The Wingless Girl

Well, I'm back, after a long absence due to schoolwork and standardized testing. I probably can't stay long either because of the upcoming AP Tests, but after those I should be free to play on YWS as much as I want!

Anyway, I've started giving serious consideration to my writing again (between writing comic scripts for my sister...), and I've now come up with an idea I'd like to make my first novel. What I have now was written quite some time ago and will probably be quite different from the final product; nonetheless, the basic ideas (and most of the characters) are in place, so...please examine this and help me decide whether this is worth continuing or if I should just discard it. Thanks in advance!

The Wingless Girl (chapter one?)

Dr. Irvin quite liked the neophyte's wings. They were sleek and streamlined and shiny black, like a raven's, and stood in stark contrast to Irvin's own massive, snow-white, powerful ones. But those wings--like the wings of any person--complemented the rest of the neophyte: He was thin and pale and bore a shock of dark hair and serious dark eyes. His lab coat was white and impeccable, and the shirt and tie he wore underneath were perfectly crisp and straight. The name tag on his chest read Ira Dirinel, PhD. He was obviously a recent graduate from one of the Universities, but which one Irvin didn't know.

Irvin felt confident about his prospects with this neophyte. According to conventional folk wisdom, the courtship period between a white-wing and a black-wing might be a little rough, but they would soon settle into a long-lived, happy relationship. That is, if the neophyte wasn't already taken. With his looks, he probably was.

"How are you liking the Fortress, Dr. Dirinel?" said Dr. Irvin politely. Dirinel stared back over the desk. The sound of waves crashing against the Fortress base thundered loudly, even all the way up here, in Irvin's office.

"Does it ever stop?" said Dirinel, glancing out of Irvin's large port-way, where the salt smell of the sea filtered in. All that was visible outside the port-way was the bleak white sky, and the shapes of seagulls and occasional flyers. Nevertheless, the low roar of the waves could be heard even in Irvin's office, thirty stories above the sea.

"What stop?" said Irvin, though he knew quite well what Dirinel was talking about. It was the question all neophytes, having grown up in their insulated city Universities, asked.

"The waves...that sound. Even during night?" Dirinel questioningly tilted his head toward the port-way. He looked so innocent right there that Dr. Irvin suddenly realized just how young the man was--couldn't be any older than twenty-five. They were getting their PhDs younger and younger nowadays, these neophytes...

Irvin threw his head back and laughed. "Of course not, dear doctor! Do you think the very sea would stop pounding just so we insignificant human scientists can get a good night's sleep?"

Dirinel turned a rather curious shade of red, and suddenly Irvin realized that he had embarrassed the neophyte. "Of...of course...I wasn't thinking...but do you ever get used to it?" he pressed on. Irvin smiled at the neophyte's persistence.

"Yes. Over time...I've spent the better part of twenty years here, I've become quite used to it. In fact, when I visit land, I feel almost...lonely...for the beast is not serenading me." Irvin stood up from his desk to take several long, powerful strides towards the office port-way. It was a larger port-way than most, to accomodate Irvin's powerful frame and massive wings, and there Irvin stopped, his hands folded behind his back, admiring the sea roaring and crashing stories below, ceaselessly against the old rock foundation of the Fortress...

"It becomes the sound of home," he explained after a silence, as the neophyte watched him.

"Ah, well," said Dirinel, with a slight shake of the head, "I'm still not entirely used to it. It is quite loud..."

"Yes, that's why we learn to shout here," said Irvin. He took in a deep breath of the sea's salt tang before heading back to his desk, though he did not sit down. "Dr. Dirinel, from which University did you receive your doctorate?"

"Calvin, on the mainland," said Dirinel, jerking his shoulder in a dispassionate shrug.

Irvin thought a bit. "A good school," he finally said. "Turns out a great number of excellent scientists, almost all who head for the Fortress...speaking of which, Dr. Dirinel, do you know exactly why you're here?"

Dirinel gave a curt nod. "Yes, sir. We're here to study parallel universes, correct?"

Irvin jerked, startled. Dirinel's reaction was not the usual reaction of most neophytes--in Irvin's experience, most Fortress neophytes were eager and excited to be taking part in such a mysterious, young field of study. It even amazed Dr. Irvin himself, at times, to think that there were millions of other worlds out there, hidden, but there...and he found himself thinking once more of the wonderful prize that the Fortress had recently obtained...

