[Ficling][Strange Angels--Matthew] Peregrine's Ride
Title: Peregrine's Ride
Universe: Strange Angels
Characters: Matthew, mentions of Lucinda
Word Count: 829
Rating: G
Summary: Matthew takes advantage of his extraction to indulge in the greatest thrill-ride known to man or angel.
Notes: All right, I wrote this ages ago, back when the "Falling" theme was first introduced. Then I couldn't post it, because I had almost no Internet access over winter break, and when I got back to school, I was absorbed in the fiction unit of our creative writing class. Now we're doing poetry, and I hope to start posting again. I see I missed some interesting theme while I was gone...
~*~*~
There was nothing else like this.
The air whistled past Matthew’s ears and shrieked through his feathers, threatening at any slight misalignment to tear him out of his perfect stoop and send him tumbling, broken-winged, to the ground. When he’d first learned to fly, under Lucinda’s unique tutelage, so many years ago, falling like this would have terrified him. The potential for mishap was too great. His reluctance to dive was one of the few boundaries she’d respected when she alternately taught and bullied him into using his wings; it was only through successive, successful stoops of steadily increasing height and decreasing angle that he’d worked up the confidence to ever do something like this.
He’d learned, of course, that Lucinda was nowhere near as skilled at diving as he was. She was Red-tailed Hawk extract-her broad, rounded wings and wide tail were perfectly suited for soaring and gliding, and she was a master of the kite and hover. She could dive, of course-just as real Red-tails could dive-but she didn’t have the type of control necessary to do this.
He’d waited until noon, giving the sun enough time to get the towering thermal elevators of hot air operational. He’d cruised away from the town, keeping an eye on the local vultures the way real raptors did. He’d found the strongest thermal he could and ridden it all the way to the top, climbing high into the sky above the California coastline. When the column of hot air finally petered out, he switched to powered flight and climbed even higher, climbed until the air was cold and brittle against his skin and in his lungs. He’d turned a tight circle in the sky until a pocket compass assured him of his bearings, and then he’d folded his wings and dropped.
Peregrine falcons were masters of the stoop. Matthew knew that as much from his reading as his experience-they could get up to speeds of nearly three hundred miles an hour, if they climbed high enough. Matthew, who massed many times more than a peregrine and made a point of climbing far higher than a falcon would normally, couldn’t even hazard a guess at how fast he was going.
The stoop angle was steep enough to make him feel like he was free-falling-nearly 30 degrees. This was a free-fall unsurpassed by anything a regular man could experience-sure, a sky-diver or parachuter could fall, but he would have no control over it, not the way Matthew did. Matthew didn’t tear through the air, like a sky-diver did, he parted it like a knife, like a ballistic missile from God, one of the avenging archangels.
It was the tiny edge of feather-a slight spread to his tail, a splay to his primaries-that gave him the exquisite control (and kept his dive angle from becoming too steep). All he had to do was twitch a wing tip and he could dramatically alter the course of his fall. In fact (as he penetrated the cottony clouds built up below him) it was time to do that right now.
He edged his wings wider, untucking the elbows from over his shoulders and cutting the streamline of his shape. Immediately, he felt his velocity slow. He was still going blindingly fast, of course, but he had more control now, control that allowed him to lessen the angle of his dive, to bleed away more of his speed.
Streaking out of the clouds hundreds of feet over the state of California, Matthew checked his airspeed against the thermals and currents he remembered. He extended one slate and blue wing slightly and arrowed into a turn. Flying against a breeze now, he snapped his wings and tail wide.
He’d hoped to stall out, playing his momentum against the wind’s speed to suspend him without effort in midair. Something in his mental calculations had clearly gone wrong-he’d never done well in math when he was still in high school-because he was still flying when he’d thought to stop.
Then he really was in free fall, tumbling through the sky on wings that couldn’t figure out the right way to respond. Panic clouded Matthew’s mind and he thought too hard, only fouling his wings worse.
Instinctively, he pulled his wings tight, until his top-heavy body aligned itself and began falling headfirst, and then snapped them open as wide as they would go. The sudden pressure on them hurt, but they arrested his fall, and he was able to pivot his shoulders and sideslip into a more comfortable position.
His heart was racing faster than it normally did, and he could tell his back and shoulders would be bound up by the strain the next morning, but at least he’d stopped falling. He was safe.
Matthew set his wings, rechecked his compass, and turned towards the hotel. He thought he’d had enough excitement for one day, more than enough of this.
~*~*~
ETA: Mods, I've got a question. What's community policy on posting ficbits that crossover with an already-published canon?
