The door consumed me.

The doors consumed me.

Every time I reached, I extended my hand to grasp a glowing orb I felt a silent pulse of relief.

Refused.

Refused.

Refused.

Refused.

They weren't in trouble. They were still alive. They stayed behind.

Cody Abbot was dead. Nobody feared the dead. Nobody came after the dead's family, their friends. Nobody blamed the dead. And wasn't that enough?

It has to be - because I can't worry about it, not if I'm going to do what the world needs -

And I have enough on plate, with the dungeons -

Because something is different -

High up on a mountaintop, the crisp breeze carries clouds past me, an enveloping fog to weave between the deciduous branches, reaching for purpose and power -

I drop into the pool of focus, almost understanding what I'm doing through imitation and intuition, my shoddy attempts to mold myself into the impossible, because I've tried -

Math, science, biology and engineering - Failure!

Why? Because it works? Because it works, I have the ability to make changes, even when I don't know what those changes will do. A few chapters in a biology text has just enough information to let me kill myself, that if my body didn't resist? If I didn't blackout and reboot healed...That if my focus on changing myself on a cellular level, on adapting my body's shape and function was permanent and irreversible I'd be dead -

Imitation and parlor tricks are fine, I thought I was doing strange and amazing things but now see it for how little it was...How different is one human to another? That when you just change your shape, even if you look completely different, perform differently, how little has actually changed...

How much complexity is contained within a single eye, the intricate, interconnected cells and their variations - just in the colors, the pigments. The way they translate light and darkness, shadow, layers and layers of purpose all working to translate light and the world around us into meaning - But a tiger's eye?

I can imitate it - it looks right - but I have no way of knowing what a tiger sees, for me to change anything more then the appearance, for me to follow the nerves, and what about the brain?

I can't help but shudder, over how close-

I have to try, have to push myself -

The bones of my arms stretch out, as my skin loosens, stretching to reorganize, to suit another purpose - while my legs become emaciated pencils as hard as iron, weaker, lighter, like a flamingos - my guts, stomach, my liver and kidneys -

Because I know I can live without them - a short time - and I don't need more then an hour for this...

My lungs - they shrink with the rest of me, along with my need for as much oxygen, and the bones that remain?

Light -

Empty of marrow and weight - no more then forty pounds -

Once I had the parts of me cut away, other parts used to restrict me. I gave them up, realized how unimportant they were to what really mattered - at the time it wasn't a choice.

Another lesson learned, a lesson forced. How long can I live without? What parts of my system can be exchanged for greater freedom -

For flight?

I begin to flap, to test the bouncing pull, to understand it works - so I tip myself forward, over the cliff edge, and glide. At first catching the wind, making the small necessary changes to streamline myself further...to maintain my altitude and use the breeze.

Because I'm not an engineer, not a scientist or biologist, I don't have the knowledge, nobody has the knowledge needed to truly do effectively what I'm capable of.

I'm a Crafter -

I'm not creating life, I'm sculpting what is existing - but the tools I'm using, the materials? I'm changing aspects of myself in the simplest of manners, more or less of the same, not focusing on the details, instead I let my body, my subconscious guide me.

Like a crafter I do what looks and feels right. I don't need to know every detail to see that it's working...

Flight? Balance, weight, the tightness of the flesh between the various bones of my frame, how complicated, how many formulas, how much information would I need to begin? To start to shape a vessel that was living, capable of carrying my mind in a new direction...

And failing? As I have certainly done, it should have been death. Especially when you look at cells, when you don't quite understand how they work together and try to make changes at that level...

Too much knowledge and the part of my brain that makes it 'just work' refuses to engage. No longer am I crafting and focusing on the big picture, kneading my body like clay. My focus shifts to how impossible it is, and I get hung up -

Maybe one day, but for now - I can pull an animal apart, see what makes it up, how it fits together and my extra strength and vitality, my other stats do the rest.

My now unrecognizable body, stretched and bended to new purpose, to craft an imitation of what I have defeated, dissected and now emulate; a bat, one of the reptile birds, I steal the biology of everything living. And with the strength of my bones enough to withstand the terrible pressure of my momentum, I feel everything working together to defy the previous limits that kept me tied to the ground.

Feathers could make it easier, I see the other birds soaring and majestic as they own the skies in which I stumble, the outline of their far nobler stature, the sureness of their flight and ease of their movements, I focus on the closest one -

A massive winged predator, two swift flaps of large wings are enough to align its trajectory with mine, for me to see it plot an intersecting course, and then it tucks down. An arrowhead with a hooked beak locked onto me, gaining speed by the second, I can tell it doesn't notice...this beautiful eagle, so regal and mighty it doesn't care -

Not the direction of the light breeze between us, or how it carries the tiny white specks that pour off my body between us. It's unconcerned - faster and faster it plunges toward me and I see the sharp talons extend out like tridents, the piercing points aimed at my soft fleshy body, slow and defenseless - the specks that float thicker and thicker around me are just seasonings for its snack.

Until they explode, flak in the sky, dandelion seeds - thousands of them become a wall, a rooting boil that blinds the eagle, confuses it, then ensnares it - roots wrap into feathers with a frustrating strength, enough to crack concrete.

