Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) by Joyce Chng Page B

landed
aristocrats.
     
    Mrs Potts is the Forresters’ nanny and
governess. She also cooks for them. Brought Alethia up and is close
to the girl. Is good-humoredly amused and bemused by her employer’s
eccentricities.
     
    Lady Judith Westmoreland is Captain Sagan’s
teaching assistant and she works the vox-reader during the
lectures. Typical Victorian lady but with a wicked sense of humor
and an intense love for astronomy and history (which she teaches
the first-years).
     
    Engineer Morley maintains the manor’s core
and also teaches one of the Engineering modules. A gruff man with a
heart of gold, he has a soft spot for Lady Westmoreland.
     
    Doctor James Ash is the academy’s resident
doctor and a lecturer for Science (Biology). Acerbic, dour at first
glance but actually compassionate. Tries to heal Katherine’s
ankle.
     
    Trainer Stenton is one of the academy’s
fitness trainers. Gruff, tough and wants his trainees to turn out
well.
     
    Thomas Von Dyke is a boy by German
extraction and has lived in England for a long time. Part of
College Sable – Katherine’s friend and occasional rival.
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed. A little cocky.
     
    Joshua Baker is a boy from College
Azure.
     
    Wes is one of the pilots. He is Richard’s
friend.
     
    Edward Hannigan is a boy from College
Sable.
     
    Misato Kanaka is an exchange student from
Meiji Japan, assigned to College Sable.
     
    Cook is simply Cook. She is the main cook
for the Great Manor and has her own vegetable garden.
     
     
     
    Artifices
     
     
    The leo-fin is a machine, plain and simple.
The pilot of course has to understand the intricacies of the
leo-fin, as a flying machine. Flies on either helium or hydrogen. A
beautiful machine, constructed to look like the lion fish. It
precedes modern concepts of the zeppelin and the airplane (Wright
Brothers).
     
    The sun-flier is one of Paul Forrester’s
myriad inventions. It is basically a small bird-like robot (cogs
and gears), powered by solar energy. The sun-flier is sometimes
used for short distance messages (inspired, no doubt, by the
carrier pigeons).
     
    The steel puppies are mechanical/robotic
dogs. They look like mastiffs or bulldogs, constructed out of gears
and cogs.
     
    The gyro-scopes are leg-powered. But only
occasionally seen. Precedes the helicopter.
     
    The tin-men are Paul Forrester’s creations.
Toy soldier sized. No actual function, except for
entertainment.
     
    The blimp-fins are ordinary fliers. Used for
training purposes at the academy. Purely functional.
     
     
     
     
    There is a nine-year gap between Alethia’s
story in A Garden of Crystals and the present story. The
leo-fins have become common and more advanced than the ones
encountered in AGOC. Their features have become more streamlined,
as the collectors and inventors keep on making changes to their
design.
     
    The Queen formed Her Majesty’s Aerial
Fleet , including the leo-fins under this particular
designation. So, the leo-fins serve both commercial and military
purposes. Later, as England grows in power (during the time period
where Katherine Riley obtains her wings), the Aerial Fleet expands
to include the goblin sharks , a more streamlined and
deadlier version of the leo-fin, purely built for war. As one of
the ladies who saw the prototype for the first time has gasped in
shock, the goblin shark is truly “ghastly”.
     
     
     
    Colleges of the Flight
Academy ( A cadémie De Vol)
     
     
    Sable (Right) – Bird Wings
    Azure (Left) - Cogs
    Orr (Right) - Propellers
    Vert (Left) - Comet.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Courses offered at the Flight Academy:
    Basics of flight.
    Mechanics of flight.
    Athletics.
    Engineering.
    Mathematics.
    Science.
    Humanities (History/Geography/Classics).
    Languages (French, Italian, Russian and Han
Mandarin Chinese).
     
     
    The Flight Academy has a cathedral-inspired
main building where the auditorium (where the main lectures are
conducted) and the Administrativa (main