This I guess is part 2 to 'Flying', or at least a continuation of it.

I spent a while experimenting with the wings, seeing and feeling how they moved. I also had to wait for summer to be over and spent many hours pouring over videos of birds flying in slow motion. After this preparation, I felt that I was ready to do this properly.

I was in the woods as always with the wings hovering over my hand. I took a deep breath and pulled my hands outwards, expanding the wings until they were about 7 metres in length, still keeping to the same size ratio. It was based off the wing length of the feather winged Descendants of Toothiana, so it should take my weight.

I know it was a bit more complicated than just adding wings, but since how I'd do it wouldn't use muscles, maybe it would work? It was an experiment I guess. If this didn't work I would check the Bergland books again, or talk with Greg, see if knew anything.

Mentally I attached them to my back, trying to centre them between my shoulder blades. Taboo gave some helpful advice.

"A little to the left, down a bit. Now right."

"If you're going to give directions, be a bit more specific. Use centimetres or even inches." I said to her.

"Fine fine. Go right 0.4cm."

"That's not helpful."

"You wanted centimetres, you got centimetres."

I looked over my shoulder at her, mentally moving the wing out of the way. I raised my eyebrows, and she gave me a human like grin.

I shook my head and got back to getting them into place.

Once in place I extended more of my awareness to the wings, moving them. First I folded them against my back and extended them repeatedly. After doing that about ten times I left them extended and moved each primary feather individually.

I could see my reflection in the lake and I did look odd. The wings didn't look right, they didn't look natural. The muscle structure wasn't there, instead of them looking like something that had grown with me, it looked like I'd sticky taped wings to my back. Which is essentially what I had done.

Once I'd done moving the feathers around I started walking around the lake in laps, getting used to the weight and drag, both extended and folded. After walking I turned to jogging, then loping, then finally to flat out sprinting.

Finally I came to a stop, looking up at the trees. Time for the ultimate test.

I folded them tight against my back and started climbing to the highest branch that could take my weight. I was going to start low, then slowly get higher as I got more confidant with them. That was the plan, it might change.

I moved cautiously to the end of the branch, and without giving myself time to think, jumped. As I did I tried to remember to flap the wings at the same time.

I went up a bit as I did, and I whooped. It worked! The wings worked!

I then lost control as the wings started to flap out of sync and crashed to the ground. Well, into a snow drift, which wasn't as painful.

I could hear Taboo laughing as I fell face first into a snowdrift, not breaking my glasses by some miracle.

Glad you're amused. I pushed myself out of the drift and used my power to get the snow off.

"That was only attempt number one." I defended, and Taboo folded her front paws and rested her head on them, waiting.

The second attempt was better. I got a few more flaps in before getting caught on a branch and falling again.

Third time I managed to avoid branches and just kept going up. Then there was a stray gust of wind which send me spinning, and falling.

Fourth time I didn't hit any branches nor was there any wind. Now I just needed to move forward.

I started to tilt into a horizontal position while still flapping to try and maintain height, remembering the propelling movement I needed to use. The concentration required for all this snapped with an owl hoot and I met the ground once again.

And again.

And again.

"Jackie, you should probably give it a rest before you break something." said Taboo from the sidelines, looking worried.

"I'm fine!" I insisted, I knew I had bruises in a lot of places, mainly on my nose and around my eyes as my glasses got shoved into my face.

"You have two black eyes and it's 1AM! Give it a rest." Taboo growled, and I looked at my watch, seeing that she was right.

"Fine, but we're doing this again tomorrow." I said, detaching the wings and shrinking them back down. The next step with these would be create fully functional wings on command, but I wasn't there yet.

I spent the next week practicing, getting better each time. Three days in I could fly in a straight line, by the end of the week I could sort of turn without flying in a complete circle. I still had a chance of crashing though. My flying was also shaky, I probably looked like I was drunk when I was airborne.

I was also black and blue from it, but that was fine, I hadn't broken anything.

Jamie was also wondering what I was staying up late to do, so I let him watch. I think he was concerned about where I was getting the double black eyes from.

I hovered in place above the lake, it was a little windy, but I'd gotten more used to it, coasting on the current a bit.

Slowly, slowly I started to fly laps around the lake, and after a little bit I started to speed up. Faster and faster until I went too fast, lost control and crashed face first into a tree.

I heard Jamie go "oooooh" as I slid down the tree trunk. I did thankfully have some protection on my face, with compacted snow around my nose and teeth especially.

"Are you okay?" he asked as I landed on the ground.

"Fine." I replied, a little muffled from the snow in my mouth.

"That looked like it hurt." I could hear coming over to help me up.

"New bruises probably." I took his hand, stood up and dusted myself off. "I'm going to try again, not that fast though." I added.

"You're really determined to do this." Jamie noted, hands now in his red and blue jacket.

