Filler Bits: A Flying Lesson
When someone thinks of magic, inevitably one of the powers they'd like to have would be the ability to fly. People don't have this naturally, and so are forever looking to the sky, watching the birds soar past, wondering why they weren't meant to be able to do that. The clouds forever float above them, teasingly close at times and nothing like you expect them to be when you reach out a hand and touch them. They're cold and damp and you remember, people aren't meant to fly.
But, as is the nature with all human beings, what they don't have they want. They want it even if they don't know what it is. Even if they know that they shouldn't have it. Magical people are just the same as regular people. They can't fly naturally, but still long to touch the sky. Still long to rise above the trees and look down on the crests of mountains. Still long to feel the breezes in their face, causing their hair to fly out behind them. Still long to know that they are all powerful and everything below them is beneath them.
So magical people devised a way to fly. They could levitate objects, but it was much more difficult to levitate oneself the early magic users (and many small children) found. Mostly, it was because people had such distorted views of themselves that they didn't know where they started or ended. Even small children suffered from this, not understanding the concept of a back, something they couldn't see on themselves most of the time. And the older ones had different senses of self. They thought themselves larger in places, smaller in others. And it all just led to an unsafe flight.
The night before Alf's flying lesson he couldn't sleep. Like a child on Christmas Eve who still believed in Santa Claus, he was having visions of what would happen the next day. It ended with Alf dreaming he was Harry Potter at his first flying lesson, sans broomstick of course, and he'd managed to do it the first time in one go while Ron (Damien) and Hermione (Jessica) looked on in amazement. He then found himself in the air battling Damien and Rock for possession of a golden snitch. Of course he fell, and then he woke up. But nothing he'd dreamed, or thought of before his dream, could compare to real life flying.
Aliana had Damien and Alf standing on the back lawn of the Aldus estate. They were looking at the sky, marveling at the birds and getting mentally prepared to join them for the first time in their lives. Neither of them had so much as been in a plane, helicopter or hot air balloon. The closest they'd been to flying before had been roller coaster rides at Australia's Wonderland before that had closed down. So this would be their first time flying, and both of them expected it to be fantastic.
"To start with," Aliana stated. "We need to cover a little theory."
Alf and Damien gave audible groans and Aliana only laughed at their misery.
"There are two ways of what we'd call flying: levitation and wind riding," she looked at the two boys. "Care to guess what the difference is?"
Damien shrugged, unsure.
Alf hazarded a guess. "Levitation is where you move yourself like a bird. Wind riding is more like gliding? Like the difference between jet propelled planes and gliders?"
"That's right," Aliana smiled.
Alf shot his friend a superior look. Damien just rolled his eyes.
"That's enough of that, boys," Alian reprimanded gently. "Now, we usually prefer levitation as our means of transport since it doesn't involve the use of magic on anything other than yourself. But control of the wind, especially if you're good with controlling the air, is quite simple although messy. Messy in terms of people noticing because the wind around you has to be moved. It's generally faster than levitation, though, as it requires less thinking. But with time, you should be able to levitate almost as fast, with no problems."
Seeing that even that short little speech had bored her pupils, Aliana decided to get them started with the practical part of the lesson. "If we start with wind-riding, first you just want to gather up a bit of the wind. You might have trouble with that, though, Alf. And then get it to push you, and cushion your fall. If you can maintain a hover, you can probably manage to figure out how to position your body and your winds to move in an appropriate manner."
Alf tried and failed to conjure a wind strong enough to support himself. He'd never been able to cook up a wind any bigger than the palm of his hand so that was only to be expected. Damien, on the other hand, had managed a wind and was doing what seemed to be a semi-controlled fall down the hill they'd started at the top of. He landed with an ominous thud.
"Oww," came Damien's pained cry, although it seemed more exaggerated than anything.
Aliana didn't look surprised at all that Damien had failed, though Alf knew that it was unlikely that they'd managed to fly on their first attempt despite what he'd dreamed. As he clambered back up the hill, Aliana explained how they would attempt the levitation. "Levitation of yourself," she began. "Is exactly like levitation of anything else. You imagine where you are, and where you're going, and how you're going to get there, and it should just happen."
Alf attempted this, quickly finding that he was suddenly flying sideways when he'd meant to go forward. His head was closer to the ground than he'd intended it to be and it wasn't long before he crash landed. Apparently he'd managed better than Damien, who was already picking himself off the ground much closer to where he'd begun.
Aliana was having a difficult time restraining her giggles as the two boys came closer to her, silently demanding the information she'd obviously forgotten to tell them. "Levitation," she continued. "Is considered to be the more difficult because it requires that you know where your body is at all times. You have to know exactly how big you are, or you'll fly off course. Wind-riding, on the other hand, means that you can control the wind around you when you're moving. You can change it's shape, but you can't change the shape of your body without some very odd consequences. None of them being particularly smart or comfortable at all."
She then conjured circular mirrors around them. "These mirrors will reflect your proportions exactly. Know yourself physically, and then you should be able to hover out."
It was a disturbing half hour of being in a mirrored box where all you could see was yourself for miles. Looking up was his only relief, and made Alf long to be able to levitate. But to levitate (without crashing into the mirror, which (un)luckily didn't break) required a bit more staring at himself. In that half hour, Alf acknowledged who he was. There was no hiding from yourself in that box. Once he'd gotten over that, levitation was surprisingly simple. He managed to fly straight up. The slight sideways thing took it all out of him, though, and he ended up falling to the ground, at least it was outside his mirrored box.
"Well done, Alf," Aliana congratulated her pupil.
"Thanks," Alf said. "Hear that Damien?" he called. "I'm out!"
Damien swore at him, and soon after Alf saw Damien's head peek out. Followed by naked shoulders. A naked and chest and Alf couldn't stop himself from looking to see if Damien was completely naked.
He was.
"Gross, Damien!" Alf yelled. "Put that away."
Damien shrugged, comfortable in his own skin. "It's easier this way." As though to prove it, he circled Alf and Aliana before landing.
Aliana immediately covered him with a blanket she conjured. "I must say, that was unexpected," she said with a nervous blush. "I think you boys have got the hang of that for now. But I'm expecting you to be able to do that with your clothes on next week, Damien."
"I bet Jessica was watching," Alf said to Damien who immediately turned bright red.
"I hope not."
"You mean you'll strip in front of her aunt but you care if she's watching?" Alf asked, confused.
Damien only turned a brighter red. "Shut up," he said halfheartedly, as though resigned to having Alf tease him.
Alf left him alone and began trying to levitate again.
In the end flying was rather anti-climactic. You'd think you'd get a bigger thrill but it all seemed like science and physics to Alf. And he didn't see any reason why he wouldn't get just as large of a thrill from piloting a hot air balloon. Damien seemed to enjoy it, though. Alf could take it or leave it. He'd only be using it when necessary, not just for fun joyriding.
posted by Cedric @ 10:53 pm
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