I pulled open the map as soon as I had fully materialized in the city. Or, rather, as soon as I had determined that the optional minimap that could hover in the corner of my vision wasn’t adequate for navigating across the city. The full map manifested as a roll of parchment and responded to classic touch-screen controls like swiping, pinching, and zooming. Those were a little difficult to finagle while still holding the parchment open, but whatever its drawbacks, it still beat having a full-screen (equivalent) map pop up and block sight of everything else.

After orienting myself with the map, I discovered that I was quite a distance away from our planned meeting point. Not completely across the city, but very nearly diagonally so. My spawn-in location was a small garden adjacent to a plaza very near the northern gate.

That, unfortunately, put me a bit more than two miles, straight-line distance, from the meeting point. Taking the streets would be longer, but I had an advantage. Since I was a fairy, I could fly, and so I could take the straight-line route, going up and over buildings rather than around properties and down streets that would almost always be at an angle to the direction I wanted to go.

I confess, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the city I was flying over. For one, I was keeping an eye on the minimap, making sure that I continued relatively straight in the direction I wanted. And for another, well, I was flying! Sure, I had hovered around in the mists after my race and class had been determined and before I had finalized the little bits of customization I had been allowed, but hovering midair in what was effectively a fog bank was quite a different experience from actual, honest-to-goodness flight!

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Oh, and being that I was in a hurry, I wouldn’t have been taking the time to sightsee even if I had been on foot.

It … didn’t take that long to traverse those few miles. I had expected it to be close to half an hour, using a rough estimate of walking speed, maybe a little under as I was hurrying. What I hadn’t counted on was that I was fast. Even a seven-minute mile running speed would have taken a quarter of an hour.

It took me less than five minutes’ flight to reach the park.

But, I guess that makes sense. Humans are pretty slow compared to most other animals -- try chasing down a squirrel or a deer for instance -- and lots of birds can outfly those. Being that I was winged and pretty close to bird-size (well, a good many birds will be bigger than I!), I guess I got to zip along at bird speed rather than scaled-down human walking speed.

I bet Naomi’s centaur would be pretty quick, too. And she wouldn’t have to fight gusts of wind like I did. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have to deal with buildings and terrain like she would.

I may have been quick, but I wasn’t the first to the park. In fact, there were a couple different knots of people milling around, but my group was obvious. Since Jenna had taken the Path of Self, she pretty much looked just like she normally would have, though maybe glammed up a little. I could easily recognize her as I approached. But Naomi was even more obvious. After I saw the centaur, well, centauress, I was able to identify Jenna waiting with her.

A little cautiously, since I wasn’t sure how my sister would react to this form, I descended to hover near them. “Well, I see I’m not the last to make it here,” I said.

Naomi turned to face me and in an incredulous voice asked, “Susie, is that you?”