clipped wings., tag; anyone!

[ilyana bliskavka]

The one good thing that could be said about this whole fiasco was that it was pleasantly warm. You know the sort of warmth I mean; no breeze but with a touch of cloud cover, not humid but warm enough to stretch out on a lounging chair. Of course, under the dense canopy of green leaves that made the most of the forest in which Ilyana Veronika Bliskavka was made to ‘camp,’ there was enough shade to even cast gloom on a summers day. A summers day which she SHOULD be spending behind a desk, or perhaps spreading her glorious gray wings on a balcony – not over-seeing younger students and preventing them (mercilessly) from straying into the lure of the forest depths.

As a winged superhuman, it was perhaps understandable that Ilyana was not exactly at the height of pleasure at being stuck in a dense forest, even with the fair few clearings it had. She was intensely claustrophobic, borne from her absolute necessity to have space to escape and flee upwards, into the wild blue yonder. Obviously, the fact that she could no longer stretch her huge wingspan more than one-fifth of it’s actual span, was driving her up the wall; the muscles in her aching wings tensed uncomfortably all the time, unable to stretch, to fly – it was her equivalent of being absolutely stir crazy. So, her temper had not improved. Normally, the Ilyana you got was by the book; stricter than anyone of her youthful age should be, with a wrath that was simply terrible to behold – even if she weighed much less then she looked and could be snapped like a twig. Controlling was one way to put Ilyana...and that was when she didn’t feel like she was in a cage (albeit, more akin to an aviary.)

Stepping moodily around the chosen campsite for her, the girl looked around with eerily sharp blue eyes, her face a chiselled mask of irritation, her wings practically trembling at her back. Long black hair, a little bit wild, tumbled around her face and back, giving the girl who called herself ‘Peregrine’ an almost feral, Amazonian look. Her clothes were simple, chosen for ease and comfort around her massive wings; a black halter top, tied with a thin strap about her long neck, and denim shorts that cut off somewhere along her thigh. Oh, sure, you could call her a bit of a whore – probably not to her face – but she didn’t do it for men. Hardly. It was another unfortunate circumstance of being highly akin to a bird; things that made you heavier were just a no-go, gave too much of a problem when flying, so dressing to compensate for drag was second nature to Ilyana – which was one of the many, many reasons she despised winter...along with the reason her hero outfit was what it was; made of swirly cloth and barely there.

Approaching a gaggle of tents – with hers included, she passed it with a stern glare, the gaze skipping over any faces that swam before her. Her mind was fixed on one task: control. Control and follow higher orders, obsessively, rigidly, unyieldingly. No, Ilyana was not exactly popular; but she was a Prefect with top grades and a pair of powers she had more or less mastered, thanks to the life-changing physical challenge they had posed to her so long ago. And that was, to Ilyana, what life was worth living for.

[takahiro sasaki]

Camping! Takahiro had jumped when he had first heard the news. He had also knocked over the lampstand in his room. However, it was nothing that he wasn't used to. He was always accidentally breaking things. He had stopped worrying about it years ago. And now, he was even more excited at the prospect of going camping. He had never been before. It wasn't something that his schools in Japan had really provided, and since coming to Westminster, there had been no such excursions.

The excitement still hadn't worn off. As the other students had started to set up their tents, and to get everything organised, he had stumbled around, trying to assist, more of a hindrance than a help. Being clumsy, superimposed on having the strength to break a steel bar with little effort, was not something that was helpful in erecting tents, and a few exasperated students had finally told the Asian boy to simply sit on the sidelines and watch. Hiro had been a bit crestfallen, but did as he was told. He couldn't just sit still though, he got all jittery when that happened. So he paced around a bit, checking out the immediate area of the campsite.

Now, coming back, he could see that all the tents had been put up. Awesome! The boy chattered to himself in his native language, ignoring the fact that no one knew what he was talking about, and that there was no one around to listen anyway. He was too busy gawking at the small clutter of tents, the miniature civilisation that had been established in the space of an hour, that he didn't notice the obnoxiously large root sticking up out of the ground.

His foot caught the root, and the 5 foot boy toppled. Reaching out, he grabbed the nearest thing he could, a fairly small tree. Even the force of nature was not enough to Takahiro's mighty pull, however, and there was a loud cluster of snaps as the tree was uprooted. Hiro stumbled forward a few more steps, before falling flat on his stomach, the small tree in his hand slamming down onto the ground, its branches just inches from hitting the prefect.

"Owowowowow...." he muttered, in Japanese.

