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Most artists attempt to shoehorn wings onto a humanoid body by cramming the wing root either between the neck and shoulder or directly into the shoulderblade area, both of which look clumsy and top-heavy and create significant problems for musculoskeletal arrangements and center of balance. Rooting the wings below the sholderblades solves these difficulties and proved appealing enough to be adopted by the creator. Fourth World created by Charlie Luce Jr. and used with permission.
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A Change in Perspective
A Fourth World pastiche by Dave Bryant
Fourth World copyright 2005 Charlie Luce
One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er;
I am nearer home today
Than I ever have been before.—Phoebe Cary, “Nearer Home”, stanza 1
Portal Building, Fourth World Settlement
The knock at the door to the small apartment suite was completely unexpected. Bethany Silver Fox frowned in puzzlement as she shut off her small shelf stereo and rose to answer. Surprise joined her puzzlement when she opened the door on her visitor.
Standing in the hall was Peregrine Peryton, one of the Magical Girls. Characteristically for her on such a hot summer afternoon, the winged deer woman wore only a pair of aggressively colorful athletic shoes, an odd little cylindrical backpack that fit between her wing roots, and a broad smile.
Beth suppressed a brief surge of apprehension. Why is she here? Stay calm! You made peace with the mythicals nearly a month ago, right? She cleared her throat. “Peri! What brings you here?”
For answer, the grinning Peri-Peri leaned in, lifted Beth’s fourthworlder-customized safety goggles from a nearby wall hook, and casually flipped them to her. “Something to show you.”
The fox girl caught the goggles against her chest reflexively, then glanced down at her own form, clad in even less than Peri’s, and back up again. “Um, give me a minute to get dressed.”
The taller girl shook her head, her folded wings twitching. “You’re fine just as you are. C’mon!”
A moment of hesitation abated in the face of Peri’s obvious good humor. “Well . . . all right. Where are we going?”
“Outside. Put on the goggles first, though.”
They emerged from the portal building into dazzling afternoon sunlight. Around them, fourthworlders in all their amazing variety bustled past in every direction, ending another day of building a settlement in a mountain valley far from Earth. Beth stepped out onto the packed dirt of the meadow that had come to be called the town square, her vulpine pupils squeezing into slits against the sudden assault of Fourth World’s white-gold sun. She fired off a rapid succession of dainty fox-like sneezes, then pulled in a deep breath through her twitching black nosepad to recover, tasting with it a mélange of dust, mountain vegetation, burnt vegetable oils, and the distinctive scents of the hard-working women around her, a summery mix of smells that somehow seemed as hot as the air itself. Her ears flicked back to hear Peri-Peri behind her close the personnel door through which they had exited, cutting off the soft blue-white glow of the portal.
“So where is this thing you’re going to show me?” Beth glanced left and right, half expecting to see some new building or a shipment of goods from Earth. When Peri didn’t answer, she started to turn.
“Peri—” she broke off in a shriek as a weight struck her from behind, sweeping her feet off the ground. Suddenly she was bouncing along at an ever-increasing speed as Peri-Peri raced out into the meadow, holding Beth in a cradle carry.
The vixen threw her arms around Peri-Peri’s neck, clutching convulsively, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She let out a tiny, muffled squeak when the running culminated in a massive, surging spring. She thought she knew what was happening, but not why, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
The surges continued, accompanied now by a rushing, whistling wind. Somehow Peri’s gentle, quiet voice reached her through the roar of air. Open your eyes, Beth, and see what you’re coming home to.
Beth steeled herself and obeyed, her eyelids reluctantly parting just a little. Her breath caught and her eyes widened in wonder. Her guess was correct. They were flying.
Far below, the forest was a deep green carpet rolling away for miles on every side, climbing the towering ramparts that hemmed the roughly oval caldera valley. Still higher than their own altitude, the trees gave way to gray stone, washed bronze by the westering sun where it was not indigo with shadow. Here and there on the gently rolling valley floor, the coppery glint of water winked through the woods, reflecting the blazing gold sun in a flawless cabochon sapphire sky.
Peri steepened her bank, giving her passenger a view of the settlement almost beneath them. Beth’s heart ached as she looked down over the toylike village and the surrounding fields, little larger than glorified gardens. It was a brave start in the midst of wilderness, and a wave of pride and longing washed through her.
In the magic of the moment, Beth couldn’t bring herself to shout over the noise of the slipstream. The silver-furred girl settled for hugging Peri’s heavily muscled neck in delight. There was an answering momentary squeeze from the strong arms carrying her. The vixen looked up to see a tender, strangely triumphant smile light up the peryton’s face as she, too, gazed down on their collective achievements. A slightly wall-eyed expression faded as the flyer refocused from wide-angle vision to return Beth’s glance, but the smile didn’t. The doe muzzle mouthed one silent word. Home.
They soared on in relative silence, sharing the vibrantly colorful vista, hearing only the rushing, cooling wind and smelling only the faint tang of water and the distant forest as it slipped by below. Peri’s powerful stone-gray wings guided them with subtle, unconsciously graceful twists as they spiraled outward from the town, dropping gradually toward the nearby lake.
Bethany drank it all in, knowing full well how precious this experience was and determined to enjoy it to the hilt. Not many people got to fly with the bats or the feathered mythicals, apart from the occasional rescue flight; even with their exceptional strength and magical wings, a passenger was a major burden. Most fourthworlders knew that much, but Beth, in her capacity as clerk to Fourth World’s legal department and what passed for its government, had a much clearer idea of each flyer’s exact capacity and realized what a rare privilege she had been granted. She wondered briefly, before chasing the thought away hastily for fear of jinxing things somehow, why Peregrine was doing this for her.
