Flightless - A story by Felix

[Felix]

Hey everyone! =D I know I'm a bit of a stranger around these parts these days, but I still lurk around now and again, and I still love the place. Anyhoo, I've got a new story I've been working on lately. Normally I'm a slow writer, but I've already written almost 20k words on this one in about 4 and a half days, so that's pretty good for me haha. I have eight chapters written, but I'm just gonna start by posting the first chapter here, and just seeing how it goes. If someone likes it and wants me to post more, I will.
Anyway, here's chapter one of Flightless. Enjoy!

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Flightless

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Chapter 1 – Flight

It all started with five simple words – well, four words and a name, really.

“Don’t be a scaredywing, Mark.”

I glanced down, and saw, beyond my faintly quivering knees and past my brown, sun-baked toes, the cliff face plunging away in a jagged wall of varying shades of stone and mineral, before losing itself in a thick blanket of creamy white cloud. Milky limestone swirled and mingled with coarse brown sandstone, while glittering patches of quartz peered amiably from sun-kissed recesses. All told, it was a beautiful sight, but at the moment, I was not concerned with the view.

Don’t be a scaredywing. The words repeated in my head. Emili was a Flier just like me, a winged race that made its home among the cliffs and mountains of the sky. She was only five darkskies my senior, but she still considered herself the unquestioned expert and superior on just about everything. Unfortunately, I had to agree more often than not; she knew a lot about most things, it seemed, and at least a little about everything else. In this situation, especially, she had the edge. She had done at least a dozen things like it, and the fact showed by her total lack of concern for what we were about to attempt.

I looked down again and swallowed nervously as my stomach did a flip. I was not cut out for these kinds of stunts, a fact that Emili reminded me of religiously, and teased me about mercilessly.

“We’re not supposed to go below the cloud layer…” I mumbled weakly as I glanced up at Emili. I could have made my excuse stronger, but I knew she would shoot it down anyway, and I wasn’t in the mood for an Emili argument at the moment.

She made no reply, but instead fixed her rich golden eyes upon me and sent me a look that was all dare; her eyes were famous for them, those unspoken challenges. I had only to glance at those shining orbs, so full of spirit and mischief, and I instantly felt ashamed of my own timid, unadventurous nature. I looked away, but felt Emili’s stare continue to bore into me, encouraging me, challenging me. I had made glides numerous times before, but only within the confines of the Colony Rock domain; never so far, and certainly never into the forbidden lands beneath the cloud layer. Emili boasted often that she had traveled below the clouds once before, and seen the world beneath, but I secretly doubted the truth in those claims.

I looked at those clouds now, and they stared back at me innocently, like a rolling white ocean, unbroken and endless. The cloud layer was the same as I had seen it a million times before; it stretched uniformly between every cliff and peak, perfectly whole, and always covering totally the hidden world below, yet now it seemed somehow more sinister and foreboding in its blank infinity. While contemplating this, I was suddenly brought back in time to my younger days, not so long ago, when I had been brought up here to Edge Peak time and again to be taught lessons about life and the world, or at least those parts of the world that concerned our race. I could see myself as a smaller, frailer boy, sitting cross-legged not far from this very spot, listening attentively to the words of Eldridge, soarer, teacher, and elder, as he taught me about the rules governing the cloud layer and the world beneath.

“Our kingdom is great, Markus,” he had told me. “As far as you can see, these peaks and these skies are our kingdom, and what a majestic kingdom it is.” His hand had swept out towards the leagues of shimmering blue depths, and the dozens of peaks and spires emerging like islands from the cloud layer. His hand had then stopped, pointing towards an enormous chunk of land in the near distance that rose from the clouds like a colossus: Colony Rock. If all that Eldridge had indicated before was our domain, then Colony Rock was our home. Despite its name, it was far more than just a rock; it was a dynamically formed mountain with untold numbers of peaks and valleys, groves and grottos, plateaus and caves. Trees, gardens, and even small lakes dotted the landscape, and towering above it all, from one of Colony Rock’s highest peaks, stood an enormous, ancient tree, twisted and gnarled beyond reckonable age. It was known simply as The Tree.

“This is our kingdom and home,” Eldridge had continued as he gestured at the rock, “but…” He had then lowered his arm to point towards the clouds, “this is where the boundaries of our domain come to an end. Beneath those clouds lies another world, a world which we were never meant to explore. There are other races there, strange people who would as soon rip you apart as say hello. Our race does not belong in that world, and that is that. I tell you this not to arouse curiosity, but to caution against stupidity. Hear me, Markus; do not descend below the clouds.”

I must have been in this reverie of memory for quite some time, for I was abruptly snapped out of it by Emili’s impatient voice.

“Fine then, Mark. It’s obvious you’re too scared to go. I thought you might be grown up enough by now to go on an adventure with me, but apparently I was wrong. Go back to your nest, Fledgling.” She sounded accusing, yet at the same time, disappointed. It had a unique effect, and it cut me. Her last word especially bit deep. Fledgling was a term reserved solely for the use of Senior Fliers when taunting or teasing the younger ones. Emili’s use of it now had a bolstering effect on my nerve – probably exactly what she had intended, I realized later.

(continued below)

[Felix]

Emili stepped up to the cliff edge beside me; we were both facing outward now, across expanses of sky and over miles of cloud. Those bichrome ranges were broken by numerous bleak, unlandable spires of dark-shaded, sharp stone. Behind us stretched the rest of Edge Peak, and beyond that another sheer drop, followed by another massive breadth of space, in the midst of which was nestled Colony Rock and its surrounding outcroppings and towers. Edge Peak was the highest point in the kingdom other than Colony Rock itself (and truly Colony Rock itself was no higher, but the long arms of The Tree resting atop it did reach higher than Edge Peak), and was also the farthest landable peak, thus making it the “edgeâ€

[SnoringFrog]

Seems like it could be interesting, hard to say this early on though. I'll read it if you keep posting it and will try to give better feedback than this measly review lol.

And it's been forever since I've seen you around here, if I remember right you and I were in two or three different RPs together back in the day.

[Felix]

Yes, as I recall, we were! Those were the days ^^
Anyway, thanks for reading. I know I'm treading on tricky ground with this, because the whole 'winged race' thing is dangerously cliche, but stick with me and hopefully it won't turn out too cliche haha.

Here is the second chapter:

Chapter 2 – The World Beneath

I had never touched a cloud before. I had seen plenty of them, oh yes, both below and above me. There were often scattered clouds in what was sometimes called the upper-cloud layer, and of course there were always clouds in the lower-cloud layer. I had not yet touched one, but that would change very shortly. I was seized by a sudden irrational fear: what if clouds were actually solid, not passable as I had always assumed? No sooner had I had the thought when I shrugged it away with a laugh; if that was the case, I would merely come into a nice soft landing atop the clouds and that would be that. In fact, I suddenly wished with all of my might that it was true – I wanted more than anything to merely touch down on the clouds with a little bounce, and there end my adventure.

But it was not to be.

Jagged stone islands on either side of me whizzed by as I glided through them. I was buffeted here and there by several temperamental winds and air pockets, and had to adjust my wings or sometimes flap to keep myself gliding straight. Occasionally I was forced to tuck one wing or the other and twist to the side to avoid colliding with a deadly spire.

