Playing with Fire - Of loss and grief

Chapter Seven: Redemption

The sky was mine. Flying came to me instinctively, as if I was born with wings; as natural as breathing. If someone had asked me if I wasn't afraid to face a whole flight squad alone, five fliers against one, I would face such question with the same disbelief as if I'd been asked if I wasn't afraid of a puppy. For that, people often label me as "crazy".

I flew directly at the group, piercing the skies easily. Ala'Nyr was faster and lighter than any other dragonhawk, so the first row of offensive spells and arrows missed me by simple miscalculation. They weren't used to facing someone faster than themselves - to be fair, none of them had ever fought another flight master in the skies. Their job was to shower arrows and spells down on rats on the ground. Facing another flying predator was something entirely new.

I laid on Ala'Nyr's back and embraced her neck, while she shrank her wings around her body and started to spin. We became a bullet, and while earth and sky constantly changed places, my phoenix's spinning made two more arrows slide off as a layer of swirling wind that surrounded us pushed them away.

Two fliers, casters, committed the mistake of flying too close to one another. I flew directly in between them, and the disturbance that we created was great enough to interfere with their flight. The air gap on our tail generated powerful winds that pulled both riders to our direction, but since the winds were too strong and they were too close, they didn't manage to maneuver in time. With a painful thud, the riders collided and started to fall in a mess of broken wings, dangling arms and screams. Two down.

The remaining riders started to maneuver to follow me. Ala'Nyr stretched her wings again only to correct her position, and then shrank them with her beak pointing to the ground. Maneuvers that would turn the stomach of others came naturally to us. Not everyone was ready to try some things - not every rider, and not every creature.

Ala'Nyr was my partner for life, and it only took me a few touches and signs to show her what I wanted to be done. It almost felt as if our minds were connected, as if her wings were mine - and in a way, they were. We plummeted fast in a vertical position, the ground drawing closer by the second as my sister's beak cut through the air. The wind muffled my ears and made my hair lash at my back; I squeezed my eyes agaist the swirling air. I held so tightly onto Ala'Nyr's saddle that my knuckles were white and my legs were tensed. We gained speed quickly.

Some of the riders fell for it and were foolish enough to try my maneuver - after all, I would put too much distance between us if they didn't follow me. But as they did, they must have realized the position didn't allow them to throw spells or arrows at me as the wind resistance would throw them right back.

The fall gave us more speed, and more quickly the ground approached. Every second mattered; a blink of the eyes could mean disaster. I barely breathed, my chest compressed by the wind and the excitement. Every dangerous maneuver was like flirting with misfortune, waltzing through the skies with Death itself.

Much later than a wiser rider would, I commanded my phoenix to stretch out her wings. With a hard jolt and an angled curve, we came out of a vertical position to a horizontal one, parallel to the ground. I could see small pebbles on the ground leaving my eyesight quick as fish swimming in a stream. If I wanted to, I could safely jump to the ground now, so close we were to it that Ala'Nyr had to tilt swiftly to either sides to avoid bigger rocks and mounds of earth that were part of the geography of Netherstorm. Another rider wasn't as skilled. I looked back just in time to see the closest rider fail to avoid a big rock - the wing of his dragonhawk hit the rock and caused him to stumble to the ground. Both rider and creature rolled to the ground, and even though the rider seemed fortunate enough to not have his neck snapped, I knew they would have a bunch of broken bones to take care of. I also noticed another rider stopped following me in my daring move and was left behind. None of the remaining riders seemed to be willing to keep on pursuing me.