She starts walking down the road. "Thataways. Start getting less roaded, and then my tunnel in the middle of nowhere... I mentioned that, right? I hope you aren't like, really bad at climbing or anything."

"No, I'm pretty good at climbing. I explore on my own most of the time, so."

Cynthia, she's also-- they's also in the Explorer's Guild...

"Right, but like, some people swim and stuff? Not always climbing. Asking!"

And this is where she just gets bad ideas. "So... I bet I could just give you my backpack hang glider, get you up in the air, and fly alongside you? Even if I suddenly kill myself, It'll keep you going. We can fly there!"

Blink. "That's not a bad idea. Is it a charged one, or does it just run on physics?"

"Physics? It's just like, cotton and stuff. I'd just push you up with some air in between falling spurts of flight?"

"Sure, that sounds fun."

"Beats walking, even if I have to do a bunch more work."

Cynthia takes off her backpack and holds it out. "Little button thing on the shoulders to flop them out. I'll push them back in when we get there."

"Okay. Should I just—open them here, on the ground?"

"Uhm, yes? I'd recommend putting it on first. Then I can like... Wind you into the air. Unless you have a building to jump off of."

"Alas, I lack buildings." He offers her his backpack and takes hers, then presses the button thing.

Cynthia takes Kaede's backpack, contemplates the contents, then puts it on.

Cynthia's Backpack looks like a camping backpack, but with two loops hanging down for fastening onto your thighs. When the button is pushed, the sides - just flaps - get pushed back and the wings flop out to form a hang-glider.

"So, yeah. Human kite! That's the word, kite. But I'm the wind and also then I'll fly up when you get up."

"Alright," he says, and wears the backpack. "Ready."

And Cynthia takes a step backward. Then it's into the air bending. Large dramatic hand motion, and a huge updraft appears beneath Kaede. The hang-glider catches it and tilts accordingly, with the thigh straps sweeping Kaede's feet off the ground, a method for not having to hold your own legs up while you're in the air. Then Cynthia directs the draft to push diagonally upward, to whoosh Kaede up into the sky.

Then the less sane part. After Kaede gets some height, Cynthia jumps upward and switches to her flight blessing. She zooms up to Kaede, then stops controlling her flight and switches back to the air blessing. Cynthia starts to fall, but she directs a big air current at Kaede again to push up even higher. Then it's back to the flight to stop plummeting toward the ground. Kaede would only feel the speed of the air and the speed of ascent slow and quicken, unless looking down is planned.

After two more cycles of plummeting towards the ground, Cynthia levels out the glider with the air blessing, then flies up alongside Kaede. She's smiling like a fool, quite pleased this actually worked and there's no need to walk. They're a decent ways up, but slightly lower than Cynthia would have it.

There is in fact looking downward! And looking amused.

"You're quite skilled."

"Yup! When it comes to flying, I have like, four ways to do it! I hate walking. So much better to fly!"

Her hair has blown all backward and it's easy to see it's long enough to nearly touch her shoes. She's smiling fully.

"And like, sure, I'm good with magic too. I use it more than them anyways."

"The taboo probably developed around the finiteness of mana at a time when magic was more vital."

"Sure, let's just have a standard set of Elementalist Blessings and then tell them to not use them. Once they all wrack their brains to find other things to use, then we tell them not to use those either!" She spins around in midair. "The taboos are stupid. I don't get people."

"Little hunter-gatherer group of people had the one elementalist," he suggests. "That elementalist was their protection against the wilderness and the elements. And then one day when they run out of mana for a critical blessing they fail to save someone's life. That seem like a plausible mechanism for the taboo to have evolved?"

"And when the local Elementalist gets a knife in the back on combat, everybody would die from over-reliance!"

She scrunches her face for a second, figures out the point of this theoretical, then back to a small smile. "Sorry. Now we have many more, less random bear attacks, and stuff like that. If I decide to stay four-hundred-ninety-nine of five-hundred on my fire blessing just to keep less cold, I don't think it's much of an issue. I'm not in charge of keeping people safe."

Beat. "Oh, yeah, there's little handholds on the wings here," points, "in case you want to just keep your arms somewhere..."

"I mean, the taboo makes no sense anymore but that's not an excuse for it to stop existing, is it?" he asks, doing as instructed.

"... It..." A moment to parse the question. "It should stop, because there isn't a point to it?" She shrugs. "Or you know, not being randomly mean to people, or wasting my day with law officers, or being screamed at..." She does a spin, to make herself feel better.

"Yes it should but just like it needed incentives to begin, it would need incentives to end. Have you those?"

"I just said some? Not being mean to people, not wasting time, saving air..."

And in an attempt to change the topic, "hopefully behind the door is a golem army or something."

"Wouldn't that be something," he laughs. "Somehow I doubt it."

Grumble. "Why not just get all the Metas to pick up the little rock pieces, throw them in a bin, and pick out the golems? Or something." She snaps her head towards Kaede. "Sorry, I talk. I'm a dumb. Usual. I'm in a good mood flying!"