First Flight
The Story of Damien Rhiannon.

"Aidan! It's good to see you again!" Shauna hugged him with her usual all-out exuberance. She never did anything by halves. Flame Song smiled tolerantly. She still felt a faint pang of sorrow to see this other woman, and she always would, but she had come to like Shauna.

"Dad." The solemn aerian boy greeted Aidan with much less enthusiasm. He seemed a bit unsure what to think of his seldom-seen father.

Aidan smiled at him and held out his hand, not wanting to push an unwanted hug on the child. "Damien." The boy hesitantly smiled back and shook hands. He was eight years old now, and was very pleased to be treated like an adult. He took after his mother more than his father, a sturdy boy with sandy blond hair and gray eyes, of fairly average height for his age. The only sign that Aidan had fathered him was the pair of white-feathered wings on his back. He had them folded now, but Aidan could see that he had flight feathers this time. He hadn't had them when Aidan had last been there roughly two years previous.

"Looks like you've come into your flight feathers," said Aidan.

A sullen look crossed the boy's face. "Yes."

Aidan raised an inquisitive eyebrow and looked over at Shauna.

"That's part of the reason why I'm so glad to see you," she said. "He ought to be able to fly by now, but he refuses to even try."

"I see." Aidan looked back at his son. The boy was glaring at him, radiating a kind of aggressive tension. Aidan smiled. "Well, no point in tackling that right now. We only just arrived. We can talk about it some other time." A little bit of the tension went out of Damien at that. Aidan had a suspicion he knew what lay behind the boy's refusal, but it would take a little time to sort it out, and he and Flame had only just landed.

"Yes. Here, I've gotten the guest room ready for you. Come on." Shauna opened the door of her house and went inside with Aidan and Flame Song trailing behind her. They had both been slightly uncomfortable with it the first time they'd visited, but Shauna had insisted that they stay with her and not at the inn. And although she didn't bother to hide how much she liked Aidan, she had done nothing at all beyond smiles and hugs, which had eventually set them both at ease. She insisted on cooking for them as well, and by the time the light started to fade they were gathered in the kitchen.

"I like to think I'm a fairly good cook," said Shauna.

"I think that you are one," said Flame. "This is excellent."

Damien didn't say anything, he was too busy eating.

Aidan chuckled. "It almost makes me sad I can't join you," he said. He was sitting at the table with them, but there was no plate in front of him.

"Almost?" Shauna looked curious.

Aidan shrugged. "I'm quite happy with my own means of gaining sustenance."

"I would think it would get kind of boring."

"It hasn't so far. And the other benefits are more than worth it, most of the time."

"So if you could go back to being alive, I mean alive like most people are, you wouldn't?"

Aidan considered this. "I'm not sure, actually... Probably not though. If I weren't a vampire I'd have died several times by now. Maybe I wouldn't have taken those risks if I'd still been alive in the normal sense, but maybe I would have."

Damien had stopped eating and was looking at Aidan with a peculiar intensity. When Aidan looked back, he dropped his eyes and went back to his food. I wonder what that's all about? I think I need to talk to him. There's something going on there...

The next morning Aidan got his chance to speak alone with his son. He rose an hour or so after sunrise, yawning hugely. He disliked being awake during the day, but he didn't feel he could ask Shauna and Damien to turn their lives upside down just because he was visiting. Flame was up already, she tended to be an early riser. He heard her voice coming from the kitchen, and Shauna's in reply. The two of them got along better than he could have hoped, really. He didn't hear anyone else in the house, and his hearing was sharp enough that if he concentrated he could hear somebody breathing in the next room. But there was nothing but silence. He dressed and went out the back door, to where a somewhat unkempt yard stretched back and blended into the forest behind.

Damien was sitting on a stump, no longer looking sullen, but not looking particularly cheerful either. He was whittling, though he didn't seem to be making anything, just slowly reducing a stick to splinters with a small knife. Aidan walked over and sat down wordlessly next to him. It was a large, broad stump, so there was room for two. After a little bit he said, "I used to whittle a lot when I was about your age. I never was any good at it though. I have a friend who carves all sorts of interesting things, but all I ever did was make a mess."

