I didn’t realize how hard flying would be.

It wasn’t the flapping that was hard. It was the soaring. Hawks … we make it look so effortless when we’re in the sky, gliding and circling overhead. But there’s so much to learn, so much to practice. How to angle your wings just right into the wind; how to recognize updrafts and take advantage of them. How not to get battered downward in storms, and how to recover from a fall before you panic or hit the ground.

I had a lot of learning to do, still. And I didn’t have the upper-body strength that I would’ve if I’d spent my whole life doing this, nor was I as small or as light as most hawks were. I figured that something had to have changed about me, to let me fly at all … maybe I’d gained some muscle or hollow bones, or maybe it was the same magic that kept people from seeing me for what I was. But whatever it was, it hadn’t made flying effortless. And after a minute or so, I was gasping with exertion.

I was still in “fight or flight” mode, and since there wasn’t anything for me to fight I had to keep flying. But I was at least a hundred feet off the ground, over streets and suburban houses, and it was disorienting to look down at them — partly because of the height, and partly because I could see things so well down there. I could read license plate numbers on cars, and newspaper headlines from bundles on doorsteps. It made my brain think I was right up close to them. Then I realized how high I was, and it felt like whiplash.

The wind was blowing across my earholes, and pressing my feathers close to me. It felt like riding a bike downhill for the first time, with all the wobbling and pedaling that entailed. I wanted to stop, to find someplace to land, and I remembered all the hawks I’d seen perched on telephone poles. But I didn’t have that kind of control yet, and I imagined myself getting tangled up and electrocuted. Even if I somehow managed to land on such a tiny perch, I didn’t see how I’d be able to take off again. Not without a running start, and a jolt of adrenalin like the one that I’d had when I started.

I scanned the ground below, my lungs raw from taking deep breaths of cold air, trying to find a good landing spot without getting vertigo. I didn’t want to fall in a heap on someone’s yard, and I didn’t want to splatter across the pavement, either. But that left me with few options, and I felt myself start to lose altitude as my wings became stiff and sore.

Finally, towards the edge of town, after five minutes or so of flight, I saw a cafe-style restaurant in front of a vacant lot. I angled towards it, turning my wings slightly, then harder as I saw that I wouldn’t make the turn in time. That caused me to drop sharply, and I flapped my wings in a panic to keep from smashing into the roof, before touching the ground with my claws and stumbling and rolling across the grass. That lasted a second or so, and then it ended with me face-up and one of my feet splashing into a muddy creek. Drips of brown water flew into the air, and landed on me and my beak.

I couldn’t move. I could only lay gasping for breath, feeling like my legs had turned into pain and my wings had turned into lead. I had to close my eyes, because of how bright the clouds overhead were. After a moment I realized the creek was ice-cold and yanked my foot out of there, but it felt like it was frozen already, and I shivered uncontrollably beneath my jacket.

I was a wreck. For a moment, I felt pathetic that it’d ended so badly. I felt like a pretender; a human with feathers attached. But deep down, I knew that was not the case. And when I imagined myself as a nonhuman hawk, doing the exact same thing and landing the exact same way, I realized it wasn’t pathetic, and knew how I’d feel if I saw it.

Then I remembered that’s me, and I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut ‘till they started to water. All I could think, through the pain and exhaustion, was “I flew. I’m a red-tailed hawk, and I flew with my own wings. I’m one of them now, and I know what it feels like, and I flew, I really flew … ”

I cried as soon as I started gasping for breath again. I couldn’t help it.

As soon as I could get up and walk, I trudged into the restaurant I’d crashed behind and made my way straight for their restroom. I probably spent half an hour in there, cleaning myself up at first but then making faces in the mirror. Somebody came in while I was doing that, then walked back out just as quickly. I don’t know what he saw.

What I saw was myself, for the first time. My clothes were torn up and my feathers were ruffled and dirty, but I was a real, live hawk. And after the whole flying thing, I was a little bit more accepting of how I was now.

I didn’t look exactly the way that I’d pictured myself, in commissions and artwork and things. I wasn’t wearing “Arrow’s” medallions … I wasn’t sure what I looked like without clothes on, the way he was normally drawn, and wasn’t willing to find out right there. But somehow, just seeing what I actually looked like made this seem more real, and less threatening. My life wasn’t over, I wasn’t being hunted down by anyone, I wasn’t even that bothered by my wingfeath-

“Sir.” The woman from behind the counter peeked inside and knocked on the door, at the same time.

I had been holding my beak open wide to examine the inside of it. “Hrh?” I asked.

“Sir, there are people lined up to use this restroom. If you need to use the showers, there’s a Quiktrip across the road from here.”

“Turh uh-” I stopped and closed my beak, trying to process what she’d just said. Then I saw how disheveled I looked. She doesn’t see me as a hawk. She thinks I’m a homeless person. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was.

“Okay … ” I said. When she stayed there in the door, I followed her out. There were what looked like a dad and a couple of kids waiting in line behind her, and the youngest one looked up at me and stared.

I wondered what she saw.

