One Day I'll Fly Away (Open)

[Belle Harrington]

Belle wanted to take her mind off of things, there were so many different things she could think of to make her forget. Things she'd never think of doing. Things she never ever wanted to do, but at this point she just wanted to forget. She wanted to forget everything. His pale skin. His cold touch. Those blue eyes. She just wanted to forget about him, and everything about him. But she knew she could never bring herself to do those things, and she had no idea who she could even find to provide this escape.

So she went for a walk. She didn't care where she went, or how long she walked for, she just wanted to walk, and forget. Throwing on her favorite jacket and combat boots Belle made her way out. When she left the school the sun was beginning to set, and as she continued to slowly walk around she didn't realize how quickly it was becoming dark until she had to take off her sunglasses to be able to see.

After realizing the time, Belle looked around to see where she had aimlessly walked off to. It had felt like Belle had been walking for hours, but she was only in the school courtyard, and she wondered how the hell she had ended up there.

Looking around, Belle went and spread herself out on the grass. With her hands behind her head, she focused on the stars as they slowly began to show in the darkness. She frowned to herself, it was such a beautiful night, and all she could think about was Lucah. How she wished she could forget about him. How she wished she could just escape from her feelings. She just wanted to run away. Just leave everything behind.

[Kane Woonren]

There were very few things that managed to calm Kane down much anymore. Flying was one of those few things. Ever since he managed to actually learn to glide without plummeting like a stone after a few feet, he'd always been able to clear his head by just going for a little fly out. Of course he had to land at some point, as with most winged flyers, he didn't have any way of keeping himself sustained after a certain amount of time. Still, after a twenty years of practice and a high enough 'launching point' he could stay up for a few hours before he finally made it down to the ground. Was kind of like walking downhill, just his wings got tired instead of his legs and he could still plummet straight down if he didn't pay attention.

As the sun began to set, he began to notice that he was starting to get tired, and he'd probably been up here for a while. He was once asked what he thought about while he was flying, and he couldn't really give an answer. He was at peace when he was flying (usually), and he just let his mind drift and think whatever it wanted to. Another common question was how many of his scars were from hitting buildings. The answer, of course, being none of them. The only time he'd ever actually hit a building was while he was still at Hammel, and he'd been knocked off balance by a particularly windy day. He hadn't fallen seriously or anything, he'd just popped back down and landed on the building again.

That wasn't to say there weren't a few close calls. Flying in NY was a lot like an obstacle course. He was fairly sure that he'd been on the cover of the inquirer at one point, although his mother had said it had called him the, "Dragon Alien Scouting New York for Invasion" which had made him laugh at the time. Maybe he could find it or something, who knew. He didn't really care that much either, he had gotten tired of newspapers when quite a few of them had his face plastered as a murderer. The downside of having a twin brother he hadn't met until he'd gotten arrested. Oh well.

He started coming down gently, avoiding the dive he used to enjoy so much because it made his heart beat so much. It also lead him to crashing. And crashing was bad. Particularly when it was getting somewhat dark and he wouldn't be able to tell if he was going to hit someone. Or judge the distance to the ground correctly, or one of the dozen things he was usually paranoid about when he was on the ground. Those things didn't really happen, and the judging the distance to the ground thing usually messed him up more when he was walking up the steps to his apartment rather than flying. He finally came down to an appropriate height, flapping his wings a couple of times before stopping them, falling a few feet down to the ground and landing on his feet, his tail twitching behind him.

"That can't be good for my knees," he said, brushing a little dirt off his shorts. He looked around, seeing that he had judged right and was now at the school, which was good. He kept a couple of spare shirts and a pair of shoes in his office for spills during cooking class, and for times where he chose not to take a shirt with him flying and he wasn't sure if he'd circle back to his apartment building. He turned around, looking to see where exactly he was, and then he noticed a girl laying on the ground not far from the 7'4 cooking teacher. "Oh, sorry... hope I didn't scare you or anything," he said, his lizard-like tail waving behind him absently. He squinted, trying to make out if she was one of his students... or if she even was a student, could be a professor for all he knew. They weren't that close to the lights, either that or they hadn't clicked on yet.

[Belle Harrington]

Belle had noticed the man before he noticed her. She had been absentmindedly watching him as he flew towards her, not realizing that what she was starring at was not a bird but a man. As he got closer, Belle became more aware of his appearance, or at least she thought she did. She could tell he was flying, and that didn't scare her, she knew how it was to have wings sprouting out of her back, so the fact that he had the same power as her didn't scare her.

