The Limestone City Bat

by Seeking Dusk


Snapshots 5: Wings of... Something

Robin was honestly surprised with how quickly his wounds had healed up. While nothing tore, the scratches had still been bad. Despite that, his wings were back in top condition. No minor itching or stinging when he moved them. Not even scars. It at least gave him hope for the plan. Of course, hope might have been the fuel for bad ideas, but even Jade was on the fence about this idea.

“Jade, run me though the check list again?” Robin called to her.

Jade frowned and sighed, but fumbled for the clipboard that she stashed by her seat. Managing to perch it on the yoke, she ran a hoof down it as she called out the items. “Harness?”

“Check!” Robin said, tugging at the high-end dog body harness they found in PetSmart.

“Safety padding?” She called next.

Robin pushed and tugged at the knee and elbow pads strapped to all legs, and then at the helmet on his head. They even found one that didn’t crush his ears, gaps big enough for them to poke through. “Check!”

“Um… unen… unencumbered?” Jade tilted her head and frowned at Robin with a faintly bemused expression. “Why is this a word?”

“It means free. That my wings aren’t blocked by anything,” Robin called back, testing the movement of his wings. He gave her a thumbs-up with one of them. “Also, check.”

“Then why not just write that? ‘Unencumbered’…” Robin could make out Jade grumbling. She fluffed her own wings, probably jealous of the thumbs, but continued. “Skates?”

Robin was proud of that one. He took a set of rollerblades, cut them up, then bolted them to a set of hoofboots. It wasn’t the easiest thing to balance on them, even with four legs. Wheels meant they were all wanting to move. But they were vital. He shuffled a little in place. “All four good!”

“Line and safety?” Jade called. She checked the line on her end as he did the same to the one linked to his harness. “Good here.”

“Good here too!” Robin beamed at her and pulled the googles down over his eyes. “Let’s do this!”

Jade shook her head. The idea was understandably crazy. Robin, wearing skates, would tether himself to the back of Jade’s ATV Mona. Robin was half convinced the only reason Jade helped so eagerly was because he got her an ATV for herself.

“Alright, Nightwing!” Jade put her own helmet on. The ATV rumbled to life. “Let’s get you in the air!”

It worked for hang gliders, it worked for parasailers, it should work for him, right? That was Robin’s logic. Jade already proved their wings didn’t make sense and could somehow lift her an inch off the ground if she worked them. Why not with a boost?

Robin started moving, shuffling awkwardly down the street, towards the ATV. Jade started moving off too. The dogs were barking happily, trotting along keeping pace. In a little time, he felt the rope tugging at his chest and dragging him along faster than he could shuffling on his own.

Robin focused on keeping his balance as he dragged a long, but he couldn’t help laughing a little at the sheer audacity of the idea. His wings twitched at his sides, flaring ever so slightly, catching the air while also helping him stay upright as houses passed by faster and faster.

“How are you doing, Nightwing!” Jade called, casting a look over her shoulder. They still had plenty of straight road ahead of them, so he didn’t even have to worry about corner.

“Faster!” He yelled back to her, a weird thrill and excitement bubbling in his gut. “Go faster!”

Jade did. It would have been a most bizarre sight to anyone watching. A tiny orange pony on an ATV speeding along the road dragging a larger pony with the ropes tied to the harness around his barrel.

Robin stretched his wings out fully, and for a moment it was like when you stuck your hand out the window and felt the air tugging at it. Then it changed. He could feel the wind ticking and caressing his wings in ways that were right, irritating, confusing, tingling and wrong all at the same time. The same amount of emotions ran through his head and he found himself subconsciously, no, consciously following those feelings, angling and flexing his wings so the wrongness was reduced and the rightness increased.

Something whispered to him. Just under that strange bubbling excitement and eagerness was something else. A different gut feeling, one that he didn’t really felt a lack until this moment when that whisper seemed to rouse it.

He flapped. Once. Twice. A few times, getting used to the feeling.

Weightlessness seemed to try and hold him and he felt his hooves, or the wheels on them, suddenly lighter on the ground.

“Faster!” He yelled again, a tone of desperation and wild abandon in his voice.

“If you say so!” Jade yelled back, concern but anticipation in hers. There was a revving of the engine as her ATV lunged.

Robin spread his wings further than he had before, feeling the wind brush at his membranes with the fingers at their full extension. He closed his eyes, lost in the feeling, leaving forward a bit, tilting his wings, then back.

