Time Warp: Stupid Wings [Open]

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

Spring 2010

Gryphon sat in a minor huff, cross-legged on the ground, the wings that he still wasn't fully accustomed to around him lightly. He was able to control them, kinda, but they still felt clunky. It was a year after he'd manifested, and he still couldn't get them to work with him properly. He'd gotten off the ground, what, once? Twice? It was so sporadic, it felt like he was making it up when he thought back to when he was actually minorly successful. This sucked.

He pulled them closer and looked at the feathers, his feathers. It was weird to say he had feathers. The sixteen-year-old boy moaned in annoyance and dropped his head down a bit. He was never gonna fly.

But, moments later, he sighed and got up. Might as well try again, for the six-hundred and forty second time. He checked that he was gonna be running into a clear space, before charging forwards and flapping his wings randomly and unstably. His unbalanced state of being wasn't aided when he did actually pick up a bit, but only to realize this and focus on it solely, making him fall forwards. In that moment, he really didn't seem like a ballet dancer of ten-ish years. He fell on his faced and groaned again, crawling to pull his body up again and crossing his legs, feeling his face with his hands to check he hadn't split his skull in half. All of this sucked.

[Ides Alevi]

It was weird to think he'd been here a year and a half already. It didn't feel-- Ides shifted his hands in his hoodie pockets, more of a fidget than anything else, as he caught sight of a bird flitting across the sky, and other thoughts scampered out of his mind.

Birds. They were interesting creatures, really, particularly in their bone make-up and feathering and how it enabled them to fly. His only experience with flying was in airplanes, and he couldn't say he particularly enjoyed it. Sure, there were plenty of statistics proving that flight in an airplane was safer than driving a car, but really, those statistics were skewed. Many more people drove cars than flew, so of course there would be significantly less airplane deaths than automobile deaths. It didn't make anything better. Really, if people were meant to fly, they would up and sprout wings.

... Like the fellow boy he'd seen a moment ago, in fact, not too far ahead. Sprouting wings was really the only excuse to go flying around. In fact, Ides found himself questioning even that. Were winged metas built like birds? In their skeletal structure? Ides "hm'ed" at the thought. Just because wings were present, didn't mean flight was inevitable-- Look at penguins for heaven's sake!

Still hyperfocused on the sky, and therefore not at all present on the ground, Ides found himself tripping over who knew what on the ground. He fell forward with a gasp of surprise, thrusting his hands out to break his fall. Darn it, it seemed like this happened every time he went outside! There was just too much to look at! Too much information to take in!

As he groaned and shifted to sit up and see what--who??-- he had tripped over, his eyes widened. The boy from earlier? Blast, he must have moved since Ides last saw him, otherwise he was certain this accident wouldn't have happened!

"Sorry about that," Ides blurted, hands reflexively clenching on the grass beneath him. "I didn't see-- There was a bird-- I mean, I was thinking about... ....I didn't notice you'd moved," he finally finished, more than a little exasperated with his own stammerings. He hadn't had a problem with that before his power manifested, but since then there had just been too much information bouncing around. It made it hard to focus on a single thought-line!

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

Gryph was supposed to be able to fly, his trainer said so. They also said that it might take time for him to grow into his wings, and that he was going to have to be patient. But patience wasn't on his agenda, or in his name, or in his twitching limbs - he couldn't cope with having to wait. He had the urge to fly, this huge want to be up in the sky, free as free and without a care, because that's how he felt it would be like when he finally flew properly, but he couldn't fulfill his need or want or whatever it was because he could not fly.

It was stupid, he could talk to birds already! Hell, the first bird he talked to understood him! (Which was a bad thing at the time - angry birds are violent) So why couldn't he fly?!

The attempt didn't make him feel any better. He always got a bit of hope, he would look at the sky and the clouds and think 'This time; this time I'll get up there', and he never would! What was the point...

His already bad mood was worsened by this guy who just tried to walk over him like he wasn't there. As they fell, he was knocked over a little, and curled up in some manner of protection. Once that ordeal was over, Gryphon felt his wings come out more behind him again, but just let them do whatever. He was busy being grumpy.

"You should be..." He muttered under his breath. He raised an eyebrow at the rambling - distracted by a bird? Wow, someone was a little slow. "Well, thank you for fallin' over me. Made my day." He said sarcastically, rubbing his shoulder a bit. He pulled his knees up and brought one of his wings in front of him, fiddling with the feathers. Somebody was being a sourpuss today.

[Ides Alevi]

Ides sat, propped up on his hands. The boy was thanking him for falling over him? Odd... "Well... you're welcome?" he ventured, obviously a bit confused. Why would it make someone's day to be tripped over?

Wait.

