Flight of the Scions

Chapter 31: Cabin Fever

Spirits cannot learn or evolve. They are only personifications of tales and stories, unable to improve beyond the words repeated around fires. — Tamis Glindour, Finding the Spirit's Home

Even after two days of recovery, Kanéko couldn't get clean enough. She sat in the heated water of the cave, scrubbing her skin with a rag. The scrapes she acquired from getting into the redoubt were cleaned out, but no matter how much she scraped against her skin, she couldn't get rid of the Damagar nightmares, the fear of being chased, or the realization they could be caught at any moment.

Dropping the cloth in the water, she grabbed some of the hair conditioner—it was made from the oils of local plants and stored in air-tight jars. Pouring a measure in her hand, she reached down for the cloth. It fluttered on the bottom of the water, moving with the waves of her movement and the heat rising from the bottom. Kanéko's mind latched on it and she poked it, ignoring the oil that dripped from her fingers.

She had an idea. Delving into the water, she swirled the cloth for a moment, and then used her fingers to hold the ends, watching it billow out when she dragged it through the depths.

Kanéko recalled the pictures she grew up with. One stood out, a three-masted ship with massive square sails. She wanted to get to the ocean to see those boats and now it gave her an idea of how to get home. Then, she remembered that she didn't have her tools to build a boat. She filed the idea in the back of her head and finished her bath.

She dressed in a fresh set of clothes from Cobin's pack and wrapped cloth around her feet and hands. On the shelf near the door, she picked up the last of her Jonahas root and tucked it into the cloth on the back of her hand. Taking a deep breath, she headed outside.

She found Ruben first, sitting on a rock as he tended their cooking fire. Kanéko held a hand over her eyes to shield from the sun before she sat down heavily next to him.

Ruben whispered without looking up. "Ready to depart?"

"Yes. This is nice, but I'm getting a bit stir crazy."

Ruben pushed fried eggs, strips of rabbit, and some heated rations on a plate and handed the overflowing plate to Kanéko.

Kanéko took the tiny vomen plate, it looked like a saucer to her, and started to eat. "How is Maris doing? She wasn't in the shelter. Still sulking?"

"No," Ruben grinned. "She is being stubborn. She is trying to fly trees and branches around to build up her strength. But she can't carry much more than me. We tried six times to include a pack one-tenth your weight, but she can't handle the additional encumbrance. Maximum distance was fifty feet before critical failure."

A smile formed across Kanéko's face. "She doesn't give up, does she? Where is she?"

Ruben gestured across the plains. Kanéko followed with her eyes, across the rolling hills covered with grass, to where Maris flew low to the ground, kicking up a plume of dust and grass as the dalpre followed a ridge leading to the north. The girl's dress snapped in the wind like a black cape, fluttering as Maris banked sharply and came into a large loop before reversing her direction and rocketing toward the south.

Behind the dalpre, the air flattened the grasses and left a trail behind her. When Maris rose from the ground, the trail ended but Kanéko could still see loose gravel, dust, and grass following Maris's wake. Maris dove back down and accelerated, moving faster than any horse Kanéko ever saw, almost as fast as an arrow.

"I never saw an air mage before. I know from the books they can fly, but most air mages never have enough skill to do it that fast or that steadily. Hovering is the best most can do." Kanéko watched Maris banking straight up, rising into the air until she turned into a little dot. "That is part of the wind witch training, how to fly like that."