Avadis - A legolas story (slow moving!)

Chapter 1 - Darkness has a name

Author's note:

If a character is speaking with italics they are thinking to themselves

"If it is italics with speech marks that's the eagles, only Avadis can really understand what they are saying, you can decide how they speak"  (eagles have a particular way of speaking to Avians which will be uncovered later)

—-------------------------------- Years Later —--------------------------------

Avadis soared through the air, on the back of the eagle Meneldor, as he swooped up and down the mountain ranges. Opening her wings out slowly, the small girl gasped with excitement as she felt the cool air rushing through the dark feathers of her wings. She was still much too young (in Avian years) for her wings to be fully grown enough to take these kinds of flight, as of yet she has only managed to fly from the peak of the mount down to her mother's arms. But as was tradition, the younglings were taken by the eagles out on their flights around Echoriad, to teach them the ways of reading the air.

Avadis laughed with happiness as Meneldor swooped down close to the ravine, almost close enough to touch the ground.

"Feel the wind" he said to her with a low, deep voice. Avadis reached her small hand out and let the air flow through her fingers. "It is dense here" she said, "but there is a breeze coming from the left"

"Well done" Meneldor replied, turning his body to the left to reveal a cave opening deep into the mountain. Avadis smiled, happy that her reading was correct. Meneldor took her back up into the air.

"Hold on youngling" he said. Avadis grasped her hands firmly into his aged feathers. "Spread your wings, feel the air". The pair swooped left and right, dropping and summersaulting, changing the directions rapidly. At first Avadis was dizzy with the fast motion, but she focussed her eyes and concentrated on her wings, trying to predict the changes in the air before they moved to bring her mind to stability.

Suddenly, her hands lost their grasp and she was flung from Meneldor's back. Avadis panicked, feeling her stomach drop as the plummeted towards the rocky spikes below. Instinctively she pushed her small wings out, trying to catch a breeze. From next to her, a strong wind caught her and she glided enough to slow her fall. With all her strength, she turned her body and followed the breeze south ever so slightly, until underneath her the back of Meneldor appeared.

"Reach for me" he called, and Avadis landed with a thud onto his feathers. Her hands were trembling, but she did not show fear. "You are safe, don't worry" he said, "you did well, you are stronger than I first thought"

"I was scared" Avadis whispered, trying to find her voice. "We will finish our lesson here today, you need rest" Meneldor said, turning gently back to the sides of the mountain the nests were tucked away in.

Later that day, Avadis was sitting alongside her mother as Fayedira brushed the tangles from her thick hair. "Your hair is turning red" her mother said with slight amazement, gently lifting a small slither of her hair up to show Avadis, "as is the way, our hair grows to match with our wings". Avadis nodded. Her mother had blackened hair, but streaks of brown framed her face, as was the same for the tips of her wings. None of the other mothers, at least in her opinion, were as beautiful as her mother. Avadis herself had begun to grow a dark burgundy feathers upon the tips of her wings. Perhaps oneday she will have beautifully carved wings like her mother...

Suddenly, the great eagle Gwaiher swooped into the cave, landing on the edge of it's rocky ledge. Fayedira stood and walked over to him, reaching her hand up to his head as a greeting, and the two discussed something in hushed voices, occasionally looking back at Avadis.