"Doesn't that interest you a bit?" said Irvin, somewhat puzzled. Dirinel shook his head jerkily.

"No sir. I mean, it does, but in a purely theoretical manner. There's no way one can travel between universes, after all. It's just an interesting theoretical problem, isn't it, sir?" Dirinel looked up at Irvin, and the older scientist realized that the younger was worried that he had offended his senior.

Dirinel's position was a good one, a logical, solid, tenable position, and certainly one those poor University-bound scientists had no choice but to follow. Suppressing a mirthful chuckle over the ignorance of the University scientists, Irvin instead decided to completely, and cruelly, break down everything Dirinel had believed about parallel universes...oh, how cruel he was.

A rough courtship period, indeed!

"Actually," said Irvin, unable to suppress his triumphant smirk, his heart pounding as he unveiled his trump card, "it isn't. You see, we've proven that there is a way to journey between universes. The proof is there, if you will follow me."

Dirinel stared at Irvin, his dark eyes wide. He didn't move, even as the older scientist headed for the door out of the office. It was plain that he was shocked beyond anything, and in fact, he looked even paler than his usual tone.

"Wh...where?" he finally said. "What proof? Where?"

"A specimen, if you will," said Irvin airily, sliding his key card into the door's lock. It slid open with a hiss, and Irvin motioned for Dirinel to follow him out into the hall. "It's in the underground lab...the below levels."

A slight crease appeared between Dirinel's brows. "The underground levels...how do you access them? I don't see any port-ways for them..."

"No, we take the elevator," said Irvin, having come to a stop before the rarely-used Fortress elevator. He punched in the button for the Underground 4. Dirinel eyed the elevator with some level of distate, which Irvin understood.

"This makes me feel like a child again," complained the younger scientist as he stepped inside the plain, unadorned box of the elevator, folding his wings to his slim body for space.

"I dislike it too," said Irvin sympathetically. In particular, he always found his massive wings a tight fit, and with someone else in there with him... "Why don't they make this bigger?"

"No one uses it," pointed out Dirinel.

They spent the rest of the long journey in silence, Irvin disliking the closed, cramped space and wishing heartily that he could simply just fly down to the below levels, though of course that was impossible. From the way Dirinel was impatiently fidgeting, he was thinking the exact same thing.

At long last, the elevator came to a clanky stop, and the doors whooshed open, to Irvin's relief. He didn't hate the elevator that badly, as he now used it almost every day, but Dirinel glared back at the elevator and grumbled, "I hope I never have to do that again."

"Oh, you'll be doing it a lot," said Irvin simply. He didn't know exactly why he was showing this neophyte the specimen--perhaps it was simply because he wanted to convince this skeptic that yes, travel between dimensions was possible. Or maybe it was something of a...date.

Dirinel was now examining the small room they had stepped inside. It was an underground laboratory, smelling of dank earth and, like the rest of the Fortress, sea salt, with lab machines and computers lining the small walls. A single mousy female technician with dull-brown sparrow wings was working on the machines--when the two scientists entered, she gave a polite nod in their direction.

But now all of Dirinel's attention was focused on the very center of the room...on the crackling orange containment field, and the person inside it: A girl, completely naked and hairless, even on her head, looking no older than twelve or thirteen...and...

And she had no wings.

"Well, Dr. Dirinel?" said Irvin pleasantly, stepping up to the younger scientist, who was staring wide-eyed at the girl in the containment field. She was hardly complacent about her prison--she was banging on the field and shouting muffled words that sounded like curses through it. "What do you think? She has no wings. Think of it. A human with no wings."

"Oh, who's here to study me this time, huh? What're you gonna poke in me this time!" shouted the girl, and finished with a stream of curses. Dirinel continued to stare wordlessly at her.

"She speaks our language, though," he noted, his words cold.

"True," said Irvin.

"Who's to say she isn't an exile?" shot back Dr. Dirinel, spinning around to glare at Irvin, his dark eyes fierce. "You bring me this--a girl who speaks English, and who just might be a wingless exile--and expect me to believe that travel between dimensions is possible? Are you mocking me, sir?"

Irvin shook his head, unable to help the smile that crossed his face. Good...so the neophyte was smart enough not to accept everything on face value. That was excellent, an excellent quality, but Irvin was in no way mocking him. "No, I'm not mocking you. Spin around, miss." He rapped on the field to get the furious girl's attention.

