Winging It [Katy]

[Mike Batista]

It was still fairly nice outside, but Mike had a fall coat on the grass beside him to throw on over his sweatshirt if he got cold. The leaves were turning, the wind had a bit of a bite to it; summer was definitely over. His next session was with Katy Bishop, a good girl, though one he had to tread more carefully with when she was feeling down. Mike rarely canceled training sessions, but on Katy's bad days he often just had her bring her wings out to stretch and most of the time kept her grounded for her own safety.

It was hard to know what sort of day it would turn out to be, but she was certainly more even now than she had been when she'd first come in. Mike was glad, she was a sweetheart, and adolescence was hard enough without a mental illness.

When he could spot her walking towards the field, he smiled. Not too big, not too small, but gently, in a way that said he was happy to see her.

[Katy Bishop]

Katy was in a good mood. She had been in a good mood for about a month now, which generally meant it was coming to an end. Katy didn't like her bad moods. She dudn't really like anything when she was low. Luckily at the moment she liked practically everything, and one of those things was flying.

She walked out into the field, picking up speed after seeing her trainer, Mike (although he was pretty old-fashioned, so she called him Mr. Batista). She grinned and waved, then started jogging until she was standing infront if him. With a contended sigh, she unfurled her wings, the white feathers almost gleaming in the sun, which was still pretty bright, even if the leaves had gone a little yellow.

"So, what's first Mr. Batista?"

[Mike Batista]

The smile was bright and uninhibited. Good. Her wings came out as she approached, and Mike noted they came out easily and looked healthy and strong.

"What's first? Since they're out, I'll have a look at the wings, if you don't mind." With gentle fingers Mike extended one wing at a time, brushed away a few loose feathers, looked them over. "Any aches or pains? Muscles feel okay?"

When that was over he grinned. "You know what comes next. Put 'em away for a minute and give me at least one."

Meaning laps. He was easier on Katy due to her lighter bones, but all his kids started with a lap. Mike started at the starting line with her but walked, quickly outdistanced. He finished half the track and walked back to the middle. "Why don't we work on flapping today?"

Katy liked to glide, which was fine, but Mike knew wing movement was more important in the long run, especially if she ran into trouble in the air.

[Katy Bishop]

Katy, being pretty used to the ritual by now, let her wings react as Mr. Batista checked them. She caught a couple of the feathers as they fell. They had always fascinated her, her wings. She would often spend up to half an hour just admiring them in a mirror.
"Nothing out of the ordinary." She said in answer to his question.

Just because Katy was used to the training sessions didn't mean she enjoyed them all of the time. When Mr. Batista said about laps, Katy groaned. Reluctantly, she folded her wings away and started jogging. It wasn't too bad the running, and Katy use it as a way to get in a rhythm. That's what flying was all about: rhythm and patterns, keeping flaps in time with one another. A lot like rowing, or cycling, or running. Everything has to be in rhythm.

When she came back to Mr. Batista, Katy was breathing normally, which is a good sign. If she was breathing heavily after one lap, something was probably wrong. She did realise he went easier on her though, due to her hollow bones and how easily they would break. Some people might see it as belittling, but Katy was glad for the slight let-off. It was easier.

"Sounds good to me." Katy said with a smile.

[Mike Batista]

Training was about being flexible, Mike didn't ask the same things of all his students. On days Katy wasn't feeling well, he sometimes had her walk the track a few times instead of fly, just to get her some exercise.

Smiling as she reacted the usual way a high schooler did to laps, he filled out a section of Katy's session notes as she ran, checking her stride and speed every so often as his pen scratched paper. 'Wings strong, no pain, feathers looking good, mood up,' he wrote. Katy didn't molt the way birds did, but her feathers fell out according to similar patterns of usage and age. If too many fell out at once he got a little concerned, but that didn't happen much.

"Alright. I'll spot. Take off and do a lap up there." Spotting in this case meant Mike would keep a containment field under her just in case, like a safety net. She was past needing one, but Mike did it for his own peace of mind. He spotted all his students whether they wanted it or not. This was training, after all.

