I know from my work repairing his system that his wings are a lot more delicate than Bastet’s. They might also be less mana-intensive since there isn’t as much to them – they’re more like a bat’s wings than Bastet’s proto-feathers. I consider it for a moment, then shrug. It’s worth a try. It might be enough to boost my Skill up to Novice ranks if nothing else.

  Dismissing my current set of wings is surprisingly easy – again, Transformation does all the hard work for me. I don’t get any of my mana back, but the process is quicker than growing them in the first place. I sense that I could probably use Flesh-Shaping to use the extra flesh elsewhere if I wanted, but that would be outside the purview of Transformation, and therefore would be subject to the limitations of Flesh-Shaping itself. Frankly, it’s easier just to start from scratch again.

  With the speed of my mana regeneration, it doesn’t take too long before I’m ready to attempt a different set of wings. Once more triggering the process, I feel the odd sensations again. Curiously, I note the differences between the two sets of wings. Noir’s are much bigger, relatively speaking, and the bones are far thinner. Yet they have a strength to them which I wasn’t expecting.

  Noir comes over to nose at my new appendages curiously. Extending one of his wings, he seems to be comparing the two. Mine is a little bigger than his – my body mass is still greater than his, though his siblings have already surpassed me in weight and size. How they can fly must be some sort of innate magic, because I would have thought they were too heavy to do so according to physics. But then what do I know?

  Bastet also joins us, sniffing and gently tapping at my wing with one of her claws. I feel a pinprick as her talon presses against the membrane, but she’s careful not to pierce the thin skin.

  “Alright, back off a little, you two,” I hiss quietly at them. They obediently take a few steps away, their eyes bright in the moonlight.

  The wings feel both unnatural and oddly natural – my conscious mind is telling me that I’ve never had wings before while my body and unconscious mind indicate that they’ve always been there. Moving them is like moving my arm – my brain barely needs to be involved. I extend the wings outwards and then beat down with them, the motion feeling like something I’ve done a thousand times before, even though I know that I’ve never performed it.

  It is different from when I borrowed Bastet’s wings. I feel like I know far more about how to actually fly. Perhaps at least some of the Bound’s experience using the body part is included in the transformation. Another advantage to actually having the Skill instead of mimicking it with my Flesh-Shaping, and one that wasn’t indicated in the Skill description at all.

  It’s interesting to feel how my wings angle themselves carefully to catch as much air within them as I can. To my pleasure, enough lift is generated that my feet rise above the ground – by an inch.

  The moment my wings start rising again, though, I drop back down to the ground. And that’s despite angling them so that they slice through the air rather than catching the air in the other direction.

  I sigh. I’m just too heavy for the amount of lift that I can generate – more evidence that something wonky is going on with the alcaorises’ weight to wing ratio. I could extend my wings, sure, but I’m not sure that making them bigger is the solution here – bigger wings mean bigger muscles needed to control them, and that in turn makes me heavier.

  Lift…. What if I could create more lift without changing the wings themselves? I do have at least some control over air.

  Some experiments – and more than one breathless tumble into the earth – later, I conclude that while this might be a valid way of flying, I probably need to have more control over wind before being willing to trust myself to this technique more than a metre or so off the ground.

  The wind is just too unpredictable and my control isn’t sufficient to render it anything really useful at the moment. I can fly with a directed wind filling my wings, yes, but when it vanishes a moment later, I eat the dirt. Or it intensifies and sends me in the wrong direction entirely. Bastet and Noir have definitely been enjoying my antics – my neighbours not so. Dusty might not be willing to actually scold me, but the wounded look she gave me when I crashed into her hut and woke her up with a terrible start spoke volumes. Of course I apologised and fixed the hole in her wall, but I have a feeling that that’s one Pathwalker who won’t be going back to sleep tonight.

  The light of dawn is already beginning to touch the horizon when a new idea occurs to me. Maybe I’m going about this wrong. Maybe the issue isn’t the type of wings, but the element that I’m using to build them.

  All I’ve used so far is Flesh-Shaping – it made sense to me. Flesh to flesh, right? But I’m not limited to Flesh alone. Airplane wings are made out of metal; aluminium, as far as I know. Not that I’m intending on copying them – airplane wings work on rather different principles than the ones that Noir’s wings lend themselves to. But it does make me question what might happen if I draw on Noir’s wings with the different elements I have access to.

  One by one, I draw on my Shaping Skills. Each is different in what it produces, though I can clearly sense the similarity to Noir’s wings each time.

  I do decide to experiment with metal in the end, despite my doubt that it will be what I want. Sure enough, it doesn’t get me any closer to flying, but that doesn’t mean that they end up being useless. Made of an odd sort of flexible metal which almost has the fluidity of flesh, I discover that instead of flight, I’m able to use them as weapons. It’s an easy matter to sharpen the edges of the wings and make them into blades almost as good as any sword – such a small change isn’t enough to disrupt the influence of Transformation, fortunately.