It wasn't until he landed that Belle noticed not only his height but his lizard looking tail as well. She watched him as his feet touched the floor, in the time that Belle had spent alone she was now able to get off the floor and hover for a bit, but she still wasn't able to fly too high or land just yet, she just more or less fell to the floor whenever she wanted to stop flying.

Belle sat up when the man turned towards her, she could barely see his face, and was only able to make out his tail. She didn't feel safe anymore. Even though she was technically still on school campus, she was kind of far away from everyone else. She didn't like the situation she was in, sitting in the dark alone, with a gigantic man with a tail and wings.

Slowly standing up, Belle kept her eyes on the dark figure, who was he? Did she know him? Was he a student? A teacher? Or maybe just a stranger? She didn't know she could barely see him, but she didn't want to take the risk. For all she knew he could be a murderer, or a rapist, and she didn't want to stay around to find out.

When she heard him speak, she could tell his voice was very low, too low for him to be another sixteen year old. So she panicked. Throwing off her jacket, exposing her tiny tank top her beautiful white wings sprouted out of her back, as she jumped back, her wings flapping to keep her tiny 5'2 frame off the ground. "Who a-a-a-are you?" She asked, fear dripping in her voice. She hoped that he was too tired to join her in flight, and Belle felt safer staying off the ground, even though she knew she couldn't stay hovering for too long, but she felt safer thinking she could just fly away if she felt more threatened.

"A-a-are you a t-teacher?" She asked, her eyes focusing on the waving tail. She had never known of or seen a teacher with such an appearance, or even another student. Belle could hear her heartbeat in her ears, she was terrified, who was this man, and why did he land so close to her? What did he want from her?

[Kane Woonren]

Kane frowned, as the girl took on a rather familiar, to him, posture. He was used to people being scared of him, they'd been scared of him since he was 14 years old. His height had something to do with it, but another was it was easy to be scared of a kid who collapsed in the middle of a hallway and screamed with pain that'd echoed across half the school as wings painfully ripped from his back. The same had happened with his tail, although when that had started they'd gotten him fairly heavily sedated fairly quickly. Two days of his life he REALLY didn't like thinking about. At all, if he could help it.

The rest was how he looked, of course. Two long, dragon-like wings with the lizard like tail to match. He ran a few degrees hotter than the average person, which was a little helpful from time to time. Like now, it was pretty cold out but he was standing here in shorts and no shirt or shoes and he was a little cool but not enough that he was about to go sprint off for a jacket. Not to mention jackets and long pants were uncomfortable. They meant that he had to pull his wings and his tail back inside, which was uncomfortable enough. Then there was the fact that he had claws. Nothing noticeable, unless he was about to cut you with them or you were paying really close attention to the end of his fingers.

Now there was another of those faces etched into his memory, one that was looking at him with fear. But again, he couldn't blame her. It was dark, and he had just, literally, fallen out of the sky next to her. That wouldn't stop from her face flashing in front of him with the others when he was depressed though. When she ripped off her jacket, he wasn't really sure what she was doing, although when she started hovering he noticed her white wings, light enough to be made out in the dark. He moved down, first kneeling and them moving back so he was sitting on the ground. His tail twitched before wrapping around his legs, feeling his legs creek a little. Getting back up was going to be hard.

Now I feel old he thought. What happened to the days he used to be flexible? Where he could stand for hours with his head tilted so he could stand in a room "comfortably" and his neck would feel fine? Okay, that was a lie, he'd never been able to do that. Still, he at least used to be able to cross his legs. Now he'd be lucky if they didn't lock up. He sighed a little bit, cringing in the darkness. He folded his wings in front of him, similar to how a bat might when it was sleeping. Or at least hanging upside down.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he said softly, managing to keep the sadness out of his voice, due to years of practice. "I was just out flying... trying to clear my head. I didn't notice you until I landed." He looked back up, a gentle smile on his face. Why couldn't he have a nicer power? Even if he could control fire or something, things like this... but he wished he had a power that was actually useful to himself or other people. He could glide around, great. Unless he started selling rides, he wasn't really good for a lot of things.

"My name's Kane, and yes I'm a teacher. I teach a cooking class and I'm also one of the cooks here," he responded. He could already feel his legs locking up, but he just winced and kept sitting there. Urgh. It was going to be a very long night.

[Belle Harrington]

Belle allowed herself to fly a little bit higher when the man got down on his knees, she didn't know what she was doing. She had seen that position a few times when other winged people would kick off the ground for a faster start, so she prepared herself to be collided into, but as she watched him sit down, she slowly began to relax. Maybe he wasn't out here to hurt her.

