TURNING TO YAARAH, THE Scintillant gripped his golden fur with her deft blue hands and swarmed aboard vigorously, chirping, “In that case, Furball, how’s about you finish filing your talons and stop licking your unmentionables? We’ve daylight to chase.”

With a great laugh, he sprang skyward.

They flew up from the edge of the caldera lake. While most of the lake surface was ordinarily frozen, toward the centre, a patch of deep, shimmering emerald-green laced with turquoise growths showed the gently bubbling location of an upwelling of pure Pixie dust. When conditions were right, the Pixies walked out onto the ice to mine it – this ever-changing, ever-flowing Pixie dust volcano. Hmm. Where did dust come from? What was the difference between actual dust and the pixels they called children?

Mysterious.

The central volcanic pipe was tall but not very wide, Yaarah informed her meantime, measuring five hundred and ten feet across four thousand three hundred feet deep – at least, down to dust level. No-one knew how deep the central dust pipe might be, and being Pixie dust, it was not exactly amenable to close study or measurement. Snow clung to irregularities in the tall mauve cliffs, lending them a speckled appearance, before reaching a thick, unbroken mantle up top on the rim. The jagged white ring of the volcano’s peak cut sharply into a vast, unbroken vault of pure azure Centresky, the colours deepening slightly at the advent of a Dragon-generated nightfall. A bright pink silhouette upon the rim shifted forward to deliver a thrilling bellow of greeting. Not the friendliest greeting, one might say. Evening-warning.

Yaarah’s wingbeat stuttered skittishly. “None of your newfound sparkle’s in danger of freezing and dropping off up here, Sparkles? Mrrr-hrrr, good joke, right?”

“Humph,” she said, huddling lower against his flowing fur. Her lightweight jungle clothing left her wings exposed. She should have told them that the nerve-rich bundles reacted to the deep chill all too well. Flicking her wingtips to get her sap flowing again, she added, “She does give the role of lurk, growl and bluster her all, doesn’t she? One must surely appreciate such unstinting belligerence in the female of the species, or?”

“Appreciate is not quite the word I had in mind,” he said primly.

“You’d prefer docile?”

“Prrr-trrrt! Wash your mouth out with caustic, little Fae.”

“I see.” She rubbed his tense shoulder muscles with her hand, mostly to distract her brain from screaming about how wide and endlessly terrifying Centresky was meant to be to a Faerie. Toe cramp – ouch! “So, what’s regarded as attractive in the female of the Felidragon kind, Yaarah?”

“Well, it’s a categorical truth that they are not enamoured of males involved in scholarly pursuits or research,” he growled in an undertone, purposely misreading her question, she felt. “Big, tough, brash, hard-talking warrior males are the Dragon’s whisk-arrrrs, gnarr – but, enough blathering on about my non-existent love-fires. I am doomed to eternal singleness, to the lonesome existence of the true, noble and doubtless wretched stereotypical academic. Behold, the Zerbil Mountains!”

“Yaarah –”

“I’d thank you for doing a tad more beholding and a tad less on the ridiculous concern! I am fine, trrr-grrt!”

So fine that an electrical charge rippled through his body from his muzzle down past her hands and legs, ending up in an irked spark that zapped nothingness off the end of his tail. How odd. Allory had never paused to consider how unsafe perching atop a frisky living lightning bolt might actually be. Apart from a mild crackling around the points of her ears and wingtips, and a tingling in the roots of her spiky sapphire hair, no problem as the electricity vanished into nothingness. Hmm. She scratched chin. Wasn’t electricity supposed to go somewhere?

Yaarah flattened his tufted ears, a sure sign of annoyance.

Accordingly, she beheld.

Allory caught her breath and did some seriously amazed beholding.

The Felidragon said, “It’s something, isn’t it? The Zerbil Mountains aren’t even the biggest or tallest, but they are magnificent.”

That was why she would be holding her breath.

Ha. Enough on the puns. From the edge of the jungle, peering across and upward over that valley, she had seen dozens of peaks. Now, from this far higher vantage point as she swivelled her gaze slowly, taking in the horizon-to-horizon sweep of snow-capped summits and peaks, ranges and massifs, Allory had to upgrade that assessment to hundreds, if not thousands. How could anything live out there? The range was an achingly desolate panorama of knife-edged mauve and grey slopes tipped with white snow. The higher regions were wholly winterbound, the lower reaches, cold and inhospitable – not a speck of green growth in sight. A jungle dweller all her life, this stark wilderness awed her.

It also scared the living sparkle right out of her sap.

I’m not scared, la-la-liar. Maybe she’d weave herself a nest of Yaarah’s fur and hide inside? The Felidragon would definitely appreciate that – snicker. Breathe, o Faerie Felidragon rider, just breathe …

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Her agoraphobia was still all too real. The only thing that kept her sap sane, oddly enough, was Yaarah’s long fur tickling her nose as she pressed close to his back. Huh. Eyes still open? Very slowly and experimentally, Allory sat up a touch. Smallest victories.

She could do this? Aye!

If she turned right about, she could see that the valley they had crossed was many miles long, but in the sun-anti-spinward direction, the peaks abutted and merged with the flourishing jungle foliage. The strength of the contrast slammed her in the gut. Leagues of bursting green growth, plants and animals and secret magic suddenly sheared off against the brutal, hungry barrenness of the mountains proper; to a Faerie, this appeared to be no fit place for anything to flourish, yet she was aware there must be life here too, just a different sort.

Like Pixies?

She breathed out, soft and long, tracing the white puff of her breath as far as it would go – only a few inches. Magical.