"What?" she snarled, defiant, angry. "Why should I do what you say? Am I your lab rat or something? Huh?"

Irvin sighed and indicated Dirinel, who was hanging back, cold and skeptical. "He doesn't believe you're not from our dimension. So show him you aren't. Spin around."

"Tch, you winged freaks," grumbled the girl, before turning around slowly--to reveal a smooth back, free of the terrible heavy scars that, along with their cut-off wings, were the signs of an exile. Dirinel actually stumbled backwards in shock, and Irvin had to catch him to prevent him from tripping over a few cords.

"That's not all," explained Irvin, who was definitely enjoying the younger scientist's reaction to the wingless girl. "Here--show him--" He was speaking to the technician now, who obliged, bringing up several x-rayed pictures on her computer monitor. "Look at the x-rays of her spine...she doesn't even have the characteristic bone growths that even exiles retain."

"Then...then..." Dirinel struggled to bring his words out. "Then...you are saying...she has no wings...and never had wings." The thought obviously disturbed him, as he brought his own sleek black wings closer to him.

"Yes," said Irvin, waiting to see if he'd won Dirinel over or if the neophyte was going to come up with even more arguments against this girl being from another dimension where people had no wings.

Dirinel folded his arms and turned pointedly away from the girl, who continued swearing through her containment field prison. "You do know that there are genetic disorders--blessedly rare--that result in people being born without--without...wings."

"Yes, but usually those disorders come with other complications--bad eyesight, susceptibility to illness, etcetera," said Irvin, calm as ever. "Come now, Arram's Razor, Dirinel--the simplest explanation--"

"Is that she's from our world," said Dirinel shortly. "Travel between dimensions is impossible."

Irvin was about to answer, but the wingless girl saved him from. "That's what you think, ya winged freak! I'm from another world, and it's a damn sight better than yours!"

"She believes it herself," said Irvin. Dirinel glared at Irvin out of the corner of his eye.

"But that...it...it's simply...well...preposterous," he muttered, so softly Irvin could hardly hear him. Suddenly, he glanced up, at the low roof of the lab (which Irvin's head almost scraped), and added, "In my...where I come from...there are rumors...of societies of wingless people...high in the mountains..."

Irvin unleashed a short and impatient laugh. "Resorting to regional fairy tales, now, are you? Come now--what's more believable, that this girl is part of some hitherto undiscovered secret society of wingless mountain people, or she comes from a completely unexplored other dimension where people have no wings?"

Dirinel's argument was fading, fast, and the neophyte seemed to know this. He gave a trouble glance over to the still furious wingless girl, and then looked back at Irvin. "Another dimension...I don't know how that is possible. How...how did she get here?"

"I got through the falls, I keep telling you folks, I got here through the Bloodstone Falls, didn't I?" shouted the girl, banging on the containment field. "I don't know how that happened, either, but I lost my party and then I found the falls and when I woke up I was in this weird place where everyone had wings..."

Irvin was ignoring the girl now, and instead he motioned for Dirinel to get back in the elevator. They had spent long enough here, after all...the superiors had warned him and the other senior scientists from staying with the specimen for too long, lest they culturally contaminate her. Dirinel, for his part, looked more than relieved to leave. He didn't even bother complaining about the elevator.

"We don't know how she got here," explained Irvin when they were in the elevator. "That's what we're looking in to right now. She claims to come from these 'Bloodstone Falls', but that's completely preposterous. We've been examining her...it's the best we can do."

Dirinel didn't appear to be listening, however. He had instead wrapped his wings around his person and was gently running his hands up and down the pinions, stroking the feathers...preening, right here? Irvin was a little surprised--Dirinel didn't appear to be the kind of person who preened in public, but then again, appearances could be decieving.

"People without wings..." he said, in almost a whisper, sounding both troubled and marveled. "It's hard to imagine...an entire world...where nobody has wings...how do they get places?"

Irvin shrugged. "I suppose they have other ways. But I suggest if you're interested, you can talk to the specimen. She's more than willing to divulge all about her world--seems to think it's far better than ours..."

"Better?" Dirinel still sounded more than a little disturbed, as he continued examining his wings. "How could it be better, if no one can fly?"

-----

I'm welcome to any suggestions! (First, I probably should reduce Dr. Irvin's skeevishness...whatever). And again, I'd like to know if this is worth continuing or not. Thank you all!