You haven't gone for a flight for ages, and you do kinda want to see the city from above

You take a breath in feeling the magic in your body. Moving through you with each beat of your heart. You concentrate on your shoulder blades creating two pools of magic. Picturing elliptical wings in your mind you focus on the feel of the feathers. The strong cores and light edges. You picture all the different sizes shapes and purposes. Then you breath out and release your magic.

It was hard for you to mentally account for the feel of magical body parts compared to your physical ones. The wings had no sense of touch but they had a sense of space. As the lower feathers graze the ground you know it is happening but there is no physical sensation to prove it. Stretching them out you can feel the slight breeze coming from the sea. Once they reach their usable limit, each one about as long as you were tall, then you focus on the alula. Moving more magic towards them you picture the jets, it makes no visible change to the wings but it is what gives you lift. You could just use the wings to take off but they have to be almost four times you height to give you enough lift, this is just easier.

"Huh." Lucia said looked at the wings. "Still aren't flying."

You laughed. "Fair." You push the magic down out the jets, enough to get your feet off the ground but not much more. "In case your thinking it. I've never tried to carry anyone while doing this, getting myself off the ground took a lot of figuring out, another person is a lot of weight to add." You say this hoping she wasn't going to ask. Refusing her wouldn't be difficult if she asked without the explanation, you were already doing her one favour not like she could demand another, but hopefully this would save you some time.

"Still not flying." She pouted.

"Back soon." You increase the magical push and take off. You don't got too high, just above the buildings so Lucia can still see you. Up here the breeze is stronger. The faint salt you'd been smelling since you arrived much strong without buildings and other smells in the way. You shift your wings to their active soar variant, once you were airborne the elliptical one weren't as efficient. You can still fly but you still need more magic going through the jets to do so.

With your new wings you can feel the wind current and let it take you. Wrapping your body in a thin magical shell you start to fly over the city. The sun wasn't quiet down yet so the city has a hue to it. You fly over the green area surrounding the hill the academy sits on. Compared to the academy you are much higher above the city proper. The whitewashed buildings not quite gleaming in the fading sun but catching the light enough for you to see everything. The people were small but still visible enough for you to pick out individuals. You keep flying over the city, following the current so you enjoy the view without having to think too much about it.

As you look at the people you wonder if anyone can do this. You figure their must be some people. In your old world humanity had been trying to fly probably since they saw birds doing it. Surely in this world people were trying as well. Though with magic they may not be thinking of more mundane methods. Maybe you should build a plane. You don't know much about the specifics of plane design but you can remember what the first planes looked like, you could probably make on of them even without using magic to help.

After a while of flying you figure you should head back. You swap to passive soaring wings to get out of the current. It takes you much higher and the city shrinks. The people turning into small dots. But you make it back very quickly. Looking down at the academy you try to see Lucia. Being as high up as you as you can't. There isn't a spot on the grass so she might have moved onto the stones or moved from the spot entirely. You make yourself vertical and shift your wings horizontal, shrinking them to reduce the lift.

It's slow falling and you use the jets to control your decent. You keep an eye out for Lucia and soon spot her. She was looking in the wrong direction from your decent and you grin. You speed up your decent and get ready to land behind Lucia.

With what you know to a shit eating grin you let out a massive burst of magic coming to a total stop just above the ground behind Lucia.

"FUCK!" She shouts and spins to glare you floating behind her.

"Did you lose something?" You ask letting yourself drop and land on the ground. You were higher than you thought and stumble slightly. The stumble makes Lucia laugh and you shake your head. "Believe or not one of my better landings."

"How the fuck did you do that? Can you teach me? Are you sure you can't lift me up? How did you make the wings? Was it all a shell like how I used to make my dragon or were the feathers just images like your dragon?" She asked in rapid succession.

"Practice; maybe no idea; maybe, I'd need time to figure out your weight so we could get into and stay in the air; pretty much the same question as your first one; and a shell, I make each feather, they're fragile if they touch anything they'll break, I learned to fly above trees very quickly." You shudder slightly as you recall your ill fated tree diving. The mental image of you darting between the trees had quickly been replaced with you crashing into trees.

"What?" Lucia asked then shook her head. "How did you think of this?"

"I watched birds." You shrug again leaving out a lot of details from your past life.

"Ok, ok." She was trying to fit fact someone was capable of flight into her worldly understanding. "You know what, you're really impressive and everyone says your ridiculously powerful so why the fuck are you helping me?"

Her question caught you off guard. "I, ah, you asked me?" It was the actual reason.

Lucia looked at you for a long moment. "So if I asked you to perform with me you would say yes?" She smiled and you laughed.

"Nice try." You say rolling your eyes at her.

"Worth a shot." She said with a grin. "Thanks for the practice it is really helpful."

"Happy to provide help with every explicit limits." You say grinning right back. "Dinner should be ready soon an after the wings I am hungry." You turn and walk toward the dorms and Lucia follow slightly behind you.

"You know if you show everyone you can fly no is going to leave you alone until you teach them how."

"Does that include you?"

"Oh yeah after my performance on the weekend you aren't getting a moment alone." The both you laugh. You were pretty sure she wasn't joking.