Century #22
Prompt: Flying
Words: 393
Flying as an Animagus was completely different from on a broomstick. There was a new sort of joy in the exertion, a shamelessness as well. Her whole mentality changed when she was in her winged horse form, soaring through the sky powerful stroke after stroke, and new alliances made perfect sense somehow.
He was some sort of eagle, what type Ginny wasn't sure, but it had powerful gold eyes, a beak and claws made to kill, glossy soft feathers, and wings longer than her arm. He was splendid, powerful, beautiful; she felt the same.
They took off together. He perched on her shoulders and she galloped faster and faster, then swung her wings out in a great push. In perfect tandem, she felt his claws dig in and then release, his own powerful wings spreading in a great rush of feathers that somehow never tangled with her own.
They flew together. He dove like a bullet and she strained after, not nearly so maneuverable. She hovered, steady slow pumps of her wings keeping her aloft, and he wheeled about in search of an updraft to do the same. They flew onward together, amidst the clouds and breeze, dipping and swirling round one another, occasionally exchanging sounds - neither quite knew what they were saying yet, but feelings got conveyed somehow, and those too were in perfect tandem.
They landed apart. Ginny touched down into a gallop and slowed into a canter, then a trot, until she finally stopped with a mild prance next to the instructor standing on a bale of hay. Draco zoomed straight down, caught himself with his wings at the last moment and dropped gently into a perch on the fence, claws gripping and piercing the wood. The distance began there: they didn't look at each other, but at the instructor, as they concentrated and shifted back into human form - Ginny pushing herself up from a crouch, Draco leaping nimbly down to the ground.
They left separately; both on broomsticks, as they weren't cleared yet for unsupervised transformation. And though it was the same sky, same breeze and same clouds, though they went the same direction, they were not together and never acknowledged each other.
Something about being human was far too complicated to understand, and in those leaving moments, she found herself longing for the simple feelings animals shared.
Words: 393
Flying as an Animagus was completely different from on a broomstick. There was a new sort of joy in the exertion, a shamelessness as well. Her whole mentality changed when she was in her winged horse form, soaring through the sky powerful stroke after stroke, and new alliances made perfect sense somehow.
He was some sort of eagle, what type Ginny wasn't sure, but it had powerful gold eyes, a beak and claws made to kill, glossy soft feathers, and wings longer than her arm. He was splendid, powerful, beautiful; she felt the same.
They took off together. He perched on her shoulders and she galloped faster and faster, then swung her wings out in a great push. In perfect tandem, she felt his claws dig in and then release, his own powerful wings spreading in a great rush of feathers that somehow never tangled with her own.
They flew together. He dove like a bullet and she strained after, not nearly so maneuverable. She hovered, steady slow pumps of her wings keeping her aloft, and he wheeled about in search of an updraft to do the same. They flew onward together, amidst the clouds and breeze, dipping and swirling round one another, occasionally exchanging sounds - neither quite knew what they were saying yet, but feelings got conveyed somehow, and those too were in perfect tandem.
They landed apart. Ginny touched down into a gallop and slowed into a canter, then a trot, until she finally stopped with a mild prance next to the instructor standing on a bale of hay. Draco zoomed straight down, caught himself with his wings at the last moment and dropped gently into a perch on the fence, claws gripping and piercing the wood. The distance began there: they didn't look at each other, but at the instructor, as they concentrated and shifted back into human form - Ginny pushing herself up from a crouch, Draco leaping nimbly down to the ground.
They left separately; both on broomsticks, as they weren't cleared yet for unsupervised transformation. And though it was the same sky, same breeze and same clouds, though they went the same direction, they were not together and never acknowledged each other.
Something about being human was far too complicated to understand, and in those leaving moments, she found herself longing for the simple feelings animals shared.