Winter was over halfway over and the snow that covered the land was settled in for the remainder of the season. It wasn't but in the far reaches of the kingdom near the eastern shoreline that the snow was melted by the rain from the sea. Deep in the snowdrifts the world lay sleeping, all the trees and plants waiting for the warmth to return so they could make their recovery. It was a peaceful and quiet day, the muffled nature undercut by the danger the cold presents.

Here out in the middle of the woods I stood in a clearing in the trees. The snowbanks were quite far up the trunks and I was standing up to my waist in wet and cold powder. A winter wonderland indeed. I didn't like the snow. Excessive cold or heat were things I despised from my previous life. Lucky for me that the cold didn't bother me anymore as a goddess.

Of course my human companion was quite bothered by the biting winter. Timothy was behind me wrapped in warm winter clothing with a big thick cloak over his head and shoulders. He had just finished warming his hands and tucking them back inside his coat. Even to him the snow was up well above his knees making it a pain to walk through. It had been a few days since our first meeting and I had taken him out here for company.

"Why are we out here in the middle of the wilderness goddess?" he asked. "You said you wanted to learn to fly?"

I simply nodded without turning around. "Indeed."

Even out here we weren't completely alone. It was a few miles south from Doovlin, but there were still people. A lone hunting cabin was situated no less than a half mile away from us where two men were currently resting. Even in the middle of the day it was important to get your rest out here in the wild. Not that either I nor my human were in danger of freezing. Fire magic and all that. It was the ideal place to practice flying because it was so far away from civilization and the snow would help buffer crashes. Oh there would be crashes.

Timothy trudged through the snow to get closer to me, his feet crunching down through the icy top layer before his legs plunged down into the deep drifts.

"So why did you need me to come with you?"

With a laugh I put my fits on my hips.

"Ha! For a very important reason! Having a pocket priest like you means I can go anywhere I want without worrying about that damn wall!"

"If you say so goddess" he replied not understanding. "So you're going to practice wind magic then?"

I lifted my fists and hit them on my hips again. "No! Boring! Just using wind magic is lame. I'm going to use fire!"

Timothy looked very confused and stared at my back. "Fire magic goddess? How?"

Before answering I lifted my arms.. I put my left hand on my chin and my right arm across my chest in a thinking pose. Would it be a jetpack? No that would require an item. Maybe jetboots! Yea! That would just need my feet.

I dropped my arms and finally answered. "I'm going to use jetboots. They're a superhero thing."

This is where Miya piped in. She had previously just been watching. "Can we see Jenna? Please?"

Just as Timothy was opening his mouth to ask something similar I responded to both of them at once. Dropping my arms and summoning one of my books. It fluttered open and began illustrating someone wearing jet powered boots, the same imagery appearing on a screen inside my goddess zone.

"You see here is a person wearing special metal boots." I explained pointing for Timothy. "Basically fire comes out the bottom of the soles and creates lift by pushing against the weight of the person. That pushes the person up against gravity and thus they can fly!"

Both of them expressed wonderment and excitement. I then dismissed the book and continued speaking out loud to both of them at once.

"So now you both understand what I'm talking about. It's pretty basic stuff where I come from though."

Timothy looks at me in confusion. "Both of us? Who else are you talking to?"

My eyes go wide and I clamp my mouth shut. I have no idea if it would be a good idea to let him know about Miya's existence. It wasn't too late to think something up to cover for my mistake just now.

My silence was enough to allow Miya to figure out what I was thinking and she spoke up to me calmly without fear or anger.

"It's ok if he knows about me" she said with a smile in her voice. "He is a high priest like me after all."

I let out a sigh and bring up the camera inside the goddess zone and turn around to face Timothy in the snow. Hopefully his reaction wouldn't be too crazy. If he decided to disown me as his goddess it would actually be pretty upsetting and I didn't know why.

"Come here and look deeply into my right eye." I said. "Oh and promise me you wont freak out ok?"

Timothy nodded and took the last few steps towards me. He then crouched down in front of me and looked into my right eye. The image of Miya sitting there was displayed clearly among the swirling stars and she even waved to him. This caught him so by surprise that he jumped up and took a step backwards, almost falling over into the snow.

"There's a girl in your eye goddess!" he exclaimed.

I sighed and put the camera away inside me and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Yes Timtim. Her name is Miya. As to why she's in there its complicated. She's perfectly fine don't worry."

He gulped and blushed a little. It was obvious he was curious to ask more but felt it best not to. Instead he waved weakly at my face.

"Well um... Hello Miya."

She of course said hello back which he couldn't hear so I relayed it back.

"She says hi."