Off to the side I spotted Emili, swooping and diving and generally carrying on, laughing and enjoying herself. Despite my concerns about this venture, my heart lightened to see her so happy. After a short time, as the clouds loomed closer, she swung into a glide parallel with mine and shouted to me across the turbulent air, “Here come the clouds! Get ready!â€

[Felix]

I continued my surveillance of the alien panorama and noticed for the first time what appeared to be a city or village nestled among some of the lower hills off to the left. Lights glimmered from a collection of squat huts crowding together against a steep hillside. Back on Colony Rock we had our own living structures, called nests, and though the buildings I saw now were quite a bit different in design, their purpose, I knew, was one and the same.

I stepped closer to Emili and touched her shoulder. “Look.” I pointed towards the village. “Do you think there’re people down there?”

Emili’s eyes sparkled as she noticed the town. I instantly knew that she would suggest going down to find out.

“No,” I said firmly, cutting her off before she could even voice the notion. “No matter what, we can not be seen while we’re here. Below-worlders hate us; don’t you remember your lessons? Who knows what they might do to us?”

Emili pouted. “Yeah, we were also taught to never go below the clouds, and look, nothing’s happened to us yet.”

“True,” I admitted, “but this is where I draw the line. They could be dangerous, if there’s even anyone down there.”

“Hey! What’s that?” Emili suddenly jumped up and pointed excitedly off to the right.

I heard the noise before I saw it. There was a high-pitched whine, unlike anything I had ever heard before, followed by a deeper, vibrating whup-wp-wp-wp noise. Then I saw it. There was a large and frightening… thing rising up into the air from some sort of valley hidden from view behind the surrounding hills.

My first impression was of a bleak behemoth bird, though of a kind I had surely never seen before. I say bird because I had nothing else to realistically compare it to, but truly the thing looked more like a monster. It had a long, sleek body, and two large wings under which grew some sort of bloated growths. The beast’s front tapered into a pointed, beak-shaped protrusion, and a long plume of grey smoke streamed from a row of pipe-like protuberances along its spine. Each of its sides sported twin rows of what appeared to be large circular discs extending outward. Within each of these, something rotated too rapidly to see, creating the whup-wp noise, which had now grown considerably louder. The thing had a mottled grey and brown hide, a patchwork of both a leathery-looking material, and something else that appeared metallic.

I realized belatedly that it was metal, just as Emili gasped, “I think it’s an airship!”

I had heard about airships before, even though I knew precious little else about Below-World affairs. Emili had always been extremely curious about the world below the clouds, and so she had mercilessly bugged her teachers for any scrap of information she could drill out of them. Once she had gained a fair bit of information about a Below-World machine called an airship, and she had instantly flown to find me so that she could tell me all about it.

I began to recall the specifics of that excited monologue of hers, now just a memory. An airship was an invention that a flightless race called Humans used to imitate flight. Those bloated growths I had seen below the wings were actually balloon-shaped cells filled with buoyant gas, while the discs jutting from its back were things called turbines, and they had rotating propellers within that thrust air downwards to give the ship loft. Above the beak-like front (or the prow, as I remembered it was called), there was a long rectangular panel of glass behind which was supposedly a room where the whole vessel was operated. It had powering devices called engines, and ran on steam, whatever that was.

I was surprised that I was able to remember so many details about the airship, though I must admit that the facts I was now armed with did little to alleviate the trepidation I felt at the sight of the awesome machine. The airship lifted higher into the air, and its prow suddenly blazed with twin, resplendent lights that burned from the vessel’s face like giant eyes. I was tempted to once more think of it as some sort of monster, but I told myself how ridiculous that was.

I had never seen lights like these before, though. For one, I had only ever known light to originate from the Flaming Sky Ball, that or from the fires we often lit at night on Colony Rock. These lights, however, were somehow artificial, and yet they burned like miniature suns, nearly blinding me when I looked directly into them.

With a mechanical groan, the vessel tilted and turned. The whine of its engines grew in intensity until it became nearly a roar. Three pillars of fire sprouted from the back of the ship, and it began to glide forward, slowly at first, but gaining speed. Its current course would take the airship on a tangent line to our hill, it appeared, and it would pass very close to us. I was gripped suddenly with the intense need to not be seen by whoever or whatever was aboard that ship.

Emili was staring in mute fascination at the ship. I knew she wouldn’t move so I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her roughly with me. We ducked down behind the largest of the scattered boulders. “Get out of sight,” I urged, “and fold your wings tight!”

Almost at the same moment that we secured ourselves in our hiding place,the airship changed course slightly and its awesomely powerful lights drenched the entire hilltop in washed-out white light. Emili had longer wings than me and so had greater difficulty keeping them out of site. Part of her left wing was caught in the light and glittered vividly with a million incandescent colors. I pushed her down as roughly as I dared and made sure her wing was out of sight. “Pull it tighter!” I whispered harshly. Her wing had only reflected the light for a tiny moment, but I still feared we had been spotted.

The roar of the airship grew into a deafening cacophony. The ground trembled, and with a mighty whoosh, the vessel rocketed directly over our heads. I felt an intense blast of heat from the three fire-spitting engines, and then the ship was past, and the roar began to depart along with the light. Emili and I straightened from our hiding spot and watched the ship as it traveled onward over the plains and mountains. It dwindled, and became little more than three points of light and another faint whine. At last, it flew behind the immense Colony Rock Mountain and was lost from view. Its whine likewise disappeared and we were left in a surreal silence.

A spell-like stillness bound us for some time, until Emily breathed, “So, that was an airship. Wow…”

Unlike Emili, the encounter with the airship had left me a bit shaken, and painfully aware of how little I really knew about this strange world beneath the clouds. I looked up at those clouds then and abruptly realized that I could no longer locate the sun at all; we had been on this hill longer than I realized. If the below world was dim before, now it was dark. I knew that evening was descending, not only down here but up above as well. We should not have made this venture so late in the day, but there was nothing we could do about that now.

“Emili, it’s getting late. We need to go back.”

She frowned. “We just got here, though.”

“I know, but night will fall soon. If we’re not in our nests by dark, the elders will come looking for us, and it won’t take them long to figure out where we are.”

“You’re talking like a fledgling,” Emili muttered, but she knew that I was right.

I walked to the edge of the hill. “The best way back up is to glide to that huge mountain. I think it’s the lower part of Colony Rock and then we can just climb on up.” Fliers were excellent climbers. Normally, if we wanted to get to a point that was at a higher altitude, we would prefer to glide there and then just climb up rather than use our limited flight power.

Emili warmed to my idea. “Okay,” she said. “At least this way we can see a little bit more of this world while we glide over.” She stretched her wings. I noticed that down here in this dim light they no longer glimmered as brilliantly.

Emili stepped onto a rock beside her, then hopped straight up, flapped her wings twice to give herself a little extra altitude, and then leaned into her glide. I forwent the boulder approach and merely took a running start and leapt from the side of the hill. Wind filled my wings and I was once again a creature of the air.

We made our way towards Colony Mountain, sweeping across subdued green fields and gliding around stone-crowned peaks. Occasionally we had to land on a hill or mountain and climb to its peak before launching again and resuming our glide. We made good speed, and we would have reached our destination in plenty of time to make the climb back up to Colony Rock before night fell…

That is, if the airship had not come back.

[Esoteric]

I like your opening. It's very engaging and Mark's woeful predicament is strangely humorous and interesting. I like the tone, the descriptions and characters. There are just a few things I'd like to mention for your consideration.

Until Emili spreads her wings...I have no idea that they are winged creatures, and that seemed a bit late. Perhaps it was the lack of exotic names (Mark) and the familiar, modern way they spoke like little kids, but I envisioned a scared little kid holding some sort of hang-glider and being taunted to jump off a cliff. It's true, you never mention any kind of glider, but it seemed like the most logical conclusion (more logical than me assuming they were bird people before wings were mentioned). You might want to make it a bit clearer from the start that they aren't human, or modern Americans.

