Air Born | Generation Icarus #1

Kestrel - New Names, New Beginnings

In the morning, the Flight woke to find Marcus quietly working on a series of diagrams drawn in the dust. Next to him, he had laid out our tails.

"Better lift," he said, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"Worth a shot," Falcon said, and I noticed Marcus's quiet surprise and a hint of pleasure as the Flight worked to incorporate his suggestions; tightening a strut here, twisting a curve there, enhancing and strengthening the overall aerofoil shape.

The improvements were noticeable as soon as we were in the air, and we showered him with praise and thanks. Eventually, it got too much for him, and he retreated from the group a little way until we were distracted by food.

But the Flight didn't forget, and over the coming days we came to rely on his opinion when discussing adjustments in technique and gear. Slowly Marcus became more confident, and although he still spoke with as few words as possible, he occasionally began to offer a thought or suggestion before he was asked, like a quiet but watchful older brother. And whenever he did, it was always with such insight or meaning that one night Tui couldn't control her chuckles.

"You're such a wise old owl, Marc," she said. "You just sit there, watching us with those big blinking eyes and then suddenly you'll say something that no one can argue with."

"What do you say, Marc? Do you think you're an Owl?" Hawk said, also laughing. "Do you want to take a new name?"

Marcus considered that for a moment. Then he shrugged. "New names, new beginnings."

Then the whole Flight was laughing. Even Raven smiled, ducking her head. The newly christened Owl blinked, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. After a while though, he retreated back beside Raven, keeping out of the spotlight for the rest of the evening.

Raven spent much of her downtime doodling in the dirt, practising elegant Chinese calligraphy. She still never spoke, but she'd willingly join in the occasional trashball game, and it was eventually noticed that whichever team she was on tended to win.

"You're a good luck charm, aren't you, Rave!" Hawk said, as he high-fived her after their third consecutive win. She blushed, and her smile was more open than it had ever been before.

"Everybody loves Raven," I murmured to Tui as we sat obsessively tidying the feathers on our tails.

"Of course they do, she's like the Flight's little sister," Tui said. "I wish my real sister was that chilled out and fun. And quiet."

"Do you miss her?"

"Yeah, nah." Tui sighed and leaned back on her wing elbows. "I don't miss having to look after her. It's hard enough looking after me sometimes."

"And Falcon." I smiled as I glanced sideways. The African-American Icarus was wrestling with Hawk in the dust, while Miguel and Raven kicked the trashball back and forth between themselves, patiently waiting for the two boys to come to their senses.

When Tui didn't reply, I turned and caught the secret smile on her face. "Oh, come on, spill!" I whispered.

Tui glanced around, then leaned in. "Don't you dare tell anyone else, but I let him kiss me yesterday."

"I don't believe you," I said. "There's no way that could have happened and he wouldn't shout it to the world!"

Tui sniffed and held her head high. "Don't care if you believe me or not."

"When? Where? How? Did he ask first?"

"You lot were busy, we went for a walk, we were talking and then he just kind of asked, and I said yes." Tui shrugged. "What do you want, a blow-by-blow replay?"

"What are you girls whispering about?" Hawk demanded.

"Tails," I said immediately. "Trying to keep the feathers in line is hard. I keep kicking mine against stuff when I land."

"Me and Miguel talked about grooming, once," Hawk said, dropping beside me, shedding a layer of dust. "Birds do it all the time. Though I have no idea how we would."

Daintily, I brushed the dirt from his blast radius off my tail. "Birds have beaks for the job."

"We made tails. Maybe we can make beak things too?" Tui suggested.

The suggestion turned into a planning session, which turned into an experiment. Eventually we had a Flight set of beak-shaped handheld grooming tools, fashioned from hard plastic rubbish reshaped over the camp stove flame. Even after our first inexpert effort at feather combing, it was clear the 'preeners' had made a significant improvement in the aerodynamics of our wings, reducing the energy we had to spend on each flap. Just like that, we could fly better and longer.

Grooming became a regular ritual. Most of us took turns to partner with others to get those hard to reach spots, and I couldn't help but feel an extra thrill every time it was my turn to pair with Hawk. The feeling of his hands on my feathers sent tingles through my skin. I wondered if he felt the same but I was too shy and wary of rejection to ask. He never seemed to seek out my company especially, like Falcon did with Tui.

And I reminded myself of what Tui had said. A relationship was not the primary goal of my life at that moment — but flying was.

And, for a while, so was the question of clothing. Being in the hotter environment meant we were sweating more, even with our higher core temperatures, and that meant we had to change our clothes more often. The extra two limbs sticking out of our backs was now an issue for everyone — trying to slide a shirt on over such big 'arms' and then trying to get the feathers out through the holes was almost impossible without destroying the fabric.

Inspired by my improvisation with Hawk's shirt, Tui shredded several of her shirts into rectangles which she then stitched into one long strip. Raven and I watched in fascination as she experimented with different ways of winding this around herself, finally settling on a strapless wrap that left her wings and arms completely unhindered, and showed off the elegant jade pendant at her throat.

With a confidence that I had lacked even six months before, I eagerly copied Tui and soon found my own preference was for a two-strip criss-cross design that worked like a halter neck and twisted down between my wings before wrapping around my body. It took some practice to get it sitting right, but once it was arranged properly, it was surprisingly comfortable — and, more importantly, was practical for flying while preserving modesty.

Although Tui and I offered to help Raven, she disappeared for a while before returning with her own style. Her full-length shirtsleeves had been left intact with long thin 'straps' of fabric tying around her chest over top of a second shirt that had been sliced into a halter neck with a generous upper back hole. This helped her look older than twelve, and was, I assumed, to protect her ultra-pale skin from the harsh desert sun.

Owl also always wore long-sleeved shirts, and these were gradually getting tighter on his lean frame. He and the other two guys had gradually adopted Hawk's holey-shirt-with-cummerbund improvisation but, judging by Falcon and Hawk's grumbling, they would soon be developing their own male Icarus fashion line. In the meantime, they were more concerned with flight training, and occasionally went shirtless — which both Tui and I quietly found very distracting. Especially as the days went by and their muscles became even more well-defined with the ten-hour-a-day workout.

In fact, all of us were quickly becoming visibly toned. There was some good-natured teasing around the campfire, but it was clear the entire Flight was totally committed to doing whatever it took to get properly airborne.