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This sketch attempts to capture the creator’s vision of the character. The eyes and antlers are close, but the muzzle and ears need work. Fourth World created by Charlie Luce Jr. and used with permission.
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Night Flight
A Fourth World pastiche by Dave Bryant
Characters and background created by Charlie Luce, Jr. and used with permission
This work is copyright 1998 and is not in the public domain
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, fourth stanza (1923)
House Solstice, Fourth World Settlement
Peregrine Peryton drifted up through layers of slumber like a piece of flotsam broken free from a sunken ship. Moments stretched into centuries before she reached the surface of wakefulness. A few moments of sleep-sodden confusion coalesced in an annoyed thought.
I’d hoped the change of scenery would end this nonsense.
Sighing quietly, she levered herself up, trying not to disturb the warm figure lying beside her, almost shimmeringly white even in the darkness. After reaching out tenderly to brush her fingertips over Daphne’s tousled curly mane, she stood and padded silently to the bathroom door, opening it and maneuvering herself through carefully, then closing it with only the faint click she’d never been able to prevent, no matter how delicate her touch.As Peri-Peri attended to the pressure that had, in part, roused her, she pondered the restlessness that had been the larger part of that awakening. It was nothing new; even before coming to the portal, the person she had been was troubled by it more often than not. After the transformation, she’d assumed her new body and environment would soothe that disquiet. For a time, they had; the hard work she, and most other fourthworlders, had put in, building the settlement they lived in, sent her stumbling to her bed most nights to collapse into exhausted sleep.
But now that the pace of construction had slackened, the nocturnal stirrings had resumed. They were less compelling, at least, and until now, she’d returned immediately to bed after taking care of physical needs. Tonight was different, however, for no reason she could articulate.
Still lost in thought, Peri padded carefully back through the bedroom and out, closing that door as quietly as she had the other. She walked through the living room more confidently, to the front door. There she stepped cautiously, seeking her own shoes amongst the three pairs strewn carelessly on the large mud mat, the woven straw rough against her bare soles. A faint indulgent smile lit her face at the memory of how often Daphne had chided her housemates about this habit, and Margaret’s response.
“Honey, I don’t see the sense in puttin’ our shoes away when we’re just gonna get ’em out again later.” Daphne had shaken her head and desisted, but she still tried to persuade them to set the shoes neatly by the door, with mixed success—mostly with Cleo, prompting another observation from Margaret. “Oh, for Mom’s sake, Cleo, you don’t have to feel guilty about everything.”
Finding the flamboyant athletic shoes she liked so much, Peri hunkered down to slip them on, patting the Velcro fasteners into place. She straightened fluidly and, hanging on to prevent it from crashing into the wall, threw open the front door.
She bounded outside, the air swirling around her body, warmth from the house mixing with the coolness of a clear alpine summer night. She did not lock the door as she closed it behind her, a reflex she’d been happy to leave behind with her old identity. Crime was unknown—at least so far—on Fourth World.
After her initial impetus had brought her a dozen steps from the small prefab cabin she shared with her three housemates, she stopped and threw up her head to draw in a deep breath of the crisp air, luxuriating in the rich scents it carried: soil turned the day before by work on the newest cabins, cooking oils burned by the diesel-donkeys turning that soil, exotic mountain plants never seen on Earth. Under it all were the faint mingled scents of the women who had, at the behest of what they had come to assume was a sort of goddess, set out to colonize a world far from the planet on which their original human identities had lived.
Transfixed, Peri gazed up at the cloudless, glittering night sky, the stars so thickly strewn, like sacksful of gems carelessly spilled across black velvet, that nobody had bothered to invent constellations. After more than a year in her new home, the skies of Earth seemed almost empty, even the Milky Way a pale echo of Fourth World’s brilliant starscapes. Whether their adopted world was indeed in that galaxy or in another perhaps millions of light years away, however, nobody could say, despite three years of patient study of thousands of images captured by the modest portable equipment that fit through the portal.
A ghostly monochrome rainbow arced across the southern sky. Ages ago, a moon nearly as large as Earth’s must have succumbed to the relentless forces of gravity, disintegrating into cosmic gravel that now formed a ring as spectacular as Saturn’s high above Fourth World’s faraway equator. A gigantic, sharply defined bite threw much of the visible arch into relative darkness—the shadow cast by the world on which she stood.
