Croix flapped her wings desperately.  The wind was strong up here, much stronger than she had anticipated.  Her small body was being tossed in the stratospheric winds like a rag, chilled and struggling.  She fought to right herself, to gain control of her tumble, to force wind and wing to her desire.
        When she had stepped off of that high, high ledge a short time ago, she knew that this would be a learning experience.  She had underestimated just how very much of a learning experience it would be.  Before today, Croix had only used her shimmering, multicolored wings for short glides or to lift a skipping run to a long low coast.  Today, she had resolved to actually fly or die trying.  Either option now seemed imminent.
        The crystal blue towers and terraces of Akkkatin swept past beneath her at an alarming rate.  Spires and towers reached up into her careening path threatening deadly collision.  Sudden down drafts thrust her toward the hard pavement below.
        Still, throughout it all, Croix managed to avoid most of the larger and harder obstacles.  Her body bore the testament of a few close calls, abrasions on both elbows and one knee, small tears in the trailing edge of her right wing.  But slowly, slowly Croix felt like she was getting the hang of it.  Gaining some control.
        *Smack*  An unexpected blow against the girl's back halted her movement with sickening suddenness.  Croix began to slowly slide down the wall that had appeared behind her.  Luckily, it wasn't a long slide.  Maybe 4 or 5 feet.
        A particularly tall tower, of solid sapphire construction, reared up from the landscape.  The clusters of balconies and verandas that grew from its sides indicated that it was a residential tower.  The beauty of its lines and its soaring height hinted that the residents of this particular tower were well respected and of some little power among the Kalri'i of Akkkatin.
        Croix let her body slide further down the wall into a sitting position on the balcony below her.  Her whole body ached from the force of the impact, and she was having trouble catching her breath.  It was several moments before she could look up.  Straight into the eyes of a Kalri'i child.
        Sheer terror darted through the shapeshifter's veins.  For over three months she had hidden in the dark places of Akkkatin, keeping well away from the eyes of its beautiful and strange inhabitants.  Not sure if her form was good enough to avoid detection, certain that her voice was not.
        The brown eyes of the child -- a boy of six or seven years -- looked at the rumpled visitor to his balcony with open curiosity.  A trill of amazement spilled through his lips.  "Wow!  That looked like it hurt.  Are you okay?"
        At first, Croix had trouble understanding the piping voice of the child.  And his words were so much... faster and more casual than the adult conversations she had eavesdropped on.  But she could hear the concern in his voice, and strangely, that comforted her.  Some of the wildness left her heart and her eyes.
        Croix nodded tentatively, not sure she really understood the gesture.  But it seemed to satisfy the child.  His beaked face broke into a smile, and another trill -- this time of laughter -- poured out.
        "This one didn't hit nearly so hard when he was learning."  There was a lot of childish pride in his words.  But still he seemed friendly and moved forward to help Croix to her feet.
        The boy was dressed in a magnificent robe of cobalt blue embroidered in astral patterns picked out with delicate white crystals that twinkled and flashed as he moved.  It seemed to Croix that she had never seen anything so beautiful.   Croix startled a little but since the boy wasn't really a threat to her and didn't seem hostile -- she reluctantly let him aid her to her feet.  All the while her eyes danced over the boy's robe.
        The boy laughed again when he saw what she was looking at.  "It's nice, isn't it?  This one's aunt gave it to him on his birthday."  He waved one sleeve grandly, then looked with consternation at Croix's attire.
        The shapeshifter had done her best what she could scavenge or steal, but it was obvious that she didn't understand Kalri'i fashion anymore than flying.  "You... don't live in the tower, do you?"  A wrinkled browridge accompanied the boy's words.
        Croix shook her head, her eyes growing wary.
        "Hey!  It's okay.  This one is Aubrey."  The boy stuck out his hand in childish imitation of the adult ritual.  Croix looked at the hand, and carefully imitated the handshakes she had witnessed from dark alleys.  "Croix." she whispered.
        "It's okay, Croix, though Aubrey's mother would have a fit if she knew that he was talking to a ... street child."  There was a hint of glee at the forbidden in Aubrey's piping voice.
        Croix looked at the boy in growing realization.  The child had taken her shyness, small form, roughness of shape and hesitation of speech to mean that she was a child like himself.  Probably younger given that she couldn't fly yet and was still slightly smaller than the seven year old Aubrey.
        Croix couldn't stop the hopeful smile from spreading across her lips.  Aubrey was not afraid of her.  He thought that she was a Kalri'i like himself.  And he was talking to her.  Croix looked around a little at a loss.  She desperately wanted Aubrey to continue talking to her, but she didn't know how to make conversation with another sentient being.
        "No trouble... for Aubrey."  Her voice involuntarily made words of what she was thinking.
        "Don't worry, Croix.  Mother's not home right now."  Something in Aubrey's voice made Croix suspect that perhaps the child was as lonely as herself.  "Listen."  Aubrey continued, and Croix was so happy just to listen to him talk to her that she almost missed what he was saying.  "Flying, it's really hard.  And I can tell that you don't have anyone to teach you.  Ummmm." Aubrey looked a little embarrassed then rushed on.  "How about this one teaches you?  I mean, the next time you hit like that you might not be okay.  Okay?"
        This time Croix could definitely hear the loneliness in the child's voice, mixed in with the pride of being an older, more accomplished individual.  Croix could scarcely believe her luck.  She nodded her head rapidly and enthusiastically.  A ... friend?  Was Aubrey offering to be a friend?
        Just then, a chiming tone sounded from inside the apartment that opened off of the balcony.  Aubrey looked back nervously.  "That'll be this one's mother.  Aubrey can't talk anymore today.  Can you come back tomorrow?  Maybe a little earlier?"
        Croix grinned and nodded.
        Aubrey smiled back.  "Good."  The chime sounded again, somehow a little
more insistently.  Aubrey danced back toward the opening to the apartment.  "Uh, Aubrey has to go.  Can you get down by yourself?"
        Croix nodded again, and stretched her wings to show that she was fit.
        Aubrey smiled again and darted into the apartment, closing a curtain of chiming silver beads behind himself.
        "Tomorrow.... Aubrey."  Croix whispered to herself.  And climbed over the edge of the balcony, smiling.
 

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