Damien looked over at him. He smiled just a little. "I'm not really any good either."

A long silence stretched out, but it was no longer particularly uncomfortable. After a while Aidan said, "Think there's another stick around here? I don't have anything else to do, and I'd like to join you."

"I don't have another one, but there's always lots in the woods." He gestured to the forest.

Aidan nodded. "Guess I'll be back then." He got up and walked to the forest. He only had to go a short way before finding a dead branch. He snapped off a length and wandered back to where Damien sat. He sat down again and pulled out his boot dagger. The larger ones he wore at his belt would be a bit awkward for carving with, but the small, single-edged blade was just right. There was another long silence.

"Do you always have those knives?" asked Damien eventually.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Why?"

Aidan shrugged. "I got into the habit. I did some fighting, and even after I stopped that they were always useful, so I just started always carrying them."

"You fought?"

Aidan nodded. "A few times. I'm not really a fighter though."

Damien was silent for a time, then, "I couldn't ever," he said quietly. "My mom did, but... I couldn't ever."

"Why?" asked Aidan gently. He had a sudden memory then, of the old aerian Thomas coaxing reluctant answers out of him when he'd been young. Though not as young as Damien. He He felt sometimes as though he'd never been as young as Damien was.

Damien didn't answer right away. Then he said, almost whispering it, "Because I'm afraid."

A half dozen stock answers came to mind, trite reassurances that everyone was afraid sometimes, but Aidan didn't say any of them. He suspected the boy may have already heard them all. "Is being afraid a bad thing?" he said.

Damien gave him a look that said "What, are you stupid?" as clearly as words. "Yes."

"Why?"

Damien blinked. Why? He thought about it. "Because Mom isn't afraid."

Aidan couldn't keep from laughing softly. "No. She isn't. But most people aren't like your mother."

"You're not afraid!" said Damien.

Aidan shook his head. "I'm afraid all the time."

Damien gave him a disbelieving look. "No way. You said you fought! Like... fighting goblins and monsters and things! And you... you're a vampire, people are afraid of you!"

"Yes way," said Aidan with a smile. "And yes, I did fight, but I was scared out of my mind when I did, especially at first. I've been scared so many times I can't count them. Scared of being hurt, scared of dying, scared of something happening to my family, I've been scared for most of my life. I was even scared of vampires, once. Heck, I was scared of high places and scared of flying when I was younger."

"You were?"

Aidan nodded. "Yes. I wanted to fly so badly that eventually I tried it anyhow, but I was very scared the first time I did."

"I'm scared of flying too," said Damien. "Mom says I shouldn't be, that aerians aren't supposed to be, but I am."

"I don't know if aerians are supposed to be or not, but I sure was," said Aidan.

"How did you fly then?"

"I wanted to be sure the wings would work," he said, "so I jumped off of a wall, just a little low one, maybe three feet high. It was low enough that I would be okay if they didn't, but they did, I glided down. So I tried something a little higher, and then something a little higher than that. And I kept doing that until I wasn't scared any more. And eventually I learned how to take off from the ground, though that's hard to do at first, your wings aren't strong enough yet."

Damien was silent again for a while, thinking. "I think I could do that."

"I'm sure you could," said Aidan. "If a little runt like me can do it, anybody can."

Damien gave him another disbelieving look. "You're not a runt."

"Sure I am. I'm only taller than you because you're just eight. When you're grown you'll probably tower over me. Everybody else does. I used to get teased about it all the time, but I don't mind so much any more."

"The other kids tease me too. They call me names. They..." he trailed off and looked over at Aidan. "They make fun of my wings, and they call me 'bastard' because I don't have a dad."

Aidan flinched. "I'm sorry. It's not your fault I can't stay here and be a real father for you, and you shouldn't have to suffer because of me. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I know your other kids are more important than I am."

