This story is about Wren and Rannok, two characters of mine. It;s about him giving her flying lessons. It's sort of flirtatious and fun, and very funny. Appreciate reviews!
Wren: The first thing that occurred to me was that someone was poking me-hard-in the ribs. The second thing was that it was still dark out.
“Hey, Wren!”
I opened one eye. The white blonde hair stood out even at night, and there was a strand of it not two inches from my face. I stifled a scream. There would be trouble for the both of us if Griffon woke up. Well, trouble for him, anyway.
“What?” I answered back. I wondered if he could really be inconsiderate enough to be waking me up during my precious four hours of sleep, or if it was just my imagination. It was dark, and he was there, so apparently the answer was ‘yes’.
“I need to talk to you about something.”
I sat up and rolled my eyes in a way that would make sure he’d see me do it. “What could be so desperately important that you think it’s okay to wake me up at god knows what time it is at night?”
“Come on,” he said. He grabbed my wrist and proceeded to attempt to drag me away.
“Let go,” I jerked my arm away from him. “Are you crazy?”
“Just listen for a second.”
“Fine,” This had better be important.”
“It is,” he insisted.
“Then what is it?”
He smiled, eyes optimistic, as if he were letting me in on some huge secret. “I’m teaching you to fly.”
“You want me to-” He was joking, I knew he was joking. He had to be joking. Just like him to play simple minded pranks. I scowled. “This isn’t funny, Rannok.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
“I’m going back to bed.” I turned to storm back off in the direction of my blankets. He grabbed my arm so I couldn’t get away. I whipped back around in reflex.
“Are you deaf or just an idiot?”
“I was serious.”
That’s when it hit me. So this wasn’t a prank, after all.
“You actually are serious, aren’t you?” I mused aloud. There was a long pause as I went over the idea in my head until it had time to process all the way. “No, That’s got to be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of, even out of you!”
“Why?” he opposed. “You’re a marked one, aren’t you?”
“Griffon would be teaching me if he really thought I needed to know. He has a plan already, or did you forget that part?”
“Griffon’s too busy trying to figure out how to get back into the village to plan out anything right now,” he responded.
“So you’d go behind his back and teach me something he obviously doesn’t want me to learn yet, just so you can have your own way?”
“Yes, actually! How are you going to escape if we get caught? You’re going to be out there alone, most likely, and someone could see you.”
“Who’s going to see me? I’ve done things like this a million times before; If someone sees me, I’ll just run.”
“Damn it, Wren! Do you really think no one’s going to notice you with giant purple wings?! Aegan is looking for you!”
“I was supposed to be on a mission anyway,” I reasoned.
“Right after a battle that wiped out half the village?”
“What if I’m not healed enough yet?” There was no way either of us could know for sure, even though my bandages had already come off and all that remained from the holes my new wings ripped through my back were a few scabs.
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “I flew after less than 5 minutes, and I’m not dead yet.”
“We both know you got lucky,” I scoffed. His stroke of good fortune wouldn’t be nearly enough to convince me.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you might not be.” Which was pretty much my point exactly, but he missed that part.
“Why are you being so persistent?” I demanded.
“Because I think I’d kill myself if anything bad happened to you!” he said, his voice suddenly too loud for the time of night with sleeping people around. He quickly turned away from me, and even in the dark and under the bruises I could see his face going red.
We stared at each other in silence as the awkwardness grew. Neither of us wanted to talk, but someone would have to eventually.
“Let me teach you how to fly,” he demanded. “Please.” I knew he only threw in the begging as a last minute concession, but it softened me up anyway. Usually he wouldn’t stoop so low. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable and stiff, and his eyes darted around to the side so he wouldn’t have to look at me as he said it.
There was no way around giving in now, the guilt would be too great.
“Fine,” I said. “But when were you planning on going through with this bright idea?”
“It has to be at night. Griffon might not like this…like you said, he hasn’t offered to teach you himself.”
“When do you want to start?”
“Well, we don’t have much time. I was thinking about now.”
I blinked. He wanted to start in the middle of the night, with no warning? Obviously he had more mental problems than even I assumed.
“Come on,” he said. “We need to go somewhere that the others wont be able to see us if they wake up.”
