Fugitive's Flight (Dragon Castaway Book 2)

Chapter 11

I feel like I need to apologize every time for not keeping the schedule I hoped for and this isn't incredibly long but this story is proving far more difficult than the last one when it comes to moving forward, bear with me though, I have not given up on this at all.

Following closely behind Jake and the twins Wyena steeled herself, screwed up her eyes, and tried to stifle the dueling sensations of fear and excitement roaring in her chest as they swooped upwards and downwards through the pitch darkness at breakneck speed.

Remembering what Jake had told her, she began to breathe deep and tried to concentrate on the bond she now shared with Whirlwind if for no other reason than to take her mind off the high potential for disaster that this nighttime run afforded her.

Strange couldn't begin to describe the experience that greeted Wyena. She shuddered as the link began to open up before her mind's eye. As she moved inwards, she felt torrents of warmth and conflicting emotion crash over like the waves of a raging sea. Sorting through the jumbled mess in front of her she fought back the urge to blush with a mixture of shame and exhilaration as she realized the meaning. Despite having used those painful spurs to control him, Whirlwind cared for and had accepted her wholeheartedly as his rider. The thought made her extremely cheerful.

Forcing herself to focus Wyena pushed onwards into the link, hoping to find the barrier separating their minds that Jake had previously mentioned.

"It can't be that far can it?" She thought as continued to move forward into Whirlwind's conscious. "Just how expansive can a mind be?" Despite her enthusiasm Wyena was careful in her mental movements. Jake had warned her that going too far into the link without be ready could literally fuse her mind to her dragon. The thought made her cringe with mild horror. She might love her dragon but she didn't want to literally fuse with him.

Her interior monologue was brought up short as she felt herself mentally collide with something solid.

"What the?" she thought reeling back as she took in the mental representation of a wall before her. Moving forward again she gingerly tested the barrier and frowned slightly. Instead of the fluid ethereal barrier that Jake had previously described, it was as if a transparent wall of stone had been erected on her path.

"Why is it so different from what he described?" Wyena pondered in frustration as she gave the wall a hard pounding with her fist that went nowhere.

"I apologize young one, but some paths are for the Archon alone" a familiar yet ethereal voice spoke from all around her. Wyena took a moment to gather herself from the disorientation the voice had caused. Tough as she may have been, she was still not use to having her mind turn into an echo chamber.

Looking around she stared with metaphorical wide-eyed amazement as the goddess Tlacocualli materialized before her in the form of a graceful silver dragon not too dissimilar from Valkyrie.

"Goddess" Wyena said politely. "Why have you come to me and not Jake?"

"He is not the one in need of me right now" she replied simply. "I have a duty to all my children, not just him, as cryptic as it can be sometimes."

Wyena mentally quirked an eyebrow at the goddess' response. "This isn't an attempt to have some of that "girl time" that Jake mentioned in his world, is it?"

"Great" Tlaco said with an amused snort. "I can't fucking believe I have two of them now!"

"I think it's going to be a hallmark of his tenure" Wyena replied wryly, briefly surprised by the decidedly un-goddess like remark. "And besides, it seems I'm not the only one that he's influenced."

"True enough, I have grown quite fond of the man" Tlaco replied, the softness of her tone implying that she was briefly lost in thought before her focus returned to Wyena once more. "But as I said before my responsibility is to guide more than just him and you aren't exactly subtle about indicating when you need it."

"Gee, thanks" Wyena groaned in embarrassment. "Just hit me below the belt again why don't you?"

"Most effective way to get the point across." Tlaco replied crooning softly as she did so.

"So, where do I start?" Wyena replied.

"The bond is first and foremost one of emotions." The goddess explained. "Dragons do not think in the same way humans do, so neither would be able to comprehend the other if the bond was built strictly on this form of communication as the gaps in understanding would make any conversation disjointed. But both species have similar feelings. Hence the ability to speak and understand each other in this way."
As if to hammer home the point Wyena winced as she felt a sudden surge of warmth flow through her.

"It seems that your bonded dragon agrees with me." Tlaco said with a soft croon.

"Point taken." Wyena replied softly. "Where do I go from here?"

"You may not be able to progress further inside the mind of your dragon but you are already inside his body and can move quite freely within the rest of it, so I would recommend focusing on his senses." Tlaco explained as an image highlighting different parts of Whirlwind's anatomy appeared in front of Wyena. "His sense of sight, hearing, smell and echolocation should come to you when you reach out to them."

Steeling herself yet again Wyena pushed herself forward and stifled a gasp as she felt the world open up before her for the first time. Sound seemed to be bouncing off every surface below, giving her a layout of every rock, creek, hillside, and scraggly tree that was so vivid it was as if she was looking straight at them in the bright light of a noonday sun.

"Definitely much sharper than normal human senses." Wyena thought as she withdrew from his senses and started to push deeper into other parts of his anatomy, pausing for a moment as she took in the representation of a white-hot ball of light burning near his core.

"Must be his fire" she thought as she gently probed the light.

Wyena suddenly felt herself jerked out of her dragon and looked up just in time to see a jet of fire emerge from his mouth and speed towards Jake.

"Oh shit! Oh shit!" She thought frantically tried to cry out but Jake had already seen it and rose sharply to avoid the blast as it plummeted to the earth and scorched a wide swath of the ground beneath them.

Wyena hid her face which was now bright red in embarrassment as she felt rather than saw Jake come parallel with her. Taking a moment to compose herself she turned and saw to her relief that he looked amused rather than angry.

"I'm assuming it's something I said!" Jake called out over the rushing of the wind around them.

"I'm sorry!" Wyena called back as she felt her face reddening again. "It was just an experiment with the bond that got out of hand!"

"Ok, for now let's just keep the experimenting to a minimum right now, we should be getting close to the fort and we need to run unnoticed!" Jake replied as he broke away and pulled ahead of her once again.

Wyena nodded before taking up a position on his right flank as the terrain began to get progressively flatter, they flew low, dodging and weaving between the low hills and shallow valleys that now broke up the landscape beneath. She held her breath as she felt her feet nearly brush the tall grass.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of flying through pitch darkness Wyena spotted a speck of light in the distance. Feeling Jake pull next to her she looked over to see him signaling to descend.

Nodding she reached out through the link and they began to descend. Taking a deep breath Wyena gathered herself for the task ahead as she felt Whirlwind touch down in the long grass.

They had finally arrived at the border fort.