Against the Wind

23.1 || Raya

The cavern was deserted—almost. A thick tether of trust bound Raya to Corvin's side as they pitched into the silence beyond his music, tense to the point of aching, yet the darkness fluttered around emerald lights that revealed no-one. The emptiness only dragged a chill up through her insides, pulled from the deepening pit in her stomach.

They encountered only one beastfolk, and he was small. Caked in dirt and soft, downy fur, he showed them wide eyes full of fear and a row of snarling, serrated teeth. Amina wavered at his appearance, whirling with a stance readied to defend yet caught in a flinch, void of conviction. Raya flung out an arm to hold her still, though guilt slithered under her skin as she soaked in the girl's judgement. Amina was not cruel, not truly, but her impulses shone through.

Corvin left them both to approach the little boy. He spoke in the rough tongue of the beasts, but slowly and deliberately, his accent's lilt rising and falling such that he was almost as mesmerising to listen to as his flute. The boy's shakes didn't lessen by much, but his teeth retreated. He stayed where he was, and they moved on.

The outside air was brisk and fresh, not yet warmed by the light of day, yet it failed to scrub much of the tension from Raya's limbs. The dull, sliding greys worn by the dunes seemed forlorn, like the desert were bent over in premature grief. The beginnings of a wind swirled up the sand and whispered tales of foreboding. Her cloak's edges fluttered in tiny frenzies. She wrapped it tighter around herself to hold in a shiver and craned her neck upwards, searching for the stars, but a spotted web of cloud rubbed in faintest red dimmed them to near invisibility.

Corvin must have sensed her discontent, for his fingers played over her arm, a dusting of barest touches that soon drifted away and left a tingle in its wake. He still wouldn't quite look at her. He was twitchy, too, even more so than the fear she recalled of him within Tehazihbith's bounds, but deep in focus. His eyes were dark rust in the half-light. He blew into his flute again, the sound rippling softly over the dunes as a keening howl laced with the wind, and Meag came.

Amid all that now occupied Raya's loud mind, there wasn't room for surprise; she no longer felt the jump in her heart at the sight of a beastly shape cut out of the twilight, or at the snort and huff and stomp of Meag's presence as she galloped across the peak of the nearest dune towards them. She reared up close to Corvin and energetically pushed her snout into his chest, moaning gently, not all that unlike a small child desperate to show concern for its weary, long-awaited parent. Corvin mumbled to her in a mixture of eloquent growls, holding her close.

He trembled a little, then. His veneer of calm confidence, steady as it strove to remain, withered with the close of his eyes and the press of his forehead to her thick fur. He looked too young again, his pale hair too long and wafting around his face, his skin slicked with the last of the moonlight. Raya felt such a lurch in her chest that she grew close to telling him to stay, that they did not have to go back to the city, that they could stay and hide and be safe from harm and her wants and fears no longer mattered. But she kept her tongue trapped between her teeth and stayed silent. It would be a lie to tell him that, and the moment was soon lost either way.

Through a fierce, preoccupied frown, he asked them to climb atop Meag's back, and soon they were in the air with the ground rushing beneath them. A quiet encased them, buffeted by the mild breeze tossed into their faces and fanned in whorls by Meag's beating wings. Amina's silence was pinched and stubborn, like a murky, swirling tonic locked behind sturdy glass, sharp with determination, though she gripped Raya's middle tightly enough to bruise.

Corvin's silence was more unsteady. More than once, Raya heard him draw breath as if readying to speak, but no words followed. The wind sang on uncontested.

She felt awkward holding onto him, though her stomach flipped over itself at the thought of letting go. She could only focus on staying as still as possible, and on trying to pinpoint her own thoughts, though they were too indistinct to clearly thread together. There had to be a hundred things to say or to ask him, yet none arose. Even her fear was blank, unarticulate and out of reach. Off to the side, a sliver of the sun breached the black, jagged horizon, stoically bleeding a rich crimson into the dirty sky.