Side Stories: Brutus the newly Feathered (Side Story)

“Mom! Dad! I’m back,” Caroline calls. She starts leaving her childhood bedroom where she landed and glides down to the first floor from the second, feathered people have no need for stairs. She looks around the house but can’t find them. “They must’ve left for work or something,” She mutters to herself. She wanted this to be a surprise visit but now realizing she should’ve checked to see if they were home, she leaves and starts to take off again but feels a tug on her skirt. She turns around to see a toddler, no bigger than 3 feet. She looks up again and sees his parents run after the boy.

Looking at them she notices their absence of wings. “We are so sorry,” the mother says, grabbing the hand of her child. “He’s been bothering so many people lately. He wants to show off his wings.”

“It’s alright,” Caroline says. Toddlers are always quick to show something they are so proud of. I’ve heard stories of me doing something similar when I got mine. Speaking of which is he able to fly yet?”

The father just looks at her awkwardly and explains, “Well, he’s adopted and we are humans. We didn’t know he was feathered at the time and seeing as we can’t fly, we can’t teach him how to.”

“I see,” Caroline says, immediately apologetic for asking, “I’m sorry for that question, curiosity got the best of me.” She pauses thinking and suddenly offers, “I’m not busy today so if you are comfortable with it, I could try to teach him.”

The parents' faces’ brighten up as their eyes widen. “Of course!” The mother says, slightly over-excited. But would it be okay if we watched?”

“Absolutely,” Caroline replied, looking down at the kid she extended a hand, “I’m Caroline, want to learn how to fly?”

The kid nods, “My name is…” He cuts himself off to look at his parents. They nod, likely just signaling this isn’t a stranger danger situation, “Brutus!” he continues. He ignores the hand and sits criss-crossed apple sauce.

“All feathered people’s latent element is air,” She starts explaining, “We of course use this to fly, think of controlling air like fanning the air around you except the fans are your wings.” Brutus jumps to his feet and starts flapping his wings clumsily. “So close,” Caroline cringed, “But try flapping them together.” Brutus stops and starts flapping them and although it’s imperfect and not quite synchronized, it works a bit. 

He hovers a few inches off the ground and starts shouting to his parents, “Look I’m flying!” His parents at a loss for words just clapped.

“Wow, you're really good at this. It took me weeks to get to where you're at.” Caroline praises, “Now so get down…” She takes off a foot off the ground and does her best to stay in place, “you just slow down fanning your wings.” She demonstrates and Brutus does the same. She claps and walks over to the parents taking out a piece of parchment and a pen writing down the address of her warehouse  “Here, let me know if you need any help.” She hands them the parchment and continues, “If you haven’t given your son a last name already, I recommend checking out a doctor’s office here and asking them to identify his wings. Traditionally feathereds take on the last name of the bird their wings resemble. For instance, mine are Crow wings therefore I’m Caroline Crow. Now it’ll take a while for Brutus to fly properly especially since their parents are the ones to teach flying but your sons picked this up fast. I have no doubt he’ll be flying by the end of the year.” The parents thank her profusely and offer her gold which she declines and then she takes off to revisit her favorite parts of the feathered kingdom.