Having them immediately recognize the airship, and not first think it was some sort of bloated steam-breathing monster, took some of the fear out of the encounter for me. Having Mark speak about it retrospectively also insinuates they survive the encounter, further dampening the fear factor.
Try and make the first sighting feel a bit more...dangerous, unless your goal is to make this a humorous, light hearted tale. In that case, play up the comical 'woe is me' narration even more.

Yeah, you are fighting a cliche with winged people. But it's a cool cliche, so I hope you can pull it off well. Yeah, it has been a while since you've been around. You're a good writer, and I like this better than the last big thing you wrote with the underground caves and lanterns.

[SnoringFrog]

Ooh, cliffhanger. Still don't have alot to say (I'm a terrible critic in most cases). Keep going though, still interested.

with the underground caves and lanterns.

I remember that. I believe that was the last RP I ever tried to participate in, but I ended up killing off my character or something because I couldn't keep up with it.

[Felix]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Esoteric, thanks a million. That's exactly the kind of constructive feedback I'm looking for by posting this here. Those are the kind of things I may not notice myself while writing, because I already have it visualized for myself, but I'm trying to convey my vision to the reader and some things may not always come across properly, so I have to rely on a second perspective to see some of those things.
Now that you mention them, I can see the flaws quite clearly, and I'll definitely see what I can do about fixing them. Thanks

EDIT: Okay, I have attempted to address the issues you mentioned. I added a line in the fourth paragraph of chapter one that lets you know that they're winged people, and I changed a pretty decent chunk of chapter two where he sights the airship to include your idea of him thinking that it's a monster or creature at first.
Hopefully it looks a little better now. Don't hesitate to continue to point things out that don't quite sit right with you!

[Felix]

Chapter 3 – Airship Attack!


At first I thought it was just the wind whistling past my ears, but shortly the sound became unmistakable: the faint whine of an approaching airship. I looked over at Emili, who glided nearby. She was staring curiously at a small village below us, one of several we had already passed over. She didn’t seem to hear the airship over the sound of the wind, so I called out to her. “Hey, hold up!”

I slowed myself and touched down on the nearest hilltop, but Emili glided on past, still involved in her examination of the village. She either hadn’t heard me, or had ignored me; probably the latter. I watched Emili glide nearer to a dark mountain peak, one of the last summits we would pass before reaching Colony Mountain. Something about the peak caused a sick feeling to crawl into my stomach. I instantly leapt from my perch and took off after Emili. “Wait!” I shouted as loud as I could manage. “Emy, turn back!”

Almost at the same moment the words left my mouth, the mechanical whine began to increase in intensity, and a familiar whup-wp sound reached my ears. And still Emili glided on. “EMILI!” I screamed.

She finally turned and looked over her shoulder, a confused expression fixed on her face. She opened her mouth to make some reply to me, but her words were drowned out as the high-pitched whine suddenly exploded into a deafening roar. Emili passed over the mountain peak, and at the same instant, a huge dark shape shot up from behind the mountain, directly in Emili’s path. The airship’s huge lights came to life, and my dim world was flooded with white. I was blinded.

“Emili! Where are you?!”

“Here!” came the gasped reply. I tried to find Emili’s position from her voice, but could determine nothing other than that she was somewhere in front of me.

I feared colliding with the airship, so I tucked my wings and allowed myself to fall. I plunged below the range of the headlights before spreading my wings again. After my eyes readjusted to the darkness, I looked up to see the airship hovering above me. And there was Emili, directly in front of it, flapping wildly in a blind panic.

“Emili! Let yourself fall!” I shouted up to her, but it was no use; she couldn’t hear me over the tumult of the airship’s engines. I had to help her, so I began, with a grunt of effort, to power my way back upward with slow, laborious flaps. But it was too much effort, and would take too long for me to make it back up to her altitude. I glanced around quickly and my eyes came to rest on the mountain peak from behind which the airship had emerged. Of course, the peak sat right in the middle of the airship’s lights, but it was my best shot, so I took it.

I glided at reckless speed towards the mountain and landed awkwardly on its side, almost knocking myself out as I narrowly dodged a rock. I scrambled up the mountain, climbing faster than I ever had before. At one point, I risked a glance back at the airship. A hatch had opened at the front of the vessel and shadowy figures were moving about inside, surrounding some strange mechanical device that I couldn’t quite make out. It had some sort of slender protrusion, however, and this was aimed straight at Emili who still flapped and spiraled blindly in the light, though she was clearly beginning to exhaust herself.

I continued my climb. It seemed like an eternity before I reached the top. I had, of course, re-entered the intense light as I climbed, but this time it seemed that my eyes adjusted more easily, and I was only partly blinded. Standing on the peak, I squinted against the lights and could make out Emili’s shape flitting about.

Over the roar of the airship I heard an odd, wheezing sound, followed by a loud clunk, and something zinged through the air. It missed Emili by a breath, and struck the mountain near me with a clank of metal. It was a complex, thick net, part rope and part chain, attached to a long chain connecting it with the device from which I assumed it had sprung. The ramifications of what I was seeing slowly sank into my head. Whoever was in this ship was trying to catch Emili!

There was a clicking sound, and with a grind of metal against stone, the net slid off the side of the mountain and swung away into emptiness, where it was slowly retracted back towards the airship. There was another wheeze and a clunk, and another net fired from the airship. This one seemed to appear from another part of the ship. Clearly, the enemy had more than one of these net launching machines. Luckily the second shot became a second miss, harmlessly flying past both Emili and the mountain where I still stood, transfixed by what I was seeing.

It came to me that Emili’s luck couldn’t hold forever; I had to do something, so I jumped from my perch and flapped madly toward Emili. “Emili!!” I shouted when I thought I was close enough for her to hear me.

She whirled around, eyes wide and panicked. “Mark! Thank goodness!” She paused for a breath, which came in a ragged gulp. “H-help me! I can’t…-gasp-… see a thing!”

Whzzzzz…

One or both of the net guns were preparing to fire. “Drop, Emy!” I yelled, tucking my own wings and praying that she had heard me.

Clnk! Clnk!

Both nets fired, but sailed over us as we plunged like rocks. “Now glide!” I instructed. We unfolded our wings and glided under the airship, towards Colony Mountain.

“Th-thank you,” Emili sputtered, nearly crying with relief.

I grunted, knowing we were still far from safety. “Glide straight towards that mountain, and when we land, climb for your life.”

She nodded, and we glided in silence, or whatever is closest to silence when a thunderously loud airship is hovering nearby. The airship was fully behind us now, but I noticed that the sound of its engines changed in pitch slightly, and I had no doubt that it was turning to give chase. Colony Mountain loomed closer. Mere moments later, the mountainside was bathed in white light, and I knew the airship had turned and was right behind us.

Whzz-clnk! Whzz-clnk! …Whzzzz-clnk!

One , two, and then three large nets whizzed past, one only inches from my head. They jerked against the end of their tethers and halted midair, dropping and swinging back in a large arc to dangle harmlessly below the ship. There was another barrage of wheezes and clunks. How many of these machines did they have on the ship? More nets sped past, and I knew it was only a matter of time before one found its target.

But the mountainside was now right before us. Emili was slightly ahead of me, and I watched her land near a towering formation of rocks and scamper behind them into the relative safety they provided. I slowed myself to land, feet out, preparing for the familiar impact.

