This would be the culmination of a decades long daydream of sprouting wings and flying (usually when bored at school in my youth), and my more recent obsession with a certain elven king (thank you, Mr. Pace [hereon refered to as Lord McHottie]).

So yeah, let's have some fun. It's not like I already have enough WIPs. Let's add another! And increase my readership's suffering as well. Muahaha!

(mini-update: the original post had about half the edits still in there. I think I caught all of them. So here's the chapter 'fixed'.)

She held perfectly still. Her body trembled from the effort of keeping every muscle perfectly rigid; anything less could very well lead to her death, for all she knew.

Wind enveloped her as she hung suspended in air, arms pinned against her hips, legs stretched taut behind her, neck aching with the strain of holding her head up.

Below– far, far below– a vast ocean of trees passed beneath her, so slowly she almost wondered if she was moving at all. It stretched endlessly before her and behind, inexorable in its sheer presence. From her vantage point, high above, the gnarled limbs below seemed a gaping maw, hungry for the next traveler unlucky enough to fall in.

However, this tremendous drop was not, in fact, the most terrifying thing on her mind right now.

No; that went to the wings.

Wings, dark and encompassing, that sprouted from her back, and stretched impossibly large out to either side, pulled taut as they held her aloft in the open air. And then there was the tail – yes, tail! – stretched out behind her, bearing her steady on her course – whatever course that was. And all the while, the wind encircled her on all sides like a living thing.

If it weren't for the thousand plus foot drop beneath her, she'd be freaking out right about now, like she had when she'd first woken up. nOn top of a cliff. With these monstrosities sprouting out of her spine and no knowledge of how she'd gone from a perfectly normal night's sleep in her own bed, to waking on a ledge in the middle of nowhere with wings, a tail and whatever the hell her feet should be called right now. Talons? What the fuck?!

She had to pick between 'freaking out' and 'what now'. The 'what now' was somewhat more pressing. But rest assured, the 'freak out' was being saved for later.

God, why had she jumped?

Up on a ledge, hundreds of feet from the ground with no visible way down, alien appendages fused to her body, no memory of how it had all happened – and what had she done?

Jumped!

Freakin' jumped!

Granted it had taken about twenty-four hours to get from 'where am I – what the fuck are these?!' to actually leaping off the edge to certain death. But still!

She'd gambled on the wings knowing how to do the whole flying thing on their own. And thank God she'd been right about that, or she'd have been a messy smear on the ground far below. As it turned out, things weren't all that better right now. Aloft, no sign of civilization, endless woodland passing slowly far below. And she wasn't even going to start thinking about how she was gonna actually get back on the ground. No, that would put her closer to the 'freak out', for sure.

Dana took a breath and looked down, trying to discern some difference between the forest below her now and the forest below her an hour ago. It all looked the same. Where the hell was she?

And looking out? No end in sight.

She grumbled and shifted, trying to alleviate a crick in her neck.

The wings tugged.

And Dana's stomach dropped as she felt herself loose air and plummet –

"Fuck!" she shrieked!

Before they caught her. The plummet became a lurch; the scream from her throat cut short as the wings recovered by some instinct not her own. Dana's heart pounded in her chest and she stared at the long fall all over again.

After a few moments she dared a few deliberate wing beats, somehow commanding muscles she hadn't possessed until yesterday. It was hard to tell if it did any good.

More, it presented her next problem more starkly: how did she get down? Okay, not as much 'later' as she'd hoped.

Dana scanned the horizon. The forest just kept going. No edge, no break, no clearing in sight. Which was a problem, because those new muscles were starting to tremble.

"Shit, shit, shit…"

Straight below…Right.

It might look like a fluffy surface at a distance, but if she focused, she could make out the branches and boughs among the carpet of the canopy. Dana got a too-clear image of her neck breaking against one of those if she tried landing in them. Was she going to have a choice? At this rate, as soon as those new muscles ran out of go-go juice, she'd just fall out of the sky and –

Wait, was that…?

There was a break in the forest!

Dana leaned – as gently as she could – and angled toward it, praying the wings would take the hint.

Yes! More of a divot than a break. But more than she'd seen so far.

And coming up quick.

Shit!

She had to make a choice: investigate, and sacrifice speed, height and the general capacity to move forward; or carry on and pray her wings held out long enough to find the forest's edge or somewhere better to land. But could she even do that second choice?

As if in answer, Dana felt a tremor run through the muscles of her back.

There went that.

She set her jaw…and leaned hard right.

Air fled from under the wings and she fell.

Wind tore at her hair and burned her eyes, ripped the scream from her throat and cast it into the cacophony of air rushing past her ears. Dana's stomach clenched up as she hurtled for the ground. And again when she pulled out of it, the sudden approach of trees sending her heart into her throat. Her innards dragged as she spiraled sideways, falling and spinning, grasping for control as the laws of physics applied themselves.

