The Night Flight Enthusiast
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 3: The Visit of Cornelia
The night had settled like a dark velvet cloak over the city. Rain had returned in gentle, irregular taps, sliding down the windowpane and painting the glass with restless silver trails. Lucretia lay awake in the hospital bed, her legs elevated in their steel and rope cage. Her black-painted toes, long and elegant, remained motionless, pointing toward the ceiling, their stillness a quiet echo of her immobility.
Her green eyes, half-lidded in weariness, traced the shadows dancing across the ceiling. For hours, she had lain in silence, listening to the world moving outside — the faint hum of distant traffic, the whisper of the radiator, the occasional creak of floorboards. She longed for wind beneath her cloak, for the freedom of a midnight flight above rooftops, for a world where her bones and muscles obeyed her command.
A sudden, quiet click made her head tilt. The window shivered, and before she could fully register it, a familiar voice hissed, mischievous and urgent:
“Lucretia! Are you awake, you stubborn fool?”
The voice belonged to Cornelia, her cousin, her constant companion in centuries of nocturnal flight. The window glowed faintly with magic — a shimmering lock of light, delicate yet unbreakable, bending open the latch in a way only a witch could manage.
Lucretia’s lips curved, half-amused, half-exasperated. “Cornelia,” she whispered, her voice both relief and reprimand. “Must you always arrive like a tempest?”
Cornelia landed lightly on the sill, the tip of her boots tapping softly against the cold metal. Her eyes sparkled with urgency, her dark hair flying in a halo around her face.
“I didn’t know! I only just heard. You’ve been lying here all day like a—like a mortal! Do you realize what they’ve done to you?”
Lucretia turned her head to look at her legs. The steel rods, the ropes, the iron weight — everything was painfully precise, functional, utterly mundane.
“I realize,” she said softly, “that humans have their ways.”
Cornelia crossed the room with swift, graceful steps, her presence filling the small space like wildfire. “Your legs!” she exclaimed, bending close to inspect the traction. “These mortals ... they have no idea how to handle a witch. Why do you endure it? Why not let me fix it?”
“My legs are healing,” Lucretia said softly. “This ... is my way. I must do it myself.”
Cornelia’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Do it yourself? Lucretia, the bones, the flesh! You’ve spent centuries flying above rooftops, casting spells, commanding the wind, and now you lie here waiting for ... this?” She gestured toward the metal, the cushions, the ropes. “You could be healed in a night. No more creaking, no more waiting!”
She waved her hands theatrically, imagining herself a tiny witch doctor, muttering charms over bandages and bolts as if she were auditioning for a magical soap opera.
“I know,” Lucretia murmured, tracing a pale finger along the edge of the blanket. “But I chose this path. I want ... to endure it. To remember what it is to be human, to be weak, if only for a moment.”
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