NOVEL NEXT 74: Learning to Fly
We unequipped our armour so we could actually kiss properly, because all the hard metal edges and shit made it very uncomfortable. Dawn seemed nervous, like the whole formality of me kissing her like this was exciting to her. I wonder if there was a way I could use this to spice things up between us in general… food for thought.
“Are you ready?” I asked, turning to face her, wings out in full angel-mode.
She was standing there with her hair on fire, eyes ablaze, and skin gently pulsing with heat. She also looked cute and bashful, and not at all like the warrior goddess she had been while we fought our way through the ruins above.
“Yeah,” she nodded, smiling up at me from her shorter height.
“Alright, here goes,” I said, stepping in close to her.
Gently pushing her back until I had her against the stone, I watched in fascination as she blinked and blushed with anticipation. Dang, Dawn had a submissive streak, huh?
Taking a moment, I scanned her features, admiring the looks that she had created. This was the face that had changed everything between us. Her soft, grey skin was flushed slightly with a dusting of pink-purple, while her bright orange hair flickered and twisted above her. Then there were her eyes, the pupils of which glowed with a warm inner light. Okay, here goes nothing.
Ducking my head, I brought our lips together gently and savoured the ripple of goosebumps that the contact produced. God, she was so warm, almost perfectly so. Her hands came up and slipped under the back of my shirt, where they began to dance across the muscles of my lower back.
The sensory input from that heated touch was enough to fry most coherent thoughts from my mind, and I pressed in against her, hungry to feel more of that sweet warmth. My Dawn. This was her, another thinking, feeling, loving person. Another real and vibrant consciousness, and she loved me. She loved me. How fucking wild was that? She felt what I was feeling, returning the same mind-scouring affection that currently possessed my body.
Then, suddenly, the feelings that surged between us took on a semi-physical quality. Energy crackled from me, into her, then into the monolith and back again. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, though, far from it. It was as warm and pleasant as the sun's rays cutting through chill air.
We kissed like that for as long as we could, but eventually the power that was flowing through us became overwhelming, and I staggered away. Dawn remained pinned to the monolith, trapped there like a nail to a magnet. She twitched and convulsed against it, magic from this realm surging through and into her.
I could see her body being remade right in front of me. Her skin was darkening and gaining colour, taking on something closer to the tone she had outside. I guess that meant that grey was what the game considered analogous to that, but for her old race.
Her hair began to darken too, until it matched mine, but with orange-red highlights replacing my blue. The horns formed soon after, sprouting up out of her forehead as a tangle of twisting vines. They quickly flared up in a burst of flame and merged together, creating two horns out of the resulting fire. The end results were two gracefully arching, obsidian horns with the vaguest hint of their floral origin still remaining.
Horns finished, Dawn collapsed to her knees, finally released from the pillar, but not its clutches. Almost like a 3D printer, the monolith began to sketch her large, dark wings into existence. In much the same way as the rest of her new form, they were the antithesis to my own. Where mine were the dark blue and grey of a storm’s clouds, hers were the colour of a vivid sunset shining through those same clouds. Each individual feather carried that scarlet colouring around its edges, while the tips held the dark smokey gray. They were gorgeous.
Wings finished, she was finally free, left panting and gasping on the ground. I rushed to her side and wrapped her in a loose embrace, tilting her chin up so I could see her face. Her eyes were still bright orange, glowing with the same subtle inner light.
“You okay?” I asked in a whisper, afraid to spook her or something. “That looked pretty intense.”
“At least the tense it’s in is the past tense,” she muttered, scrunching her eyes shut for a moment. “God, it was like… it was like I was being tickled mercilessly all throughout my body.”
“That sounds extremely unpleasant,” I chuckled, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
“It was,” she smiled. “Was it worth it?”
“You look fucking incredible,” I told her enthusiastically. “I think there’s a mirror app in the settings now, if you want to look.”
She jumped for her menu without a reply, throwing the mirror window up so both of us could see. My heart jumped at the sight of us together like that. We didn’t look like twins, thankfully, but we definitely matched.
