Chapter 9 Flight
Flight
Ansel
When my phone beeped at four in the morning, I felt like something had run me over. But I only had to think about flying with Pascal the dragon and I was wide awake.
I turned on the flashlight and hung it on a hook on the wall. Pascal grunted and turned, blinking up at me.
“Hi,” I whispered.
His lips curved into a sweet, sleepy smile. “Hi. Did you sleep okay?”
“Like the dead.”
“Good.”
“And you?”
He shrugged. “I’m fine.”
He sat up and rolled his shoulders, then tilted his head from side to side, stretching his neck. The blanket bunched up around his hips. I couldn’t get over how wide his chest was. Would my arms even meet if I hugged him? A hug. My face between those big pecs…
I looked around the room, reminding myself of the tasks at hand. We needed to eat something quickly, then I’d pack the sleeping bag, change into my hiking pants, and put my sweats into my backpack.
“Will you be able to…shift?” I asked. It was so weird to be thinking about it.
“I think so. It doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m only a little sore.”
“Breakfast?”
Pascal nodded. “Let’s do it.”
He scrambled up, holding the towel around his hips before fastening it properly.
We ate a couple of cereal bars, then I filled the water bottles while Pascal went out to pee and wash up.
I took my turn and packed the last of my things.
Then we stood in front of the cabin, the door locked and the key hidden in a hollow log under the window.
I’d dressed in layers according to Pascal’s instruction, so I was a bit too hot under my fluffy hoodie and jacket.
“So. How are we going to do this?” I asked, looking up at Pascal.
Hands on his hips, he gazed around the dark forest. It suddenly occurred to me that with the towel, he looked like Tarzan. I covered my mouth to hide the quiet chuckle that escaped me.
“We need to find a clearing and put the bags in the middle. We passed something like that yesterday. Down by the lake maybe?”
All right. “If it’s large enough?”
“Sure. Worst case, I get my claws wet and lift from the lake.” He winked, smiling. There was this jittery energy around him.
“You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?”
“Always,” Pascal said. “Flying is the best.”
We walked down toward the shallow end of the lake until we reached a place where the trees gave way to bushes and marshland. Pascal walked briskly, carrying my bags easily. He paused on the trail and set the canvas bags down on a somewhat dry patch of grass.
“This is good. Give me your backpack.”
I swung it off my shoulders. Pascal took it, arranging it, together with the bags, so the handles were sticking up properly. I assumed he did that so he could grab them with his claws.
Granddad, can you see this? This is about to get wild.
We needed to hurry because the horizon was getting brighter by the minute. Pascal stretched his back and looked me up and down.
“Zip up all your pockets.”
“Why?” I found his instruction funny, no idea why, so I laughed nervously.
“What? Do you want to lose your keys and wallet over the Cross River mountain range? You’d never find them again.”
“I’m just nervous, I think.”
He frowned. “Are you afraid of heights?”
I only laughed harder.
Pascal grimaced. “I probably should have asked that earlier, huh?”
“Yeah. A bit too late for that.” I patted my pockets, checking that all my belongings were safe. Then I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head and tightened the strings.
“Are you ready?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be. Let’s do this.”
He stared at me, a strange little smile on his now scruffy face. He hadn’t shaved in three days, and it showed. “You’re incredible, Ansel.” He said it with awe. I’d expect sarcasm, but there was none.
Blushing, I looked at my boots.
“Close your eyes for this part, okay?”
I nodded.
Soft pads of feet on grass, a whoosh of wind, then…holy hell! I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes closed.
Gusts of air blew into my face while the ground vibrated under my chunky boots.
“Ansel,” he said gently. Except his gentle voice was like boulders rolling.
Deep breath. I can do this. It’s just Pascal.
I opened one eye, then the other. It took me a second to adjust to the dim light of the forest before dawn.
And I fell on my ass. For the third time, dammit.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight. When I’d spotted him after the storm, he’d lain in a groove, on his side, but now he loomed right in front of me, taller than a two-story building. His long neck bent down like a damned construction crane.
He lowered his head and paused with his huge muzzle right in front of me. His massive green-gold eyes blinked, slightly out of sync.
“Take your time.”
His hot breath warmed my entire body. Oh, he smelled nice. Like Pascal the human. Well, it was Pascal. And it wasn’t.
His skin shimmered, the shape of him blurring like the horizon on a hot summer afternoon, his colors undecipherable in the dim light. I could easily imagine that if he flew above me, I wouldn’t be able to see him. He waited, still and magnificent.
My head empty except for sheer awe, I lifted my hand to touch his nose. It was warm and dry, warmer than human skin, and silky soft. It felt nice. I rubbed him carefully with my palm, caressing him between his nostrils and up between his eyes. I had to stretch my arm to reach.
He sniffled, and I tore my hand away.
“Sorry. Please, continue.”
He nudged my hand with his nose like some oversized, cuddly puppy. Another crazy giggle escaped me as I petted him.
“Mhmm. That’s nice,” he purred.
Tilting his head to the side, he offered me his cheek, so I used both hands and rubbed along his jaw and around his eyes and his forehead. I hugged his head to me and massaged his neck. The spikes lining his head looked ominous but were in fact blunt. They felt super smooth in my hands.