That’s when a force ripped into me from behind and threw me against the rocks. I landed hard on my chest with the crunch of ribs cracking against stone. My world flickered and turned hazy as I fought for consciousness, while pain throbbed steadily through my chest and head. I attempted to move, but my broken ribs and the heavy net on top of me made sure that such a feat was impossible. There was a distant clinking sound, and the open ends of the net began to constrict, pulling me back into its tight embrace. My wings became tangled up in the net’s intricacies, and attempting to fold them was useless, and only brought pain, so I gave up. I felt myself lifted away from the mountainside and swinging out over nothing. Through the holes in the net I could see the earth swaying far beneath me, and as the clinking sound continued, the ground dropped further away while I was reeled in towards my fate.

“Mark! I’m coming!”

I twisted my neck and saw Emili detach from the mountainside and hurtle toward me. She landed hard against the outside of the net, causing us both to swing like a pendulum. “I’ll get you out!” She promised.

She began tugging at the net, trying to get it to open, but I knew it was a useless effort. Not even a knife would have cut me loose, due to the metal chains interlaced through the net.

“Emy, fly away!” I told her. I had to shout to be heard over the continuous roar of the airship.

She looked at me through the net, and I recognized a rich fear, running rampant through her eyes. I had rarely ever seen her afraid, and it was strange to see it now. Suddenly she clenched her eyes and shook her head roughly, and when they reopened, I saw that determination had driven out the fear. This was the Emili I recognized. “No way! I’m not going anywhere! If I did, who would save you?”

“You have to get away while you can,” I reasoned weakly. “Don’t go back to the mountain or they’ll see you. Fly straight down and find a place to hide until they leave.”

Emili’s eyes hardened and her lips pressed together in a determined frown. Her stubborn nature was taking over, increased in its intensity by her loyalty to me. “Don’t you tell me what to do, Fledgling!” She seemed about to say more, but instead lapsed into a grim silence.

And that, apparently, was that; Emili was staying. She clung tightly to the outside of the net as we were cranked continuously closer to the roaring monster above, and though I truly wanted her to be safe, a selfish part of me was deeply relieved to know that Emili would be with me through whatever ordeal we were about to experience.

Oh, and what an ordeal it would be.

[Sae-chan]

Very nice! I like it a lot. And 20K in four and a half days? For me, that's nearly impossible.

I'm still not too sure about what Emili and Mark look like. Looking back, you said he was a 'smaller, frailer boy' and had reddish wings. Emili had 'golden eyes' and white wings. The things is, I didn't spot that while I was reading it. The descriptions were hidden. You may want to describe them a bit more.

The rest of it, though, I thought was very good.

[Felix]

The lack of descriptions on their parts was actually a little bit intentional. I'm the type that, when I'm reading a book, I make up my own visualizations of the characters no matter how detailed their descriptions are, so I think subconciously I only give impressionistic details about my characters so that my readers can sorta form their own images of them. Perhaps you're right though, and I should go back and add a little bit more about how they look. I hadn't really even noticed that I had done that haha.

Thank you! I'm glad you're liking it!

[Esoteric]

The changes you made are good. No confusion from the start and the airship/monster description informs the reader of what it is, while at the same time, conveying the strange way in which Mark perceives the 'alien' craft.

I have little to offer concerning chapter three. The action flows well, and is plenty exciting. Surprisingly, I like how Emili stays. I say surprisingly because normally I would consider letting yourself get caught an incredibly stupid thing to do. But in this case, you redeemed the action by making it the first unselfish thing we've seen Emili do. It's also a brave gesture of repentance for causing this whole mess. (She's taking responsibility and refusing to let Mark suffer her 'punishment' by himself.) These two things successfully balance out the stupid factor, making it both believable and keeping me on the edge of my seat. Can't wait to find to what happens next.

[Felix]

Thanks! I'm glad the changes worked out. It's always difficult for me to go back and change what I've written, because it feels like I'm destroying a portion of my creation, but in this case I was mostly just adding stuff, so it was okay.

Thanks for the comments about Chapter 3! When I started writing the story, I had actually planned originally to have Emili get away, but when I wrote that scene, something in me felt like she was going to stay, no matter what I planned, so that's how it happened haha. Sometimes my characters seem to take a life of their own and they won't listen to me even though I'm the writer.

Okay, here's chapter 4. Oh, and don't feel like you have to comment after every chapter, especially if you can't think of much to say. I won't mind. If you have critiques though, please let me know. If no one posts for a while then I'll just go ahead and post chapter 5, and so on.


Chapter 4 – Welcome Aboard

My ribs hurt. I couldn’t tell how many of them were broken, but it felt like all of them. My world was a small circle of pain… pain, and rope, and chains… and Emili.

We were pulled up, higher and higher. I was tangled in the net so that I was facing down, and I could not twist around to see what was happening above me. But the roar from the airship was growing, if possible, steadily louder, and I knew we must be getting close. The wind suddenly ceased, and I sensed that there was something other than open air around me. A little bit higher and I could see a square opening beneath me, surrounded by layered metal plates.

We were inside the airship.

The clicking stopped and we jerked to a halt. There was a screech of metal on metal, and the plates below me began to slide, closing off the opening. Through the now-narrow gap, I caught a final glimpse of land, and then the hatch closed, plunging us into total darkness.

But only for a moment. I heard an electric hum, and with a snap, the room we were in was doused with the same sort of artificial white light that had spewed from the front of the ship. It was less intense here, however, and my eyes had little difficulty in adjusting. I twisted my head as far as possible and could see that we were in a medium-sized, fairly featureless room, with a metal floor and dark grey walls. There was a machine near us, to which I assumed the net was attached in some way, and against one wall of the room, stairs led up to a raised walkway with a railing, and beyond that was a metal door.

There was a hiss of pressurized air, and the door slid open, allowing several men in dark coats to enter. They were each armed with a long, slender stick-like object with a prong at one end. I could only guess at its purpose. The men took up positions along the railing, and another man entered behind them. This one also wore a coat, but he was a little shorter and a little rounder than the others, and his coat was clearly fancier. I knew next to nothing about the affairs of below-worlders, but I assumed that this man was higher in rank than the others. He had an air of authority about him.

The short man stared across the room at me with a hungry glint in his eyes. I had no idea if he had seen Emili or not; she was still clinging to the side of the net that was turned away from the men.

The short man pointed a thick finger at me and spoke. His voice was slick and gravelly. “Release him, but keep your shock spears ready. We may have given him a good knock against the rocks, but these birdbacks can be real fighters sometimes.â€

[Felix]

She spun to face the six other men who had successfully descended from the walkway and now stalked cautiously forward while spreading out to try and surround her. Emili raised her wings menacingly at first, and then folded them tight and leapt for the nearest opponent. She jabbed out with the stick in her hands and caught him in the shoulder with the pronged end. Fierce electricity coursed from the stick and into the man, searing the flesh around the point of impact and throwing him flat on his back. There he lay, quivering slightly before apparently losing consciousness.

“Get her!!!” the Captain shrieked. I saw him reach for a device at his belt and slap a button on it. An alarm blared through the room, and from a nearby part of the ship I could hear feet pounding on metal, approaching quickly.

More men poured into the room, and the ones already close to Emili sprang forward, emboldened by the arrival of their reinforcements. She managed to incapacitate another one with an electric blast from her stick – or shock spear, as I now remembered hearing it called – and delivered a hefty blow to another’s head with the side of the stick, but one man ducked her attack and dove for her legs, knocking her down while two more jumped on her back and wrested the shock spear from her hands. Snap! Out went Emili’s wings, knocking the two men from her back. She started to get up, but the extra arrivals appeared and dragged her back down, quickly overwhelming her and pinning her to the floor.

