id: 622
name: Flight Practice on a Blustery Autumn Morning
author: Frugert
date: 5th February 2022
text len: 40859
views: 211

PDF: https://mega.nz/file/zepCHCLS#lp_TKcYMSbmgomiLQGCJ8hdqf8y3sBXMw0ntqC9_P3I



The Razorback River travels a good 30 miles from its primary source at Ripple Lake to its output at Olmo Bay. A good 30 miles, but the river takes nearly twice that distance to make the trip across the Eastern lowlands of Autoria. This is on account of its chaotic zigging and zagging all along the way, as if it had been carved out the land by the trailing tail of a very bow-legged (and very drunk) giant dinosaur.

Follow this winding river from source to output, dodging joyriding motorboats, ducking under interprovince highway bridges, and doing your best not to snag on the oak roots lining the banks, and eventually you’ll come to the bayside town of Greenwater. 

Greenwater: a cozy piece of Autoricana where construction of a building taller than three stories would be the talk of the town for weeks.  Suburban outskirts still untouched by the 1990s construction boom — meaning wood-panel abodes instead of identical plaster-template housing. A downtown district that still bore the distinct late 19th century brick and mortar motif of the great eastern expansion. High arching windows. Wrought-iron fencing. Winding, but still grid-like town streets that seemed more suited for carriages than cars.

A real postcard town.

It seemed strange to be a bayside town untouched by the commercial and urban beefing-up offered by access to the Dayvan Ocean. But Olmo Bay wasn’t exactly the kind of access favored by hulking container ships, what with the little islands pock-marking the waterways like freckles on Mother Nature’s cheeky smile. No, Greenwater had to settle with small sloops and a single railway cutting through the town from north to south for its commerce, guaranteeing small town life for the foreseeable future.

This was quite alright for Ray and Venni. Both were born in Greenwater. Both were raised in Greenwater. Both planned higher education in Greenwater. And, though both had entered that stage of early twenty-something youth that called for restlessness and a desire for worldly travel, both seemed content with growing closer and closer to each other in the soft, muted Autorian backdrop of Greenwater. 

This was a little strange. Not just because of the lack of restlessness, but also because, while Ray was human, Venni was… human-ish. 

Ray had the lanky yet taut body of a high school track star, with short blonde curls that fluttered when he ran.

enni had the stout and soft body of a studious scholar, with short black bangs brushing against her full moon glasses.

She also — in place of arms — had wings dark as the soot from a cozy study fireplace and — in the place of legs — had talons black as ink from a freshly-dipped crow feather quill.

She wasn’t an anomaly in Greenwater, or Autoria, or the whole world of Nannou. Half-human, half-creature hybrids were as even-spread and even-accepted as the spread of the sexes around the world. Still, some found it odd that track star Ray would fall for studious Venni (‘and a half-kin at that!’) but that didn’t stop them from drifting closer and closer together as the years went by.
	

♦	♦	♦


Saturday, 10 o’clock in the morning — just late enough for the rising sun to burn away the dayvanic fog. The elms lining Oak Street shivered in the cool autumn breeze, still having just enough of their golden leaves to rustle rather than rattle. They still had shed enough foliage to give the ground a nice crunchy covering of dead leaves; they blew along the roads, giving substance to the vortices of sea breeze and the wisps stirred up by passing cars. On a lazy Saturday like this, with only the cold, still autumn air to work with, sound was soft and muted. Muffled chattering from inside cafes — the air a bit too chilly for the patrons to use the outdoor tables. The soft engine rumble and asphalt hiss of the occasional car. The twitter of little chickadees chasing each other overlaid by cawing crows. And of course the omnipresent rustle of leaves on both the ground and in the trees.

A dinging door chime joined the soundscape as Ray and Venni left their favorite morning haunt: Café Rosé — a name chosen purely for the rhyme; Harold, the owner, didn’t sell a drop of wine.

“We’ll have them back before noon, promise!” Ray called over his shoulder, raising his steaming mug of hot cocoa in farewell with one hand and adjusting the small duffle bag on his shoulder with the other.

Harold just smiled and waved goodbye. It seemed with costumers as regular as Ray and Venni, trust was a given.

“You sure we’ll be finished by then?” Venni said. She bent forward a bit and blew at her cocoa, sending steam wafting about. The mug was specially made for her, with a wide brim in the middle that let her easily balance it between the joints of her folded wings. It even had her name painted on it: ‘VENNI!’ in rainbow surrounded by multicolored hearts — the work of Harold’s little daughter Lisa.