Aidan flinched again, looking pained. He put his hand on Damien's shoulder. "Damien, they're not more important. I care about you just as much as I care about any of them. You're my son, even if I can't be here for you. But I love my wife too much, I can't leave her. I like your mother, she's a good friend, but she's not my wife. I wish I could stay here and be with you, I really do. I'm sorry."

"Maybe you could come more often?" said Damien.

Aidan sighed. "I should. None of my excuses for not coming more often are really any good. I'm sorry."

Damien giggled. "Mom was right, you say 'I'm sorry' too much."

Aidan reddened. "Heh. Yeah, I suppose I do. Guess I shouldn't say that I'm sorry for doing it though, should I?"

Damien giggled again.

There was another long, comfortable silence. Aidan had carved something that might, if one were being charitable, look like a dog's head, or possibly a duck, on the end of his stick. Damien had turned about half of his into splinters. After quite a long time he looked over at Aidan and said, "What is it really like?" That odd intensity was back in his eyes.

"What is what really like?"

"Being... well.... you know, being dead."

"I'm not really 'dead' but I get what you mean." He looked at Damien. The boy seemed to really want to know. "I don't know if I can explain it. Mostly it's just like being alive is, I'm not all that different. Sometimes it's really different, but it's hard to describe."

"If it's not all that different, then why do people make such a big deal about it?"

"Why do people make a big deal about you having wings? People don't always like anything that's different, even if it's not much. Aerians are different. Vampires are different. And some vampires are very, very evil. They've done things that have given the rest of us a bad reputation."

"Like what?"

Aidan shrugged. He wasn't going to go into graphic detail for the boy, but trying to shelter him from even the idea of evil would be futile. "Killing people. Torturing people and then killing them. Taking blood from people who were unwilling. Turning people who didn't want to be into vampires too."

"Is that what happened to you?"

Aidan nodded. "Yes."

"Were you... were you afraid, when it happened?"

Aidan thought back to that night, and he felt a shiver go through him. He shifted his wings with a soft rustle of feathers. "Yes. More than I've ever been afraid of anything. It still scares me sometimes. I had nightmares about it for a long time after."

Damien was silent for a long time. Then he asked, "Did it hurt?"

"Yes. Pretty badly. Though mostly it wasn't physical pain. It was emotional pain."

"Huh?"

"It hurts, in a way, when somebody teases you, right?" Damien nodded. "Well, when a vampire bites somebody, it makes a kind of connection. The vampire can feel what you are feeling, and you can feel what he is feeling. If you both like each other, then that can be very nice. I've bitten your mother before, and I don't think she minded it." He smiled. The pain of that memory was very nearly gone by now. He still wouldn't have done it, if he had it to do over, but if he hadn't done it, he never would have had Damien, and he would regret not having the boy almost as much as he regretted betraying his wife. "But if the vampire who bites you hates you, then you can feel that too, and it hurts. It hurts the way getting teased hurts, only even more."

"That's really weird."

Aidan laughed. "Yeah, it is."

"So if you bit me, I'd feel what you were feeling?"

Aidan nodded.

Damien considered that in silence for a long time. "Do you ever bite people?"

Aidan tried to think how to answer that. "Well... I never bite anybody who doesn't want me to. But remember I said I'd bitten your mother. And my wife... we share blood quite often."

"Why? I don't think I'd want to get bit by somebody!"

He smiled. "Because of the connection. That's how I know, for certain, that my wife loves me. And I guess it's also the reason I don't live here," he added a bit more soberly. "I know that your mother likes me a lot, she cares for me, but she doesn't love me. She certainly loves you though." He smiled again.

Damien had stopped whittling. He looked down at the remnants of his stick, unseeing. "It would be nice," he said at length, "to know that somebody loved me."

Aidan blinked. "I'm sure your mother does," he said.

"I guess. Do... do you love me?"

Aidan felt a stab of pain. He wished yet again that he could be here, could be a real father to his son. "Yes I do. Very much."