Hovering more, Belle watched as the man sat himself down, and cross his legs, she could hear the creeking from his joints from where she was, and was reassured that he was not sixteen or even a teenager. Eyes focused on the figure, she watched as his wings wrapped around him, she knew that very well, she always wrapped her wings around herself when she was either sad or scared, it was a comforting feeling. Like a protective barrier.

When she heard the man explain that he was just out clearing his head, she could feel a small sympathetic smile run across her face. He was out here for the same reason she was. Just trying to forget.

"I-I-I'm Belle..." She said in response to his introduction, as she slowly tried to bring herself back down to the ground, but instead she fell the few feet. Landing on her butt, Belle winced slightly in pain. She still didn't quite know how to land.

Slowly standing up Belle made her way over to the teacher, as she brushed herself off. "I l-like your wings," she said with a smile on her face, and then pointed to her own set of white feathered wings. "I-I'm sorry for b-b-being so rude before..." She apologized, as she looked over the teacher. He was a very big man, she had already noticed that, but she could see his wings and tail more clearly now, they were so different from her own wings. He had no feathers on his like she did on hers, his wear like scales, very dragon like. It was like she was looking at a mythical creature.

"Y-y-your wings are b-b-beautiful," Belle said with awe in her voice. She had never thought of the idea of just flying to forget and clear her mind. She had always walked, but she knew that she wasn't ready enough to fly around without being scared, crashing or plummeting to her death. So even though the idea of flying around to clear her mind sounded good, she decided she wasn't ready for it just yet.

When Belle noticed Kane wince, she quickly sat on her knees and glanced at the teacher with worried eyes, "A-a-are you o-okay sir?"

[Kane Woonren]

"Nice to meet you Belle," he said with a small smile. Kane wasn't exactly known as a chatterbox around the school, he'd never been known for it at any other point in his life either. Not by choice, but at his height quite a number of people had given him a wide birth simply because he seemed like the kind of person that should be avoided. Or something, he never really asked seeing as that'd be kind of a weird conversation. Excuse me, do you avoiding me because I'm tall? After that there were the wings and the tail and the scars.... Not to mention the day his wings emerged where he collapsed on the ground not far from the infirmary and his screams could be heard throughout the school.

"Flying's a nice way to clear out your head. Wind in your face, no one really around you, just you and your thoughts... or not even them if you're enough at peace. Only worrying about if you're getting too close to the airport..." he said, slightly absently as he thought about it. He couldn't get up anywhere close enough to reach an airplane. At least not one at cruising altitude anyway, back in New York he'd accidentally gotten a little too close to JFK once. "Like walking through an empty park on a breezy day," he added. From what he was witnessing at the moment he was making an educated guess that she couldn't fly very well yet.

"Thank you," he said when she said she liked his wings. Quite a few people were fascinated by them, very few people actually said they liked him. "I like yours too." He wished he'd gotten wings like hers. It would probably have been easier to have been mistaken for... well, an Angel as opposed to a Devil. He had quite a few stories about that that he could tell people... but he kept it to himself, at least for the moment. "It's okay, you weren't being that rude, and it was my fault. I slammed into the ground out of no where, at night, while you're alone. I'd have been scared too," he responded gently.

"I don't know about beautiful," he answered, running a hand along the part that was pinning them to the inside of him. Demonic, scary, the reason he'd spent quite a number of years alone.... He avoided saying these things out loud. Keep on a happy face, as dark as things might get, you always needed a smile on your face so you didn't drag everyone else down with you. The same smile his mother used to give him when he was young.

"I'm fine. Just something for you to look forward to. Aerodynamic... bones... creaking... that sort of medical mumbo jumbo that I really didn't listen to when I was here," he said. Urgh. He didn't like the thought of going to the doctor to go get medicine for his joints in his 30s. Not even his late 30s. "I'm guessing from what I just saw a few minutes ago you haven't quite mastered the art of flying yet... or at least not landing?" he asked. Landing was one of the hardest things for him to learn, and he still screwed up if he came in a little too quickly sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. Which was why he usually came to a stop and just let himself drop, his tail made his balance a lot better like that.

He wondered how many teachers here had wings. He didn't imagine it was a lot since physical abilities were rather rare. His number of them was extremely rare. Like winning the lottery. Only, instead of money, he got claws and a tail with his wings. Oh, and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks thrown at him over the years.