Skybound

Morgan Mackenzie was having a decidedly terrible day. She crouched on one foot, patiently waiting for her other knee to relocate and the tendons to knit themselves back into place. She tried to steady herself against a nearby stone wall, but in the process, her left wing locked itself out. Between the force of her wing and her own reaction, she flung herself away from the wall, falling to the cobblestone and rolling up against a fountain, once again fracturing the delicate crystalline structure of her new appendages in several places. Her regenerative abilities went to work on the wings, but the effect was slower and more costly, in both mana and stamina, than for her flesh and bone. Carefully, and very slowly, she managed to roll over and raise herself up on her hands and toes without pulling more than a handful of feathers loose.

That had been a lesson all by itself. Stepping on one of her own feathers had been an exquisite experience, and not a pleasant one, akin to plucking an eyebrow a thousand times over, and from much more sensitive places. The new flesh under the feathers was twitchy and sensitive, and while she could move them independently of her arms and legs, it still felt odd and required total concentration. It most reminded her of silly childhood games, trying to rub her belly and pat her head at the same time: not exactly difficult, but the instinctive control wasn't yet there.

Getting her feet under herself, she pushed off with her hands and carefully stood up. Keeping her wings tucked in as close as she could manage still left her feeling unbalanced, but she managed somehow. Actually flapping the wings was an awkward exercise, straining her chest and shoulders, and muscles along her spine she didn't have before. The most intense workout was in her core, her abs and stomach keeping the rest of her body balanced with every twitch of the wings.

Lulu wurbled encouragement, hopping back to Morgan's shoulder as she gingerly picked her way back up the wall using stone outcroppings sculpted by her magic. With both her hands and feet as contact points, she felt more steady in her climb than walking on two feet on the ground. The wings were much larger than she had ever imagined they would be, and acted like massive sails, catching the slightest trace of any breeze. They arched upwards almost a dozen feet past her head, turning at the joints to drape even further than that below her feet as she scaled the short tower. Her attempted take-offs from the ground had been abysmal failures, leading to her trying to start from ever-increasing heights. A single-story house didn't give her enough time to catch the air, and only the main boulevard had enough open space for her to fully stretch her wings.

The towers and taller structures -- at least the few still standing against the ravages of time -- were much more suitable for her needs. She finally crested the top of one such building, nearly falling as her wings instinctively fluttered and caught the wind. The day was clear and cold, but otherwise pleasant thanks to her resistances. Or would be pleasant, she thought, if not for her current frustration. She had spent the first three days after waking up struggling and twitching like a toddler, and another three days of futile effort just to manage a few short bouts of gliding.

She sat on the roof of the tower, drawing her knees up to her chest and looking out over the city. The building had once been taller, and where she sat had once been a floor. Pieces of the old wall still remained, jutting up like worn teeth. "A break can't hurt, Lulu," she said, petting the scrubbie. "At least the old biddie isn't hanging around to laugh at me." 

With a sigh she activated the one skill she had managed to learn over the course of nearly a week. [Furl] allowed her to withdraw the wings into the stylized tattoos on her back. By craning her neck she could just see the edges of the runes where they came close to her shoulders. Moghren's artwork was more impressionistic and rougher than the sharp edges and clearly defined lines of Morgan's runes that formed from her skills, but no less beautiful for it. The skill allowed her to move about normally on her own two feet, but it required a constant effort of will to maintain. It imposed a small but noticeable drain on her mana as well, although she was sure that the skill would become both easier to keep active and cost less of her reserves as it leveled with use.

Since the procedure, her nights had actually been more pleasant than she had had reason to expect. Her resistances did allow her to tolerate rather extreme temperatures, but somehow that had never lessened her appreciation for warmth and comfort. Her wings provided both at night, like sleeping bundled inside an extremely fluffy pillow. At first, she had been worried about potentially rolling over her wings as she slept, or breaking them in some other, equally silly manner -- but, it turned out that when she wasn't trying to control them, they moved on their own well enough to avoid such a fate.

A distant rumbling, followed by shaking trees in the distance, brought her out of her reverie. Her father and Moghren had been busy after the ritual; the power vortex had drawn all sorts of creatures, and the old witch had taken advantage of the Titan's leftovers to recover from expending so much power. Ravens were scavengers, after all, and the overpowered giant had left a veritable feast in his wake. Days later, other beasts had been drawn to the remnants of the slaughter only to be added to Max's menu.

Morgan stayed behind for those ventures; [Furl] required mana and concentration, neither of which she could have spared in the middle of a fight. She would have been worse than useless, an active liability, until she managed some actual control. Moghren had insisted the sorceress learn the first basics of flight on her own, and refused to teach her after declaring she had no wish to cripple her potential mastery of flying skills. The older woman also warned her against trying to use magic to fly before the mundane methods, lest the girl become reliant on it. So Morgan spent most of her days falling. And falling some more. A few times she had managed an awkward glide, but every time she got excited by success her concentration broke and she tumbled to the ground.

And so she sat on a broken tower, eating a hefty portion of smoked meat she had left over from her time with the Expedition and washing it down with a skin of ale. "Never thought I'd be drinking actual ale like from the fantasy movies, Lulu!" Her skills with [Terrakinesis] had become refined enough that lifting the skin via a few strips of magically levitated stone now took almost no thought or effort on her part. The food offset the drain on her mana from [Furl], and she took advantage of the break to practice the skill, and also to check on her friends.

