literature

Exploration Flight

Deviation Actions

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The backpack weighed heavily on Richard's shoulders as he left home at dawn. His breath puffed visibly and he kept his hands firmly in his coat. Not that anyone was likely to see him, but he didn't want them to wonder or worry or call his parents. He'd be fine.

Richard hiked out of town, which wasn't far, into the snowy woods. Augusta, Maine on a Saturday morning in February wasn't a lively place. He smiled as he made it away from civilization, since now he could change in private.

Well, no; he was still out where some curious hiker might go. Or worse, some drunken hunter who might see a hawk and... Richard shuddered. Of all his nightmares about transforming, getting shot was high on the list. Better to get farther out of town before trying it. The first few times he'd been a hawk he hadn't planned ahead, at all, and it had only been luck that kept him out of major trouble.

Once he'd gotten far enough not to be seen, his backpack felt lighter and he quit looking suspiciously around. This was a hilly, craggy area where only his own footsteps crunched through the snow. The question was, where to fly? The cliff over there would be a good takeoff site. It overlooked a steep mass of rocks that ended in a boulder pile, and the frozen river. He'd swoop down dramatically to the ice and skim over it.

Or maybe he could hike farther and find a better place. Richard kept walking, then made himself stop. He was putting it off; he'd been planning to make this trip for a week and kept finding excuses. The fact was, he didn't know if he could handle changing again. If he'd panic, get lost, forget how to fly, or forget how to turn back. He'd been in a holding pattern. He took off his leather gloves and flexed his fingers in the frigid air, remembering feathers. Except for being a shifter, there was nothing special about Richard. His fists clenched. Was that really true, that he was just a kid otherwise? Ugh.

Richard looked down the cliff again. It wasn't all that far, and parts of the rocks were ice-free. He put his gloves back on, dropped his backpack, and started easing his way from the clifftop onto the next lower rock. Easy enough, now that he wasn't lugging food and water and other stuff. From there he looked for another step, another ledge. This part was tricky, forcing him to sit on the stone and get his butt frozen for a few seconds while he slid forward and down. He landed in a crouch on some moss and frost. Now the cliff was a looming shadow above, and the river a dull mirror below. He wasn't sure he could climb back up. Good.

Richard struggled out of his heavy coat and shoes. The cold bit into him, especially his feet. Last time, his clothes had sort of come with him, but he wasn't sure how far that power extended from his skin or how much mass it could "store". For that matter he knew barely anything about his power. What would it be like to turn himself over to scientists to get studied and figure out how he did it? Probably unpleasant. What he could do for now was to learn more on his own. One day maybe everyone could find out how this form-shifting worked, and no one would need to be scared of it.

He shut his eyes and crouched on the boulder, trying to steady his breathing. When he'd changed before, he'd been panicked. He hoped that wasn't a requirement. How did he change, exactly? He pulled off his gloves again and willed his arm to shift. Nothing happened but the cold seeping in. "Come on!" he said. He tried an increasingly silly series of gestures, poses and magic words. There was no instruction manual. Richard shuddered not just from the cold but from looking down again. If he was in enough stress and danger, maybe that would trigger it. Or get him killed.

So, he tried climbing farther down. He stumbled and wobbled on a rock, so that he had to grab the cliff face to steady himself. It wasn't so far to the ground now. He could probably jump down and not hurt himself much. Like, ten feet, just enough to be scary. He was just going by theory, here, hoping that the cold and wind and fear would help. He steeled himself and jumped, arms wide.

In midair, his arms caught the wind. They felt like they were spreading out, prickling all over, and his hands going numb. In that moment of falling his entire body fizzed. His mouth and nose felt strange in particular, and when he landed hard on his feet his toes clacked against the ground. He rolled with the impact, sprawling forward to cushion the blow, and landed in a bruised heap. Almost, almost! Richard laughed bitterly. Nothing had changed, when he looked himself over, but he wasn't much hurt either. He hadn't just imagined the change, though; he just had quit it too soon.

He looked back up at the cliff and gulped. According to his physics textbook, ten feet meant falling for around two-thirds of a second. He hadn't even given his body one second to shift before it knew he was safe again. So, from the top of the cliff... No, he wasn't that stupid. He'd give himself a full second. He went back to the boulders and began climbing up along them. Every touch of his wet socks and bare fingers against snowy stone chilled him. Still, he forced himself along to the ledge where his coat and shoes were waiting, and looked at them enviously. Jumping from here meant more than fifteen feet down, which was also enough to really get hurt. "Do I really want to do this?" he asked out loud. In the absence of a wise old man who could teach him, he had no better option.

