A Note From The Author

Ok, I'd like to first of all apologize to everyone for the lack of updates. 1x05 is taking a bit longer to complete than expected due to real life issues. Just want to let everyone know that no, the fic isn't dead and we very much intend to keep it going. We've got a lot of fun plans for the first three "seasons," as well as a general idea on how the whole story will conclude, it's just a matter of getting there.

So in the meantime, here's a quick little bit of filler.

Minisode 1

Morning Flight

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Melody stood out on the front lawn of the school. The morning was crisp and cool again, but the sky was clear and the sun bright as it crested the trees further east. A quirk of the atmosphere that day turned everything golden, and the wind was out of the north, nipping a bit at her nose and ears. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and just took a deep breath, enjoying the pleasant scents of autumn, and the peaceful quiet of morning.

There were a few distant voices carrying indistinctly across the grounds, but most of the student body was still inside. With an hour before her morning class Melody had a desire for a bit of fresh air. For all the new experience of living near the City, she couldn't entirely shake off the country girl in her blood, or the habits of a childhood before she manifested spent helping on the farm when she wasn't attending classes at the public school.

She smiled at thoughts of momma out in the orchards directing her, her brothers and sisters, or the extra hands she would hire on for harvest time. Melody couldn't help but feel the pang of homesickness, but she was determined not to let it spoil a beautiful morning for flying. Besides, she wasn't alone. Paige and Jay were here, and Sam whenever he remembered to come by for a visit. The Guthrie clan alone might have been the single largest demographic of the Xavier school.

Melody gathered her power to her, and as the glowing aura formed around her body she shot like a rocket into the air. The wind whipped past her face as she hurtled upward, not nearly so gracefully as Jay, but with much less brute force than Sam. For Jay, flight was as natural as walking for anyone else, and Sam didn't so much fly as he did barrel through the air like a human wrecking ball, making his name of Cannonball around the grownups awfully appropriate.

She reached her desired altitude and came to a sudden stop, focusing her control on maintaining that position as she looked out across Westchester County. To the west she could clearly see what passed for downtown Salem Center among the large estates and wealthy subdivisions at the end of the Titicus Reservoir, likewise with North Salem to the south and east. Further beyond Salem Center she thought she could just make out the outskirts of New York City, whose gleaming skyscrapers would just be getting lit by the golden light of the morning sun.

A strong gust of wind reached out to buffet her, disturbing her admiration of the view, and Melody furrowed her brow in concentration as she fought against the turbulence.

"Well, good morning!" a voice nearby said, and the unexpected sound of it nearly broke Melody's grip on her power altogether. She looked about, and was surprised when she came face to face with Sofia Mantega hovering easily nearby, and wrapped within an updraft that threatened to destabilize her own efforts to stay airborne.

"Oh! Good mornin'," Melody said, her slight Kentucky drawl sounding rather unsophisticated next to Sofia's rolling Venezuelan accent. "I didn't know anyone else was out here."

"It's a fine day for a flight, is it not?" Sofia said, dancing effortlessly on the air currents she controlled with her power. If anyone could make Jay look like a clumsy oaf in the air, it's her.

Melody nodded as she watched the elder girl, and felt more than a touch of envy at her control over her power, not to mention her smoldering Latin looks and sophisticated style. "I thought I'd practice a bit before my class this mornin', an' I love the fresh air. Westchester is beautiful this time of year, but it's nothin' like back home on the Cumberland River."

"I rather love the lights of New York City myself," Sofia said.

Melody smiled. "I guess I'm just a big country girl at heart."

Sofia chuckled. "I do sometimes miss Caracas, but there's just something special about New York." Her expression was distant for a moment, before turning her attention back to Melody. "Well, would you care to fly with me this morning?"

"Sure!" She blushed a bit at the show of eagerness, but if Sofia thought anything about it she didn't say anything. Sofia and her class weren't that much older than her, most of them only by a year, but Melody still felt like when she was a little girl and got to tag along with Paige and her friends into town, before she went away to school.

With practiced ease, Sofia swung around on the air current she was riding and took off at a leisurely pace to fly a circuit of the school. Melody concentrated and followed after her, careful to avoid crossing the turbulence Sofia left in her wake.

Flying alongside Sofia presented a unique challenge to her control of her power. Sam had his energy field, and Jay his wings. She'd once even seen Julian Keller fly a short distance with his telekinesis, but with Sofia, her command of the wind itself held her aloft. Unfortunately, the focused gales she needed to support and propel herself created some rather powerful sheers, and several times Melody nearly tumbled out of control entirely as they flew in a leisurely circuit around the grounds of the school.

"So how have your classes been this semester?" Sofia asked casually as they swooped low over the grove of trees in the northeastern most corner of the grounds.

"Oh, they've been goin' alright," Melody said, her voice as wobbly as her flight path as she bumped along beside Sofia, concentrating hard on keeping in control. "I've got a big test this week in Miss Ororo's class Megan Gwynn an' I have been studyin' like crazy for. It looks to be crazy one, too."

"I think you will do just fine, Miss Ororo is quite fair, and not nearly as tough as Miss Pryde."

"Tell me about it. Even the basic computer course we could barely keep up with her! I swear after the first day I was seein' ones an' zeroes in my sleep!"

As they turned west from the pond in the northeast corner, Sofia suddenly pulled up into a hard climb. Not to be outdone, Melody focused her power and shot up after her, and even with the steady gusts propelling Sofia upward, she quickly overtook the older girl, who laughed merrily at the sight.

"Not bad! Let's see if you can keep up with this, though!"