[ilyana bliskavka]

There were various students that Ilyana didn’t really like dealing with. Aimi, for one, was a tad frustrating, particularly with all the fire alarms she set off in the kitchens – which the winged prefect still couldn’t comprehend, since she knew very well that Aimi was a hydrokinetic. Secondly, there was Primal, who grated on her every last surviving nerve, and...well, you got the picture. The young woman had spent a good few years of her life backing up order, obsessively following every rule in the damned book...and it had gotten her far. She got good grades, was a prefect, and had honed her remarkable intelligence: oh, sure, Ilyana wasn’t POPULAR – but birds of prey were solitary beasts, by and large.

Continuing her practised pacing, in that well known walk, the winged woman didn’t even jump when she heard the tell-tale signs of someone falling. It seemed to happen a suspicious amount, even within the walls of Westminster: people simply couldn’t help using their powers for things other than what Ilyana would call ‘legal activities.’ Rolling those stunning eyes of hers, she turned a little bit awkwardly, having to do a rather bizarre half jump and a hop to prevent her glorious wings from being banged on the surrounding trees. Slowy, Ilyana brought the younger student into the range of her gaze; noting how the branches had been so close to scraping the back of her own form. Audibly sighing, the prefect began to appraise the boy in that trademarked, bird of prey gaze. Takahiro, she believed his name was; another one of her...least favourite students. Fun loving, loud...THAT kind of person. The kind of person Ilyana did not have patience with.

Ruffling her feathers and flexing the joint, lifting her wings up and out a tiny bit, the dark-haired woman of Russian descent bore down upon the much younger superhuman, with steely eyes that seemed able to pierce through steel. “Why are you not in the camp? Why did you wander off?” came the sharp questions, clearly unconcerned the small boy had fallen flat on his face, and conveniently blind to the fact the campsite was literally a foot away. Curt as always, Ilyana took no prisoners, and was clearly a teacher in the making – lucky for future heroes, then, that the woman had absolutely no interest in spending the rest of her life in a room with so many faces tilted upwards, peering, listening, laughing: it would drive Ilyana to insanity. Of course, it would be well organised insanity, the kind that you didn’t know was there until you were washing the blood off your hands.

“Come on,” she continued, stretching a slender hand down towards him finally; she really should make sure he wasn’t hurt. It wouldn’t do; as a Prefect, in this scenario, part of her duties dealt with student safety, even trivial things like this. Oh, Ilyana wasn’t quite as socially awkward as she once was – believe it or not – but she still preferred the times when being a prefect called on sheer intimidation, and the ability to follow orders and written rules with the single-mindedness of a racehorse.

[takahiro sasaki]

Takahiro was still on the ground, rubbing his eyes as he winced in pain. It wasn't a very intense pain, but the young boy made it a point to overexaggerate everything he could. After all, his powers meant that he was fairly impervious to minor injuries like a scrape anyway. He could hear that someone was nearby, and waited, on the ground, waiting for the mystery person to help him out.

“Why are you not in the camp? Why did you wander off?”

Or not.

Hiro raised his head, puffing out his cheeks, pouting. These Americans weren't the politest lot of people, were they? if he had been in Japan, the other person would have rushed to his aid, and fed his attention-seeking nature with the fix that it needed. The Asian boy pulled himself up, with her help, dusting off his clothes, before looking at the vulture-woman, who was glaring at him as if trying to make him shrivel with her gaze. He gulped. It was kinda working.

"But... camp is there." He pointed over her shoulder, tilting his head to one side, looking questioningly at the winged prefect, trying not to melt into a puddle under her death glare. "I'm not breaking rules!" he declared, crossing his arms and trying to give Ilyana a taste of her own medicine, with his own version of an angry glare. Given his personality and appearance, however, it didn't work out quite as intimidating or confrontational as he might have hoped it would be. He just looked like a stubborn child, refusing to listen to his mother.

He had to admit, he hadn't really talked to Ilyana much before. But he wasn't getting a very good impression of her from this. She was his upperclassman, and that gave her a right to be mean to him, but still, it didn't mean that Hiro had to like her in return. He'd been with much nicer senior students before, who had treated him like a friend, rather than some lowly freshman, as indeed he was. Why couldn't she be like that?

Takahiro continued to stare at Ilyana stubbornly. He wasn't even sure if she was getting him into trouble or not. But if she was, then he was resisting it to the very end. Hopefully it wouldn't escalate into a verbal argument. Hiro couldn't argue that well in English. After a while it'd just get the better of him and he would descend into his native tongue, which most people didn't understand. And calling people names in a foreign language that they didn't understand wasn't as satisfying as it sounded.

