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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:01:18 GMT -6
This would be something she had to do for herself, for the most part.
The small, experimental movements lasted some time, but then all at once she began beating her wings again, quickly. Immediately, San could see that the direction of it was different from last time, so it seemed that she had been able to change the angle somewhat. And this time, the results were better: Rei lifted an inch off the ground.
It ended as abruptly as it began. The lift must have startled her; her wings stopped, and she fell to the ground again, though fortunately there was barely any distance to fall. “You did it,” San said, smiling at her. “It was only a little, but you flew.”
Rei’s wings were still moving, opening and closing at a lazier pace. “Are you ready to try again?” San said. “Now that you’ve done it once, maybe it’ll be easier.”
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:01:34 GMT -6
Rei nodded, so San gave the signal. “Fly,” he said. With only a little hesitation, Rei began flapping her wings again quickly, and gradually she lifted off once more. This time she went a little higher, but after a certain height, she seemed to stall, her wingbeats stuttering. Catching on quickly, San cupped his hands under her. “Land,” he said.
At once, she stopped, collapsing the very short distance onto the platform he’d created with his hands. Her knees buckled, and she knelt rather than stood there. Her breathing was a little heavy, but San wondered whether it was exertion or just nerves.
She had figured out how to go up, but not how to come down.
San placed her gently on the ground. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
She stared at him as he went, but San intended only to be gone a moment, to find something and retrieve it.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:02:01 GMT -6
He was as good as his word, returning some fifteen minutes later, with a thick piece of old foam under his arm.
“We can use this to break your fall,” he said. “It’s a bit old, but we can dust you off after, and this way it won’t hurt.” He placed it down on the floor, then pressed his hand into it, to show her how soft the surface was. “You can practice landing on this until you have the hang of it.”
Rei approached the piece of foam, and San stood back so she could have room to test it. She pushed her hand into it first, as San had done, then sat on it. It bent under her weight, but slowly, cushioning the impact.
“What do you think? Can you try again?” he said.
Rei got back to her feet, and San gave her the signal. “Fly,” he said.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:02:25 GMT -6
Once again, she lifted off--- more smoothly than the last two times, San noticed, so there was improvement there, at least. She pitched forward just a bit to align herself with the foam ‘landing pad’ that San had devised, though that forward movement was rather unwieldy. It seemed like she still wasn’t used to moving around in the air, regardless of direction. But then, San supposed he wouldn’t be either if he suddenly grew wings one day and was just attempting to figure out how to use them.
San didn’t let her rise very far before he said, “Try to land now.” Too high, and even with the safety net of the foam pad, she might be too scared to make a proper attempt of it. At this height, however, he hoped she was willing to experiment. Rather than stopping her wingbeats altogether, this time she slowed them.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:03:10 GMT -6
It wasn’t a smooth landing, but it was better than what she had been doing thus far, and when she did land, it was on her feet. It wasn't as though she had truly fallen before, but this time it was a deliberate landing.
“That’s much better, isn’t it?” San said. She had a lot of practice ahead of her, but it was an admirable start, and she was picking this up faster than he had initially anticipated. “Let’s try again. Fly.”
Rei took off, and San let her fly a little higher before saying, “Now land.” Her drifting down was more controlled this time. They practiced a few more times, and slowly but surely, Rei was managing to figure out how best to take off, and more importantly, how best to come down.
But just going up and coming down wasn’t exactly flying, so at their next session, San prepared more of the foam landing pads.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:03:47 GMT -6
He needed more of them to facilitate what he wanted her to work on now. “This time,” he said, “I’d like you to try moving. From there to here.” He had laid the foam pads out in one continuous row to start, so that if she faltered at any point in her attempt, they would be there to catch her. “Just like you push the air down to go up, try pushing it behind you to go forward.”
He could tell she was thinking about what he said, so he didn’t immediately push for her to start. Her wings twitched and moved, settling and resettling themselves, until finally she looked at him to indicate that she was ready. She had been getting better about eye contact lately--- or not exactly eye contact, but at least looking at people--- looking at San, anyway. The majority of her work was still with him.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:03:57 GMT -6
San wondered whether being taken off the medicine administered by the Watchful Ones had helped, or if she was simply opening up because she was interacting with him. Either way, it was a good sign, probably. He hoped it was, anyway.
“Ready? Fly,” he said.
She lifted off without issue. As for moving forward… She stalled in the air for a moment, then lost some height, but she did manage to move forward some distance. It wasn’t to where San had been standing, but it wasn’t nothing either. “Good try,” he said.
She got off the foam pad she had landed on, and went back to where she started. “Fly,” San said again. This time when she lifted off, she had better luck; when she moved forward, she didn’t lose as much height as before. She didn’t make it all the way to San this time either, but it was closer.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:04:43 GMT -6
It took her another two attempts, but by then her movements in the air had stabilized, to the point that it looked more or less like proper flying when she reached him at the end of the row of foam pads. “Land,” he said, and this time, she did, right on the final landing pad.