A man arrived with rope, and the others roughly forced her to fold her wings while he wrapped the rope several times around her torso and secured it tightly. He then bound her wrists and ankles, and she was dragged up to a position on her knees, now unable to move or even open her wings.

During all of this, I hated myself for my inability to help Emili, but there was just nothing to be done about it. With my ribs broken, I could hardly even move. Despite my obviously useless condition, the men approached me next and tied me up exactly as they had bound Emili. I was then dragged beside her and forced to sit on my knees. The men then backed up and formed a loose circle around us.

The Captain descended from the stairs and approached us with an ugly sneer plastered on his face. The men moved aside to allow room for him to pass. “Ah,” he murmured in slick self-contentment. “This is such a fine example of killing two birds with one stone. Or rather, catching two birds with one net.” He clasped his hands together behind his back and walked in a slow circle around us. “I wondered where the pretty female one had gone... I thought you had escaped.” He stopped behind Emili. “Lucky for us, you decided to stick around with your friend. Loyalty is such a beautiful thing… isn’t it? Just like your wings…” The Captain leaned over and stroked his hand along the edge of one of Emili’s folded wings.

She jerked away from his touch and fell over onto her side. “Don’t touch me, you ugly, wingless… human!”

The Captain straightened up. “…And such an endearing personality, too. Quite a catch, eh boys?” He chuckled at this, and his entire group of cronies laughed heartily with him, some providing a chorus of ‘Aye’s.

“Enough!” The Captain barked suddenly, cutting off the laughter. He pointed at four of the men in front of him. “You four, wait here. The rest of you, back to your posts and get this bird moving again! We won’t make it to the next market by sitting here on our lazy [censored for CAA. Please a insert plural word relating to donkeys here] all night!”

“Yes sir, Captain!” The rest of the men saluted and began to depart.

“Wait!” the Captain called. The men stopped and turned around. The Captain walked over to one of the two who had been knocked out by Emili’s shock spear attacks. “Someone please take these imbeciles with you.”

“Yes sir, Captain.” Two men came and lifted the first victim, one taking his arms and one taking his feet, and two more retrieved the second man, and then the whole group departed, and I heard boots clanking away through the ships corridors. It wasn’t long before I heard the whine of the ship’s engines rise in pitch, and I felt the ship begin to move.

“You four,” the Captain continued, pointing at the remaining men, “take these disgusting creatures, “he gestured at us, “to the back and throw them in the cages… but be careful with the girl.” He paused and smiled slyly. “Her wings are more valuable.”

“Yes sir, Captain.” The four men approached us.

“Oh,” the Captain added, almost as an afterthought, “and you might want to just go ahead and give them a little spear poke, just to make sure that they don’t cause you any trouble while you’re moving them. You can never be too safe.”

“Yes sir, Captain.”

One of the men stepped around behind me, and moments later an intense voltage of electricity erupted from my side, coursing through my body and numbing me completely. My last belated thought was that my ribs didn’t hurt anymore, and then my mind went numb as well and the whole world lost itself to darkness.

[SnoringFrog]

Definitely still enjoying this very much. I'm seeing where the story's title should be coming into play soon, and I'm interested to see how that's going to change things for Mark and Emili, particularly Emili though.

[Maokun]

I totally love this story and I want to see the rest of it. I wish I could write nearly as well.

The single thing I didn't like was the line "Oh, and what an ordeal it would be." Not only it takes out some suspense from the future ("are the humans maybe not bad?" "Will they manage to escape unharmed?") and we get a bit depressing forecast that in the coming chapters we'll behold our beloved characters suffering a lot.

Second, it breaks the style of narration by including for first time a mention of future tense. That sort of breaks the fourth wall, and we are now aware that we are not there as the events unfold, seeing through Mark's eyes and mind; rather, we are sitting around a now older Marcus who is telling us his story; which also means that whatever he went through, he's back alive to tell the tale.

[Felix]

Hmmm, that's an excellent point, Maokun! (Glad you're enjoying the story, by the way.) I'm very glad I've got people here to point things like that out to me. I hadn't even given that line a second thought until you mentioned, but I definitely see your point now. I'll try to think of something different to say, or just drop the line completely. The reason I stuck it in there to begin with is that so far I've had a pattern of ending the chapters with sort of one-liners, I guess you could say, and that seemed appropriate at the time. But I will try to change it, though unfortunately the silly CAA timer thing won't let me edit it anymore now on here :/

If you notice anything else that bothers you, please let me know! I'll go ahead and post the next chapter in a moment.

[Felix]

Chapter 5 - Birds in Cages

I woke up. The first thing I became aware of was the dull ache emanating from my chest. The second thing I became aware of was that my arms and legs were no longer bound. My wings, however, seemed to still be tightly tied to my back. The third thing I became aware of was that there was a mildly concerned face floating directly over my own. I thought I recognized that face… “Eldridge?” I croaked through a dry throat as I attempted to sit up. A sharp pain lanced through my ribs, and I fell back with a groan.

“Nope,” an unfamiliar male voice replied. “Name’s Amyrio. You just take it easy now, lad. Looks like you been through a pretty rough catch.”

Now that my senses had more fully returned, I could see that this man looked nothing like my old teacher. He was clearly a human, older, with rough, worn skin and graying hair. “Catch?”

“Yep. I seen some fellas brought in before that was way more banged up than you. Morocco don’t like to do it though, ‘les he has to. He’s afraid of damaging tha’ wings, ya know. Can’t be damaging tha’ wings, now, no sir.”

If I gritted my teeth and ignored the pain, I found that I could move a little, and I was sick of lying on my back so I made another attempt at sitting up. It hurt, but not excessively so, and I was successful in getting myself upright enough to take in my surroundings. I saw that I was in a large, square cage. The floor and bars were made of old, red, rusted metal. The cage was sitting in a huge chamber, somewhere, I assumed, near the back of the airship, or at least close to the engines, because the whole place resounded with their dull roar. It wasn’t as loud as it had been outside the vessel, but it was loud enough.

There were other large cages inside the chamber, all scattered and spread out so that none were close to each other. All of the cages had walkways that connected to one larger walkway that zigged and zagged all about as it ran between the cages. The whole chamber was very dim, lit only by a few small, dusty lights high in the ceiling. I could faintly make out the shapes of people, or what I assumed to be people in the other cages. With a start I realized that there were others in my cage as well. Hunched in the corners I saw bleak, shadowy figures, most unmoving.

I looked at Amyrio, who was watching me curiously. “Who are they?” I asked.
“Them?” Amyrio gestured towards the figures. “They’re in a bad way, I’m afraid. Sorta lost their spirit when they lost their… well… they’re in a bad way. That’s all.”

“But who are they?” I repeated.

Amyrio sighed and rubbed his face with a calloused hand. “They’re like you, lad. At least they were. Flappers, I think you call yourselves. My race calls you bird-backs, but that tain’t the nicest name, if you ask me.”

I scooted closer to the bars of the cage and leaned against the cold metal. “What do you mean they’re like me?” I looked again at the huddled figures. “They don’t even have wings.”

Amyrio was silent for quite a while. “…Oi,” he finally said. “This is the part of my job I hate. Look, lad, this is a bad ship for your kind. A bad, bad ship. These guys… Morocco and his crew, they’re wing-poachers.”

“What’s a wing-poacher?” I asked, feeling very uneasy.

“You mean to tell me that you’ve been a Flapper your whole life and your momma never told you about wing-poachers? Where have you been living, boy, above the clouds?”