Sensing the beginning of something awkward I decided to refocus on the flying aspect. I dropped my arms back to my sides and turned around again, the hole in the snow around me now forming a deep empty cylinder.

"You two can talk more later. Now lets try this flying out! Stand back."

With my warning Timothy stepped back again and I listened for the crunching of his boots in the snow to tell if he was far enough back yet. Once he was I closed my eyes and focused on the soles of my own boots.

As with all the magic I used the trick was picturing the effect I wanted. From what I learned at the museum, if accurate, it was the manipulation of pure mana that allowed me such perfect control over the elements. Basically I thought of an element and that element appeared.

Supposedly goddesses could only use one or two elements though which made me special since I could do pretty much whatever I wanted. Maybe it was because of my previous exposure to fantasy and science fiction worlds through media that allowed me to have the upper hand.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Regardless the effect I was wanting now was a powerful jet of flame from the base of my boots, strong enough to blast me into the air. It took only a little focus for me to get my mana down there and to produce the fire magic. Then with great self-satisfaction I managed to crate large teardrop rocket blasts out the bottom of my shoes.

Blast me off it did! The snow all around me was sent flying in every direction while simultaneously being instantly melted into water and then evaporated into sizzling steam. My body was sent rocketing into the air and over the treetops fifty feet in the air. As I went my arms flailed around wildly and I screamed.

"Aaaaaaaahhh!"

In a matter of seconds my legs twisted into each other from my lack of foot conrol and it flipped me upside-down. My vision was a whirl of blurry brown as I crashed through the branches of the trees, snow scattering everywhere. Then there was a solid thump as my vision went white. I had crashed into the ground.

Timothy had begun rushing over to where I had landed as soon as he saw it go tits up. Of course he wasn't very close yet with how slow getting through the snow was and the fact I had landed at least a hundred feet away.

"Goddess! Are you ok goddess!" he shouted frantically.

With a bit of a grunt I pushed myself back up off the ground and uprighted myself in the snow. Because of my height only my head was peeking up over the surface of the snow in the little crater I had made for myself.

"I'm alright! I'm alright!"

This stopped the priest's panicked pursuit as I stood myself back up again. With a sigh I brushed the snow off my winter outfit and then put my left hand under my chin to think again.

It was the lack of directional control that did me in there. What an idiot! Of course there would be some way to maneuver in the air. I think that superhero had flames on his hands maybe too right? Yeah. With jet bursts from my feet and hands that would allow for thrust and control like a spaceship used when flying around in space.

"Ok here I go again!" I shouted as if at a test site. "Attempt number two!"

This time when I focused my fire magic on my feet I did the same with both hands as well. The result was jets of flame from all four limbs. A success! The intense lift quickly elevated me in the air. I looked down to the ground and closed my eyes. With some focus I felt out how to increase and decrease the intensity of the fire and thus slowed my ascent. It only took a little practice before I was hovering in the air above the top of the snow.

Both Miya and Timothy congratulated me as I swelled with pride. I then opened my eyes and and looked over to Timothy in triumph.

"Haha! Look at this!"

The sudden opening of my eyes and new center of focus on Timothy completely threw off my concentration. Instantly the ramifications manifested as I lost control of my steady pose, the resulting angles sending me spiraling off the to the left.

"Eeeeeeeeeee!"

After only a second of corkscrew flight I felt a sudden thunk against my head. The world that had previously been spinning out of control now was still again as my head impacted with a nearby tree. Of course it didn't hurt me physically, just egotistically.

I fell to the ground into the snow with a loud crunch as I broke the surface of the snow. The impact also shook loose all the snow caught up in the tree branches which then fell down on top of me completely burying me under a frigid heap.

"Ugh..."

The concern from Timothy was more curious this time instead of panicked. It was clear to him at this point these crashes weren't hurting me so the fear was gone from his voice.

"Where did you learn to fly?"

With a grunt of frustration I stood up again and shook myself to dislodge the snow. It wasn't unburying me fast enough so I used one of my hands and the newly discovered hand jets to melt the snow enough that my body was able to shuffle off the rest of the snow pile. Then with another huff of anger I responded.

"Where'd you learn to be an asshole?"

He then lowered his head in shame and timidly apologized.

"Sorry goddess..."

With another deeper sigh I waded out of the pile and back into the normal snow cover. As I pushed my way through I brushed the powder on my upper body and in my hair. Then I shook my head to shake the rest of it off.

"No no its fine. I forgive you Timmy. I'm just as new to this as anyone is their first time. I've never actually flown like this before."

An embarrassed giggle then escaped me as I realized the absurdity of the situation.

"Its actually kinda fun! With enough practice I know I'll get this down."

Timothy seemed to share my enthusiasm and he clapped his hands together.