They did it a few more times, just to be sure that she had the idea. More practice never hurt, especially when it was something she was new to. And then San rearranged the pads in a triangle layout, so she could practice turning. That took some time for her to figure out too, but through trial and error, she managed to work out a way to turn around after some practice.
From there, over their next few sessions, San moved the landing pads so they were individual islands across the room, and asked Rei to fly from one to another.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 16:06:38 GMT -6
At first the distances were short, but they got steadily longer, until she was flying across the room and back again before she landed. And with all the practice, in time, she stopped landing on the pads altogether, opting to land right on the ground or on a crate instead, no longer wary of a hard landing. San hadn’t pushed her to it, though he had been of a mind to if she didn’t try it on her own; fortunately she had grown adventurous enough to do that much, at least.
She wasn't what he would have called a seasoned flyer, but she was doing well enough now that she could get from place to place. He found, too, that now that she knew how, she was flying on her own. Given her size, and the fact that everything was made for people of San's proportions, it really was easier for her to fly around than to walk.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:16:06 GMT -6
There was one particular flying skill that he hadn’t seen her display yet though, which he would have liked her to know. So their flight practice went on a little longer, and San kept the foam landing pads on hand, just in case.
“Do you remember when you learned to tread water?” said San. “This time, could you try to do that in the air--- to hover? Just stay in the same place, while flying, without landing or moving around.” He doubted it would be as simple as treading water had been, though maybe it was only because he knew how to tread water, and knew rather less about the motions actually required to hover in the air. He had never experienced the latter firsthand, whereas he could perform the former.
Still, as far as analogies went, they were pretty similar. He thought it might be easier to explain if she had a point of reference with which she was already familiar.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:16:26 GMT -6
He saw Rei’s ears fold back slightly at his words. “If you can’t do it, that’s okay,” he said. It was possible that she just couldn’t manage it. Most birds couldn’t, he knew; but many insects could, and she had the wings of an insect, not a bird. If she could manage it, it would be a useful skill, especially if she was providing surveillance from a fixed point. Then she would have much greater flexibility in terms of where she could stay, what vantage points she could choose, and so forth.
“This will be here to break your fall,” San said. She hadn’t needed them for some time, but since they were trying a new maneuver in the air, he felt that it was better safe than sorry. And Rei did seem a little more at ease, seeing them, so San felt sound in his choice.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:16:39 GMT -6
“Ready? Fly,” he said. She went up, and he didn’t let her go very high before he said, “Now try to hover.”
In truth, San had done a little of his own research as to how hovering worked, but he wanted to see if she had any ideas of her own first as to how to achieve it. She was the one with experience flying, after all, and he assumed she had an instinctive rather than an academic understanding of how to move in the air, not to mention of her own body.
Her first attempt didn’t amount to much, in terms of results. Her movements stuttered in the air a while, and she bobbed up and down erratically as she tried to… find some sort of balance, San thought, but he couldn’t be sure. After a while, she landed on her own, a little heavily, but the fall was a controlled one, and she launched herself into the air again immediately after.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:17:39 GMT -6
San had deliberated asking whether she wanted advice, but seeing her take the initiative here, he held off on giving her any. It seemed she wanted to work it out on her own, and if that was the case, he would do his best to let her.
She flew only a short distance up, perhaps taking a cue from San on where would be safe to stop, and started to fall again. But this time she managed to arrest it, and for a moment, at least, managed what San had asked of her after all, hovering in place.
And then she wobbled upward again, and then down. It was like watching someone on a balance beam, except in this case the beam was in all directions. Sometimes she wobbled forward or backward, or to one side.
Eventually she tired herself out, and drifted down again. But her second attempt had felt more stable, as though she were starting to figure out the trick to it.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:18:11 GMT -6
“It’s okay to take a break,” San said. He offered her a thimble filled with water, in case she wanted a drink. She took it from him. It wasn’t exactly the equivalent of a cup on her, more like a bucket, but it was close enough. She took a shallow drink from it, then handed it back to him, and San set it aside.
When he could see that she had caught her breath, he said, “Do you want to try again?” She nodded, so he said, “Fly. Now hover.”
She still wobbled at first, but this time she was able to produce a more or less consistent hovering. All the experimenting that she had done on that long second attempt was apparently paying off. It wasn’t perfect stillness, but it was close enough that San was satisfied, and he was sure that with practice, she would improve at it.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:18:25 GMT -6
“That’s pretty good,” San said. That she had figured it out so quickly, and with only her own wits and what paltry help he could offer, was genuinely impressive. Rei landed, opening and closing her wings slowly, then moving them in a slower version of the movements they had been making before. At the reduced speed, San could see it better too--- she was beating them forward and back, almost.
“Is it very tiring?” he said. She hadn’t stayed in the air terribly long, and he wanted to know the limitations of this, so that he didn’t ask her to hover in place for long periods of time if she couldn’t do it. Rei didn’t respond for some time, but at length she shook her head.
Still, the hesitation made San wonder about her answer. “Is it something you’ll have to build up strength for?” he ventured.
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