An Ythrian On The Wing

"The Ythrian passed overhead in splendor."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 309.

"He went high above them, hovering, soaring, wheeling in splendor..."
-Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), p. 139.

Poul Anderson has earned the right to write thus about Ythrians in flight. If we have read his History of Technic Civilization in chronological order of fictitious events, then we have learned what it means to see a flying Ythrian. The flapping wings pump oxygen directly into the blood, supercharging the metabolism, generating the energy necessary to lift an intelligent being's heavy body against gravity. Ythrians are and feel more alive while they fly and express this feeling in how they fly.

"He rode the wind like its conqueror." (Rise.... ibid.)

After first contact on Ythri, a human being watching the farewell dance:

"...cried through tears, 'To fly like that! To fly like that!'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 102.