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Tommy never thought there’d be a day he’d be happy to feel his feet on the ground. Well, less his feet, more his entire body as he practically crash landed, face first, into the dirt.
Great fucking day , He remarks to himself, lifting his head so that his cheek is not smashed against mud.
The island he lands on is hardly an island but a platform. It’s small, so small that he can pace to the other side of it in less than a couple seconds. It’s also completely barren, save for a singular tree, some shrubbery and bramble scattered around, and obscured in a shadow casted by the much larger islands at higher elevations on either sides of it. Quaint and discreet. Makes for a good temporary spot for Tommy to catch his breath and hide out.
Tommy scrambles to his feet, using his elbows to push himself upwards, hissing as hot white pain crackles across his body.
He’s aching and bruised, inside and out. Yet he can’t help but be grateful for the pain. Because that is a sure-tell sign that he landed. It means he’s alive and did not plummet to an untimely, young death. Sure, maybe he crushed some bones in the process, but they’re bones he’s still allowed to be worried about, instead of bones he wouldn’t be aware he had if he was cold and dead. Clouds, silver linings, and whatnot. Tommy was always taught to stay positive.
Beneath him, the ground sways, blurring and unblurring as he stumbles further across the ground. He slinks to the tree, halfway to collapse, and slumps against it, pressing head and folded wings against rough bark. It's a bit chilly today. His hands feel clammy. Maybe it’s the blood lost. From through the thin leaves of the tree overhead, he watches silver-armored Sky guards gliding, barking unintelligible orders, probably in search of him.
God, his head rings— he feels hungover and shattered. That landing was seriously a bitch. The worst of his life. He’d been doing better ones since he was six, when he first gained mastery of the sky. If he was in any less urgency, he surely would’ve flown back to where he started and corrected this embarrassment of a landing.
Tommy lives to fly, after all. To an almost unhealthy degree. He was born in the sky— on a floating fucking island— and never quite came down from that.
All the children of Eden are born in the sky, and all of them will come to learn to thrive in it. But Tommy even more so than the rest. This was because Tommy came out of the womb floating and has hated being on the floor since. Feeling the soles of his feet against solid ground made him antsy, as if there was something inside of body that was pushing— crawling— beneath his skin, trying to get out. And it’s only the moments when he’s in aerial suspension, that he is truly liberated in himself.
So he spends most of his time in the sky, until he not just flew but soared. His aerial skills are the stuff of dreams. Where other people are merely light on their feet— Tommy is weightless. He flows so seamlessly with the wind, the currents are like another part of his body.
Which is why that crash was so embarrassing. In any other scenario, there is no way the sky would betray Tommy and Tommy would fall.Tommy doesn’t do falling . It simply isn’t in his blood.
Though, this time was different, he supposes.
Yes, flying is easy. But it is less so when your greatest fear while doing it isn’t falling out the sky but having a god’s arrow shoot through your back. Maybe Tommy never falls, but he sure as hell can get impaled by flying projectiles.
Moreover, there was the importance of just who was shooting the arrow.
He’d only been hit by one. Well, not quite hit, but more like snared in the lower wing. It drew no blood, but snipped a couple patches of feathers off his right wing, leaving him vaguely unbalanced and thoroughly terrified.
The other shots had all missed, so that meant they were not Techno’s , who never misses. But the one that landed? The one that aimed to neither kill or maim him?
Well, at that moment, Tommy could only remember the ice cold feeling that his brother was after him too. It really threw him off his game, caused him to freeze up, and the next thing he knew, he was crashing. Yes, this embarrassment of a flight is Techno’s fault, not his.
Tommy only hopes Techno isn’t too disappointed in him right now— his fugitive brother who stole godly fruit from the Goddess of Gods herself. Who fraternizes with humans and wishes to bring the magic of heaven down to them, so that they too can live a world without starvation.
Naive. Tommy knows that’s what Techno will say. And maybe he’s right. He probably is. Techno is always right.
But Tommy is willing to let himself be naive this time. Because he remembers the humans whose prayers he heard by chance while sneaking around the God’s Temple. There were cries. So many. Of agony, of sorrow. Who begged for mercy. Who begged for justice. Who begged for pity. It had shaken him to his core. One moment he was lounging in his paradise of ignorance above it all, and the next he couldn’t stop thinking about the bloodshed beneath him.
And to Tommy, who had so much and knew of his capabilities to alleviate suffering, if only for just one person? Well, the next thing he knew, he was stealing ambrosia from the Temple gardens and gliding in the air, evading projectiles, guards, and a guilty conscience. All coming at him at godly speeds.
Just then— interrupting his trail of thoughts— a sharp whoosh of wind scrapes past his ear. Tommy registers the sound before the sight of that piercing silver streak— an arrow had soared past him, past the tree, and down into the open air of endless void.
