Chapter 7: Airborn

The instructions were hard to follow, with the language barrier and all. But as far as he could tell, he would need to run as fast as he could. Then one of the dragonettes would swoop down and pick him up, get some altitude, and then put him on the back of another one? But what did that have to do with her foot? It was fascinating to look at, double-jointed with long clawed fingers at the end. It was almost like a human foot, if it were longer and only stood on its toes.

Dakota seemed to sense his confusion and called over Jackalope and Fengi, saying something before waving them off. Jackalope took to the sky with a running start, and after a short while she swooped back around. Meanwhile, Fengi had begun running with her wings tucked in, holding out her arms. It looked rather goofy, Tom thought, watching intently. Jackalope came swooping down and grabbed Fengi's arms with both her arms and legs, pulling up and lifting them both into the air with a few strong beats of her wings. It looked easy enough, Tom thought. Dakota had then taken off, taking a running start herself.

Circling around for a bit, Dakota eventually came up Below Jackalope, Fengi being lowered gently onto her back on her back. It looked like quite a dainty operation, and Tom was starting to wonder if this was a good idea. But it made sense, he would get tired pretty fast if he had to carry someone in his arms for very long, even if they were half weight here. As Sapphire broke out into a snicker, he noticed he was standing mouth agape and his savior had been watching him stare at the personal air show he was receiving, clearly finding his reaction funny. 'Oh, like you didn’t just stare slack-jawed at my revolver a minute ago,' Tom thought, regaining his composure.

As the flying trio came back down, Dakota looked expectantly at Tom. He had never been afraid of flying, but recent experiences hadn’t been brilliant. He steeled himself, straightened his back, and nodded. This was his ticket back to his carefully planned and packed supplies and a very kind gesture too. The running part would suck, though, since he had been stabbed in the thigh recently. And how exactly were they planning on getting Sapphire airborne?

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The demonstration seemed successful in getting the stranger to grasp the operation, even if he looked like he had never seen somebody fly before. Sapphire had always found it funny to see kids staring up at the fancy flying, but a fully grown being showing the same reaction was downright hilarious... Wait, was it a kid? The being turned to look at her, clearly noticing her earlier snickering, and she looked down apologetically. It didn’t seem like a child. It had continued to fight all the way here, and it hadn't cried during the treatment of its wounds. It had barely whimpered, in fact. Perhaps it really had never seen someone fly before?

After the demonstration, the others had come down again to prepare for departure. With the healing session, searching, demonstration, and diplomatic niceties, it was beginning to get late. They wouldn't make it much further than the cliff, so they would make camp for the night there. If their guest had camping supplies that would make things easier too.

Getting airborne wasn’t easy when you couldn't run. She had piggybacked on Dakota, then Jackolope had swooped down to pick her up and placed her on Esmeralda's back. Their guest’s ascent had been a bit more eventful, with a missed swoop by Jackalope and some difficulty getting positioned on Dakota's back.

“This thing just won’t stay still, and be warned he’s quite heavy.” jacky had warned before dropping it off.

“Geez, you don’t say. Could you take his backpack off at least?” Cam the reply, Essy shaking her head as Saph snickered a bit.

Esmeralda and Sapphire had continued to circle while watching. It was clear even from this distance the other two were struggling with their passenger as Jacky tried to get the backpack off him mid-air..

“It’s definitely a man,” Esmeralda had suddenly said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Look at him, he's ooh so very uncomfortable laying on her back.” Well Essy was good at reading people that was for sure, and Looking closely yeah that totally fit the bill. Normally the boys were eager to train with the girls as soon as switch carrying was on the board. He wasn’t a dragonette though, so that probably explained his reaction. Sapphire let out another little giggle as he clambered onto Dakota after losing balance for a second. “He’s like a little kid, did you see the way he was gawking when they were demonstrating?”

“Yeah, he has no clue what is going on.”

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While this definitely beat his last flight, the pain and terror had been replaced with extreme awkwardness and only slight fear of death. At least the thick leather skirt would spare him the ultimate embarrassment if it should happen. And Dakota seemed very professional about it, if a little grumpy. She did strike him as the stern leader type, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. Besides, to them this was probably like a fireman's carry basically. It had taken some time to get situated, and Jackalope had taken his backpack, with some difficulty. Perhaps he was a bit on the heavy side for this. 'Fat arse,' he cursed himself. He had gotten a little out of shape with his collection of desk jobs, but he tried to keep fit at least.