"Then why can't you stay? Why do you have to leave?" Damien burst out. He looked angry, and hurt, and Aidan felt another stab to see that he was crying. He put his arm around Damien's shoulders.

"I do love you, Damien. I want to stay. But I have to choose. I can't be in two places at once. If I stayed here, than my four other children would be alone. And if I stayed here, I would miss my wife very much."

"Can't you just all come here, and live here?"

Aidan sighed. He'd thought about doing just that. But though Flame liked Shauna well enough, and didn't mind these visits, he knew she wouldn't be happy to live next to her, to have that reminder of his betrayal always present. "We can't."

"But why?!"

Aidan shook his head. "I'm not sure I can explain. I love you very much, but my wife... I love her just as much, and my other children just as much, and they wouldn't be happy here. I'm sorry."

"I don't believe you!" Damien was still crying, and now he shrugged off Aidan's arm and stood. "I don't believe you."

Aidan looked up at him. "I'm sorry. I wish I could prove it to you, but I don't know how I can. I'll come as often as I can, I do promise that."

"You could prove it," said Damien. "If... if you bit me, I'd know, right?"

"I couldn't do that!" said Aidan, surprised. "And didn't you say you didn't want to be bitten?"

Damien suddenly sat down again, no longer angry, but the tears were still trickling down his face. "I don't," he said in a sobbing whisper. "I don't. But I just want to know. The other kids... they said you weren't real, and that if you were you didn't want me, or you'd stay. They said that vampires can't love anybody anyhow, and if you were really one then you wouldn't care about me."

Aidan looked at the boy. He couldn't possibly! But he wanted to show his son that he loved him almost as much as his son wanted to be shown. Perhaps... He considered. Then he sighed softly. "All right. I won't bite you, I don't think that would be right, and your mother would kill me. But there is something we can do."

Damien sniffled. "What?"

"Have you ever heard of blood brothers?" He suddenly remembered a book he'd read long, long ago.

"Yeah... That's when you both cut your hands, and then touch them, and then it's like you're really brothers."

Aidan nodded. "We can do something like that, and it will work just as if I'd bit you. But with less bleeding. Do you want to?"

"Yes!" His response was almost fierce.

"All right." Aidan picked up the knife he'd set aside. Whittling had no doubt dulled the edge a little, but the point was still razor sharp. "Hold out your hand."

"Is it gonna hurt?"

"Just a tiny bit, like a pin-prick. I'm just going to poke you with the tip and squeeze out a couple of drops. Is that okay?"

Damien nodded. "Yeah." Aidan could hear that his heart was racing, but he looked determined. He takes after his mother, he thought with a smile. He's decided what he wants, and now he's going to get it, come hell or high water. Damien held out his hand, and Aidan took his index finger, and with one quick motion pricked it with the very tip of the knife. Damien made a little sound of pain, but he didn't move. Aidan set the knife down and squeezed Damien's finger until a large drop had leaked out. He wasn't really completely certain if just the one drop would be enough, he'd never done it like this before, but it should work. He lifted the boy's hand to his lips and carefully sucked the drop off. He let Damien's hand go. The boy looked at it curiously. Then his eyes went wide. It was working.

The connection wasn't particularly strong, and Aidan suspected that was a good thing, given how strong his own feelings tended to be, and how young Damien was. He could sense his son, his mind clean and simple. He was a little afraid, and a little confused, but mostly he was hurting and lonely. Aidan put his arm around Damien's shoulders again and deliberately projected his love and caring.

Damien felt the connection too. A lot of what he felt was confusing and strange. There were so many different things, all jumbled in together. But then he felt a kind of glow reaching out to him, surrounding him in warmth. He looked up at Aidan, disbelieving. Aidan smiled down at him and hugged him closer, and the glow grew even stronger. He turned to Aidan and buried his face in his chest. Aidan put both arms around him and held him tightly. "I do love you," Aidan said. "I love you very, very much, and I wish with all my heart that I could stay with you." As Aidan said it, Damien could feel, along with that glow, a sadness, huge and deep, and he realized that the sadness was because Aidan couldn't be with him. That he really meant it when he said he wanted to stay. He put his arms around his father and hugged him back, hard. Aidan stroked his hair and cradled him close.

