those who were just friends had only
sweet words and calm conversation.
No one spoke to her but she didn’t mind, lost inside herself
as she was.
Then, someone murmured, “Would you look at that?”
Saffron opened her eyes. The music had changed, and was
fading away as the player brought their song to a soft end. The talk slowly
died down, and she followed the direction everyone was looking in.
Up above, all the way up to the uppermost balcony. Saffron
craned her head back and saw a pair of blazing white wings, shimmering with
health and gloss. Eban stood with his toes at the very edge, arms outspread.
“It’s been ages,” a teenaged girl whispered to her friend.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw him do anything. He’s so amazing though!”
Her friend trilled back, “I know! I can’t wait!”
Saffron turned her head slightly to watch the girls,
wondering exactly how much they knew. She’d never be able to try to talk to
anyone about her feelings because she just didn’t want anything accidentally
getting around her consent, and that would definitely happen if she talked to a
stranger. The problem was that everyone was Eban was a stranger to her.
From above, Eban’s faint voice drifted down. “This is your
commander speaking,” he said lightly, earning a polite smattering of laughter.
He had his hand up by his mouth as though he was speaking into an intercom
microphone. “You all deserve this. Take your time. Be happy. Celebrate, and
when the morrow comes, we’ll be able to work even harder.”
He spoke calmly, but was tilting dangerously more and more
during the last sentence until finally, he dropped and fell like a stone with
the final word. Saffron gasped, vertigo lurching inside her, but his face was
so calm and mesmerizing that she didn’t feel worried after that initial jab of
fear. His position was perfect as he hurtled down, looking like a professional
swimmer diving from the high board. Then, his wings flashed out and caught the
blue glare of light, sending broken rays outward as he brought himself around
and spun in the air. His hair tossed about his head, he flapped just once and
hovered for a moment mere feet above the ground before turning and lofting
himself higher with only a few strokes.
For all that he didn’t fly, she couldn’t see any stiffness
or warming up in him like the others. He was smooth immediately, swooping
effortlessly in spirals that caught hoops, tucking his wings in close to his
body with a mere flex of muscles. Sliding through the circlets easily, he moved
on to grabbing the side of one as he passed. The motion of his stopped arm and
continuing body movement sent him careening rapidly back the way he’d come.
With no apparent goal in mind, he played like no one was
watching. Reaching out, he turned out acrobatics faster than she could even
register. It was a dance, a flicker of wings and a subtle motion of his arms.
Every gesture pulled at the straps and tight harness, which was connected
tightly to the wings and threaded through with a system of complex pulleys and
joints that translated into flapping, or banking, folding or spreading.
It was second nature to him, to all of them. And out of them
all, he was easily the best.
He said the commander is expected to be the best. Did he
become commander because he could fly like this, or did he work for it? I bet
he worked for it. A man like him wouldn’t settle for anything less.
After Eban had been alone in the air for about five minutes,
someone else finally lifted off from their perch. It was a young man, and they
wove around each other for a moment before breaking away. After that, the air
was filled with flapping sounds and soft, jubilant calls as most of the Icari
took to flight to celebrate their own existence. Saffron could hardly imagine
being so happy. What if it felt like that every single time she walked around?
Such an amazing way to
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