Her feathers are lovely and soft. Petting them feels nice, but not to an awkward degree. The Emperor is beaming at her again.

"Thank you, they're fabulous."

"You're welcome! I'm not sure how good I'd be at flying lessons, but if you want some I can at least arrange that you don't fall out of the sky for the duration."

"Probably convenient, yes. Will I need a running start, or for that matter a falling start -?"

"Probably simplest for now if I just make a portal into a nice empty bit of sky," he says, doing so. "Eventually, though, you'll be able to take off from the ground - running and falling both make it easier, but it's possible without."

"Cool."

She spreads her wings and steps into the sky.

The Emperor follows, closing the portal behind them.

The ocean is a long way down from here, and there's no land in sight - but it's not that hard to figure out how to glide. Her wings seem to have some muscle memory pre-installed. Up to her if she wants to attempt flapping on this basis.

Meanwhile, the Emperor lets himself fall for a second or two before he summons his wings and catches himself.

She glides! She flaps!

Flapping is harder to get the hang of, but still non-disastrous!

The Emperor circles around and swoops and dives, staying in the vicinity to keep an eye on her but otherwise having fun.

Wheeeeeee!

Awwww!

"This is fantastic, thank you."

"You're welcome! I'm glad you like them."

"They are beautiful and let me fly!"

Eeeeeee. "That was rather the idea, yes!"

Swoop?

Swoop! Gleeful Emperor applauding her swoop!

"Eee!"

Gleeful Emperor is so gleeful!!! "You're picking this up pretty fast!"

"How long does it normally take to learn?"

"I didn't have a good estimate but I was pretty sure I'd have to catch you once or twice in the first few minutes!"

"There seems to be some built in muscle memory."

"Yeah, I put that in, but I wasn't expecting you to get used to it so quickly. Maybe Elves are better at that sort of thing, or maybe I've gotten better at making usable wings." Swoop.

"We have a lot of bodily control, but I'm not sure what would be making me better at noting and using installed muscle memory."

"Then maybe I should be taking all the credit for your apparent talent. But either way, I'm very glad you like them so much."