“No doubt,” Ray said, taking a small sip of his drink. “You always tap out at around the half-hour mark.”

“Oh shush. I’d like to see you try to flap these big things on-and-on for that long.”

Ray shrugged then smiled. “You could always join me on my early-morning jogs.”

“And like I’ve said a gazillion times before, you’re definition of early morning is borderline psychotic! Five in the morning? I’d only get five hours of sleep, six tops!” Satisfied with her cooling, Venni took a sip, a little color coming to her cheeks as she let out a quiet, satisfied hum.

Ray smirked a little, looking like he was about to make a crack about the late hours his lady friend spent in her study, but instead just shrugged again. “Suit yourself. Maybe we’ll break a record today. It does look pretty windy.” 

Venni nodded, her eyes tracking the speed of the dead leaves whirling about the street. Despite her sweater, she shivered as a gust hit her. She cleared her throat and said, “Ray, could you?”

“Hm? Oh, sure.” Ray took a hand and adjusted Venni’s scarf, covering her neck more snuggly but leaving enough room for her to keep sipping at her cocoa.

“Glasses too?”

Ray smiled and gently slid her spectacles back up her nose.

“Thank you sweetie,” she said, blushing a bit as she leaned sideways and gave him a tender ruffle with her feathers.

He blushed a bit himself at the sensation of her soft feathers caressing his side. “Nothing to it.” 	

They walked in silence for a beat, the only sound between them the pad of Ray’s sneakers and the click of Venni’s talons on the sidewalk. When they came to a corner, she perked up.

“Can we take Bayview? I bet in this weather the kite surfers are really going at it.”

“Yeah, no prob.” Ray turned right, following along with Venni for a block before making a left onto Bayview Boulevard. Being a wide four-lane it lived up to its namesake, giving a nice chunk of horizon for pedestrians to get a satisfying view of Olmo Bay. 

As Venni predicted, scores of windsurfers were taking advantage of the morning’s dayvanic winds. Little dots of surfers hung tight to invisible chords connecting them to their wind-blown kites like charioteers to airborne horses. Despite their number and their proximity there was no trouble among the sportsmen — no tangles, collisions, or wipeouts as they weaved between Olmo Bay’s islets, dragged along by their flocks of colorful canvas. 

“Look at them go,” Venni said. “I bet all of them, well a bunch anyways, are Queliquian.”

“Are what?” Ray said.

“The Queliquage! Didn’t I tell you about them before?”

“When did you read about them?”

After a beat, Venni said “last night.”

Ray chuckled. “Then no — pretty sure you haven’t told me about them.”

Venni gave him half a second of a dirty look before brightening up. “Do you want me to?”

“Shoot,” Ray said, taking a sip of his cocoa.

Venni immediately fired off into her cheery lecture voice, a voice Ray suspected — if her timidity in class presentations was any clue — she only shared with people she was very close with.

“The Queliquage are a people indigenous to the islands and archipelagos of the southeast Dayvanic Ocean, some of them even going as far down as the southern polar waters. They’re most well known for their sailing knowledge — spectacular considering how far back their oral history goes in relation to the history of Nannou as we know it. They’re especially adept at kite sailing, or surfing if you want. In fact you see how all their kites have different patterns and colors? It’s not just decoration: each island they colonized ended up with a specific Queliquian clan, represented by those patterns and colors — sort of like a kind of flag or a kind of family crest. The tradition goes back thousands of years and…”

Ray smiled and listened along intently, occasionally sipping at his cocoa. Sometimes it felt like half the reason he gravitated towards Venni in the first place was how much she made up for all the bookishness he missed out on with the hours he spent on track and field. He still had time for studies and such, but nothing really beat the kind of enthusiasm and esoteric subjects she flew over. By then, she was getting so enthusiastic she was gesturing slightly with her clamped wings, putting her mug in danger of spilling cocoa all over her scarf.

“Hold on, slow down there, Ven,” Ray said. “You’re gonna break Lisa’s cup and her heart if you’re not careful with that.”

"Right right sorry.” She paused to steady it and take a long sip of her cocoa. After exhaling a misty sigh of satisfaction, she asked, “Now, I was at how they traveled east across the Dayvanic to old Autoria, right?”

“Yeah, but you might want to speed it up or save it for later. Meddle Park’s coming up.”

And so it was. Up ahead, snug up against the southern side of Bayview Boulevard was a grand rectangle of recreational green, gold and blue in the midst of Greenwater’s squat urban brick-red and concrete-grey. Street sounds of trundling cars and chatting pedestrians joined up with cheery park ambience — laughing children, squeaking playground equipment, even the quiet warbling quacks of ducks chasing after tossed bread if you listened hard enough.

