Lance Hastings Will Cross-Check You (pucku) wrote in willowbrookrpg, @ 2014-02-18 11:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, day: november 24, lance hastings, victoria dickerson |
Lance and Tori have a wing off.
Who: Tori and Lance
When: 24 November 2013, Early Afternoon
Where: Outside near the gym
What: Tori and Lance +_+
Status: Closed/Incomplete
Rating: Medium
Lance had already been up for hours. That is just how he rolled. He already had his morning run. He filled his stomach with a lot of pancakes and bacon, like growing boys like him needed. Now, it was time for a good competition. He didn’t know of the extent Tori made with her own ability to fly -- they weren’t in the same class after all-- but she seemed so confident when she made her bet, he thought it would be a good opportunity to compete with his flying. All he had was people like Cora and Primrose before. And to be honest, he did like running with people. It gave him a driving sense to push himself. He felt the same was true with flying. He didn’t have many people he could really fly with. He’d go with Cora but that was about it.
So Lance did feel thrilled at the thought of another person with the ability to soar the skies. Besides, he enjoyed Tori’s attitude, even though it could get on his nerves sometimes -- but that went for most people. She got him motivated, even more so than if he motivated himself and that said something! He appreciated her heart on her sleeve personality. He hated when he had to figure out what people wanted. Just say what you want! Lance always felt like screaming at people.
He stood outside the gym waiting for Tori to show up. He wore gym clothes, a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt he had tailored so he could stretch his wings. He spent his time waiting to stretch. He reached down to touch his toes. He turned his torso from side to side stretching his arms at the same time. He also spread his black feathered wings as fair as they would go, flapping them a few times, sending a breeze out in front of him, and hovering him off the ground a ½ a foot. Once he accomplished that, his wings folded back close to his back.
He took out his cellphone and rolled his eyes. He usually was early for these things. So he put his phone back and stretched his arms over his head.
---
While Lance had been calm, cool, and collected all day, going about business as usual, Tori had been a bundle of anxiety and nerves. She hadn’t slept well the night before even though she was still tired from the trip to the Amazon and her subsequent dehydration earlier in the week. What, she wondered, had she gotten herself into? More than once she’d rolled over and groaned into her leopard print pillow, cursing herself, her competitive spirit, and her goddamn mouth. She couldn’t fly. Not really. She’d only just recently gotten the hang of throwing herself off of a building, and she hadn’t even stuck the landing. Worse still, she refused to text James and ask him for help. He couldn’t know what she’d gotten herself into. No, this was a mess, and she was in it on her own.
Tori was not a competitor who would ever choose to not show, however; thus, after a muffin and a cup of coffee, she’d gotten her head in order and accepted that she was going to try even if the odds were stacked against her. She changed into her lycra and sports bra, worked her hair into a braid, slapped on some makeup, and she was off. Because if the Amazon had taught her anything, it was never go anywhere without makeup. That had been a horror show. Raccoon eyes even were better than nothing at all. Shoulders back, head high, she marched herself to the meeting spot. Even if she was likely to lose, she refused to give the universe the satisfaction of seeing her cower.
The moment she saw him in the distance she was pissed off. One, he was early. Two, his wings didn’t look like vomit. Three, he was hovering--she’d caught that. He was hovering, and she had never successfully even gotten a half an inch, nevermind half a foot, off the ground by her own volition. Oh, this was going to be a massacre.
Instead of allowing herself to fret and fear or wallow in self-loathing and sorrow, she clenched her jaw and focused. Trigger. Envy. It usually did more for her bones, but maybe it’d help with her wings. Maybe it’d help it all. Her powers, though they were different, were also one, related. She wanted what he had, wanted it more than anything, wanted him to suffer its loss as he was forced to watch her take the lead, claim victory. Instead of horns, she focused her envy into her back. Not spikes, not nodules. Wings. They burst from her back in two spikes that opened into the skeletons of wings and filled in with an intricate system of bones and cartilage. She wasn’t pretty to look at, wasn’t an angel or a bat or a bird, but she was fearsome in her own mind, had learned to love her gross. If she was anything, she was a dragon.
Wings back, open but close together so they didn’t create too much drag, Tori took off at a run towards him. Today, she was going to fly. She could feel it. Her lesson with James and Grace had stuck a little. Hollow bones, yes, but that didn’t mean that she was entirely fragile. More breakable, yes, but not delicate or fragile. “You ready for this?” she screeched at him, looking and sounding every bit the harpy as she came upon him.
--
Lance looked over towards Tori when he heard her address him. He stopped flapping his wings as he softly landed on the ground and looked her up once. Her wings did look weird but he didn’t feel like saying anything about it. He remembered what a long process it had been for him to mutate. Some people had their trigger and that was it. With Lance, it involved growing a pair of wings and his did not look too hot when they first appeared -- more like leathery skin with downy and fuzzy white feathers which at first were covered in blood. The black plumage came in over the next few weeks. The healing of his back took a few months. Getting mobility in them so it felt natural became the next task at hand.
It hadn’t been easy. He hated his first year and wasn’t wild about his second year. He didn’t consider his ability too flashy but he did work at it to get everything out of it that he could. Flying was another ability that he didn’t think some people understood. He had to learn how to fly. Birds didn’t know how to fly when they were born, just like humans didn’t know how to walk when they were born either. Trying to figure out how to fly was a trial and error process that made up most of his first couple of years. It involved falling. It involved bruising and breaking things. There was a time in which he tried jumping from the roof before he was ready which really ended up hurting himself. Now, he felt confident. He could do a lot with his abilities.
Lance smirked at Tori’s confidence, “I was born ready for this.” He turned a bit more serious, “How do you want to do this? Just take off? Or do you need to glide first?” He didn’t mean to come off as a condescending ass when he said that but he really didn’t know. He just figured that Tori’s ability wasn’t at the level like his were and while he wasn’t for giving handicaps in challenges like this, he would never forget falling off the roof. Stuff like that were hard lessons. You should always push yourself, he believed, but you should be aware of your limits.
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