Wing Experimentation Who: Rowan and Verity Where: That little house of theirs When: Right around sundown
It had just gotten to be too much, being trapped inside that little house with two kids and two adults-- sort of adults. Adolescents. Whatever you called people their age. Rowan realized quickly that he'd go insane if he had to stay in there all day, so in between chores or meals or trying to entertain the kids, once the sign was done and put up in the front bay window, he'd started sneaking out into the backyard for a breath of fresh air and to stretch his legs.
On this last slip outside-- which he'd figured would be his last, since night was on its way-- stretching his legs in a walk around the thankfully fenced-in backyard turned into stretching his wings. And now, though the sun was sinking down and he was hearing some distant monster-animal-whatever sounds, he was still out there, beating them, running with them open, running with them beating, and otherwise just experimenting.
Because dammit, he was going to figure the damn things out and make them useful.
Jasper had fallen asleep. Verity had watched over him a little while, but as much as he'd centered his world on his brother, he could only watch a little boy sleep for a few minutes before he started to feel a little trapped. Focusing entirely on Jasper seemed only to work as a defense mechanism if he could at least pretend he was having an effect. Knowing he'd find nothing to read and that the movies weren't any more to his taste than the books, he went wandering.
He almost walked past the back window without looking, but a flicker of movement caught his eye. Afraid of what he might see, he peeked out and stayed still to stare for a moment before he caught himself, just watching the wings. Rowan wasn't having much luck yet, true, but Verity seldom saw them really spread. Of course he didn't. Rowan had to keep them in check indoors. The effect was magnified a thousandfold this way, especially with the sunset shining on the feathers. ...Sunset. Verity sighed and went out to call Rowan in. The dark would be much worse, especially as he was starting to wonder how long the streetlights would last.
Rowan was, at that point, running fast circles around the small yard, trying to get up some kind of momentum, or thermal, or... whatever. Just beating his wings wasn't doing much more than giving his stomach flip-flops, running with them open got him some very odd-feeling lift-- more than he'd imagined given how heavy he thought he was-- but as soon as he turned he lost it. Running in a circle was the best way he could think of to combine the two motions.
However, it was also making him dizzy, and after all the flapping and holding open and more flapping, the wings were definitely getting tired and even a little shaky.
The sound of the heavy, sliding french door opening startled him, and he tried to spin around, wings beating more in shock than intent. His feet lifted off the ground for a split second-- and then he toppled over in a dizzy heap of torn clothes, lanky limbs, and feathers.
Verity watched carefully, following the strange contortion and the line it made, seeing Rowan rise for a moment. That was enough to make him think it was possible to get the guy off the ground. He'd not been sure before. The physics still didn't seem to work, but he'd seen Rowan rise. It was something. Enough of an inspiration of sorts that he winced in sympathy when Rowan landed. "Um, sorry." Verity used apologies rather neatly sometimes as deflection, but sometimes it was just a knee-jerk reaction. He supposed Rowan was a little less impressive this way, but Verity found that falling over cartoonishly didn't detract from his admiration at all. He closed the door carefully but then ran over to help him up.
"You okay?" Wings, it stuck him, would be very breakable. They'd have to convince Rowan to be careful. Which seemed like it might well be difficult. Even Verity didn't like being told to watch himself, and he didn't have a fraction of Rowan's adolescent male arrogance.
"Um. I think so." Furiously embarrassed, Rowan tried to pick himself up. One wing had wound up half-crumpled beneath him, the feathers sticking up every which way and a few bent beyond repair-- thankfully not any of the big long ones. Which he had the vague notion were called primaries. Or pins. Or something starting with a P.
But he was still very dizzy, too, which wasn't helping matters, and all he wound up was getting himself into a sitting position. The world was spinning, and he didn't think getting up would do much more than make him look even stupider. Running in circles in the backyard was definitely not cutting it for flight lessons.
"Okay." Verity shot a worried look at the feathers, but there didn't seem to be any real structural damage. "I doubt you'll get any lift back here. Even large birds have to take off from height sometimes, and you're bigger than any condor. You're like... Thunderbird." Verity stopped talking for a moment, which was often the only way he could convince his stupid generator to shut down for a while. At least he didn't take any particular note of Rowan's embarrassment. Verity was quite good at not judging.