Ray and Venni walked along the brick and wrought iron fence separating street from park. It seemed Venni had settled on saving her lecture for later, as she was busy gulping down the last of her cocoa with wings that jittered with excitement. Ray, having just finished his, unzipped his duffle and carefully settled his mug inside, careful to keep it padded from the other implements taking up space in the bag. By the time they reached the park’s front gate — an elaborate iron arch with ‘Meddle Park’ writ along the top — Venni’s mug had joined its partner and both she and Ray were ready for the late morning’s exercise.

A blustery gust greeted the two as they stepped past the gate and onto the park’s main path. The maples and oaks and elms rustled above and around the pathway, muting the bustle of the street and letting the merriment of the park envelope the visitors in a blanket of crisp autumn cheer. Ahead the central field opened up before them, the green spread pockmarked by breakfast picnickers and dog-walkers and Saturday morning fun-lovers of all shapes, sizes, and species. On the opposite edge lay Meddle Pond — its surface sparkling fiercely in the morning sun thanks to ripples stirred up by the autumn wind.

An autumn wind perfect for flight practice. 

“How about the northeast quarter?” Ray said, nodding his head towards that direction. “Looks pretty empty and—” he licked a finger and stuck it skyward “—seems like the wind is going west. That should give you time to gain some height without worrying about trees.”

Venni nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

The two made their way around the green, following a path that took them past the park’s playground. Tots and tykes scampered through the woodchips, giggling and screaming as they circled about the equipment, all of it cast iron and woodworks — relics from a bygone era where bruises and splinters were seen as character builders rather than health risks. 

Ray was happy to see that there were also quite a few half-kin children playing along with human friends: a lamia with her snake half coiled around the monkey bars as she helped a girl swing from end to end; an Arabian jackal girl building little Kasbahs in the sandbox as a jittery boy next to her decorated the miniature ramparts with twigs and autumn leaves; a werebat competing with a small group of friends over who could hang upside down from the pull-up bars the longest — a pretty one-sided competition. All the while, their folks lined the grounds on benches, chatting with other parents and occasionally tossing a glance playground-ward to make sure the playing was staying nice. 

Some things — like prejudice — Ray was happy to leave behind in those bygone eras. The feeling brought a smile to his face and made him drift over to Venni, giving her a sudden one-armed hug.

“What was that for,” she said, giggling and returning the gesture with a little wing-hug of her own.

“Nothing,” he said, planting a kiss on the top of her black hair. “Just making the most of the present.”

Venni laughed, untangling herself and hurrying on to their destination in the relatively-empty part of the field. “Come on let’s get this show on the road!”

“Alrighty-roo.” He jogged along with her, shrugging off the duffle to the ground before taking a knee and unzipping it. While Venni unfurled her wings wide and did warm-up stretches, Ray brought out their tools of the trade: an aviator’s helmet with matching goggles for her and an old pair of football shoulder pads for him.

“C’mere, Ven,” he said, “let’s get you suited up.”

Venni hopped over, shedding a few feathers as she gave her wings one last stretch and ruffle. She lifted up her head and closed her eyes as Ray gently slipped off her glasses and scarf before sliding the aviator’s helmet over her head. As he made sure the prescription goggles were snug in place, he had to stifle a chuckle at the way they magnified her eyes even more than her spectacles did. 

“Can you see okay?” He asked as he buckled up her chinstrap. “Nothing out of place or too tight?”

“Nope, all good,” she said.

“Fantastic.” Ray bent down and scooped up the old, scuffed football shoulder pads — loaned by a buddy on the varsity team. A big guy, but all Ray really needed was protection, not form-fitting presentation. He slipped it on and strapped down, hopping about a few times to make sure it was safely secured. Once satisfied, he circled around Venni and helped her unzip her vest-like winter sweater, a trio of strategically-placed zippers allowing her to slip out without any discomfort to her great black wings. The shed garb revealed her exercise clothes underneath — a much more aerodynamic form of jogger’s shorts and tank-top. 

Already the two were attracting attention from other park-goers. Those that had seen them at work before offered a glance and a smile. Those new to the spectacle gave a bit more interest, including, Ray noticed, a boy and his mother. The little guy pointed out him and Venni to mom, his excited questions or exclamations or insinuations too quiet to be heard over the distance. Ray offered a friendly little wave as mom gently batted down his hand, perhaps quietly scolding the tyke over the impoliteness of pointing, but Ray knew there was no harm behind it.

