Adam continued on with Hannah towards her house. It seemed that the little crow-girl, despite being better at flying overall, didn't have a particularly good handle on navigation in the air, as she kept having to make course corrections. Maybe that wasn't something that came as instinctually as flight to them. Adam wasn't exactly familiar with the city from this height, either, but having driven around various parts of it, when she could still operate a car, she could tell their location a little better than Hannah could.
She noticed, too, that when the younger harpy wasn't pulling ahead to show her where to turn, she dropped back behind Adam, and she realized that Hannah was riding her updraft, and thus having to work a bit less hard to keep up the pace; she may have had more experience with flying, but she was quite a bit smaller, and she simply had to work harder to generate the same amount of force with her smaller wing area. Adam found herself smiling; sure, technically the girl was getting something of a free ride off her effort, but she didn't mind. It felt good to help this little one. Even if kids that age did tend to have more energy than any adult she'd ever known...
After a while, they came to a neighborhood a little ways out, in the direction of the woods that lay between the city and Hedgeton. Hannah pulled ahead again as she dove a few hundred feet, pulling into a circle over one particular house. "This's my house!" she called to Adam, who was making the descent a little less rapidly and a lot less confidently. "C'mon, an' you can say hi to my mom 'n dad!"
Adam looked down at the house, still far below. She was, thankfully, still not experiencing any vertigo, but she realized for the first time since she'd taken off just how far up she really was, and... "I, uh...I don't know how to land!" she called back.
Hannah stared incredulously up at her for a moment, then laughed. "It's easy!" she said. "Watch me!"
Adam followed her down closer to the ground, where the younger harpy moved out a ways to give herself more room for the final approach. She swooped down low, then pulled up, braking by holding her wings vertical, and dropped lightly to the ground.
Adam stared, still circling. Could she...? She wasn't especially confident - Hannah made it look easy, but then, Hannah clearly knew her way around this kind of thing better. But...she realized that she was going to have to land sometime. Taking a deep breath, she followed suit, swinging out a ways so as to have a little more room, coming in at a shallow angle, and pulling up as she got close to the ground.
She didn't pull up quite soon enough, and winced as she raked her talons through grass and dirt, and when she did brake it was a little too sudden and she was nearly thrown backwards. But she caught her balance in time to not fall over, and it turned out that she hadn't skinned her talons, just scuffed them a little - all in all, it could've been much worse. All the same, it took her a moment to catch her breath and stop shaking. But...she had done it. She had flown, by herself, and she'd gotten back down safely. She could fly.
When she'd caught her breath, Adam stood up and turned to Hannah, who led her to the front door. The little harpy-girl grabbed for the doorknob a couple times, but she wasn't quite able to get her talons up to that height. She turned to Adam, who had to fumble for it a bit herself, but got a solid grip and gently pushed the door open, hoping she wasn't surprising anybody on the other side. Hannah pushed it all the way open and went in, then motioned for Adam to come in with one wing.
Adam did. "Uh, hello?" she called, as she shut the door behind them. The house was fairly dark, and she wondered if Hannah's parents were asleep - were they changed? Did they live on a day or night cycle? She didn't think she'd gathered.
She got her answer when a human woman poked her head around the corner. She wore glasses, and as she saw that the door was shut and stepped into the hall, Adam saw that she was in pajamas and a bathrobe. "Hello," she said. "Who are you?"
"This's Eve, Mama!" Hannah said excitedly. "I found her when I was flyin' an' she said she'd take me home!"
Hannah's mother blinked. "Oh? Thank you. We...don't exactly have any idea what it's like for her to be out flying. To be honest, we were a little afraid to let her...thank you. Won't you have a cup of coffee? It must be cold out."
Adam smiled, a little embarassed. "It was nothing, really...I don't think there's any real danger, it just...it feels like a lot larger place, up there..." She was annoyed at herself for rambling, but that actually was pretty true. She thought she understood where the "wild" in "wild blue yonder" came from...
"Well, thank you anyway," Hannah's mother said. "It really is comforting to know that there are some trustworthy people on the day side of things - I'm sure you can understand that we don't really have any idea of a lot of this stuff except by report. Seriously, now, come on in."
