"Okay everyone. Welcome to your first class ever." A blonde, tall man. rather handsome looking, with a scar running down his right palm said. 

They were in a terrace of sorts. Rather, they were in several terraces. They were all standing on a queue of small room, barely enough to fit a single bed, even then it would touch the walls. But that didn't matter, because they were standing on the roof.

The small rooms were lines side to side. They were, unfortunately, lined up by their names, so he was in the middle of two strange boys he didn't know. Susan was a lot off to his right, and Alex was beside the on his left. 

The rooms were tall, and there were no railings on the roof, which was only slightly flattened at the top so they could stand. 

"Now mind you, most your classes are not going to be this fun. They'll be sitting in a desk, hold a rusty old book in your hand and putting your nose in it sort. 

But since we're going to be awakening our inner flyer, it would be impractical to do that in a classroom. 

Now, as you can see, we're pretty high from the ground. You're going to jump off the roof..." 

A surprised "what?" escaped his mouth and he was not the only one, "Here me out first kids. It just looks like we're so high. There is a concealed rug about half way down here, that is charmed to be extra fluffy." He flourished his wand for effect, "So, what we're  going to do is, you're going to imagine that you're plummeting to your death, and that your only chance of survival is if your wings appear at your side. So, focus, people and jump." 

Calvin took a deep breath. He was an expert in imagining things that aren't actually there. Being a reader could do that to you. But imagining plummeting to his wasn't on his top list. But still...

He was standing on the top of Burj Khalifa. It was the tallest building in the world. He could see miles and miles of sky in front of him. The wind was whipping at him head, and it stung. A countdown was flashed in the sky in front of him, and he had no choice but to jump when it gets to zero. 

Three.

He took a deep breath and imagined wings bursting from his shoulders.

Two.

He imagined the wind on his side as the wings flapped.

One.

He imagined the wings streched out, ready to jump.

Zero.

He jumped off the tallest building of the world. 

Searing pain shot up his waist to his shoulders. It was like his flesh was being torn upon and his ribcage was getting pushed out of his body. And then his world went dark. 

When he woke up, he was sitting on something soft, and cushiony. In his front, several kids from his class were jumping off rooftops, and ending up faceplanting into thin air. Speaking of which, he was sitting on this air.

He was sitting on cushion of sorts, both his sides were flanked with two large wings. They had large sticky gooey stuff on them, that moved all over his wings like worms.

Ewww.

To his side, a girl with her wings spread out was sleeping- probably unconscious, like he was a while ago. He looked over to the kids. Faceplanting in thin air must be much more fun than it looked, because more of the kids were grinning and laughing widely. 

He scanned the crown of about twelve kids, and found Susan. She had her eyes closed in concentration, and face scrunched up (he wished he had a camera on him) and she jumped. She ended up falling on Alberta, which was an achievement. They were literally on two different sides of the line, not that anyone was following the line now. 

Within five minutes, a grin made it to his face, looking at his classmates faceplant into thin air, and his teacher tell them to actually try with their wings and not just enjoy bumping into the air. 

The girl beside him stirred. He looked at her. Then looked away. It would be creepy if you wake up with a stranger staring at you. 

She let out a pained groan. Calvin turned to look at her. She was staring interestedly at her wings.

"Do you know why is it there?" Calvin asked.

"Yes." She brightened up, "Its because our wings are composed into our muscles in a soft form all our life before they get unfurled. So, these bacteria activate the animosytic granules in the veins of our wings to make them tougher." 

Calvin nodded with interest, "Yes, if they had been naturally tough, they would have internally damaged our ribcage."

She gave him a grin, "You study biology?"

Calvin shrugged, "It's interesting."

She looked like a kid given a candy. Calvin was sure she would have bounced with excitement if not for their present positions, "Wow. That's so amazing. My friends just shut me up when I talk about this. It's really nice to have someone to talk to." 

Calvin grinned, "So, when our wings unfurl, do they tear through all our flesh? It must be painful to do that every single time."

"No, not really. The first time, they tear through our muscles, yes, but after that, they fold to our side and disappear and appear at will." 

"How does that happen?" 

"Dunno. That stuff is advanced. I'm Claire, by the way."

"I'm Calvin."

"Dude I know. Everyone knows."

"Why?"

"Because...wait you don't know?" Calvin shook his head, "You got 100% in both your test. It's like a...never before. How did you even climb up that pole? There was not enough friction, or surrounding support to create momentum."

Calvin was about to answer, when a woman came to them. She had a sort of bucket in her hand and her hands were covered in gloves. 

"Okay, you're both up." She said with a wide smile.

She knelt at his side and picked up a tiny blob from his wings. She then started scooping up the goop from his wings. Its adhesive forces must have been weaker than its cohesive counterparts, because the hoop got plucked right out, as if it were never there.

