Feathered Wings, Metal Wings, Wings Carved in Stone

[Lady Sabine]

The dream was the same; it always was. Melody danced in a circle with her siblings, their arms locked and wings spread for balance as they kicked the small fabric ball to one another, laughing as the youngest dropped it or the oldest sent it too high, flying over their heads. As they kicked they sang, the song their mothers had murmured as they rocked them to sleep, as it had been for generations.


Feathered wings, metal wings, wings carved in stone.


Furred wings, taloned wings, wings made of bone.


They were sweating under the warm sun, the first warm day of the season. A safe day, a good day to go exploring and playing, a good day to get out of the house and the village and their mother's hair. Five children, each under fourteen, were a lot to keep track of. Besides, the island was safe- hardly three hundred people lived on it, all of them knew each other, all of them watched out for each other.


Bright shadows, light shadows, shadows of us.


Dark shadows, huge shadows, shadows of loss.


None of them saw the Woltur, nothing but their shadows. Young as they were, they had only seen their carcasses for. Their stuffed heads with the vicious curved teeth long as a man's hand, the enormous ears and eyes, the feet equipped with vicious talons... the stuff of nightmares. They had frozen in that first moment, frozen like startled deer, and the Woltur had carried away Petyr before any of them could react. After that it was only screaming and crying and flying for dear life, for the safety of the forest where the Woltur's great wingspan would make it impossible for them to follow.


Quick wings, fast wings, wings made to live.


Slow wings, heavy wings, wings about to give.


Then she awoke like she did every night, tears on her face. The nightmares had stuck with her and Chance for their last few days on the island, healing from the scrapes and cuts and broken bones they'd gotten in their mad flight through the forest. The city might have been more safe, closer to the equator where the Woltur rarely ventured and defended ardently by the Sky Force besides, and yet the nightmares had persisted in the Wyles' new cramped apartment.


Even when Melody had edited her birth certificate and enlisted at sixteen, the nightmares followed. Four years down the road and re-enlisted now for a second tour, and the nightmares followed. Only once or twice a month now, but still present. Still embarrassing. Fortunately her bunkmate had already left; if Mel remembered correctly, the other woman was a nurse and was usually on duty in the early morning. Most of her memory, however, involved the very good peach brandy she had smuggled in from home. It wasn't going to last long at the rate they'd gone through it last night, but the headache and lingering nausea were a small price to pay for a night of forgetfulness.


It was nice to forget that she had signed herself up for a glorified death sentence. Nice to forget that she was twenty years old and doing nothing with her life but trying to take animals out of the sky, and getting paid a pittance to do it- most of that pittance getting sent home anyway. Drunk and chatting with a new friend, she could pretend that she had some goal in life other than to avenge her siblings- and, less than that, it was the only thing she could imagine doing. Holding her own job, her own apartment, paying her own bills, it all terrified her. And marriage was a joke at best; the only thing worse than the thought of being inflicted by a husband was inflicting herself upon one. No, the Sky Force was her family, the beautiful double-barreled machine gun her husband. It was more faithful than most men anyway, she reflected as she pulled on a flight deck suit in grey-blue that matched her freshly dyed wings. Under captain's orders, the ship and nearly everyone on it had been dyed the color of the sky. Camouflage, he said.


She preferred her old red, the same coppery color as her hair, but at the same time the blue made her look a little less sunburned and a little more fashionable. All the pretty women were supposed to be dying their wings nowadays; Mel hadn't kept up with fashion well enough to say for sure. Her shaggy crew cut said that well enough as she couldn't be bothered to style it most days and just let it do its own windswept thing. She was a small woman, delicately built and all of ninety pounds, but had the swagger and scowl of a gangster. Yet she flew like a bird, setting several records for amount of weight carried proportionally to body weight, and had proved an exceptional shot as well, which had put her on this gig in spite of numerous COs berating her poor attitude.


Grabbing her mug on her way out, Mel stopped to fill it with hot, black coffee before making her way to the flight deck. There was still almost an hour before they were supposed to report for some dull-as-dishwater briefing or another, and she wanted to put a shine on the new leather of her seat. The bomber was brand new, the first of its line, and a beautiful piece of equipment, yet free of naked women painted on the side as well.


The hangar smelled of fuel and oil, gunpowder and fresh rubber, and the breeze rattling through the hatches was almost as loud as the drone of the engines. Even over semitropical waters the air was cool up that high, and she glanced briefly out of one of the cracks at the oceans and archipelagos far below. The air was thin, biting, and reminded her of winters at home. Her real home, not the city.


