Chap­ter XX marks a shift in tone as Taee’s vis­its to me became more fre­quent and more per­son­al. His youth­ful nature, bright­ened by wit and gen­uine inter­est, stood in con­trast to the more for­mal and cere­bral demeanor of his elders. Though only around twelve in their years, his mind worked with aston­ish­ing pre­ci­sion. But unlike oth­ers of his race, he seemed to enjoy the nov­el­ty I pre­sent­ed. To him, I was a curios­i­ty wrapped in humor—a liv­ing rel­ic of a world so unlike his own. His kind­ness didn’t feel supe­ri­or, just deeply amused. That amuse­ment gave me brief com­fort, even as the real­i­ty of my dif­fer­ence weighed heav­i­ly.

Flight among the Vril-ya was not sim­ply a mechan­i­cal task but a seam­less blend of machine and mind. Their wings—constructed from mas­sive plumes of a native bird and linked through sophis­ti­cat­ed channels—were majes­tic in form and effort­less in func­tion. When used, they car­ried their wear­er with ele­gance and min­i­mal motion. Watch­ing them ascend in silence felt like wit­ness­ing a dream. Nat­u­ral­ly, I want­ed to try. I was no stranger to phys­i­cal effort, hav­ing been a capa­ble swim­mer and climber back home. But once har­nessed to the wings, I dis­cov­ered quick­ly that brute strength offered no advan­tage. My body remained bound to the earth, awk­ward in its effort and piti­ful in exe­cu­tion.

The wings respond­ed not just to move­ment, but to will. And there­in lay the flaw. My attempts, though earnest, end­ed in repeat­ed failure—painful crash­es, missed glides, and mount­ing frus­tra­tion. Zee had watched these ses­sions qui­et­ly, only step­ping in after a par­tic­u­lar­ly jar­ring fall left me dazed and bruised. With char­ac­ter­is­tic calm, she explained what I had start­ed to sus­pect. My fail­ures weren’t mechan­i­cal, nor were they due to poor instruc­tion. I lacked the inner link, the voli­tion­al har­mo­ny, that made flight pos­si­ble for them. Vril wasn’t just a tool—it was part of their biol­o­gy.

Her words struck hard­er than the fall. She said I suf­fered from an “organ­ic defect”—not a flaw of the mind, but of being. For the Vril-ya, their pow­er was not taught but inher­it­ed, shaped by cen­turies of con­scious devel­op­ment. They didn’t learn vril; they became it. I, an out­sider, could nev­er mas­ter some­thing so fun­da­men­tal­ly woven into their essence. The rev­e­la­tion wasn’t cru­el­ly deliv­ered, but it still stung. I had hoped for par­i­ty, if not in pow­er, then at least in progress. Now, I saw the lim­its of both.

Zee’s con­cern grew more vis­i­ble after this. Her voice, once clin­i­cal, had soft­ened. Her hand, once guid­ing for instruc­tion, now stead­ied me in care. There was a shift—subtle but unmis­tak­able. What had begun as obser­va­tion had become pro­tec­tion. She was no longer watch­ing to see what I could do. She was watch­ing to make sure I didn’t hurt myself try­ing. Her deci­sion to end my flight tri­als came not from frus­tra­tion, but affec­tion. She had grown invested—not in results, but in me.

Taee, for his part, seemed unboth­ered by my lim­i­ta­tions. If any­thing, my fail­ures amused him more than my efforts. He teased me gen­tly, but with­out cru­el­ty. His pres­ence remind­ed me that fail­ure, while hum­bling, could also be human­iz­ing. Among these near-per­fect beings, per­haps my flaws made me more real. Their soci­ety val­ued con­trol, bal­ance, and silent mas­tery. I brought with me clum­si­ness, emo­tion, and unpre­dictabil­i­ty. And while it exclud­ed me from their skillset, it gave me some­thing they hadn’t expected—vulnerability.

Lat­er, I reflect­ed on what it meant to be unable to fly in a soci­ety where flight was as nat­ur­al as walk­ing. It was­n’t mere­ly about motion. It was about iden­ti­ty. To fly was to belong, to inte­grate, to ascend in more ways than one. My ground­ed body, no mat­ter how will­ing, was a con­stant reminder of sep­a­ra­tion. No mat­ter how kind they were, I would always remain apart. Not unwant­ed, but unmatched. My spir­it could admire, but nev­er imi­tate.

The Vril-ya, though advanced, had cul­ti­vat­ed a peace born from elim­i­na­tion of weak­ness. In my efforts, I car­ried all the weak­ness they had left behind—desire, frus­tra­tion, fear, and the ache of try­ing. But in that ache, I also found some­thing they per­haps no longer need­ed: hope. Hope that fail­ure could still teach, still move, still mat­ter. They had everything—yet their per­fec­tion seemed cold. I had noth­ing but attempts, and still, they warmed me.

Zee’s qui­et care after the final failed flight told me every­thing. Though she said lit­tle, her actions spoke of con­nec­tion. Her con­cern crossed the bound­ary of sci­en­tif­ic inter­est and entered some­thing more ten­der. It did not need to be declared. In her restraint, I saw devo­tion. And in her gaze, I sensed the painful truth: she saw val­ue in me even when I could give noth­ing back. In that moment, I felt both hon­ored and ter­ri­bly alone.