“Actually-“

“Of course not. Above the clouds… ha! That would be ridiculous. Anyhoo, let me explain. Wing-poachers are bad news for your race, trust me. Those pretty little wings you’ve got tucked behind you there? Those fetch a **** good price in the market, oh yes sir. Or at least the feathers do. Not much demand for whole wings as far as I know, but those feathers of yours, oh lemme tell ya, folks sure make some good-lookin’ and expensive stuff out of those, just like that nice little outfit ya got on.”

I looked down at my clothes. Flier clothes come in one of two types: there are clothes made from a special kind of leaf that grows on a plant species native to Colony Rock. The leaves are tough and sinewy, similar to an animal’s hide, and can be sewn into cheap, green-hued pants, shirts, or tunics. The other clothes available are fashioned from discarded Flier feathers. Over time, as Fliers mature and age, they naturally shed feathers as new ones grow into their place. Due to their silky quality, these leftover feathers can be made into sheets of material which can then be fashioned into high-quality clothes. Outfits made from female feathers are especially desirable, due to the multi-colored quality of their hue and the softer texture of their silk.

My outfit was made from brown-red male feathers. The brown-red wing color ran in my family, and this outfit was made from a combination of my father’s feathers and my own. It was my favorite outfit, consisting of a plain tunic worn over short, knee-length pants. Flier clothes were simple, but practical and comfortable.

I was still trying to swallow what Amyrio was telling me. “So you’re saying…”

“I’m saying you’re gonna have your wings cut off!” Amyrio exclaimed, gesticulating dramatically with his arms. “I hate to be so blunt, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t give ya tha honest truth, lad.” He indicated the sullen figures sharing our cage. “These poor souls here have already had their wings removed. That’s why they’re in such a bad way. Now all they’re awaitin’ is delivery to Flapper Island. That’s what I like to call tha place anyway.

“See, as far as poachers go, Morocco really ain’t the worst out there. There’s some fellas I met afore who’ll just rip yer wings right off and then toss ya out the window to yer doom. Ol’ Morocco, though, he’s got a heart I suppose, small as it may be. Once he takes your wings, see, he’ll keep ya here on the ship, fed and cared for – that’s my job, ya know – and then whenever he’s in the neighborhood, he’ll drop ya off gentle as ya please on nice ol’ tropical Flapper Island, which really ain’t such an awful place. Better than bein’ dead, I always figgered. You okay, lad?”

I was having difficulty coping with what I was hearing. I could feel panic welling up inside me, and it caused my breathing to come in short, quick gasps. “So you mean…” I managed to say, “that you just sit here on this ship, and go along with this… this… atrocity?!” I bellowed the last word with an accusing bite.

“I never said I liked it,” Amyrio replied defensively, “but it’s a job, and those’re hard come’n by these days. Times’re hard in the world, lad, even for humans; if I gotta work for a poacher so I can keep food on the table back home, so be it. At least I can do my best to make things comfortable for you Flappers while you’re here.”

I glared at the cage surrounding me and its void of all but metal and rust. “Yeah,” I spat, “looks like you sure have plenty of comfort to offer around here.” I gripped the bars above my head and used them to pull myself to my feet. My ribs burned with the movement, but once I was standing, the pain subsided again to a dull ache.

(continued below)

[Felix]

I stalked away from Amyrio, subconsciously keeping my distance from the shadowy wingless figures as well. My kind. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t even know of any other Fliers in the world besides the ones in my colony, and I had never heard of anything remotely like this poaching abomination. Was this what Eldridge meant when he told me that the below-world was dangerous? That would mean that the other Fliers who had been captured and… disfigured… they must all live below the clouds. But why, when they could live above them? It made no sense. Perhaps the airships traveled up above the clouds to do their hunting, but if that was the case, then I surely would have seen many more airships before in my life.

My brain hurt from thinking about it, so I stopped walking and let my head loll against the bars with a muted thump. I glanced out at a small cage all the way across the chamber and caught the faint movement of wings. “…Emili… is that you? …Emy! Hey! …Emy! Over here! Emili!!!!”

I grabbed the bars and shook them violently, willing myself to break free from this cage and fly over to where I was sure Emili was being held. “Emy!!! Hey!! Can you hear me?! Emy! EMILI!!!”

Strong hands gripped my shoulders from behind and pulled me back from the bars. I jerked away from Amyrio. “Don’t touch me! …Emili!! Hey!! Emili!!!!”

“Easy now, lad,” Amyrio said gently, “that ain’t your friend over there. They took her to another part of the ship where they cage tha ladies. She’s fine though, trust me, I been lookin’ after her myself.”

I sat down on the rusted metal floor, feeling emotionally drained. “Who was that, then?” I asked weakly.

“He’s another Flapper whose still got his wings,” Amyrio explained, “Morocco caught that guy just yesterday. Name of Casiel. He’s a spirited one, no doubt, but that always changes, after… ya know… well… erm… that always changes, anyway.” He cleared his throat awkwardly and shuffled away from me.

I sat dejectedly for a while, and then, for no other reason than to keep my mind from slipping into deep depression, I asked, “Are there others that still have their wings?” I had no idea if Amyrio was still nearby, but I threw the question out anyway.

“A few,” came Amyrio’s reply from somewhere behind me. I turned my head to see that he had produced a bucket and a mop from somewhere and was busy cleaning the floor of the cage. “I’d say there’s about four, not counting you and your ladyfriend. Lemme think, there’s the one I already mentioned, Casiel, and then another older guy who's rather sickly, plus two other lady Flappers... so yep, four.” He mopped silently for a moment, and then continued quietly as if talking to himself. “Let’s see, so six Flappers, and Morocco only runs the machine every ten days or so, dependin’ on how many he’s caught, hmm, and he used it just last week, so that leaves about… er,” Amyrio suddenly seemed to realize that I was listening to him, and he let his thought trail off unfinished. “Uh… nothing.” He muttered quickly and busied himself with his mopping.

That was the last communication I had with Amyrio that day. He finished mopping in silence, and used a key from his belt to open the door’s hefty lock. The barred door swung open on whiney, rust-covered hinges, and was then slammed shut and relocked. Amyrio engaged in a few other cleaning activities in and around the other cages, and then shuffled along the walkway and exited the chamber through a large metal door at one end.

I sat there in the chamber’s gloom for a long time before finally laying down to try and sleep. Sleep avoided me, however, and I eventually decided to try talking to some of the others who shared my cage. I crept over to one of the forlorn figures sitting in the corner. It was a man, several star-turns older than me. He was clearly a Flier, though he looked a little different from the Fliers of my colony; a foreigner. He was facing me and I couldn’t see his back, but it was obvious that there were no longer wings there.

“Um… hello.” I said.

He halfway opened his eyes at the sound of my communication attempt. I started. Those eyes were dead things, devoid of any sort of spark or life; this man had apparently lost the will to find joy or amusement in anything at all. With eyes like those, I doubted he even still had the ability to laugh. He slowly parted his lips as if about to make a reply to me, but then his eyes shifted up slightly and I know he had seen the tops of my folded wings visible over my shoulders.

“You still- have wings.” The man with empty eyes breathed in a cracked, almost confused voice. “Get those- out of my- sight.” He waved an arm at me as if brushing away a cobweb. “Get them away- out of my sight… get them- get them away! Go! Get away!” He began to thrash, trying to hit me and push me away.

