Renna wasn't sure exactly when the changes started taking place. She had first noticed the changes in her self one morning as she sat gazing at the reflection of the blue Az'Reylin sky in the still, undisturbed surface of the pond close to her home. The transparent paper thin wings she had on her back since birth looked....well, bigger somehow. She knew from having seen others of her race during occasional trips to market that full grown, functional wings was a sign of maturity for her race, but had never really given it much thought. All through her childhood, the wings hadn't really done much, except flutter ineffectually against her shoulder blades whenever she got excited or angry. At the time she had stood looking at her reflection in the clear pool for several minutes before writing it off as a figment of her imagination, or a ripple in the water she had not noticed making them appear to have grown.
Renna had been orphaned at a young age during an Ashtarian attack on the small village where her parents had been living. The attack had claimed the lives of both her parent and all three of her brothers and sisters when their house had caught fire during the raid, and collapsed in on the sleeping family. By some miracle her life had been spared when one of their neighbors, a gentle Sadidan woman named Myrma, had seen the blaze and followed the sound of Renna's cries of distress to her cradle on the bottom floor and pulled her from the blistering inferno just as the structure collapsed. Renna had been too young to remember any of it, but Myrma would often smile as she talked about the angry little toddler she had pulled from the fire, that had fit perfectly into the palm of her hand.
Under the tender guidance of the sadi woman, Renna had grown quickly, from a curious toddler, to a rambunctious child, to an adolescent with lots of questions about what it was that made her so different from Myrma herself. The woman who had raised her as her own had finally told her the story one morning when Renna had asked why she was so much smaller than all the other Sadidans in the secluded forest village. It had been then that Myrma had pulled down an old leather bound book and dusted it off, opening it to reveal vividly drawn pictures of the different races that inhabited their lands. She had pointed to a picture of a tall muscular man and woman in forest garb with long hair that looked a lot like the people in their village and explained that they were Sadidans, and then flipping a few pages had shown her another picture, of small people with slender frames and sharp features, and wings coming off their shoulders. Renna remembered how her eyes had gone to the sharply pointed ears in the picture as her fingers had traced their way up to the sharp points of her own ears.
"The reason dear child you do not look like a Sadida, is because you are not supposed to."
That morning had been the first morning she had ever heard the word 'Eniripsa' and the degree of separation she had felt from her home and all she had know for the last two decades had been staggering. She had millions of questions about eniripsas, or 'Eenees' as Myrma had called them, but her guardian, having lived in the sheltering seclusion of the village most of her life, had been unable to tell her anything other than when she had finally grown up to be a mature eni, she would get her wings in.
Pushing the three year old memories into the back of her mind, she had turned once more to look at her back in the reflective water and stretching the short immature wings out as far as her unformed muscles would allow her to, decided that they were still the same as they had been yesterday. She didn't pay the wings any more attention till three nights later when a dull ache in the ridges of them left her feeling ill and unmotivated. After a good hour of picking at her dinner and leaving it untouched, Myrma had asked her what was troubling her, and when Renna had told her, Myrma had grabbed her spectacles and pulled her into the light to take a better look at her wings.
"Well my dear, you will be happy to know you are fine, the reason you are in discomfort is because you are having growing pains, your big eni wings are finally growing in!" at this Renna had about leaped out of her skin, unable to contain her excitement, her wings had started beating almost with a mind of their own, fanning them both with a gust of air and blowing several flax and hemp flowers to the floor. Myrma had simply laughed and chased her outside for some fresh air as she picked up the flowers.
As the week continued she was seeing a marked difference every morning in the size of her wings. Where they had been rumpled and formless before, they now had a thick ridge of hard material extending along the length of the top and she could see small blood vessels in the thin tissues in between the shape holding spines. Her muscles developed along with the rest and by the end of the week, her new wings were full sized and beginning to take on the same rosy shade of pink as the hair on her head, and she was strong enough to fly for short bursts, up to 5 minutes at a time.
It wasn't until the end of the second week she began to notice other changes. She had been practicing flying as often as she could get away with it and by now was able to stay in the air for several minutes before needing to land and recoup. It was one such time when she was landing for a rest, closing her wings against her back as she had always done when she noticed something else about her new wings. As one rubbed the other, an incredible sensation shot up the length of the ridges and into her shoulders making her gasp with surprise. Stretching them back out again, she repeated the process, this time more deliberately, the friction between the wing segments causing a small chirp and the vibrations from the small sound was almost enough to drop her to her knees as a small low sound of arousal escaped her lips. She looked around quickly to see if there was anyone around, but saw no one. She had roamed pretty far away from the village, tracing the trails back through the trees and out into the open fields where she could practice without the hindrance of trees or the speculation of curious onlookers.
Grinning wickedly to herself, she scanned till she located a small boulder and walked over and knelt in front of it. Taking one last glance around to see she was alone, she again opened her wings and rubbed them together rhythmically producing a pattern of cricket-like chirps. The vibrations travelled the length of the ridges in her wings and down her spine making her body ache in a way that had nothing to do with pain as a small moan escaped her. Closing her eyes and leaning her head forward she continued her 'song' for several minutes, completely surrendering to the pleasurable sensations sweeping through her body until a far off sound caught her attention and stopped her cold. She held her breath for a moment listening in the still morning air for the sound to repeat. When the sound DID repeat her mouth fell open in surprise... someone was chirping back at her....