I sighed and followed along halfheartedly. If he really wanted to teach me to fly so badly…I’d go along with it. That didn’t mean I thought it was a good idea. Quite the contrary, this seemed like a very, very bad idea. And somehow, he managed to talk me into it anyway. Hopefully this wouldn’t end with a mishap of some sort.
He launched into the sky. I stayed on the ground and followed him with my eyes. I didn’t tell him I was afraid of heights. I hadn’t even remembered until that moment that I was afraid of heights. I thought desperately of a way to keep him from finding out about my fear of heights, but none came. I was in it for good.
“Why are you just standing there? Beat your wings or something. Trust me, you don’t have to do much just to get into the air.”
I knew that, and it wasn’t the problem. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how terrified I was. I closed my eyes and let my feet leave the ground. I really, really should’ve considered the height issue before I agreed to let a scatterbrained idiot give me flying lessons, instead of after. When I opened my eyes, the ground moved closer, and farther away, and closer, and suddenly with a yelp I felt myself start to fall. Rannok caught me far before I had a chance to hit the ground, and I clung to his neck for dear life. The ground still looked like it was moving around underneath me. I clamped my eyes shut again.
He smiled amusedly and looked down at me. It was impossible to tell if he was making fun of me or if he was just surprised. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“Yes, now put me down, you idiot!” I screamed. I waited. I didn’t feel his feet touch the ground. I opened my eyes only to be greeted with a sudden wave of lightheadedness. He had taken me higher.
“Rannok, I said put me down!” I would have hit him, but I was too busy keeping a death grip around his neck to be sure he wouldn’t accidentally drop me.
“Nope.”
“You’re a jerk.” He ignored me and kept going. I felt the tears starting to run down my face a little as he took me higher- couldn’t the idiot see I was terrified? Obviously not. He flew higher…and then he stopped.
“Okay Wren, you can let go now.”.
“No, are you crazy?” My arms stayed locked in an iron grip around his neck. Falling out of the sky wasn’t in my plans He worked at prying my hands off, clawing at me to get me to let go.
“I said, let go!” He finally freed my hands. The air rushed around me as the fall increased in speed with every second. I let out an ear-shattering scream. My eyes involuntarily opened, and a new wave of dizziness washed over me. I was going to die, and there was no way around it.
Then, vaguely, I saw something flying down beside me. It caught me around the waist and we slowed to a pause.
“You idiot, are you trying to kill me?”
“I thought you would start flying.”
“I told you I was afraid of heights!”
“Well, I thought maybe falling would get you over it.”
That had to be the stupidest thing I’d ever heard in my life. If I was scared of heights, why exactly would he think dropping me would be any help at all?!
“Open your eyes, Wren!”
“No,” I shrieked in absolute terror. Flying lessons had definitely been a bad idea. The worst idea he ever had. I swore at myself internally for letting him suck me into yet another one of his plans.
“Just do it.”
I opened one of my eyes. We weren’t more than 10 feet or so in the air, and the ground was moving past slowly.
“You can put me down any time now.”
“Okay,” he said. He dropped me. This time the paralyzing fear wasn’t there because we weren’t high enough up, and instinctively, I spread my wings and soared gradually back down to the earth. He flew down himself and landed next to me.
“Are you dead yet?” he said with a smile. I slapped him.
The fall scared me so bad that there were even a few tears on my face. Something told me he didn’t even think about it before he dropped me. Apparently he was too idiotic to realize it might kill me. “That has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, Rannok!”
He rubbed the side of his face. “Geez, isn’t my nose enough?”
I frowned. It was hard to see his swollen face and blackened eyes in the dark. I forgot all about his broken nose. Still, he completely deserved it.
“You’re lucky I didn’t hurt you worse!”
“Gee, thanks, Wren.”
“I can’t believe you did that.” My hands shook from the shock.
“Sorry,” he said, brushing it off. “Are you going to try again or not?”
“No, not after you took me 300 feet into the air and dropped me. I could have been killed!”
“Actually, it was about a hundred feet, and if you can’t deal with that, there really must be something wrong with you.” His face twisted into a lopsided grin.
