IP: 82.14.67.140
Posted on March 11, 2013 at 09:56:33 PM by thoth
 i never learned to swim, how did i end up in the deep end? Tenatively, Thoth unfurls his monochromatic ibis wings and half-spreads them. Redwing the scarlet macaw shakes his head abruptly and hopsfrom foot to foot. “No, no, like this.” He proudly spreads his wings to their full length and fans the feathers. “Come on, kid, you gotta learn to fly sometime.” Not feeling particularly encouraged, Thoth imitates the bird and spreads his wings fully. No matter what Redwing says, jumping off the roof of the castle at night-time just doesn’t seem like a very good idea. Redwing insists that night is the best time to learn, since under the cover of darkness no one would be able to see if Thoth doesn’t do very well, and all he really needs to fly is a little self-confidence. Thoth has never felt less confident. He’s read every book he could lay his hands on about the mechanics of flight, but somehow, nothing has quite prepared him for standing at the edge of the roof and looking down at the extremely long drop to the ground. Brittle bones make no difference here: anyone who fell from this height would surely die. Like dropping a rotten apple. Ker-splat. He starts to back away from the edge, but forces himself back forward when Redwing scolds him. The parrot runs through a few key principles and reassurances, which Thoth barely listens to, before jumping up to the edge beside him. “We’ll just glide for the first time,” Redwing promises, “so don’t worry about flapping. Just keep your wings stretched and try and stay straight. Ready? – ” No! “ – Go!” Call it nerves, call it two left feet… it certainly wouldn’t happen to anyone else: tripping on thin air. One foot gets caught behind the other, his left wing semi-closes; his dives head-first over the edge of the roof and sinks like a bullet. Redwing squawks and shoots after him, but Thoth is yelling too loudly to hear the advice that the parrot is shouting at him. In spite of the air pressure, he manages to get one wing mostly spread, but it gets knocked against the side of the building and promptly folds in on itself again. Abandoning hope of flight, he reaches out for the building with his hands, searching for any kind of hold to grab onto. His back crashes into something hard, thin and flexible, which he bounces off but manages to snatch with one hand. It’s a flagpole. The pole, which is missing its flag, sticks out horizontally from the side of the building and gleams a ghostly silver in the moonlight. Thoth reaches up desperately with his right hand, but his left hand had only been clinging on by the tips of the fingers and he loses his grip before he can get a better one. The pole had succeeded in slowing his descent, however, and this time when he throws himself at the building he manages to catch hold of one of the windowsills on the way down. He grabs the sill securely with both hands, but makes the mistake of looking down. He’s still three or four stories up, but it looks much further. With a surge of panic, Thoth scrabbles at the wall with his feet and flaps his wings, which almost causes him to lose his grip, so he forces himself to stay still and simply hang there. Redwing soars over and lands on the windowsill between his hands, looking anguished. “Okay, keep calm,” he squawks. “We can fix this… we can… er…” “Redwing,” Thoth’s voice is unnaturally high. “Get. Help.” The bird flaps his wings a couple of times before diving off the windowsill. Thoth can hear him desperately tapping at windows, trying to wake someone up. Anyone. As long as it isn’t Tarquin. no way to tell who's winning the fight |
HI GUYS JUST DROPPING BY
Replies:
- may your honour lift you high - By t r i s t a n April 30, 2013 at 08:44:11 PM
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