After a minute or so he let go, and Damien sat up. Aidan fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to Damien. "Here. I wish I had two, but I'm afraid there's just the one, and you can have it. It looks like you need to blow your nose, so I'd rather not share!"

Damien giggled, and sniffed a little. He looked up and saw that Aidan's cheeks were tear-stained, but he was smiling. And he could still feel it, feel that Aidan was happy. Aidan wiped his cheeks off with the back of his hand. Damien used the handkerchief. "This is weird," he said.

Aidan chuckled. Damien could feel that too. "Yes it is."

"How long does it last?"

"It depends. Probably not too long. Less than half an hour, I'd say." He picked up his knife and put it away in its hidden sheath. "I'd ask if you're doing okay," he said with a smile, "but it looks like you are."

"Yeah. I... I dunno, I'm glad. I'm still gonna be sad when you go, and I still am gonna get teased I'm sure, but I know now."

Aidan shook his head. "You're quite the kid," he said, and Damien could feel a different sort of glow at that. "I'm proud of you."

Damien blushed, not knowing what to say.

"And as far as the teasing goes, I can tell you that eventually it ends. Though unfortunately not for quite a while yet. I was teased too, when I was younger."

"About your wings?"

Aidan shook his head. "No, about my height. When I was your age, I came up to about here." He put his hand at Damien's shoulder. "I've always been really short. I don't know why, my parents weren't that short. I just am. I've probably heard every short person joke that anybody's ever made up ever. It used to hurt a lot." Damien was a little surprised. He could feel Aidan's memory of it, and it was just the way he felt when the kids called him "bastard" and "chicken-wings" and all those other names.

"It hurt you a lot," he said.

Aidan nodded. "Yes it did. I really hated the teasing, and I really, really hated being short. I would have given anything to be able to be tall! But I never did get tall. And some of the other things they called me..."

"Like what?"

"Uh..." Aidan reddened. Damien giggled. He could feel that too, and it felt weird. Aidan laughed. "You're terrible! Anyhow, they said I was gay, mostly."

"Oh. Nobody's said that to me."

Aidan chuckled. "Well, you don't look like a girl."

Damien giggled again. "Neither do you!"

"I did when I was younger. Well, I didn't really look like a boy, anyhow, and that was enough. Kids can be really cruel."

Damien nodded. "Yeah."

Aidan looked up at the clear sky above. "You know... I've never talked like this with any of my other children."

"You haven't? Why not?" Damien was surprised.

Aidan shrugged. "I suppose because they are always there, and I think I take them for granted. I love them a lot, as I've said. But I don't always remember that I need to show them that. And..." the bond was starting to fade, but Damien could tell Aidan was a little uncomfortable. "I've certainly never shared blood with any of them." He looked over at Damien, sensing Damien's own uncertainty at his emotions. "I'm not sorry I did with you. I'm just worried that if your mother finds out, she's going to kill me. Or make me wish she had. She can be very... determined."

Damien giggled. "I won't tell."

Aidan grinned. "Thank you!"

They sat together in silence. The last of the bond faded between them. Aidan picked up his stick again, pulled his knife back out, and started trying to make his dog look less like a duck. Damien lay back on the flat surface of the stump and looked at the sky. After a while Aidan asked, "Do you have any friends here?"

Damien shook his head. "Not really."

"I do promise I'll come more often," he said. "As often as I possibly can. And... maybe you could come visit me some time."

Damien sat up and his eyes lit up at that. "Really?"

"Yes! If your mother will let you, anyhow. I've made the trip to the northlands with my other kids often enough, it's safe. Just long!"

Damien's face fell a little. "Will your other kids like me?"

Aidan smiled. "Well... Dart is a little bit unpredictable, but I'm sure the others will. I know Ariana is curious about you. She's my oldest, she's fifteen now and taller than I am! Then there's the twins, Dart and Flare. Though they'll be taking their adult names this year." At Damien's puzzled look he explained, "It's a tradition from my wife's family. Children are given temporary names when they're born and when they're twelve they pick the name they want to use as an adult, and their child name becomes just a nickname."