Sarcasm. Ides was 99.7% certain it was sarcasm now that he replayed the memory. "Ah..." He gave a lopsided smile. "Yes, sorry again. It didn't look like you were having a very good day anyways, though, if you don't mind me pointing it out." He sat forward and drew his legs up to lean his arms on his knees. "Learning to fly must be very similar to learning to walk, in that it takes quite a while to take even small steps, and even longer to master." He mused on this for several moments, then for a few moments on a strangely shaped cloud--it looked somewhat like a narwhal--aaand then for a few moments on the existence of narwhals... Really, with the existence of narwhals, it seemed only logical that there should be unicorns as well. Though of course, there was no real evidence of there ever being unicorns, as opposed to the solid fact there were, in fact, narwhals...

His gaze meandered away from the cloud after several moments, drifting back to the boy he'd tripped over. Oh right-- they'd been talking. And Ides still wore the lopsided smile he'd had earlier. Oops.

"Ides," he said quickly, hoping to somehow that adherence to social protocol would fix the conversation somehow. "My name is Ides. What's yours?"

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

Gryphon’s face in that moment was the perfect representation of complete and utter confusion and bewilderment. Maybe it wasn’t clear – what sane person would thank some stranger idiot for walking right into them as if they were nothing more than a pebble on the ground or something? This guy was clearly struggling or something, why else would be say such a stupid thing?

I do mind you pointin’ it out. He wasn’t exactly in the best of moods, like the guy had pointed out himself. Gryph nodded slowly, “Yeah, it wasn’t obvious enough already.” He pulled his other wing around as the guy started –and continued- to talk. They were around him so that most of his body was probably now hidden, but he could still peek over the top of his feathers to scowl at the guy. His main attention was set on looking at his feathers and brushing them into place, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t listening. “You would know, you haven’t even mastered walkin’ yet.” He mumbled, but the other boy’s words were very much true. This was difficult – he was just hoping it would be worth it in the end, like walking was. And he hoped it would be as natural and easy as walking – going through all this physical difficulty on a regular basis would be hard, especially as he spent a lot of his energy on dancing. He’d prefer to dance over fly, at this rate. He noticed that the stranger was 1) still there and 2) completely silent, but he didn’t care. If anything, he would’ve been happier if he’d walked away three minutes ago, when he’d fallen into him. Oh well.

Gryph twitched his eyesight up when he heard the guy’s voice again. Ides. Well, that wasn’t vague or anything.

Oh, so it was his name.

Ides had a weird name.

(It wasn’t like Gryph could actually say much himself.)

Gryphon paused. Was it worth giving this guy his name? He would probably never even see him again, other than passing in the hallway or something… ah, what the hell. “Gryph.” He said, and then tilted his head before kind of correcting himself, “Gryphon.” He looked at Ides and sighed – well, some company was better than no company. He highly doubted that this ‘Ides’ guy had the ability to cheer him up too much, but maybe it would be worth speaking to him. “What’s your power?” Gryph didn’t really have to state his – unless this guy was really that oblivious.

[Ides Alevi]

Ides gave a faint smile at the comment about his not knowing how to walk yet. "Well, I used to be quite good at walking," he mused. "Lately though I've found it's hard to focus enough to not get distracted and fall over things." He shrugged. "It's starting to get a little better..." Actually, that was a big thing he was trying to work on with his trainer lately, now that they'd somewhat figured out headaches and keeping memories and information spilling everywhere in his mind all the time.

He briefly wondered if the other boy was trying to hide behind his wings, or if it was just a comfortable position. He'd have to ask eventually...

So Gryphon was the fellow student's name. Gryph being his nickname, it seemed. He seemed interesting enough, else Ides probably would have gone ahead and moved on. His power was also interesting-- metas that had actual physical changes were fascinating. Not that other metas weren't fascinating as well.

"Oh, er..." Ides hesitated to give out his power, as he typically did. Telling people he had super intelligence always felt awkward. Especially since he'd been one of those kids in school to tease the "brainiacs". He scratched his ear before deciding on an acceptable, but still truthful, reply. "I have sort've a computer mind, I guess." He gave a sheepish grin. "A computer mind that can be distracted way too easily. How long have you had your wings? What was it like for them to grow in?" He wanted to ask several more questions concerning his power, but restrained himself. He'd found in the past that when he shot out too many questions to a fellow student, it had varied results. Sometimes students didn't mind, but sometimes it seemed to scare them off. Which could be handy in some situations, if he wanted to scare someone off...

