The physics of flying are so very different from the physics of anything else.
It’s the feeling of being weightless while you fall, the wind rushing in your ears, knowing the ground is getting closer. The fall is what makes him feel alive, movement and entropy balance each other out, the balance of the world.
Snapping his wings open the moment the wind shifts, when he starts falling faster. He’s flipped over, tossed around by the wind on his wings until he’s in position, until he’s flying. His speed is slowed in an instant, the audible crack in the air from his wings unfolding that quickly. As soon as he slows, the moment his wings are open, the wind catches on his feathers, blowing him upwards.
It’s instinct to adjust the angle of his wings so that they carry him forwards. The wind no longer rushing in his ears, he’s no longer falling. Instead, the wind breaks around him, the drafts catching on his wings as he glides forward. He doesn’t have to think about how he moves, he’s running on instinct when he flaps his wings. It sends him higher, no longer gliding but setting into true flying.
There’s no destination, just him soaring in the endless expanse of blue. If he closes his eyes he can almost imagine the warm dark of the Void settling around him. He can almost pretend that there is no land underneath him, no clouds sharing the expanse with him. He longs to be home, and this is the closest he will get.
The closest he will ever get to home is falling, the wind rushing in his ears as his wings snap open and he flies in the endless expanse of the Void. But it’s not the Void, is it?
When he opens his eyes there is a jarring moment of confusion, where he was expecting a deep black, an infinity looped into itself, there is a striking blue. It’s so bright, almost blindingly different from the darkness of the Void. And he can see in the edges of his vision, below him is land. There is a sprawling landscape blocking his vision from the rest of the sky, so unlike the unobscured form of the Void.
Being up this high means he has a little trouble breathing, not because of the height but despite it. The difference between the air of the odd dimension he had set up in and his home dimension was vast. Not enough to make it unbreathable, but he had to relearn how to breathe. Being up this high, he can breathe easier than on the ground but it’s still not what he’s used to.
When he’s flying at high speeds, it’s almost the same. But not like this.
He’s just slowly spiralling towards the ground, slowing his descent so he won’t crash into the ground. His wings are spread and angled to catch the drafts at an angle the slows his descent without drawing him higher up. The landscape under him slowly comes into focus and he starts to make smaller circles around his home. He prepares to land next to his doors, changing his mind at the last second, tucking his wings in as he glides through the doors, landing on his feet a little bit into the room.
There’s no point in missing home if he’s already home. Home will always be with him, and he’s here in the little bit of home he planted.