She couldn't keep it together. Too much pull, too long aloft holding too strange a position. Her arms and legs bent too far out of position as she tried to angle, and she saw her path fall short of the divot.

Gritting her teeth, Dana pumped her wings hard, thrusting at the air and keeping aloft just long enough to get nearer. They started trembling the instant she set to glide, a hundred feet or less from the trees, and Dana knew immediately they wouldn't give her another lift like that again.

Angling to coast along the top, Dana saw between the boughs what she'd hoped: a river, cutting just wide enough through the forest to provide a break in the leaves above. Enough to pass without breaking her neck on a tree. The ground, though –

Another tremor.

The wings strained with their last bit of strength and burned with exertion, and she panted with the pain and adrenaline of it That maneuver and the promise of rest left them quivering. She needed to get on the ground, now!

Dana held her course along the flow, eyes peeled for shallows. Or a clearing. Something.

There! There!

A stretch of bank long enough for a landing - But coming up fast!

Intent brought her wings in, dumping height and causing her fall. The ground flew up toward her and the wings snapped out just in time to turn it into another coast, this time two hundred feet lower.

Shit-shit-shit! Too fast!

Dana lurched herself upright and channeled the last of her strength into beating her wings back - hard, harder! A hoarse yell ripped out of throat as she fought against the lethal shot that was sending her on a crash-course with the river-bank. The ground blurred beneath her, sprinting the last of the distance. Adrenaline surged, pumping straight to her legs which started churning like mad, just in time for her to skim the ground and touch down-

Mistake!

No plan survives first contact with the enemy - in this case, the ground. Her foot skimmed the ground, coming to a sudden and painful halt, but the rest of body… disagreed with the loss of momentum.

She went head over ass.

Dana somersaulted through the air before she hit the ground again with a collision that punched the air out her lungs and knocked the sense out of her again. And again-again. All she could do was curl every limb - old and new - tight to her core and pray she wouldn't break to bits.

But none of it spared her what came of hitting the ground at that speed.

Thump! Tumble, tumble. Roll, roll, roll, roll. Griiiiind...

To a stop.

Dana didn't even dare breath. Didn't move, didn't twitch. Not until her lungs screamed at her to gasp - A flurry of dirt flew right back into her face and set her hacking. Every muscle attached to that reflex protested, citing scrapes, bruises and pains.

Dana uncurled slowly, wincing for...everything...and rolled onto her back, ignoring the pinch of strange limbs at her back. She lay there, gasping for breath, staring up at the sky.

That…

Really…

Sucked!

God! She'd attempted skateboarding once.

That crash and burn would have been preferable to this one.

High above, between the boughs, the sky remained passive and clear. As if she hadn't just plummeted to earth at a hundred miles per hour! Dana lay still, breathing deeply – and her aches proudly announcing themselves at that barest of movements.

So she lay still. Breathing only.

"Holy shit."

Then…she giggled.

It slipped out.

Then another, stronger, escaped her lips. They kept coming, spilling out. Until she was laughing. Howling! Convulsing on the bank even as her whole body protested; the stress and tension of her skyward ordeal released in an endless stream of laughter, and it was all she could do to stay exactly where she lay and let it pour out of her.

The laughter fell to giggles, which weakened slowly, leaving longer stretches between each bundle of titters. Until Dana was limp on the shore, too weak to move.

She lay there, still a wee-bit giddy. But mostly just exhausted. It was over.

It was over.

After another few breaths, Dana pulled herself to sitting with a groan, the full collection of aches and pains announcing themselves. Chest, thighs, back and shoulders could hardly bare to move. Her elbows and calves were abraded, streaks of blood swept across her body with more seeping through the significantly thinned skin. But nothing seemed broken or torn. Astounding. Her shoulders and knees were definitely going to bruise, though. And there was a massive ache setting into those new flying muscles.

With great care, Dana tentatively extended one wing. And then the other. Miraculously, both were whole and unmarred. If none-too-happy she was asking them to move again. They seemed made of sturdier stuff than mere skin. Good to know.

But honestly? It wasn't as bad as it should have been. Nowhere near.

Another groan as Dana tried to gain her feet. The ascent didn't even last two seconds, before she toppled, blinking like an idjet at her feet.

Right. There were those freakin' talon things.a

The 'freak out' threatened, wielding the questions of 'how' and 'where' and 'what the fuck?!'

The questions rose like a tide – and died even faster. Okay, 'freak out' tomorrow.

It was all she could do to crawl into the roots of a nearby tree, and pass out.

Welp, how was that for a start? Hehe! This one is gonna be fun.

I'd love to hear your opinions of Dana. She's a delight to write. Can't wait until she meets Thranduil. The ellon has no idea what's coming his way. See you next time!