The clear high-altitude air felt almost crystalline on her bare form, echoed by the stars that twinkled hardly at all. Suddenly she knew what would still the small voice that had drawn her outdoors—had known it subconsciously when she’d stopped for her shoes rather than go out completely naked. Margaret and certainly Cleo would scold her for the foolish thought, but Peri, by now in one of her stubborn moods, had the proverbial bit between her teeth.
The decision made, she strode out to the packed dirt of the village’s central meadow. She knew the open spaces of the settlement as well as she knew her own six-inch four-point antlers, knew exactly where her freedom of movement would be greatest. Her long, mobile ears swiveled as she looked around, making certain there was nothing that would create an obstacle. Stars, ring, and what few lights the colonists left burning overnight were bright enough to cast frosty shadows, bright enough for the superb vision of Peri’s violet eyes to read by. Only her own breathing and footsteps and the occasional call of a night animal broke the almost palpable silence she enjoyed with a thoroughness a slight ringing in human ears had never allowed.
Standing at the approximate edge of town, she poked her twitching nosepad skyward, judging the breezes. Satisfied, she turned abruptly and sprinted lightly across the meadow. Her long legs pumped with machine-like steadiness, bringing her to twelve meters per second in a twinkling. A cold wind of her own making blasted her face, and her eyes teared briefly before clear inner eyelids closed protectively. When the moment felt right, Peri pushed off into a long, flat leap and brought both legs forward for a feather-soft landing. Her sinewy legs folded to take up the momentum of her run, then exploded straight again, launching her into a vault for the sky.
Peri’s arms swept through arcs like a swimmer’s, ending tight at her sides, and the great gray-pinioned wings that normally folded to her back snapped out and away, cupping and gripping the air, pushing it behind her. She felt the flexing and tension in the muscles around her ribcage and in the feathered limbs rooted just below her shoulder blades.
For a few moments, her mind was empty of everything but the drive for altitude, the pure sensuous joy of the pumping of wings, the cold blast of airstream ruffling through her fur, and the widening silhouetted horizon with the blazing heavens over all. At length she decided she had climbed far enough to avoid collision with the nocturnal aerial wildlife of the valley, and settled into a leisurely soaring, flapping occasionally to maintain her speed and height. Powerful neck muscles and a touch of magic held her head steady as the wind whistled through her antlers.
She instinctively steered southward, toward the center of the ring arc. As long as it was directly before—or behind—her, she would not get lost, even if her subtle internal magnetic compass failed her. The rhythms of flight . . . breathing, flapping, adjusting . . . mesmerized her, lulled her. Peregrine Peryton, whose body combined human, deer, and bird of prey in a stylized feminine version of the winged stag of English heraldry, fell into reverie.
He had never been a gambling man. Now, on the threshold of middle age, with nothing behind him but a sheltered, uneventful middle-class life and nothing more significant to look forward to, he liquidated nearly everything and vanished from family and what few friends with whom he still kept in touch. If the portal wouldn’t accept him, he decided, he could still eke out an existence in Truckee, the town nearest the Earthly side of the portal, or somewhere nearby. Either would be better than continuing to live as he had, full of vision and dreams, but lacking the drive and ambition to see them through.
Convinced as he was that nothing could pierce the dull resignation that lurked behind even his cheeriest mood, the thrill of adrenalin and unalloyed happiness that lifted him at the sight of the sparkles rippling over the blue-white surface of the portal itself came as a pleasant shock. He had been accepted.
Peregrine banked and sideslipped, catching the deflected wind that rose from a ridgeline below. Eyes narrowed, she savored again the renewed rush of hope and determination that had carried the man she had been through the gate into a new body and a new community. The work had been hard, but even that she relished. She was needed here. She had a place, and new friends, and was helping to build something—something new and unique, precious and momentous. And she had a family.
Daphne Heraldic Unicorn, Margaret Pegasus, and Cleopatra Sphinx had taken her into their new four-person cabin. Their loving relationship quickly included a very willing Peri-Peri. It was only a matter of months before the four of them had become, de facto, a group marriage. At the same time, other friendships formed, some easily, some after real effort. She smiled thinking of the gradual shy acceptance of Val Jackalope that had evolved into an affection akin to that of a little sister’s. Few others had been able to reach the girl who’d felt oppressed by the double-edged gift of her mythical abilities.
