Something About Aviation (Phoebe)

Right... well... that was one way to catch it, if unwittingly, Letia supposed. Truthfully, she wasn't entirely certain whether she needed it or not, nor indeed the now-ruined one -- there were others besides, after all, each one with small differences here or there. No one had quite worked yet, sure... but she was getting, well, somewhere.

And there could still be more ideas yet to try.

"Ah, yes, the... noise..." Letia trailed off in a mumble, taking a moment to idly brush off some of her now charred feathers... for as little good as it did. But at least she could imagine it maybe cooled them back down, even slightly, before they could eventually molt off and regrow. "I-I usually do this way higher up, but sometimes I just feel like coming down to ground level, you know? And... well... hm..." she once more trailed off, this time instead glancing around her surroundings a little. The one that had charred itself -- and one of her miscellaneous blueprints -- was quite plainly no good, misshapen as it had become. That one, though... one of the wings had shattered and snapped off, but it was relatively intact. That would have to do, she inwardly mused, humming slightly to herself as she wandered along in that direction to pick up the small object, to walk back and place it on... what she might call something of a 'table', but more like a plain, slightly damaged board propped up unevenly about a foot off the ground by a few stones.

A meager environment, to be certain, but her resources weren't exactly... plentiful.

"This... oh, wait... I mean, I'm Letia! Letia Relicht," the Rito seemed to remember to at least introduce herself first. "What I'm doing, then -- besides watching everything blow up on me -- is... well, simply put, something that flies. Kind of like those 'beetles' I've seen in a shop or two, but... bigger. Or it will be, once I actually get one working. I'm... rambling, sorry," she hummed, giving a slight grin. "Short version, then! I'm working on building something that'll be a... well, ship that flies! Flying ship?" she mused, before shrugging it off. "Well, whatever people want to call it. I want to give people wings to fly, and explore even further," she ultimately explained, giving a small nod to the remaining scattering of blueprints and diagrams... none of which actually had a control method yet, really, but she'd not actually gotten that far.

Phoebe

"Mm... well, something kind of like that..." Letia hummed, idly picking up one the now misshapen miniature ship that had fallen and starting to turn it a little in her hand. "The big 'pop' you probably heard was... well... the core detonating..." she quietly trailed off, only to mumble slightly to herself before lowering to a seat, practically distracting herself with the remaining blueprints and diagrams on the makeshift 'table' of hers.

Never minding the one that was now charred beyond any use.

"Basically, well... using a bit of fire, a bit of wind, kind of... pushing some things around, making the wings go up and down... at least, that's about as far as I've gotten, so far," she mused, an outstretched, feathery finger tracing over one of her diagrams, that about outlined how the thing was supposed to work. That was theory, at least; practice, as was well enough seen, went rather differently. But it had gotten a little ways up, at least. If she could get that much worked out more properly, she figured... she could get more complex movement figured out. In time.

"It's probably a bit... much for one little Rito to do. Everyone back home probably thinks I'm some oddball, that I should just stop and do something better," she sighed, grumbling lightly to herself. "But, well... I didn't catch your name, by the way," she offered, putting on a friendly little smile in spite of how dejected she might have been otherwise. "And feel free to look around at whatever you want. I don't really... have any parts or anything left for a new core -- not that I can use any of these little models any more anyway, except for someone to scrap back down -- but my designs are all... well, some of them are here. The rest are back up home," she offered in turn, giving a little wave of a hand to, mostly, that little 'table' of hers.

Phoebe

Monster... research? It was perhaps the first that Letia had recalled hearing of it... but then when she did come down to ground level, she was focused on any number of other subjects. And most of the time she wasn't even anywhere near, instead secluded on her own little island within the 'Sky Province' staying... relatively out of trouble.

Still, the Rito seemed to perk, at least a little, at what came next. "Ah, well... about that, yes. I guess you could say it's something I've put a lot of time and, um... effort into," she replied with a little nod. And failures, any number of them. Yet even if she did bounce around a lot of subjects to an almost jack of all trades outcome, this was one thing she really wanted to get right. Someday, at least.

"Mm?" she muttered out at Phoebe's sudden exclamation, her head tilted just slightly in curiosity. Only to... stay aloft...? But that wasn't really what wings... well, it was part of what wings did, yes. No, never mind that; just as she had her own perspective, surely Hylians and the like would as well. And since she'd not had an actual successful run yet, well...

An open mind, then, she needed at least to keep. Still, even as she started drifting into her own thoughts, she suddenly jumped slightly in surprise as her larger hands were suddenly taken. Funds, though, and some help with the designs... and... dragons!? That part... worried her a little, she didn't much hesitate to effectively admit with the nervous little click of her beak.

"M-maybe... once they're more durable, to go around massive creatures like I've heard those would be..." she nervously muttered. Well... once they didn't crash or detonate, first and foremost... but that was one of the first things to work out.

"Combustion, hmm... but it has to be steady and controlled, or... well..." she trailed off, glancing off momentarily to what remained that was... relatively intact. In a manner of speaking. "Then it..." she muttered after another moment, pausing when she glanced down around her various blueprints and diagrams. "Ah... I didn't... paper and ink..." she hummed, before giving a little shrug.

"Well... not minding that for now, I suppose. If I do detach the core from the wings, then it would leave a bit more room instead of having to keep them constantly moving, that might help stabilize it a bit more... shift around the moving parts and maybe change the weight for some downward propulsion to help it get off the ground to start with, then the wind blowing through the core, if I just..." she began muttering to herself as her eyes drifted back down to the designs that were there, before grimacing slightly in embarrassment as she trailed off and glanced back up to Phoebe.

