On Wooden Wings

Zamboanga. Now.

It took less than two seconds for Domingo's wings to deploy and his trajectory to level out. The stretched canvas flapped down-and-up in a rapid motion, faster than Clarita's original design--and it was Clarita's design, or at least appeared to be at this distance.

"He replicated the Auto-bird," Nur said, a grudging admiration coloring her tone. She came to a stop beside Clarita and clucked her tongue. "In ten days too... looks like your Tagalog can work quickly when he wants to. I'm having trouble even believing this is possible."

But Clarita was watching Domingo's flight path with growing concern. "It isn't," she whispered, then whirled on Nur. "Get me strapped in, quickly!"

"What--"

"He's going to fall!" she shouted, just as the first gasps drifted up from the crowd. Clarita resisted the urge to look up, as Nur helped Clarita buckle herself into the repaired Auto-bird. "The wings don't have enough twist or fold to their movement, just up-and-down-up-and--"

"The fool replicated the form, not the science." Nur cursed as she tightened the chin strap which secured Clarita's kombong to her head. "But we're not high enough for take-off and we don't have time to--"

"Excuse me!" Clarita shouted, as she lumbered toward the older student, Udtong, but he was transfixed by the spectacle in the sky. Without further preamble she aligned his sled with the ramp, then stepped atop it.

"Hey!" Udtong protested, as the sound of her heavy feet brought him back to earth. "What are you--"

"Ignite the rockets!"

"You're out of your mind!" Udtong said, but then Nur pushed him to the ground, taking the fire strikers from him. Nur twisted the keys on the Auto-bird's flanks, then handed Clarita her auto-kris, before stooping down to light both sets of rockets.

"Good lu--"

The roar of the gunpowder igniting beneath Clarita's feet drowned out the rest of Nur's words. Clarita swayed, struggling to keep her balance as the sled thundered forward, then up the prepared incline. At the height of the upward arc, the sled fell away from beneath her and Clarita was standing on nothing but air, working the levers desperately as she prayed: Let it be enough, let it be enough...!

She let out a shout of victory when her wings deployed, but that turned into a scream when the first gust of wind threatened to break apart her improvised repairs. But she was airborne, if unsteadily so, and she quickly scanned the skies for Domingo. He was almost directly above her, wrestling with his controls, the movements of his wings jerky and desperate. Clarita climbed up in little bursts, her hobbled Auto-bird sputtering and stalling every ten seconds, but soon she was close enough to reach out to him.

"Grab hold!" she said, one hand reaching toward Domingo while her other clutched the auto-kris. He was panicking, his eyes wide and his teeth chattering, and the hand which closed around hers was ice cold. Clarita began to slice the straps which bound Domingo to his machine. They were at least five stories up in the air. She managed to cut all but one tether before she heard an ominous screech. She looked up in time to see the wings of her Auto-bird entangled with his before her jury-rigged stitching came undone, both of her wings tearing themselves away as she and Domingo plummeted to the ground.

"Pull the cord pull the cord!" Clarita screamed, as she stabbed desperately at the last remaining tether with one hand, the other wrapped around Domingo's waist. The leather gave out just as Domingo grabbed the bit of rope streaming out from over her left shoulder, and pulled it with all his might.

Domingo's harness fell away from them as the Homo Valens unfurled behind them, catching the air in its bulging canvas as it arrested their fall, the harness straps digging painfully into Clarita's body. But the ground was still rushing toward them at an alarming rate, and the last thing Clarita felt before the shock of impact was Domingo moving beneath her and enfolding her body in his.

When Clarita came to, she found herself buried beneath the billowing cloth of the Homo Valens. She'd lost the auto-kris at some point after she hit the earth, so she laboriously unfastened each buckle and crawled out from beneath the suffocating canvas, her right side throbbing as if it had been flayed.

"Domingo?" She called out, her voice a rasp. She cleared her throat. "Domingo!"

"Here," came a small voice, followed by a moan. Domingo was a few feet away from her. For a horrifying second, it seemed as if he lay in a pool of blood, but then she realized it was fruit pulp--he lay against the remains of an overturned produce cart. But his cough was liquid, and Clarita rushed to his side.

"I guess I didn't quite get the wings right, huh?"

She stared at him. "That's what you have to say to me?" It was as if a dam had broken within her, and the words spilled out. "You destroy a year's worth of work, then, instead of apologizing, you decide in your wisdom that what you really need to do it is make a flying machine on your own, tell everyone it's mine, and throw yourself off a tower?"

"I--"

"Did it not even occur to you that I'd try to repair the Auto-bird? Did you think I'd just give up?" Clarita shook her head. "When I think about how much progress we would have made if we'd just combined efforts... Argh!"

"I--"

Clarita forced herself to her feet, ignoring the pain in her side, and jabbed her finger at the boy. "Domingo Malong, from now on, you work with me, understood?"

Domingo stared at her, incredulous. Then he began to laugh.

"What about your father?" he asked, after she had helped him to his feet. "If you don't pass the Trial..."

"Domingo," she said, in a patient tone, "I just demonstrated a heavier than air flying machine in front of the richest men in the Sultanate. I don't think I need to depend on my father for funding anymore."

"Oh. That makes sense." Domingo licked his lips. "I'm sorry, 'rita."

"I know." She beamed at him. "But it's good to hear it."

The Elephant Tower tolled the passing of the half-hour from high above the city. Clarita closed her eyes, and let her triumph seep down into her bones. For the first time in her life, the future that lay before her was subject to no grand design. She opened her eyes then, and locked them on to the boy that stood beside her.

Well... none but her own, anyway.

Still smiling, Clarita linked arms with Domingo and the pair began the painful journey back to the square.

===

THE END.

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"Between Severed Souls" continues the story in "The Sea Is Ours: Tales From Steampunk Southeast Asia" http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Ours-Tales-Steampunk-Southeast-ebook/dp/B017QL62L6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=