The door unlocked and swung open just as Ty and Eileen bolted towards the hallway. With seconds to spare and in plain view of the front door, Ty decided to spare Eileen the trouble of having to explain to her daughter why she was a naked flamingo woman. Ty closed his eyes and willed an errant change. There was a sickening pull and together the human and the hapless pink bird lady vanished just as Becca caught something moving in the hall.
The daughter stared at the empty spot where she could have sworn she saw a flash of colour, shrugged, and chalked it up to her eyes adjusting behind her glasses. She brought the groceries in.
* * *
Ty the human and Eileen the flamingo woman stood in a forest of carpet. Towering over them both, the canopy consisted of worn blue cotton strands beneath which the mighty trunks of carpet fibres rose above them like mighty redwoods.
“T-Ty...” Eileen gasped, barely comprehending what had happened. “W-Where are we?”
It was eerily silent. Air itself seemed to be moving in a soft howl around them, yet elusively far away.
“T-The hallway.” Ty said meekly. “We’re... we’re very small.”
“Y-Y-You shrank us?” Eileen gaped, suddenly looking around with her beak agape and her eyes growing wide with fascination and terror. “H-How small are we?”
“We’re in the carpet,” Ty whispered solemnly, wondering why that freaked him out more than anything else.
They walked for a few dozen feet in an alien world. They were so small that the grid-like base of the carpeting stretched out before them like a series nylon hills stretching as far as the eye could see. The poor light and spooky shadows were due to the huge masses of fabric coils raising up into the sky, or rather, the ceiling, blocking out the comfortable early afternoon light.
“How small are we?” Eileen asked again, feeling decidedly nervous and tiny amidst the giant towering carpet.
“Smaller than a grain of sand,” Ty gulped sheepishly, “I couldn’t think of anything safer that I knew how to do properly.”
“My God!” Eileen stared in wonder. “We must be positively microscopic, then.”
“We’re the size of a bug to a bug.” Ty gulped again, completely creeped out. “A fly would be a leviathan to us.”
“Well, good thing I keep my carpet clean.” Eileen quipped, giggling. “This is... this is turning into quite the adventure. Though, I must thank you for thinking quickly. I didn’t want to deal with Becca.”
“Me neither,” Ty breathed a sigh of relief. “She won’t see us now.”
“Hmm.” Eileen stopped, dropping a wing to her hip and looking over herself. “You know, with how long my wings are and how light my body has become, I bet I can fly.”
Ty paused too, standing next to Eileen and staring up at her. “Wow, you’re... you’re right, aren’t you? I bet you can totally fly now.”
Experimentally, the pink bird woman raised both her wing arms and gently flapped them up and down. The breeze they kicked up was strong. She flapped harder, and both of them gaped as the flamingo managed to push herself off the ground a few inches from their perspective.
“My God!” Eileen gasped, “Did you see that?”
“You lifted yourself!” Ty put his hands to his mouth.
Looking around as if she might be caught at any moment, the micro-flamingo flapped again, only this time, she jumped off the ground and put a fair deal of effort in with her long sinewy arms. To her astonishment, she managed to hold herself off the ground for several flaps before she tumbled back to the micro carpet forest.
“Wait...” Eileen gasped, panting with excitement. “No, that’s not quite right.”
She bent down on her haunches, extended her wings, and began to bolt forward into a jog. She ran for some distance, hopping over the nylon fibres, and once she had sufficient speed she leapt off the ground. Ty watched several “feet” away as Eileen launched herself off the ground, body held behind her, and gracefully went into a soft glide, flying between the enormous gaps in between the towering carpet fibres and coming to a graceful run-landing a few dozen feet away.
Ty bolted into a run, hollering, as Eileen turned bright pink in amazement.
“Did you see?” She cried, practically jumping up and down in child-like wonder. “Did you see?!”
“I saw!” Ty called, halfway to the pink bird woman before she turned and took a deep breath.
“Let’s try it again!” Eileen yelled, bolting into a tremendously powerful run on her light stick legs and pushing herself off the ground and up. She angled her wings back, the feathers pushing down air, and to her startled shock she found herself floating upward, the air rushing through her pink feathers as she raised rapidly toward the top of the carpet fibres. Squawking in terror, she gently turned her arms down and began to float back down toward the carpet. She dropped her legs, began pushing at the air with her webbed feet acting as brakes, the fan of her tail feathers aiding her descent as she tried to recall just how a plane landed.
She hit the ground running and gasped, heart thundering, as her run turned into a slow jog. She dropped her wings, falling to her knees in a near nervous fit, and took a moment to take in the experience of having just flown under her own power. It had... been so freeing. So incredible. Tears were running down her feathery cheeks in a combination of elation and shock.
It was long before Ty came running up beside her, panting as he covered a football field’s distance to reach her.
“H-Holy shit!” Ty panted, sweating hot red. “You... you were flying!”
“I-I know!” Eileen panted, beak clacking in satisfaction as she smiled.
“That was incredible!”
“I KNOW!” Eileen cried, squawking excitedly as she caught her breath.
They knelt there together, embracing for a time, before Eileen giggled.
“Get on my back.”
“Huh?” Ty gaped. “Get on your...”
“Hang on to my neck, darling. And do hold on tight, now.”
“O-Okay...” Ty blinked, Eileen kneeling down and Ty piggy backing onto the flamingo.
“Hanging on?” Eileen grinned, turning her head back with a wicked look in her eyes.
“Oh shit! Aren’t I too heavy?”
“Guess we’ll find out.” Eileen looked forward, her eyes twinkling. “We should weigh practically nothing now.”