Taking another sip of her coffee she stepped up to the plane, noticing with some irritation that the door was already open and the ladder extended. If one of the mechanics was up there messing with her rig, she silently swore bloody revenge.

 

[TyrannosaurusChexmix]

Birds adapted the ability to fly to escape preditors.


So what good was a flightless bird?





There once was an orphan who was always fascinated by the idea of flight. What luck to live in a world of winged people. Well, not for a young Mordecai, though that certainly never stopped the lad from trying.


Throughout his life, most considered him quirky, odd, and some even fancied him as insane. When he became one of the most renowned pilots at the age of 15, however, people began to see him as a genius. It was a dark and rainy night when Mordecai flew his first aircraft. It was a rickety old plane, transporting people(Including Mordecai) to the city. It was in the final stretch of the trip when the flock of Wolturs arrived on the scene. The old pilot of the plane suffered a heart attack from the severity of the situation, his lifeless body destroying the steering mechanism.


A young Mordecai acted almost on instinct, moving the pilot with the help of a few other people before simply glancing at the broken mechanism. He quickly fashioned a make-shift replacement out of random materials in the cockpit of the plane before seeming to instantly pick up how each little tweak of the mechanism moved the plane. He was almost in a trance as he weaved and avoided swoop after swoop of Wolturs. Though he technically crashed the plane in the city's docking bay, the boy was regarded as a hero, and they insisted he join the fight as a pilot.


Mordecai, not having any family of his own, really only took the gig out of necessity. They gave him a place to live, and food to eat. Though he wasn't able to fly much other than training from that point, that instinctive reaction on the plane had introduced Mordecai to his one other passion in life; invention. Mordecai was often seen making rounds to the dump or scrap shops in the city, picking up anything he deemed useful. Things that had little to no value to any sane person seemed like a wealth of opportunity to Mordecai. He had helped develop all sorts of gizmos like bombs, a simple stun baton, and many other dangerous little trinkets that were usually found out and confiscated from him.


Though Mordecai's inventions never seemed to impress the military, many often shuttered to think what sort of machines he could create were he to get his hands on quality materials. The military deemed the use of said materials too risky, however, so Mordecai simply never had the chance.


That is, until Mordecai turned 21. As Mordecai had grown, so too did his ambitions and aspirations for creation. The military finally acknowledging him and allowing him an opportunity, modify a standard junk bomber in any way he pleased, the catch being he had to take it into battle along with a gunner afterward. This was his chance. Not only to prove himself as a pilot, but as an inventor. It was months of planning and building, upgrading and cleaning, designing and redesigning later that Mordecai now sat in one of the gunner towers of his now-shiny bomber that he christened affectionately as Darla.


Mordecai whistled to himself, the very tall and rather thin man not noticing that his own melody could be heard by another Melody by this point. As he finished adjusting the tower he climbed down the ladder leading up to it, removing his dark leather tophat and scratching his ashy white hair. His repositioned his goggles to sit on his forehead amongst his short, messy hair as he replaced the hat back on his head. He wore his standard uniform underneath a large, dark leather trenchcoat that seemed to match his hat. It was technically against conduct to be wearing both of those things, but if there was anything Mordecai did; it was play by his own bizarre rules.


He turned around from the ladder to see that a red-haired girl seemed to have boarded his plane. He jumped in surprise a bit at the sudden other person in the room before laughing a bit, "Geez, give a man a warning first next time," he said, extending a slightly oil-stained white glove for her to shake. "The name's Mordecai. I take it you're my gunner for this leisurely flight, correct?" his voice was clear, his words as audibly spoken as those of a true salesman. He had always been good at talking, much to the dismay of many.

 

[Lady Sabine]

Melody had already braced herself to chew someone out by the time he spoke, and as she took his hand and gave it a brief but firm shake the wind seemed to leave her sails quite rapidly as she looked him over with an expression somewhere between horror and disbelief at both his outfit and his demeanor.


"Wyles," She replied cautiously. "Melody Wyles. Mel, to my friends. And yeah, they said this would be my rig." She glanced past him into it, having only glanced briefly through it yesterday on her orientation tour. One of the sergeants had warned her about the plane's pilot and maker, but she had thought him to be exaggerating. Apparently not. Her eyes took in the mismatched outfit, the contrast between his startled jump and confident voice, and the oddity of his height and pale hair. This was a different one, to be sure, and she wasn't sure what to make of him.


