Leave Everything Else Behind
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Xanadu Weyr - Ocean Sky
Far above, the sea resembles a spilled inkwell of dark blue. Capped with the foam of waves, the ocean seems amazingly eternal. No beginning or end, interrupted only by jutted rocks nearer to land and absolutely nothing the further one looks away from it. Serene and terrifying, this is the sea.


Moonlight. From one, not two.

Stars.

Inky blackness.

Night flying.

This isn’t a class. Nor a practice for an exam. This is a dragon and his rider, taking to the sky for no reason other than that the both of them desire it. A sky void of light other than the pinpricks of stars that dazzle and a single moon that dominates.

But neither one are paying attention to the treasures above. Beneath the silver light, a bronze hide is illuminated like a pirate’s hidden treasure within the darkness. A flash of bronze here. Copper there. A hint of dark gold. Muscles coil, tense, and lengthen with wing flaps that propel him faster. Downward towards a sliver of silver far below him. Faster, faster. His wings fold into the dive, streamlining his body as the rider on his back leans eagerly against his neck.

Exhilaration.

The rush of wind against his face. The roaring sound of it to his ears. The feeling of his hair being whipped back with the force of invisible hands. Ka’el’s heart is in his chest as he and Kanekith divebomb down and down and down towards nothing and everything. White caps. Silver caps. An uneven surface. Water, rushing faster and faster towards him til a crash seems inevitable. Too big to stop! To cumbersome to be swift enough to avoid!

But he isn’t. This bronze with the athletic body, the wide wingspan, the able mind. He isn’t too large or bulky or stupid. He is exactly as he should be, as is his rider, and together they pull and arc heavily sideways, wings spreading. The tip of the leftmost skims the water as he banks, spraying up waves and droplets of silver behind him as Ka’el whoops the euphoria that tingles his every capillary. The sea is left behind as he climbs again, goggled eyes upon the moon as seen through dragon sight.

Clear. Perfect. He can see everything. There are no questions. No hesitations.

“C’mon!” He can feel the effort of every wingbeat that shifts the air, molds it, moves it to where he needs it to be. He can feel the muscle, the strength that carries them both higher, towards that glowing orb, closer to the stars. Kanekith’s jaw drops, emitting a guttural call upward as his flight begins to spiral, corkscrewing with two pairs of wide eyes on the same goal.

It’s a carnival ride of lights that spiral and streak and blend. Dotted stars become the tiny tails of comets that swirl around them. Silver linings of clouds blur as fog that envelop them both, and the swelling excitement in both of their chests is nearly overbearing. They’re almost there. To the unknown. Together. Nothing else will ever matter.

«Come back down to Pern, brother. Your eyes are far too big!»

Below them, a sapphire blue dragon dissolves into existence, seemingly drifting up from the depths of the waters itself. Its speckled backside blends perfectly with the reflection of the sky above. Dots of stars or crests of waves or the imperfect reflections of a silvered moon.

Ka’el grins. “Kei’lan.” Bronze wings spread, the webbing not wholly transparent but mottled with the hues of rust. Tarnished edges of green resemble streaks of eerie lightning against the nighttime sky as his climb halts and Kanekith is momentarily suspended in midair, a majestic image of a perfect bronze that now looks downward. «Azrith.»

Descent, towards the blue, corkscrewing once, twice in the process which rises a gleefully whooped holler from Ka’el. “You came!” Happy. Relieved.

«You only graduate once, Youngest. Now, show me what your bronze can truly do!»

Words spoken through the voice of a serene blue as the two brothers race above the surface of the sea, on blue and on bronze, towards the nearly unseen spires that jut out from the ocean like the crooked fingers of many grasping hands, just waiting for the brave or reckless to test their skill, their agility, their bravery. And leave everything else behind.


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