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She combs and combs the world aside and there is another world, just ahead, and she steps in.
The combed-away hole closes behind her. She puts her comb in her pocket.
Thanjen helps Exaltation learn to fly
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wind_on_my_face
He does the same kinds of things and adds more for her to follow along with if she wants to. Assorted silly walks. Arms all directions. Stretches. What might be a yoga routine if he ever held a pose still.
Okay then, weird slow dancing it is.
wind_on_my_face
Slow to start, but speeding up as she gets better at not tangling up herself with her new parts of herself. It's like she has to use twice as many separate muscles to operate the same set of limbs.
But if she wants, she can use just those new muscles and let her arms and legs be pulled along by the glass — until she runs out of stored energy and has to work just with real muscles.
But if she wants, she can use just those new muscles and let her arms and legs be pulled along by the glass — until she runs out of stored energy and has to work just with real muscles.
Well, she doesn't have a lot of energy stored.
Can she shove all her stored energy into one part of the glass, or does it have to be spread out?
Can she shove all her stored energy into one part of the glass, or does it have to be spread out?
So that's nice.
Maybe handling all this glass and herself at the same time would be easier if she just... divided up the work...
There is a sudden jump in her fluidity.
Maybe handling all this glass and herself at the same time would be easier if she just... divided up the work...
There is a sudden jump in her fluidity.
wind_on_my_face
(Improvement is good, but he's looking more for lack of significant mistakes than the height of skill.)
Eventually he stops leading, and stops moving, and waits for her.
Eventually he stops leading, and stops moving, and waits for her.
It doesn't last long, anyway; she finds a comfortable way to stand and stops. "Now what?"
wind_on_my_face
“Now that you have practiced the motions of your body, it is safe for you to claim it.”
"Without getting any weird bruises?"
wind_on_my_face
“You could still give yourself weird bruises if you tried. The difference now is that you aren't going to do it by accident because you know what is a normal kind of motion now.”
"What can I do with my body once I have it?"
wind_on_my_face
“You can connect yourself to your other stuff, instead of using stuff you wear like your bracelet. This allows you to support your weight comfortably.”
He demonstrates by rising off the ground a few feet.
“You can reinforce yourself to prevent injury.”
He hits himself on the head with a piece of glass. It goes clank.
“And you can move yourself using stored energy rather than your muscles. That's a bad habit, though, because you want to keep your muscles fit and adding to your stored energy instead.
“Want me to show off a bit?”
He demonstrates by rising off the ground a few feet.
“You can reinforce yourself to prevent injury.”
He hits himself on the head with a piece of glass. It goes clank.
“And you can move yourself using stored energy rather than your muscles. That's a bad habit, though, because you want to keep your muscles fit and adding to your stored energy instead.
“Want me to show off a bit?”
Nod.
wind_on_my_face
The birds, which have turned into fully human-seeming bodies instead of just having faces, throw him some more glass. He makes a completely unnecessary throwing gesture and scatters small spikes that bury themselves over a large area of the beach.
Now he's flying without benefit of wings, like the beach is a racetrack and he's doing his qualifying lap.
Back in front of her, he makes as if to jump — and he's a speck in the sky.
Now he's falling down again, head first.
Now he's flying without benefit of wings, like the beach is a racetrack and he's doing his qualifying lap.
Back in front of her, he makes as if to jump — and he's a speck in the sky.
Now he's falling down again, head first.
She watches raptly, trying to figure out how the tricks he's shown her add up to all that, slowly claiming her body.
wind_on_my_face
While falling, he flips over, forms spikes on the soles of his feet, and hits the beach without slowing down.
A complimentary glass wall to catch the spray of sand has been provided for the comfort of spectators.
He takes a bow while buried up to his hips.
A complimentary glass wall to catch the spray of sand has been provided for the comfort of spectators.
He takes a bow while buried up to his hips.
"How did you land like that without hurting yourself? Is that all reinforcement?"
wind_on_my_face
“Yep! You can't go completely rigid like I did for that all the time or you wouldn't be able to move, or breathe, but you can do a gentler reinforcement that you keep up all the time.”
"What about like how you did the fancy chair with the links, where they could move a little but not very much, can you do that and then really strongly reinforce yourself?"
wind_on_my_face
“Sort of. Your body doesn't have a specific shape, and it doesn't have any rigid parts except for bones. If you want to say things stop after some motion, you have to say they stop relative to something else in particular, and the only way to do that that doesn't lead to hurting yourself or being unable to move is "this part of your body can only move so much relative to the part right next to it" — when I say part I mean like this patch of skin and the patch of skin next to it — and the result you get when you do that all over and smoothly is what I called a gentle reinforcement. It still makes you really tough, but if you did just that and tried to hit the sand like I did, you'd bend and flop instead of smashing the sand. You'd still be safe.”
"And instead you just held all of you totally still, so you drilled through the sand."
wind_on_my_face
“I also had spikes on my feet so that they pushed the sand aside. If I hadn't done that I would have gotten just a bit of a crater instead, and not gone into the sand very much. But that difference is more about how sand in particular works.”
"Okay." Pause. "When I have all my body can I change how it's shaped?"
wind_on_my_face
“You could get it to grow differently, a little bit, until you finish growing up, but doing that too much can hurt you.
“But if you want to be a different shape on the outside for a while, then it's easy to do that as long as you can fit inside the shape. You saw me being birds.”
“But if you want to be a different shape on the outside for a while, then it's easy to do that as long as you can fit inside the shape. You saw me being birds.”