A/N: Written for the Becoming the Tamer King challenge on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum, registration task, for the 100_tales challenge on livejournal, prompt #49 – love, and for The Monthly Restrict Challenge on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum, challenge #05 – "write a fic in present tense".

And I've never tried writing Miyako's POV before even though I love writing her in 3rd. Hope it worked. :D

Flyer

I'm a flyer. If I walk on the ground, I'll trip over my two big feet and crash into some guy. If I'm lucky, he'll be cute. If I'm doubly lucky, he'll be single. If I'm triply lucky, he'll be decent and really cool, and we could wind up getting married. If I'm quadruplly lucky, it'll be Ken and my childhood dream will wind up being a reality. Though I'm not too torn if that happens; I mean, it's awesome if you marry your childhood crush and he's as awesome as you always thought – and in my case I know how awesome he is – but it's more than just the awesomeness, it's the compatibility and that part's still a bit iffy. He hasn't passed "the test" yet.

Not an easy task, but what can you do? It's not like the perfect guy would just fall out of the sky into the like that – though I guess I'm the one falling out of the sky. Heh.

I should back up a bit. I'm Inoue Miyako. And I'm a stunt-pilot. Not what I thought I'd be when I was growing up, because I like to look pretty and boy-hunt as much as the next girl, and dying young and wanting is a part of the job description. But it's a thrilling job. I love it. And it's not as bad as it sounds. A lot of my co-workers are off the market; some are even married. There's a wedding on next week in fact, and to my luck Mimi's in town as well. When your parents own a convenience store, shopping's not as fun. We rarely had to; clothes mostly, but my sisters and I would give mum a long list and send her off. She has good taste, so it usually worked out. Unless Momoe had a date, then I'd give her my orders instead – 'cause mums are always a teensy bit on the strict side when it comes to clothing for girls.

Anyway, I got into the whole flying business because I love to fly. The swings were my favourite part of the park; the monkey bars came close, but I'd like to be flying hands-free for at least part of the time. And amusement parks – even my brother avoided going to them with me after he'd puked his guts out. But not me. Nobody'd ever catch me puking my guts out after a teensy little ride.

When you're diving straight for the ground at six-hundred miles an hour, then it's a different story. Yanks my stomach out of my ribcage every time, though I wouldn't trade one of those shifts for an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet. And I'm a glutton for deserts, so that's saying quite a bit. And that doesn't go together all too well with the flying – but it works.

Neither does finding a husband apparently, if only because they're made of weak stomachs and noodle nerves. And that includes all boys starting with my brother – passing over Daisuke but including all other friends of mine – all the way through to the latest failed relationship. And none of them have even sat in the passenger seat! We're allowed to take passengers sometimes, when it's a tame flight, since the company doesn't want to be liable to any injuries and all that. But they don't even seem to want an ordinary flight round a lake – except Daisuke, though he's not the best passenger in the world to have. A little distracting, particularly since we bicker so much. But he's a great friend. Friend being the key word there.

Ken and I are sort of dating now; we'd dated a bit in high school, split up, dated other people and then dated each other again. Have been for a while. Funnily enough, our relationship hadn't changed much through that – the only reason we split up in the first place was that we were both expecting some chemistry that didn't happen. But now that we've grown up, we've both figured out what that chemistry was – and run in the opposite direction. But he's yet to pass "the test". Like anyone else I've ever dated, he's refused to take it. It disappoints me as much as any of my good friends refusing to fly with me does – or maybe a little more, since apart from Daisuke I'm his next best friend and apart from Hikari he's mine.

Though he insists he trusts my flying with his life. Hikari thinks it's more the idea of being thousands of miles in the air with me alone that unnerves him, but I'm not sure I really get that either. She rolls her eyes whenever I say that, as if she knows something I don't – which I don't know if she does, since there isn't a whole lot to know.

Or I thought so anyway, until he accepts my invitation. Finally. I think we were on double digits with the asking. Yamato was there as well, and he spent the next ten minutes to grill into my head to fly safely. Like I fly anything but; I haven't lost a limb yet, and I don't plan to.

