First Flight

"Are you serious about this?" Kir asked as he looked down from twenty meters above the ground.

He'd climbed up a rope ladder to get to the trapeze in the big tent, which was the first tent everyone in the circus set up before making the rest of their camp. It was his first time inside it, and there wasn't even a safety net down below.

Kir suddenly found himself wishing he learned if magic could affect gravity.

"Of course I am! Trust me!" Morn laughed, hovering in front of him with a steady motion of her wings.

"You sold me out to a prick for money," Kir reminded her.

"Aye, true, but I wasn't gonna do murder for him! Besides, he probably just wants to drive you out. Protect his precious sister from being in class with you." She showed off, flying around Kir in a circle. "Now, you see that bar with the ropes? Pick that up since you're feeling skittish."

Skittish wasn't half of it. Kir was downright terrified. The only training he'd gotten on the ground was her checking to make sure he could flap his wings. After that, she told him to climb.

"How do I know you aren't just trying to get me killed?" Kir asked. "Make it look like an accident."

"Well for one, be real shitty of me to do that after not burning you in the cart. For two, I had a word with the beastmaster on the way in," she put two fingers in her mouth and blew a very loud whistle.

Down below, Kir watched as the circus' beastmaster walked into the ring with a very large gryphon. "If you fall, Earnest will catch you."

The beastmaster saluted, waving amicably. He was a human fellow with a round face and a wide smile.

"You know I'm pretty heavy, right? I don't think he can catch me," Kir replied.

"Hm? Oh that's not Earnest. That's Till. Earnest is the griffin." Morn pointed with her tail.

The griffin squawked and looked at Kir with eyes that said "hunt" more than "catch."

"Great..." Kir muttered to himself. "How do you fly?" he asked.

"Not schooled enough to know how. I just do it, you know?" Morn said.

"I know that I don't have nearly enough surface area with these wings to sustain flight. I know that the most I can do is push myself around glide, probably..." Kir started to babble.

"I don't know what you're saying, but you got luck, right? Just push your luck up and let the wings take care of the rest." Morn demonstrated, arcing into a graceful circle that flipped her skirt enough to reveal she was wearing tights underneath her dress. "Simple."

"I don't have luck, I have magic," Kir said, about to state what he knew about gravity when Morn interrupted.

"I mean, make wind if you have to. But magic's like, outside you. Luck's inside!" she explained.

"There's no such-" Kir started saying when suddenly he realized something. He didn't have luck, but if Morn thought that magic was just an external force, then she might not be learned enough to have figured out that magic was also an internal force. It wasn't "luck" he needed to move around, but mana!

Kir shook his head, silencing himself and taking a breath. All this time he'd circulated mana through his body as part of his daily training, but he'd never thought to circulate them through his wings...

Without gripping the bar, he crouched, feeling inside himself as he identified his meridians, the lines along which mana flowed. He felt them lightly at first, the meridians leading out to his wings, and into these he sent mana flowing.

It hurt at first, making him grimace as the channels were unblocked by the flow of magic within him, and he felt for the first time that they were truly a part of him instead of a pair of alien appendages, just like his tail when he thought to control it.

Morn was still going on with her examples, and Kir barely heard her voice as he stepped off the platform with a light leap, flaring his wings out as he tried to get the mana within his body to "push up" as Morn had said...

"Scree!" Kir heard Earnest cry in excitement right before the griffin caught him, hugging him with one clawed arm as he was born to the ground.

Kir was surprised to find himself unharmed, except for his ego, as he was dropped in front of Till.

Morn landed next to him. "Nice first try, but how about you keep your eyes open this time? You nearly hit the other pole."

Kir looked back to the other pole of the tent, spotting the unused trapeze at the top.

A goofy grin crossed his face and he started laughing to himself.

He wanted to keep trying, so instead of standing up, he put mana into his wings and pulsed them, focusing on "upwards" and surprising himself when he lifted up and sustained himself for more than a meter off the ground.

"Haha!" he said, trying to steady his mana circulation as he concentrated on flapping to maintain altitude.

Morn tsked and looked at him with a bit of jealousy. "Yeah, yeah, look at you figuring out how to hover already. Don't get a big head yet." She pulsed herself off the ground and then whistled to Till, who tossed her a whip. "The real trick is figuring out how to fly fast!"

She cracked the whip, and Kir instinctively dodged. He almost lost a feather to it. "Be careful with that! The tips of those break the sound barrier," he raised his voice.

"The what? Only thing I'm going to break is your arse if you don't start flying fast." She readied her arm again.

Kir barely managed to dodge the second time and the third.

Morn was clearly skilled with the whip, since no matter what angle he took, she could find a way to make it crack.

The first time she struck him, it was on his tail, and Earnest had to fly up again to catch him.

The griffon was actually pretty affectionate, but Kir didn't want to spend all his time getting big feathery hugs.

By the time Kir returned to the wagon, he was sore and bruised. He'd had cuts from the whip, but Till had a healing potion that put them all right, even if it didn't have enough pep in it to make the areas stop hurting after. Thankfully there wouldn't be any scars.

"You learn good," Morn said as she dropped him off at the wagon. She was also sweating, and she was even panting a little even after the walk. "I like a man who can follow instructions. Even if he's not-"

"Thank you, Morn," Kir said firmly, interrupting her. "I assume this is the part where you charge me for the lesson?"

"Ah, you know me so well. How about you just owe me a favor on this one? Big devil blood like you, I can tell you're going places if they let you into the Academy," she smiled prettily.

"You can learn as an adult you know. That thing you think of as 'luck,' that's just your internal mana, and you fly so well, you must have good control of it." Kir said.

"Nah, my life is here, leastwise until everyone breaks up. Might try my hand at adventuring if that happens.. I'm pretty good with a whip," she laughed.

Kir nodded, not willing to dissuade her. He turned, digging through his things until he found something he didn't need anymore. A book of beginner magic, called Auren's Enchiridion. Most of its pages were heavy with his own notes, and corrections.

"Here," he said. "For the potion. I think some good spells will help you more than a whip if you're going to make it outside the circus."

"You are way too generous, kid. I mean, Kir. If you're not paranoid, someone's going to take advantage of you," Morn advised as she accepted the book.

"If I were paranoid, I wouldn't have learned how to fly... So again, thank you," he smiled.

"Aww shucks. Are you sure you don't wanna a good time?"

"No." Kir refused her flatly.

"Fine, lad." Before he could stop her, she tiptoed up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Guess I'll have to finish learning to read," she held up the book up as she started backing away.

"Take care of yourself, Morn," Kir said. "And your people."

"I always do!" she called back before finally turning away.

Kir shook his head, then turned to climb back into his cot for the morning.