After a last hop and shake to make sure his pads were fit, Ray turned to Venni. “I’m all set. You?”

“Ready!” she said.

He nodded and, after giving one last-second judgment of wind direction, got into a runner’s crouch facing the breeze. “Then up you go!”

With a few huffs and puffs to psyche herself up, Venni gave a little squeak of a “hup!” and pounced on top of Ray, her strong talons getting a firm grip on his borrowed shoulder pads. He flexed and tensed his arms against the ground, giving her a sturdy perch to work with as she gently wobbled her body and wings, eventually finding her balance.

“Up?” Ray said.

“Up!” Venni said.

Slowly, with all the athletic balance a track star can muster, Ray brought himself up to his full height. He could feel every nervous jerk and wobble from Venni as she kept her little balancing act up all along the way, her large wings extended like the world’s featheriest tightrope pole. By the time the two of them were at their zenith, they had attracted a lot more attention; a few picnickers had paused meals to crane their heads, while a couple of teens had their phones up. 

It didn’t bother Ray or Venni too much, them having done it before. And it wasn’t every day a parkgoer got to see what looked like two people pretending to be personifications of the bottom half of an ancient Autorican totem pole.

But things were about to get a bit more exciting than ancient anthropomorphic Autorican deities.

Ray sensed a sudden surge in the autumn breeze. “Takeoff?” he said.

Venni tensed her talons and her wings, eyes set and determined behind her flight goggles. “Takeoff!”

Ray exploded forward like the living aircraft catapult he was — upper body balancing Venni’s weight with gyroscopic efficiency. The familiar sensations came to him: the weightless feeling in his shoulders as Venni poised her wings and gathered up the breeze beneath her, then the sudden pumping and billowing of air around him as she began beating her great wings, and finally the sudden exhilarating release of pressure as she hurled herself skyward with a triumphant squawk and burst of loose feathers.

Liftoff.

All heads and cameras craned up as Venni bid farewell to mother Nannou and spread her wings to embrace sister sky. Kiting herself on the cool autumn wind, she raced upwards, wings beating in practiced rhythm as she let the elements do most of the work. After her one triumphant exaltation, she turned completely silent as she slipped into flight mode — autopilot if you will: the muscles of her hominid half rigid in as aerodynamic a form they could muster, her crow legs snapped tight together to form a steering tail, her soft and studious face turning stern and determined as every physical and mental muscle united to one goal: soaring. 

And how she did soar.

Ray watched along with the rest of the park, stopping his pell-mell run just in time to keep his stride from kicking over a picnicking couple’s basket. As fit as he was, pulling off a burst of speed like that left him a bit short of breath, but he was panting through a smile as wide as the Dayvanic Ocean while he watched Venni climb higher and higher into the air. The autumn wind felt good on his lightly sweaty face. It felt even better knowing that same breeze was carrying his half-kin girlfriend into the open blue.
After a few circles of the field to get into her rhythm, Venni settled on cruising just above the tree tops; her wings seemed to beat in time with rustling of the leaves as if the flapping itself was conducting the breeze like a feathery maestro.

Ray cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted up: “Perfect takeoff, Ven! That was dynamite!”

She responded by doing an ecstatic corkscrew in the air — a maneuver that cost her a few yards of altitude and a few years off of Ray’s life, but his panic passed into relief as she easily regained the lost momentum with a few confident beats of her wings. He chastised himself for his own lack of confidence in her; when he thought about it, Venni was probably as athletic in the sky as he was on the ground. And he didn’t even have the excuse of being a true-blue scholar on the side.

“Your friend?”

Ray looked down. The couple whose picnic he had almost ruined was watching along with him, the man offering a raised eyebrow along with his question.

“My girlfriend,” Ray said, looking back skyward. 

“Nice catch,” the man said.

“More of a matchmake. We got paired up for a project in lit. I was planning on just mooching off of her work but it turned out her gung-ho attitude was pretty catching and next thing I knew—” Ray stopped, realizing he was rambling at a complete stranger. He glanced back down, but the man merely grinned up at him and gave him a nod.

“You like her a lot,” he said.

Ray smiled. “She’s one in a billion. . . Yeah, that’s one for the books!” he yelled as he turned his attention back to Venni. She had just completed another lap of their corner of the field. His words seemed to boost her up a yard or two, but then she began to dip down.

“Huh.”