Pointing with his left wingtip, Yaarah said, “That’s the sun-spinward aspect. See the cluster of four tall peaks shaped like upward-pointing, cracked talons? That’s called the Talon Quad and it’s the way we’d travel – around the Quad, to be fair, because their summits are too tall to fly over. Behind the leftmost peak, a ravine begins that carves its way right through the mountain range, growing into a mighty canyon. Upon the edge of that canyon lies an outpost of Men called Durhelm Castle. It is ruled by a man called Durc Durhelm. He is said to be iron-fisted but fair, and while they have no love of the Dragonkind – I myself have walked within its fortress walls, mrrr-hssst – their loathing toward the Marakusians is legendary. Marakusia has pillaged their villages and cities for centuries, stolen their children and committed heinous acts against their womenfolk. That is where we will begin our inquiries.”

“Is it safe?”

He flexed his wings, dipping into a slow circle above the volcano. Allory breathed slowly of the frigid air, wanting to imprint this sight on her memory forever. Seen from above, the mountains were incredible, but the jungle’s call to her spirit remained far stronger.

“For me, aye, mrrr-shrrr. We’ll have to think about you, however.” One eye peeked back at her. “Bet I could turn a gleaming bauble like you over for a nice profit.”

She folded her arms crossly. “Yaarah, I’m not in the mood.”

“You’d fetch a prrr-etty price, I’m sure. Sparkles by name, sparkly by nature.”

“I am so not sparkly!”

“You have seen yourself in a mirror, haven’t you?”

“Sure. Mirrors grow on trees in the jungle.”

“Mrrr-prrrt! Why are we arguing about nothing?” he protested. “Or, would you have me record, according to the word of a Scintillant Fae, the existence of the never-before-imagined mirror tree? Oh, what a magnificent discovery! Generations of Felidragon scholars shall celebrate this momentous achievement!”

A chuckle escaped her lips. “Fine, you win.”

“The Dragon always wins.”

In his imagination.

Gliding in lazy circles above the Pixie volcano, they watched the Dragons, invisible now as individual entities, drawing in the veil of night. They watched a million hues creeping imperceptibly over the staggering sweep of montane terrain, the sky purpling, the peaks set ablaze by Middlesun’s final, extraordinary blue-golden incandescence. Allory wondered if the sun blazed in protest at being tucked behind the Dragons’ wings for the night. She scented novel, unfamiliar tangs on the slight breeze and stroked her antennae with a quick, nervous gesture.

I am brave. I am not afraid, even up here. Nothing can harm me.

“You’re shivering,” the Felidragon noted.

“I don’t enjoy a thick coat of fur, unlike other creatures I’d love to poke with the sharp end of a short stick,” she retorted, stretching the limits of her daring.

“Sticky issues aside, I be-leaf we’ll have to think up a better solution for travel,” he said, tossing in an absentminded pun just for fun. “It’s four to five days’ flying through the mountains. Unfortunately, the merchants won’t be interested in a little blue icicle, yarrr-harrr-hargh, and frankly, neither am I.”

“Aren’t you the sweetest?”

“You should nev-arrrggh call a Dragon sweet.”

“Adorable?”

“Adorable was before you learned to answer back, Miss Flutter-Mouth.”

Tucking in his wings, the Felidragon began the descent. Allory could not wait to be inside a warm, slightly pungent Pixie cave again. Could cold this brutal cause her wings to become brittle, even to snap as she had seen those shards of ice shatter?

Away, useless thoughts! She had enough to fear without scaring herself silly.

I laugh at the unknown!

Every time.

* * * *

One moment, she was laughing with the Felidragon. The next, a soundless implosion detonated within her being. It came from nowhere. No warning. Mid-giggle, it stole her voice, racing out over the world in a series of great, concentric rings that she perhaps imagined more than perceived, but it was on the third wave that the talons touched her temples.

“Yaa – naaaah!”

The grip was pure ice this time, a cold deeper and more elemental than anything she had ever imagined. Fear immobilised her heart. Kaleidoscopic aural traces played across her vision for a millisecond as a cage of invisible talons gripped her skull at multiple points. Then it clenched convulsively, snuffing out her consciousness.

* * * *

Allory stirred to an awareness of pain. She lay in a space of merciful shadow, but even the slight golden radiance gleaming from a Felidragon’s fur caused her head to ache abominably.

This was familiar.

The old Allory’s back. Just when I thought I might get better … I loathe my life!

Momentarily, the self-directed vitriol swilling about in her thoughts stunned her. Did she truly despise herself to this degree? Was the old Allory such a spineless sap? Or was this what trauma did to a person, compelling them to evaluate their life through a new lens, to discard the old and embrace a new path – with a Felidragon as their partner, and a quest for justice?

A slow eye blink somehow swept those thoughts away. This pain cleansed. It showed her not that her old self was worthless, but that she had been forced through a crucible, changed and refined and impelled forward – to what, she did not know, but who could know their future? What stood as stark as those mountain massifs in her being was the sure knowledge that she would never simply lie back and accept this incapacity again. The subservient Allory was gone. The weakest of straws she might be, but this creature would fight. She chose to fight.

Even the act of choosing triggered a thrill in her body, immediately matched by guilt from the past. How many times had her family admonished her not to try, to accept her lot without complaint, never to be a burden to others, to the colony? Their pity, their scorn at her condition, all the implicit abhorrence had burned her soul.

Now, mutiny? Heady stuff.

Shuttering her eyes, she whispered, “Yaarah?”

“Allory! Lie still, you were –”

“No drugs.”

“What did you say?”

“No … drugs.” When he mewled in surprise, she whispered, “Had those … before. No more. Please …”

Oily darkness stole her words.