Learn to Fly, Faith(/Giles, and Dawn), wingfic, PG13
More of snickfic's crackficathon. I wrote a very little Andrew the god ficlet here
And for one of Snick's own prompts, this, which is too long for comments:
Title: Learn to Fly
Pairing/characters: Faith/Giles, with Dawn. Set in the Rulesverse, relatively early in their relationship.
Rating: PG13 for usual Faith swearing.
Prompt: Faith - wingfic - A vampire in Pylea turns all spiky; it turns out a Slayer in Pylea gets bonus wings. Which makes Faith some freaky kind of angel, right?
Warning: Wingfic. Duh.
Yay us. We crossed the dimensions in Spike's crappy car, and nobody fell out into the whirling space vortex thing.
The portal had been kind of hot; sweaty, even. The new world, twin suns ahoy, also too warm for denim. She'd have to carry the jacket.
Sigh. On with the mission. Faith shrugged, irritably.
Ouch. Big mistake. Huge.
She felt like her shoulders were dragging out of their sockets. What the-
Judging by the look on Giles and Dawn's faces, what the was nothing good. Really nothing. They were outright gawping. Faith turned to face- Uh, nothing. But there was something just at the edge of her consciousness, something flickering, something-
Holy fuck.
Faith flinched, inwardly, at her own language. Because she had grown some motherfucking wings. Wings. On her. Growing out of her actual shoulders. Ripping through her favourite jacket, dammit.
Crappy state of clothing apart, she now looked like some freaky kind of angel. So holy fuck was probably not in her vocab for the moment.
They were big wings. Black at the tips, with a sheen of green shading to pink. Like some kind of evil bird.
Cool. Faith would have totally hated fluffy wings, if she had to have wings.
Speaking of… "Why the fuck do I have wings?" (Really. Enough with the swearing, Faith. Till we're sure you're not suddenly some kind of heavenly messenger).
Giles ruffled through his notes on Pylea, "… Covenant… cow slaves… kom shuck… ah, yes. Here we are. Angel notes that vampire physiology operates differently here, with a much more alarming transformation when the demon manifests. It would appear-" and he looked over his glasses at her "-that the Slayer mission is also made flesh, or at least feather, in this dimension. How fascinating."
Some part of Faith that had been secretly tense relaxed at that. Just a Slayer thing. Not an angel. No new mission, no answering to Him Upstairs. Just the same old mission, and some enormous creepy feathered things weighing her down and getting in her way. She tried a couple of spin kicks and, predictably, fell on her ass, unbalanced.
"Fuck it. Can we just get the text and get out? Like, yesterday?" Exactly how they were going to fight the ultra-democrats who had overthrown the Groosalug and get to the Covenant's old library, and fight whatever they found there and whatever else came along to threaten them in a mission-y way, when their only decent fighter was half-useless… huh. She'd work something out.
Giles was looking Gilesy at her. Like he wanted to make a suggestion and not get punched.
"Spill, G. Whatever it is, can't be worse than wings."
"Well, if I might suggest a little experiment… Wings are, after all, functionally designed for use in the air. I think you might find it easier to manoeuvre were you to… um… flap a bit."
Flap a bit. Thanks G. Really going with the romance of the winged woman here. But he had a point. Faith tried shrugging, then wiggling her shoulders. Nothing happened. She closed her eyes. Tried to feel the wings, not just as weird new sprouting appendages, but part of her. Manifesting her Slayerness. Feel the power.
There.
Faith the Vampire Slayer opened her wings, and soared.
It was glorious right up to the moment when she opened her eyes. "Shit. I mean, fuck. I mean, oh crap."
Slayer wings were apparently awesome wings of super power. Which: logical. But also fucking scary when you got this high up with a couple of slight movements. Dawn was barely a speck below her; Giles was easier to see, only because the twin suns reflected off his glasses.
Getting down was going to be… uh, okay, not too bad, taking it slow… nearly… oops.