I quickly backed away, wondering how long this man had to have been stuck in this infernal place to so lose his mental stability. Or perhaps he wasn’t the only one. Were all the de-winged Fliers like this? Is this what losing my wings would drive me to? I suddenly resolved, then and there, that I would not simply give up and allow myself to fall into whatever sick plans Morocco and his poacher crew had in store for me. No, I would fight back, and somehow get out of this hellship. I would take Emili with me, and then I would find a way to destroy this ship and every other one like it, even if I had to travel to every last corner of the Below World.

I began to plan my escape that very moment.

[Felix]

Chapter 6 – Escape Plan A


I must have fallen asleep while I made my plans. The next thing I knew I was awoken with a start as the door to my cage clanged open. I looked up groggily from my position on the floor and saw Amyrio entering with a stack of bowls balanced in his arms. There were no windows in this chamber, and thus it was impossible to gauge the passage of time, or if it was even night or day.

“Good mornin’â€

[Felix]

Morning (or whatever passed for morning in that Godforsaken chamber) arrived sooner than I expected, and certainly differently than I expected. Instead of waking to Amyrio’s gruel delivery, I was jarred into consciousness by the resounding echo of multiple sets of boots striking the metal walkway nearby. Before I had a chance to see who it was, a loud voice cut through the chamber above the rumble of the ship’s engines.

“Wake up, bird-backs! It’s the day you always dreaded!â€

[SnoringFrog]

Very nice, nothing jumped out at me as needing to be changed. I wasn't expecting the escape to be foiled quite that quickly though.

[Felix]

Yep, sometimes escapes just don't go nearly as well as they should. They're no always long, drawn out affairs. But there's always escape plan B! Whatever that might be haha.

Chapter 7 – Wingeater


To know freedom and to then experience captivity is a bitter affair indeed, but to know freedom, experience captivity, taste freedom once more, and in the end merely become a captive again… that is nothing short of torture.

Thus, it felt like torture now as I was clapped in heavy shackles and prodded forward like an animal. The other male Flier had been retrieved from his cage, the cage that sat in the very back corner of the chamber and had been partly hidden from my sight before. Seeing the man now, I understood why Casiel hadn’t wanted to try to break him out; the man was older, perhaps fifty, thin and pale, and his breath rattled as he drew it through sickly-toned lips. His wings were grey and appeared frail, as if he had not used them in quite some time. The poachers shackled him as well, though there was hardly a need for it. Then Casiel and I, the sick man, Emili, and the two other girls were organized into a single file, surrounded by about twenty men with spears, and marched from the cage chamber.

We entered a long corridor that must have run through the belly of the airship. Morocco led the way, humming contentedly to himself as he walked. “You know,â€

[Felix]

He was strapped into the Wingeater at its base; forced to lie on his stomach, facing us with his arms and feet securely strapped down spread-eagle. They gagged his mouth with a strip of cloth, and then removed the wing shackle, which was a thick strip of metal that wrapped all the way around the torso, binding the wings; the rest of us wore ones just like it. When this was removed, two men grabbed hold of his wings and stretched them all of the way out. They then reached for the two smaller metal bars with the clasps and lowered them toward him. The thicker, bony back part of each wing was placed against the clasps, which clamped tightly around it. The men involved with securing the victim then backed away from the Wingeater and saluted to Morocco.

The Captain fiddled with the controls for a moment and then slapped a button. With an angry snarl, the Wingeater came to life. It whizzed and it growled and it began to move. The bars holding the ill-fated man’s wings moved back, pulling and stretching them as far as they could go, and then just a bit further. There were twin, faint popping noises, followed by a feeble cry from the man as his wings came unjointed. Next, the other two appendages of the machine – those bearing the deadly blades – began to smoothly slide forward, like predators moving in to strike. They paused, hovering directly over the man’s wings just inches away from where they attached to his back, and then, without even a smidgen of pomp or ado, the blades simply dropped, like twin guillotines.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but could neither block out the distinct sound of metal slicing through bone, nor the agonized scream that followed it. I reopened my eyes to see two crimson fountains sprouting from the man’s back. His body went slack as he lost consciousness. Two of the men in white rushed forward immediately with ointment and thick bandages and began to sterilize and wrap the man’s wounds. The metallic smell of blood quickly filled the small room, and I felt nauseous. The medics unstrapped the poor man from the Wingeater and carefully carried him into the adjacent room. The door with the red cross slid closed behind them.

The two disembodied wings were still attached to the smaller appendages of the Wingeater. Morocco hit another button, and these began to move. They rose and swiveled away from the machine where they stopped above two platforms with conveyer belts that protruded into the room from higher up. I hadn’t noticed these before. The clasps opened, and the still-bleeding wings floated gently down onto the moving belts, where they trundled away into dark passages in the walls.

The sounds of the Wingeater died away, and silence reigned in the room for some time. After a couple of minutes, someone came forward with a bucket of water and splashed it across the now-bloodied part of the machine where the man had been strapped. This action seemed to break the spell, and Morocco cleared his throat loudly. “Alright, then... her next.â€

[SnoringFrog]

You really like those cliffhanger endings, don't you?

I'm not so interested in Casiel's "move" as I am what happens afterwards. I know what I, as a person, would like to see happen, and I know what I, as a writer, would like to see happen. Guess I'll wait and see which of those you do, or if you come up with something else (which would be the most shocking).

One thing that stood out to me in this chapter (although I believe it applies to the story as a whole) is how human Fliers seem. I understand the similar body make-up, but I was expecting them to seem more unique. The ease with which their race describes everything they see seems...off, I guess. Essentially what Eso pointed out about the first sighting of the airship but to a lesser degree. Although, if you were going for that flashback storytelling as that one line indicated, then all of that makes more sense.

[Felix]

Yep, I do like cliffhangers haha.

Okay, you have an excellent point, and that's something I'm aware of, and really struggle with. It's very difficult to describe things in an alien way, because I'm the one writing the story, and I'm a human, so I find it difficult to not write things in a human way. This is the problem with having an unhuman narrator telling the story, I guess. I will have to go back and look over it all at some point and try to change the words a bit to make it seem less usual. Although Fliers ARE very similar to humans, and especially the ones other than Mark and Emili, because those fliers live among humans, whereas mark and emili have lived above the clouds their whole lives and don't have much human experience

[Esoteric]

Mmm hmm, a lot's happening for sure. The squashed escape effort was a surprise. Very depressing of them indeed!

Okay, it's picky time for me. Invariably, it comes when I get involved enough in a story and start thinking about things, so don't take this as being critical of you or your writing abilities personally. If I didn't like your story, I wouldn't be throwing these questions at you to think about.

Morocco is the typical malicious bullying slave driver insulting you one minute, but then he's compassionate enough go out of his way to save their lives after harvest? I'm having trouble reconciling the two behaviors. I can't, actually. He comes off as the sort of fellow who would chop off their wings and toss em' out of the ship without another thought. Feeding them and dropping them of somewhere would be a stupid waste of time and money to a man like Morocco.

Why do humans and Fliers speak the same language? They are two difference species which live in isolation from one another. Their cultures and languages should be as different as ancient Aztecs warriors are from Victorian Englishmen. Now, as a hunter of Fliers, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Morocco and his crew speak a poor, garbled version of the Flier language, but only so much as they would need to get cooperation.
It is hard to write from an alien point of view. Very hard. But it's worth it, especially for a story like this. The Fliers do seem awfully human in how they look at things and interact. Now, I've considered that since Mark is narrating things retrospectively, he is familiar enough with humans and their ways to write for a human audience. But even then I would expect him to jump in at times and point out the strange/ridiculous ways humans do things. It will add invaluable charm and interest to your story if you make the Fliers palpably different from humans.

