Ausren seems to float high above the trees, his great silky wings like massive sails, stretched to either side of Leonidas. When not diving and twisting through the air, flying gets rather... monotonous. It's not quite boring, with the wind whipping around them and the face of a storm looming behind the pair, but it's not exhilarating.
Besides, sticking to the northern coast is not only cold, but a repeated pattern of nothing but snow, mountain peaks, and trees. The same scenery with the same motions, over and over again, for hours. Not exactly something to write home about.
In fact, the rhythmic movement of Ausren beneath him has made Leonidas rather sleepy. Hands braced on Ausren's shoulders, staring blankly into the forest flying by beneath his soul-bound's wings, Leo yawns.
"Bored already?" Ausren asks, his inner voice amused as he peers back at his passenger.
"Mmph," Leo responds, the sound little more than a grunt. The pair, after a little bit of debate, decided to move west, farther into Nayanamh. Leo had preferred to go east into Solardwin; or as Ausren had informed him, Nogaerdytnouc; the land of dragons. The boy's only reasoning was that he had never been there before. However, as Ausren later convinced him, humans are much easier to deal with than dragons.
So to the west they flew for the better part of a day, barely staying out from under the front of a rapidly moving storm front.
"I think it's probably time we stop for today," Ausren announces, his attention turning to attempting to spot somewhere to stay for the night.
Almost in a trance, staring at the trees rushing by beneath them, Leo responds with, "Okay."
Ausren snorts softly, and suddenly they are dipping toward the treetops. Then, Ausren rotates his wings around and they come in a board arch, turning toward the nearby mountain tops.
As the dragon flies, looking for anything that might resemble a shelter, Leo asks, "What are we going to do?"
"Other than look for a place to sleep?" Ausren questions, humor lacing his tone.
The boy sighs softly, responding, "After that. What's our plan? What's the long-run here? Do we just fly around trying to avoid enemies for the rest of our lives?"
"Hmmm," the dragon hums softly, dropping their altitude a little lower. Now that they are no longer flying away from it, the storm front is gaining rapidly, looming ominously above them. "Well, I suppose it would depend on what you want to do. Do we fight in the war? Do we try to stop the slaughter of both our kinds? Or do we stay out of it? Do we live our lives how we want? What do you want to do, Leo?"
"Well, right now, I want to visit Nogaerdytnouc. You may have grown up there, but I've never been able to experience the 'magical' lands. I'm interested in knowing more about it, and more about you. You vetoed that, though."
"How about we stay where it is easy to defend you until we know each other better... until we work together and you figure out your... magic situation. Then, we will go and explore my lands, I promise."
"And after that?"
Ausren drops even lower, now skimming over the slope, barely twenty feet off the ground. "Why don't we decide that when we get there? Is there any rush?"
"I suppose not."
For a moment, as the pair skims over the rocky slope, silence reigns between them. During the silence, Ausren suddenly rotates his wings up, shoulders flexing under the strain of bringing the pair to a halt. Through the connection between their minds, Leonidas is aware of the small cave Ausren spotted, sticking out of the side of a nearby cliff. It's not much, but it should at the very least keep the boy dry during the impending storm.
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The Fear of Loneliness (Fear Series Book 1)
FantasíaLooking up, Leo zeroes in on the claw nearest his throat, curling around the edge of his chest plate and resting against the boy's chest. It is then that he realizes there is nothing in the world he can do to save his own life. If the dragon...
