Chapter 388: Room to Grow

Chapter 388: Room to Grow

On Saturday morning, Jin took Flicker into the private stall at seven, shut the door and pulled the blind.

It was the same room where she’d been through everything else. The padded perch bar stood in the middle of the floor. The old monitoring pads from her rehabilitation sat on the shelf. He didn’t need them, but he’d checked their batteries anyway.

Glitch had followed them in. He lay along the back wall with his chin on his forelegs, leaving the space around the perch clear. Whenever Flicker moved, his eyes followed her. Jin had seen him watch her like that during her first attempts to fly.

Flicker knew something was happening. She always did.

She sat on the perch bar with her feathers sleeked down tight and her head turning from Jin to Glitch and back. The sun mark on her forehead glowed a little brighter than usual, the way it did when she was alert.

"I’m staying here," Jin told her, and sat down on the floor where she could see him.

She hopped down from the bar and walked over to inspect his boots, which made it hard to stay serious.

He’d kept her morning feed to its usual amount and checked her weight against Verrick’s sheet. His own cultivation had stayed within Brand’s routine the previous evening, and he’d slept properly. Nothing in either of their current readings gave him a reason to postpone.

He checked once more anyway. He remembered sitting beside this bird’s box under a lamp at three in the morning, hoping she would manage to hold her head up. This was a much better morning to have together.

He opened the Engine.

[Controlled Sync — Flicker]

[Stored development: substantial]

[Recipient readiness: good]

[Transfer within safe capacity: available]

[Projected result: Rank 1, 5-Star → Rank 1, 7-Star]

It was the same as Thursday night, which he’d half expected and still found reassuring.

Flicker hopped back up onto the bar and looked at him.

He pressed confirm.

She went still on the bar, wings tight to her sides. Jin felt warmth gathering through the bond before anything changed on the screen. At first it reminded him of her sitting on his shoulder in the sun; then it deepened, and he leaned forward to watch her breathing.

Her feathers lifted slightly all over her body. The sun mark on her forehead brightened from a glow to something nearer a flame, and the faint ring of fire round it spread a few millimetres wider.

[Transfer in progress]

Glitch lifted his head off his forelegs.

Flicker opened her beak and breathed, quick and shallow, the way she did after a long flight. Her claws tightened on the padding.

Jin watched her grip and the way she held her wings, checking the progress display between breaths. She showed none of the distress he remembered from her weaker days. When he said her name, her head tilted toward him, though she didn’t move from the perch.

Near the end, she gave a big, rattling shake from head to tail, the kind she did after a bath. Every feather stood out and then settled. She shifted her feet on the padding and looked down at him.

[Controlled Sync — complete]

[Flicker — Rank 1, 7-Star]

[Quality: Silver (Middle). Skills unchanged.]

Jin let out a breath he’d been holding without noticing. There was no sudden change of shape this time. Her ash-grey and russet feathers settled around the familiar sun mark. She tipped her head, waiting for him to do something about the hand he’d left halfway toward her.

"Hi," he said.

She hopped down off the bar, walked over and climbed up his leg onto his knee. Then she leaned against his chest. Jin cupped a hand behind her while he checked the completed transfer. No warning followed it. The warmth through the bond had settled, and her breathing was back to its usual pace.

Keeping her resting proved harder than getting her settled for the transfer. Through the bond he felt a restless fullness, and she kept looking up at the perch. He knew that look. She wanted to try something.

"Not yet," he told her.

She tried anyway. She hopped off his knee onto the perch bar and opened her wings, and he put a hand flat on the floor between them, the old signal for wait. She looked at the hand and then at him.

Then she folded her wings and sat.

He sat with her for an hour. He fed her a sunberry from the jar he’d brought, which was a bribe and which she knew was a bribe.

He watched the sun mark settle back to its ordinary glow. Glitch went back to sleep along the wall, and his breathing filled the room with a slow, deep rhythm.

At eight-thirty, Jin let her fly once.

Only from the perch bar to his arm, three meters. It was the shortest flight she’d made in weeks.

She came off the bar, beat her wings once, and arrived far too fast. She hit his arm hard enough to make him wince and had to grab with both feet to stop herself overshooting.

She sat there on his forearm and looked faintly shocked.

Jin laughed. He couldn’t help it.

"Yeah," he said. "That’s the difference. One flap."

She looked at her own wing, then at him, then at the perch bar. He could almost see her measuring the distance again.

He took her down to the flight yard at noon, when it was empty, and let her do one easy length.

It wasn’t a dash. Just a length, at the cruising pace she used every morning.

She reached the far perch with fewer wingbeats than he expected. The hard effort at takeoff had eased, leaving her with more speed to lose at the other end. She banked before settling, claws scraping briefly against the wood.

He called her back, and she came at the same pace, and this time she was ready for it. She braked earlier and landed clean.

Okay, he thought, and found he was grinning. Okay. That’s real.

She wanted to dash. He felt the hot, eager press of it through the bond as clearly as if she’d asked aloud.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Rest first. I promise."

She sat on his arm and made a small sound that was absolutely a complaint.

That night, he sat on the feed crate with both beasts asleep behind him and looked at her real profile on his phone, just to see it written down.

[Flicker — Suncrest Sparrow]

[Quality: Silver (Middle)]

[Combat Rank: 1 — 7-Star]

[Skills: Gale Dash, Ember Shot]

Seven Stars. Two short of the top of Rank 1, and still a long way from Rank 2, and from the full awakening that would come with it.

He knew what that awakening would mean, eventually, for him as well as for her. Brand had told him plainly. He let himself think about it for a moment, and then put it away.

He opened his practice notes instead. Short flights first, then braking, then a few shots at the target once her movement was comfortable. He wanted to see what she could do. After that landing on his arm, he also wanted thicker sleeves.

Behind him, Flicker shifted on her perch in her sleep, and her wings twitched once, as if she were flying somewhere in a dream. The sun mark glowed faintly through her feathers.

Glitch shifted beneath her, settling his tail along the wall. Jin tucked the loose end of Flicker’s perch cover away from it before sitting down again.

Jin sat with them for a little longer. The next week’s timetable was open beside her profile, and he moved the longer flight practice away from the afternoon class. There was no point giving her room to improve and then bringing her to the yard already tired.

He sent Verrick a message asking for an extra Monday slot: For conditioning. She’s feeling strong. Then he put the phone away and turned off the light.