[ilyana bliskavka]

American? American!? Not only had Ilyana never even set foot in the country, but no part of America even touched her bloodlines, given as her parents were Russian to the bone, and now she lived in England. It was a good thing, then, that the winged wonder was not a telepath – she would be hard-pressed to explain to him in long-winded detail that Scotland was a long way away from America. Kind of funny, really, how the kid could make such a mistake. I mean, normally, people did not confuse Americans with the British – but whatever, I digress.

Flexing those steely wings of hers again, the young woman watched as Takahiro stood up and started to get a bit shirty with her...in an amusing little way. He was, after all, about as tall as her legs and as frightening as an angry worm. Shaking her magnificent mane of dark hair back, Ilyana proceeded to glower at the Sidekick, thinking viciously that it was so obvious why the murdered sidekick had been singled out, if they were all as irritating as Takahiro. Her wings fluffed oddly, and she furiously settled and fidgeted with the huge span, giving her even more of an antsy predator appearance.

It was probably true that most Sidekicks viewed Ilyana ‘’Peregrine’’ Bliskavka as a great big bully...and they’d be right, to a point. The thing was, Ilyana did not perceive herself as being anything of the sort; no, quite the opposite. She was the Champion of Rules and all things logical, and picked on her class-mates just as much as unruly Sidekicks. She seemed born to be a Prefect, even if she had been kept inside a house for half her life. Veronika, Ilyana’s mother had been more than a little terrified that her physically fragile daughter would perish if put out into the ‘real world’....little did she know, Ilyana thrived in it. Controlling and commanding, the amateur heroine was well-known throughout the Academy, even if her very being in the school made her mother cringe in horror.

“You’re far enough away,” she snapped back, stepping towards Takahiro in an almost challenging way, her wings rustling ominously. In truth, physically Ilyana was useless; her strength lay in her ability to fly and summoning whirlwinds – both of which required something she lacked in this forsaken forest...space. Ilyana didn’t know how wild birds manoeuvred the dense canopies of their sometimes chosen habitat; her own birds back home were equally adept at navigating the trees. As much as Ilyana was a ‘bird,’ her wings were simply too large and fragile to function at one hundred percent efficiency.

“So come on, get back to camp,” she added, quite harshly. Unforgiving? Perhaps, but it was not Ilyana’s job as a Prefect to make friends with other students, no; it was her job to control and guide them. A dream job, then, for someone such as Peregrine. Being a hero? Sure – working to enforce the law was more or less what she did at the school, only out of the academy it wasn’t against the rules to use her powers on adversaries.

[takahiro sasaki]

The large wings affixed to the prefect's back bristled angrily, and the small Asian boy eyed them warily. She wasn't going to hit him, right? He was fairly sure that it was not allowed in this country. Children's rights and all that. Even though Takahiro wasn't really a child anymore, his actions begged to differ. He could still give a five year old a run for their money when it came to immaturity. And he was proud of it.

As Ilyana stood over him, imposing and much taller, her large wings casting a shadow over him, the remained obstinate and stared back at her, face set in a stubborn pout, as he crossed his arms and refused to move. She couldn't scare him. Well, okay, she was pretty intimidating, but Hiro was strong! He could take it! He stubbornly held his position, thrusting his lower jaw out as though to further cement his refusal to comply with her demands. He didn't like this girl. Not at all.

“You’re far enough away,”

She charged at him. Well, in reality, it was only a few steps, but it was enough to make Takahiro stumble backwards, despite his determination at remaining rooted to the spot. Managing to keep himself from falling, the boy steadied himself and returned to his defiant pose. "I'm already close enough." He stuck his tongue out at her, rudely, scrunching his eyes closed as he did so. As he opened them again, he glanced around, checking for escape routes. Would he be able to make a run for it if she started coming after him?

Alright, he'd do it. He suddenly lunged forward at Ilyana. Suicidal? Not quite. Just before he reached her, a wormhole portal opened in front of him, and the boy dived through it, headfirst, reappearing a fraction of a second later a few metres behind Ilyana. That sort of simple portal usage didn't require too much concentration, so he had managed to do it on the run. As Takahiro flew out of the portal, he performed a clumsy forward roll and then hurried onto his feet and began running, giggling to himself, and giving himself away at the same time.

He hadn't gotten very far when an obnoxiously large root that seemed to place itself right in front of his feet tripped him up and he fell face first into the dirt once more.

"Owowowowow..." he muttered as he tasted the soil in his mouth. Yucky stuff.