**This is a 1x1 between me and Sirius Baren**
Men in white coats stood around the subject, a majority of them holding clipboards and pens. For many months---for many years they had tried to cultivate the perfect specimen. This specimen was the product of avian genes being grafted into a part of the human DNA. A female, as beautiful as the beings in Michelangelo’s own paintings, had been born with the gift of flight. A pair of wings curled from her back, twice as big as she was tall. She was magnificent.
The men couldn’t have been happier. They helped her grow, testing her capabilities. For a number of years they did this, to make sure their specimen would survive the real world and could still be a fully functioning human being. They taught her the basics of human education and built from there, nurturing her like any parent would to assure their child received the best. They also showed her the magnificence of flight and, in their own gymnasium and training center, they exposed her to various avian creatures in order to teach her the process of flight.
They were so proud of her. They made sure she got good scores in academics, and in terms of flying they tested her as best they could in the enclosed space they had. To test her endurance, they put her in a room with a giant fan in it and had her fly against the current of wind until she could take it no more.
They pushed her to reach her limits and, if possible, go beyond them. It was tough, but they did it with the best interests in mind. One day, they hoped to test the possibilities of breeding---perhaps they could expand the race by genetic transfer from mother to child---but that was a test for later, when she reached an older age. When she reached that prime age of mating, they would use several subjects to see which would produce the best result. And if they had an avian-human hybrid male counterpart for her, they would certainly like to see what a purebred of their race would look like.
But that was for later.
For now, they were still developing her and making sure she could survive before they initiated the breeding project. Now, with this perfect specimen of theirs, at the age of twenty, the men continued their research, ever hopeful for the coming of a new era when humans would at last be able to fly as angels.
“Okay, it looks like we’re done for the day,” one of the men said, clicking his pen shut and stuffed it in his lab breast pocket.
The man who was holding out the girl’s wing let go, nodding. He came around to take off the sensors they had stuck to her body, and put them away.
The other men who were observing nodded as well and wrote down their last notes before putting away their pens. They looked at each other and seemed to grin in unison. “How about we get something to eat, fellas? I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
“Oh, yeah, I know this pretty good new restaurant not too far from here.”
“Want to try it?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Me too.”
“Okay then, let’s go.”
“...Oh, let’s not forget to have that new caretaker boy give our precious girl something to eat too.”
“Oh yeah. What’s his name now?”
“You know, I can’t remember.”
They all seemed to laugh at that and left the room after locking the door behind them. They doubted anything would happen to their precious Angel. ...But little did they know what would happen in their absence.