"Oh. That's kind of neat."

Aidan nodded "And the youngest is Shade, she's five. So you're in between her and the twins."

Damien nodded.

Aidan decided to change the subject. "Would you like me to help you learn to fly?"

"Yeah!" Damien looked a little bit excited, but also a little nervous. There was no trace of his earlier sullenness.

"We could start right now. I see there's a stump over there that you could probably jump off of." Aidan gestured towards the back of the yard, where there were several tree stumps, including one that was perhaps waist high on the boy. Damien looked at it. He hesitated, then nodded.

"Okay."

They both got up and walked over to the stump. Damien looked at it. It wasn't that tall, it should be easy, right? He scrambled up onto it. He looked down and gulped. From up here it looked a lot further down.

"Spread out your wings," said Aidan. Damien nodded and extended them. It felt a little weird, he almost always kept them folded. "Excellent," said Aidan. "All you have to do is keep them spread like that. The wind is going to try and push them back when you jump, so remember to hold them in place, don't let them fold back. Okay?"

Damien looked down again.

"It's scary, I know. It scared me just as much. But you can do it. Even if you don't fly, you'll be okay, it's not as high as it looks. Your feet are a lot lower than your eyes, right?"

Damien laughed a little at that. "Right." He took a deep breath, reminded himself to keep his wings straight, and jumped.

It was more like a fall than a flight, but it was a gentler fall, and he actually glided forward just a little. His feet hit the ground with a thud, but not nearly so hard as he had been expecting. He looked over at Aidan, who was grinning back. "You did it!"

"Yeah! I did!"

"Do you want to try that again, or do you want to try something higher?"

"I think I could try something higher," he said.

Aidan looked around. A stone wall ran along one side of the yard, separating it from the neighbor's property. It hadn't been well kept up, and one end was starting to fall down, but most of it was sound. "How about that?" he said, pointing.

Damien looked nervous again, the wall was chest height on Aidan, and was nearly as tall as he was. But he remembered the feel of that short glide. He could do this. Aidan cupped his hands together and boosted Damien up onto the wall. He scrambled up and got to his feet, balancing carefully on the foot-wide top. He looked down and swallowed. He was so high! He suddenly wanted something to cling to.

"It's okay," said Aidan softly. "I'll stand right here. If you fly successfully you'll just glide on past, and if you fall, I'll be right here and I'll catch you."

"Okay." Damien swallowed again, and opened his wings. He didn't take any more time, he got the feeling that if he thought about it too long he'd just scare himself out of it. He jumped. For an instant he dipped, he'd forgotten about the push of the wind, but he straightened his wings almost as soon as they pushed back, and he glided down to the ground. His landing this time was even softer than the one before.

"Wow. That was really like flying!"

Aidan grinned. "Yes it was. You're doing better than I did! I think I spent about an hour sitting on top of a wall, trying to talk myself into jumping."

"What next?"

"Well, we can look for something higher, or we can go all the way up and really do some flying."

"All the way up?"

"I can carry you up and let you glide down from high enough that you'll be able to learn how to get lift, how to turn, and how to do everything else you need to do to really fly."

"What if I don't though? What if I do something wrong? If I'm that high, wouldn't it kill me if I fell?"

Aidan shook his head. "We won't be going just above the tress, we'd be going up above the lower clouds. From that high if you fall, there will be time enough for me to catch you. I'll fly right next to you, and if anything happens I'll be right there."

Damien hesitated a moment, then he nodded. "I want to fly, to really fly."

Aidan grinned. "You're very brave."

"I'm scared stiff! But I want to do it anyhow."

Aidan chuckled at that. "That's what bravery is, you know. It's not really being brave to do something that doesn't scare you. Is it brave to put on your shoes in the morning? Being brave is being scared stiff and doing it anyhow."