I sighed. I never learned, did I? I guess I could get sucked into one more of his dumb ideas. Either way…there was no way I could leave this with him thinking of me as incapable.
“Do you promise you won’t do something like that again?”
“I swear to God. We won’t go higher up than you want to. You just need to get used to it.”
Somehow, I didn’t believe him. He was never afraid of being higher than ground level, so there was no way he understood how scared it made me. After all, when we were younger he was always the stupid little kid climbing on top of buildings. He even got a concussion once falling off.
I looked down at the ground and sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
We took off a little way into the air. My eyes reflexively shut again.
“Wren, you have to open your eyes.”
That was absolutely the last thing I wanted to do, but I did it anyway. I didn’t feel quite as dizzy, but this time it was a lot less frightening. He was right next to me, and we weren’t more than 15 feet up. Still, I wobbled and had a hard time keeping my balance. He grabbed my arm before I could fall out of the sky again, and I clung to it.
“You need to relax. Freaking out isn’t gonna help you, Wren.”
I slowed down my breathing, shut my eyes, and opened them again, looking straight ahead instead of down. From that angle, being in the air wasn’t so bad. I made as much of a concentrated effort as I could to calm myself. My balance started to improve as I beat my wings less erratically.
“Are you good?”
I gulped and shook my head yes, a cold sweat trickling down my forehead. I could feel myself shaking still, but I could deal with this. “I think so.”
“Try to fly forward. Just lean in that direction a little bit.”
I tried. Even the tiniest pitch made me feel unsteady, and I held onto his arm for support. It struck me that he hadn’t been this nice to me before. He must’ve really wanted me to learn to fly. I let go hesitantly and leaned forward, trying hard not to shut my eyes again. I started to move forward slowly, and my altitude dropped. This wasn’t so hard after all, as long as I didn’t go too high. I made a smooth landing on the ground, white as a ghost and shaking.
“See?” Rannok shouted. I sighed in exasperation-only he could be so annoyingly determined. I took a moment to calm my nerves before I walked back and flew up next to him.
“You want to go a little higher this time?” he asked. I definitely did not, but his face looked so eager and expectant that I couldn’t say no. I nodded my head meekly and I rose, trying hard to look straight in front of me instead of down.
“You’re not going to fall, so stop freaking out,” he said. He smiled at me reassuringly. I felt woozy all over again. My breathing started to get choppy and erratic.
“I want to go back down,” I squeaked, tears rolling down my face again. I couldn’t do this. I really, really couldn’t do this. My mind threatened to shut down in panic, and in response I clamped my eyes closed again tightly.
“Relax,” he reminded me. “And don’t shut your eyes like that.”
I opened them and looked straight ahead, flailing around for something to hold on to for support. Rannok dropped from my side and reappeared in front of me.
“Come on Wren, fly forward,” he said.
“I can’t,” I trembled, my voice hysteric. He looked straight at me, and my eyes locked onto his in an effort to keep from looking down.
“Don’t look, then!” he said.
I hovered in the air, on the very brink of motion, but at the last second I panicked and quickly went back to floating stationary in the air. Angry, terrified tears rolled down my face. Now, not only was I scared, but I was also getting frustrated. He had no idea how much I would’ve given to have my feet on something solid that exact second.
“Take me back down,” I cried.
“Stop thinking about it and just fly!”
“I said take me back down, you jackass!” I screamed. I wanted to sound intimidating, but it came out more sounding scared than anything else.
“All right,” he sighed. “If you really want to.”
“Thank-”
He grabbed my hand and swooped into a dive. I screamed the entire way down, and I was sure I could see my life flashing before my eyes. I was absolutely convinced the two of us would die on impact.
Rannok jerked me back out of his death roll and let go of my hand. I realized with a jolt that I wasn’t falling at all. As a matter of fact, I was flying! I beat my wings a few times t increase my momentum as the adrenaline of my flight washed away my fear of coming crashing down out of the sky. I felt euphorically free floating along there on the air, letting it come over me and take me in whatever direction I happened to go. I supposed that maybe letting Rannok give me flying lessons hadn’t been such a bad idea, after all. Either way I needed to stop being so afraid, or ultimately he’d win.
Also, give them more actions during those long blocks where they're just talking.
