Learning to Fly
Chapter 2: Airborne
A Clover Guild Story
By Ribombee-anon
Previous part: https://rentry.org/RibombeeFly1
The morning sun was shining brightly over Capim Town, and high-altitude clouds were drifting in the wind. Down near the ground, things were only a little breezy. My wings and scarf of setae softly rustled as Sneasel carried me out of the guildhall.
“So, you’re gonna tell me where we’re going, right?” she asked me.
I gulped. My partner disliked the individual I had in mind, but this was the first Pokemon I thought of when I thought about friendly flyers. “Guess I might as well get it out of the way,” I said. “We’re gonna see Taillow.”
Sneasel’s exasperated groan probably could have been heard on the other side of town.
“Not her again,” Sneasel moaned. “She’s so annoying.”
“Do you have a better idea?” I asked. “We need someone who’s not only able to fly, but actually willing to teach me. Sure, Taillow’s loud and excitable, but she’s also really friendly. Plus, we helped her once before. So I think she’ll be okay with helping me.”
“Well, as long as I don’t have to deal with her, I guess it’s fine. I’ll drop you off with her and then... go do literally anything else. If she does anything stupid with you, holler for me.”
“Sure. Do you know where she lives?”
Sneasel’s ear flicked right beside me, making me flinch. “No, but... I hear her singing.”
I heard nothing, but I trusted my partner’s sensitive hearing. We climbed to Upper Capim, the higher half of the town. It consisted of the flat tops of titanic ancient tree stumps, all linked by rope bridges. This part of town served as a way to get around more quickly than the winding paths at ground level. Various businesses and market stalls had sprung up here over the years, along with a great many gardens and miniature parks taking advantage of the sunlight up here. There were also plenty of trapdoors and stairwells descending into the hollowed-out stumps.
Sneasel followed the sound of singing across town, passing by some townsfolk and even a few of our guildmates. I soon started to hear the music too. It came from one stump near the edge of town, where there were a couple empty stalls and some crates piled up. There were no Pokemon around except for a singing Taillow atop the biggest pile of crates, which was almost twice as tall as Sneasel. The bird’s song was beautiful, but loud. I could sense the frustration emanating from my partner.
“Hey, chatterbox!” Sneasel shouted as she approached.
Taillow immediately stopped singing and looked down. “Sneasel!” she shouted. “Oh, and Booker too! Hi there! Great to see you guys! How’ve you been? Heard you made a guild! That’s so cool! I wish I was in a guild! Hey, checked out any cool dungeons? I still remember when we went to Waterfall Cave and the Echo Chamber—that was so fun! Thanks again for taking that job, by the way! I really—”
“Booker needs your help!” Sneasel shouted.
“He does?” asked Taillow. “Yay! I get to help someone! What do you need, friend?”
“I’ll let him tell you,” Sneasel said. She nimbly climbed partway up the pile and let me hop off her head onto the summit. I landed in front of Taillow as Sneasel dropped down and said, “I’ll be checking out the market over there. Call me if you need anything.”
She left at a quick pace. Meanwhile, Taillow was bouncing up and down, eager to hear what I had to say. Nervousness overtook me now that I was away from my partner and being scrutinized by an overly excited bird who was twice my size. Still, I managed to speak despite my tight throat and quickening heartbeat.
“Um, I... I was h-hoping you could help me... y’know, fly.”
Taillow gasped. “Really? You can’t fly? I didn’t know that! Actually, now that you mention it, I never saw you fly back in the Echo Chamber job. I thought you were just giving your wings a break or something. I didn’t know you were flightless! Aww, that’s so sad! I’m sorry! Why can’t you fly?”
“I just... never learned how. I’ve been trying to learn, but I need help.”
I decided to leave it at that, hoping she wouldn’t press me. I couldn’t tell her the real reason was because I was a human—that was a secret only known to my guildmates, since most of them were also humans. Luckily, Taillow was so eager to please, she didn’t care about the explanation.
“Well, you came to the right bird!” she exclaimed. “If you wanna learn to fly, I bet there’s no one else who knows more about it than me! I love flying! Wait, did I tell you that already? I feel like I did, last time we met. Anyway—I love flying, and I’d love to teach you all about it! I mean, you and Sneasel really helped me out earlier. I’ve been spending lots of time in the Echo Chamber singing, since you helped me clear it out. So helping you is the least I can do!”
As if to release her nonstop buildup of excitement, Taillow spread her wings and launched up into the air. I flinched as a strong wind from her wings blasted me, nearly knocking me off the crate pile. When I regained my footing, I watched her do a variety of stunts in the air. She spun and looped and dove around. I was equal parts impressed and jealous. Before long, she swooped down and landed softly in front of me.
“Alrighty, guess we’ll start with the basics,” she said. She extended one wing out to her side. “Okay, so! This is a wing. We flyers use this to fly.”
I blinked. “I... I knew that,” I said.
Taillow’s eyes went wide. “Wow, you’re a natural! You already know so much!”
I chose to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was just being an airhead, and not patronizing me. “Okay, well, how do you use your wings?” I asked. I tried moving mine back and forth, with no success. “I can barely move these things, let alone generate lift. How does a bird do it?”
