In the fair land of sub-continentia between the northern hills and the southern grassland, there was a large village called Sonton. It had at least two hundred houses, and about fifty shop-houses along the main street. At the end of this street was a roundabout with a lily-pool in the middle, and the great town hall looming over it. The town hall was constructed of stone and some wood, unlike the rest of town, which was constructed of mostly straw and wood or bamboo, with maybe a stone foundation here and there for the richer homes. The town was bustling, and no one had any complete maps of it, because secret back-alleys and hidden shortcuts were always being found, or sometimes, lost. One day someone would be using a cramped alleyway with a secret brick wall entrance where you just have to remove a lose brick to get to work on time, and the next day they would come to find the brick sealed in like it had always been that way. Then people would think them mad for banging on a solid brick wall. Other times people would discover hidden passageways in odd places. For example, there was this one old lady who found that there was a hidden door in her very living room that led underground and all the way to Munford Street. Sometimes people would stumble upon entire hidden avenues that had been abandoned for years. So, as I said before, no one had a complete map, but there were maps of at least the major roads and houses, and people were always drawing and erasing on theirs to mark out shortcuts.

In a small two story, three-room house there lived a boy named Kyle. He had five siblings and his father worked as a stone mason, often going on business trips to other villages in the country to build churches or walls or storehouses or something. Every morning but on Sundays Kyle would get ready for school, pack his lunch and get his books, and then go off to school by himself. He was the oldest, twelve years old, and thus he was the only one who went to school outside of the house to get a greater education than what his mother could teach him. His other siblings (except the two youngest) were home schooled for only two hours every day.

Kyle's school was far on the other side of town. He had to walk through thick traffic, slip through thin passageways, jump across flooded roads, and even climb across straw and tin rooftops to get there. The entrance to the school was through an alley that could just barely fit two people at a time and led into a small walled area decorated with wild ivy and morning glory, which had great wooden doors at one end. The doors were just higher than the wall, and arched at the top, and the saying "Knowledge is Power" was carved in the ancient wood. A few stone steps led up to the entrance, worn by summer rain and bare feet. There Kyle waited as the rest of the school, only about fifty people, gathered in the increasingly cramped space. As the city bells tolled seven, the gates swung open and the students filed in. The doors led to a large courtyard surrounded on the three other sides by a sort of out door hallway with a shingled roof over it, separated from the courtyard only by wooden columns with chipped white paint. Underneath it there were doors leading to various classrooms.

The students dropped their things off at their classrooms, and then gathered in the courtyard for morning assembly. The headmaster gave some remarks, they sang some songs, and then they split for classes. Kyle's first class was mathematics, then he went to his other classes: Science, Histories of sub-continentia, geography, basic magic, Literature, and basic medicines. Then he had P.E. He gathered with his classmates in the center courtyard. The teacher put them into two teams.

"Alright," He said, "Today we're playing Foolish Escape again. You all know the rules, so I won't bother going over them again." He got out an egg shaped blue leather ball with leather straps coming out the smaller end. He set it in the center, stepped back, and yelled, "Go!"

The two teams rushed to the middle, and one of the other team grabbed the ball by the straps. He kept running towards the other side, and when some of Kyle's team started closing in on him, he rolled it across the ground and into the hands of another teammate. They ran to the end and rolled the ball at the wall and it hit an old painted white semicircle. The teacher shouted, "Ten, zero" and the game continued. This time the ball was gotten first by one of Kyle's team members, and they made it about five feet before the other team tagged the ball and they had to give it to them. They made it back about twenty feet, then someone on Kyle's team stole the ball, and immediately rolled it to another teammate. The game continued for a half hour more, and, as usual, no one passed to Kyle. Sometimes they would have the option of making a crazy pass to a teammate over on the other side of the field through a forest of legs that would defiantly miss and be intercepted by the other team, or to pass to Kyle who was right next to them. Then they would make the crazy pass, get it intercepted, and the other team would indefinitely score.

The score was 50, 30, with the other team in the lead. Kyle didn't even know what the ball felt like, because no one passed to him. Finally this one girl on his team had the ball on their goal side and had the option to pass it to him or roll it all the way over and basically give it to the other team, and Kyle was thinking, oh, she's just going to roll it. But then their eyes locked for an instant, and hers seemed to ring with uncertainty and challenge. His eyes flashed her affirmation, and she passed it to him. He snatched it up by the straps and ran like he'd never run before. The opposing team ran at him and jumped at him, trying to tag the ball, but he did a spin and a few twists and they were thrown off. Kyle started to feel a prickling sensation up his arms, and the familiar feeling of something sliding out of his skin, but he ignored it. He dashed all the way to the other side completely untouched, a feat that had never been done before in the history of his P.E. class, even by the strongest, experienced kids, and smacked the ball against the spot on the wall. It was glorious. Kyle felt like he could do anything at that instant. But then he turned around.