Giles dusted himself down, forgivingly. "Well, I daresay it will take some time to become accustomed, but it could be most helpful to us in our mission. Practice makes- Faith! Put us down! Immediately."
She didn't. Obviously. They were a couple of hundred feet up before he'd even started shouting.
It was pretty easy, even with her hands occupied keeping Dawn and Giles safely tucked under her arms. The wings were perfectly balanced, begging to be used. It was a little- no, it was a whole lot like the day Faith was called, when every shot was slam dunk perfection and she broke the bully's arm without noticing. Scary good.
Dawn was looking down, scanning for recognisable landmarks like a good little Watcher-wannabe.
Giles was holding on to his glasses like they were his last hope of salvation. But Faith kept the altitude pretty low, and he started to relax eventually. Still not looking down, he looked up instead. "Those are really rather fine," he said, nodding at her wings. "Jolly effective and… well, rather attractively coloured, don't you think?"
They exchanged a little meaningful eye contact that Dawn maybe managed to ignore. Oh yeah. Watcher's hot for the winged girl now, huh? See what we can cook up for mission R&R. He was right, anyway. They were damn cool, for wings.
It was only when they started flying low over some kind of settlement that the trouble started. Green guys rushed out, shaking their fists, waving sharp objects and oh fuck shooting arrows.
Faith soared, high and panicky, immediately she spotted the artillery. "Everyone okay?"
Giles and Dawn were okay. She knew that. But they were all looking at her left wing, where an arrow had blown out a chunk of feathers. Faith could feel there was something else gone, something come loose, something broken. (God, she wished she knew more about bird care. Who knew it would be Slayer-critical information?) More important right now, something necessary wasn't helping with the aerodynamics, and they were going down.
Gliding and controlled, but definitely down.
So: mission not yet started. Slayer with shiny new broken wing. Locals apparently keen to slay the winged Slayer. Giles with previously-unknown feather kink.
Pretty much a normal day, in Faith's world.
***
See what happens next in Higher Than An Eagle
And for one of Snick's own prompts, this, which is too long for comments:
Title: Learn to Fly
Pairing/characters: Faith/Giles, with Dawn. Set in the Rulesverse, relatively early in their relationship.
Rating: PG13 for usual Faith swearing.
Prompt: Faith - wingfic - A vampire in Pylea turns all spiky; it turns out a Slayer in Pylea gets bonus wings. Which makes Faith some freaky kind of angel, right?
Warning: Wingfic. Duh.
Yay us. We crossed the dimensions in Spike's crappy car, and nobody fell out into the whirling space vortex thing.
The portal had been kind of hot; sweaty, even. The new world, twin suns ahoy, also too warm for denim. She'd have to carry the jacket.
Sigh. On with the mission. Faith shrugged, irritably.
Ouch. Big mistake. Huge.
She felt like her shoulders were dragging out of their sockets. What the-
Judging by the look on Giles and Dawn's faces, what the was nothing good. Really nothing. They were outright gawping. Faith turned to face- Uh, nothing. But there was something just at the edge of her consciousness, something flickering, something-
Holy fuck.
Faith flinched, inwardly, at her own language. Because she had grown some motherfucking wings. Wings. On her. Growing out of her actual shoulders. Ripping through her favourite jacket, dammit.
Crappy state of clothing apart, she now looked like some freaky kind of angel. So holy fuck was probably not in her vocab for the moment.
They were big wings. Black at the tips, with a sheen of green shading to pink. Like some kind of evil bird.
Cool. Faith would have totally hated fluffy wings, if she had to have wings.
Speaking of… "Why the fuck do I have wings?" (Really. Enough with the swearing, Faith. Till we're sure you're not suddenly some kind of heavenly messenger).