The rest of the place was a bit shabby, more of a “family restaurant” kind of place than a chain. It had a counter, with bar stools and salt shakers and napkin dispensers. I ordered a hamburger, and the staffer who’d ordered me out of the restroom didn’t bat an eyelash. She just called back my order to the person behind her in the kitchen, and that was that.

I sat there on one of the stools a few minutes, hearing the sizzling grease in the kitchen and the traffic drive past outside. Kicking my bare feet, hearing the claws click against the metal.

There was a sign on the truck stop across the street: “NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE.” I read it as though it were right next to me. Then I looked down at my clawed feet, and flexed them. Couldn’t she see I was wearing no shoes? Or did she care?

There was so much I still had to learn.

I reached to get out my phone and gasped, wincing and fighting back tears as my taut muscles protested. I’d probably pulled everything in my arms … in my wings.

I tried again, more carefully this time, and realized that my phone was probably shot too. But there was a chance, I thought, slowly pulling it out of its pocket and bringing it where I could see it. It might still be able to-

It turned on.

I tapped it awkwardly for a moment, clicking my claw against the touchscreen and trying to unlock it. Then I realized that wouldn’t work, and slid my knuckle across it instead, then rapped it on the email app’s icon.

Using my phone’s slide-out keyboard (and generous spellchecker), I claw-typed a message to Jen. It was short, but it took a long time to write it, and not just because my claws slid on the buttons:

Sorry for leaving you there. I saw what I am, and I couldn’t face it. I’m okay now. I’m feeling better.

I flew.

I tapped “Send” and looked up, as the parent and kids filed out of the restroom and towards the front entrance. The one who’d stared at me kept doing so, looking away from her dad and her hand in his. I arched my feathers, and tried to look impressive.

I saw her say something to her dad as he helped her into their car, but I didn’t know how to read lips.

I tapped on the online payment app, as the nonchalant server brought me my hamburger. It smelled warm and wet, but I couldn’t smell grease or ketchup or anything; just steam. Somehow that didn’t make it any less appealing, and I tried not to let it distract me as I tapped out the dollar amount for a donation to Katherine Sato. Maybe that would help her with her rent.

Finally, I reached up to the counter — my feathers brushed one of the napkin holders aside while the server was watching me, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care — and scraped the bun and the condiments off of my burger, before picking at it with my beak. I did it without thinking; it was just all I was interested in.

Someone else came in while I was eating, and I slid my plate away from him and held one of my wings over it, my feathers fluffing out threateningly. Get your own, I thought, as my beak got tasteless grease smeared across it. But inside my crop, the meat was warm and delightful, if a bit dry.

Needs more juice, I thought. Lots more.

As I cleaned myself off with a napkin, and paid the nonchalant server my tab, I remembered that I would need some kind of indigestible matter for my crop … something to grind up this meal with. Would a few of the bones work? Could I crunch them to bits, in my beak? And what would happen if I changed back to a human … or could I, anymore? How long had I been this way?

First things first. After my dishes were taken away, I got up and limped out to the parking lot, trying to hide how sore I was. Trying to look as truly awesome — even if beat up and scratched — as that raptor I saw in the mirror was. As I felt when I realized I was him.

Finally I got to the side of the building, and knuckle-tapped the screen into dialing one of my contacts. He didn’t respond the first time, so I tried again. “Come on … ”

“QUIVERSHAFT, ARROW,” the LCD screen reads. Beneath it a light on the handset turns on, as the phone rings.

Elsewhere in the house, food is sizzling on the stove, the shower is running, and a four-way PS3 deathmatch is going on. Rock music and explosions drown out the phone where it sits, plastic figures perched next to it, Dungeons and Dragons books and boxes of Magic: the Gathering cards piled on the bookshelf beneath it.

The phone rings a third, then a fourth time, before playing a recorded voice: “Please leave a message after the tone. *BEEP*”

There’s a sigh on the other end of the line. “Keys?”

Down the hallway, the shower turns off.

“Keys, wake up already and pick up the phone.”

Gray sunlight shines in through the window, onto the rumpled bedcovers next to the bookcase. The bed is unmade, but unoccupied.

“Look, Keys … ” Arrow sighs again. “Remember I told you I was starting to feel like I was my fursona? Well, I know why now. And I’m not telling you this because I’m trying to push you farther over the edge. I’m telling you this because of what you’ve been going through. I think I know what it is, and I think I can help.”

The plastic figures rattle on the shelves, as a deep bass explosion sounds downstairs and male voices cry out in triumph.

“There’s so much I want to tell you … ”

Outside the open window, a small blue-and-white bird lands on a tree branch and chirps.

“ … so much I feel like I have to tell someone, before I go nuts. If I haven’t already.”

Down the hallway, there is the sound of a door opening, and someone whistling as he walks out.

“I should talk to Jen, I kinda left her hanging … ”

Something clicks, on the phone, and a faint voice speaks past the receiver. “What?” Arrow asks. “Who are-”

There’s a clatter, and then the phone cuts out.

Inside the house, a silhouette peeks his head in the room, then goes to the phone and picks up the handset. He dials a few buttons on it, and listens.

Outside, the bird flies away as two massive, taloned feet land on the branch, leaning forward as they grip it. A winged shadow falls inside the house, and the figure looks outside and stares.

To be continued in Lunarkeys’ commission …