This was new. Venni’s endurance track record wasn’t exactly something he’d pin on a fridge, but even this was a bit much for her — it hadn’t even been five minutes. 
His confusion turned to concern as he noticed her descent was taking her towards Meddle Pond. Then it turned to alarm when he realized she was streamlining her body and picking up speed. His breath caught in his throat and his hands inadvertently flew to the back of his head as watched the love of his young life seem to take a sickening nose-dive towards the surface of the pond. He vaguely heard the couple beside him gasp in horror, his own attention riveted on the shrinking distance between Venni and disaster: yards, feet, inches…

It was lucky that Ray’s eyes were wide with panic, because if he had blinked he would have missed it.

Just when it seemed Venni was about to do a catastrophic imitation of an aerial torpedo, She flung open her wings and swept over the shimmering surface of the pond. But that wasn’t enough for her; as she rocketed along she allowed one of her legs to dip down, a talon gently skimming along the water to leave a small rooster tail of wake behind her. She kept up her little escapade all the way to the pond’s shore where she gave a hearty beat of her wings and a whoop of triumph — her actions sending a small flock of ducks beneath her flapping and quacking about in panic, anger, and maybe even a little envy.

Ray was struck dumb, unable to do anything but lower his hands from his head and add his earnest applause to the cheering and whistling coming from the crowd about the park. Venni gently arced upwards, spinning in an easy circle to give everyone a small view of her triumphant yet still concentrated face.
Realizing he had been holding in a breath, Ray let it out, a smile creeping back onto his face as he tracked Venni’s progress into the clear blue autumn sky. “One in a billion,” he muttered. 

And then it all went wrong.

Later, he would swear to himself that he first felt it on the nape of his neck — a tiny brush on his little hairs signifying that first disastrous flux in the breeze. ‘Maybe,’ he would think to himself on restless nights where the dayvanic winds rattled against his sill, ‘I had enough time to shout a warning. Maybe it was my fault for being caught up in the moment. Maybe all that bullshit could have been juked if I had my head in the game instead of standing there like a fucking slack-jawed Carckonian.’

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

If hindsight is 20/20, irrational guilt is 20/80. In truth, the speed of the change in fortune made a finger-snap seem like a five-act opera. What was once a wispy friend bearing Venni’s wings like a toddler on the shoulders of a loving parent was then instantly standing over her with a belt. 

The change came right as she finished her final little spin in the air — a healthy distance above the tall rustling elms. At first she seemed to be preparing to glide down to a lower altitude, but then with a small puff of feathers she lurched drunkenly downwards, losing a sickening amount of altitude. She was so caught off guard she didn’t even give out a cry of surprise, which meant Ray had a few seconds of not knowing what was truly going on until the bone-chilling blast of wind hit him on the ground a few moments later.

And he certainly felt that chill in his bones.

“Oh shit,” he said. He walked forward, eyes riveted skyward like a man who had seen the face of the almighty in the clouds. For a moment he fooled himself into thinking it was just a fumble — Venni was still flapping her wings after all; she must be in control. But then another blast caught her. And another. Each one sent her on a more crooked and erratic path nannouwards until her battered, blasted wings were finally beaten into a position too awkward for flight. To gasps and cries of horror from the crowd — and a yell of terror from Ray — Venni dropped like a stone. 

Down.

Down.

Down.

Crack.

A sound no wing should ever have to make.

“VENNI!” Ray screamed, breaking into a sprint that made his takeoff run seem like a half-hearted jog. Though a crowd was already forming towards Venni’s crumpled body, Ray had them beat by a hearty handful of strides, giving him enough time alone to quickly once-over the situation. With his athletic experience he was no stranger to on-the-field injuries; it took him a scant moment to see the signs: eyes wide but bleary, lips trembling but stuck agape, torso and stomach barely moving save for minute spasms of pain.

She was conscious, but had the wind knocked out of her.

“Venni. Venni, Venni-baby we gotta get you vertical,” Ray said. He gently cradled her torso and helped her off her side, resting a hand over her stomach once she was steady in a sitting position. “Don’t talk Ven, just focus on taking deep deep breaths. Your breathing muscles are strung up from the shock — just breathe in time with my compressions okay Ven?”

Venni just nodded, mouth still agape.

As Ray gently pressed Venni’s stomach in time with her shaky exhales, he became vaguely aware of a burly man beside him, imploring the crowd to step back and give Ray and Venni some space. Judging from the stranger’s graying hair and confident presence, Ray guessed he was a retired public servant. Though not the biggest fan of authority, he was glad to have a little crowd control on his side.

