xp_logs | Log: Pixie & Warren (flying lesson backdated to Jan 31)

Pixie flew excitedly to the gymnasium for her flying lesson with Mr. Worthington. He was something of a legend, the guru of flying, to the younger mutant. It was cold outside, barely above freezing, but she barely noticed in her excitement (mixed with a little bit of nervousness).
She entered the gym, pink hair pulled back into a tidy ponytail, clutching her purple gym bag in one hand. It was warm in here, and humid. Immediately she began to break out into a sweat. She slipped into the women’s locker room and emerged wearing her light exercise clothes, ready to rock.

Warren was a little bemused at the young girl's excitement - it had been a long time since he'd actually taught anyone anything, and she seemed so pleased when he'd agreed to a session with her. He'd almost shown up in what he usually went flying in at the mansion - old jeans and little else, until he remembered what was appropriate around teenagers. So a t-shirt had been added to the mix, but his feet had remained bare. Being built for the cold air of high altitudes helped one not feel the cold too much.

"Hey," he said with a smile when she appeared, sliding his hands into his pockets. "You ready to rumble?"

“Hi Mr. Worthington. Sure am,” she replied giddily. She always got sort of hyper and nervous around new people, and it didn’t help that teacher was drop-dead gorgeous.

"Great. How about you show me how're you doing so far, and we can go from there." Warren couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm, he couldn't recall anyone being this excited for one of his classes when he used to teach.

“Okay,” she said brightly. She started by stretching her shoulders and back for a minute, then let her wings buzz into motion for another 30 seconds to warm up. Soon she was hovering a few inches over the gym floor. She rose through the air towards the ceiling, trying to just move vertically as much as possible, an ability made possible by her dragonfly-like wing build. Near the ceiling, she tucked into a dive and made one and a half somersaults--a move she’d learned from Monet--before landing on her feet on the ground.

“That’s like, my technique form,” she said, breathing sharply, trying to look composed. It took a lot of energy to control her flight like that.

Warren applauded, watching her recover her breath with a smile. "Looking pretty good," he said easily, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Being able to do tricks is fun, definitely. But they use up a lot of energy, especially if you're having to work against your natural movement to make them work." He started to walk towards her, looking carefully at her wings.

"If you were going to compare your wings to any other winged creature, what would it be?"

“Dragonfly? Or maybe damselfly,” she answered, beaming at the applause. She didn’t know a lot about insects, but her wings at least superficially resembled the lacy 4-winged structure of those two insects. Dragonflies were supposed to be among the fastest insects in the world, though, and she definitely didn’t feel like the fastest flier yet.

"That's what I would have said," Warren said with a nod. "Do you know much about how they fly?" Every flyer had a different way of flying - Warren, for example, wouldn't try and teach the same techniques he would to Megan that he would someone with self-propelled flight, or even the techniques he tended to use himself.

Pixie squinted her completely-black eyes and tried to think back to biology class.
“Something about air over the wings... causing lift? I’m really not sure how it works.” She couldn’t really picture what a dragonfly’s wing stroke looked like. “Oh, something about the wing stroke creating air that flows over the wings, but not like the flapping of bird wings. Dragonflies can hover, and fly backwards, and birds can’t.”

"That's right." A good place to start. "So I'm going to give you some homework. I want you to study how dragonflies fly. There should be plenty of videos around online, see what you can find. If you have a better idea of how your wings work, about what you can do, you can learn how to conserve your energy so you can fly for longer." Maybe he wasn't so rusty at this whole teaching thing as he thought.

Youtube homework. Pixie could handle this.

“I never thought about studying my wings like that before. Makes sense,” she agreed. “I can’t glide, so I gotta conserve energy. When I go down, it’s like helicopter crashing. So that’s why I haven’t really gone higher than this ceiling, even outdoors,” she confessed.

"That's fair enough," he said with a smile. "If that's something you're having problems with, how about we concentrate on working on your landings. As you've said, dragonflies hover, so that's going to be the best way for you to be able to land without hurting yourself. So show me some hovering."