"They tell me this is your baby," She mentioned after a moment, her own voice high-pitched and pleasant though she tried her darnedest to sound tough and no-nonsense, hooking her free thumb through a beltloop and taking a deep sip of rapidly-cooling coffee. "Anything I ought to know about her? I've sat my fair share of turrets, but this is something else again."

 

[TyrannosaurusChexmix]

Mordecai smiled, his different colored eyes only further implying his excitement about the subject. His right eye was a vibrant green, and the other being a calming greyish blue. "Quite right! This beautiful craft is named Darla. You won't find a more lethal bomber out there, I reckon. She's the light of my life..." he said wistfully before snapping back to reality. One thing to note about Mordecai was the apparent lack of wings. Though it could be assumed they were just underneath his thick coat.


He led her up the turret ladder and into the gunner's tower almost like an excited child. "Now you seem like a woman of good taste, so I think you're gonna like this! Wait here!" he said, having her sit in the gunner's seat before leaving down the ladder. A few moments later he was on top of the plane, standing just next to the gun of the turret. Though he was outside, his voice was still surprisingly audible. "Now one thing I think you'll notice is that the interior and controls are much like many, many, many guns that you'll find on any other bomber. Only my gun is way cooler. And get this, I made the gun's firing mechanism myself so it shoots even faster than standard turrets! Of course it holds more rounds in order to compensate!" he said, his voice surprisingly understandable for the rate at which he spoke as he gestured to different parts of the gun.


He poked the glass of the turret window, pointing to a button on the aiming mechanism, "You may have noted the difference of that button being there on this turret. Get this; Self. Bloody. Reloading." he said before hopping down from the plane and making his way back up to the turret cockpit, "But don't take my word for it. By all means give it a try! It's not loaded though so don't expect to blow anything up." he said as if that were a normal thing one would expect to want to do.

 

[Lady Sabine]

Her eyes followed him carefully, tracing over his back with a bit of surprise. Her own wings were large, huge when compared with her body, for she was a Northerner and up there, flight could be the difference between life and death. Yet down near the equator, she knew, there were bridges and boats and no Woltur, societies where it had been a dozen generations since anyone needed to fly. In some areas it was considered low-class, or so she had heard, and small, delicate wings were a sign of refinement and good breeding. Yet even the movie stars on the posters would be envious of such a silhouette- it was enough to pique her curiosity, for sure.


Yet the gun turret was, at the moment, even more interesting. She climbed into the seat with a raised eyebrow, carefully tucking her wings to the side. The seat was just a few inches too wide to let her wings tuck behind, which she knew would have to go. The rest of it, though... the pedals to pivot were a bit further out than she might have liked, but as she practiced turning and aiming she found the controls to be much smoother and more responsive than most rigs, the gun staying smoothly aligned without her needing to support it, far better suited for long missions like their bombing runs would likely be.


At his suggestion she shrugged, grinned, and aimed towards one of the hatches as she squeezed. The quick rat-a-tat-tat of the firing mechanism made her grin grow fiercer. "She sure does put out," The gunner agreed, patting it appreciatively. "Sounds like she's lobbing a good one-fifty, one-eighty a minute their way. Self reloading is good, too. Those sons of vultures won't know what hit 'em." Standing up again, she flexed her wings and frowned at the seat.


"This has gotta change, though," She insisted. "It's too wide. My spread is six and a half inches; I don't like having my wings against the seat. I need them tucked if I'm going to be up here for hours at a time." Then, picking up her coffee, she grinned. "And while I'm being an ass and making demands, what does a girl have to do to get a place to set my coffee?"

 

[TyrannosaurusChexmix]

Mordecai didn't seem put off by her demands in the slightest, if anything; he liked a challenge. He had produced a notepad from his coat pocket almost as soon as she finished saying that the seat had to change. He was then intently scribbling in it for the entirety of her demands. As she finished, Mordecai seemed to be sort of silently thinking to himself and was gesturing his pen around in the air. He seemed to be focusing on Melody's wings, almost seeming to be mentally tracing them with his pen before writing down a few more things on the notepad. Once he was satisfied, he snapped the small book closed, returning it to his pocket.


