[color=#fcebde]Eos Drosera – Beacon Airship – The Previous Morning[/color]

There was a certain level of irony, Eos reflected, in a bird faunus being afraid of flying. If someone had suggested the idea to her back home in Kiln, she’d have roared with laughter so loud the glassblower next door would have yelled at her from across the fence for shaking the vases on display. And yet, there she was, jaws clenched, listlessly picking at the lace hem of her peignoir, trying to focus on anything but the ground stretching impossibly far beneath her. It was not the height that concerned her, not really; for her, the top of a watchtower or mountain range was not an unusual perch. What troubled her was the seeming lack of support; she feared that the powers that be might, in a moment of capriciousness, decide to drop them from the sky at any moment, sending them all plummeting to an assured doom.

Many had chosen to stare out the windows that lined the airship’s cabin, to watch the passing landscape as the elegant aircraft transported them swiftly and safely to their destination. Eos, however, had taken one look outside and decided that whole idea was in no way for her. She was bent over as much as possible on the bench, focusing on assembling a list of all the design features that would make their craft entirely unlikely to crash back to the earth in a fiery inferno.

[color=#fcebde]“That won’t happen, of course. Impossible. Strongly unlikely, anyway. But what if….no, no, stop that, but wait, what if…no, no. No. Stop.” [/color] she insisted brusquely to herself. Sensing perplexed stares from other students aboard the airship nearby, who had likely overheard her budding self-debate, her ears and cheeks flushed a deep berry red. Oh great, she thought, six minutes with my prospective classmates and they already think I’m nuts. She turned her gaze resolutely to the floor of the airship, trying to appear busy picking at a piece of the jerky her father had sent her off with earlier that morning, before he waved goodbye to her from the road. 

Feeling a sharp jolt in the craft, her head snapped back up, a strand of jerky hanging from the corner of her mouth like a fishhook. [color=#fcebde]“W-what the blazes? What was that? What fresh torment is this?!” [/color] she exclaimed, casting about for explanation. Her heart was pounding. Were they all going to die? Had science brought them all to a horrible fate? As the students around her placidly gathered up their belongings, it dawned on her that the craft had, in fact, docked.

[color=#fcebde]This is the last time I’m doing this, [/color] she resolved, stuffing the last of the piece of jerky in her mouth with a deep sense of relief.

[color=#fcebde]Eos Drosera – Beacon Cliffs – Tuesday Morning [/color]

[color=#fcebde]“Well, that’s just great,” [/color] Eos groaned, stepping onto a platform in dismay. It seemed the fates had more flying in store for her before she’d be able to call herself a Beacon Academy student. This was even worse than before; at least the airship, despite her fears, had been absolutely not in any real danger of crashing with her on board. Here and now, there’d be nothing keeping her from a crash landing of epic proportions but her own ingenuity and courage. [color=#fcebde]Just like the rest of being a huntress will be, [/color] she thought, grinning despite the fear that left her hands shaking. Once she managed to make it through this first challenge, her skills would already have improved past what they had been when she left home three days before with her father, determined to make a new life for herself.

[color=#fcebde]If the gods are good, I may even find someone else waiting near where I land, [/color] her optimistic line of thought continued. She had paid more attention to this speech of Professor Ozpin’s than to the one the night before, which she could barely remember. Then again, much of that was probably attributable to the number a few shots of rum from a jolly stranger had done on her short-term memory last night, as well as her head. Taking a moment to force her breathing to steady, as her mother would have advised her back on the firing range at home, Eos took a quick mental inventory of her supplies and resources.

She had been absorbing solar energy for much of the morning, having been awake since the very crack of dawn. Eos estimated her total stores of solar energy to be at about 67% of her maximum developed level. She estimated that a downward blast, sufficient to redirect the force of her fall and allow her to attempt to land on a sufficiently stable tree branch, would require about a third of that energy. An acceptable sacrifice, given that she would likely only absorb more as the sun rose higher in the sky over the course of the day.

Distracted by planning, she almost didn’t realize what had happened at first when she found herself sent whistling through the void, cheeks smarting from the cool air whizzing past. It took her even longer to realize that she emotion she was experiencing was not terror but exhilaration, a strange, howling joy that sprang from her heart to her lips as she gave a loud, victorious whoop, which was stolen by the wind as it burst forth. [color=#fcebde]If I get through this, Eos vowed, I’m figuring out some way of doing this all the time.[/color]
As she descended, her established plan flashed once more through her mind, and she scanned the rapidly enlarging ground for sufficiently large and supportive trees. However, the closer she came, the less it seemed that any were quite right for her purposes. A somewhat overdue volt of panic shot up her spine, and she frantically grasped for the belted pouch in which she stored Sun Down. As the strap slipped open, the sleek metal box fell from between her perspiration-slick fingertips and plummeted through the air below her. 

[color=#fcebde]“No!”[/color] she screamed, watching her weapon fall as the earth below came closer and closer. A desperate plan formed in her mind. She had never tested the ability of her semblance to physically push her, and this would be unpleasantly warm, but there was no time to think of something foolproof. Drawing upon her aura and solar reserves, pointing an outstretched left hand in the manner of a child making a finger gun gesture in a game of huntsmen and Grimm, she fired a series of round, glowing solar orbs in a staggered, zig-zag fashion beneath her and, crashing painfully against the first, sent herself smacking into the next one below and to the right of it, like a bruising game of pinball in which she herself was the ball.

After this next collision, she was able to gain more control of her thumping descent, and was pleased to discover that the heat of her semblance’s manifested orbs was not as overwhelming as it was in her usual summonings. Doubtless, however, she’d have bruises to show for this later, and her absorbed energy was dangerously low, far beyond the amount she had budgeted for the purpose. Hopefully it wouldn’t take her long to find Sun Down once she hit the ground.

Hitting against the last of her summoned orbs of light, they dissipated as she fell the final four feet to the ground, going into a roll as she hit the ground as her mother had taught her years ago. Taking only a moment to catch her breath, Eos threw herself forward into a sprint in the direction she estimated Sun Down to have fallen in. [color=#fcebde]Who knows,[/color] she mused with a bark of laughter, [color=#fcebde]perhaps it crashed straight into a Grimm’s head. [/color]