✯ — if you don't fuck with us then motherfuck you

the day was a calm one. the tender caress of the air comforting. the wind made itself known with the subtlety of a feather; and it was today that stocking knew she had to try.

the muscles in her back flexed as she tested her wings experimentally. they had grown exponentially since she had first gotten them. from baby feathers to fully fledged plumage. the tendons within her back and wings had bulked, providing stocking with the bodily strength needed to lift herself into the air with her new appendages.

and now she ached for flight. the feel of the wind in her wings was a tease, and with each tug of the breeze on a feather, she felt a growing urge, like a flicker of heat between her ribs. she was a fallen angel in every sense of the word. stranded, and unable to fly. a grounded bird incapable of spreading their wings. was this how avians felt when their ability to float on the waves of heaven had been strangled from them?

flying, from what she had learned, was a muscle. you didn't get it right away, but the more and more you practiced, the stronger it grew. that was what she had planned for herself, as she scaled the tree overhanging tanglewood's camp. it was just on the outskirts of their home; one of the very few that hadn't been cut down, for it's bark was tough and it's trunk was thick. her claws sank into it's hide as she made her way up to the first branch; what would be a perfect place to ensure that she could practice without falling from too high up and injuring herself. she did not want a repeat of her fall from heaven.

she flapped her wings experimentally, flexing the sinews within them as she felt the rustle of wind between each of her bristles. wings were such high maintenance. she had thousands of feathers and nearly each of them required their own individual care. ever since she had learned that preening was a 'must' in order to assure that they were clean, healthy and capable of flight, stocking spent most of her days with her nose buried into her primaries instead of a good book, and teeth digging into her bristles almost as much as they sank into food.

to attempt to fly blindly was simply not stocking's style. prior to this, she had gone through extensive research. on drafts of wind and how birds angled their wings on the upstroke and downstroke.

perhaps the most ironic part about this was that she was akin to a baby bird preparing to launch itself from the nest for the first time. she used to possess wings. beautiful wings. sharp like a knife's stroke and glowing with the eternal light of dawn. angel's wings, and she had possessed many of them throughout her celestial body.

but it had been so long since she had last used them, and her wings were powered by supernatural; ungoverned by the laws of physics. here, bound to earth, she had to abide by the rules and it absolutely sucked.

gingerly, stocking sucked in a breath and flapped her wings experimentally to get a feel for it. if birds could do it, she could too, right?

✯ — female. tanglewood. moderate difficulty. REF. BIO. — ✯