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

Past tense. Used to, as in, not anymore. Well, at least the two were in agreement on that. The way the guy seemed to describe it, he had his head up in the clouds too often, and didn't come down enough to keep his eyes on the world around him. Clearly, that approach to living wasn't exactly working perfectly. Gryph had to wonder how someone could get distracted so easily - he got distracted during lessons, when the class was boring, but it wasn't like he zoned out every two minutes because he was thinking so much. That was weird.

It was generally more comfortable for Gryphon to have his wings out - it felt like the more natural state for them to be in. He had ripped one or two shirts from the strain of holding them in, and the pressure of the appendages wanting to burst out. It was like... wearing a shirt with no sleeves. It would be kinda comfortable at first, but slowly you would realize how constricting and annoying wearing it was. You would want your arms to be free, so that they would stop cramping, and so you could actually use them. It was frustrating at times, but Gryphon was at least attempting at learning to deal with it.

The winged boy tilted his head in curiosity as the other hesitated. His wings pulled back so that they were still out, but resting in their natural position, the most comfortable position possible for the feathers to sit in.

A... computer mind? That made Gryph wonder if this guy was bionic or something, which would be amazingly awesome. But then again, being part robot wouldn't be considered a meta power. The avian boy blinked a couple of times, after then, only just realizing that more questions had been sent his way. By this point, he wasn't in such a terrible mood, so he was willing to answer, "Um, I've had them for... a year. And a bit." He thought. He wasn't certain. "And it was... strange. They grew overnight one night an' I didn't really know what t'do with them. Tryin' t'move them was like... like tryin' to control a sheet've cardboard with a piece've string. Really stiff and awkward an' stuff." He didn't exactly know why he was going into so much detail - maybe to pass the time? Or maybe because there was the possibility of him remembering something that could get him off the ground. He gave a short smile - wings were weird. "What about you, how was your... manifestation?" Bleh, that sounds like they'd developed a disease or something.

[Ides Alevi]

"Grew in overnight?" Ides considered. That would've been convenient... Be asleep while your manifestation happened. Of course, he hadn't said he'd been asleep. "Did you sleep through it?" he inquired, curious. "I would've thought something like that could hurt. Like growing pains. I guess being a meta could be different though," he mused. Actually, having a power that defied pain would be interesting.

No... actually, no that would be dangerous. People felt pain for a reason, to keep their bodies from getting badly damaged. Like if they put their hand on a burner... yeah, scratch that idea.

It would be so weird to have new limbs all of a sudden...

"Oh, my manifestation..." he grinned faintly. "Ended up in the hospital because I almost went into a coma. I guess having too much information you can't control in your head does that do a person. It was an interesting experience though, I suppose," he added thoughtfully. He hadn't really been in a hospital before that. "Not that I'd want it to happen again. Woke up with one of the worst headaches I'd ever had before in my life. Also a little loopy from meds." He grinned.

Speaking of hospitals... His mind sparked a connection and bounded on to a new subject. This would be a perfect time to ask about what he'd been wondering earlier. "If you have wings, do you have the skeletal make-up of a bird? With the air pockets and lightness and all that?"

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

Gryphon nodded and shifted his sitting position, "Yeah, I did." It was weird to wake up one day with wings coming out of your back, but that was how these things were. "I didn't really feel any pain, so if there was any, I must've slept through it." It was an odd experience. They were so stiff and stuff that he'd been pushed on his face. And well, they could've been sore, but he was distracted by more important facts to bother to remember to feel pain.

"Shit." Gryph replied, with a faint laugh. As if becoming a meta wasn't weird enough, being shipped off to a hospital because your body might just stop working spontaneously? Damn. And suddenly, Gryphon was really kinda enjoying this conversation. Not because it involved someone else's pain and stuff - he wasn't like that. But it was funny. "I thought I was going insane when I woke up after getting my wings," He began to explain, seeing as the guy mentioned being loopy, "'Cause I started tweeting instead of talking. Freaked me out to no end." He laughed, "I got pecked by a seagull because I understood what it said, but I think I swore or some shit when I tried to reply and it got really angry." He still had a scar on his arm from it. Ouch.

This was bordering into a topic Gryphon wasn't knowledgeable in. He knew he should probably find out, but he wasn't totally sure how to look it up. He knew one thing though, "I'm not sure, really, but I've had osteoporosis ever since I was born, because my bones are so thin. Apparently that has somethin' to do with it." And it sucked like shit.

[Ides Alevi]

Interesting... Ides found it fascinating that Gryphon had the good fortune of manifesting in his sleep. That would have been highly preferable to in the middle of a group of friends in the backyard. Then again, maybe it wasn't good fortune... perhaps all avian metas manifested in their sleep. Life was an interesting thing, very adaptable, perhaps it had adapted to facilitate minimal trauma. If only it had adapted for him as well. It would have made things much more pleasant.