Ray also became aware — much less vaguely — of two teenagers that weren’t heeding the burly man’s orders. His awareness turned into heated anger when he saw one of them had a phone up at arm’s length.

“Hey, stop filming, asshole!” Ray said, doing his best to keep his voice and motions calm so he wouldn’t put too much stress on Venni.

For a moment it looked like the kid with the phone was going to bite back, but his friend smacked his arm down. “Ay, c’mon blud, that’s his girl. Show some respect; you scandalous.” 

“Thanks,” Ray said before turning back. “Ven, you getting better?” Her eyes were still wide, but whether from shock or just because of the magnifying effect of her flight goggles, he wasn’t sure.

Venni nodded, then quietly croaked something.

“What?” Ray leaned closer.

“D-Diaphragm.” After a blank look from her boyfriend, she continued: “the breathing muscle you were talking about. It’s called the diaphragm.”

Ray couldn’t help but let out a cough of a laugh. “Good to know everything in the attic is A-okay,” he said, gently knocking on Venni’s flight helmet.

Venni smiled back, but then winced and looked down to her right. 

“My… my wing,” she whimpered.

Ray remembered that awful sound. He knew he would probably remember it for the rest of his life. 

Dreading every millisecond, he slowly craned around Venni’s left side and took a look. What he saw made him suck in a gulp of air through his teeth in sympathy.

Though Autoria was a great nation in its own right in the world of Nannou, one of the most famous and studied was the nation-continent of Portnolis. Many of the modern world’s inventions and conveniences could be traced back to the continent’s thinkers and tinkerers and obsessive psychotics. That continent came to Ray’s mind because he vaguely recalled a section in his world history textbook chronicling the early age of flight. Many Portnolisian dreamers lost their lives and livelihoods dabbling in gliders and flapping contraptions. The book provided plenty of grainy sepia photographs of those life-ruining wreckages — the wood and canvas wings of those sad, early birds twisted and mangled beyond all recognition.

Those wreckages were exactly what Venni’s poor, great black wing looked like. Ray loved whenever his girlfriend yawned, or stretched, or gave a jump of excitement, because each moment gave him a chance to see her beautiful wingspan at full length — black feathers seeming to give off the faintest shimmer in any kind of light. To see them mangled and dirty like this nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was certainly bringing tears to her eyes; he could see little drops of moisture gathering at the bottom of her flight goggles.

“M-Mister?”

Ray looked up, seeing a little boy and his mother among the crowd of concerned onlookers. For a moment he drew a blank, then realized it was the same boy who had excitedly pointed at him and Venni as they prepared for takeoff. He noticed that the boy also looked like he was about to start shedding tears.

“Is the bird lady going to be okay?” the boy asked.

Ray softly smiled. “She’ll be fine, kiddo. She’s even tougher than she looks.” He gave Venni’s torso a tender squeeze, eliciting a smile and an encouraging nod from her.

“I’m okay,” she said to the boy, a bit more power to her voice. She winced again and turned back at her mangled wing with a not-so-powerful look of sorrow.

The boy just stuck a thumb in his mouth and gripped his mother’s hand tighter. 

“You want me to call an ambulance, son?”

Ray looked up. The burly man on crowd control. He had an ancient-looking flip phone in his hand — maybe a present from his grandkids he stubbornly refused to part with. Ray looked back towards Venni’s wing. His mind ground to a halt. Dealing with human injuries was all find and good, but half-kin anatomy was as alien to him as the dark side of Nannou’s moon. It brought a pang of guilt to him that he had been with Venni so long yet he only had knowledge of her inhumanness that went skin — or feather — deep.

“Well,” he said, “I think—”

“Just a moment, you two, just a moment.”

Ray looked up again. Gracefully striding through the throng of people was a latecomer. She was another avian half-kin, but snow white to Venni’s soot black. Her great white wings extended a little as she cleared the crowd, revealing a white braided sweater and a collar of downy feathers around her neck that made her look like she was wearing a scarf of arctic fur. Wizened, wrinkled amber eyes peered over a pair of half-moon spectacles as she crouched before Ray and Venni.

“Now,” she said, offering a smile, “before we go bothering St. Pauline’s, let me have a look at the poor love. What’s your name, my boy?”

The owl woman had a motherly tone with an easy, northwestern Autorian drawl that made Ray want to answer her immediately. “Ray Fletcher.”

“And yours? What is your name, love?” she asked Venni.

“Venni Volare.”

