Dual Wielding

Allard slammed the hammer down against the anvil, cracking the sheet he’d been forming. It was ruined, he’d have to start over again. He stopped himself from throwing it against the wall, instead tossing the hammer onto his workbench where it crashed through another project he’d been working on.

Blasted winds. He thought, stifling the rest of the anger that surfaced.

As the pieces fell and settled, the workshop grew silent, and Allard was left alone with his own thoughts. They drifted to the boy laying in bed in the room above–his son.

When Finian had been dragged through the canvas entrance, moaning in pain and with his legs shattered, Allard’s reaction, of course, had been fear. The thought of his son in pain twisted his gut with horror. It was why he liked to go about his days pretending Finian “Windborne” was doing anything other than flying.

Next, after the panic, he felt anger. First at his son for being so foolish, and then at the winds for attempting to take from him once again. He hated the winds and gliding both. Gliding was the very thing that had taken his wife, and the wind that she’d loved so much kept the memory of her fresh, like a hot knife twisting in his side.

Once, he had loved watching her ride the winds, her joy illuminating the sky. In those moments when she landed, her face still lit with sheer glee, he thought there wasn’t a sight in the world more beautiful. He truly wasn’t sure if she loved him or those winds more, but at the time, he hadn’t cared. There’d been no thought for the future beyond wanting to see what she would do next.

But if she’d known… would she have kept gliding anyways?

The question would sometimes keep him up at night, which was stupid, as he knew the answer. Of course she would have–if there was one thing she loved most in the entire world, it was their son. She would’ve stopped if it meant getting to see him grow up.

Still, she would have cheered him on as he flew. That traitorous voice whispered.

Much as he pretended he wasn’t, Allard was ashamed of the gratitude he’d felt after the accident. That only his son’s legs had been taken and not more? It was a gift. No, it was a mercy.

He wandered out of the shop and up the stairs towards Finian’s room. Perhaps by now he would be feeling a bit better. It would be a good thing. It had to be.

He knocked on the door. Finian would tell him to leave, so he didn’t ask. “Finian, I’ll be coming in.” After a moment, he opened the door and stepped inside.

Finian was laying down, facing away from him. “Leave me alone,” his voice drifted out from the silhouette.

Allard glanced over at the workbench, covered in half-finished projects, loose parts, and tools that hadn’t been touched in days. Finian was a mechanical genius–of that there was no doubt–he’d taken both of his parent’s talents and pushed them further than either was able. When he’d been younger, he was always happy to help around the workshop. When his mother died, that had changed.

No it didn’t. You did.

The day after her funeral, Finian had gone gliding. Even after everything, the first thing he’d done was flock back to that damn deathtrap. Allard had snapped when he’d returned, and tried to ban him from doing it ever again. It hadn’t worked, and he was too distraught himself to properly enforce it. Their fights had grown worse and worse, until eventually, they’d just about stopped talking all together.

“Surely you’ve given it thought by now Finian. You should take over the shop now that you can’t fly anymore.”

Allard ground his teeth. Why was he coming back to this same point again?

“I don’t want to,” was the only response back.

“It’s not about what you want, Finian! There’s nothing you can do any–”

Finian turned to look at his father, and Allard truly faced his son for the first time in days. His eyes were dull and lifeless, as if all their color had been drained away, leaving a dull, washed-out gray.

“It’s… it’s not about what you want,” Allard continued. “You need to get out of this room.”

“Yeah? And how am I supposed to do that?” Finian said bitterly. “I can’t walk.”

Allard pointed towards the wheelchair in the corner of the room. “That’s what the chair is for, if you’d just–”

“There are stairs outside my door dad!” Finian yelled, a single hysterical laugh breaking his voice. “And beyond that, there’s rope bridges I couldn’t cross if I wanted to, or are you so happy I can’t fly anymore, that you haven’t realized that?”

Allard blinked as the words hit him like a punch to the face. How hadn’t he realized that? Was he really that pathetic of a father?

“I–”

“Just get the hell out of my room” Finian spat. His eyes, lifeless only a moment before, burned with an intense fury that Allard had never seen in his son, even as they dripped with tears.

He stumbled back, pausing for only a moment to look back at his son, and to grab the wheelchair, taking it with him as he walked out of the room. As the door closed behind him, he gripped the chair tighter, looking to the stairs that it could not traverse.

“Damn it!” He kicked the chair, sending it off the side, crashing into the ground below. His son refused to use it regardless, it was as useless as Allard himself was. He made his way down the stairs, walking past the wreckage of the chair at the bottom and into his workshop. He felt sick, and bile rose up in the back of his throat as he collapsed onto a stool. For some time, he sat there in silence. Thankfully, no customers stopped by–though it wasn’t like the shop was a busy place.

His eyes drifted over the workbench, looking at the pieces of his life laid out atop its surface. They were a broken and disassembled mess, all that was left of what had once been a well-functioning mechanism. And just like the problem above his head, he had no idea how to fix it.

A faint breeze ruffled the canvas at the front of the shop.

“He’s not going to run this place. At least not the way you want. You should know that by now.”