“Okay,” Pixie replied brightly. Suddenly she didn’t feel as afraid of falling. “Hovering, okay, I can do this,” she said quietly to herself. Besides, she was indoors and she knew exactly how far away the gym floor was from the ceiling. Outdoors there was uneven terrain and uncertainty.

Pixie’s wings began clicking and she once again rose in a hover. This time she stopped about three metres in the air, not quite all the way to the tall gym ceiling, and maintained her height.

"Very well done," Warren said in his best encouraging tone. "Now come back down - slowly, don't rush it too much. You want to get down to a height where you can comfortably let yourself drop to the ground."

Pixie changed the direction of her wing motions, although the visible difference was practically unnoticeable, and she began a controlled drop. She wasn’t really sure what she did, but this was how she’d learned--by feel--to move up and down without changing her speed. It was tempting to slow down, as her brain was telling her that it was safer to drop at a slower speed, but she resisted the urge and maintained her speed.

Then at about two metres, perhaps hovering a little lower than the teacher’s head if she was right above him (however she was a safe distance away so it was hard to tell), she reminded herself to bend her knees a little, let her wings come to rest and dropped to the floor. She stumbled an extra step to catch her balance, and her ankle stung for a second, but at least she hadn’t fallen on her arse.

Warren immediately moved in to be on hand to catch her, just in case, but she managed to right herself before she needed the help. He smiled, straightening and stepping.

"You're doing well with the hovering, but I think you need to be a little closer to the ground before you let yourself drop, to avoid hurting yourself. A couple of extra moments in the air shouldn't strain you too much, especially if you practice with the hovering."

Pixie blushed slightly in embarrassment. So much for trying to be ambitious right off the bat. But Mr. Worthington was right--it was probably better to play it safe for now.

“Okay, I’ll try again from a lower height,” she agreed. She moved gracefully back into the air and this time hovered at only one metre off the floor. This time she was able to drop nicely onto the balls of her feet, her feet then settling firmly onto the floor with her weight distributing evenly over her lower body.

"Very good!" Warren grinned at her. "That's it. Now just comes the practice - you need to be able to do that without thinking, to lock that action into your muscle memory. And then you won't have to think about landing, it will just happen naturally. Do it a couple of more times for me."

Pixie nodded happily. Hey, this wasn’t so bad. She didn’t have to flop-land lazily onto the ground like she’d been doing--and that meant she didn’t have to fly to within a couple handspans of the ground when she needed to come down.

She once again lifted off the ground, and hovered for about thirty seconds at one metre before dropping down again in a practiced landing. And again. This was so much better than her old way of doing things!

Warren applauded her after her last landing, watching her with pride. "I think you've definitely got the hang of it now. I'd keep practicing it as part of your normal routine, but I think you've got it for now." He smiled a little mischievously at her.

"That's probably enough for your lesson today, but want to finish up with something a little fun?"

“Sure,” she replied happily, relaxing for a moment wiping her brow lightly with her fuzzy purple wrist band. She remembered her airborne version of war-ball with Monet and wondered what the teacher had in mind. Sometimes you never knew what to expect.

"Great." Warren moved over to a bag he had sitting near by, pulling out a small paper bag. He fished a small silver item out of it, holding it up so Megan could see it. Individual wrapped pieces of chocolate, he'd bought them at one of the gourmet chocolate places in New York.

"Every piece of chocolate you catch before it hits the ground, you get to keep. You ready?" Without waiting to see if she was, he tossed a piece high in the air, it just barely missing the ceiling.

Without even thinking, Pixie fluttered up and snatched the shiny. It slipped through her fingers at first, but she caught it at the last second before it hit the floor. Pretty soon it was raining chocolate and she was doing her best to catch each piece, darting all around the gym, a grin on her face like a... well, like a kid in a candy store. A kid in a candy store with the Hot Teacher.

Pixie thought she was doing to die from happiness overload.