"Oh." Damien had never thought of it like that before.

"Let's go. If I'm going to carry you, we're going to have to get a high start. I can't take off from the ground with the extra weight." He looked around. "Can you get up onto the roof?"

Damien giggled. "Yes. Mom hates it when I do, but you can go out the attic window and then climb up."

"And here I thought you were afraid of high places. What are you doing on the roof if you are?"

"It's kind of scary, but not as bad when it's big like the roof is. And I like climbing things. Though I got stuck once. I was too scared to get down. Mom had to get a ladder. She was really mad."

Aidan chuckled. "Well, she said she wants you to learn how to fly, so hopefully she won't be mad at me for taking you up there. Show me how to get there."

Damien led the way through the house and up the stairs to the attic. Small dormer windows ran along both sides of the large open room. Damien went over to the nearest one and slid it open. He climbed out onto the shingled roof. Aidan was glad of his small build, he only just barely fit through the window. Damien had already scrambled up to the peak of the roof and was sitting on it. Aidan carefully climbed up after him. He looked out from his perch and nodded. It would be high enough. "Right. We'll need to take off from the end." Damien nodded. He didn't get to his feet but crawled along the roof until he was close to the edge. He stopped there, looking nervous again. Aidan carefully picked his way after him. He rested his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You'll have to stand up. I've got you, you won't fall."

Damien nodded and slowly got to his feet.. Aidan put his arms around the boy from behind. "Okay. I'm going to go as high as I can. When you're ready, I'll let you go. You're going to fall for just a second, because you'll have your wings closed when I drop you. Spread them out, and they'll naturally straighten you and you should be gliding. Once we've gotten that far, the rest will be easy!"

Damien just nodded.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

Aidan jumped forward, beating his wings hard from the moment his feet left the roof. He sank at first all the same, but once he got up a little speed he started getting some real lift. Thankfully there was a modest thermal, and he was able to take advantage of it to spiral up. He kept going until he could tell the air was beginning to get colder. He could go much, much higher than that, but then he didn't need to breathe.

"You ready?" he asked.

Damien found that somehow this was less frightening than the wall had been. Maybe because the ground didn't even look real from this height. "Yes!"

"Right. Here you go." Aidan let go. Damien fell straight down, and for an instant he was utterly terrified. He was falling! Aidan dived down after him, worried that the boy wouldn't remember to spread his wings, but a second later he did. They jerked at his shoulders with the force of the wind, but he kept them open... and just like that he was flying! He laughed in delight. He was flying! Really flying! He tried turning to one side, and there was a lurching moment when he thought he might fall again, but he leveled out once more, having managed to turn a little. He looked over and saw Aidan flying only a few yards away. "You did it!" said Aidan with a grin.

"Yes!"

"See if you can climb a little. The air here is rising, you should be able to. Try circling."

He turned again, and this time he didn't drop, he managed the turn smoothly. Soon he was circling upwards, Aidan following close behind.

They flew for what seemed like forever, but eventually Damien's wings started to ache. He dipped down. He thought about diving, but that was still a little too scary. So he circled instead, spilling the air from his wings to let himself sink almost without thinking now. He could see his house below, and he aimed for it, wanting to land right in front of it. Aidan followed after him. Damien had a moment of not knowing what to do as the ground came up, and he stumbled a little on landing, but it wasn't too bad.

Aidan landed next to him, in the street in front of his house, and hugged Damien hard. "You did it! I'm so proud of you!"

Damien smiled up at him and hugged him back. "Thanks Dad."

Damien turned and ran into the house, yelling "Mom! Mom! I flew!" Aidan smiled and went after him. He loved all of his children, but he had always felt a little odd about Damien. There was regret in with his love; the wish, however small and deeply hidden, that the boy's conception had never happened, that he had never been born. But now... If I had it to do over again, I think I would do it the same way, he though to himself, feeling amazed that he could possibly think such a thing. I couldn't possibly be prouder of any of my children. Damien is special, having him in my life is worth all the pain.

The End.

Father and Son