Aerial Practice

[Richard]

Richard was in Magpie form trying to practice flying. So far, he had gotten really good at breaking out of a dive before hitting the ground. His first attempt had left him with a sore foot, but he was slowly improving. The magpie's vision was a lot better than his own was as he could see the dust on some of the boxes in the hangar. It was probably not as good as a raptor's eyes, but they were good enough for seeing a ball in the middle of a field.

<<This is awesome.>> Richard was projecting his thought speak openly so that everyone could hear. He knew these powers were not a toy, but it didn't change the fact that he was having a good time. If only there was some air current in this place, then Richard could see what riding a thermal was like. He flew down to where he had left his watch to see how much time he had left. According to the watch, he had about nine minutes left in morph, so he should probably start to demorph.

Richard focused on the image of himself. The feathers on his body began to melt away as his skull started to reshape itself to looking more human. His wing started to grow longer as they thinned out to form his arms. His bird feet began to expand into his legs. His morphing outfit came into view near the end of it as his beak became his mouth. "I don't think I will ever get used to that part of becoming a bird."

[Adrian]

Adrian hopped along the railing above Richard's head, his small mockingbird body so light that it made the task easy. His bird wanted to sing and he let it. Mockingbirds were deemed one of nature's most talented singers. They could imitate anything they heard and weave it together into a unique song all their own including other bird songs and the particular, hair raising screech of the Bladeship's test alarms. This, of course, made mockingbirds, and Adrian's specifically, unbearably annoying, a fact that Adrian was quite aware of.

<<Speak for yourself,>> Adrian said, his thoughtspeak voice still lightly accented by his Persian heritage, <<I feel like I was born to fly.>> He'd arrived later than Richard and so had more time in morph. He took off, his bird body falling mercifully silent as it turned its little bird mind to the task of flying, and flitted around Richard's head. <<Hey, want to play tag or something?>>

[Richard]

Richard looked up to see a little bird above his head. "Flying is fun enough, but I was referring to the part of my mouth becoming a beak." It was weird to go from soft lips to a hard beak and then back again. He was interested in the game of tag that Adrian had brought up, so he began to morph back into a magpie.

The changes were the opposite of when he had demorphed except his face was the first thing to change this time. It took a few minutes but he was a magpie again and ready for a game of tag. <<Tag sounds like fun, but which one of us is it?>> That would make things interesting depending on who had more experience flying. Richard flapped his wings to gain some altitude so that Adrian wouldn't be able to get him too easily.

[Adrian]

<<Obviously you are mate,>> Adrian answered immediately, taking off from the railing. <<Since you're the one still on the ground.>> There wasn't much air movement to work with inside the ship and he'd quickly realized just how much of flying was using the air around you. His bird wasn't happy about the mostly dead air and neither was he because it slowed him down and made him work harder for every wing beat.

But dead air was such a small problem to overcome when the activity was flying. How many people could say they could fly? Adrian wasn't going to let a little dead air stop him from doing the one activity humans had dreamed of for generations. <<Woooo!>> he yelled from pure excitement. <<Catch up if you can.>>

[Richard]

Richard tried to gain some height, but doing that in dead air was about as easy as climbing a hill with a backpack full of weights. The bird was becoming exhausted at a rate that was not to either one of their likings. It didn't help that Adrian was already up in the air, and Richard was it. This game was going to be a lot more difficult than he had originally thought.

<<I'll catch up alright, and when I do your going to so get tagged.>> Richard just needed to remember that getting up was the hard part. Everything else would be a lot easier as it was only going downhill. There had to be an easier way of doing this though. If he was given a couple, then Richard could probably come up with some way of making an air current out of some of the things that were lying around here, but he didn't think that he had that much time. <<Someone should talk to somebody about installing some fans aimed up so that we don't wear ourselves doing this.>>

[Adrian]

<<Probably a good idea,>> Adrian said as he tried to keep an eye on Richard's progress. <<We should write a letter and drop it in Seiya's suggestion box don't you think?>> Seiya was an interesting character. Adrian could not imagine the man doing anything else but what he was doing so he had no problems with the dean of the Academy. But he wondered what Seiya did on the weekends. Did he even recognize the weekends?

Adrian decided to stop using his own energy and landed on some thing that was hanging from the ceiling. It seemed to be of one piece with the hull of the hangar and Adrian had no idea what it was used for but it worked well enough as a perch and he could easily watch Richard flit through the air.

[Richard]

Richard wondered if a bird could collapse in mid-flight from being too exhausted. He figured it was possible since other animals could collapse while running or pass out while swimming. His goal was to get to where Adrian was resting at so he could take a breather before actually attempting to tag anyone. His wings were beginning to feel like they were in the fryer.

<< I was thinking more along the lines of Jullian who would see it as good practice. I am pretty sure Seiya might think it would be better to simulate gale force winds or something as a pre-requisite for graduation.>> It sounded like a good idea in theory, but in reality it could seriously hurt several of the students by sending them into a very dense wall at a high velocity. <<Wait, this place has a suggestion box?>> Richard was very much surprised at the idea that there was a place to suggest things for the academy. He figured new classes or tests were drawn out of a hat in Seiya's office.

