Of a Feather

In and out. The man sat there within his favorite place, or at least his favorite current place, in which he was near the small babbling brook down within the valley of the mountains all about him.
He would, perhaps, one day ascend those massive sprawling stones but now was not such a
time for things of that nature. No, he had work he needed to compete upon himself first before he went off to climb mountains or run all about the world. No, for now he still needed to obtain just a bit more power.

His breath sounded once more, but one of an infinite array of sounds as he drew his lfe giving oxygen into his body. For today was the day he would learn a new element, and not, this time, one which the cruel and uncaring gods had dolled out to him by lottery. No, today he would master the winds. Odd, for someone from the land of iron? Who spent most of his time surrounded by stone and mountain? Perhaps, but for one of the blade only the wind would give him the strength - and power - to soar.

After but a simple moment he left his body entirely and was suddenly gone. No longer confined to the prison of flesh which he walked around in most frequently he was finally permitted to view the world in an entirely new light which would help to shed light onto his current plight of learning, something which he was currently in the process of doing. The wind element was not going to learn itself obviously and so he would have to explore on his own.

Now he did not by any means possess chakra sight or anything of that sort but instead simply achieved the enhanced state of concentration and perception by nothing other than sheer concentration and a kind of mastery over his own mental state and composure. He observed as the wind whistled around through the trees of the valley, how it touched the water of the small brook, how it flowed around the birds above him, beneath their wings, how his lifted them soaring up into the blue heavens of the mountainous range of this cursed Land of Iron.

And then he soared. When finally the man of blazing hair opened his eyes after having observed the actions of the wind and the fluid dynamics of the whole environment before and all around and all about him. His normal human eyes scanned this normal and inhuman place and plane without the added perception of every particle of gas and liquid and yet, somehow, he felt still connected to the air that was all around and all about him. He no longer focused to quite the degree that he previously had and yet it felt as though some small but significant part of the winds of the world had remained within him,
within his mind and his soul.


And of course he was floating.

He realized with a start that he was simply siting on nothing more than thin air above the small brook. No only had he physically risen in the clearing but he had also drifted slightly as though a leaf in a dull breeze over above the small brook. When he came too his zen like concentration broke and he collapsed into the water but yet he felt a certain level of accomplishment there in having flown for even the shortest amount of time.