When you understand what is required to fly, you understand how easy it is to obstruct it. The beautiful eagle spreads its wings wide to arrest the decent, to stop its plunge toward the sudden green wall that explodes around it. It opens it's body with a panicked shriek to catch the air, to grasp it and slow -

To give me the greatest amount of surface to cover with my plants, and that weight continues to grow heavier. No longer is it the imperial ruler of the sky but a sinking sod heap on a confused path with the ground.

I'm already shifting back to normal as it tenses with our collision, the glancing blow with me slapping against its back except I don't bounce off, like a tick, the entwined plants easily ensnare me - against it. Indignant and keening, the bird cries out and I challenge my gangly fingers with what should be the easiest -

Rope, knots, tight around the neck, slipped beneath the wings, tied again and now she's mine. A harness. Still I feel her confusion, her rebellious spirit, and I lock my body into place and she bucks -

Twisting her neck back at the impossible angle a bird so easily achieves as she rips at me, tearing beak-fulls of spreading growth with a preening glare, attempting to free herself of the intruders perched upon her effort. She feels my hitchhiking weight and attacks, sharp and fearsome dagger strikes, an open maw aimed to rip me off as I slink back and doge her blows, punching her reaching beak.

Her eyes, wide and furious, brown as the woods beneath us, reflected and growing larger as the speed of our descent increases, each attack on me costs her altitude, brings her closer. Each attack on me isn't one used to remove the weeds -

Another accusation, she screeches even as she turns to rip another clump of growth from her wings, ignoring me to clear herself of the more dangerous threat. She doesn't notice how they've stopped growing, how they seem to be falling off on their own now, and that she'll be able to fly fine in a moment. She doesn't notice what I'm doing...

More ropes, they hardly matter right now in her panic, until she feels the last tie around her head, her neck, and looped over her beak. A powerful flap that turns the breeze turbulent and terrific on my skin, that forces each tickling feather on my skin to dancing, she climbs -

We climb -

And still I'm with her. I'm riding her - faster then anything I can accomplish on my own, her confident span devours the sky as she reclaims her lost altitude. and - flying...

She turns to me, safe from the crash, screeching to plunge her beak as she refocuses - this time the ropes catch, they muzzle her beak and keep it from turning back, keep it from tearing into me. She drops into a roll trying to toss me, tries to buck and bounce me clear with stuttered bursts of power -

"Yee-haw!"

A rodeo in the sky, and within her eyes I see the growing realization...

I pull hard with my right hand forcing her neck around, forcing her direction and she follows to relieve the pressure. I pull up against her neck and she's flapping up - up -

Steering her, so she can continue to see where she's going I point her eyes and it's in that direction she moves -

Processing, understanding her new life. What I want from her, my mount.

And it clicks. I feel the shudder run through her body, the acceptance in how she stops. No more struggle, no more keening, the endless bucking and stretching of her bonds that leave tight rope burns across my soft flesh and feathers floating behind us -

She stops -

Worried I'd choked her accidentally I loosen my rein but as her head swivels slowly, our eyes meet and I can see she's conscious, that she knows what she is doing. That I can see both determination and daring contained within.

Stopped flying - It was her decision.

Intelligence, comprehension, not what I expected...not from a bird - and her thoughts almost echo through my mind -

'What would you give up? For freedom?'

I can imagine her graceful life. Her powerful bounty as she claimed the heavens, all those years of soaring - above it all. I see her strength and an animals wisdom. I see life.

I can't force it. I can't take it. Not her servitude. I understand what she means, that this animals simple mind refuses to submit to me, and instinctually I know I've failed at training her. That it's impossible -

And I know what I have to do - as we drop to the ground there's no doubt in my mind that we will splat, that this majestic animal is too much like me...that she's perfect. Her somber colors and sharp edges, her independence -

The ropey bonds I fashioned disappear, and I nod.

I understand.

Then I jump off her back - still sharing her gaze

Respect

The eagle looks at me, eyes widening as we float together, drifting apart, both free - both equal. I laugh, with my arms outstretched in an offered embrace, just the simple man that I am. I'm falling with her, matching the speed of her decent before gravity can separate us, conveying to her the future that I offer -

Miles of friendship we soar across together, the chirping laughter as we hunt and fight over who gets the larger half of a cooked rabbit. Battles won as she swoops down and pulls me from the clutches of certain death and me tending her wounds, smoothing her ruffled feathers, growing the mighty perch of her throne.

I feel the -

Talons crush around me as a beak plunges, scrapes across my gut, bruising and tearing at my -

"Damn it, Cody, you idiot!" I mutter, picking up the eggs and bringing them inside me, "Stop pretending that this is fucking Narnia!"

I'd nearly died. Again.

But I give myself the reminder already knowing - nothing's changed. That I can't even see it as really a failure, but a postponement...

Because feathers really do make flight easier. Even with just the wings strapped over my outstretched arms I can feel the difference, the power as they lift me up off the ground. And that's without them even being crafted into something...

And the eggs? Who know's what will hatch from my 'failure.' Would I have even thought to look for them if I'd succeeded? Or spent the rest of time celebrating, not even realizing my actual failure until it was too late...