He’s been spotted.
Tommy sees the next arrow before he hears it.
He lurches forward, his body too sluggish to make controlled movement and tumbles into a roll to dodge. That was not the right call. God, he forgot how much damage his body already took from the crash landing— crying out before even feeling the excruciating pain. The movement crushed every bruise on his skin, scraped every open cut, and ripped at every joint that was already disjointed. He should’ve let the arrow pierce him— it would’ve hurt a whole lot less.
Gritting his teeth in pain, Tommy gives himself a moment to stumble away from the tree, slightly spreading his wings on either side in an attempt to balance his movement. His strength is waning, making way for the fatigue that’s been brewing in his muscles. He bumbles forth, pulling toward the edge of his rocky platform.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way Tommy should still be able to fly. Not with his battered, little body. Not with his unbalanced wings. Not with his bone aching fatigue.
Still, Tommy outstretches his wings. And in a half second of time, he’s bursting back into the sky, feeling the rippling winds scrape across his raw, cut-riddled skin as he accelerates in air.
It is fortunate that his wings remained relatively unscathed from his crash earlier. Though a handful of feathers are gone from Techno’s snaring arrow, no blood was drawn and his wings are not in pain like his legs and the rest of his body. Thankfully, he does not need his legs to fly. Not with the wind currents supporting him like another limb— one that he truthfully uses far more than his legs.
That’s the key to flight, after all. The understanding of the wind. It is important to flap your wings and push air downwards and back. But it is perhaps more important to understand its currents and ride along them. That is what gives the flight speed, duration, and most significantly, style .
As Tommy swoops in air, more projectiles come at him.
This time, it’s not arrows that come soaring, but weighted, iron spheres— it seems they plan to bludgeon him down from the sky. He shifts left and right, rotating his body lithely, so that the spheres rip past him. Several times he lands on smaller, floating debris scattered around larger, central islands, swooping down and propelling back up with more acceleration, much like a graceful dolphin in the sea.
The guards behind him do not make the same drops. And will not maintain his speed. Moreover, as they stray further and further from the heart of Eden and into the outer ring of islets, they will quickly be lost on Tommy’s tail. This is because Tommy knows the outer ring best. He trained his flight there after all, because of the dangerous, sporadic nature of its winds, despite how much Techno would scold him about it.
What if the winds sweep you up one day and you fall! The Techno in his memories scolds.
It was a foolish thing to yell about really. No force of nature could ever take Tommy out— he’d only go on his own terms.
Regardless, the wind currents in the outer ring of islands is nothing to sneer at. They will be strong. Projectiles will be blown away. And People will too if they don’t enter the currents at fast enough speeds to overpower them.
And so Tommy accelerates, swooping downwards through the clouds, shivering as the sleet clings to his skin.
The islands of Eden are surrounded by this ring of condensation. Past it is the wild sky, where the forces of nature are most raw and untouched by the gods of the island. That marks the outer rings of the island, and there’d be very few landing points from there.
As Tommy glides through the clouds, he can feel the winds pick up, and his flight become both faster and more volatile.
Surely, as expected, the moment the winds begin to swirl more madly, the amount of projectiles raining on him dwindles as well. Correlating, the amount of followers on Tommy’s tail also decreases, as the wind sweeps up several, throwing them like rag dolls in every direction. He can only hope they’d be alright.
Tommy however, pierces past the winds, throwing his head back almost leisurely and begins to laugh. He can’t help the exhilaration of both an intense chase and the fact he outclassed so many at once.
For a moment, a sense of safety washes over him, and he almost relaxes— as if he had finally won in the game of cat-mouse between him and his pursuers.
But then, breaking his peace, is another sphere that plunges through the sky and strikes him non-fatally on his shoulder.
He yelps, flight momentarily disturbed, but regains his stability with minimum difficulty despite the now sore shoulder.
An intentional strike. Harmless, yet strategic, aiming to slow him down, but not necessarily knock him over. A shot that did not miss .
Apprehension brews in his chest.
This much was to be expected.
Tommy is a prodigious aerialist, but it is only natural that the man who taught him how to fly in the first place— the original genius flyer— would be the one to keep pace with him.
There’s one more trailing him— right on his tail.
And that’s Techno.
Always Techno, who makes sure he doesn’t stray too far. Who tracks him down before Tommy makes a mistake he couldn’t undo.
Only, Tommy already did something that placed him too far away to come back home. And he is quite sure it isn’t a mistake. He doesn’t need Techno to hold his hand this time.
“Tommy!” A shout rips through the air then and Tommy slows for a moment, faltering.
