Leave him be
He wanted to say something. The sphinx opens her mouth as if about to answer, eyes darting between the man and his car along the roadside. Daniel decides to offer a simple nod lest he risk his words twisting into riddles and confusing the matter further. The human-shaped lips sealed tight and his eyebrows furrowed, a puffy tipped tail swished behind his wings with annoyance. Mostly at himself for the fact whatever this block was that filtered his speech was actually getting to him.
The driver stepped back. Twice. Four times. Very slow to trust the idea he can turn around, he kept his gaze on the towering Sphinx the entire time. Even as he shuts one door behind him, and is left to fiddle with the ruined front door to the driver’s seat. Daniel simply watched. Wings folded behind him, the four legged body curled up like a housecat and seated on it’s haunches. Wide eyes watching intently to see if the car would start.
The man steps inside, and while the sphinx cannot see what happens within there is the sound of an engine revving. The car starts, then drifts forward. Within moments it’s moving smoothly and easily through the curved roads and left to vanish around the bend, trees blocking it’s view.
Daniel sighs, there wasn’t anything to worry about for the man’s safety it would appear. And more to the point now he had a direction to travel and some idea where he was going. The name of his home town was the same, there were cars, the man’s clothing looked ordinary, Daniel could at least assume he was in the same universe and not transported to some fantasy land. After such vibrant sensation and a direct conversation any chance he might have been dreaming need be long forgotten by now.
That just leaves making his way home and hoping this entire event doesn’t ruin his summer. What happens when he gets home? How are his friends going to react? Was he ever going to change back?
Thinking of it practically this new form gave something that even his grandest dreams would never have allowed for. With a flap he demonstrated to himself just how much of a boon this was. The front legs push off the blacktop, his hind legs brace against the staggering weight of his enormous body, he can feel the muscles in his chest stretching and pulling with every beat of the feathered limbs behind him. For a moment he was standing up on two legs, and then a moment after he wasn’t even standing but hovering.
The air felt firm beneath his eagle-shaped wings, his legs felt light and free as if he were dangling them over the side of a bed. There was a comfortable tingle in the base of his spine, staring down to see the ground receed farther and farther. The trees on either side shifting tones from brown and green, to a more pure green as he can see less and less of the trunk. By an overhead view the roads looked less like something of civilization and more like a blackened river that cuts through the trees and around hills.
In the distance already he can spot John’s car trailing away. Toward something, it was certain. To longport. Daniel could see a glistening city far behind, but the car was traveling away from it. A flap. A swoop, then another few flaps to gain height. It was awkward and lazy at first, and with this constant effort he could already feel his wings getting tired. It was like having another pair of arms on top of the first, perhaps to make up for the five fingered hands he’d just lost, and flying was like taking a very large fan in each palm and forcing it through thick water.
Try paddling a boat when there’s nothing between you and the water, and your paddles happen to be as wide as your body length in either direction. No wait, wider. It wasn’t even still water at that once he’d gotten over the tree line. While the air at ground level was flat and dead, requiring effort to lift off and power his immense weight into the skies, up here without the trees as a wind-break there was a breeze. It was a current of air, like swimming against a river with wide paddles attached to your back that scooped up as much of the current as possible.
Already Daniel could see the car had passed well beyond his sight, even with the large and keen eyes of a Sphinx. The wind shifted, and he could feel himself knocked off balance and left flailing for stability. His four paws grasping uselessly against nothing while his wings catch the wind.
Exhausted, nervous, and now a slight bit frustrated he straitens the wings out and tries to glide down toward the trees, toward the road, at which point he realizes just how much easier this is than flapping. Now the breeze lifts under his belly and catches in the feathers. Now he’s being still and relaxed, while moving forward at a much faster pace. It was the difference between walking and skating, leveling his flight to just glide in took almost no effort at all and left the wind largely useless at steering him off-course. Diving headlong into the breeze actually seemed to help steady his path.
So for a while he simply drifted, eyes wide to the glory and wonder of open wilderness beneath. He could see rocks sparkling with bits of quarts, he could see the moss growing strong across fallen logs and sunken boulders. The sunlight glinted off of stagnant pools leftover from the last rain. For a brief moment he thought he could spot the brown and tan of a deer far to his left, then the flash of white and tail and the creature has bounced away into the brush. He could stare straight ahead to the distant cliff faces, the entire valley being ripe with vertical terrain and ancient trees.
Come to think of it, those trees were getting a little bit too clos-SMACK!
He feels the painful crunch of leaf and branch against his right shoulder, the wood splintering away to catch amongst the lower branches while his weight and bulk simply powers through. The leaves and smaller twigs scraped over his fur and left parts of the legs raw and itchy. Another tree too close ahead. The weight tilts, his wings flap and curl in an effort to fling him toward the left, toward the open road where trees had been cleared away. No time! Brace!
CRUNCH!
His two thick arms and furry paws held together before his face, feeling the wood smash against his forearms and then splinter away like plywood. It hurt and it stung, but this branch was too large to catch amongst the leaves and went falling all the way to the ground. Mud splats away, and as Daniel drifts onward he can hear the crinkling sound of smaller wood chunks falling.
Height. He needed height! The wings flapped, harder and harder and yet harder still, forcing himself into the slight breeze. As soon as he got above the tree line he could feel the wind getting stronger, but he wanted altitude above all else. Wind smacks into his face and chest, catching in the wings and causing his forward flight to stall. It felt all too much like being punched in the gut. But he carried on, higher and higher, until his wings were sore with effort and the burn of exhaustion pulled all the way down his arms.
Daniel was gasping for breath, his heart pounding into his chest and the dull throb of where he twice impacted against solid wood kept nagging into his senses. Higher. The wind was strong enough to force his tail stiff and strait behind him, he wasn’t moving forward in the slightest and all of his flaps just took him up. Higher! He did not have much practice with flight, but if this was to be his education then he could not help but note its similarities to an unpleasant Gym. HIGHER!
At last he felt his face enter amongst the clouds, he could see the green shifting into grey deep down bellow, and he could see over the range of the mountains beneath him. The clouds drifted over his face and it was like diving into fog, the cool chill of the sprinkled mist pleasant against his injuries and soothed the pain in his wings.
After so much effort the sphinx straitens her wings out and eases into a level flight, tilting forward just enough that the wind catches beneath her feathers and helps to lift up while her sheer weight and momentum kept her drifting against the current. It was a luxury, a respite against the previous desperate climb. At last Daniel could breathe a sigh of relief and focus on his forward destination.
Find the city of Longport, fly or glide his way back home, get back onto his bed and then call it a day. It all starts with finding …
Finding …
Written by Arbon on 08 July 2016