The ground fell away beneath his hooves. The whisper grew more intimate and overjoyed, welcoming and encouraging. Some instinct had him pull his legs in, tucking them to his barrel and out behind him as the wind, the Wind held him aloof, air fluttering past his fluffy ears, tail streaming behind him in it and his wings, at their full span, riding it.

“Nightwing!” He half heard the yell beneath him. “Nightwing! You’re flying!”

Robin flew. He didn’t quite understand what the whisper was saying, or what the Wind was trying to tell him from what he could feeling coming from his wings, but his analytical side but things together. He angled his wings and cupped them slightly based on what he read on both bats flying and airplanes. For a few moments, he felt slack on the rope and knew he was flying, or at least gliding, on his own effort.

He opened his eyes and the world was different. The ground was below him. Most of it was beneath him. To the west, his left, the sun’s last rays were waving at him. To the east the colours of the night were already claiming the horizon. Below Jade was yelling jubilations as she split her attention between keeping her ATV going straight and watching the impossible happen.

Around him, it was as if the Sky was welcoming him, pleased that someone new had found a place in her embrace.

“GO NIGHTWING! WOOOHOOOO!” Jade practically screamed, waving a hoof in the air in mad enthusiasm. Behind them, outpaced by the ATV but still chasing, the dogs barked their own excitement.

For the first time, the name ‘Nightwing’ didn’t just feel like a nickname he accepted to make a friend content. It felt right. Like he was claiming something that was his all along. Should have been. Always was.

He flapped gently, loosing himself to feeling, before screaming his own excitement as the bubbling emotions exploded. “YEAAAAAAAH!!!”

The rush didn’t fade, not even when they reached the end of the road and Jade was forced to hit the brakes and Robin, having no idea how landing was supposed to work properly, crashed into the safety net, which they raided from a few trampoline sets, strung up across the road. There was a dicey moment when he crashed into it, but the stakes they drove into the light posts and ground with much difficult held. Robin hit with a whump and tumbled down the net to the ground, laughing all the way.

“Nightwing, that was awesome!” Jade yelled at the base of the angled netting where and the crash pads that lay at the base. Her own wings buzzing with excitement but she calmed herself, at least a little, watching Robin sprawl on the mats, still laughing. “Um, you okay?”

“Holy crap, we need to do that again!” Robin, Nightwing gasped out at her, still basking in that moment when he was freed from the ground. He tried to get up and winced when something in his left hindleg protested. He got up anyway, favouring the others. “Not now though… ow…”

“Still, you flew, Nightwing!” Jade emphasised the point. She pointed to the outdoor camera also set on the back of her ATV. “You actually were flying! I got it on camera and everything! What was it like? Do you think I can go next time?”

Robin laughed again and leaned partially against Jade and partially against her ATV. The dogs had caught up and were yipping excitedly, darting around them. Nightwing smiled and sighed, tilting his head and looking up at the darkening sky, the first stars starting to twinkle. The evening breeze ruffled his mane a little and tugged at his wing and he half imagined he could hear it calling again. “It… it was like nothing else, Jade.”


Hey Cellie!

It’s been a while, huh? A couple days well. Weeks actually. We had stuff doing and I kept forgetting to get back to you. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I suck.

But get this. I flew today. I legitimately flew. Well, mostly. Me and Jade, well, mostly me, have been working on it for the past few days. Jade and I. Some rope and some netting and about four kilometers of straight road.

We named Jade’s ATV Mona, by the way. Like Montana. But she got me in the air, like an assisted take off and…

I don’t know how to describe it, Cellie. It was… an experience. It’s like… you know when you finally meet a family member you’ve sorta heard about for a long while but only just met? I don’t know… It was an experience. I just…

When I was up their something felt right. Something in me said it was right. Dammit I’m normally good with words, but this time it’s hard to pin it down.

*rattling sound and shuffling paper*

For a moment, it was like a part of me accomplished something it was supposed to.

Anyway, it was awesome! We got the whole thing on camera, one of those outdoor ones with the bending legs. Jade’s already hounding me to let her try but for some reason I don’t think she’s ready.

Oh, I suck at landing. Think I might have pulled or strained something in my back left leg. Sheesh that’s a mouthful. Back left leg… Anyway, I’m still limping a bit. And this was with the safety net we set up. Thank God Jade came up with the idea to put it on a slope so I’d roll down and not just fall.

Anyway, I plan to try again as soon as my leg’s better.

See ya Later, Cellie!