After long minutes, the silver fox realized their path had straightened, heading right up the lake’s long axis in a breathtakingly dramatic approach to the clear, calm, rock-bordered waters of the settlement’s most popular spot for swimming and sunbathing. Apprehension and exhiliration seesawed in Beth’s mind as Peri, with obvious confidence, continued their stately descent until they were just a few feet over the glittering surface. The vixen felt sure her tail, whipping behind her in the slipstream, had to be all but dragging in the water, and that Peregrine’s wings were on the verge of fouling on the trees leaning out over the lake. She shook her head. Oh, nonsense! I know for a fact the lake is wide enough for all the flyers to fly wingtip to wingtip.
She looked ahead to see dozens of figures already splashing about or lazing on the rocks, several waving or pointing at the newcomers, muffled yells and whoops reaching her ears through the quieting airstream. Peri slowed her glide to a walking pace, wings working constantly to prevent a stall, as they crossed over the middle of the swimming area. Then, incredibly, her arms seemed to vanish from underneath Beth. The astonished girl whipped her head around, glimpsing a grin of pure impish mischief as, for an absurdly drawn-out moment, she seemed suspended in mid-air a yard above the lake.
The moment ended abruptly as the lake exploded around her like thunder, plunging her into the water’s cool green translucence. The quick breath she’d sucked in during her brief fall filled her lungs as she went limp, letting natural bouyancy bring her back to the surface.
She broke through, throwing her head back and gasping, glittering droplets arcing into the air from her ears and head ruff. She whipped off her goggles and looked around wildly, finally spying Peregrine touching down carefully on the rocky shore. Before she could make up her mind whether to be angry, Peri had shed her pack and shoes, turned, waved, and leapt up into an arcing dive.
Beth put the goggles back on determinedly, intending to catch up with her erstwhile bearer and demand an explanation. Just then, though, a water-polo ball splashed her as it landed nearby, a voice shouting for her to throw it back. In seconds she was caught up in a rough and tumble free-for-all, laughing and hollering with the best of them. It was an hour of strenuous horseplay later that she suddenly noticed Peri-Peri fast asleep on the shore, a towel from her backpack under her body and her wings draped across the still-warm stone to dry, the picture of peaceful contentment.
The sky was a deepening blue, a dusting of the brightest stars already visible in the wake of a typically brief, early alpine sunset, when at last Peri-Peri stirred and stretched, yawning hugely and shaking her wings out before folding them neatly behind her. Only a few other fourthworlders remained, chatting idly as they rested and let their pelts dry in the gentle breeze over the still-warm rocks. Unerringly, the peryton twisted to face a quiet Bethany, who sat a few yards behind her with knees drawn up and arms clasped around them. The doe’s sudden broad, dazzling smile seemed to return sunlight briefly to the lakeside. “Hello there, stranger. How do you feel?”
Caught off-guard by the unexpected question, the silver fox blinked and flicked her ears back reflexively—and thought. “I . . .” she ventured after a long moment. “I feel pretty good.” Her ears perked, and she cast a look of wonder at her companion. “I haven’t felt this good in years, I think.”
“Good!” Peri punctuated her cheery response with a clap of her hands on her knees. “C’mon, then. Our work here . . . is done.” Her tone somehow held both a mock seriousness and a ripple of laughter. She scrambled to her feet and offered a hand to the other girl. “Let’s head back now. The evening’s coming fast.”
With a shy smile, Beth took the proffered hand and stood as well, faintly surprised when Peri held on to it. Another thought distracted her, though. “That’s what you wanted to show me, wasn’t it? That’s what this was all about?”
“Yep! I thought it was about time you just went out and had a good time, no strings attached.” A definite hint of smugness crept into the deer’s voice. “It worked, too.” She tossed her head a little, flicking her small antlers, and wiggled her nose in high good humor as she set out, towing the vixen up the trail toward the lights of the village twinkling distantly through the forest.
“I guess it did. Thank you, Peregrine,” Beth said sincerely. “It was wonderful.” It was a few moments more before she thought to add in genuine puzzlement, “Why are we walking? Don’t you want to fly back, too?”
For a surprisingly long time, there was no answer, though Peri didn’t seem offended by the questions. Instead, when she replied, it was slowly and thoughtfully. “I love to fly. All of us with wings do. In some ways it’s better even than sex.” Suddenly she turned to face the vixen, her expression somewhere between solemnity and laughter. “And don’t breathe a word of that to Daphne!” Just as abruptly, she swung away to resume her hike.
“Anyway. I can’t speak for the others, Beth, but sometimes I love to walk, too. Flying gives you a breathtaking view and a feeling of power unlike anything else I know. But walking lets you see that tree over there, or the flowers you didn’t know were there until you came around the corner, or the not-squirrels scurrying around.” Peri gestured and pointed animatedly with her free hand.
“You can’t see that from up there. And there are all the smells and the quiet or the rushing of water.” She looked back at Beth again to wink, the glow of one violet eye blinking out for a moment in the gathering dusk. “Besides, I have to keep my legs in shape, too.”
Before Bethany could answer, Peri-Peri paused, head tilted and ears twitching, for all the world as if listening, though the vixen heard nothing unusual. Then the peryton giggled brightly and flashed Beth her dazzling smile again. “What’re you doing for dinner?”
“I, uh, I don’t know,” Beth stammered, taken aback at yet another unexpected question.
“Well, you do now. You’re coming home with me!” Peri said with such assurance that the vixen didn’t resist when the winged deer broke into a trot, tugging her along behind, laughing as they both ran up the trail toward the lights of home. Ω
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