“Lemme think,” said Taillow. “It’s kinda like instinct for me now, so I don’t even think about how I fly anymore. Lemme play around a bit and see if I can figure out how to describe it to a newbie.”
She leaned forward, shut her eyes, and flapped her wings, though not enough to take off. Then she repeated the motion over and over, sometimes slowing it down or speeding it up. I took a few steps back, braced myself against the breeze, and watched intently. I’d never seen a bird flap its wings so close—or in so much detail, considering how big this one was compared to me. I watched her for a minute in silence, until she finally spoke up.
“I guess it’s kinda like this,” she said at last, continuing to work her wings. “I don’t move my wings straight up and down. I kinda twist them with each downstroke so I can push some air back. Then I tuck them in a bit on the upstroke, so there’s less air resistance. And I’m not just moving my wings from the shoulder. I use my chest. Kinda like when you sing, you sing from the diaphragm, not the throat, right? Well, actually, we birds do sing from the throat, cuz we don’t have diaphragms. But I heard other Pokemon talk about how it’s important to sing from the diaphragm.”
“I’ve heard that too,” I said.
Taillow nodded and spread her wings wide. “Anyway, point is, you may think you’ve gotta move your wings at the base of the wing, but there’s more to it than that. You’ve gotta use your flight muscles. Me, I’ve got muscles all the way from the wings to my chest, so I actually use my chest to fly. Wanna feel it?”
After a brief bit of hesitation, I moved forward and awkwardly reached up to bury a hand in her fluffy chest feathers. She moved her wings, and I was surprised to feel powerful muscles working there.
“You’re right,” I said. “I wonder if I’ve got the same thing.”
I touched my own chest and made another attempt to move my wings. I grunted with the effort, and after half a minute of straining, I barely managed to make them twitch. When they moved, I felt something faintly shifting under my hand, as if I was holding my bicep and slightly flexing it. It was nowhere near as noticeable as Taillow’s flight muscles, but there was certainly something there, something different from anything I had as a human.
“Feel anything?” the bird asked.
“There’s something going on here,” I said. “Interesting. Next time I practice, I need to figure out some way to... access these muscles, so to speak, and make them move. I bet that’ll let me move my wings better. Of course, then I still need to move them fast enough to take off. But being able to control them at all will be a step in the right direction.”
“Great! Glad I could teach you something!”
“Yeah, thanks, Taillow. But there’s another problem. The kind of stuff you were talking about, with tilting your wings and tucking them in... I think it only works with birds. You have a lot of control over your wings, since you have bones and muscles in them. But I can’t do that with my wings. Bug wings are different.”
“Oh, right. Guess we shoulda thought about that, huh? Sorry.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I think watching you gave me some ideas. And the thing about the flight muscles was interesting. So, I learned some stuff. Thanks again.”
Taillow chirped and hopped up and down. “Yay! You’re welcome!”
At my encouragement, she continued moving her wings around, and told me more about how each motion felt. Even though our anatomy was different, I hoped that some of the information she told me could make something click in my head. I tried moving my wings too, while doing my best to concentrate on controlling my flight muscles. I couldn’t sense them unless I held my hand on my chest, though, as if my brain didn’t realize I had new muscles there. Somehow, I would need to relearn my own anatomy and musculature.
Taillow spent some more time telling me about flying. She taught me about headwinds, tailwinds, updrafts, and downdrafts. She gave me tips for taking off and landing, and also how to conserve energy by gliding. She talked about how she could sense the wind with her feathers, and how my fur-like setae could probably do the same thing. I listened to her prattle on—she really was a chatterbox, especially when she got started on a topic she cared about. But I wasn’t the least bit annoyed. If anything, her enthusiasm was rubbing off on me, and I began asking questions and listening more closely to her stories of flight.
At some point, I realized a big smile had appeared on my face. I was enjoying this talk. And the more Taillow told me about flight, the more I knew I had to experience it for myself.
Eventually, Taillow interrupted herself by gasping. “Hey, I thought of a great idea!” she cried. “Here’s the thing: if you wanna achieve something, it’s good to get some feeling for what it’s like first, right? That way you know what you’re aiming for. So in other words, I think you should get a taste of flying before you start practicing and learning to fly yourself.”
“A taste of flight?” I asked. “How? What do you have in mind?”
“I mean I can give you a ride! You can get on my back and see what it feels like to fly around.“
My heart skipped a beat or two. That idea sounded terrible—and terrifying. I stammered until I eventually managed to voice my main concern: “W-what if I f-fall off?”
“I’ll just swoop down and you can land on my back again,” Taillow said, as if there were absolutely nothing to worry about. I did not agree with her.
“I’m j-just not... sure that’s safe...” I stuttered.
“It’ll be fine! Remember, back in Waterfall Cave, I saw you use your wings to float down off Sneasel’s head and into her bag. Even if you can’t fly, you can fall really slow with those big wings, by the look of it. So I guess you don’t have to worry about being hurt from a fall, right?”
“Um... that is true, but I’m not sure...” I trailed off.