Verity held his arm out to help Rowan stand. "We'd have to try something high enough that you might get lift but not so high you'd break a leg on the way down if it didn't work." A trampoline came to mind, but that was both too utterly ridiculous and not by any means a good idea. "A dumpster might be good, or just some stairs if there were enough of them... But both of those would mean hard landings..." Now he was interested. Rowan had just become a mechanical problem.
"Then find somewhere with a mattress, or grass, or something," Rowan suggested, eying the offered arm for a long moment before deciding his pride had been hit enough already and he didn't need to try and get it hit again. He took it with an irritated sigh, and got up. His wings hardly wanted to hold themselves up, trembling with exhaustion. He was quite happy to become a mechanical problem, though, because he didn't have many ideas, and he imagined Verity would have more. "I think I'm gonna need to lay down now or somethin'," he admitted, blinking, still a little dizzy and definitely tired. His whole back seemed to ache.
Verity was more solid than he looked and was quite steady in hauling Rowan to his feet. In fact, it was easier than he expected. He was right, then, about the wings having their origin inside Rowan's body. He was a great fan of the law of conservation of mass. That was neat. "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, you've only had those muscles for a day. It must be ten times worse than starting a new workout." His misery after the first few days of working in the garage was his best basis for comparison, and that had been pretty bad. Biceps screaming in pain were no fun.
For his part, Rowan hadn't even figured out the whole weight thing. He didn't really feel any different-- aside from sore and achy-- but he, too, was a little surprised at how easily he wound up on his feet. In fact, he'd been expecting to have to do so much more himself, that he nearly over-balanced and fell into Verity. Automatically, he snapped his poor, tired wings open and beat them once to keep him on his feet. "You're, uh, a lot stronger than you look," he commented, startled.
Verity watched his wings, interested. It seemed like Rowan had the instincts to use them. It was just lift that was an issue. Used to that comment, he nodded vaguely. "I work in a garage. ...Worked." It was rather jarring every time some mundane little detail of his life came up and he was reminded it simply wasn't anymore. He kept talking to avoid sinking into contemplation. "And being the shortest guy there just means I get to be the one who gets into tight spaces." Verity shrugged. "Plus the new guy gets to carry heavy parts. I guess I should have started claiming that two and a half years means, y'know, not the new guy, but it's a little late for that now."
The change in tense actually made Rowan wince, and half of what he said afterwards went right over his head as he scrambled to get his wits back in order. "Oh. Right, yeah." He forced his aching wings shut, which actually helped with the trembling, and looked back at the sun. There was a sharp, cackle-like yipping from not too far off, and he jumped a good couple inches, feathers fluffing up with a fright reaction he really had no control over anymore. "Uh. Guess it's time to get inside."
"Um, right. That's what I came to say in the first place." He didn't want to seem like he was hovering. "I just went by the window and the shadow you cast seemed really long." Was it stupid that he'd sort of hoped for a flash of approval or at least recognition from Rowan for his job. He was sort of hoping that his very blue-collar employment might make him seem like less of a dork. "Maybe we can do popcorn and a movie again. After dinner."
Maybe he might even have gotten the approval or at least recognition, had Rowan not been startled out of even contemplating it. As it was, Rowan was making a concerted, conscious effort to slick his feathers back down again, so he didn't look like a boy with a pair of puff-balls on his back. "That's a good idea. We haven't had Juny and Jasper watching a movie yet today...." He didn't think, anyhow. So movie-watching sounded like a good idea.
For him, too. He could use the couch to give his poor, tired wings some support.... After another nervous look in the direction of the yipping, Rowan hurried back towards the door inside.
Verity followed, closing the door and latching it firmly. He was still convinced (thanks, at least in part to a diet of far too many zombie movies) that they'd be overrun by monsters. That didn't make the least amount of sense, of course. Those things weren't evil, just mindless. They were hungry, and at the moment there was more than enough carrion to feed an army at their disposal, and would be for quite a while, if they didn't mind their meat a bit ripe. While the idea of horrible masses of mangled mutant devouring the dead wasn't exactly pleasant, in the context of keeping monstrous attention off his brother and friends, it was almost comforting.
He didn't even notice that he'd thought of Liah and Rowan as friends. For some people it would be completely natural, but for Verity, that was a first. A screech like a dying rabbit and nails down a chalkboard performing a duet made him jump and hurry a bit to catch up with Rowan.