[Katy Bishop]

Unloosening her wings, Katy gave them a little flutter, to get rid of any loose feathers or bits of dirt. Then she skipped forward and jumped, taking a large flap. It was always a little nerve-racking, taking off, even when she had been doing it for a couple of years now. It also took a lot more effort than just normal flying, because you had to actually rise rather than just keep level.

Soon Katy was at a comfortable altitude, so started moving forwards. It really wasn't very difficult once she was up there - her wings were very powerful and she weighed next to nothing - so she finished the lap pretty easily. Her wings stretching out as far as possible, she tried to match the movement of a large bird's wings. Her flaps were very fluid and she tried to keep her body horizontal to the ground, which was tricky because it meant she had to look at the ground at all times. As she finished her lap she tucked her wings in and sped up considerably, a grin suddenly on her face. She swooped down, then stretched her wings out and slowed till she was touching the ground. She loved doing that.

[Mike Batista]

By this time Katy was good at the two aspects of flying that Mike watched out for most, the takeoff and the landing - in fact she was so much better at landing that sometimes Mike wondered why that was, if there was something about her physiology that made it easier or if it was just something that came more naturally.

Watching her do her lap up in the air, Mike watched the wing action, noted her posture, and checked for any signs of strain or extra work. He kept the field under her much lower so that any updrafts wouldn't be affected, he could raise it up as fast as necessary and she wasn't a beginner, but he let it follow beneath like a lightly opaque shadow.

It all looked natural and fairly effortless, and Mike grinned at her when she landed. "How'd that feel? Any aches? 'Cause I want to see if you can do three more of those, a little faster. I'd like to get your endurance up a little, build up a little more back muscle."

[Katy Bishop]

Katy nodded. "Yeah, it felt fine. No aches or pains anywhere, no." When he told her to do three ore, she groaned inwardly rather than outwardly. Flying was easier than running anyway. Katy took a little run up again, more of a hop, skip and jump, then began flapping once more. She started doing her ritual again, but this time flew faster, with larger flaps and quicker flapping. It was pretty easy for the most part, but after two laps Katy could feel herself starting to tire.

Her flapping slowed on the third lap, until it was dangerously slow. 'Oh no...' Katy thought to herself. 'I'm not gonna be able to make it round...' She pushed those thoughts back and concentrated on flapping, keeping her momentum up. She couldn't fail now. Besides, it was probably just her mind playing tricks on her. That happened a lot, especially with her disorder. It was pushing negative thoughts into her head. But maybe she should kearn to listen to those thoughts.

Katy was half way round the third lap when she could feel her wings begin to falter. Apparently she was right. Shit. She was dropping, losing altitude but gaining speed. It was just like that first time she had crashed, back when she first got her wings, when her problems started. What if those problems didn't go away one month? What would happen then? She would just spend the rest of her life drugged up and monitored, ever on the edge of a cliff. But she couldn't think about her depression right now. Now she had to concentrate on slowing down.

[Mike Batista]

With training, there was taking what the kids said at face value and being a good observer. Mike did both, and when Katy said she felt good he believed her, but didn't know if she'd complete the laps. At the end of the third she'd have flown half a mile all told, a goodly distance for someone who didn't work much on stamina. But that's what training was for, to see exactly where strengths and faults lay, so that both trainer and trainee understood their power. Katy was never going to be a distance flier, but what Mike really wanted in this exercise was for her to know her limits, respect them, and then figure out what to do when she came across them.

She started out strong, almost too strong. Mike would have to talk to her about pacing again. It was probably difficult to feel, but it was fairly easy to see, the speed slowing, the wings working harder. The alarm and doubt starting to creep into her expression, the realization she wasn't going to finish the set. As she dropped, Mike pushed his field up under her just in case, jogging over to be close enough for her to hear him shout.

"Slow down, Katy!" he called. "Ease up, relax! Don't panic, you're doing fine! Start gliding! I got a field under you if you need it!"

Should she falter, Mike would catch her with the field. The fields were solid, if thin and hard, but Mike was practiced with catching and could level and adjust their height so that any tumble onto one was as gentle as possible.

((ooc: Feel free to be caught by the field and lowered to the ground if necessary.))