The entire class was staring at him like he'd grown a tail. Which wasn't far from the truth. All along Kyle's arms were black feathers that had uncurled from his skin. Big flight feathers lined up along the side, and smaller ones coated his biceps. There were even a few spiking out from his cheeks, and he could feel tail feathers poking out. His stomach filled with deep dread, and Kyle paled. He'd never transformed this far, and in front of his entire class, too. Some of his feathers began creeping back into his skin. The teacher rushed Kyle to the medicinal room, and the medicines teacher and her current students poked and prodded at his feathers and rubbed salve on his arms until the feathers retreated completely.

"Would you like us to send a runner to your parents?" She asked, "Do you need any painkillers?"

"I'm fine," Kyle said

"Are you feeling nauseous? Do you need us to walk you home?"

"Really, I'm fine." He insisted, "I was feeling a bit nauseous before, but I'm fine now."

It was the wrong thing to say. Kyle's mouth was immediately stuffed with bitter mushed up leaves, and he was forced down onto a stretcher. Once he was strapped down, they started carrying him away.

"Do you have a headache? Are you feeling dizzy at all? Any itchiness?" The medicine teacher insisted.

The final bell rang, and Kyle spat out the leaves. "I'm absolutely positively fine!" He unstrapped himself, got up, and left the classroom.

He gathered his books and started out for the gates. As he was walking out, someone behind him asked, "Are you okay?"

Kyle turned around. "For the last time I'm-" He saw that it was the girl who had passed to him. "Oh, it's you. Sorry."

"It's okay," She smiled. They started walking out together. "Where's your house?"

"On Spalding Drive." He said.

"Really? Me too!" She said, "We just moved here a few weeks ago."

"Hmm," Kyle remarked, "I was wondering why you weren't very familiar."

"And I was wondering why everyone else avoided you." She said. "How often has that happened?"

"Only about once every few months. And it's usually not very much, like, a few small feathers on the arms. I've kind of learned to control it. It only happens when I get exited."

"How long have you had this... ability?" She asked

"Since I was born. My mom said when she was pregnant with me she tripped an old which who lives up in the hills accidentally, and so the witch cursed her."

They started climbing up onto a rooftop.

"Where are you going?" the girl asked.

"It's a shortcut. There are tons of them in this town."

"I can tell." She said, "Some of them are magically hidden. I can feel them."

"You can feel them?" Kyle asked as they climbed onto the roof and started across.

"Yeah. It's like the seventh sense or something. Sensing magic. Pretty much everyone has it in the village I'm from, cuz it's genetic and we're pretty isolated. My family moved here because there's not really a good school in my old village, and my parents want me to have a great education."

"Wow. That's cool." Kyle remarked. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Samantha." Samantha said. "Y'know, you could really use your power. Do you know how far you can go?"

"Today I made it about as far as I've been before."

"Maybe you could even fly if you transformed far enough." Samantha speculated.

"What? That's crazy."

"It might just work, though. We just need to find a way to get you really exited." She thought for a moment. "We could go outside of town, in the fields. After school. You willing to try?"

"I don't know..." Kyle said. His parents probably wouldn't approve. They were quite protective about his curse.

"Oh, come on. Tell ya what. After five days, if you're not airborne, we'll drop the whole thing." Her deep brown eyes pleaded with him.

Kyle sighed. "Okay. But only five days."

After school Kyle met Samantha out in the field on the other side of the city walls. She was holding a flute.

"You seem very eager to help me," He said.

She shrugged. "I've never sensed anyone with as much magic as you that didn't use it at all. And, well, it'd be pretty cool if you could fly."

"So, how are we going to do this?" Kyle asked.

"Well. I determined that if I could play an exiting, moving song, it might bring on the transformation. You just have to let it happen."

"Alright," He said.

Samantha played a bright, jiggy tune. Kyle stood and watched her, and when it was over nothing had happened.

"Maybe it would help if you danced along," She said.

Kyle was taken aback. "Dance? I'm not a very good dancer."

"Oh, just do it. Feel the music. I'll turn around, if it'll help."

"But what if someone's watching? From the town?" Kyle said.