At that Sofia flipped herself over and released her grip on the wind, plunging earthward in a graceful swan dive. Melody immediately shifted her own power and shot after her in pursuit. The wind whistled in her ears as the ground rushed up to meet them, and at the last minute Sofia let loose a blast of air to cushion her, before transitioning back into a sharp zoom climb. Melody followed easily and popped up after her, quickly gaining as they rocketed back upwards. Before she could catch her, though, Sofia broke suddenly to the left in a hard turn with a high vertical component.

Unable to follow her sudden change in direction, Melody threw herself into a lazy barrel roll in a lag pursuit instead, losing a bit of ground but dropping back behind Sofia again. She saw the smirk on Sofia's face as she glanced back to pick up her position, and she immediately countered with a barrel roll of her own.

Melody continued her maneuver, and the pair were soon in a rolling scissors around each other. It was quickly apparent that Sofia's greater control over her power had her at an advantage, even if Melody's manner of sustaining flight was more precise, and she soon began gaining position on her. Before she could overshoot, and as Sofia entered the downward leg of her barrel roll in a position where she would lose sight of her opponent, Melody redirected her ascent into a hard vertical zoom. She looked down to pick up the older girl and smiled tightly at the confirmation Sofia had missed her break out of the scissors and was now climbing again in an easy chandelle turn.

Target in sight, Melody rolled herself over and dropped, aimed at a point intersecting the arc of Sofia's turn. Sofia attempted to dodge to the side, but Melody easily rolled to correct, and as she zipped past she reached out and lightly tapped the elder girl on the top of the head. "Tag! You're it!" she shouted triumphantly, and pulled out of her dive and exploded upward in a hard climb once more.

Sofia took off after her. Rather than any fancy maneuvers this time, Melody just continued her ascent, climbing higher and higher into the cold autumn air, laughing in sheer enjoyment of the flight.

However as she continued upwards, the local wind layers picked up speed, and began to take a heavy toll on her control. Melody suddenly found herself focusing more and more on maintaining it, than her attitude or altitude. Then suddenly she struck a sheer that overwhelmed her grip on her power altogether, and knocked her tumbling of control.

Melody felt herself rolling and tumbling end over end, and she could no longer keep track of the horizon as she spun helplessly through the air. Disorientation led to panic, and all she could do was scream as she fell like a rock out of the sky.

Ohgodnoohgodnpohgodno!

She couldn't right herself, and she couldn't even find her power to take hold of it and stop. Her heart seized, her head spun, and the world around her was a blur of blue and green as she fell helplessly through the air, the wind screaming in her ears as she plunged downwards.

Then she was jolted by what felt like a blow to her side, and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of splattering herself across Westchester. But after a moment of blackness she realized that her fall slowed a bit too gradually to have been the result of impacting twenty miles of unyielding crust at terminal velocity, and the continuing sensation of rotation was only her inner ears doing their best to completely destroy any sense of equilibrium she might have had left. Melody risked cracking an eye open, and found herself floating on her back staring up at the sky, with Sofia looking down on her, her own expression tight with worry.

"Melody!" she said, when she opened her eyes. "Melody are you all right?"

"Oh God! Oh God! Down! I want down!" Melody said, grabbing hold of Sofia and burying her face in the other's chest.

"Ok, hang on!"

Sofia descended rapidly, and in a few moments Melody felt the subtle bump as her feet touched the ground. The pervasive winds that held her aloft ceased, and everything went quiet. With care, Melody was set back on her feet, and she stumbled about dizzily as she struggled to regain her balance. Instead she collapsed unceremoniously to her rear, and tried her best not to throw up all over Sofia's very nice pair of shoes.

Sofia knelt beside her and helped her to keep upright. "Now, are you all right?"

Melody held a hand across her eyes as her head continued to spin. "Oh God, what happened?"

"I don't know exactly, but all the sudden you were falling, and if I hadn't caught you when I did...well..."

She felt her face warm in embarrassment. "I lost control?"

"I suppose so."

Tears built up in her eyes, and she beat her fists on the ground that very nearly turned into a pink smear. "Damn it! I was doin' so well!"

"Hey, now! You just hit a bad patch of air," Sofia offered. "I still have trouble at times maintaining control of my power like this, too."

"But you're so good at it."

Sofia gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I practice a lot. You know there was a time last year where I couldn't get five feet off the ground without falling flat on my face! Just give it time, and I think you'll be able to fly better than anyone at school." She gave her a sheepish smirk. "At least your power is meant to fly, I have to cheat."

Melody managed a laugh, and wiped the tears from her face. "Thanks, but I think until I start getting' more control I oughta be stayin' a bit closer to the ground. Otherwise, another accident like that one and when y'all bury me you won't even be needin' to dig me a hole."

"We can always pack a parachute for you," Sophia said with a wink, as she rose smoothly back to her feet an extended a hand to help her up.

"Ha! Megan gets teased enough for that bicycle helmet she's always wearin' when she flies."

"Well, at least you'll both look ridiculous together!"

Melody laughed again. "Small mercies. Anyway, thank you so much. I probably need to be getting' back inside. I may need a change of clothes before class after that. Um...I think I'll walk back, though."

Sofia chuckled as they started back across the grounds towards the school.

A Note From The Author

So once again, this is just a light bit of filler while we're working on 1x05. Think of it like a webisode spinoff to the series itself. Just a little bit of development for Melody, and I decided to use Sofia a bit, since I think she's been a bit underutilized so far in the series. Sharp-eyed readers will also note the reference to Pixie, whom I have no specific plans to have appear yet, but might find her way into the series in the future.

In other news, be sure to check out my recently published novella, No Good Deed..., which is available now in paperback, and for Kindle and the Nook (links are in my profile page).

/shameless plug

Until next time!