Today I learned how to fly.
You see, being descended from birds, the Lenarii have a tendency to settle in high and difficult to reach places. Unfortunately, a few millennia ago they lost the ability to fly, so it's not easy to get to those mountain dwellings. So over the years, they've perfected the small plane to the point where it's about as common as cars are back on Earth, and with the help of computers even easier to operate. Not being able to get to some of the higher neighborhoods of La-Lor City because I don't have a pilot's license has been a small but niggling annoyance since I got here, so today Dor took it upon himself to teach me to fly. He claimed that as my older brother (no, really, after last year's tukka fruit debacle, apparently we really are considered relatives), it was his duty to teach me.
So we squoze ourselves into his little red monoplane--not, I might add, sized for Humans--and before I had time to think about what a bad idea this could turn out to be, he'd talked me through setting the flaps and the fuel mixture and everything and we were off.
You guys, this planet is beautiful from the air. It's beautiful on the ground, too, but up high you can really appreciate the rolling, varied landscape, and the way all the glass used in the buildings sparkles and flashes in the sun. The reddish-purple leaves on the trees made these wonderful sprays of contrast over the blue-green grass, and in a field outside the city, the wind caused the tall grass to ripple so that it looked almost like an inland ocean.
I almost didn't want to land, but eventually we touched down in Zenni Heights for lunch. And while we were there, I saw something that convinced me I just had to get my license. Much in the way that Humans are pretty close on the evolutionary tree to chimps and other primates, the Lenarii have an evolutionary relative in the sanga bird. These guys never developed sentience--at least not as it's currently defined--or opposable thumbs, but they did keep their ability to fly. And opportunistic foragers that they are, they're fond of nesting near Lenarii settlements in the mountains. They are small and multicolored and like to perch attractively on rocks in the sun.
Yep, I'm getting my pilot's license so I can take better bird pictures. No one is surprised.
( ...the hell? )
You see, being descended from birds, the Lenarii have a tendency to settle in high and difficult to reach places. Unfortunately, a few millennia ago they lost the ability to fly, so it's not easy to get to those mountain dwellings. So over the years, they've perfected the small plane to the point where it's about as common as cars are back on Earth, and with the help of computers even easier to operate. Not being able to get to some of the higher neighborhoods of La-Lor City because I don't have a pilot's license has been a small but niggling annoyance since I got here, so today Dor took it upon himself to teach me to fly. He claimed that as my older brother (no, really, after last year's tukka fruit debacle, apparently we really are considered relatives), it was his duty to teach me.
So we squoze ourselves into his little red monoplane--not, I might add, sized for Humans--and before I had time to think about what a bad idea this could turn out to be, he'd talked me through setting the flaps and the fuel mixture and everything and we were off.
You guys, this planet is beautiful from the air. It's beautiful on the ground, too, but up high you can really appreciate the rolling, varied landscape, and the way all the glass used in the buildings sparkles and flashes in the sun. The reddish-purple leaves on the trees made these wonderful sprays of contrast over the blue-green grass, and in a field outside the city, the wind caused the tall grass to ripple so that it looked almost like an inland ocean.
I almost didn't want to land, but eventually we touched down in Zenni Heights for lunch. And while we were there, I saw something that convinced me I just had to get my license. Much in the way that Humans are pretty close on the evolutionary tree to chimps and other primates, the Lenarii have an evolutionary relative in the sanga bird. These guys never developed sentience--at least not as it's currently defined--or opposable thumbs, but they did keep their ability to fly. And opportunistic foragers that they are, they're fond of nesting near Lenarii settlements in the mountains. They are small and multicolored and like to perch attractively on rocks in the sun.
Yep, I'm getting my pilot's license so I can take better bird pictures. No one is surprised.
( ...the hell? )
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