“Oh my God!” Ty grabbed on to her slender long neck and locked his arms around her chest in horror.
The flamingo darted forward with Ty dangling on her back and felt his legs grip her thighs. She gave herself a good long runway to build up speed before with a deep breath and a huff, she pushed herself off, webbed feet pushing back behind her, body going stiff, wings flapping.
They raised into the air. Eileen gasped as the carpet fibres rushed by in a blue. She pushed her wings off and flapped to aid her ascent...
“HOLY SHIT!” Ty screamed, as they raised off together into the air, shooting up like a rocket past the canopy of the carpet strands...
The light hit them as Eileen darted up at a perfect 45 degree angle. She glided up, up, and up... past an electrical socket the size of a whole downtown office block. Gasping, she turned her head back and saw Ty wide eyed in wonder behind her, clasping to her feathered shoulders as the wind rushed by. To their eyes, they were hundreds of feet in the air now, though only two and a half feet off the carpet.
“You’re flying...” Ty gasped. “You’re flying...”
“I’m flying...” Eileen whispered in elation, a warmth and excitement growing like a fire across her body as the breeze whipped under her trailing feathers and pushed them up further and further. She attempted to bank slightly and found herself twisting slightly to the right. They began to drift off.
“Oh shit...” Ty gasped behind her. “Not too sharp, you’ll lose me.”
“I need a harness. Or a saddle or something.” Eileen giggled.
“F-For what?”
“So you can ride me, silly boy! I won’t do anything drastic. Just... experimenting.”
To normal human eyes, a flutter of pink dust was floating by, barely worth considering as anything more than an invisible dot. From Eileen’s perspective, she was a pink missile speeding through the air in a vast canyon of purple and white, her blue carpeting below looking like some kind of forest from the air. She felt incredible.
Slowly, the flamingo began to experiment with Ty clutching to her neck, legs wrapped tightly around her thighs and upper legs. She turned her wings down and lost her ascent while picking up speed. She took deep measured breaths, the tight muscles under her wings, chest, and sides bearing her cargo and her light hollow boned bird form with ease. She flapped gently at first, pushing the air down, raising them up once more while flying straight and level, and began to ferociously churn her wings up and down at an angle to see what happened. Besides being a good workout, she picked up dizzying speed that brought them to the edge of the hall and the beginning of the kitchen, now high enough to pass the hall light switch. They literally zipped by Becca’s giant chest as she seemed to move in slow motion. Both human and flamingo stared at the enormous mounds of the college girl’s chest bobbing as they passed her by.
“Scenic mountains,” Eileen quipped, giggling wildly as the air rushed by and kept her body cool and comfortable.
“Yours are better,” Ty responded, and she felt the lad’s groin tent somewhat.
“Enjoying your flight, darling?”
“Oh, uh... yes!”
“I can feel that,” the bird trilled, beggining to get a little more adventurous and turning them into the kitchen.
Somehow, neither were terrified of the ungodly heights they had achieved, nearing the top of the old wooden cupboards and the ceiling. Eileen recalled the zip lines over the Brazilian rain forest, speeding by over a mountain range and the treetops far below. Ty was simply too excited to be scared, holding on for dear life as the flamingo woman began to twirl and circle, finding the right way to move her wings while staying aloft. In no time, she was twirling and dancing through the “sky,” executing dives and rolls with Ty screaming and hooting his approval from his perch on her back. The two specs of dust had a wild time as Eileen got bolder and bolder, culminating in Ty nearly plummeting off her back as she tried a barrel roll.
“I’m so sorry!” Eileen cried, righting herself so Ty could get his footing around her legs. “I-I forgot!”
They were back in the dining room again, having toured the living room and passed dangerously close to the TV stand.
“I’m going to land!” Eileen called back, feeling Ty’s fingers dig into her shoulders. As she dove down, she let out a terrific cry of elation, bordering on a loud flamingo honk, as they nosed toward the now town sized table. It was a perfect runway. Eileen levelled off and began to descend, raising her tail feathers up as an air brake and twisting her wings up like pink ailerons. She felt the flow of the wind rushing by change and it began to push against her. With shocking proficiency, she leaned down and brought them in, her feet striking the wood top first – hard – and bouncing several times as she broke into her now practised landing jog.
As they slowed, the flamingo woman stood up and lazily slowed to a walk. On her back, Ty hopped down, trembling, and the improvised aviator turned to her passenger. They exchanged a quick glance, and threw each other into a warm celebratory embrace.
“THAT! WAS! AMAZING!” Ty screamed, grabbing Eileen’s waist and twirling her around on the giant tabletop. They were so small they had to dance around the rough wood grain of the tabletop.
“Wheeee!” The flamingo cried, laughing hysterically the embracing the smaller human, inadvertently crushing his face into her still bouncy and firm – though feathered – breasts. She drew back to find Ty blushing deep red and his face screwed up into a weird perverted grin.
“I... I really like you this way.”
“M-Me too.” Eileen sighed heavily. “I guess you sure managed to hide us, huh?”
“Did you see Becca?” Ty turned back, laughing and sweating as his heart pounded wildly. “It was like she was in slow motion!”
The flamingo leaned to glance down the enormous canyon hall and saw her daughter had gone to her room. “It must be time dilation, darling! We’re so small that we’re on a different level of perceiving time. We’re experiencing insect time!”
“Incredible!” Ty grinned.
“But... as much as I make a lovely aviator in this body... I’d still like to know if I can be restored.”
“O-Of course...” Ty gulped.