“What’s there to worry about? If you fall off, you can just float on down, and I can get under you, and you can land on my back again. Like I said, it’ll be fine! I think this is a totally safe way for you to see what it’s like to fly.”
To my surprise and dismay, the bird was actually convincing me. My wings were like a built-in parachute, and I knew Taillow was agile. Assuming she really was able to save me if and when I fell off her back, then I really had nothing to fear. And this definitely would be an inspiring experience. It would be the closest thing to flight that I could possibly experience for now—and possibly forever, if I never got my wings to work right.
That one thought pushed me over the edge of doubt. I had to take this chance. Otherwise, I may never feel the sensation of flying. Against my better judgement, and with a very faint voice, I agreed.
Taillow cheered and hopped around a bit, then sat down low and gestured at her back with her head. “I’ve never given anyone a ride before,” she said, “but how hard can it be?”
That made me hesitate for a moment, but I’d already agreed to her offer, and I felt a momentum pushing me onward. I didn’t want to lose it, so I gulped and climbed up onto her back as if I were mounting a strange horse. Although there was no saddle, her feathers made a comfy, soft seat. I lay down flat on her back and tried to wrap my arms around her neck. They didn’t quite reach all the way around, but it was enough to make me feel more secure.
“You good?” Taillow asked.
I took a few deep breaths to try and calm my nerves. I wondered if the bird could feel my tiny heart pounding rapidly against her back.
“Y-yeah, I guess I’m... ready,” I lied. “Just... be careful, okay? Please?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, let’s just go!”
Taillow trilled as she jumped off the edge of the crate pile and dove down towards the ground. In the blink of an eye, we were airborne.
My stomach plummeted as the ground shot up fast. I was too scared to scream. My eyes instinctively tried to clamp shut tightly, but I forced them to stay open so I could see and experience everything. I held on to the bird’s neck tighter and grabbed hold of her feathers as best I could. My wings and antennae were bent back and violently shaken by the force of the wind, and my scarf and blue waist cape rippled behind me.
After falling for a few seconds, Taillow smoothly curved and leveled out before hitting the ground, then deftly banked left and right, gently swerving between the enormous tree stumps looming all around us. It felt like we were flying through a city and dodging skyscrapers—or darting through a forest and dodging trees, to be more accurate. Below us, I saw plenty of Pokemon gathered along the pathways of Lower Capim, some of them glancing up in surprise at the bird zipping closely overhead. I almost wanted to scream for help, but I decided to trust Taillow and hang on.
Eventually, we soared out over the dock of the bay, and my mount angled up and beat her wings rapidly. With each flap, we climbed higher and higher, and my stomach dropped lower and lower. I felt pressure build up in my head, as if I were in a plane during takeoff, and I forced myself to yawn to relieve it. My arms quickly grew sore from holding on to Taillow so tightly. My heartbeat and breathing spun out of control, and I finally shut my eyes and squeaked in fear.
“Doing okay?” Taillow asked.
I barely managed to stammer, “C-c-careful!”
She laughed. “It’s fine! Just don’t let go—and if you do, I’ll catch you! I promise!”
After what felt like hours, Taillow leveled out and began to glide. I heard her wingbeats stop. The only sound was from a quiet breeze that continuously rustled my setae and wings. I finally opened my eyes and looked around. I saw Taillow’s big wings outstretched on either side of me, making small adjustments to catch the winds that blew this high up. Aside from the bird’s dark-feathered wings, head, and body, all I saw were the bright blue sky and fluffy white clouds. I gulped, then carefully crawled a bit forward on Taillow’s back and peered over her shoulder.
The sight made me faint for a brief moment. The ground was unbelievably far below. Capim Town was a small cluster of pale brown among a sea of green, next to the shimmering blue bay. I saw the wilderness of the Grass Continent stretching out around the town, covered in random splotches of lighter green fields and darker green woodlands, with some high gray mountains looming in the distance. The vast ocean stretched out to the west, and the glittering blue ribbon of Serenity River flowed southwest. At the limits of my vision, the horizon curved all around us far away, hazy and indistinct.
Taillow slowly banked to the left, circling high above the ground. I stopped hugging her neck and cautiously pushed myself up off her back, propping myself up with my arms and leaning over her shoulder even more, to get a better view of the world below. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The view almost made me forget my fear of heights. Almost.
I muttered to myself under my breath, “I can float, it’s fine. My wings are a parachute. I’ll be safe. It’s okay...”
“You okay back there, Booker?” Taillow asked without looking at me. Her head was darting around at random, making quick little adjustments as her eyes focused on all sorts of things in the world below. “What are you talking about?”
“I... I’m still worried about falling. But, the ground down there... everything... it’s...” Despite being a writer, words failed me. I eventually settled on something simple: “It’s beautiful.”
“And now you know why I love flying,” Taillow said.
She began to sing. I slowly felt my fear of heights melt away. I gazed down at the land and sea under me, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I wanted to stay up here forever.
And in that moment, high above the world, alone except for the bird I rode, I silently made a promise to myself. No matter what the cost, no matter how long it took, I would achieve my dream.
I would learn to fly.
Originally published 4-22-23
Next part: https://rentry.org/RibombeeFly3
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