familiarity of the ground and tempt that broken neck.

But here I was, my wings…there (zpKing, electrical tentacles reaching out from my shoulders like grotesque, shimmering hands) spread and ready for what was gonna go down. I was running and Chico was running beside me, his own wings outstretched, so I could watch him as he flapped a few times and caught the downdrafts necessary to keep aloft. I ran beside him like that, running full circuits around the clearing we’d found to do this (cuz there ain’t no way I was gonna just let anyone see this potential mess) before, finally, I took a stab at it and flapped for the first time, trying to mimic his motions.

It was fucking horrifying the way I didn’t immediately hit the ground, like my legs and entire body predicted. It threw me off guard and I wobbled from where I was briefly gliding in the air; and I lost my lift and fell back down to earth (where I belonged jeez jeez jeez) and I was able to keep my pace running. But it was weird--it was like breaking the ice and something lifted from my shoulders, some dark dread that was twisting its sticky way into the back of my head. I’d…glided a little. I wasn’t dead.

I kept running that circuit (it was great for cardio). Chico kept demonstrating his take off and I tried again, and this time I stayed in the air for much longer, cuz the panic was much smaller. I kept trying, leaping into the air like a magical fucking woodland creature, feeling myself lift into the air for some moments before being gently let back down by the breeze. The air could be my friend, after all.

If it wanted to.


"In ornare vitae leo eu volutpat."

I didn’t notice that anyone else had come up to see; maybe I was hyper aware of any and all eyes of criticism, but at that moment I was too wrapped up in my focus on the task at hand now that the initial fear was…handled somewhat (I’m not sure if it was ever gonna leave, to be honest). Running endless circles with Cheek beside me wasn't’ tiring me--but the strain of using a pair of wings that had never been used since the day I was born was already beginning to take its toll. Muslces that I never even knew I had were beginning to spasm and ache, but I guess that was part of the incentive, because I was pissed that I still had muscles this weak and elated at the idea of punishing them. Thankfully, Chico was too busy to make that last phrase into an innuendo.

I was getting a rhythm, I was feeling the air now and recognizing things. Currents to use as building blocks into an upward ascent. I was having trouble holding onto them (both the currents and my own mastery over my wings were too weak to get a meaningful hold) but at that moment, with gritted teeth and strained, sweat-pricked shoulders, I found some kind of balance between my steady wingbeats and a stronger current of air that gave me lift for several heart-pounding moments--

I could make you a ramp.

--but then a voice came out of nowhere and my concentration slipped, and my wings faltered and I lost my sense of the draft and I was higher than I expected and I fell faster than I was ready for and when I hit the ground my feet couldn’t find themselves--so I crashed in the most humane way, hitting the ground and stumbling to my side, rolling a few times until I skidded to a halt. Before Chico could register that I’d beefed it I was already on my feet, being pissed and embarrassed, especially after seeing who it was.

There was a moment where I couldn’t find an angle to be mad from. “What are you--” Oh, wait, she lives here. “How did you--” Oh, wait, she lives here. “Why are you--” Because she can, because she lives here. “Can’t you just--” No, of fucking course she can’t, you know exactly who she is, stop wasting your breath on that. Since there was no logical attack I could make to make her leave, then it was all gonna have to come from a place of pettiness. “No, I don’t need a ramp, go away.”

Chico came up beside me quietly, grinning and rational. Probably need a ramp.

Shut UP.

But he was right. He showed me in our heads how extra lift could help me get accustomed to the air, even if didn’t have the stamina to stay there. I snorted and shook the dirt from my side, trying my damndest to re-hide the nervousness that jumbled every corner of my body. Which meant relenting. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, my tone stark compared to the outburst I’d given her, “I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean any of it,  I don’t want you to leave. I just....You’re right about the ramp. You just startled me, is all.”

All of it was true--and I was beginning to find that just out-right telling her the naked truth about these things made for a smoother interaction. Doesn’t mean I liked it though; I kept my eyes sharply averted from her, as though looking into my irises would give her a hint about the tumultuous shitstorm going inside my head at the thought of real flying.


"In ornare vitae leo eu volutpat."

A small skittered into the clearing, flashing too quick for my scowling face to see in time before it reached us. But Chico was on the case, deftly pouncing toward his lil’ fuzzy sistercousinthing, a ball full of bursting things like happy and excitement ‘n whatever. He was always down for a tussle with Bro’s lil’est companion.

I turned my glare to Mesec, and it was his turn to be on the recieving end of my stank-face. “Yeah whatever,” I grumbled, when he told me he’d wanted a ramp when he was learning. I was too bothered to admit that the knowledge comforted me--not only because I was apparently going in the right direction in regards to learning to fly ‘n all that shit, but the image of Mesec learning to fly penetrated my thoughts, images of someone like him stumbling like I was doing now with the air that wasn’t quite sure about being friends yet. It soothed me, I guess; remembering others had to learn how to fly at some point, too. Even if it was hard to imagine This Tall Bastard Iso having to learn anything.

“Don’t….don’t laugh,” I said, forgetting to thank her for the ramp (that was too high by far what the shit, I thought she said a ramp not a new fucking plateau). I got into position, too nerve-wracked to tell them to get the hell out the way; instead of thinking about it and making the nervousness palpable on my face, I just booked it, driving headlong up and over on the elevated plane, feeling for my wings once more as Chico watched on from where he was tussled with Lyra.

The height I was able to immediately achieve caught me off guard (again) and even though the lift was so much firmer up there than it was down below, I still wobbled out of the sky, this time keeping my footing when I touched the ground even though I came down hard. I wrinkled my nose, knowing I was giving my body a pounding but being too worked up to feel it straight. The instant reply I got from Chico in my head was laced with his laughter, as well as an off putting filter coloring the whole thing that told me I was landing all wrong. He was too busy with Lyra to show me what to do now, though; I snorted. I whipped by gaze at Mesec. “How--uh--how do you land?” I was too focused on getting this shit done and over with to preoccupy myself with embarrassment.


"In ornare vitae leo eu volutpat."