"Yes. I am."

"You don't say." Taboo snarked. "Most would have given up after the tenth crash."

"Crash landing is still a landing."

A month later and I was a lot better, well, I wasn't crashing into trees as much, and the ground a lot less, but it still happened.

By this point winter was definitely here, and that could only mean one thing. Jack was in town.

I wanted to show him, but at the same time I was nervous, what if he laughed? What if he thought what I was doing was too dangerous? Not that it would stop me, but knowing he disapproved would lessen my enthusiasm.

"You're still here?" he asked as he landed on the lake. It was about 11 at night, later than I would be for normal practice.

"Yes, and I want to show you something." I couldn't keep the grin off my face.

"Oh yeah?" he leaned on his staff as I got the wings out and ready.

"You're not going to do what I think you're going to do, right?" he asked, a mix of concerned and excited.

"Depends, were you expecting this?" I asked while climbing the tree.

Jack raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything as I climbed.

I got to my usual branch, jumped off, and started some lazy flying around the lake.

A strong gust of wind nearly sent me out of the control, but it was just Jack jumping up to my head, grinning like a loon.

"That's awesome!" he cried, circling around me. "How fast can you go?"

"Haven't tested." I replied, wobbling a lot in the wind.

"Race you then!" Jack shot off, leaving me spinning in mid air.

"That's cheating!" I yelled after him, managing to recover, with a serious dip in height, my feet skimmed the ground in fact.

I went back up and shot after him, or tried to. I flapped my wings a lot, but I couldn't catch up to the blue and white blur in front of me. It wasn't as if he was flying efficiently either, which was even more frustrating.

"Okay, there's no way I'm winning this race! Slow down Snowman!" I yelled at him, but I just got his distant whoops back as he flipped, dived and soared.

I sighed as I tried to catch up, but I already had one hell of a headache from concentrating on the wings. That made it harder to concentrate, which only worsened the headache.

Before I could make a noise out of irritation, a breeze came up from behind me. However instead of making me spin out of control, it pushed me forward.

Confused, I continued to flap, and the wind continued to push me in Jack's direction, consistently. Grinning to myself I started flapping like mad again, I could catch up! I was catching up!

I was loving it now. This was so different from skating, this was effortless in a way, requiring no muscle power beyond my brain. The only reason I would stop on my own was if I got bored or if I used too much magical energy. I didn't see the former happening any time soon though.

"How's it going Snowman?" I called as I drew level with the swooping Guardian.

"Hey, didn't actually expect you to catch up Icicle." he said, grinning, then his face dropped slightly. "Wind, you helped her? That's not fair!"

The wind suddenly dropped and Jack tumbled for about a second before the wind caught him.

"Alright, I take it back, you're the best." he amended, laughing as I hovered, also laughing.

Jack flew back up to my height. "So, how long have you been working on this?"

"About a month or so." I shrugged, then dropped slightly as the motion interrupted the wing movement. "You can probably tell."

"Still can't believe you managed it!" Jack flew around me, checking out the wings. "Is this what you were talking to Tooth about in the Warren?"

"Yes. I thought I'd get some advice from someone who'd really know how this worked." Tooth was centuries older than any Descendant after all, she'd have more experience.

"You've got to show her at the next meeting."

"I don't know..." I trailed off. I wasn't as comfortable showing off something like this to any of the other Guardians. Jack was my friend, the others, it would feel, odd, like I was bragging to get some kind of favour or something.

"She'd love it!" Jack was grinning. "C'mon, if you don't mention it next time I will!"

"Alright, alright." I tried to appease him. "If we've both got time, I'll show her."

Jack was still grinning as we decided to fly back, at a more relaxed pace this time.

"You've come a long way." he said suddenly as we flew.

I looked at him. "You've chosen an odd time to be melancholy."

He shrugged, flipping onto his back. "Yeah, but, remember when you could barely move a ball of ice with your mind?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "And that was what, 15, 16 years ago now?"

"You're getting old."

"Says you!" I laughed. "Three centuries at least!"

"And looking good."

"If you say so." I responded with a smirk.

"Your opinion doesn't count. You can't tell if anyone is good looking."

I opened my mouth to object, and then remembered that he was right. "Touché Snowman. Touché."

The Winter Solstice meeting went smoothly, as there wasn't much for me to tell. The Descendants of Mother Nature had gone quiet for now, so I just listened to the Guardian's report on their various work, or watched in the Sandman's case.

Very quickly it was over, and Taboo nudged me before Jack could, so I took a deep breath, and stood up.

"Hey Tooth." I managed to call her by her nickname on the first attempt. "Do you have a minute?"

"Sure!" she responded, her smile brilliantly bright before toning it down to viewable levels. "What can I do for you?"