"Who climbs up to the top of a wall just to stare at an open field all day? Just do it."

Samantha turned around and started playing again, and Kyle started kind of dancing around. He really didn't know how he was supposed to do it, and he was afraid he would make an idiot out of himself. No one will see you, he reminded himself. So, he danced while the song continued, moving his feet really fast on the trills, making his arms rise and fall with the notes, walking in circles in swishy swirly ways, and by the end he was getting into it. The music stopped, and he quickly stopped dancing as Samantha turned around.

"Well?" She said.

"Well what?"

"Do you have any feathers?"

Kyle checked his arms. There were a few black stubs, about five on each arm, but it definitely wasn't enough to fly.

"Right," Samantha said, "We're going to do this again, and this time you need to really feel the music. Let it lift your soul!"

"This is ridiculous." Kyle said, but when Samantha turned around again and started playing, he started dancing again.

They did this over and over again for two hours. About fifteen times they tried it, and towards the end Kyle managed to get almost the same amount of feathers that he had had earlier that day. He was tired from all of that dancing, and Samantha was tired from playing for so long, and they agreed to end it for the day. They had to wait a little longer to make sure Kyle's feathers receded. He tried holding his breath, or tensing the muscles in his arms, or breathing in deeply, but it didn't really seem to help. Finally Kyle figured out a way that if he concentrated on bare skin and being a human and the ground and just concentrated in general, he could make his feathers inch back into his skin.

The next day when Kyle arrived, Samantha had a strange contraption the size of her, with two metal and rubber wheels and an odd frame of metal. It had some gears and such attached down low to one side, and there were a few patches of rust here and there.

"What's that?" He asked when he was close enough. It looked like something from a junk heap near a welding shop.

"It's a bicycle. You've never seen one before?" She asked.

"No," Kyle said, "What does it do?"

"You ride it." She put one leg over it, grabbed onto the handles and began pushing on the pedals and the wheels turned and she rode around the field. She stopped and dismounted. "It's a fairly new invention. People ride them all the time in my old village, but I guess it hasn't caught on here yet."

"I guess it hasn't." Kyle inspected it with new interest. It was like a bird, strong and thin and quick. "Could I try?"

"That's exactly why I brought it here," Samantha said with a smile. "So, you just get on like this," She guided him onto the contraption, "Then you put your feet on the pedals," She held the back of the seat for balance as he did so, "And now you pedal."

Kyle pushed on the pedals and the bicycle began to move. He went faster and faster until the wind was whizzing past his face. He rotated the handles as he had seen Samantha do, and he swept around in a wide circle. He went faster and faster, turning back now and then so as not to stray too far from Samantha. He felt a kind of grinding of bone in his elbows, and then an odd sensation like his shoulder popping, but he ignored that. He was like a horse, no, like a fish in the sea, swimming round and round rocks and swerving through seaweed. A flock of birds took off as Kyle raced through the tall grasses, disrupting their pecking. He raced up a hill, and then zoomed back down again. Finally, he went back over to Samantha, who was just standing there beaming. It was like a reflection of how Kyle felt.

"How do I stop?" He asked as he whizzed by.

"The brakes!" She shouted back at him.

Kyle looked back down at the handlebars in search of the brakes. He was shocked to see that, leaning on the handlebars, instead of his arms, were two almost fully-fledged shiny black wings. He was so shocked he fell over in a tangle of metal and feathers. Samantha ran over to him.

"It worked!" She squealed.

Kyle groaned and flailed about, trying to right himself. He rolled onto his stomach, his wings outstretched for balance, and got onto his slightly trembling feet. He noticed that along with wings, he had about a dozen tail feathers jutting from his tailbone that he could flare out and fold together. He could also feel hundreds of feathers coating his legs, back, chest, and face. His wingspan was an impressive ten feet, and as he flapped his wings experimentally, he could feel the extreme easiness of the maneuver, and guessed that he had also grown the necessary muscle that would be needed to fly. Kyle rotated to face Samantha, trying to fold his wings comfortably on his back. He failed miserably, and fell over again, and with no arms to catch himself, he smacked the ground hard. Samantha helped him up, and Kyle just let his wings fall at his sides, brushing the ground with long feathers.

"Come on!" Samantha said, "We need to teach you how to fly before it wears off."

Kyle flapped his wings as hard as he could and jumped into the air. He soared up about eight feet, and slowly glided back down.

"Whoa!" He laughed, "Did you see that?"

"Yeah, yeah, it was great. But you need to get a running start." She said.