Dana had not responded on the mana radio since the day before Morgan received her wings, and the sorceress was now quite worried. She wanted to catch up with them, but no easy solution seemed available unless she could achieve at least rudimentary flight. Brushing the thin dusting of snow off her tower-top perch with a gust of magical wind, she pulled the stone-lined device from her spatial storage rune. Lulu immediately glommed onto it with a happy wurble as she threaded mana through the device, and she gave the loofah a distracted pat as the crystals on the device began to glow.

"-eaving this message buoy so you can find us. Message repeats."

Morgan nearly dropped the the tablet, losing the thread of mana as [Furl] failed and her wings snapped back into existence with a spine-tingling lurch. Dana's voice had been rushed but not quite panicked. That was a lot more than a little reassuring, but her tone was certainly not calm and happy. She got her wings under control, reactivating [Furl] and standing up. A bit of fiddling, and the signal once again came in clear.

"-organ, we were blown off course by a blizzard, but still made headway towards the signal I told you about. It looks like a massive city at the foot of the southern mountain range, or the ruins of one. We'll be heading to it on foot. We took damage in the storm, and came too close to something's lair. Terisa called it a chimaera." Dana's voice was interrupted by thumps and shouts in the background, and the other shouted at the interruption. "No, Kojeg! I don't care how mad they are, we can't carry the cannons! We'll come back for them!" 

More shuffling and muffled shouts came through before Dana continued. "Anyway, chimaera. Wings, two giant whips for tails, wicked claws and both scales and feathers. Bigger than a school bus, and fast, like an F-16. Terisa shot it down, but an even bigger one came looking for us, must have been a mated pair. It took out one of the lift rings before we lost it in the pass and set down in the trees. It seems to avoid the city, so that's where we're headed. Rigged up the transmitter to boost the signal using the Are We's reactor. Should last for months. We could really use your fire magic right about now. Leaving this message buoy so you can find us. Message Repeats."

Morgan listened to the message three more times in shock before Lulu's concerned wurbling pulled her back to reality. With newfound urgency, she stowed the radio and gathered the scrubby in her hands. "I'm gonna have to beg Moghren for help," she quietly said to the loofah. "I don't have time to keep practicing like this; they might need my help." The puffball's only answer was more wurbling.

With a rush of air, her wings returned to existence as she dove off the tower. She actually managed a decent glide on her way down, and made it nearly two hundred paces before she failed to adequately control the landing. Still, she managed to not break any bones even as she stumbled and headed towards the walls, reactivating [Furl] once more. She broke into a run as she recovered her balance, Lulu stuck to her shoulder once more.

Moghren wasn't hard to find, once Morgan made her way outside the massive gates. There were thousands of ravens picking through the offal and other remains left over by the Titan, but the First Raven's giant form was unmistakable as it pecked at the corpse of some frost-mutated variant of rockmaw. The ground outside the city walls had been torn up for at least a half a mile, bones and frozen red and brown flesh scattered and smeared across the landscape. If not for the sub-zero chill, the stench would have been overpowering. The Titan himself sat upon a low hill, broken trees and various dead things lay all around. Most of them looked chewed. 

Morgan stopped and stared as the Titan lifted the shell of a rather oversized version of shellipede, pulled the leg off the corpse of what appeared to have once been akin to a pterodactyl and stuffed it into the shell segment. He then, with utter nonchalance, lifted the end of a still squirming Earthwyrm up and squeezed part of its insides across the meat of the giant, unholy taco. His mouth opened and space seemed to bend as he engulfed one end of the shell entirely within his maw and bit down with a thunderous cronch!

"Ye seem troubled already," said Moghren as she appeared in a swirl of shadow and feathers. The witch was completely unphased by the Titan's mealtime mores.

"I am," Morgan replied. "I finally got a message from my friends. They're in trouble, and far away."

"I cannae leave the Roost, no matter thy bargains offered," replied the witch. "Such things would set to motion endings that could nae be stopped." 

Both women looked up as the Titan approached, his latest meal finished. Moghren looked up at the giant form. "She asks for help, but my bargain stands fulfilled. A new pact to fashion, ere she wish to tame the winds."

"No. Need." 

The words rumbled with a resonant hum, as Morgan replied in consternation. "What do you mean, 'no need'!? I need to fly to help my friends!"

"Teach." 

"I see no wings upon thy back, oh hungry one!" cackled Moghren. "Fear not, grandson. I seek no unfair boons, but she must know to cheat the now would be paid for by the tomorrow."

"I don't see how you could teach me," said Morgan, looking up at her father's hulking visage. 

"Like. Swimming."

"What do you mean like swi-" Morgan's breath left her between one syllable and the next, and her eyes widened as a memory rushed over her, quite unbidden. "No, no!" she shouted as she backed away. "You threw me into a lake!" 

She turned to run as the Titan moved, and she was not fast enough. Vines cut her off from the front as a massive hand scooped her up, Max's giant hand cradling her with gentle, but inevitable power.

"Wait!" she shouted, losing control of [Furl] as she pounded on the enclosure made by his fingers with her fists, overtaken by panic. Then the wind rushed by with a whooshing roar as a bubble of force formed around her, the Titan's innate magical effects inescapable, even to the Sorceress. The world spun, and suddenly she was moving up, up at incomprehensible speed, the force bubble breaking the sound barrier as if it were made of spun sugar. The boom completely drowned out Morgan's terrified screams as the clouds fell away before her.

On the ground, Moghren stared up at the Titan, completely at a loss for words. The Titan stared back for a moment that stretched on as the snow began to fall, before uttering one word.

"Yeet."

Moghren had no answer.