Ken doesn't seem to realise that, since he's somewhat green in the face when he clamours in. 'Come on,' I said with a teasing grin. 'I'll fly as smooth as ice-cream. I promise.'

He says nothing, fiddling with something else instead. I check him, make sure he's buckled in, check the plane and make sure I haven't missed anything, then I take off. The soft whirring instantly fills my ears – even through the earmuffs – and my grin widens. I sneak a peak at Ken and he's no worse for wear.

A few minutes later, we're over the lake. 'What do you think?' I ask.

'I –' he begins, before changing tracks so suddenly I almost pull on the breaks. Or rather, what he says almost makes me pull on the brakes. The plane wavers a bit anyway, though he doesn't seem to notice. When I stare at him (after checking there's no mountain to unexpectedly crash into), he's staring at the little box in his hands with a blush on his face.

'Can you repeat that?' I ask, slowly.

He looks up at me. 'Will you marry me?' he asks, opening the box and showing the ring inside.

I don't answer. Not right away anyway. I'm still staring at him, and he looks away again after a bit. I do too, since I'm flying and all. Not a good idea to get distracted for too long.

Did I say Daisuke is distracting? My mistake.

'I've asked your parents,' he continued – well, mumbled really. 'They approve.'

Well, they would.

'And I wanted my first flight with you to be –' I stare at him again, and he fumbles for the right word. ' – special,' he says finally, and he's looking at the plane and the scenery and me and my head's just turning to mush.

I guess I forgot to say I'm a ridiculous romantic.

'Ken,' I began. 'We – ' But then I realise there really is nothing to say. No, he's not the perfect guy – and even Daisuke doesn't see as many cracks in him as I do. But I can put a grin on his face and love it, and he can watch me do what I love and not cry puddles of fear (like my mother is so fond of doing), and I can drag him to karaoke and make him enjoy it, and he can introduce me to a new classical book or poet and really get me into it… All the stuff I thought was a part of being just that good friends but we could go on doing forever.

'So you're saying we've wasted all this time?' I say finally.

'Not wasted,' he corrects, and he seems more relaxed now, since the bombshell has already been dropped. 'We know a lot more now. Grown up a lot more, to know the difference between bonfire and the sort of light that keeps burning on.'

He's right; we do know that now. Though with all the hints Hikari's been dropping lately, she must have been in on this. The thought doesn't irritate me, but it does want me to get a little playful revenge. I turn the plane's nose down, and Ken realises what I've done and his eyes widen. I shoot him a grin, and then we're diving for the water.

You know, even if we're inside the plane, at that speed you can feel the wind whipping you? And it feels magnificent. Cold and clear, the perfect way to think without other thoughts creeping in. Like when I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life – except if I'm pregnant of course, because it's probably bad for the baby – and all the outside noise (parents, friends, yadda yadda) were interfering. But nobody'd said anything; this was me, and Ken, and my decision.

I scream my answer – not sure if he'll here – and pull and the wings skim the water and we're gliding across the surface. Ken closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then laughs. 'I can see why you love this,' he says, somewhat breathlessly, moving a bit and then lifting his hands to the earmuffs as if they're in the way of something. But then he shrugs and kisses me anyway.

'Does this thing have autopilot?' he asks.

'Nope,' I reply cheerfully. 'It's all on the pilot.'

He pouts. 'How in the world am I supposed to put a ring on the pilot's finger then?'

'You should have thought of that before proposing in mid-air,' I shoot back – but as I said, I'm a flyer and this is about as close to perfect as I'm going to get. Because parachutes have no control – and I've tried, trust me – and we humans can't spontaneously grow wings and griffins are the stuff of legends and perfection doesn't exist –

But if perfection did exist, the surprises wouldn't be so sweet, now would they?

'So are we having the wedding up here too?' I ask, a little while later as we fly over a meadow.

I think I caught him by surprise, but he manages to answer with a straight face. 'I was thinking in an underwater sea temple, actually.'

He was kidding about the temple, but so was I with the sky-wedding. Even I think that's overdoing it. Because I need to have my feet on the ground sometimes after all.