The Dream Of Flying (Private)

by **Malia** on August 3rd, 2010, 2:40 pm

Timestamp: 63rd of Summer, 510 AV

Sitting in front of a desk and chewing on the bottom end of a pencil was a girl with a thoughtful expression on her deathly pale features.

Malia had returned to Syliras just a few days ago and now started to carry out the plan that had formed in her head. The first step included practicing her Animation skills. Yesterday, while going for a walk through Stormhold’s third tier, she had paused for a while at Kova’s Well. It hadn’t been a mistake, for after a while she detected the corpse of a bird swimming in its otherwise clear water. Suddenly the Nuit had been hit by an idea. She had wrapped her cloak around the wet sparrow – the outer layer, mind you – and taken it with her.

The rest of the day she had spent with purchasing a pair of cheap, but waterproof gloves, a scissors and a set of cutlery and tearing the poor bird’s corpse apart to the bones. There had been several problems, of course, but given that she had followed her instinct without further ado, she considered what she’d got so far as not bad a result. She had spent several chimes removing first the feathers, then the skin from the little creature. From the flexibility of the limbs and the softness of the skin she could tell that it hadn’t been dead long. She had to work quickly before the rigor mortis made it impossible to further explore its anatomy. So she carefully, but efficiently handled scissors, knife and fork and worked herself through the muscle layer. Of course, as an Animator Malia was mostly interested in the mechanism of the wings’ movement. It proved to be difficult to discern anything in the miniscule mess she had created yet, but she was prepared to take extensive notes on a nearby sheet of paper when getting to the bones. During the process she found out that the tiny breastbone was shaped like a ship’s keel, obviously to support the air pressure weighing on the wings in flight. Compared to the body of the sparrow, the wings were large, but also very flimsy. The long feathers she had previously removed from both wings apparently added a lot of square footage to keep the bird in the air. While working Malia started to record what she found out about the skeleton, staining the paper and pencil with dried blood, wet feathers and the stench of death.

The sparrow’s wings consisted of three major sections. The first bone was connected to the breastplate and straight. The second section featured two bones that were slightly curved and pointing towards each other. They had some kind of thumb attached at the top and faded into the third pair of bones. From those last bones the longest and thickest feathers had been stretched out. When finished, Malia looked over the sketch she had done with satisfaction and made a few corrections here and there. A thicker line, a more obvious curve, a few softer lines to hint at length and type of feathers … Then she used more pressure on the pencil to draw a bird’s shape around the detailed wing bones so that she knew how to construct the rest of the body. The tail feathers she sketched with detail as well. A few words were written at the side of the paper, notes to record the measure of weight, a few ideas for material and anything else of importance that came to her mind. Then she cleared up the mess on the desk, opened all windows and left the apartment to throw the sparrow’s remains and the bloodstained gloves away. The cheap set of cutlery and the scissors she would wash and store away for later use.

While returning, her gaze rose to the sky and she wondered if she would dissect a human like this one day. Malia knew that she would do anything to come closer to her ultimate goal, but still … she played with the mechanisms of life. Perhaps she also played with the dignity of the dead person. But then she wiped the doubts away. When someone was dead, there was neither dignity nor anything resembling a soul attached to their corpse. Everything that was left was rotten flesh and bones. How would the Nuit be able to occupy those corpses if that wasn’t the truth?

While Syna’s light gradually vanished, Malia returned to her desk and examined the sketch. At several places the paper featured bloody fingerprints and other blurred marks. It was now that she realized that anatomical knowledge could have been drawn from the library as well, but obviously it was too late for changing her method now. The rest of the night she stared at the sketch and wondered how she would be able to make her plan going.

The main issues were the weight and the movement, especially the latter. She might have to spend several hours observing birds in flight and learning how they moved. That also meant more sketches. And the time needed to teach the construct all those movements during the ritual she didn’t even add to her calculation yet. The next step was paying a visit to Mister deGrey and his Mechanical Marvels shop.

OOC Notes :

by **Malia** on August 11th, 2010, 5:50 pm

Satisfied with herself, Malia returned to the apartment and put the little bird automaton on her desk. There it stood, looking at her expectantly with sparkling metal eyes, as if it wanted her to animate it right away. First, however, she needed a plan how to approach the rest of the project. She had the material now, but only in the physical sense.