Giles ruffled through his notes on Pylea, "… Covenant… cow slaves… kom shuck… ah, yes. Here we are. Angel notes that vampire physiology operates differently here, with a much more alarming transformation when the demon manifests. It would appear-" and he looked over his glasses at her "-that the Slayer mission is also made flesh, or at least feather, in this dimension. How fascinating."
Some part of Faith that had been secretly tense relaxed at that. Just a Slayer thing. Not an angel. No new mission, no answering to Him Upstairs. Just the same old mission, and some enormous creepy feathered things weighing her down and getting in her way. She tried a couple of spin kicks and, predictably, fell on her ass, unbalanced.
"Fuck it. Can we just get the text and get out? Like, yesterday?" Exactly how they were going to fight the ultra-democrats who had overthrown the Groosalug and get to the Covenant's old library, and fight whatever they found there and whatever else came along to threaten them in a mission-y way, when their only decent fighter was half-useless… huh. She'd work something out.
Giles was looking Gilesy at her. Like he wanted to make a suggestion and not get punched.
"Spill, G. Whatever it is, can't be worse than wings."
"Well, if I might suggest a little experiment… Wings are, after all, functionally designed for use in the air. I think you might find it easier to manoeuvre were you to… um… flap a bit."
Flap a bit. Thanks G. Really going with the romance of the winged woman here. But he had a point. Faith tried shrugging, then wiggling her shoulders. Nothing happened. She closed her eyes. Tried to feel the wings, not just as weird new sprouting appendages, but part of her. Manifesting her Slayerness. Feel the power.
There.
Faith the Vampire Slayer opened her wings, and soared.
It was glorious right up to the moment when she opened her eyes. "Shit. I mean, fuck. I mean, oh crap."
Slayer wings were apparently awesome wings of super power. Which: logical. But also fucking scary when you got this high up with a couple of slight movements. Dawn was barely a speck below her; Giles was easier to see, only because the twin suns reflected off his glasses.
Getting down was going to be… uh, okay, not too bad, taking it slow… nearly… oops.
Giles dusted himself down, forgivingly. "Well, I daresay it will take some time to become accustomed, but it could be most helpful to us in our mission. Practice makes- Faith! Put us down! Immediately."
She didn't. Obviously. They were a couple of hundred feet up before he'd even started shouting.
It was pretty easy, even with her hands occupied keeping Dawn and Giles safely tucked under her arms. The wings were perfectly balanced, begging to be used. It was a little- no, it was a whole lot like the day Faith was called, when every shot was slam dunk perfection and she broke the bully's arm without noticing. Scary good.
Dawn was looking down, scanning for recognisable landmarks like a good little Watcher-wannabe.
Giles was holding on to his glasses like they were his last hope of salvation. But Faith kept the altitude pretty low, and he started to relax eventually. Still not looking down, he looked up instead. "Those are really rather fine," he said, nodding at her wings. "Jolly effective and… well, rather attractively coloured, don't you think?"
They exchanged a little meaningful eye contact that Dawn maybe managed to ignore. Oh yeah. Watcher's hot for the winged girl now, huh? See what we can cook up for mission R&R. He was right, anyway. They were damn cool, for wings.
It was only when they started flying low over some kind of settlement that the trouble started. Green guys rushed out, shaking their fists, waving sharp objects and oh fuck shooting arrows.
Faith soared, high and panicky, immediately she spotted the artillery. "Everyone okay?"
Giles and Dawn were okay. She knew that. But they were all looking at her left wing, where an arrow had blown out a chunk of feathers. Faith could feel there was something else gone, something come loose, something broken. (God, she wished she knew more about bird care. Who knew it would be Slayer-critical information?) More important right now, something necessary wasn't helping with the aerodynamics, and they were going down.
Gliding and controlled, but definitely down.
So: mission not yet started. Slayer with shiny new broken wing. Locals apparently keen to slay the winged Slayer. Giles with previously-unknown feather kink.
Pretty much a normal day, in Faith's world.
***
See what happens next in Higher Than An Eagle