A rather... Awkward meeting

Luke Ochieng Okoth

It's a bird, it's a plane- No, it's a vulture! Wait, that's a bird. But that one over there, that thing, that's a cloud, yep.

If somebody were to look at the sky right above the Academy's rooftop, they would notice that a single hooded vulture had been circling over it for quite some time. Peculiarly enough, it seemed to be flying backwards, accomplishing this with crazed wing motions that would alarm any veterinarian or casual bird watcher. If that wasn't worrying enough, the vulture also was flying upside down.

Luke was having the time of his time. It was good, in his opinion, to cut back every once in a while and do something truly liberating. So, about every other day. Besides, there had been this question on his mind for the last week -could birds get airsick from their own flying? He didn't think that he had ever experience it for himself but it wasn't like he paid much attention to it either. So that was where he had gotten the idea to fly backwards from. Originally, he wanted to try and maintain a nice, constant spin, but all he got from that was a window to the face.

This was the next best thing, then, right? After an hour of doing that, however, it didn't seem like it was doing anything. So he had only just begun to try upside down flying. And to Luke's surprise, not only was he not good at it, it seemed like he had absolutely no talent for it what so ever. Normally, he would be hesitant about saying something so firm as that, but the way that his wings had suddenly locked together in midair violently told him otherwise.

Huh. Who knew that birds can't fly upside down? was his thought as he plummeted down to the roof. When he was only maybe ten feet away from breaking every bone in his avian body, he abruptly shifted back to his much stronger and very naked human form, crashing right next to one of the people who were standing on the roof.

As Luke waited for the pain to settle down, he chuckled to himself, a silly, dreamy smile on his face. "Hehehe flop."

Luke Ochieng Okoth

He perked up as a girl started speaking, staring right at her with unfocused eyes. Oh, she has silvery hair. Luke liked silvery hair. And blue hair, and blond hair, and pink hair, and green hair. Pretty much every color except for dark brown and black, really, and even then, it seemed like Manta Carlos in general was a magnet for people with really pretty hair. And really pretty eyes. And really pretty everything, actually, which made Luke wonder.

Did that mean he was a pretty person, too? If the answer was a yes, he would be happy with that but on the other hand, he was a boy. Before coming to the island, he hadn’t thought that boys could be pretty. He still didn’t really think that boys were supposed to be pretty but if so many of them there were, he guessed that maybe it was okay sometimes.

Frowning himself childishly, Luke squinted at the girl, scrunching up his face to get a real good look at her. It didn’t really help but it made him feel better, like he was actually trying really hard. Silvery hair. Frosty hair. Blue eyes. Icy eyes. Instantly, he jumped to a conclusion.

“You look like a snowman!” he said out loud. “Snowwoman? Snowwoman, yes.” Although, maybe ice lady would have been nicer and more accurate sounding but snowman came to mind faster. And there was just something about the word that made him feel happy. It didn’t snow in Kenya, after all, so that was a magical thing to him. Luke was willing to bet that this girl was a magic snow person, for sure! “Oh, but if it’s summertime, then wouldn’t that make you a rainwoman?”

Luke Ochieng Okoth

Not an icewoman? Oh, but she did have some powers, so Luke figured that there was a good chance she was the other kind of ice person. He felt extremely happy with himself for having come to that conclusion, like every problem in the world had just been solved with this single idea. Since his entire world at that exact moment was more or less narrowed down to the rooftop anyways, this was entirely accurate by Luke's books.

"I'm Luke. I'm a vulture," he said immediately to her question, still staring at her with wide eyes. He wasn't doing it because he was surprised by her, or angered, or trying to be intimidating or anything like that. He just thought that this way, he could show people that he was really interested in what they had to say. Deeply interested. So interested that they had every single ounce of his attention. Just thrown onto them. This was Luke's idea of politeness.

"Sometimes I go to the park and sell ice cream to the little ones. It's fun! You're the other kind of ice person, so you should try it sometime! Most of the times, I put the cart someplace really hard to get to and they always manage to find it! People are so smart around here."

Luke Ochieng Okoth

He bobbed his head energetically. "It's the hair!" he said eagerly. "Or, no, maybe it's the eyes? Hair is snow, eyes are ice. Frosted. Something. It's pretty but it also means you're definitely some kind of ice person. There's two types, you know. There's the kind that melts in the sun and then there's the kind that's a normal, everyday human. A normal, everyday human who makes things that melt in the sun. You, know! The other kind of ice person. That's who you are, aren't you?" She didn't seem to understand.

A realization came upon him suddenly. Maybe it was all an act. Maybe she was just pretending not to understand because she was embarrassed to be an ice person. Suddenly Luke felt a little ashamed himself. "You know, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being an ice person," he said, trying to comfort her. "It's really pretty useful, actually! Powers an all. And ice people are always really pretty looking, too. There's a good number of them around on the island, too! Like, um. There's, um. That one person. Maybe. And um." Wow, it was much harder to remember this stuff. Now that somebody was in front of him, he felt all on the spot. He propped his chin up on his hand, making thinking noises. "That other one. You know?"

Luke Ochieng Okoth

He nodded owlishly with wide eyes that were understanding in their own way. "Oh, all right! I see now!," Luke said, immediately scrapping out all of his previous conclusions before hesitating for a moment. "Does that mean you can freeze water and then do things with it, though?" Silvery hair, blue eyes. Okay. Blue eyes could be like. Ice over water. Silver could be the shininess from the sunlight, or maybe just-

"Were you drawn by the sea foam, then?" Manta Carlos did have quite a lot of it around. Most people couldn't see it too well because they were only on the ground but from way up high, Luke saw that islands really liked the idea of marriage. That was why they were always drawing these rings of white sea foam and cresting waves around them. "Islands are always really greedy about sea foam but I guess it goes back to the water somehow, eventually. Have you ever tried pulling it from the air? If you look really hard, you can see that it's all married together." Island, sea, air. So what were the clouds, then?

Luke thought about it before giggling to himself. "Just think! You could write things in the air!"