Wandering out once again, she took a notebook and pencil with her. Syna was still about to rise over the rooftops of Syliras, so she had plenty of time before the light would fade again. Determined steps brought her to the main gates of the castle and beyond, walking down the road towards Bronze Wood. She had been there before. As a Nuit, she knew that she had been extra careful, but hadn’t she and her ‘Master’ survived in the wilderness for centuries? Malia almost felt alive again, although she had long forgotten that particular feeling. Under green leaves rustling in the wind, fingertips brushing the bark of trees, she felt safe because she knew that she was in control of the situation. Caiyha was fair, seemed reasonable. When a creature approached, the surroundings breathed a warning. Dry leaves rustled. Twigs broke.

For what Malia had in mind, she even gained another advantage. Upon finding a clearing – which wasn’t hard in this type of forest with leaf trees and little undergrowth – she slipped the coat from her shoulders and took a seat at it. The fabric would protect her fragile body from the moisture of the ground. Then her gaze wandered upward, her hands produced pencil and paper and she waited.

Centuries of observing had taken its toll. Malia sat frozen for several chimes before nature got used to her presence and its unique variety of noises and movement started unfolding before her undead eyes.

Of course, the birds caught her interest. The avian population of the forest mainly consisted of sparrows, blackbirds and the occasional buzzard heading for or coming from the plains. All of those were species of little height, and even tinier when observed from the ground. Still Malia tried to get something out of the rapid wing flapping and motionless gliding. After a while she decided that the flying process could be divided into four steps: rising into the air, gliding, gaining height and landing. She had a feeling that there was more to actually staying in the air and getting Zulrav’s winds to take one to the desired location, but the details were impossible to discern.

So she threw four rough scribbles on the paper: The first one showed a bird with its feet still touching the ground, but flapping its wings and ready to take off. This and the following sketches she did as if looking at a bird just in front of her. Still she wasn’t too good at drawing anything besides circles, so the body was more of an undefined shape. The wings also consisted of nothing more but two or three fine lines and a bit of additional shaping and correcting. To Malia, it was important that she knew what she had meant when drawing it later. The second sketch showed a bird with outstretched wings – gliding in the air. It proved to be the easiest to draw, since it only consisted of a cross-like shape with a few additional curves. Next, she tried to catch a bird flapping its wings in flight. Before getting that right, she stared at the avian activity above her head for nearly half a bell. Drawing the bird as if looking at it from one side, appeared to be the easiest way to go. Two subtly rounded lines formed the body while a few straight and a few crooked ones facing one another outlined the wings in a bent shape. The last little sketch showed a bird in the middle of the landing process. It looked much like the first drawing, but the claws were not yet touching the ground and the wings were outstretched and catching the wind. At least that was what Malia imagined it to look like. Two lines for the body and two more that were parallel and almost straight for the one wing visible from her chosen perspective was everything she managed.

Then she focused on the movement in the sky once again. The sketches had almost taken her one bell, one and a half with the observation time. However, no matter how closely she looked at the tiny wings, she couldn’t discern more than the four stages she had already documented. For studying sparrows simply didn’t suffice.

Frustration welled up inside her. How should she continue with the bird automaton project now? She sat still, watching nature without truly perceiving it, and tried to find a solution for her problem.

When shadow started to swallow the last light, Malia was on her way back into Syliras and still hadn’t had success. Frustrating! Not knowing what to do, she practiced drawing birds of different size and shape, trying to vary the posture of their wings. No matter how many different versions she could come up with, though, she would never be able to piece those together and get a perfectly animated flying creature out of it! During the last third of the night, she went through all the drawings once more and shaded them. She found out that it was useful to decide upon a direction the light hit the object from, so that she could put more shadows on the opposing side.

When Syna rose, she packed her utensils and went into the direction of Bronze Wood once again. Although she knew her chances, she would try to get sight of larger birds. Falcons and goshawks made more powerful and slower moves when it came to flying, so she hoped that she’d catch a glimpse of those in the air. If that meant that she had to go as far as seeking out nests, so be it.

It was all for becoming powerful enough to fight her enemy, after all. The goal was set – and with the endless time, a detailed plan and her strong will, she would succeed for sure.