Universe: Strange Angels
Characters: Matthew, mentions of Lucinda
Word Count: 829
Rating: G
Summary: Matthew takes advantage of his extraction to indulge in the greatest thrill-ride known to man or angel.
Notes: All right, I wrote this ages ago, back when the "Falling" theme was first introduced. Then I couldn't post it, because I had almost no Internet access over winter break, and when I got back to school, I was absorbed in the fiction unit of our creative writing class. Now we're doing poetry, and I hope to start posting again. I see I missed some interesting theme while I was gone...
~*~*~
There was nothing else like this.
The air whistled past Matthew’s ears and shrieked through his feathers, threatening at any slight misalignment to tear him out of his perfect stoop and send him tumbling, broken-winged, to the ground. When he’d first learned to fly, under Lucinda’s unique tutelage, so many years ago, falling like this would have terrified him. The potential for mishap was too great. His reluctance to dive was one of the few boundaries she’d respected when she alternately taught and bullied him into using his wings; it was only through successive, successful stoops of steadily increasing height and decreasing angle that he’d worked up the confidence to ever do something like this.
He’d learned, of course, that Lucinda was nowhere near as skilled at diving as he was. She was Red-tailed Hawk extract-her broad, rounded wings and wide tail were perfectly suited for soaring and gliding, and she was a master of the kite and hover. She could dive, of course-just as real Red-tails could dive-but she didn’t have the type of control necessary to do this.
He’d waited until noon, giving the sun enough time to get the towering thermal elevators of hot air operational. He’d cruised away from the town, keeping an eye on the local vultures the way real raptors did. He’d found the strongest thermal he could and ridden it all the way to the top, climbing high into the sky above the California coastline. When the column of hot air finally petered out, he switched to powered flight and climbed even higher, climbed until the air was cold and brittle against his skin and in his lungs. He’d turned a tight circle in the sky until a pocket compass assured him of his bearings, and then he’d folded his wings and dropped.
Peregrine falcons were masters of the stoop. Matthew knew that as much from his reading as his experience-they could get up to speeds of nearly three hundred miles an hour, if they climbed high enough. Matthew, who massed many times more than a peregrine and made a point of climbing far higher than a falcon would normally, couldn’t even hazard a guess at how fast he was going.
The stoop angle was steep enough to make him feel like he was free-falling-nearly 30 degrees. This was a free-fall unsurpassed by anything a regular man could experience-sure, a sky-diver or parachuter could fall, but he would have no control over it, not the way Matthew did. Matthew didn’t tear through the air, like a sky-diver did, he parted it like a knife, like a ballistic missile from God, one of the avenging archangels.
It was the tiny edge of feather-a slight spread to his tail, a splay to his primaries-that gave him the exquisite control (and kept his dive angle from becoming too steep). All he had to do was twitch a wing tip and he could dramatically alter the course of his fall. In fact (as he penetrated the cottony clouds built up below him) it was time to do that right now.
He edged his wings wider, untucking the elbows from over his shoulders and cutting the streamline of his shape. Immediately, he felt his velocity slow. He was still going blindingly fast, of course, but he had more control now, control that allowed him to lessen the angle of his dive, to bleed away more of his speed.
Streaking out of the clouds hundreds of feet over the state of California, Matthew checked his airspeed against the thermals and currents he remembered. He extended one slate and blue wing slightly and arrowed into a turn. Flying against a breeze now, he snapped his wings and tail wide.
He’d hoped to stall out, playing his momentum against the wind’s speed to suspend him without effort in midair. Something in his mental calculations had clearly gone wrong-he’d never done well in math when he was still in high school-because he was still flying when he’d thought to stop.
Then he really was in free fall, tumbling through the sky on wings that couldn’t figure out the right way to respond. Panic clouded Matthew’s mind and he thought too hard, only fouling his wings worse.
Instinctively, he pulled his wings tight, until his top-heavy body aligned itself and began falling headfirst, and then snapped them open as wide as they would go. The sudden pressure on them hurt, but they arrested his fall, and he was able to pivot his shoulders and sideslip into a more comfortable position.
His heart was racing faster than it normally did, and he could tell his back and shoulders would be bound up by the strain the next morning, but at least he’d stopped falling. He was safe.
Matthew set his wings, rechecked his compass, and turned towards the hotel. He thought he’d had enough excitement for one day, more than enough of this.
~*~*~
ETA: Mods, I've got a question. What's community policy on posting ficbits that crossover with an already-published canon?