Do the hunters just want the feathers, or the whole wing? This is unclear to me, but I would assume just the feathers in the same way hunters killed beaver for their pelts. The difference is you absolutely have to kill a beaver to get the pelt. You wouldn't necessarily need to kill a Flier (or cut off his wings) to pluck out his feathers. It's cruel and extremely painful to repeatedly pluck out a creatures' feathers, but if Flier feathers are so valuable and new Fliers are hard to catch, I could see someone keeping them for repeated plucking. Certainly, it is easier just to whack the wings off (or just kill them), especially for someone like Morocco out to make a buck, but I am wondering about the rarity of Fliers in the human world.

...because those fliers live among humans...

Wait...what? Seriously? If they are poached like this for feathers, how can they? Well, at least it answers my 'rarity' question, but it raises a whole new slew of questions... *is confused*

Why so many armed guards if Fliers have never tried to escape before?
I find it hard to believe nobody ever tried before, unless Morocco hasn't been doing this very long. OR...unless this is some part of Flier culture. Maybe they don't try to escape because in their own culture, captives from battles and stuff are treated kindly and held for ransoms or even adopted. They don't escape because they don't understand the danger. This would be an example of a way you could make a difference between how Fliers and humans think.

You ever had broken ribs? I haven't, but my dad had a cracked rib once. Every cough, every deep breath he took sent a needle of paralyzing pain through his side for two months. He moved pretty slow for a while. I cannot believe Mark could ignore the sort of debilitating, mind killing pain that flying (vigorously employing every muscle in his back) with freshly broken ribs would cause no matter how much adrenaline is pumping through him. He would crumple in agony the minute he tried to tighten those muscles and carry his weight on the air with rigid wings. Climbing is even a bit of a stretch, since those same muscles surrounding the ribcage must tighten and pull as the arms lift, putting great pressure on the ribs. I can't see him climbing quickly.

So that's that. Yeah, I'm picky. But I am wondering what happens next!

[SnoringFrog]

You ever had broken ribs? I haven't, but my dad had a cracked rib once. Every cough, every deep breath he took sent a needle of paralyzing pain through his side for two months. He moved pretty slow for a while. I cannot believe Mark could ignore the sort of debilitating, mind killing pain that flying (vigorously employing every muscle in his back) with freshly broken ribs would cause no matter how much adrenaline is pumping through him. He would crumple in agony the minute he tried to tighten those muscles and carry his weight on the air with rigid wings. Climbing is even a bit of a stretch, since those same muscles surrounding the ribcage must tighten and pull as the arms lift, putting great pressure on the ribs. I can't see him climbing quickly.

I'll agree on the climbing part, definitely. But it probably depends on which ribs and how severe (although, multiple and broken...yeah, I think you're mostly right in all you've pointed out as relates to the story), but you just have to factor in adrenaline and whatnot. Also, I've seen people function moderately well on cracked ribs, at least well enough to continue snowboarding for a hour or two with it, but that could also have been a very weak crack, I suppose.

[Felix]

Ha, thank you so much for your pickiness! This is exactly the kind of feed back I was looking for by posting this story here. All too often I post stories on Deviantart or something and I just get the canned "that's a good story" response, but it's far more meaningful to me for people to point out things that I should fix. I don't take offense to it at all. In fact, some of the things you pointed out are things I had considered myself, but it was difficult to try to factor them into the story, and I was lazy and I guess I hoped people wouldn't notice them haha (fat chance).

Anyway. I had thought about the language thing. Actually when I first thought up the story, I had intended for there to be separate languages, but that somehow never happened, and looking back, I don't even know quite how I missed that. Suddenly I was like "Wow, they're both speaking the same language" and it was difficult to go back and change all that, so I just left it.

I hate changing stuff once I've written it, which is one of my biggest flaws in writing I think. I don't like going back and changing stuff and renovating the story, even if it improves it in the long run. It's just difficult, once I have an infrastructure already set up for the story, to go back and change things while keeping everything else intact and complete.

I think I'm going to have to go back and do some heavy editing.

Though there's a few minor things you might be confused on, because you're not particularly far in the story yet. Let's just say that not all Fliers live above the clouds. You'll find out more about the below-world society later, but I can tell you that Mark and Emili's colony is not a typical Flier colony. I can't really tell you much more than that without spoiling anything, but there are reasons for typical Fliers to speak english and to be somewhat humanized.

Okay, as to the feathers thing, you're absolutely right. It would make more sense for Morocco to just keep them and repeatedly pluck them. I had not even thought of that until after I had already written up through like chapter eight, and again, at that point I was too lazy to try to change things based on that revelation. I would like to change that, but it would pretty much destroy the part of the plot arc that unfolds in the next two chapters. I guess the simplest way to fix it would be to change it to where the whole wings are needed for some reason... hmm. Also, you're right, Morocco would probably just dump them. That's another thing I will need to change I suppose.

Urg, once again, you make an excellent point about the armed guards, and a point that poses another editing problem for me. Now that I think about it, there should have been many more escape attempts, because the Fliers are aware of the danger. Hmm, I'm going to have to think about this one.

I've never had cracked ribs, so I'm sure that's why my descriptions of Mark's pain were not accurate. I think I'll change it so that his ribs aren't broken, only bruised and maybe slightly cracked.

Phew, I feel overwhelmed thinking about trying to edit this without destroying the plot I've built so far, but I'll take my best crack at it! Thanks for the input, Eso.

[Felix]

Chapter 8 – Escape Plan B


I heard the commotion before I realized what was going on, and from my position strapped down to the Wingeater, I had to crane my neck back so I could see. One of the men was already on the ground, and I saw Casiel dash forward in a crouch and head-butt a second man in the stomach, causing him to double over and collapse. Casiel rose in a fluid motion and spun around, throwing his shackled arms out in a dangerous arc. The heavy metal, backed by the momentum of its circuit, connected with the nearest poacher’s head and knocked him back into another man, causing them both to tumble to the floor.

Now others were closing around Casiel, waving their shock spears menacingly at him. One made a swing at his head, but Casiel ducked the blow and lunged at the man’s legs, toppling him. He grabbed the poacher’s spear with his shackled hands and twisted it from his grip, then rolled onto his back and jabbed upwards into his next attacker. The man jerked from the resulting electric shock and crumpled, unconscious.

Realizing that they suddenly had more on their hands than they had bargained for, the rest of the guards moved forward to try to aid in restraining Casiel. In so doing, they diverted their attention away from Emili and the black-haired girl. Such was their mistake. As soon as the men had their backs turned, the two girls ran forward and jumped onto them, beating mercilessly at the poacher’s heads with their manacled wrists. Two were taken down before a third whirled towards this new threat and managed to smack Emili’s head with the side of his spear, dazing her. The black haired girl was lightning fast, however. She ducked under a spear thrust from the man, stepped forward, and delivered a hefty rising uppercut to the man’s chin with her shackles. His jaw crunched and broke under the impact, and he was thrown up and then flat on his back.

Meanwhile, Casiel continued to fight on; He twisted and thrust the shock spear into opponent after opponent, wielding it expertly despite the fact that his arms were bound. The two men who had been securing me to the Wingeater saw that their comrades were being brutalized and left me to join the fray. One of my wings had been partly secured but the other one was still free. I wriggled in my restraints and searched for some way to release myself, but it was useless.

Up on the control platform, I saw Morocco doing a rabid dance, stomping his feet and waving his arms while furiously spitting obscenities and other vehement phrases, including several squeals of “Get them!!â€