"Ah, s-sorry... I kind of go on and on sometimes," she offered. "I still have some ink and paper left... well, up above, in my little encampment... but I think at least a little break first would be nice. Oh! And since I didn't actually say it, I'd be more than happy to have your help. I've been at this, well... several years now, and this one's probably the closest I've gotten," she added.

Phoebe

Shipwright? If that was the case, then she'd probably have plenty of ideas, right? Well... ignoring the fact that sailing through water and sailing through the sky were rather different... but that could be worked through. At the least, she'd done some of that herself in working to make the design fairly aerodynamic, so that that part wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Not to say she'd likely perfected it -- or, well, anything really -- but just as she'd said, it was something she'd spent a fair chunk of her life on.

"Ah... of course!" Letia replied to the suggestion with a quick nod, before glancing a little around the area for one more moment. She had... also forgot anything to snack on, it now occurred to her -- or maybe had just gone through it earlier without noticing -- so that would also have to be dealt with. Perhaps a bit later.

"Flight, huh? Hmm..." she muttered, letting her eyes wander skyward. 'Natural' was certainly right; for her, and she guessed for other Rito, it was as normal as walking for any other creature. Not something they really actively thought about... but she could at least idly shift her wings a little as she mused on it.

"I guess... at least when we're getting up off the ground level like this, feeling my wings push the wind up under me; kind of what I was trying to make the ship do, which was kind of working, with a bit of extra help," she mused. "After that, well... picking up momentum, mostly. Shifting my wings and weight enough to carry me up on the wind, not flapping too hard or I'll probably just flail about... after that it's just breezing through the wind, gliding along once I'm as high up as I need to get. Deferring the wind a little from a thinner point -- like our beak -- kinda like I worked to do with this, making sure weight is balanced enough that we don't have to constantly adjust where our wings face," she added on, occasionally making little motions with her wings, almost emulating about what they'd look like at such times... just without actually being in the air. "I did try putting a bunch of it into the designs of the ship as I went along, but I... will admit that I might not be the best judge of it when I've never really paid attention to it much from the outside," she offered with a slight grin.

Well, and there were still other things she'd doubtless overlooked, that she tried not to think too much about.

Phoebe

Boat-like... hmm? She'd been thinking something encapsulated -- as had been her designs and scatterings of attempts so far -- but something a bit more open could perhaps work. So long as it could still cut through the air... maybe with a glass panel in front, so that it wouldn't blow into eyes at the right speeds... hmm.

Still, her own mind soon enough went wandering just as well -- even if she didn't have any ink or anything of her own on-hand to actually scribble them down, she could normally rely on her memory for things... as long as she didn't take too long at it. Even given that, though, hearing her name spoken easily enough snapped her out of it, her eyes flicking back up from her varying designs to Phoebe.

"Oh... certainly!" she affirmed with a little grin and nod, picking herself steadily back up to her feet -- and making certain not to do so too quickly so she wouldn't bang a leg against her little makeshift table. "Then... a bit more slowly than I might usually, hmm? Just so everything can be examined properly, and all," she added. With that, then, she took a few steps -- or well, hops -- back a decent distance, before getting her wings spread back out freely. One small step, shifting her center of gravity up a little, and she was easily up a few feet into the air. A few more calm, steady flaps to get her up a bit further, and she shifted herself, and her wings, to glide along steadily in a slow circle just a short way above. Angling herself a little in the air, even, to give a somewhat better view -- even if it called for a slightly different angle of her wings -- at least for a few moments, before straightening out for a slow drift up a little, then down. Enough, she was certain, to at least catch visually how wings worked to carry them along.

With that done for a short while, she drifted herself slowly back to the ground, with one more calm flap before alighting gently on one taloned foot. "That... should about do it, I think?" she asked, putting on a little grin. "At least, I believe I got all the right angles and everything at a spot you were probably able to see," she added. Though, she'd also at least vaguely noted Phoebe drawing earlier, even if the Rito herself had been otherwise distracted... and it wasn't a bad time, she supposed, to try and crane her neck to see. Even if it would've... probably been a lot easier from in the air.

Phoebe

Problems... hmm. Well, in all honesty, Letia was no real stranger to those throughout her life. Many of which she'd worked through, many of which she'd drifted away from or just hadn't made any success toward. Then... things to cover, at least. Like landing... which, in particular, was one of those things she hadn't actually gotten to yet, since she'd not managed much beyond getting something into the air for a short time.

Though there, also, was a thing she'd bee curious about for a while.

"Magic, I'd always assumed. Probably something buried inside them -- if so, perhaps from people well before our time," the Rito mused, exhaling a little hum as she glanced up to one such floating island in the sky. And magic, indeed, was something she'd made some use of... in a few different ways. Most particularly the 'cores' she'd mentioned, lacking anything else to call them.

"Then, hmm..." she muttered, seemingly musing on some things herself. "I know... younger Rito, or ones that are just learning, tend to make something of a run-up. Let the wind catch their wings that way... so if we're going to adjust the wings for gliding, instead of flapping, we could probably manage something like that? They'd just have to be... a bit bigger, maybe. Stable but at least a little mobile," she suggested in her idle musings. Such a task would be easy enough if they, say... let it glide down from a sky island. But the point was to get it up there in the first place, wasn't it? And there probably weren't that many ready, accessible cliffs to take such a place...

"Getting it up to the air without, well... breaking, isn't something I've quite pulled off yet, as you've seen... but in theory, it should be able to filter through the wind to the core to keep a lot of it going, along with a bit of magical aid from here and there..." she mused in turn, before tilting her head slightly in thought.

"I may not be... explaining myself that well, am I? I admit, I kind of... skipped a lot of the formal learning, since there was nothing really on this sort of device, and I've just kind of been working through things on my own the past several years," she muttered with an embarrassed little click of her beak.

Phoebe