Then I realized I was petting Pascal—the big alpha man, who’d been walking half naked around my cabin and had maybe even starred in a dream or two I’d swiftly suppressed. I was touching him.
My hands trembled, so I dropped my arms.
Pascal lifted his humungous head.
“We should probably go. It’s already getting too bright.”
“Oh. Okay,” I stammered out when I found my voice. “Should I…sit on your back?”
“That would be too dangerous without equipment. We’d need a proper harness for that.”
“It exists? A harness for dragon flying?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“So people fly with dragons? Who? When? How?”
Pascal backed off a few steps, leaving small craters in the ground where he’d stood. “That’s not relevant now,” he said. “I’ll grab the bags with my hind legs and carry you with my front. Give me a sec.”
And he lifted.
If I weren’t already sitting down, I would have fallen again. Pascal waved his enormous wings, sending leaves aflutter around us.
“Can you get the towel?”
I scrambled up and caught the towel he’d worn, which was about to fly away in the small storm he had caused. I folded it and stuffed it into one of the bags.
Hovering above the clearing, Pascal hooked his claws through the handles of my bags.
Then he grabbed me.
I yelled with surprise when he lifted me from the ground, and then I yelled some more when he repositioned me in his hands. Clutching at a couple of claws, I shook, my stomach swooping.
What the hell had I agreed to?
“Shh. You’re okay. Look.”
I sat in his palm, his fingers and claws wrapped around me like safety bars on a roller coaster. And I flew.
The lake glittered under me. The treetops and cliffs got smaller as we rose toward the mountain range.
Pale violet light lined the horizon, staining the undersides of a few fluffy clouds, and the landscape unfolded under me in hues of dark blue and green.
Silver ribbons of creeks crisscrossed the forest. The trees got shorter and further apart as we flew up along the mountainside.
Pascal circled a sharp cliff sticking up from the slope and swooped down before rising again.
I couldn’t hold it in. The exhilaration burst out of me.
“Woohoo! This is insaaaneee!”
The dragon’s chest above me reverberated with laughter. Like thunder rolling over the peaks.
“Hold on.”
He tilted us to the side and did a wide loop, circling one of the lower peaks.
I loved Cross River. There was no place on earth I found more beautiful than the mountains around Granddad’s cabin. Seeing them now, I had tears in my eyes even as I yelled with excitement.
Oh, if I could fly like Pascal, I’d live up here and just hover above the mountains every day. Away from the city, away from honking cars and crowded restaurants, far away from the rules my parents had imposed on me and that I’d been following like a sheep because I hadn’t known better.
Now I knew.
I couldn’t go back to that life. Within the walls of my family’s mansion, I’d been a bundle of anxiety. That wasn’t a home. Home was where one felt safe and happy, free from the everyday stress outside.
I wanted a home like that. It couldn’t be Granddad’s cabin—I wasn’t that naive—but I would create a home for myself where I felt good.
On my own terms.
Cross River appeared underneath, wild and dangerous after the torrential rains. It thundered down the valley, foaming as naked branches and logs poked out of the brown water in a chaotic dance.
We flew along the stream, but all too soon, Pascal began descending.
The entire flight couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes.
The dragon turned above the empty parking lot by the park’s entrance and hovered over a nearby meadow.
There, he put me on my feet. He dropped the bags right next to me and landed gracefully.
He shook and stretched his wings before folding them to the ground.
Now, I could see him a little better, in all his beastly glory. I stared, my pulse in my ears. I was so high on adrenaline I was shaking all over.
“Um. Can you turn around?” the dragon asked.
“Oh, sure.”
After the ominous snapping and hissing sounds ceased, Pascal’s voice came from behind me, human again. “All clear.”
I turned to face him. He had the towel around his hips again.
“How are you?” he asked.
I didn’t really know. I was still trembling but not from cold. My knees felt weak, and my cheeks burned after being exposed to the cold wind above the mountain range. And yet…
“Can we do that again?”
Laughing, Pascal grabbed the bags, including my backpack, and began walking. He didn’t reply. Dazed, I followed him over the meadow to a sleek black Volvo parked under a sprawling oak. The roof had a few small branches and leaves on top, traces of the recent rainstorms, but nothing too bad.
Pascal opened the trunk and pulled out a pair of boxers. I turned away, giving him privacy as he dressed. The sun was about to rise, the forest around us brightening quickly. It would be a sunny morning, only a few fluffy clouds rolling over the sky.
When I heard Pascal loading the bags, I glanced at him.
“Wow.”
He closed the trunk. “Huh?”
“So that’s Professor Pembroke.”
Shrugging one shoulder, he smiled awkwardly.
He wore dark jeans, a green button-down that enhanced the color of his eyes, and a casual charcoal jacket. He’d been a dragon just a few minutes ago, dammit.
But he looked nice. Stylish.
He lifted his arms and twirled around.
“Do you approve?”
I did. I liked Pascal a lot. I’d petted the dragon’s head and touched his face but couldn’t do it now.
“I do,” I said quietly. I wanted to lean into his wide chest and ask him to hug me.
He nodded toward the car. “Let’s go, then.”