“If everyone had wings, no one would envy the way they fly,” she said.
They were standing at the top of the observation seating, ostensibly monitoring the area in response to threats that the Central System Command had flagged from monitoring online communications. He was armed, having only basic abilities of thought-extensions. She was armed, but carried no weapon. His commander had explained at the time of his assignment that she was her weapon, enough that her thought-extension rating was unlisted in reports that didn’t require security clearance that neither he nor his supervisor had.
The area seemed clear, quiet enough that her statement disturbed the sunlit afternoon.
Looking across at her, he saw that she wasn’t surveying the area. She watching the next student practice their lift off from the arena below.
The student had a thick trunk and shapely legs and arms. With the uniforms they wore it was impossible to tell if it was a female or a male, but from the graceful bow forward and the leaping steps leading into their tumble free of gravity, he thought it had to be a woman.
Together, their eyes followed the student up, watching the blue stripes as they made their way towards the clouds like a bird in flight. Even as the blue grew too distant to make out, she kept her eyes straining to see.
His eyes stuck on her and the way the sun cast her dark hair in gold and turned her tawny skin to honey.
“I can’t agree,” he said as he watched her.
“Why not?” she asked, one hand lifted to keep the sun from eyes still straining at the clouds.
He looked down at the next of the students. Taller, more bird-like, this student seemed awkward as they bent into the stance. Their arms were back, long limbs stretching like featherless wings that quivered with exertion and made the red stripe down the student’s side dance like a bleeding gash. When this student pushed forward, he could feel the struggle against gravity.
Flight was an advanced technique of thought-extension. Unlike basic talents that most people could complete – moving objects, basic thought projection – very few people could achieve separation from gravity.
The folds and bends of the red striped student’s attempt were the same motions as the blue stripe, but the red stripe failed to break free of gravity.
She did not notice this student’s trapped thrashing. She didn’t seem to see the bird with no wings.
“Even if everyone could fly,” he said, watching the sunlight trace the graceful curve of her arm, “people would just find another reason to be jealous.”