  When I get Bastet to mock-attack me, I realise that Noir has also given me instincts of how to use the wings as shields. Against Bastet’s claws and teeth, the wings work well enough to block her blows, though they do take more damage than I would expect of a metal shield, and I feel the attacks like they are to my own flesh. Fortunately, Sensation Management is my solution to that issue. It did mean that I didn’t realise when Bastet managed to slice off a whole chunk of my membrane, but at least then I was able to discover what happens when bits of my flesh are separated from me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a lump of metal left on the ground, merely a small pile of dust that vanishes before I can use Inspect on it. Transformation isn’t a quick way to generate a whole load of metal, it seems.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Given the success with Metal-Shaping, I decide to try Earth-Shaping, finding that the wings of mottled marble are even less appropriate for their intended task, but that their defensive properties are impressively enhanced. I decide that I need to experiment with seeing if I can draw on different types of material. If I could make wings of granite with sharp diamond edges, that could combine excellent defence with powerful offence. The downside of Earth-formed wings, of course, is that they are heavy. I doubt that’s something I can change since pumice might be the lightest earthen material I know of, but it’s also fragile and not particularly streamlined. They’re less flexible or dextrous than the metal wings too.

  Both Metal-Shaping and Earth-Shaping require a lot of mana to form in the first place, and a lot of stamina to move them around. Significantly more than my flesh wings required.

  Out of curiosity, I draw on Lava-Shaping, but quickly dismiss them when the heat put off by the lava threatens to hurt my companions. The wings do look really badass, though, the structural ‘bones’ darker than the membrane which is red-hot or even white-hot magma. Fortunately, since they were my wings – and my Fire affinity probably helps too – the heat didn’t hurt me in the way I feared they might, even if it was rather hot whenever my wing-tips were within ten centimetres of my unprotected flesh. Although I’m not able to test them, I assess that they would be excellent for offence, probably decent for defence – how many things are going to make it through lava intact? – and as dangerous to my allies as my enemies. They’re also unlikely to be good for actually flying.

  Water-Shaping is interesting – the water is constantly moving, like it’s produced by my body, fed along the bones, and then sent washing out along the membrane, flying off it like mist. The mist quickly dissolves into the air, leaving nothing behind. When Bastet noses at it, it isn’t even wet. However, I learn that if I feed my Water-Shaping through my wings, I can make that mist real. And more than that, I can create jets of water strong enough to dig into the packed earth below them. But that uses up mana quite quickly, so it would have to be for a temporary attack or something. I conclude that these wings are not particularly good for defence, have some offensive potential, and would potentially be very useful when swimming. But as flying devices, they’re pretty useless.

  Fire-Shaping is next. This one I was particularly curious about as it’s one of my highest-levelled elements. Plus, I’ve seen enough movies to wonder whether I could jet-pack my way into the skies shouting ‘flame on’. And for a short time, it seems like my dreams might be able to become a reality. The issue that I quickly encounter, though, is that although I can shoot myself up, moving forward becomes a bit of an issue. Since I’m not an airplane with a massive wingspan, and it turns out that fire wings are poor at actually catching the air, I would have to move very, very fast to keep in the air.

  “Ow…” I moan as I push mana into my shattered nose, clavicle, and three fractured ribs. I hear pounding feet as Bastet and Noir rejoin me in the area which used to be the grey wasteland. It’s a good few minutes before I’m able to sit up and I wince again as I see the furrow my landing tore in the earth. “Last time I try to be a superhero,” I sigh to myself.

  You looked like one of stars shooting across the sky – until you fell to earth like a rock, Bastet tells me helpfully, though I sense a hint of concern under her levity.

  “Yes, thanks for that,” I snark at her, poking her with one of my fingers even as I reabsorb the fire wings. My jetpack idea might work, but I need something to help me glide, wings or not. Still, it’s a good inspiration.

  Noir noses at where my wings used to be, then sneezes, sending a pointed message that smelling of char and looking like a star is not the way to catch prey.

  “I know that,” I tell him, affectionately rubbing his head. I look out towards the horizon – the dawn is well-advanced. Back in the village people are probably already getting ready for the day. I should go back there – with the new samurans in the village, I feel like I should be obviously present.

  But I’m sure I have time for just one more experiment. I’ve saved the best for last – I hope. If Air-Shaping doesn’t hold the answer for me, then maybe I need to wait until I’ve raised Transformation up a couple of ranks before trying again with something as complex as flight.

  Calling on Air-Shaping, I shiver slightly as a strong breeze runs up my spine. Each element has its individual feel. Air is that of a playful finger of air playing on skin despite the thick covering of spider-silk fabric and hides – even if the late spring days often get hot, the nights up here on the mountainside can be cold.

  The wings form before my eyes, something in between the constantly-moving, but organised, water, and the billowing fire. Like all the other wings I’ve produced this morning, this version is a perfect representation of its basic element.

  Moment of truth.

  I beat the wings downwards, excitement filling me at the sensation – even though I’m not putting much effort into it, I can feel their power lift me to the tips of my toes. I put more and more power into it until I’m bobbing above the ground.

  And then I start moving myself forwards a little, using the angled motions of my wings which come so naturally to me, direct from Noir’s own expertise with flight as they are.

  Excitement turns into elation as I grow more and more confident in my movements. My wings are a dream. It’s not just that they’re – literally – as light as air, but that the air held within them is automatically moving to help me. When I beat down, the air within my wings works to push down too. When I angle my wings to move forward, the air within works to move me forward too. It’s like I’ve got mini turbines strapped to me. And when I open my wings as widely as I can, I soar.

  Eat your heart out physics – elemental Shaping beats you hands down. It doesn’t even take much of my mana and practically none of my stamina. I’m using Transformation to sustain the shape, so that doesn’t require any of my focus. As for the movement, Air likes to move so it’s quite happy to act according to my desire when Transformation has done the bulk of the work for me.

  And I suddenly have a wicked question that I just can’t resist trying to find the answer to: what will Windy think if I soar into the village on my Air-Shaped wings when she still hasn’t managed to fly for further than short distances?

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