"Started tweeting?" he burst out laughing. "That must have been so disorienting. And frightening." He considered. Well, perhaps Gryphon's meta gene had room for improvement in the whole "not causing trauma" area after all. "Can you talk to birds without cussing them now, now?" he asked, curious. "What is it like to speak bird? Is it like a foreign language like Spanish or French?" Obviously it wouldn't be exactly like, since one likely needed different vocal make up to sound like a bird, but some elements could be similar, right?

Osteoporosis? Close enough to bird skeletal structure... "That would be highly unpleasant," he stated the obvious without shame. Much as wings would be an interesting power, he would never wish for it given the trade-off. "I can't ever forget anything," he mused, returning information in exchange for the answer he'd been given. "It makes it very hard to think sometimes. I think I'd rather deal with that than broken bones, though." Broken bones? Yeah, no thanks...

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

If Gryphon had manifested his wings in front of a bunch of his friends, aside from the few who would think he was a freak, they probably would've thought they were really cool. As it was, he'd hidden them most of the time at school, even if it was difficult. He'd shown Thomas, who thought it was weird for a human to have wings. Well, Gryph thought it was weird for the name Thomas to be spelt as it was, when it was pronounced Tomas. How did that 'h' even matter? It didn't make him any more special. If anything, it made him stuck up. Weirdo.

"Definitely was." His first fear had been that he would never speak English again. Or Korean. Or any language applicable to humans. That would've been bad. "I'd say so." He answered, nodding. And he could have that comparison because he spoke more than one language. Only, with speaking bird, he kind of only had a baseline. "I can talk t'some birds pretty well now, like seagulls, funnily enough," Even though they were all greedy sons-of-birdies. "It's just that some things which are fine in English insult them. Like the phrase 'killing two birds with one stone'." Gryph couldn't help it if things like that slipped out. He was getting there, kinda. "And it's not like my bird voice changes for every bird, but it'll be similar to whatever I'm talking to. Like I actually hoot at owls." He personally thought it was strange but awesome. And he could sing birdsong, which was sweet. He was a literal bird man.

The avian boy laughed, "No kidding." But the random thought that the other guy brought up was interesting. "You can't forget... anything?" Damn. Remind Gryph never to try and prove this guy wrong. "Like, you could recount this whole conversation?" It did sounds like something that could block up your brain processes. He nodded, "Yeah, never wish for broken bones." That sentence probably spoke for itself. "All of my stuff has loads of problems. Like I can't keep my wings away loads 'cause they cramp, but man, they get in the way. And I can get stuck in bird language, which is great when you're tryin' to explain t'your teacher why you do have your homework." He was complaining loads... he hoped all of this shit would be worth it. Well, it already was, really.

Gryph thought over this for a second, "I guess it's still better to deal with all of this because of a meta ability. Like, if you got migraines or easily distracted because you had... like, ADHD or somethin', that would suck a lot more than you having a computer brain."

[Ides Alevi]

Ides found the explanation about the bird languages fascinating. He'd learned so many amazing things since he'd come to Hammel... it was the perfect place for someone like him-- a place to learn how to control his own powers, but also a place to learn so, so many other things.

"Yeah..." Ides shifted to scratch his head, somewhat awkward at Gryphon's reaction. This was why he didn't always tell people his power, he reminded himself. "I'd have to focus and sorta zone out, but I could replay our conversation if I wanted to. It'd depend on how long it had been, too. In line with most deteriorations, it gets more difficult to recall things that are more than a week or so old... I've been improving that since I've been here, though." He considered this for a moment. "Which is good while simultaneously being difficult, because that just allows for me to unintentionally access even more information."

In turn, he listened with curiosity to Gryphon's relay of his power's problems. Everything had ups and downs... He blinked in surprise at the comment about wishing for broken bones, however, giving a serious, "I would never wish for broken bones," mildly appalled at the idea of someone wishing for broken bones. Who would wish for that? Unless the comment had some sort of social saying significance... Which it likely could, now that he thought about it.

"Have the problems with your power lessened at all since you arrived here, at least?" He put his head to the side. "Does your bird speak tend to happen under stress more than otherwise? Or is it consistent?" And he really hadn't thought about wings cramping up if they were tucked away for too long... He hadn't really thought about the fact wings would take up a whole lot more room than a human normally would, as well. Birds were so in tune with theirs that it was an odd idea to think that wings could be in the way of their owner...

He nodded in reply to the last comment, though, about his dealing with attention problems because of a meta power being better than dealing with those problems otherwise. Of course it was better to deal with something unpleasant if something pleasant came of it... Though he supposed some meta power unpleasantness could cancel out the good side. He'd met some metas who thought as much, anyway.