Dawn’s eyes went wide as she took her new form in, then she let out a laugh. “Oh look, I’m black again. Thank god. That was the one thing about my old appearance that really bothered me.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that,” I giggled, leaning my head on her shoulder. “Didn’t want to say anything though.”
“That was probably for the best, my love,” she told me, patting my cheek affectionately.
I let out a laugh and relaxed against her a little more. “You look so good now, though. Sort of close to how you look outside, but with big fallen angel vibes.”
“God, I know,” she said, turning back to her reflection. “I look so fucking cool. Even better because now we match. I can’t wait to get seen on the battlefield. Is that narcissistic of me?”
Snorting, I replied, “Nope. Wanting to be seen in public looking pretty, badass, and hot? I’d say that is very normal.”
“Okay good, because I really want that,” she said, smiling at me through the mirror. “Beside you, obviously.”
“You’re so sweet,” I mumbled, going all mushy again. I swear Dawn had turned me into a total sap. My street cred must be in tatters by now.
As if to explode that mushy heart of mine, Dawn spread one of her wings and gently encircled me. Feathers brushed my cheek, warm but not hot. I turned my face into her neck and tried not to cry, because holy shit I was so lucky.
Gathering myself back together, I croaked, “We should try to head back up, if you think you can fly. I’m not really keen to spend the night in this place.”
“Ah, true,” she nodded. “I’m not ready to go back to sleeping on the ground just yet.”
“Do you think the giants will still be there?” I asked aloud. “And do you think we have enough stuff to sell?”
“It would probably be a good idea to pick up some of these chunks of rock laying around,” she said, gesturing about us. “They look like they’re from other pillars like the one that transformed me. Might be worth something to the magic nerds.”
“Oh, you’re right!” Now that I was looking around the cavern properly, I could see how this room used to be filled with pillars like the one we’d just used. All of them were busted up except the main one, hence why I hadn’t noticed.
“Better get to work, then,” she said, giving me a quick kiss. “We can cuddle at home.”
“This is apparently a lesbian stereotype, by the way,” I said, groaning as I stretched my arms and wings in preparation. “We’re all social and shit, then we get a partner and we never want to leave the house. It’s just cuddle-o’clock all day.”
“More like we never want to leave the bed, let alone the house,” she said wistfully. “And yeah, I know. I uh… lurked in a lot of online lesbian spaces before I came out.”
“Glad you don’t have to lurk anymore,” I smiled, then gestured up the hole. “Have you flown with wings before?”
“Me too,” she sighed, then squared her shoulders. “And yes, but it won’t help. Previous game I played had a winged race, but CORA is the first game I’ve played with all the fancy new neural propagation and simulation tech. It should be vaguely plug and play, considering they’re using research that was done on birds. I won’t be an expert until I get some time to experiment and train, though.”
I nodded, thinking back to the first few times I flew in CORA. “It wasn’t too bad. Gliding is fairly easy, your sense of balance does most of the work there. Takeoff and gaining altitude are hard on unused muscles. Landing without breaking bones is where the real skill comes in.”
“Cool, that means that so long as you can catch me, I should be fine,” she joked, and before I could protest, she threw herself into the air.
She managed two wingbeats before she messed her timing up and flicked sideways towards one of the walls. I was up next to her in a flash, catching her and shifting our momentum with my abilities. Wait, why hadn’t I done that when we were about to hit the ground earlier? I could have just… gah. Thinking of the perfect solution to a past problem was one of life’s greatest frustrations. I had even used this one before.
We came to a stop on the cavern floor, and I released Dawn to try again. It took her three attempts before she got the hang of it, and each time she failed her cheeks got a little more flushed. Her blushes glowed now too, which was absolutely wonderful.
After we’d picked up as many glowy rocks as possible, she kept trying, and another hour later we managed to get her out of the hole under her own power. The look of happiness and triumph on her face when she finally got there… it was worth every second of waiting. I couldn’t wait until we were flying around in the skies together. Assuming that she’d been telling the truth when she said she wasn’t afraid of heights when she was under her own power.
Next… teaching her how to land properly. It was sort of required for our escape plan to work. Hopefully.