"I-I'd like to show, you, something." I said haltingly. I glanced out the window and quickly ruled out showing her there. The wind was howling outside and I wasn't going to be able to cope with that. "We should probably go somewhere with more space."

"Okay. How about the Globe Room?" Toothiana was looking very curious about what I had to show, which did not help my nerves.

"Okay." I said, and Taboo and I followed her out, out of the corner of my eye I could see Jack following us, but he was being covert so I didn't say anything.

Very quickly we were in the Globe Room, and not trusting my voice, I got the wings out, enlarged them, and stuck them to my back. I had been practicing standing take offs, with mixed success. I just hoped it would work this time.

I jumped and flapped at the same time and just managed to get airborne. I had never flown indoors before, so this was interesting, at least I didn't have to worry about the wind in here.

I didn't look at Toothiana as I flew lazily around the Globe, well, as lazily as I could in my tense state. My flight wobbled more than normal as a result, but I did manage to finish off with a backflip without crashing into anything, and then landed.

I finally looked at Toothiana, and she had an enormous smile on her face, her Mini Fairies whizzing around excitedly as she also darted around a bit.

I felt my face flush red as I removed and shrunk the wings.

"I-it's a work in progress. I'm not exactly good yet." Why was I so embarrassed? I can only guess it was because I don't usually show off, especially to people more powerful than me and that I don't know that well. Maybe. The more nervous I was the more logical and less emotionally understanding I was being.

"Oh my gosh that is so good! How long have you been practicing? I've never seen any Descendant do that! Well I've haven't met many Descendants but still!" Toothiana talked at a rapid fire pace that was difficult to keep up with.

I coughed, feeling my face flush in embarrassment. "Well, I'm still working it on it..."

"How was it? Did it feel good?" she asked, still excited.

"Yeah. When I don't have to think so much about what the wings are doing. Some of the more complicated stuff, heck just turning requires a lot more concentration than just flapping them. Well obviously, I need to move the primary's in a certain way, and I remember reading somewhere that it's easier to bank by just flapping one wing, or something like that." The more I talked the easier it was, going into specifics and technical talk, this was where I was comfortable.

"I'm sure Jack will have fun with a new flying buddy."

"He's leaving me in the dust at the minute, but eventually, maybe I can catch up." I managed a small smile.

"I'll leave the flying to you thanks." Taboo grumbled. "I felt ill just watching you do that backflip."

"Show me how much you've improved next time okay?" Toothiana asked, smiling again, but more softly. A more calm happy than her bubbly over enthusiasm.

I nodded. "Okay. Yeah, okay."

"See you next time!" she started to move into a hug, then remembered how I normally reacted. She then sort of hung there with her arms half open, almost asking permission, which was a weird thought.

I braced myself. "Go on."

I got wrapped in a thankfully not rib crushing hug, that appeared to be more North's thing, but it was still a little painful. I also stiffened up, not sure whether to hug her back. Taboo nudged me in the back and I obliged, stiffly returning the hug.

Toothiana let go and I felt like I could breathe normally again. I appreciated the gesture, but that had been painful and awkward. Toothiana flew off with a smile and her entourage, still on the ground I let out a long breath.

"Don't you go replacing me now."

I jumped about a foot in the air and turned to see Jack hovering behind me, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Also, you never hug, where's my hug?" he said, looking mock sad, with exaggerated puppy eyes.

I sighed. "You are such a child sometimes."

Jack stuck out his bottom lip, as if to prove my point.

I sighed again. "Oh for..." I opened my arms out for a hug. "Fine."

He practically flew into me, nearly knocking me off my feet, but somehow I remained standing.

It was a nicer hug than Toothiana's, probably because I wasn't feeling like I was burning.

After about thirty seconds I said. "Okay, we both have something that we need to do."

"Spoilsport."

"You like your job." I reminded him.

"Yeah, but I want to make the most of this. I wasn't kidding when I said you never hug."

"Okay, but I think I've used up my hug quota for the year."

Jack snorted with laughter and withdrew, still laughing. I chuckled a bit as well while pulling the Smoke out of my pocket, Taboo coming over and jumping into my hood in preparation.

"See you later Snowman."

"See you Icicle."

I threw down the Smoke and the Workshop disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

To answer a question pre-emptively, the reason Jackie didn't form a platform to land on when she fell was because she wasn't high enough to flip to a standing position, and landing face first onto ice hurts more than snow.

Also, the thing with the Descendants of Mother Nature isn't intended to be a hint to anything. I was thinking of something from Darren Shan's 'Demonata' series, specifically book 3, 'Slawter'. There's a quote that roughly says that even though the story is over, life goes on, things still happen. 'The End' isn't the end, it's just not written about. That's what I'm showing here. Descendant stuff doesn't stop because I'm not following big stories with Jackie, it's just not being documented.