He shook and twisted his arms, pulling the strings and forcing the flexible structure of the wings to try to regain control.

Attached to his legs, Niquitt was able to move the part of the wing structure, where small folds of fillet wood lay. They helped him give direction to the flight. Had to twist a lot to avoid a rock edge that it was pronounced like a finger. It was by too little, so little that he could stand on one foot and push himself upward in an awkward impulse. Further ahead, the wall stretched. The white stone looked at him more and more closely.

- Bad plan! - he shouted to himself.

To be able to avoid the impact, had to twist the body by turning and pulling back, to use the air to "brake". 

"This is going to hurt " - he thought shortly before beating full against the rock. To alleviate the impact managed to design the legs forward pushing and bending the knees like a spring. He saved his face by shielding her with his arms in front. However, the extremities of the wings, that were made of flexible wood, bent, beat and broke.

From then on it was only the fall.

He started spinning in the air like a pawn, screaming and turning and shouting, over and over. His scream echoed in the walls of the Mad Raven. 

-Bad plan! Bad plan! Bad plan! - he shouted. 

Before it was too late, he stretched his arms and grabbed the two support rods, forcing to stretch his wings. Managed for a short time, but enough to stop spinning and gliding over a little, slowing down. As Niquitt was quick he had managed to direct the "fall", this time nothing elegant, away from the Rocky ends. He threw himself away from Raven's wall, toward the pool that the fall of the Great Stream formed. 

- Poor plan! Terrible plan! Terrible plan! he shouted.

Tchaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

The dive was an impact between the "glad I'm alive" and "Oh my God, I'm broken and I'm going to drown!".

Niquitt hated water, couldn't swim right. More than once he almost drowned. The joint work of half a dozen shippers was able to save him from the last time when he almost was swallowed by one of the swirling currents. Even so - you might imagine -, between turning a folder spread on the stone or trying the odds on the water, you would probably also choose the second option.

And the second option was not "a marvel", but served well. After the impact left with a leap out of the water, hanging onto the first thing steady. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was the neck of a massive batu, who occasionally was there, taking advantage of the waters for quenching thirst. It wasn't a situation exactly good. The batus are cold-blooded creatures, large, heavy, slow and calm. As they can't run from predators, occasionally release a smelly secretion, that serves both to regulate and maintain skin heat and to ward off threats. 

Niquitt was not a threat, but of course, the batu did not know that. A blue-violet goo soon began to flow over his hands and face.

Troubled, the batu turned his neck away, taking the boy clinging to him. "Full of the stinking snout, but away from the water," he thought as he dropped to the ground before the animal itself tossed it away in a stronger jolt.

When he fell he felt the pain in his legs, the first time he could really worry about it. It had all been so fast and urgent that he had not even realized how hurt he was. He threw himself to the ground, its wings were ruined. Only rags and broken rods remained. Nothing that discouraged him completely, that was what the tests were for. 

"Back at the table!" - He thought as he took a cloth from the small backpack he carried attached to his belt and leg. But first, he'd have a long journey on foot to the top, from where he would follow the winding course of the Stream to his house. He knew more or less the way, had mapped much of the forest within a radius of about 300 miles from Walnutshell.

He dampened and wiped away what he could from the sticky, foul-smelling goop, and started to walk.