“Beautiful names, the both of you. My name is Patricia Cyndril Scheune. Call me Patty, please.”

Both Ray and Venni nodded. “Are you a nurse, Patty?” Venni asked.

“A biologist, actually,” Patty said. “By trade, anyways. A librarian by occupation. But I know enough about avian half-kin anatomy to know trouble with bones when I see it. Here, Venni love, do your best to stretch out your wing, there’s a good girl. Mr. Fletcher, give us a little room — you don’t have to go too far, just let me scootch in a mite.”

Ray did as he was told, and Patty went to work.

“Now, the thing about avian bones is they are very lightweight to help with flight, and very flexible to help with beating the wings. With that in mind, it takes quite a lot to do damage to them that would leave a poor girl grounded.” She offered Venni a smile. “So I wouldn’t worry about never lifting off again, Venni love. What we want to find out now is how much help — if any — you’ll need if you’re carted off to St. Paulines. With that in mind—” her smile turned apologetic “—I’ll have to make you a mite uncomfortable. Are you alright with that, Venni love?”

Venni gulped and nodded. 

“There’s a good girl. Let’s start with the primaries.” Patty bent over her patient’s mangled wing, using the joints of her own wing to poke and probe about the furthest point along Venni’s wing. The little crow girl flinched and softly sucked in air then and there but overall kept a brave face.

“Mm, just as I expected to see,” Patty said. “The metacarpus took most of the initial impact. Broken completely I’m afraid. Looks like you’ll definitely be staying a while at St. Pauline’s, but like I said, you’ll fly again.” She gazed above her half moon spectacles up at Venni. “I hope an extended stay won’t interrupt your studies too much?”

Venni looked over at Ray and gave him a smile. “My boyfriend’ll bring me my work. I think I’ll be fine.”

Patty smiled as well. “He’s a good boy, I’m sure. Anyhoo, on to the secondaries.” She moved closer towards Venni’s shoulder with another round of poking and prodding. Patty frowned. “Your radius seems to have escaped this with just a fracture, but your ulna is broken clean through the middle. Probably what that terrible noise we heard was. Usually I’m happy with how my age hasn’t affected my ears much, but in this case that was a noise I could’ve done without hearing, yes indeed.” She glanced up at Venni again. “Really, young lady, you gave me quite a fright!”

Venni sulked. “I’m sorry.”

“No need for sorries, love; just airing out my worries is all. Now, the tertials.” Patty’s inspection was much shorter. “Looks like this old bird finally has some good news for you. Not a scratch on the humerus. Honestly I’m a bit surprised, but very pleased. This will make things much easier for the doctors at St. Pauline’s to splint and much more comfortable for you during recovery.”

Ray smiled. All of a sudden he had an idea why so many newscasters seemed to have northwestern Autorian accents. Patty had a talent of making the worst news in the world seem like just a minor stumble in the road.

Patty stood up, her great wings causing a few gusts as she daintily brushed dust from her taloned legs. She then put on a scolding scowl and put her wing joints on her hips. “Honestly love, you should know better than to try the skies with weather this erratic. I know it’s tempting to take a wing at flight when the wind will give you a healthy boost, but sea breezes can be quite temperamental! Let’s just thank the good god above that the damage done was relatively minor, yes?”

Venni hung her head a bit and mumbled “Yes, ma’am.”

Patty gave a thin smile in return. “Oh, don’t call me that. To tell you the truth—” her smile turned a little less thin “—that was some of the most impressive flying I’ve seen from a half-kin so young. I must admit I never had the taste nor gift for flying, but from what I’ve seen through my long life you have potential all the way to the heavens.”

A smile from Venni. “Thanks, Patty, and thanks for the prognosis.”

“Not at all, love.” Patty nodded towards the burly man. “Go ahead, Roland. Call the little ducks some help.” After receiving a nod in turn, she came back to Venni and gave a last little stroke to her helmeted head with her white wing. “A speedy recovery to you, Venni love. You take good care of her, Mr. Fletcher.”

“I will,” Ray said, giving a thumbs-up as Patty turned and strolled off, following the rest of the dissipating crowd.

Now virtually alone, Ray flopped down next to Venni and draped an arm around her torso, giving her waist a reassuring rub. “Glad to know you’ll be fine,” he said.

Venni winced. “Ray, your shoulders…”

“Huh? Oh!” Ray had completely forgotten he was still wearing his buddy’s shoulder pads. They were digging into Venni’s shoulders with every squeeze. “Sorry, Ven,” he said, hastily snapping them off. For a moment he wondered what to do with them. Then he heard a soft “Ey” from behind. He turned to see the two teenagers from before. The phone guy had his arm extended again, but this time his hands held Ray’s dufflebag.