"I believe in you Goddess Jenna!"

Miya also voiced her encouragement from inside my head.

With the support from my subordinates I clapped my hands on my cheeks and gave flight another try. The third time I spent much more focus on the angles my feet and hands were taking as I lifted up into the air. Of course it wasn't easy at first to aim all four extremities at once but it wasn't impossible either.

The third flight resulted in another crash into the ground, a long trench in the show showing the crash trajectory. However this failure only filled me with more determination. I went again, this time doing even better than the last.

Thus over and over I took off and crashed back to earth. Sometimes it was a simple impact into the ground, sometimes a tree or two was taken out on the way down as well. Even after two hours had passed I continued my attempts, only pausing to light a fire for my human follower to stay warm.

Eventually I remembered something important: the interior of a airplane. The cockpit of a plane had all kinds of instruments inside it. Things that showed how fast it was going, what its angle compared to the horizon was, and even what its tilt and pitch were. Such things are easy for me to make considering I have heads up displays for mana and radar already.

Thus I took a few moments to stop and imagine such displays inside the goddess zone and then up in the outer world. It was sorta strange having my vision obstructed with all this information but it made my view look like a real airplane inside!

Timothy noticed I had paused and stood up from the fire. He was about fifty feet away from where I was standing.

"What're you doing goddess?"

I waved my hand I kept my focus. "Heads up flight display."

Seeing my concentration he didn't inquire further.

After a few more moments my flight instruments were fully implemented over my normal vision, with some transparency of course. I let out a satisfied snort and prepared for my next flight. Even just moving around to prepare altered the displays as they should which made me smirk.

With another burst of jet flame I shot off the ground and into the sky, passing by the treetops in an instant. All of the flight instruments I had installed were showing me everything I needed and could be dismissed with a thought. My pitch, roll, and tilt. The speed, relative angle to the horizon, and even the heading of which direction on a compass I was going. Amazing!

With all of this combined with my practiced control of my hands and legs allowed me to actually start flying around like a jet plane. With ease I was soaring over the snow covered forest below and then up into the sky high above. The wind rushed by and almost deafened me as I spun around and circled in the great expanse.

"Wahoooooooo!"

My shout of exhilaration echoed across the landscape below as I sped through the sky. The ground way so far below and everything looked so tiny! I could only imagine what this would've looked like in the fall with all the pretty colors of the leaves.

Miya gasped from inside me as she was looking at the outside world through my eyes still. She was overwhelmed and could barely speak.

"I-It's so beautiful... Is this what the birds see?"

I simply smiled and laughed down at her in my own overwhelming excitement.

"It sure is sister!"

After a few minutes of flying around it was time to return back to earth. Finding Timothy was no issue as he was one of my worshipers and appeared on my map. So with a few adjustments I aimed back down to the ground and came in for a landing.

Thanks to being essentially a hovercraft I was able to fly like a plane and like a helicopter, allowing for a vertical decent. Once I was over the treetops where Timothy was standing this is exactly what I did. Moving my legs underneath me and putting my arms to my sides it allowed me to go straight down. All it took was the manipulation of how much firepower I was using to make it a smooth decent.

The fire from my feet melted the snow beneath me all the way down to the ground and revealing the dormant grass and blank dirt. Then once my feet were about to touch down I shut off all the flame, dropping the last few inches and landing as if from a jump with a stutter step.

Timothy started clapping. "That was amazing goddess! I wish I could fly like that! What was it like?"

"Thank you thank you!" I said with an extravagant bow. "As for what its like? I'll have to take you sometime."

"Really?" he said in disbelief. "It would be an honor Goddess Jenna."

I just smiled back and walked over to him through the snow. It was still up to my waist outside my melted spot but I wanted to give him a pat on the leg which I did.

"Well that's enough flying for today though. Why don't you carry me back home through a portal?"

This brought another embarrassed blush to his face. He had no idea if it would be ok to carry a goddess around like a real child and honestly I didn't know if it was against protocol either. Regardless I wanted it and felt comfortable enough to allow him this. It wasn't like anyone else was going to see it and it allowed him to feel like he was actually useful to me.

"If you say so goddess" he said shyly.

"I say so" I replied with a curt nod.

With another blush Timothy bent down and scooped me up in his arms. It did feel a bit weird but it was a new experience. Well a rediscovered one anyway. The feeling of being carried by someone else, to put your trust in them to not let you fall. It was something I had been unable to experience in my entire time being in this world. Maybe it wasn't proper but right now I didn't care. Such intimate interactions as this would be an extreme rarity among my worshipers of course, but I felt my little Timtim deserved to feel needed like this once in a while. He was my high priest after all.