Allard whipped his head around, searching for the source of the mildly teasing words. He knew that voice, it wasn’t one he could forget.

“I–” his voice caught in his throat. “What should I do?”

Of course, there was no response. But the wind picked up outside, and the canvas blew open. From where he sat, all he could see was the dented and bent wheelchair outside.

He stood up to go bring it in, moving mechanically. Eventually, Finian would need to move around again. If one thing was certain, the boy was stronger than him. He would return to his life at some point, and when that happened, he’d need it.

I can replace the stairs with a ramp–or better yet, a small lift. He thought, picking the pieces up. But what about the bridges? Maybe I could… no that wouldn’t work.

With a long sigh he settled back onto the stool, staring at the wheelchair in front of him. He could fix it, but that wouldn’t make anything better. His wife would still be dead, and his son would still hate him. Worse, Finian could take after his father. He could grow to hate himself.

And he found that scared him most of all.

Without thinking, his hands started to move. He grabbed a pen, then drafting paper, and he began to draw. It was slow and rough at first–the paper filled itself with thick, scratchy lines as each ounce of frustration bled out from the pen in his hands. He hardly even knew what he was drawing, but slowly the image began to take shape. His breathing quickened as he realized what he had put to the page, it was a terrible, terrible thing, and yet it filled his heart with hope beyond hope.

It wasn’t good enough. He crumpled the paper and tossed it aside, grabbing another as he started again. The lines were straighter this time, more legible, but the idea still needed refining.

It won’t work like this.

He restarted again, and then crumpled the next paper as he failed once more.

He tried again.

The sun set outside, but he hadn’t stopped, working deep into the night.

Again.

Again.

Again.

***

Finian was hungry, his father hadn’t brought him any food for dinner. Perhaps he shouldn’t have expected any after their fight. Hours had passed since then, and the day had gone by. Most of Precipice would be sleeping, but Finian was still awake–since the accident, sleep had been hard to come by with the lingering pain, and even when he did manage it, it was sporadic at best. Not that he wanted to sleep anyways. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the ground flying up at him, and he could hear the crunching in his legs as he crashed. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever forget the sound of his bones snapping, no matter how much he wanted to.

The room was still, bathed in darkness save the small bits of moonlight that drifted through the curtains on his shuttered window. So there, in the dark, he found his thoughts wandering to the time when his mother was alive.

Windseeker. It was the term for those rare few who were truly obsessed, those who dedicated their lives to pushing themselves, and gliding as a whole, further. Of the thousands of gliders in the city, he only knew of three others that truly deserved that title, though plenty claimed it. At the time though, Finian hadn’t been one at all. In fact, until his mother’s death, gliding had merely been a way to spend time with her, and something they could talk about. He’d had much more in common with his father, such as their shared love of tinkering.

Still, at first it had been neither of those things that attracted him. The first thing he could remember wanting to be was a natural historian. He’d been fascinated by the ecology of The Grass Sea, and wanted to travel around on veldstriders studying it in detail. One of his favorite parts of gliding was getting to get close to the creatures that resided on or above the top layer of the sea–sunset gliders, which dove spectacularly down into the grass to hunt for food. Skyeels, which could grow hundreds of feet in length over the course of their lifespan, and even the occasional leapod, whose heads would stick up even above the top of the grass as they moved across the land below.

Later on, as he’d developed his mechanical skills further, he’d thought he would take over the shop when his father retired. It made sense, and he enjoyed it. He decided nature history could be a hobby, and he’d spend the majority of his time trying to invent new things to improve people’s lives in Precipice. Then, his mother died.

After her death, he would fly every day for hours, spilling tears into the open air. Perhaps he should’ve hated it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. In the moments when he caught the wind, he felt like she was right beside him, urging him to fly even higher, and it was as close as he ever felt to her.

At some point, gliding became an obsession for him. His previous dreams couldn’t compare. As he grew better at it, he enjoyed it more and more, and the fun he was having drove him to improve even further. At some point, he’d become one of the best gliders in the city, and declared himself a windseeker, leaving beyond his plans with the shop. Over the years, his life had come to revolve entirely around the sport. He lived to be amongst the winds, and even jokingly began to call himself “Finian Windborne”. It had been a rush unlike any other.

He’d thought that would be the end, that he would glide until he died. If he could’ve done that, he would’ve been happy regardless of what came. But the end of his gliding had come knocking, and he still had to live on. Could it be possible that he could continue living even without the winds?

Another part of him knew that thought was silly. His life, his goals, they’d already shifted twice before, what was a third time? He wasn’t a skyeel, which would die if it ever stopped drifting through the air above the sea. But then, maybe the flying wasn’t what was important. The skyeel kept moving, even if it was slow, even if it was thrashed by a great storm, even if they never actually reached a destination, they kept moving forward. Then, it wasn’t the speed that mattered, and it wasn’t the goal either.

Finian’s stomach rumbled furiously, interrupting his thoughts. There was food in the shop below. He could probably get some if he dragged himself to it as he’d done the other day when Corrin had been over.

Corrin.