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Once they had gotten ready, they had climbed up over the canopy ever so slowly. This was Tom’s first look at the horizon of this strange place. They weren't far above the treetops, but he could still see for miles around. As he scanned the horizon looking for points of interest, he couldn’t see the end of the forest, but scattered around were holes in the canopy. They probably contained lakes as well as a few rocky cliffs much like the one he had found, but they didn’t seem to be heading for one. Was it beyond the horizon? How long had the chase been going on for? Perhaps he had lost track of time while paralyzed? They were definitely going slower this time too, so it would take a while to get there.

As he started to get used to the feeling of gliding along while laying on top of someone, with the occasional wing beat keeping them aloft, he began wondering how fast were they going? He honestly could not tell, though judging by the wind perhaps 60 or 70 kph. Fast enough for him to pull down his goggles. The chase through the woods had been more like motorway speeds, that was probably close to full speed for them, he thought.

After a little over half an hour, Dakota shouted out to the others. She was breathing quite heavily now, and her wingbeats were getting slower too. Jackalope and Fengi had come over, with Fengi grabbing Tom and placing him on Jackalope’s back. Dakota then proceeded to move Sapphire to Fengi after catching her breath for a bit. The aerial switcheroo seemed like an efficient way of solving the problem of endurance Tom thought. Even if the discomfort had now returned, Jackalope wasn’t quite as professional with her cargo. Shortly after taking possession, she decided to test if Tom was scared of flying, and started doing acrobatics. Rolling around and making a few small dives, Tom put his arms around her chest and tried to hold on with his legs; for once he had had enough excitement for one day, but she clearly hadn’t. Jackalope in fact seemed very pleased, giggling like a schoolgirl at her passenger's terror. Tom resigning to try and avoid encouraging her by relaxing what he could. That only lead to more violent maneuvers though as she clearly tried to scare him again.

After a few minutes of fun, Dakota had come over and given her what sounded like a few stern words. Sapphire had chimed in too, though she sounded more encouraging to Tom's ears.

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“Stop fooling around, you're wasting wing beats,” Dakota had gone over to put an end to Jackalope’s little game.

“Let her have some fun, we're almost there anyway,” Sapphire had joined in.

“Well her passenger doesn't seem to be having fun. In fact, it looks quite painful for him,” Dakota had retorted.

“Okay, I’ll stop jeez,” Jackalope didn’t seem pleased about her fun being taken away. But the guy hadn't had a great day this far, and if Sapphire was right this might be his first time flying without being in something's claws. So perhaps they should go easy on him for now.

It didn’t take too long before the cliff was in sight. They would camp for the night and set out again tomorrow. They would be making the journey in several hops. With only two flyers per load, they couldn't stay on the wing for that long and would have to take rests.

As they approached the cliff and made ready to land, their passenger had started acting up. “I think he wants to go to the bottom,” Jackalope had shouted out.

“Fine, we’ll swoop down and see if there is anything there,” Dakota had agreed after Toms continued to point down.

As they came down there was something weird looking down there, besides the rope which had been secured at various points going up the cliff.

Landing was a lot easier: you just flew down close to the ground low and slowly pulled up to vertical. The flyer would hit the ground running, with the passenger going for a piggyback. Fengi and Sapphire pulled it off perfectly, the young flier was a natural after all. Tom and Jackalope got down just fine, though Tom made some weird noises. Perhaps Jacky had dived in a bit steeply, probably getting payback for her lost fun from earlier, and the loop certainly wasn’t necessary. After Jackalope had come running to a stop, it took a while for him to realize they had stopped and get off, leading to much laughter and giggling from the others.

They had quieted down quickly, though, as Tom had run over to the thing. It was some kind of weird cart... Well, it definitely had wheels. 6 of them in fact. How would such a thing steer? And there was nothing to pull it either, was it magical too? Or had the draft animal simply run away?

“What is that?” Jackalope had questioned, looking more perplexed than ever.

“No clue,” Esmeralda answered.

“Well, he was certainly right about having more stuff,” Fengi pointed out.

Their passenger... guest... prisoner? Sapphire honestly wasn’t sure anymore, gleefully ran over to the strange cart and hugged it, seeming extremely pleased he had made it back here. He began pulling out different things, most of which Sapphire didn’t recognize. Some were clearly boxes with meat in them? Well if he was sharing, they would at least eat decently tonight. Then he had just started handing out things to them! ‘Well, guess that question is answered,’ Sapphire mused, happily at the thought of a warm meal tonight.

As he continued to rummage through his stuff he brought out a silk bag in the same green and black pattern he was wearing. He sat down and put his hand over his head. “Thank the gods, he has a tent.”

“It’s not gonna be cursed right? It has black on it?” Essy questioned, sounding slightly weary.

“Nothing bad has happened yet, but feel free to sleep in the cold,” Jacky countered as she fiddled with one fo the see-through meat boxes.