Heart Of A Fighter (Book 3): Home Is Calling

Chapter 4: Power Flight

Hours had passed since BlazeClan set up temporary shelter in Xiera's den. The clan cats had eaten and were all rested, with the more vulnerable cats inside the den while the others were scattered around the clearing near it.

The Claws mostly lay around near the trees, watching out for any danger while those with apprentices gave them small sparring assignments to carry out.

The Shines and Starpaws were busy preening themselves, especially Dovetail fussing over Swanpaw to make her fur pristine again, and the Nettles were all dozing together in a circle, tails entwined over each other as a form of reassurance.

And Goslingpaw? She had been taken to a more private area out of sight from BlazeClan by Russet Rush, and he was now teaching her to do power takeoffs from the ground.

"More flap, deeper flap. Your wings must almost meet on the upstroke of the flap..." the russet tom directed. The young Littlepaw was exhausted. This was much harder than anything she had ever been taught in her life.

"I know you're tired, but us valley cats know the sky as our second home. You have to build your muscles." Russet Rush blinked down at her, and she saw a kindly glimmer in his stormy blue eyes.

"That's why I am not having you practice branching; you've already long grown past the stage of gliding down from a tree. You have to develop your power-flight skills. So try it again."

"In the sky you will feel the mass of air as it moves around your wings. You can sense its speed, if it is bumpy or smooth, even hot or cold. And you will know how to shape it and use it," he explained.

"Wind.. has shape?" Goslingpaw had never heard of such a thing before. "Wind always has shape but in some places the air is still and dead, so you must work extra hard to give it shape with power strokes. Your downstroke is usually your most powerful."

"On your upstroke, you want the air to flow through easily. That is why you have those feathers with tip slots at the end of your wings. They separate and let you go up easily." Russet Rush meowed before he demonstrated.

He pressed forward just a bit, extended his head, and lifted his wings before launching himself upwards. And that was it—he was suddenly airborne. Twice the small cream and brown Littlepaw's size or more, yet he seemed to float up effortlessly.

Goslingpaw blinked, then tried once more. She could feel the air parting above her, and tried to imagine bursting into the welcoming calm of the cloud filled sky.

Soon, she began to sense the contours of the bubble of air that formed beneath each wing and buoyed her up into the air above the ground.

It filled her mind; the power downstroke, bunching together of the slots on the leading edge of her primaries, upstroke, the spacing of those same feathers so the air could pass through with no drag.

Russet Rush chuckled. "You will become very muscular from all this practice. Soon you will be a magnificent flier like your father."

Pride swelled in Goslingpaw's heart at those words. She watched as Russet Rush took two more power strokes to get to the branches of a nearby tree, and he lighted down without even rustling a leaf.

Goslingpaw beat her wings after him, trying to mimic his powerful strokes and lighted down on the branch. The leaves rustled noisily as she scrambled to get a proper foothold on a more secure part of the tree branch.

"A little noisy there, but you'll get the hang of it," Russet Rush reassured her. Goslingpaw blinked and folded her wings back awkwardly. "I don't know; seems like it's so hard to make a quiet landing or silent flights."

Russet Rush chuckled. "I knew a scouter from the Guild named Cricketfin, a spotted russet and ginger cat with turqoise eyes. Extremely noisy when she first started; when she flew you could hear her from more than a league away."

He smiled fondly and chuckled, "Now no cat can hear her coming even when she's nearby, that's what makes her one of the most feared assassins in the Northern Kingdoms."

He draped a wing over her gently, and the cream and brown she-cat was reminded of how her father did that to her when she saw him in the Tribe of Shining Suns.

The main difference was that Russet Rush had sleeker feathers with not as much fluffy down as her father, and his feathers had barbs at their tips that radiated a strange comforting heat.

"Practice makes perfect, small wren. Remember that. Now, again. Lift off!" With a swift motion, the russet tom arched his wings up and with a swift slam, launched himself into the air.

Quickly, Goslingpaw scrambled to her paws and steadied herself before arching her wings and swiftly slamming them down like the older tom had done, barreling into the sky after him with a call of' "wait for me!"
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The calming blue sky soon faded to a calming shade of pink and lilac and orange, while the fiery disc that was the sun set over the horizon, being swallowed by the sea.

"Twixt time," called out Russet Rush from down below on the field as Goslingpaw performed a double twist in the air within his sight. "Let's go back."

The seven-moon old healer trainee nodded and soared in to land beside the russet tom. He broke into a run and she swiftly followed as he wove his way through the tall grass as agile as a doe.

The ring of willow trees soon came into view, and Goslingpaw let out a purr of excitement as she broke through the thin grass that grew around the trees.

The first thing she saw was her foster father pacing around the clearing with his tail twitching behind him, her foster mother perched on a stone beside him.

The moment those blue eyes met her own amber-green ones, he gave a smile of joy and ran to her quickly, her foster mother bounding to her paws and running to her as well.

As both cats affectionately nosed their foster daughter, Aldertrail asked, "How was flying practise? Did you injure yourself?" Goslingpaw smiled and shook her head, and Aldertrail breathed a sigh of relief.

Russet Rush had gone off to greet his blue-furred mate, and Goslingpaw watched as he gently brushed his head underneath Splash Sprint's own with an explosion of soft purring coming from both toms.

As her parents ushered her away to a place they chose to rest near Xiera's den, only one thought rushed through the little she-cat's head.

"I'm going to be like my father."