Meeting the swordsman from Straetum had been fun, and Finian had appreciated his company more than he’d expected. Corrin acted like the other windseekers Finian had talked to; he had a dream that he was chasing, something he wanted to do more than anything else. But it was a different dream than theirs, something fresh and interesting. Becoming a spirit knight–it was as far-fetched as dreams got, but when Corrin talked about it, he made it seem like it was an inevitability, like there was nothing in the world that could stop him.

Finian wondered what Corrin would do in his situation. He couldn’t imagine Corrin giving up, so would he keep looking for a way to trudge forward? He chuckled at the idea of a wheelchair-bound Corrin declaring he’d become a spirit knight anyways, then dragging himself down the stairs to get food. Finian didn’t think he could declare he’d still glide, he wasn’t that strong. But, he could do food, couldn’t he?

He almost didn’t, he almost convinced himself to stay in bed and just go hungry.

The skyeel keeps moving.

He eased himself onto the ground as best he could, hissing through his teeth as the pain flared up. Then, he started dragging himself again, it hurt, more than it had before, but he kept going, moving from the rug under his bed onto the hard, wooden floor below.

He took a break halfway to the door–he was a human, so breaks were fine right? From his position, he looked over at his workbench, atop which was a racing clock he’d been working on. It had no use to him now that he would no longer be able to race. The thought hurt almost more than his legs. But eventually, he kept going, and reached the door, he grabbed the handle tightly and forced it open. Cold air spilled in from the outside and caused him to shiver, but he wasn’t going to stop. It was only a little brighter outside, with the platform above theirs still blocking most of the moonlight. Finian kept moving.

In a way, the stairs were easier, gravity could do half the work, and he was able to steady himself on the railing. Easier didn’t mean easy though, and he was already tired from the first stretch. By the time he reached the bottom, his body was shaking, both from pain and exertion. He took another break, preparing for the final leg of his marathon.

The surgeon had said it would be a miracle if he ever walked again– even if he did, it would never be the same. Somehow, Finian felt that a miracle wouldn’t be coming for him. But as he lay slumped against the stairs, he resolved that it would be fine. No matter what happened, he would keep moving forward. If it wasn’t gliding, it would be something else. He didn’t know what, but he would find it.

Perhaps I could get a lift installed here? That would make getting out of my room much easier, he thought as he finished catching his breath.

He began again, arms burning as he dragged his body across the rough ground. Much as he hated the chair, he found himself wishing he had it now. It would be much easier to keep “moving forward” as he’d decided, on wheels. He should’ve asked his father to put it at the bottom. Damn his pride.

Oddly, he noticed light coming through the entrance of the workshop. Was this father still awake? He was going to tell him off if he was. How could he have forgotten to bring his food?

Yet, as Finian crawled through the flap at the entrance, he saw a surprising sight. His father was slumped over the workbench, the lightstone above the bench was still on. He’d seemingly fallen asleep while working on something. It was an odd level of passion for the man to show, but Finian didn’t really care about the work.

What caught his eye though, was the wheelchair next to him. It had been busted up by the fall, but it would still be better than crawling. Finian dragged himself over to it and pulled himself up with a final bit of exertion, the tension in his arms finally letting up as he settled into place. As he sat there, he was able to breathe a sigh of faint relief. The wheels had been knocked out of alignment, which made handling a nightmare, but as he tested it, he could still move.

There was a cupboard in the back of the room with bread and dried meat. It was no true meal, but it would appease his stomach, which would be good enough for now. He sat in the corner as he ate–the bread was tasteless and the meat was tough to chew, but his mind was elsewhere. Even the throbbing pain in his legs had faded away as he thought.

I’m a human, not a skyeel. Even if it doesn’t matter, I need a goal, something to move towards besides food. Maybe finding it can be the goal itself? That seems like cheating.

He took another bite as he pretended not to be worried about the future. He told himself everything would all work out somehow, he just had to keep moving. His eyes drifted over to the workbench again. He hadn’t noticed before, but the surface, and even the floor around it was covered with crumpled sheets of draft paper.

Just what was he working on?

Eventually, his curiosity got the best of him, and he wheeled back over. His father was sleeping atop a piece of paper, likely the latest design of whatever the project was, but Finian couldn’t see it beneath his sleeping body. Instead, he grabbed one of the crumpled papers off the desk, unfurling it before him. Just what was–

His breath caught in his throat. Slowly, he looked over the page, his eyes lingering on each detail. He wondered for a moment if his vision had failed, or perhaps he’d fallen asleep after all, and this was all a dream. He glanced down at the chair beneath him, and a tear dropped onto his lap.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips, and another tear slipped down his cheek. His hands grew weak, and the paper fell from his grasp. His head turned to his father, whose shoulders were rising and falling with each breath.

Then, his vision failed after all. It grew blurred and watery as his cheeks became damp, and his breaths came shakingly. The wall he’d put between him and his emotions melted away, turning into the water which streamed from his eyes. But the emotion that spilled out wasn’t sadness at all.

There, in his fathers workshop, in the middle of the night, Finian laughed and cried. And somehow, he felt that everything was going to be alright.