[Adrian]

<<No, I don't think there is,>> Adrian said as he watched Richard struggle through the air. He almost wanted to help him but there wasn't anything he could do. It wasn't like giving someone a hand. You couldn't give someone a wing. Or maybe you could. It would be something to try out at some point. What if Richard or someone else had a hurt wing. Was there a way to help them in flight?

<<We should make that suggestion too. Suggestion 1: Simulate air currents. Suggestion 2: Make a suggestion box. Of course, suggestion two may have to be implemented before suggestion one. You know, between the two of us, we could probably come up with a dozen changes this place could use.>>

[Richard]

Richard finally made it to where Adrian was perched at, so he let his bird body rest while he continued on the conversation. He was glad and sort of sad to hear that there wasn't a suggestion box for the Academy. He was glad that he had not missed another important thing about this place, but sad that there wasn't a place to put comments or something without having to put a target on a person's back.

<< Your probably right about that, but we might want to implement getting some support from our fellow trainees about this. A large group requesting it might get it done a lot faster.>> At least that was how it usually worked with all the political campaigns that he had heard about from his parents. One person would start spreading an idea among the people, which led to a large group wanting it. It was like subliminal messaging in television only without the sneakiness.

[Adrian]

<<Not a bad idea,>> Adrian said, watching Richard warily. Richard's bird body looked pretty tired but this was still a game of tag after all. Playground rules required Adrian to always assume he was faking. And it was all too easy to believe that play did prepare people for the real world since the state of cautiousness would probably serve him well at all times.

<<Maybe we can have a student meeting or something before graduation. Just discuss what our experience was like and what we'd change.>> Adrian wasn't much of a politician and he really didn't want to get involved in other people's lives. As far as he was concerned, for the most part, the Academy worked fine and he was willing to let the teachers figure it out for the themselves if they didn't want his input. But there was no harm in having a conversation and it would give him an excuse to throw a party.

[Richard]

Richard was glad that Adrian liked his suggestion about getting the other recruits in on this idea. It would do them no good to suggest anything if no one else actually wanted it. He hadn't noticed the way that Adrian's bird eyes were keeping an eye on his movements. The thought of pretending to be tired had never crossed his mind in the slightest.

<<Sounds like a good idea.>> Richard wasn't sure what everyone else would say, but his ideas on how to improve the place were not really that vast. He hadn't done anything outside of this place, but he figured that ideas of what he could have been doing to better prepare himself would pop into his when he started his first mission or something. Good ideas never came up until long after they could have been useful.

[Adrian]

<<Alright then,>> Adrian said, thinking about the logistics of the thing. He'd never been much a party planner, mostly because it involved the same logistics he was now thinking about. He'd much rather show up to a party, or better yet, a bar and have everything figured out for him. That way he could just enjoy himself instead of playing host. The strict Persian rules about what was required of a host had managed to worm their way into Adrian's psyche and he would have felt guilty if he didn't go all out at a party he had planned and hosted so he avoided the guilt and the responsibility by being a perpetual guest.

But there was no one here to host. In fact, their rooms were hardly large enough to do much in. He tried to think of where he could have a party that would fit all five of them that wasn't the mess hall, the gym or the library.

<<Any suggestions on the location of this meeting?>> Adrian asked?

[Richard]

Richard let the bird body build up its strength again for the game that would probable test their endurance. He wasn't sure how many times Adrian had played this game, but Richard figured that it was more than him. His mind drifted back and forth between the subject of the game and the meeting they were talking about. It was breaking his concentration thinking about both, so he decided to answer Adrian's question before attempting to do something.

<<We could always take over the history room. Shouldn't it be big enough to meet the needs of a simple meeting?>> Richard decided that they had been inactive long enough, so he was going to make a play. He turned toward Adrian and took off straight at him in the hopes of tagging him. It was not really a good move, but it was all he could think of doing since he was perched.

[Adrian]

<<Maybe,>> Adrian said noncommittally. It seemed Richard was treating this like an actual meeting and not the party Adrian intended for it to become once the meeting was done.

He was actually caught up in party planning enough that he nearly missed Richard's dive. He released his talons and just dropped from the chandelier. He didn't want to lose too much height because, as Richard had shown, it was difficult getting it back. But the move was sufficient to ensure Richard's attack missed.

<<Try again mate,>> Adrian said, already winging away.

[Richard]

Richard's first attempt went exactly how he foresaw it would go: a complete miss. He wasn't disappointed as he knew that Adrian wouldn't let himself get tagged so easily. If he did, then the game wouldn't be as fun. His second attempt would be more thought out because he figured that he might have a chance if he used simple movements in combination.

His move sent him in a direction that was away from Adrian, so he used his tail feathers to help him turn around. <<I intend to do just that.>> He flapped his wings to gain some more height and keep up with Adrian's movements. All he had to do was get into a higher position so that he could let gravity accelerate him to a speed that Adrian's bird could not dodge.

His Magpie eyes locked onto Adrian, so he was pretty sure that if he were to dive at him then he would be able to get closer this time. He thought his plan to himself just so he knew what he was going to do. << Dive, spread wings to slow myself, and then flap straight at Adrian.>> Making sure that he was completely ready, Richard figured it was time to proceed with his plan.