A broken world and a birdsong.

Come fly with me...

Shiro stared up at the blue sky, and the clouds swirling under it, and his home town, and he smiled. Just for a moment, while he fell weightlessly on his back, he thought to himself: man, I'm gonna miss this place. He laughed to himself. He drew from his side pocket, a large silver carbiner in his left hand. He drew his right hand to his lips and let loose a sharp whistle. From the edge of the sky, he heard the screech of his bird, and a huge, red bird swooped down to catch its master. The carbiner in Shiro's outstretched hand latched onto a protruding loop in the pendragon's harness, and he deftly brought himself to the top of the saddle. The boy and his bird pitched up into the sky, and slowed for a moment to level out their direction. The bird seemed to already know the magnitude of the situation, and as they flew from the house, and their family, who were standing at the landing dock of their balloon; embracing in sadness and faint pride. The bird looked back for a moment. If the pendragon could speak, it would say: Do we really have to leave? I don't wanna leave them alone.

Shiro felt the same, but he knew it had to be done. He decided then and there to never look back. He thought to himself that there was nothing behind him that he hasn't already seen. Nothing that would help him would ever show up in his past.

Shiro looked to the other buildings and the memories that they brought back. This was the closest that walls have ever gotten to talking. In front of the Bakers' family shop, there was still a"no bird riding" sign planted into the ground, undoubtedly from the time that he was fourteen and first learning how to ride Cherry. He remembered how he crashed through the window and got glass in Mr. Baker's tupee, obviously setting him ablaze in anger. Even now, as he flew north through the causeway where the store was located, the old man scowled and pointed his rather pudgy finger at the bright yellow sign. Shiro laughed, and sped up to humor the old grey-haired man. 

He laughed and decided it would be harder to escape his past than he thought.

The scenery changed drastically the farther he got from the city. for one, there were infinitely many less silver gleaming hummingbird bikes to speak of. The hover bikes used the wing movement patterns as hummingbirds to achieve a full range of mobility. They did, however, need to stay in proximity of the city so that in the event of a malfunction or lack of fuel, the magnetic turrets could quite easily save both the pilot and the vehicle, so when the magnetic protection started to fade, the presence of hummingbirds did as well.

Shiro flew for miles, knowing only one thing: Gotta head north. Keep going. As he rode along above the clouds, they slowly started to thicken and darken. A storm was brewing, and he was right on top of it.