Perhaps it is not Tommy himself that slows, but rather his body— his instincts. At that timbre, that pitch, that tone . It is so unmistakably and irrevocably Techno that the sudden temptation to turn and rush to his big brother flares. It's almost like a signal. When Techno calls to him— calls his name— Tommy’s baseline instinct tells him to run to Techno and bask in his attention.
Oh, who was he kidding? Doesn’t need Techno? To hold his hand? To fix his fuck ups? He always needs Techno.
Techno fixes his fuck ups quite often, doesn’t he? When Tommy flew through a Temple window, crashing and destroying the stained glass image of the Goddess he never really liked,Techno had been the one to piece it back together shard by shard until his fingers bled. It was Techno who went to the Temple priest and kneeled until he forgave Tommy.
Tommy bites his lip as a feeling of unpleasantness brews in his chest. He knows Techno will bow his head again. Apologize again for Tommy’s treasonous actions to whatever higher up that aim to put his head on a pike. And he despises that thought.
Resolved, Tommy speeds up, aiming to leave Techno in his trail. He won’t let Techno bow again for a perceived mistake.
Because Tommy is a person who can do things with conviction. He can do things of importance— that matter more than that singular moment of disappointment and apologies. He can do something that shares no half part responsibility with Techno, but full part for himself.
Suddenly, there’s blinding pain on his left wing, and Tommy yelps as he feels himself tip in the air. He flips, one wing flailing helplessly, while the other crumbles at his side, falling feathers flurrying his vision. Ah, he’s falling — Techno has landed a shot again— and he’s tumbling down, feeling weightless and heavy all at once.
Techno shoots through the air the moment Tommy falls. The world shifts down— though not even ten meters— before it grinds to a half and Tommy is hanging suspended in the air, with Techno’s hand enclosed around his wrist.
Techno’s holding on so tight that he’s trembling, and his hands are so cold that Tommy wonders if it’s truly Techno’s temperature or the numbness in his body.
“Tommy—” Techno’s mouth moves to talk. Yet it is his eyes that speak.
His eyes that were so wide and pleading at that moment. They say it all— Don’t let go Tommy. You don’t have to do this. Let me bring you home.
And god, Tommy could go for home right now. Suddenly hanging suspended in the air, he’s aware of the weight of his body. The fatigue. The pain. He’s tired. And cold. His arm is sore. His wings are battered. He won't be flying anymore today. And seeing Techno, up close and so, so concerned for him. He wants to be held again like he was when he was years younger.
Meanwhile, Techno looks in pain, especially in the momentary second where he breaks eye contact to gaze down at Tommy’s beaten down body, from crashes and hits. It reminds Tommy of his childhood— when he used to come home with scrapes and cuts after getting snagged on a tree, and Techno would sit him down on a stool and patch him up with gentle words and gentler hands.
God, it would be so, so easy.
To let Techno pick him up again. Carry him home. Apologize for him again. It would be easy to forget the humans who are suffering down there and forget himself too. He can continue to fly on Eden’s terms. He can continue to live in ignorant bliss, where the despair of others does not matter because he is already spoken for.
It would be so easy. And yet…
Tommy can feel the muscles of his free arm twitch. His palms brush at his belt, which held a sack of ambrosia and a hilted little knife.
He looks up at Techno, whose eyes hold promise of an easy life and his arms of a comfortable ride home. It’s his brother— his siren’s song of bliss and warmth and all things that he wants.
It’d be so easy.
But Tommy is tired of easy.
His free hand darts and unhilts his knife. And in a half second’s pass, the silver blade slashes across flesh, spilling fresh blood on pale skin. Techno cries out, hand unfurling for merely a moment, but that was all Tommy needed to draw his wrist back and escape him.
With that, Tommy finally plummets. Far too low, where the plane of gods finally ends and the Human’s begins. Techno, who is looking at him from above, perhaps screams something out to him, but he can not hear it, feeling nothing but the world he knew fading away.
Falling is quite similar to flying. Tommy thinks then.
An island disappearing from view, growing smaller and smaller, is quite similar to the ground shrinking as you rise up. And truthfully, if Tommy closes his eyes, concentrating only on the sensation of the wind coursing across his skin, he can forget he’s going down at all.
It’s strange. He’s quite helpless while free falling. There’s nothing he can do to help himself from his position. His wings are too damaged to fly, and he’s tumbling— down, down, down— with no control over his body or where it’s going. Yet somehow he feels at the height of freedom.
There is no control here.
And no responsibility either.
Here, there is only Tommy, existing in the open air with nothing but the world giving him movement.
He can remark on the beauty of it all as the sky bows around him, the clouds crumble into white, and the wind skims through skin. Here it is— the sensation of true freedom when unbounded by any surface— Tommy finds he does not care if he lands on his feet or flies again.
For in his attempt to bind himself down to true responsibility, he has already discovered what it really means to be in the air and soar .