Not having any particular reason to say no, Adam followed her in, wondering if she should be embarassed that she wasn't wearing anything below the waist...but if their daughter was a harpy, surely they must understand... "I'm not keeping you up, am I?" she asked. Hannah's mother shook her head. "Oh, no. Weekends are kind of a halfway schedule for us - one of us has to be up for Hannah, since she's not at school, so we trade off. Cream or sugar?"
"Uh, both, please," Adam said. Her hostess mixed up a cup for her and sat down at the kitchen table. Adam sat as well and looked down at the cup, dearly hoping she wasn't about to make an idiot of herself. Lifting one leg up above the table, and marveling at the flexibility of her new body, she grasped the handle with her talons and cautiously lifted it to her mouth. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't as hard as she'd thought - she was still a bit unpracticed at it, and her grip wasn't as firm as it could be, but nothing spilled and she was able to drink with probably as much dignity as you could have when using your feet at the table. She noticed that Hannah was watching her, and wondered if she'd gotten the hang of this yet.
"So...are there very many of you flying, typically?" Hannah's mother asked. Adam shrugged. "Not when I was...I don't really know for sure. To be honest, I'm still pretty new to this - today was actually the first time I tried to fly."
"She couldn't even land, Mama!" Hannah giggled.
"Oh," her mother said. "Did you just change recently, then?"
Adam nodded. "About a week ago."
"Mm," she mused. "I'm impressed - I doubt I could work up the nerve to try something like that so soon. Though it was definitely good for Hannah when she started - it made a world of difference in improving her mood. We were actually thinking of suggesting it to her, but she always used to have a fear of heights, and we only knew what we read on the Internet, so we weren't really sure if it'd be safe. Luckily one of her classmates helped her figure it out."
Adam smiled. "That's what she was telling me. Have you found out much, on the Internet? We've only looked a little..."
"Oh, we've learned some things, certainly," Hannah's mother said. "But there's so much information to sort through, and it's hard to say how much of it is really reliable...and even if it is, a lot of changed people talk about how different things can be from person to person. And some things just sound so strange...it's hard to believe they could be real..."
Hannah hopped up onto a chair, leaning onto the table and nodding. "Lotsa weird stuff," she said, then looked at Adam a little more seriously. "Am I...is't true that I'm gonna...gonna lay eggs, like a...like a real bird?" she asked.
"Hannah!" her mother scolded, looking embarassed. "That's not a polite thing to ask a guest...sorry," she said, turning to Adam, who was turning bright red.
Adam had been mortified enough when it had actually happened to her, but to have the subject brought up in front of an almost-total stranger...it took a moment before she could do anything but cringe. She could tell that Hannah's mother was trying to convey that she didn't need to answer, and she didn't exactly want to, but...well...these people did need to know...half (well, maybe not half, but a large part) of what had made it so terrible for her was that it had come as a complete shock and surprise. And she was obviously giving away the answer just by the color she was turning, anyway...
"It...it's o-okay," she stammered, as her face cooled back down to its normal shade. "It...yeah. It's true." She wanted to sink into her chair and disappear under the table, but at least neither of them were looking at her like she was a freak. Hannah's mother was clearly sympathetic, and the younger harpy herself was staring incredulously at her. "R-really?" Hannah asked. "Does...'zit hurt?"
Adam sighed. "Yes...it does hurt, but...well, at least it's over quick..." It hadn't felt quick to her, but then, she'd never gone through days' worth of discomfort like normal women apparently did.
"You shouldn't have to worry about that for a couple years yet, though," Hannah's mother said. She turned back to Adam. "Um...thanks," she said. "We really weren't sure about that...sorry if that was too far."
Adam shook her head. "It...it's okay, really," she said. "The worst thing for me was that I didn't know what was happening. I'd rather that she didn't have to worry about that."
The other woman nodded. "Some of the people talking about it were saying that it's not as bad as giving birth, at least."
Adam started to blush again. "I, uh...I wouldn't know."
