Tear gaped at my wings for approximately half a second, then spoke. “I didn't think you were a birdkin.”

“I'm not,” I said, a little disappointed at the lack of reaction.

“You have wings.”

“Really!” I cried in surprise, “I wondered what these were, thank you so much for letting me know!”

I could almost feel the eye roll directed at me, but took it as a sign that Tear was becoming more comfortable around me.

“So what, you're some kind of winged human?”

“Not quite human, but very similar.”

“And you think you can carry the weight of both of us with those wings.” The catkin sounded a little nervous.

“Of course.” If I could carry the corpse of a griffin, then one s-size teenager wouldn't be any trouble at all.

Said teenager didn’t seem so convinced, backing away warily, with slow head shakes, never breaking eye contact as though I were a threat. “No way. Absolutely no way.”

“Unfortunately, you don't have a choice,” I said a smirk in my voice, as I darted forward, scooping Tear quickly into a princess carry. In the next instant I had taken off, shooting into the sky, pausing about four hundred meters up. “Umm, can you stop screaming?” Tear promptly shut up. “How about the claws?” I asked more gently, and the grip round my neck relaxed a fraction. “Thank you,” I said, materialising the Solar Shield over the both of us. “I'm going to sped up a bit, but this'll protect you from the wind, just don't squirm too much, and if you want something, just tap my arm, ok?”

The kid nodded, mouth still tightly closed, and I began flying in the direction of the tower.

I kept it slow, about 50kmph, so as to let Tear get used to it. I also definitely didn't want to crash as I had doubts that the idiom of cats always landing on their feet applied to cat beastkins.

About three quarters of an hour into the flight, Tear began to shuffle slightly. About five minutes later, one clawed finger tapped me on the arm and I slowed to a halt.

“What is it?” I asked gently, receiving something said too quietly to hear in reply. “I'm sorry Tear, please speak up a bit.”

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“I need to go!” my passenger burst out, then looked down. I thought I could almost see the flush of embarrassment through the grime.

“Go- ah, right.” I descended to the ground, checking the monster detection function my cell phone projected into my head: no monsters detected.

“It should be safe here, there's no one here, either person or monster, so just find a bush or tree or something then come back.” I then paused for a moment, realising that this was quite a good opportunity. “Actually, no, wait. Could you go a bit further and wait for five minutes? I need to rest a bit.”

Tear nodded meekly and darted off through the trees. I hopped up onto a nearby branch, waited for a few seconds, then relaxed my aura suppression with a deep sigh of relief. Maintaining aura control was proving much harder than I had expected, and I’d been feeling the strain of holding it in since before we’d left the city. I really need some practise.

I leant back against my tree trunk and closed my eyes, mentally setting a timer on my cell phone to go off in four minutes.

It felt like it had only been one when it went off. I groaned and retracted my aura, just in time, as Tear trotted back out from between the trees and started looking around with increasing franticness.

“Up here,” I called, and the teenager’s body visibly relaxed.

“What, worried I'll abandon you?” I teased as I dropped out of the tree.

“You wouldn't be the first,” the urchin muttered grimly.

An awkward silence fell; how the hell was I supposed to reply to that?

“Well damn,” I eventually said, hugging the suddenly vulnerable seeming child, “I'm so sorry. I won’t ever abandon you, never fear.”

I pressed Tear into my chest, shoulders shaking. A few minutes passed as I calmingly stroked the head of filthy hair. After some time spent like that, Tear sniffled and pushed me away. “Hah! What's there to fear? There's nothing here that could so much as scratch me!”

“Except that,” I said, nodding at the space just out of sight.

The beastkin whirled round and stared into the forest, turning back to glare at me, who had started laughing.

“You were like a startled cat,” I managed to get out.

“You bastard!” Tear shouted, walking up to me and kicking my shin.

“Ow,” I said, completely deadpan, watching the teenager attempt to hop around clutching her foot while also giving me a death glare with teary eyes. It was exactly the same reaction as my little brother who used to do that all the time. My amusement faded a little at the memory. He would have been about Tear’s age if he was still alive.

A few moments later, Tear seemed to recover enough for me to say “Let's continue on, my place isn't too far from here.”

“Are you going to carry me again?” my soon-to-be-passenger asked, sounding resigned, but obviously in a better mood than before, which was a win for my awful psychology skills.

“Of course, unless you're going to grow your own wings,” I replied.

Tear sighed and walked over. I bent and lifted my charge into my arms again, taking off more slowly this time.

“Thank you,” Tear muttered softly as we started flying. I gave no sign of hearing besides a small smile, keeping my gaze straight ahead. The young catkin shifted closer to my chest, face turned in to hide against my shoulder.