"Fine. I knew that." Kyle said. He noticed that some of his feathers were starting to shrink, and his wings were getting a bit shorter.

Kyle ran across the field, flapping his wings as he did so and flaring his tail feathers as wide as they would go. He started gaining momentum, and he tried kicking his feet up. He glided a dozen feet, and then started to sink, so he pushed against the ground and flapped and ran faster. Finally he felt himself starting to lift off the ground, and he pulled his legs up and into a streamlined position behind him. He flapped as hard as he could, and then, slowly at first, but then more steeply, he began to lift up into the sky. Kyle went up about a hundred feet, and then stopped flapping and soared across a sudden updraft of warm air. Instinct took over as he tilted his tail to the right, scooping around one eighty degrees, flapping here and there and riding the thermals. He flew around for a while, sticking relatively close to the ground and near the thermals, not trying anything drastic like a dive or anything, and after a while he started to get tired, so he stopped flapping as much and began descending towards the ground. Kyle pictured the landing perfectly, like a dove delicately landing on the earth, but when he started getting low, he realized that the ground was coming at him too fast, and so he folded his wings and head in and braced for impact. He hit the earth hard, sending up clods of dirt and weeds.

Samantha ran over. "Are you okay?" She asked.

Kyle groaned and struggled to get up. He felt his shoulders pop again and he fell back onto the ground.

Samantha picked him up onto his feet. "That was amazing!" She said. "I told you you could do it! All right. We'll keep meeting here every day for flight practice. Maybe, after some more training, you could even give me a ride."

"Not likely." Kyle noticed that his wings were different, and he could feel fingers underneath all the feathers.

They waited awhile for Kyle to transform back, and then they went home.

The next few days Samantha helped Kyle learn how to fly better, how to twist and flap his wings backwards to land, how to dive and scoop up at the last second, and how to embrace his inner bird so that the transformation required less time and excitement. Which was good, because riding a bicycle was getting less exiting every day. Learning how to ride with no handlebars certainly livened things up, but soon Kyle only needed a quick turn or a rush of speed to thrill him enough to get him airborne. He even learned how to take off right from the cycle. It was quite easy, really. He just needed to let go of the handles, flap his wings, pedal as fast as he could, and then pop his feet up. It was actually easier than the running method, as Kyle could ride much faster than he could run. Unfortunately the bicycle could go out of control when he lifted off and crash into a rock or a puddle or Samantha or something, but that's just the price to pay for ease. Kyle also found it easy to just run off the nearest cliff, Brewer's Forge, and glide down into the valley of Sonton.

One day, Kyle and Samantha were at school, when there was a commotion outside. The teacher brought their class outside where the rest of the school had gathered. Everyone was staring up into the sky, and as Kyle followed their gaze he spotted a shape, long and reptilian, soaring through the sky. It had a long white tail like a ribbon trailing behind it, and white wings and white...horns? It was pretty far up. Other than that, it was a light beige color. It dove down to the city and let out a jet of orange flame that ignited one of the buildings, and then climbed up into the air as quickly as it had descended.

"Dragon!" The headmaster shouted, "Everyone, you're excused. Go home and help your families."

The students all crowded out the door and raced for home. Kyle grabbed Samantha's hand and led her through the quickest shortcuts. The city was alive with shouting people getting their swords and bows. A house next to them roared into flames, and they stopped as they got a good look at the beast. It had looked the size of a crocodile from so far away, and though it was a relatively small dragon, it was still at least the size of the school courtyard, and could probably swallow a twelve year old like Kyle whole. It was a field dragon, Kyle knew from his Magical Beasts class last semester, and it was rather thin; it had probably flown here from a nearby farm in search of food.

Kyle continued running, pulling Samantha along with him. People were trying to shoot arrows at the dragon, but it was too high and too fast. When it did swoop down to ignite a structure, the few arrows that could hit it just grazed its scales. It was old and strong; a few simple flintheads could not defeat it.

"Kyle!" Samantha yelled, "It's too high for them, and arrows won't do anything anyway. It needs to be killed with a sword!"

"It's not going to land, I don't see how that's possible." Kyle said, though he already knew where this was heading.

"You could fly up there with a sword and stab it," She said, "It would prove to the town that your power is good."

"No! I could get burnt!" He replied, "And besides, how would I hold it? It's not like I have arms when I'm flying."

"Hmm," Samantha pondered, "You could tie it to your leg, point down. That way you could just step on it. You could do two swords, one on each leg."

"I suppose... but there's still no way I'm doing this."

