Chapter Thirty-Three. When You Give Flying Lessons #3
I laugh. “Okay, right. I’ll give you Nity and every other dragon. But I’m sorry Oria and Hort just like me better, especially Hort. I know where his loyalties lie.”
Hort then swings around and bobbles his head in appreciation at Farren, nuzzles her outstretched hand. It looks almost like he’s nodding, agreeing with Farren’s assessment. The little traitor.
Hort snorts and straightens, as if urging me to concede. I hand her the reins as baby Oria climbs onto my back. “Fine. I’m clearly outnumbered. Not like I’m a championship rider or anything.”
Farren swings onto the saddle in front of me, her back flush with my chest. “What was that last bit?” she asks.
I don’t remember my own name let alone any grievances.
I take in every point of contact. This isn’t the truck where our thighs are bumped together.
She’s cradled in my lap more like the night in the kitchen.
The night I don’t need to be thinking about in order to maintain the pretense Farren and I are friends at best, not to mention all I think about nowadays.
Then, as if Hort can sense he could make this even worse, he launches into the air, fast. Farren’s entire body pushes back on me. In order to not fall right then and there, my arms wrap around her. Oria squawks behind me, clawing my armor without drawing blood thanks to the silver chest guard.
We climb the skies a few dozen feet. When we broach the height Hort typically races at, Farren levels out. Hort’s wings beat the air to hover, waiting on one of my whistles or a command.
“Is that always how you climb? It doesn’t have to be a straight vertical, you know?” I joke.
“That wasn’t,” Farren announces over her shoulder as if she goes vertical on a daily basis. But then I recall the last race where Farren did climb vertical, to save Ditters. I knock that image out of my thoughts.
“Besides, I thought you’d want an excuse to hold on to me,” she says.
With my arms still anchored to her I can’t exactly object or say that wasn’t a perk. So instead I answer honestly, though I have to clear my throat to do it. “True.”
Oria scrapes across my back, frightened. “But you did scare Oria.”
Farren turns as much as she can. “Oh, Oria, I’m sorry.”
Oria’s draped in silver, a wild look in her eye as I pull her in front of me. Farren scoots up and suddenly there is room between us after all. How interesting.
Heartlessly, we don’t try to calm Oria. We need her metal out, especially for the next bit.
“Hort, forward slow,” I call, and his wings beat the sky in steady brushstrokes.
With an outstretched hand, Farren lifts Oria above her head, crafting her weight.
Now the hard part. Waiting for her to trust us enough to open her wings.
I’ve watched below all morning as Zilar and Electrum took their first flights.
But seeing it so close is something else.
I’m itchy with nerves and excitement. And more than anything, I desire for Oria to learn, to be safe.
Twenty minutes later, after Farren and I trade off crafting and switch back again, those timid metal wings open and catch the wind.
“Yes,” I whisper-shout.
Farren adjusts, cradling Oria’s underbelly while still crafting some of her weight. But mostly letting her glide, to feel that wind, to feel how she can trust it. Oria tries to rise out of her palm, and Farren follows, standing up in the saddle in front of me.
Without a word I clasp her outer thighs to steady her. Heat pounds into me realizing what I’m doing, and memory drags me back to the night in the kitchen again, how these same thighs were wrapped around me.
I clear my throat again and avoid looking straight ahead at her butt. Above, Oria still floats half under Farren’s control. And then she lifts, bats her wings, flies.
Farren cries out in joy. My face hurts with how wide my smile is. She did it. Easily, too.
Farren tips forward a little too far and wobbles. “Farren!” I reach for her hips and tug her back. The momentum drops her into my lap. For a moment I just hug her against my chest, make sure she is securely fastened to me. “Don’t scare me like that.”
She huffs out a laugh. “I wasn’t going to fall.”
“Yeah because I had you. If I wasn’t here though … You’re supposed to try to not need me.”
She turns in the saddle to stare at me, wind whipping her small golden braid. “No, you’re supposed to try to not need me.”
Impossible. Every day that becomes more impossible.
“They did it. They’re all flying. They don’t need us anymore,” Farren whispers, attention turned back on Oria, batting the wind.
She rises against the current and flies, awkward and fragile and inspiring.
But free. It took the entire day and potentially our lives, if Nity had any say in the matter, but we accomplished our goal.
“Now they’ll be able to leave,” I verify. Relief floods me. They will have a chance to stay happy and free, and never caged.
“Now, they’ll leave,” Farren says softer, emotion cracking her voice. I understand her immediately, the relief mixing with something more heartbreaking. One day soon they will leave and not because they choose to go, but because we will force them out for their own safety.