“I think this’s yours,” phone guy said, a bit surly, but not unfriendly. 

“I think it is.” Ray reached up and took the bag. “Thanks, bro.”

Phone guy gave a single nod and glanced at Venni. “Your girl gonna be alright?”

“Yeah. She’ll be alright.” Ray extended a fist. “We good?”

The kid snorted, but gave Ray’s fist a friendly bump with his own. “We good.”

As the two boys walked away, Ray pulled open the duffle bag and made to replace the shoulder pads. He noticed Venni’s glasses, snug against her custom Café Rosé mug. “Here, Ven,” he said, picking up the glasses and twisting over to Venni. “Let’s get that helmet off.”

She nodded and lifted her chin, giving Ray easy access to the helmet’s straps. In a few moments both helmet and shoulder pads were back in the bag and Venni’s full moon glasses were perched on her nose. Free of the helmet, her short black bangs shivered gently in the breeze.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Venni said.

“Oh, don’t start with that,” Ray said, giving her waist another squeeze. “Everything’s going to be fine. And Patty was right, that was some sick flying you did. Never knew you had so much dynamite in you — that stunt had me on the verge of a heart attack but you pulled it off like a pro.”

“But I’m going to cause you so much trouble with this stupid, stupid, easily-avoidable injury,” she said, wincing as she raised her mangled wing. “All because I was being a show-off poser!”

Ray looked at her for a moment. “You know what me and the boys call a person who’s never broken a bone in their life?”

“What?”

“Boring.”

Venni laughed so hard Ray had to steady her to avoid further damage to her wing. He gave her another one-armed squeezing hug and said, “Be a show-off every once in a while, Ven. You’re worth it. One in a billion.”

She just nodded and rested her head on his shoulder.

A new noise drew Ray’s attention. “Well, looks like our little mans is bringing us the parade.”

From the pond, a steady line of ducks waddled after the little boy from earlier, his mother close beside him. Occasionally the boy tossed something from his mitted hands. Whatever it was, the ducks were crazy for it — their little white tufty tails wagging along with their waddling as they chased after the two.

Eventually the boy stood before Ray and Venni, one hand seeking out and grasping his mother’s while his other held up a fat plastic zip lock of green peas. He smiled shyly. “You looked sad so I thinked you could feed the ducks to feel better.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” Venni said, her voice instantly turning warm and sweet as syrup as she gave the boy a smile of her own.

The boy nodded, blushing a bit at Venni’s smile. “Mommy says bread is bad for ducks so she only lets me use peas. But the ducks still like it!”

“That’s very considerate of your mommy!” Venni said.

“Considerate?” 

“It means wanting to do something good for someone else. Like what you just did for me! Wanting to cheer me up after my accident was very considerate of you!”

The boy smiled wide and nodded.

“My name’s Venni. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Willy. Mommy calls me William when she gets mad though.”

Venni giggled. “I hope she doesn’t get mad too much.”

“She doesn’t.” He gave his mother’s hand a squeeze, then held up the bag of peas. “Want to feed the ducks now?”

“Well, I…” Venni looked to either side of her, then at Ray. She could do a fair bit of things with her jointed wings, but handling handfuls of peas was not one of them.

“Here Willy,” Ray said, hopping up. “Why don’t you take my place under her wing and throw the peas for her? Let her get a close look at those ducks, you know?”

Willy’s eyes went wide. “Would that really be okay?”

“Sure!” Venni said, giving her good wing an inviting flap. “Come on in!”

Willy looked up at his mother. She smiled down at him. “Go ahead, dear. She gave you permission.”

Shyly, Willy waddled over to Venni and crawled under her wing. Instantly he let out a flurry of giggles. “Your feathers tickle!” he squealed with glee. Venni couldn’t help but laugh along with him and soon — much like what they were throwing to the ducks — the two of them became like peas in a pod.

Ray stood by with Willy’s mother, making half-hearted small talk as most of his attention was taken up by the sight of Venni and Willy surrounded by a loose circle of quacking and honking ducks. He didn’t know it at the time, but years in the future, whenever he had time to muse and meditate and wonder when exactly he had decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Venni, he would always come back to the image of her young, jubilant self with a little tyke under her wing, the two of them laughing and snuggling like it was the most natural thing in the world while the little one tossed handful after tiny handful of peas about them. 

It really had been a perfect day for flight practice after all.