^ ^ ^

Kyle watched as Samantha tied the last sword onto his leg. She had taken them from her dad's workshop, and fastened them on with rope. There was one problem, though. How Kyle would be able to run with long blades sticking out past his feet. He couldn't ride a bicycle, either, because the blades would hit the ground. Finally Samantha suggested he get on her back while she rode the cycle.

They rode out into the field, hurrying as fast as they could. Kyle made sure the swords weren't stabbing Samantha, and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the wind, the feeling of flight, and the whirl of feathers. He thought of how great it would be when he drove off the dragon. All his old enemies would be flabbergasted, and they would never bother him again. He thought of Samantha, his only true friend, with her long dark hair and deep brown eyes. He felt his shoulder pop, and he concentrated for a while longer before opening his eyes. He flapped his wings and pushed off of Samantha, and soared into the sky.

He flew up higher and higher, the steel swords dragging him down a bit, but no more than he could handle. He looped around toward the town, searching for the creature in the sky. It wasn't long before he spotted it, gliding ominously hundreds of feet above Sonton. He pushed up higher, until he was as high as it was. Kyle forced himself not to look down; he had never been up this high before. The dragon spotted him with its sharp beige eyes, and flew towards him. Kyle readied himself, and when the beast let out a blast of fire, he quickly dove out of the way. He dove down about fifty feet, the dragon following him all the way. He felt the telltale hot air, and spiraled and twisted out of the way. It was just like Foolish Escape! Kyle quickly swooped out of his dive when he hit a thermal from the smoking town, rocketing up above the still descending dragon. It turned up towards him, and that's when Kyle dove at its back, planting both his feet down onto its scales. It roared with rage and pain, and Kyle bent his knees and pushed up again, flapping with all his might to yank the blades out of its body.

He flew away quickly, but as he turned around he was surprised to see the giant lizard still in the air. Either the blades hadn't fractured anything important, or they just didn't go deep enough, or the dragon was stronger than he thought. Even still, he could see the pain and difficulty in its eyes as it managed to spurt more flame at him. Kyle spiraled around the bout of fire, and dove in for another hit. The dragon knew he was coming this time, and it swatted him away with its long tail. Kyle's breath was knocked out of him, and he fell a terrifying fifty feet or so before righting himself and flapping against the air rushing up at him. He climbed up to cover the lost altitude, dodging another fire blast. He rushed up underneath the dragon, and, flipping upside-down, slashed the thick webbing on its wing open. Kyle stopped and turned his flip into a dive, and then swooped up and turned around to see the state of the dragon. It roared in pain, and fell down towards the earth, swirling flame all around it as it sunk into the ocean of air. It just managed to turn its fall into a steep glide, and landed in a field. It began galloping through the tall grass, literally running for the hills, leaving a trail of flattened grass and drops of blood.

Kyle dove down to the lily pool on the main street, where a crowd of people had gathered to watch the battle. He turned up and flapped his wings to slow down, and landed in a kneeling position, because he couldn't stand up with the swords, and folded his wings with some effort. The burning buildings had all been put out, and were now just smoking, charred, and wet. The fire hadn't spread too far because of the humid sub-continentian climate, and the houses could probably be repaired. Kyle mentally pushed his feathers back in, and his wings popped back into an arm shape He was getting much better at changing back into a human.

Samantha rushed over to meet him. "I knew you could do it!" She said.

His parents ran over to him, too. "Oh, we were so worried," They said as they embraced him.

A gnarled old lady with a way too short dress and knobby knees approached the reunion, brought down from her cottage in the hills by the commotion. "Ah, the little boy I cursed," She said in a creaky voice, "So tell me, is your life miserable? Are you weighed down by my masterfully crafted curse? Are you tormented day and night by it?"

"No." Kyle said, "And actually, I've been meaning to thank you. If it weren't for that 'curse', Sonton would be a smoldering pile of ash by now. In case you didn't notice, I just drove out a dragon with it. It really is the best thing that's happened to me. Next time anyone wants an amazing power, they'll be sure to go and trip you."

"Darn it!" She screeched, jumping up and down and pulling her twisted gray hair. "Darn it darn it darn it! That was supposed to be an amazingly horrible curse! I worked on it for weeks! Darn it darn it darn it!"

And with that, she ran off with her knobby knees and bare, wrinkled feet and twisted, thick, cracked, yellow toenails and warty, pointed face and torn, stained, and faded dress flailing wildly all the way to the hill where she lived, never to put a curse on someone who didn't deserve it again.