Meg caught her and picked her up again, and said (as she floated sitting cross-legged at head-height where she was holding them both) "I can tell you're having trouble, but I don't fly with wings, so I really can't offer any good advice here."

Fiona frowned and looked around. There were quite a few people with wings around here; maybe one of them could give her some advice? All of them had had their wings for longer than she had, she was pretty sure.

  Meg offered her an apologetic look.  Glancing around, Fiona could see Ozzy and Clarissa, both of whom had wings, and Andy (he LOOKED normal at the moment, just BIG and muscular), but nobody else had wings.  Bella was talking to Aaron, over by one of the tables, and the two of them were chuckling.  Bill and Darren were sitting at a table together, and while Darren seemed to have a decent appetite, Bill seemed to be more picking at his food than anything else.  Archeirae had her plate of burgers, and she definitely looked alien, a catlike person roughly 8 feet tall that was wolfing down arsenic-laced burgers with no trouble.  Matt, up on the roof of the house, playing at gargoyle.

  Andy felt her gaze, and looked up, spotting the two of them.  He shifted, then unfolded the wings that he had, and snapped them down twice, lofting him into the air and gliding over, then shifting his weight to hover.  "Trying to get the hang of yours too?  Takeoffs can be a pain, but if you want, I can show you how I do it.  Megs, want to give us all a floor here?"

  Meg provided a visible green platform of energy for them all to stand on with a smile, and stepped lightly onto it.

Fiona gave Andy a surprised, but grateful look, and stepped onto the platform as well. "Um, I'm not sure if it's just taking off... it might also be just how to stay airborne..."

  Andy nodded, and said "Somee of flight is instinctive.  You don't have a lot of time to react before flying becomes falling.   Here, you can look at how I do this in slow motion."  He stepped back a little, and spread his wings.  He held them at an angle that clearly would make the air go toward his feet, and said "For liftoff, you have to generate vertical force.  Cup them to catch more air.  Then you have to maintain strokes.  Once you get up where you want, you shift the angle of your wings to generate lateral force."  He shifted the angle of his wing, indicating which way to tilt.  He'd lifted himself up, imitating a slow motion flight launch, then she saw how he swung his body to change the angle, and the way his wings shifted.

"So it's a bit like riding a bike? After a while you don't think anymore about what you're doing?" Fiona asked as she watched closely. She then took a step back and began trying to imitate Andy's motions. It was still a bit clumsy, of course - before today, she had never had more than two arms and two legs.

  Andy nodded, and said "If you have a tail, that can help, act like a rudder in the air.  Mine's not the right type, but if you do it right, they're very helpful.  Want to watch me again, or just try it?  I can catch you, and so can Megs."  He spread his wings wide, and then snapped them down, moving them in a blur as he lifted up, into the air, the downdraft immense.

Fiona was almost knocked to the ground by the force of Andy's wingbeats, but quickly got to her feet again. "Um... what kind of tail do you mean? Like a bird's tail? I guess mine wouldn't help much, but maybe I can try and change them..." She looked down at her twin fox tails, which were still wagging with excitement.

  Andy folded his wings, dropping down, and said "Think about birds.  They use their tails for rudders too.  Fins or feathers, either would work.  I can't shift a shape to show you an idea though."

Fiona nodded a little, closed her eyes and concentrated. They began fusing together, then flattening out, while the fur darkened, rippled and turned into feathers. Soon she had a feathered tail like a raven's to match her wings. "Um... will this work?" she asked as she opened her eyes and looked down at what she had done, pleasantly surprised that it seemed so easy.

  Andy grinned, and said "Now yu have a rudder.  Spread your tail, then use it to direct your airstreams."

"Alright..." Fiona let her tail fan out - she already had a bit of an idea how to control it from practicing with her fox tail earlier - and tried leaping into the air once again. It still looked a bit clumsy what she was doing, but just as it seemed like she was about to lose control, she was distracted from her own efforts by one of the dragons that were working the kitchen rising into the sky like it was swimming through water - and suddenly, she floated freely, her wings and tail keeping her airborne by instinct, making just the right motions to move her forward with hardly any effort. "Whoooaaaaa!" Fiona hadn't expected this, and her eyes widened as she looked down - she was flying!

  Andy grinned, and said "There you go!  See?  All you needed was a little help getting off the ground."

Fiona was hardly paying attention to Andy now; this was too much fun! She flapped her wings hard, flying higher and higher, before descending again in a wide spiral. All the while she was laughing with exhilaration; it was just incredible, beyond belief. In this moment, she temporarily forgot everything around her; there was only her, her magnificent black wings, and the bright blue sky.

  Andy laughed, and said to Meg "Okay, you keep her from crashing."

It took several more minutes until Fiona came down from her high and landed quite gracefully in front of Andy and Meg. Her hair was tousled, but she had a wide smile on her face, like a little kid that had just been on the best rollercoaster in the world. "This is... incredible!" she said breathlessly. "Thank you both for helping me."

  Meg smileed, and said "It is our pleasure, Fiona."

Ozzy kissed the top of her head and cuddled her against him as he said, "Good. Means I'm doing my job, then!"

  Candy grinned, and said "the two of you are an excellent argument for the state of marriage."

Ozzy smirked and said, "See, I can understand why some people get scared of it, though. It's probably not the fact that half of all marriages end in divorce. It's the fact that the other half end in death!"

  While Matt lacks the wings or traditional stony look of a Gargoyle, fortunately he also lacks the 'barfing water when it's raining' habits as well.  "I'll bet professional pilots wished they could pick up the job that fast.  Of course, airliner pilots also have 19 trillion buttons to deal with."

Still with a big, indelible smile on her face from her first flight, Fiona turned to the... man? creature? "Hi there... um, I don't think we've been introduced yet. I'm Fiona... new in town. And, well... new to being a parahuman as well."

  Matt waves hello, "I'm Matt, nice to meet you all official like.  I'm sure you understand my passing on saying you're taking to your new situation like a bird to flight...wait."  So much for passing on the terrible word plays.

  "In this house full of friendly weirdos, I'll save saying if you'll fit right in or not until after I  figure out if it would be an insult or compliment."