fandomhighdorms | The Roof, Saturday Morning

It was kind of cloudy out. It was still somewhat chilly out. It was entirely too early in the morning, and Warren wasn't sure why the heck he was even awake yet, but here he was.

He'd made his way up to the roof to give his wings a stretch, because those dorm rooms were way too puny for anyone with a wingspan like his, and he stayed up there, contemplating getting his nagging urge to fly out of his system before he'd find himself crammed into a coat and harness all over again for a week in the Bahamas.

... Of course, it still seemed like a fair trade-off. Flying for the Bahamas. He'd spent a lot of his life not flying. He could handle a week, for the sake of the sunshine. Right? Right. Of course, right.

"Of course, it had to be addictive," he mumbled, giving his head a little shake, and then jumping. A few laps around, and he'd be good, he figured. Just enough to get the feel for the wind through his feathers. It was too cold to keep going for too long, after all. But maybe once he landed, he'd be able to warm up for a bit and then go about doing it all over again.

He was getting better at taking off. He didn't look quite so much like somebody had tossed an unsuspecting chicken from the roof as he used to.

[Open roof is open! Warren will be playing his game of 'fly, land, thaw, repeat' for most of the morning.]

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"I am sorry, I did not intend to startle you," Raven said. Don't ask how her voice was coming from her Soul-Self when the shadow-beak wasn't even moving. Just accept it. "I am Raven."

"Uh." Words, Worthington. Words. "I'm Warren."

Yes, well done. Go and get yourself a cookie when you land, boy. And stop staring, it's rude.

"You're a student here?"

"I am, yes," Raven said. She didn't mind the staring, at least not in this form. It probably wasn't fair that he couldn't see she was staring at his wings. "This is my Soul-Self -- my body is on the roof of the dorms. Your wings are very beautiful."

Warren was now looking down toward the roof, looking for anybody that might strike him as the body of a being like this one.

He'd never in a million years admit that he was looking that way partly so that Raven wouldn't see that ridiculous blush that was creeping over his cheeks. He wasn't quite used to his wings being complimented this way, just yet.

"Thanks. I mean... Thanks." Yep. He'd officially found a way to fidget while flying in a circle in the air. "That, what you're doing? I think that actually counts as significantly cooler, though."

Too bad Warren didn't realize he was dealing with an empath. "There is no need to be embarrassed," Raven said, her body on the roof smiling. "And I thank you for the compliment on my form."

"Well, anytime, then." Her, down there. That looked like the sort of person who could be a Raven. He smiled faintly, and then looked back toward the shadow that he was conversing with in the sky. "Do you get out here to do this often?"

Raven-on-the-roof looked up and waved at Warren. It was a little disconcerting sometimes to have her consciousness in two places, but she'd grown used to it.

"I meditate every day," Raven-in-the-skies said, "but I do not always send my Soul-Self away from me. At least once a week. I find it relaxing to fly over the island."

"It is," Warren agreed. That was possibly the first thing he'd managed to say with any sense of certainty since running into the large bird, and so he was going to add a nod of his head to it for good measure. For all the difference it made. "You get this entirely different sense of being alive, while you fly. I can't imagine how people manage to go their whole lives without it."

Or how he had up until this point, for that matter.

"Are you Thanagarian?" Raven asked. She knew that was the world Hawkman was from, and she'd met him briefly before the JLA had chased her away. Not that she was bitter about that. Really.

"Thana-what?"

Well, that about answered that, didn't it? Warren took a moment to look properly confused before realization dawned.

"I'm human, actually, if that's what you're asking. About as normal as it gets, with a few obvious exceptions."

"Thanagar is another planet," Raven explained. "It is a world that one other with wings such as yours is from, so I thought perhaps you were from the same place." She studied Warren for a moment, then said, "I hope it is not rude of me to ask, but were you born with your wings?"

"It's not rude, really. It's just kind of..." Warren tilted his head, circling around again, his flight changing into a slow, almost lazy sort of glide. It was intriguing, the idea of an entire world of people with wings like his. "I wasn't born with them, no. But you could almost say that they were sitting there and waiting, in my genetic makeup."

That's how his father had explained mutancy to him when he was still too little to really understand what was going on, at least.

"They just kind of happened, one day."

And then he'd freaked out. As you do.

"That must have been wondrous and terrifying at the same time," Raven said, following Warren's path. "I was born with my gifts and had time to become accustomed to them. If they had been thrust upon me when I was older, I would have been very confused and frightened." Well, she had been when her father first appeared to her, but she wasn't mentioning that.

"I wanted to get rid of them," Warren admitted, with a bit of a lurch in his gut as he decided very firmly to not elaborate on how badly he wanted them gone. "But they stuck around-" grew back "- and so I pretty much learned how to deal with having them. At least they're easy enough to hide."

Raven didn't want to ask how he tried to get rid of them; she could sense she really didn't want to know. "It must be refreshing to be here in Fandom," she said, "where you do not have to hide what you are." Which was somewhat of a hypocritical statement for her, since she was loathe to admit she was a demon.

"It took me a bit to get my head around that," he replied, grimacing a little. "I've only really been going around without a heavy coat on for just over a week, now. There was a class activity that I had to take it off for, and nobody really freaked out or anything, so there just didn't seem to be any point."

And now he could stretch and fly and be himself. He couldn't actually remember a time when he'd been allowed to just get out and be him.

"There are many here who were mocked and feared for what they were in the place they were from," Raven said. "It is difficult to believe that you can be yourself here, but that is what makes Fandom so wondrous."

"Right up until graduation, huh?" Warren circled around overhead again, looking thoughtfully down at the island below. "After all of this, honestly, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to go back to hiding again, once I have to leave."

Raven felt her own pang at those words. "I understand how you feel," she said. "I am loathe to ever leave this place as well, though I have at least two years to prepare myself." She hoped.

"You'd think, with all of the worlds out there, there'd be some place that's... I don't know. Okay for people who are different. Safe."

Warren heaved a sigh, wrapping his arms around his chest. It was getting too cold up here, he'd have to land again soon.

"Two years seems like just enough time to get used to feeling normal, I think."

The Roof, Saturday Morning

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