Chapter 274: Come Here

He did it at nine in the morning with the door shut and the monitoring pads live.

Flicker didn’t like the stall. She’d spent too much of her life in rooms like it, and she stood on the padded bar with her feathers flat and her attention entirely on Jin, waiting to find out which unpleasant thing was about to happen.

"I’m right here," Jin said, and sat on the floor beside the bar. She followed his hand as he checked the pad beneath her feet.

[Controlled Sync — Flicker]

[Limited Controlled Sync: available]

[Transfer ceiling: automatically restricted to recipient safe capacity]

[Projected result: species-normal baseline]

He confirmed it.

She went rigid the way she had the first time — wings half out, claws locked into the bar, every muscle tight — and the thermal line on the wall started upward.

Jin kept the thermal reading beside the other monitors, glancing between them and Flicker. The rise passed the previous transfer’s peak, and his hand hovered near the call control before the curve leveled and began coming down. He stayed still, watching her breathing until the tightness eased from her wings.

Flicker made a small sound he’d never heard from her.

She shook herself and settled onto the bar. Jin watched her feet. Usually there was an adjustment, another small shift of weight as she found a position she could maintain. This time she stood evenly, feathers loosening, and turned to inspect the door.

He checked the readings again before letting himself believe what he was seeing.

[Limited Controlled Sync complete.]

[Recipient status: species-normal baseline achieved.]

[Consolidation demand: elevated intake, normal rest.]

Jin sat on the floor of a beast-care stall with his phone in his hands and could not, for a moment, make himself do anything.

She ate while he watched the readings settle, finishing the prepared portion and asking for more. Jin added it in small amounts and recorded the intake.

Once she was satisfied, she went to the door. She looked back at him, walked a short circuit, and returned to it.

He took her to the small enclosed yard behind the care wing, the one with the mesh roof, because he was not going to do this in the open on the first day no matter how good the readings were.

Glitch followed at an easy walk and lay along the wall, leaving his broad foreleg where Flicker could reach it.

Flicker did not use it.

She went across the packed dirt on her own feet, fast — much faster than her rehabilitation circuit pace, a quick busy walk that took her the length of the yard and back. She investigated a drain grate. She climbed onto a low crate and off it. She got into a brief, entirely one-sided disagreement with a moth.

Jin sat on the step and watched her be a bird.

After about ten minutes she went up onto the crate again, and this time she stayed there, and Jin noticed her looking toward the water trough. Her head moved as she judged the gap, the same way it had before her small attempts on the rehabilitation mat.

His throat went tight.

"Hey," he said.

She looked at him.

He held out his hand about a meter and a half from the crate. He’d offered it to steady her so many times that she looked at it immediately.

For once, he left the distance between them and waited.

"Come here."

Flicker looked at his hand.

Then she crouched, and her wings came up, and she went.

Her wings caught the air with a small, distinct snap. A second beat carried her clear of the crate, across the gap, toward his hand. Jin almost moved to meet her, then held himself still.

She landed on his palm.

Her feet closed on his fingers. She adjusted, resettled, folded her wings, and looked up at him.

Her chest moved quickly, then settled. Jin waited for the wobble or the trembling that used to follow an effort. Flicker only shifted her grip on his fingers and looked around.

"Okay," Jin said.

His voice came out wrong. He stopped and tried again.

"Okay. Flicker. That’s — okay."

His hand was shaking slightly beneath her. She adjusted without difficulty, looked back at the crate, and made a short sound.

"Yeah," he whispered. "You did it."

She pecked at a mark on his thumb, apparently finished with the important part.

He laughed. It came out badly, half a breath, and he put his other hand up to the side of his face and left it there for a second.

You got here by yourself.

He wanted Elsa to see this. His mother too, and his father, and Verrick with all her careful records. But his phone was on the step, and for a little longer he wanted to sit exactly where he was.

Glitch had gotten up.

He’d come off the wall at some point without Jin noticing and was standing three feet away with his head lowered, watching the bird on Jin’s hand with an intensity that would have frightened anybody who didn’t know him. A warm satisfaction came through the bond, mingled with Glitch’s interest in what Flicker would do next.

"Yeah," Jin said. "I know."

Glitch lay back down with his foreleg extended, in case anybody needed it.

Flicker flew to it about forty minutes later, from the step, which was slightly further and which she did entirely on her own initiative, and this time Jin managed to watch without half rising to catch her.

He called Elsa that evening and got three words out before she started shouting. Jin held the phone away from his ear while she informed somebody else in the apartment of news he hadn’t finished explaining.

"Wait," Elsa said, coming back. "Properly? Not the little hop thing?"

"A proper flight," Jin told her. "About a meter and a half, the first time."

"That’s nothing," she said, sounding delighted. "You have to show me."

"Verrick’s checking her tomorrow. I’ll call afterward."

"On video," Elsa insisted. "I want Dad watching live. Promise?"

"Promise."

Flicker ate well and fell asleep early. Jin sat nearby with the ranking board open, working through the students who could challenge him during the remaining four days.

Ivo Talren, Rank 24, made him stop scrolling.

The fourth-year had a Shardback Skink named Quarrel: Rank 1 Novice, eight-Star, Silver (High). Quarrel fired stone shards and scuttled backward between volleys. Against Glitch, it would probably keep retreating until Jin committed to a Rush it could dodge.

Talren complicated that plan. His B-Rank Ice Shaping formed small projectiles beside his hand, and in two recordings he advanced with a short ice sword while Quarrel occupied the other beast.

Jin replayed one sequence. The darts were small and the sword plain, but Talren maintained them while moving and giving commands. That took practice.

The limits were familiar. Below Rank 2, a tamer had no proper Bond Core. A Soul Talent provided a narrow way to draw ambient Astral Energy and use the body’s small natural reserve. Sustaining precise combat effects could quickly exhaust that supply, especially while commanding a beast. Many talents had no useful attack in the first place.

Higher grades and suitable talent types helped; Astral Energy-type talents were particularly prized for early control. They didn’t replace training. There was a reason people casually called Rank 2 and above proper tamers. Completing the First Bond Awakening and forming a core changed what a human could contribute.

Talren had made a brief offensive sequence work within the earlier limits. Jin watched him cut off a student’s retreat while Quarrel fired from the opposite side.

I’d have to keep moving and still watch Glitch.

He saved the recording. Talren hadn’t challenged him, but ignoring the possibility would be stupid.

A soft rustle drew his attention to Flicker. She resettled on her perch and tucked her head beneath her wing. Jin lowered the screen brightness and went back to his notes.

She woke hungry later, ate, and slept again without difficulty. Tomorrow Verrick would examine her. Jin was looking forward to seeing her expression.