Richard backed up against the cliff, ran forward, and jumped as high as he could to buy an extra fraction of a second. The frigid wind roared up around him. His arms ached, but he didn't dare look at them. The air streamed along his face, seeming to stiffen and pull forward on it. His legs flailed and dangled but they were getting shorter, and what felt like minutes passed and he hadn't -- oof! Finally the ground slapped him and he jolted to a stop.

Was that it? Had he failed again? Richard dared to look at one of his arms and felt his head whip hard to the right like a turret, giving him a look at a long mass of deep brown feathers. The world felt bigger, and growing larger. He was still changing! He concentrated on what was happening to his arms in particular, where his fingers seemed to shrink away into bare wrists and row upon row of prickling feathers. The same thing was happening a little slower on his left. He gave his left arm a gentle flap and felt the whoosh of air beneath it, and the way his muscles wanted to move in a circle, down and back and up again like an oar.

He took a tentative step and fell over. His bare feet were pale yellow now and there were talons springing out from them. Where the hems of his pants should've been he had pale feather tufts itchily pressing their way out from his legs. He pushed one arm, more of a wing now, against the ground to help right himself. Now that he was back on his feet he was still a little unsteady, and that gave him an excuse to stretch his wings out. Seeing his own wingspan gave him a sense of pride. The rows of feathers all along his wings had distinct rows. He'd looked up the anatomy of hawks furtively, as though somebody would guess about his power by seeing him reading. Seeing the real thing was much different than a photo! He tilted his head down and saw soft white feathers on his chest, with flecks of brown. A dark, hooked beak ruffled and tickled those chest feathers as he moved. He tried to touch his beak with one wing, but had trouble moving it the way he would have used his hand. Worse than mittens, really.

Worse? Ha! Richard's laugh came out as a screech that he'd always thought was more of an eagle thing. He bounced up and down on his feet and wobbled his wings as the transformation finished. The rocks he'd just climbed looked huge now! He was so light his human self could easily carry him on one arm, now. He walked toward the icy river and found a spot that wasn't frozen. The rippling mirror felt like it was pulling heat out of his face when he leaned close. He had golden eyes and a deadly serious expression, despite feeling ready to literally jump into the sky. Well, almost ready. When he stood up straight again (still feeling like he was leaning forward), something brushed against the ground. Of course; he had a tail now. He looked silly trying to coordinate all his limbs and his tank-turret of a neck to let him get a look at it. The tail feathers were a deep red-brown, more vivid than most photos he'd seen, and he could twitch them. "Shake your tail feathers!", he thought, remembering a silly song.

He turned back, waddling a bit as he tried to master walking. He'd flown before, with a lot of difficulty; surely he could do it again. Richard took a deep breath. Even breathing was different, like he wasn't quite breathing out so much as in followed by in.

He ran along the short patch of dirt he was on, and pumped his wings down and backward. The motion lifted him just enough to clear the ice, but he dropped again and skidded, stumbled across it. That was a start. The ice looked solid enough for the two or three pounds he weighed. He ran again and flapped, then flapped a few more times, until he was in the air. Headed right for the cliff! Richard screeched and dipped one wing, which sent him spinning far off to his left. Out of control, he slapped the air and wobbled until he could level off again. There was clear sky ahead. He practiced keeping in the air, as level as he could, though it still felt like he was always either falling or gliding rapidly forward. This was no time to get airsick! He tried to master the faint queasiness by telling himself that it was a human thing. Not something that applied to him, not now.

He veered in circles, constantly tense as he tried to get used to something no human ever could. Then level flight again, parallel to the cliff. At first he flapped too fast; his natural pace seemed to be slow and steady. He kept low to the ground in case something went wrong. To get his stuff back, though, he had to make a... well, not a precision landing, but to reach the right rock and not smack into it. He practiced by swooping down to the ice again until he was inches above it, then lowering his legs like an airplane's wheels and skidding down on them. He felt himself about to smack his beak into the ice and paddled the air frantically to slow down, to right himself. It worked without grace but without hurting himself, at least.

Okay. Up to the ledge. He made another running start and gained altitude, then marveled at how he'd done it more easily this time. Up and around, toward the ledge... bad idea! He aborted the landing and turned so he could come at it from the side and give himself more space. The icy stone rushed at him, and he held out his talons. There! He flapped furiously to tilt and slow to a stop, and wobbled nearly to the edge before all was still again. Then a pebble skittered loose and startled him. Good enough. His discarded clothes looked absurdly big. Maybe he could lift them? He grabbed one glove in his left talons, kind of liking the feel of pliant leather caught in his grip, and lifted off again. He awkwardly grabbed the thing in both feet now and rose, higher and higher until he was up above the whole cliff, back where his backpack was. He dropped the glove and posed vainly. Success! He made his way to the cliffside again, peered down, and gulped. "Come on," he told himself. "I can do this."

