The sun rises to reveal the gray standing at the top of the highest cliff and facing the world sprawled out beneath her. At first she is hard to spot from a distance, but when the wind claws apart her braid and scatters her piano-striped hair in the air, it is obvious that someone, with no wings, is standing at the edge of death. Or not, but Emersyn would know if she were immortal, the heart in her chest wants to escape her. It knows that the soldier is fearless, but is she really if the ticking of her heart speeds, then slows, only to be swept up again.
Wolves are brave because they never escape their death, they face it.
Emersyn’s lip curls in mild disgust at remembering her father’s words. The heat of his memory is what makes her inch forward. A pebble tumbles off the ledge but it takes a long-long time before Emersyn hears it hit anything. As if to exaggerate the distance from this ground to the one several hundreds of feet below her, she never hears the stone hit the bottom. A chill races down her spine and her mouth has gone dry.
Shit.
A lock of white hair tangles itself up in her eyelashes and hangs off the corners of her tightened expression. She knows it is time, Rûwach (Rucha) awaits her, and the sheet of canvas is already coming undone like her braid. With her hair down, she doesn’t seem so serious .. and she hates that the most about the wind. Perhaps learning to evade death will shift her perspective of it entirely, she wonders.
The wings, enchanted by the decayed remains of magic, flaps and grabs around for a way out of the canvas sack the moment Emersyn’s mind focuses on them. Made sentient by some gold-lined miracle, the wings are of an impressive design. Nothing like it could ever be copied, and are such a strange and wondrous masterpiece that it takes Emersyn no time to name them. Rûwach, the language is as old as time and the wings respond to it like a spell. It is the very first name that the sound of air was ever given. The moment is sacred for her and her creation, akin to when the painter names a canvas.
The wings reach out and grope around like the eyeless things they are. They too have never flown before and Emersyn believes that the way they flatten themselves against the rocks and cling to the ground with their fingers that Rûwach might be afraid of heights. Nonsense, Emersyn snorts at even thinking such a ludacris thought. The only reason they tighten against the rocks is because the mad scientist that built them doesn't want them to fly away. Emersyn will only remember that much later, for her mind is only moving forward right now.
“Rûwach! To me!”
They don't move, she doesn't want to lose them in the gusts.
Wind turns a rock over (or does she want to see what the wind will do to it?). As it is blown off of the canvas bag it goes off into the air like some kind of smoke, it is gone before she even blinks. The wings don’t budge, the leather buckles remain clasped, no sign of life within them. It is her anger that pushes the enchantment beyond reach, beyond her control.
It is her deeply rooted anger that reminds her not to be so impatient and commanding. Especially with an object that appears to have selective inananimosity towards her. If it will not listen to her, she will have to manipulate it to.
She will learn, however, that if Rûwach is to do what it she intended for them to do, then things will go a lot more swimmingly if it can meet more of Emersyn’s demands. Unfortunately, it is her own temper that is key to success. And that, is something the soldier never calculated in the final plans of the Icarus Project. Feelings of Empathy. Exposure to vulnerabilities. The Fall. She had avoided it, all of it. Now she can't.
“I am afraid of heights.” Emersyn finally admits to her creation after some time, “and .. I should not be afraid of heights,” and? “, this is why I need you. You are a part of me now, do you understand? You cannot be afraid of heights too. For fuck’s sake you are a pair of wings!” Rûwach does not understand. Rûwach is just a thing. It takes only one thread of magic sewn into the hem of a wing to make it fly, but to make it sing and dance requires an entire tapestry of threads.
Emersyn doesn’t know that though, and argues with it before it snaps her in the ankle with a buckle. She suspects it is retaliation for her harsh words, but in truth the wind is picking up with every rising decibel in her voice. When all else fails, she switches to Mission 0.
“I’m jumping, then. You do what you want.”
She only waits a millisecond before turning back towards the cliff’s edge, she doesn’t look back anymore.
It is a mighty leap off the edge of the cliff, her mind is empty when she does it. It is impossible to think of anything with all the wind and air that rushes through her violently. It steals her thoughts away, it takes them. It is only about mid-way down that her grip on reality sharpens again after the shock of the fall wears off. All she can do is look down and try to blink the burning ozone out of her eyes as the wind makes her lips flap comically.
The harness is not far behind, because Emersyn can now think of only one thing, not falling - falling is a terrible thing and she would prefer not to paint the doorstep of Terrastella with the guts of the Dawn Emissary. They might take it too personally. She falls fast but the harness falls faster, perhaps Magic just holds that kind of weight in the world when the world really depends on it. It wraps around her quickly like a tight, loving hug. Quickly, the wings snap wide and gather thousands of pounds of wind pressure within their boughs as rapidly as they can. Later, Emersyn would transcribe that the friction of falling is similar to being bathed in fire, or being dragged along stones and broken glass.
The soldier slows dramatically with a punctuated snap leather against her chest. It wrenches the air out of her lungs, it ties her guts up, it whip her head back due to its design. It already blackens her chest and neck with bruising that will take weeks to heal. Wounds well deserved, she sighs inwardly and closes her eyes to lazily drift away.
Rûwach floats on slowly, riding vapors along the cotton candy colored sky because the rider is too dazzled to think about what else they could be doing. Her tail is stiff with fear, her hair pinstriping the air above her in silky curling sheets like some goddess descending. As beautiful as she is, Shit, is all she can think inside of her mind, it is such a wild feeling that refuses to settle in her chest. The rush leaves every bone in her body loose and jittery like rubber. The blood in her ears burns as if she’s just kissed the sun with them. The air smells different this high off of the ground.
Shit.
Together they fall, just not as dramatically as before and certainly not to her death. Emersyn tilts in the harness when she can finally balance herself, but the impact of suddenly hitting something solid is a first lesson that will never be forgotten. It happens faster than she can ready herself for it. The wings naturally fold in but Emersyn doesn't fold in. A tree catches her like a net, then promptly discards her. It shows no remorse as the gray horse drops straight down into the dirt. Thankfully the drop is not too far and the ground is very soft.
With a howl she lands on her knees, her stomach wants to invert itself. And she wants to use every word in her own language that is more colorful than the stripes of blood streaking her knees - but does not. Instead she remains huddled on the ground, clutching her body together for fear of it rattling apart with nerves, the wings on her back swaying softly, mirroring the way the ache in her body feels.
@Liam
Yup, that ran away with me.
