Flight
A/N - I don't know where this came from, but hopefully you enjoy this little vignette nonetheless. It's… um, cute? As in Fai discovering he has magic? Yeah… Inspired by that bit in the Season 2 ending sequence, only he's… quite a bit younger here. Eheheh…
Disclaimer - ye gods, get over it! I still don't own it.
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The sky was windswept and clear, beautiful in this moment as the eye followed its arc over the curvature of the earth far below. The world dove outwards from this bird's eye view in the sky, in a series of mountains and cliffs and glittering ocean fading to pale blue in the distance. And cities, on the ground, and on the islands that floated in mid-air, like bright teeth pulled from the maw of the earth and suspended magically amongst the clouds. Temples, palaces, houses, glittering with tiny points of light that could be seen from miles and miles away.
"Be careful, don't stand too close to the edge!"
This was the bird's eye view entering the wide, bright and curious eyes of a child-citizen of one of these floating citadels.
At the place where the wall around the city crumbled, and the edge of the street fell into nothing, stood a group of three; a woman whose anxious, pale, beautiful face would have told any watcher that the tiny, slightly pudgy child with the windswept blond hair (who was indeed standing unnervingly close to the edge, staring down in wonder) was her son. The woman's hair spilled over her shoulders like a waterfall at sunset, down over her elegant blue overcoat edged with white and gold looping, curling knots. It was sunny, but up here the wind always had a chill bite. Mother and child had the same eyes, the same colour as the windswept sky.
The third member of the group was not even human, but a tiny, fluffy, kitten-like creature with even smaller and fluffier wings that the child clutched in his arms.
The boy looked up, his smile reassuring and dazzling. "It's OK, Mommy," he told her. "I won't fall." His eyes, big already, were even larger with amazement, and shining brightly. His small clear precise childish voice faded slightly as he turned back to the world below. "It's so big," he said. "I never knew that this was outside the city! Mommy, are those other cities down there? What are they like? Have you been there? Are they -"
Too late the woman saw her small son's feet wander out too far, step on a loose pile of pebbles. She sprang forward. "Look out -!" But she was not quick enough to catch the back of his coat, and the boy fell.
"No!"
"Mommyyy - !" A panicked cry of fright from the child that mingled with the woman's own despairing cry; he was too far, she could not do anything without dooming herself, too -
She did not dare to look; her heart felt like it would burst from despair and self-loathing. Oh, god, her little boy was as good as dead -
"Oh!" A startled little noise from somewhere below. Her eyes flared open as her body moved forward, peering over the edge.
The boy was no longer falling.
It took a long moment for the woman to take this in; while her unbelieving eyes watched, her child's eyes opened, stared around at his new predicament, blinking in confused uncertainty.
His small fuzzy pet had followed him over the edge; now it swooped joyfully through the air around him like a hyperactive bird, nudging its human friend and making the boy roll head over heels in a complete somersault. The child's delighted laughter as he discovered that he could do more than simply make himself float in the air brought the woman back to her startled senses as the boy swooped upwards.
Now that he was closer, she could see the tell-tale twinings of magic around him, supporting him like wings. She didn't know whether to cry out in fear or in joy and relief. Her boy was safe. Her boy had magic. He'd saved himself from his fall for something perhaps more terrible, more unpredictable, but she could not make herself worry now with the fierce, fierce relief that was rapidly overcoming the apprehension she was feeling.
"Oh, my dear - Fai-kun - you're - Oh, my -!" she cried out, unable to stop her own smile as she felt the boy's own joy in his unexpected flight.
"It's OK, Mommy," he said reassuringly, rising higher and higher until she could barely see him against the sun. "I won't fall."