Snippet #2131479

When I saw the look on Eins face when she agreed, almost helplessly, to try flying, I almost considered telling her to forget it. Almost. Then where would we be? Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what you have to do.

I noticed Marce tense up when Eins' wings came out and mentally smacked myself for not explaining or giving her any warning. What if she thought I wasn't trustworthy? What if she was too suspicious of Eins to allow us to help her? But she said nothing, and I watched as Eins began to hover and rise higher in the sky.

I had to admit, I was impressed with her ability. Hovering was probably the most energy consuming thing I'd ever done... it took a lot of work and you didn't even go anywhere. She made it look easy.

Seconds after that, she was high enough that I had to "zoom in" a little to see her, which is kind of like squinting, except that it actually works for super powered bird kids. Did she really want to go that high when she was afraid of falling? I saw that she was still hovering despite the fact that she was rising, and wondered if I should say something, or go up there and help, or something. Instead I found myself watching her intently for any signs of clumsiness or... any actual proof that she didn't know how to fly.

Like I said, suspicion always drops in at some point to say hi, usually when I least expect it. She did seem a little shaky at first, but she moved as if she'd done it before... but it could've been instincts. Probably was instincts. I hadn't had any problem flying except for that one terrifying moment of pure disbelief and doubt, right before I rose into the air.

Eins went high enough that I actually began to have trouble seeing her, and my attention began to drift. Just in time too. I noticed Marce moving, but despite the fact that she was moving slowly, I was still glad I'd gotten enough of a warning not to do something stupid when her arm went around my shoulder. Like, I don't know, attack. Or jump back and shriek like a girl. Or forget how to speak English.

We'll be able to take off

"Yeah," I agreed, wondering why we were still standing there. Then Marce began to ask the questions I kinda expected to hear when she saw Ein's wings.

"I don't know," I said, sounding tired even to my own ears. I didn't want to go into this story right now, but Marce looked uneasy, and I didn't want her to be suspicious of us. "Remember that Vampire I mentioned? I knocked it out because it was attacking her, even though I didn't know her. It was trailing me, but disappeared when I fought it's friend, so I followed it into the woods. It was kicking her tail at first, it was really vicious... and then she started to fight back just as viciously, out of nowhere. To be honest..."

I hesitated. Did I really want to mention how paranoid I was? I started to talk again, quickly now, because I could see Eins beginning to descend.

"I thought that it was a trap to lure me in, even though the Vampire couldn't have predicted that I would've followed him into the woods. But then she started getting her tail kicked again and I jumped in. And she seemed to think I was going to take her head off next, which didn't help my suspicion any. But she started doing that beaten dog routine and I stopped worrying about it. Well, actively worrying about it."

"Now everytime I express any kind of emotion she acts like I'm going to rip her head off." I rolled my eyes, tone dry. Then I became serious and added, "I've just kind of decided to keep an eye on her... I'm not sure."

I decided honesty was the best policy here. I truly wasn't sure if I thought Eins was one of my enemies are not. I didn't trust her, but that was to be expected. I was actively fighting the urge to trust Marce just yet, just because I never knew what the Ward would throw at me, and this seemed to good to be true. That there would be other free bird kids out there.

And now, because I'd admitted that I didn't really trust Eins, I wondered if that helped or hurt what I began to think of as my "case". What would the verdict be, when we reached the hospital? Where we needed to be heading right now...

"Eins, you did good," I called up as Eins landed on the roof of one of the buildings. I actually wasn't sure that she could hear me, but I figured it was worth a shot.

I turned to Marce, shifting nervously and trying to get my serious business face on. "Guess we better get going too. It'd help me out if you put your arm around me..." And I proceeded to move to the side of her with the damaged wing, slipping an arm around her waist and focusing aggressively on calculating distance to distract myself from the awkwardness of it all.

"I'll follow your lead... ready when you are," I said simply, putting one foot forward to indicate which foot I would start running on first. I wanted to give all the visual cues I could, so we wouldn't end up flat on our faces. Because that would just ruin everything. But I'd also pay attention to hers, trusting my useful ability to help me out.

When she gave the word, I refused to hesitate and started forward, luckily at the same time she did. Yes, it was awkward, but not as awkward as I thought it would be. I loosened my hold on her a little bit to give us both room to get our speed up. The second I felt her tense up I did the same, tightening my hold again, and more or less managed to get into the air at the same time she did. From there on, I stopped concentrating on choreographed movements and concentrated instead on getting us stable in the air, flapping hard with my wings.

To avoid messing up the air flow around her one good wing, I tilted one wing up a little bit and found that this wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it'd be. Since she had that one good wing, I was really only handling part of her weight, and it wasn't taking much of an effort. I wondered how much weight I could handle. And then I sympathized with her, because I knew it had to suck to know that another person was the only thing keeping you from splattering.

I decided that it would be best not to mention this, since it would be the worst thing in the world to say right now. Sensitive and tactful, that's me. Maybe I should write a book. How To Not Offend People.

And maybe another book on how to avoid getting lost in your own little world.

I decided to look around for Eins and make sure we didn't leave her behind, though this was kind of hard to do since I couldn't twist around too much. After spotting her I glanced at Marce, half smiling, half frowning. As if to say, hey, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But it still sucked. Which was more or less what I was thinking.

"What now?" I said loudly, over the roar of the wind and the feathery, some how dreamy noise of wings flapping.