His wings were beautiful purple, soft and deep like his mother's dark red. It had glittery gold lining all across its border and shiny glower of gold across the surface of the wing. They were thin, and looked more gold than purple, so they looked like fairy wings, but they definitely felt soft like angel wings. 

They had veins all over the place in gold, and they looked so royal, he couldn't believe his eyes.

(This is what the wings looked like, except that they were darker purple, like the background colour)

The place over his shoulder to his waist was still red, but healed. The doctor went to Claire and tried picking up the goop, but it still stuck.

"Looks like yours are still not ready." She said with a smile, and then probably seeing her worried look, added, "Don't worry. There is nothing wrong. Calvin here managed to unfurl his wings about half an hour earlier than you, so we'll try again in a while."

After that, the doctor made him open and close his wings for an hour. By the end of it, he could do it as naturally as writing, and his shoulders hurt like hell. Claire joined him half through, and after he was given good to go, he was allowed to sit, and watch people face plant in soft bed.

He was allowed to stroll around, or read something. The doctor Lady directed him to the library, and he got a book on how wings disappeared and appeared. Claire was not joking when she said it was advance.

He gave up about halfway through, by now, half of the class, including Susan were lying unconscious at the side, three kids, he, Claire and another boy were free to roam. 

He asked the doctor Lady about the goop, and how it worked, but, apparently, it was too complex for him. But when she saw him reading the biology book, she explained it. Calvin understood about half of it.

He and Claire were good friends by now. 

He went over to Alex, who was still unsuccessful in unfurling, and was now sitting with his head in his knees.

"Hey, Alex! What happened?" He asked.

His head jerked up, and then shook his head, "Nothing."

A girl from beside Alex told him, "A noble kid told him that he was a servant, so what use is flying to him."

"Don't take what they said to heart, buddy." He said, sitting down next to Alex.

"But he is right, isn't he? I am a servant. I just have to be clever enough to wash dishes and clean."

Calvin suddenly like the elemental kingdom lot less, "But that's not necessarily true. Just because your parents are servants doesn't mean you have to be one too."

"But I do. I am punier. I'm not gonna get any other job. I can't even unfurl my bloody wings." Calvin decided to help Alex. He directed him, helping him imagine what he did. He even flapped his wings to give out wind for special effects.

Alex did it in third try. By 12, everyone by one guy had unfurled their wings. By 1, they were all free to move, except for that one guy who still hadn't unfurled, and was getting red with rage by the moment.

Susan whispered in his ear, "That's the guy who was teasing Alex. Apparently, he was too busy teasing that he couldn't do his own unfurling."

"You know what they say? Karma is a female dog."

"His name isn't Karma." 

Calvin sighed. "Right, no one here knows of human references." 

Their teacher called to their attention. He said, "While Mr. Blair here works on his wings, we'll have a round of introduction, what do you say?" 

Murmurs of agreement rose out, and their teacher instructed to walk with their wings open, and hop from one roof to another. It wasn't awfully far, and their wings made hopping lot more graceful...for the most part. 

Calvin went first, since he was the first one to unfurl. 

Gasps were heard at his wings, and later he realised why. His wings were beautiful, he had gotten the best of both fairy and angel wings. 

"What's your name?" The teacher asked.

"Calvin McKay, sir."

"Huh? Your parents don't have these colour wings, right?" 

Calvin shook his head, "No sir."

He frowned, "I'd say you are a bastard child, if it wasn't Sally we were talking about. Alright, Claire, you're up next." 

As Claire went to the stage, Calvin whispered to Susan, "Why do you think my wings are like this?"

"You mean to say you're a bastard child?

"No...I mean, mom wouldn't cheat on dad, but..."

"Not possible. The only person who has purple and gold wings is Her Majesty. Don't worry, it's a magic world, anything is possible. Look at this." She pointed at Alberta, who stumbled when she made the last jump.

Turns out, everyone was not as graceful as he and Claire, because they've had longer time to practise, and it was particularly fun to watch people stumble.

It was 2pm now, but Blair still hadn't unfurled, and their teacher dismissed the class. Susan and Alex headed home, and Calvin went to his study classes. Claire was with him.

They learnt basic addition. He was the only noble in the class, not surprisingly. He tried to cut down his sarcasm when fifteen year olds couldn't do basic math, because they hadn't been to school before. 

He helped out Claire with her sums, it felt ridiculous teaching a fifteen year old carry forwards. 

But as he sat in the class, he realised, maybe he didn't have Braedon with him, but he had Susan and Alex and Claire, and now, he was truly at peace with it.

Authors note:

This chapter is twice the size of our normal chapters, because I realised, that at the rate I was going at, my plot wouldn't complete even by 100 chapters. So, expect larger chapters now on.