Peri was not a leader . . . but neither was she content to be on the fringe of a group, a status her earlier self had all too often chafed against. Here, she was important—but not the center of things. She had found a new balance, a rhythm as deeply rooted as the beat of her heart or her wings. Those wings beat now as she arrowed on toward the ring, mind and body seemingly one giant nerve ending, memories and sensations flowing around her and within her like the bracing air that bore her.
Another thing bore her as well—faith, of a sort. The person she had been was a dedicated agnostic, uncertain of the existence of anything beyond the physical world. The demonstrated existence of magic, and the occasional visitations of someone who could only be a sort of goddess to the dreams of all the mythicals in the same night, were proof enough for her satisfaction. Peri was disinclined to outright adoration, but she loved and respected the entity she and the other Magical Girls called “Mom”.
She realized with a sudden epiphany that she was content, more utterly content than she had ever been in her previous life. Everything she had ever desired or striven for, she had finally achieved, save one. And that one thing was possible—children. The mythicals had learned just days ago that, as well as being able to heal injury, their magic could induce pregnancy in willing pairs of fourthworlders, as could the oddly shaped object in the temple’s small side room everyone had called the altar. Nobody had yet come forward, but there was much intimate discussion, including among the foursome of which Peri was a part. It would happen in good time.
After a short, decisive nod, she blinked and looked around. Her wings were tired, but not unduly so; it was time to head back. She banked in a wide, lazy turn, glancing occasionally at the ring and a few easily placed stars to make certain she didn’t drift laterally as she headed back north. The Fourth World wasn’t paradise—paradise would be too boring. But it was a fine place to live. She spent the return journey humming and occasionally singing softly to herself, songs of tenderness and triumph, the notes and words snatched away by the wind, quieting only when a handful of glimmering lights below showed her that she had returned home.
Peri-Peri made a slow pass just feet over the meadow to ensure that it was still clear, then orbited around and touched down in a tidy jog. She slowed to a stroll back to the front door of the cabin she had left a short time, and an eternity, ago.
Her long-legged stride faltered as she noticed a faint light in the front window. Someone was awake. She worried briefly, thinking perhaps she’d awakened the others, that they would be concerned over her absence. She shrugged—there was no help for it if she had—and continued on.
Once more warm and cool air mixed as she opened the door, making her shiver as she realized how accustomed she had become to the wind chill of her flight. She entered and shut the door behind her. On the heels of its closing, Daphne appeared, her white hide softly gleaming in the light from the kitchen. The unicorn smiled welcomingly, a blanket draped over an arm, a steaming mug in each hand. She pointed with her horn to the couch, and Peri followed obediently.
Daphne set the mugs down on an end table and took the comforter in both hands. She walked around Peri, wrapping the winged woman in the queen-size quilt, then handed her a mug.
“Sit down, love,” she invited softly, and did so herself. “Tell me about it.”
Peri sat, sipped the cocoa that all the fourthworlders loved as humans loved coffee or beer, and shivered not with cold but with sheer good feeling. “How did you know?” she nearly whispered.
Daphne smiled radiantly. “You weren’t there when I turned over. When I got up, I realized you’d taken your shoes. It wasn’t hard to figure out you’d gone for a flight.”
Peregrine ducked her head. “You’re not going to scold me for that, are you?”
Daphne put a hand on Peri’s arm where it emerged from the blanket. “No, dear. You’re a careful flyer, despite all the teasing Margaret and Cleo give you, and I know you wouldn’t have gone up if you couldn’t see what you were doing.”
The winged girl leaned over and kissed Daphne’s neck happily. When she straightened, she said simply, “I thought a lot. And it all fell into place.”
Daphne nodded, eyes twinkling. “I’ll bet you won’t be getting up in the night as much after this.”
Peregrine looked at the unicorn for a long moment, reaching into her own mind. She replied slowly, “No. I think you’re right, love. I think I’ve found what I was looking for all this time.”
Daphne giggled, then covered her mouth with a hand. Her eyes sparkled with suppressed merriment as she reached out and drew the other into an embrace. As Peri returned the hug, the unicorn whispered into a cervine ear, “Then come back to bed with me, dearest, and sleep tight until morning.” Ω
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