He still screeched in fear as he jumped off the cliff. But when he swooped up again and back to level flight, he made the same noise on purpose, happily this time. It was like the best amusement park ride! He went down again to snag his other glove without even stopping on the rock. He made two more trips to get his shoes, though those were more rigid and heavy. Back up at the clifftop he caught his breath and rested his wings. The coat wasn't going to be practical to retrieve this way; it was too big. He leaned over the edge and thought, tilting his head. There was more to learn today.

He descended carefully to the ledge where he'd left it. He kicked it off the edge, careful not to snag his talons in it and go tumbling along. He swooped down to reach it back on safe ground.

He'd been able to turn back, those other times, only once he'd calmed down. So it was voluntary, kinda, not keyed to the moon or anything. He carefully leaned back until he was laying down with his wings spread, making a snow angel. He shut his eyes and imagined himself stretching, growing. A few moments later, though he wasn't sure quite when, it really happened. His toes were reshaping on longer feet and his feathers faded back into his body, leaving him dressed in his still-intact clothes and laying there shivering on the frozen ground. He laughed and said out loud, "I did it! On purpose this time!"

His transformation and his flying called for a celebration, starting with getting warm. He struggled to put on his coat. At first he batted at it with his hands like he'd briefly forgotten how his fingers worked, but he got the thing on and settled it over his shoulders. Comforting, like the feel of wings draped over his back and sides. The question was, could he shift again while wearing it?

He crouched and recalled how he'd felt when the change happened last time in both directions. It took a while, but he could feel his teeth melding together and pushing out from his mouth into the hard shape of a beak; his coat fading into the mass of his feathers. He didn't feel any heavier for carrying this extra mass around. Still he took off cautiously and circled a bit before heading up to the clifftop.

Soon he stood with his pile of ferried-up shoes and gloves and his backpack, and imagined somebody coming along and thinking he'd stripped and thrown himself off the cliff. He'd have to come and do that more often! He looked warily around, then shifted back to human again before really thinking about it. Once he was fully dressed again he crept close to the edge to look down once more, but he kept his distance this time. He might try some kind of fancy midair shifting, but, like, over a pile of pillows or a swimming pool. Another day.

For now, he walked home with a spring in his step.

#

His mother was washing dishes when he got in. "You're up early for a weekend."

Richard couldn't wipe the smile off his face. "Wanted to do some hiking. Have we got hot chocolate?"

"I'll make some in a minute. Guess you burned off a lot of energy flying around out there."

Richard startled. He began to feel the prickling of feathers, or maybe just goosebumps, and had to stuff that feeling back down. "What?" She didn't know, or so he thought.

Mom smiled. "Racing all over the woods, I mean. Just don't hurt yourself. But I guess a boy has to pick up a few scrapes and bruises to learn."

He'd managed not to hurt himself, much, but his arms were sure tired and his lungs burned with fatigue. His toes still felt like they wanted to clench and grab things. "Yeah," he said. "I'll be careful. I learned a lot today, though. It was fun."

She mixed some cocoa powder and milk and put the mug in the microwave for him. "Good. Now, how's that science report going?"

Richard groaned. He couldn't fly away from everything. But come to think of it... "I needed a topic, and I've got one. I'm going to write about hawks, and flying."

"Saw one out there?"

He perked back up with a smile. "Yeah! A red-tail!"

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure, yeah. I got a good look." He grabbed the hot drink and sipped gratefully.

"Glad it inspired you, anyway. I'm sure you're not alone in not having started your report yet."

Richard nodded. He probably wasn't alone in being what he was, either, or at least having the same kind of power. Somewhere out there, other people were just figuring things out. Maybe even at his school, for all he knew! Maybe he could drop a hint in his report and see if anyone asked. It'd be a little scary, but totally worth trying.

He went out flying again on Sunday, too, for research purposes. There was always more to learn!
For Arrow Quivershaft re: his hawk shapeshifter character Richard Gallian. (See eg. www.furaffinity.net/view/14510… .) Any canon errors are mine.

Written for the TSA-Talk Christmas Story Exchange 2017.
© 2017 - 2024 KSchnee
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Rethar-Stonehammer's avatar
This is awesome! Got me thinking of another awesome TF story writer named Robert Dayson. His stories are amazing! Is this your idea, or did his writings inspire you?

Fantastic work! :thumbsup: :D