"Well some sort of table or cup holder will prove easy enough, Though perhaps instead of shaving the chair down I oughta re-do the gunner chair entirely..." Mordecai said, more thinking out loud than actually speaking to her. He always did have a habit of thinking out loud, mainly when he was contemplating something he'd have to build and/or innovate. He sort of trailed off, muttering to himself about how he could make the chair more ergonomic or something as he climbed down from the gunner tower and began to sort of meander about the large, heavily-modified bomber plane.

 

[Lady Sabine]

Melody nodded, not seeming in the slightest bothered by his gesturing or muttering. She did glance once more at his back, but decided against asking. They would be together for weeks, if not longer, and she was sure a better time would present itself than their first meeting. She also wandered around the plane, examining everything and familiarizing herself with the layout and location of everything she could possibly need. When the coffee and tour were both done she took a running start out of the door, launching herself into the air with only a few feet to spare between her and the ground.


Not many fliers could catch themselves from that height, but Mel wasn't most fliers. She returned her mug to the coffee station and then winged her way back, making low, slow circles over Darla. Flying slow, in spite of what a lot of beginners tended to think, was actually much more difficult than flying swiftly. Her wings beat quickly, having to work hard to keep lift, and even in the chill of the hangar it wasn't long before she was sweating and breathing heavily, still circling and checking out every detail on the plane. The workout was good for her, and where better to do it? If she was going to serve on that plane, she was going to know it well.


After a few minutes she rose, then tucked her wings and dove, landing precariously half in and half out of the plane's door, grabbing the side before her wings overbalanced and she fell back. Feeling much better for the exertion and coffee now in her system, Mel wandered back over to Mordecai, flexing her wings behind her so they wouldn't cramp.


"Do you know if we're scheduled for target practice before we leave friendly airspace?" She asked, stretching up onto her toes and glancing at his notepad curiously. The topic would be covered at the briefing, of course, but she felt like she ought to make small talk. The best pilots and gunners worked as a team, though it wasn't strictly necessary.

 

[TyrannosaurusChexmix]

Mordecai had watched the girl take a running leap out of the plane, sighing lightly. He felt almost envious for a moment, but then knew he shouldn't be thinking that way. Getting jealous of one person's way of flying would only stop him from perfecting his own. As Melody was flying, Mordecai had headed over to a workshop in the hangar that had been provided to him to tinker around in, Mordecai still trying to find a way to just fit the damn place on the plane. Perhaps if a day came where they didn't have to fear wolturs, he would build himself a large airship...


Mordecai had brought the back-rest of the gunner's seat down with him and had been marking and readjusting measurements in his notepad for a while. As he was deep in brain storming, Mordecai hadn't even noticed his new gunner land from the air and walk up behind him. Though she had a good view of his notepad from behind him, she and anyone else would be hard-pressed to figure out what anything Mordecai wrote down even meant. No one seemed to know what any of the scrawling in the notepad meant aside from Mordecai himself. Inevitably, when Mel spoke, Mordecai couldn't help but jump a bit as he had done on the ship before letting out a light chuckle and turning to face Melody, "I'm gonna have to start always expecting you to be behind me if you keep scaring me like that" he said jokingly before registering what she asked him. He thought about it for a moment.


"Well I imagine we'll have to go on a few practice runs before leaving regardless. I'm not sure when our first outing is scheduled but I certainly hope I can finish this chair first. We wouldn't want your wings cramping up while deployed." Mordecai replied.


 
Sorry it took so long to make a response to this, I haven't really been on top of things lately ^^; )

 

[Lady Sabine]

The scribbles on his notepad might as well have been the poetry of a dead civilization, for all the good seeing them did her. She had never been one for education in general, and numbers seemed to walk right back out of her head as soon as they went in. She had enlisted right after her first year of upper form, and flunked algebra at that. She could feel the physics of flight, understood them on an instinctive level, but seeing them on paper? The lines of ink and graphite were impossible to translate to the instant calculations made in her head, how to turn her wings and account for a strong wind and gain lift from a running jump. For half a moment she wished that she was smart enough to at least make a comment about what he was writing- then she almost laughed at the idea. No, better to be a dumb flygirl, a mind-numb gunner- she wasn't jumpy, wasn't stuck inside all day... was free to fly.


"Can't have that," She agreed. "Hope it's soon. I want to practice jumping from this thing so I can get a notion of her currents. If I ever need to do it for real, I don't want to figure out how it works as I go."


((Sorry this took forever and a day! Took me longer to get completely caught up from spring break and catch up on other projects than I thought. ;_ )