Flying is terrifying.

Hiran tries to spare the outside clouds as little attention as possible—each time he catches one drifting through the nets and metal outcrops his stomach roils, a pressing reminder that he is a Nature-caller, that he belongs down below, with earth and water.

Tara does not have these problems. Hiran likes to think that this is simply because she has seen the sky from this perspective so often through her birds. Any normal human being would surely feel this queasy too, at least the first time.

The same goes for Finn—though, in all fairness, Finn could never be called a "normal" human being under any circumstance, regardless of Skill propensity. Hiran holds out some suspicion on the "human being" part too, on occasion. He likes the kid, but he sometimes wonders if he grew up amongst wolves or something and missed much needed early socialization.

Regardless, said kid has finally opened his eyes—after, Hiran notes sourly, all the manual labor and hardship has passed. His first words weren't "Where am I?" or "What happened?" or even something mundane like "Do you have water? I haven't drank anything in five days."

They were: "I never thought I would come back as a bird."

Right.

After Tara explained where they are and where they are going Hiran had followed this up with a question of his own—namely: "Do you remember what happened to you?"

This, like any vaguely subjective question asked of Finn, was a shot in the dark. Anything from "a crazy fire fanatic cracked me over the head with a metal sword" to "I ascended to the zenith as the head of the fireflies" was equally likely, but even so, Finn had surprised him.

He didn't say anything at all.

It was apparent he remembered what had knocked him out for five days: upon hearing Hiran's request the boy had turned paler than milk—a feat as he was so pale already—and something like a mix of fear and revulsion had twitched across his face. It was fascinating—a boy who, to be frank, never seemed 'there' enough to be rattled by anything, suddenly appearing so young and vulnerable.

What in the world ever possessed Allayria to put him on the team? Hiran had thought, and not for the first time.

Tara had then reached across and wrapped her arms around the boy, her chin resting on the top of his head.

"Don't worry about it," she had said to him, and there was such a smoothness in her low voice, a soft, coaxing warmth that mirrored the comforting stroke of her hands across his hair. "You're alive, and that's all that matters."

Hiran had been impressed—feelings had never been something he had judged as a "strong suit" of Tara's, though there is something easily endearing about Finn. Hiran remembers well the casual fireside talk of trash and thorn lilies, the way Hiran's own insides had squirmed, unfamiliarly uneasy with the frank talk of a boy so below his own station.

It was a speech that Hiran had heard before—more nuanced, delicate, and prim—in the various courtyards, ballrooms, and classrooms of his life. It was something to answer with a laugh, a brief huff of amusement at its piggishness and its easy acceptance amongst the less critical of his peers. Weak people would always find weak ways to assert superiority.  But when Finn had said it back, a low class echo of those sly murmurings, it had made Hiran wonder something new: it made him wonder if he should have done more than just laugh.

He, of course, played it off: what is the point of being blessed with good looks and a silver tongue if you can't smooth over a sticky situation? He had thrown an arm around Finn and then made some meaningless comment and the others, forgetting to be uncomfortable, had laughed at his swollen ego and nerve. Old tricks worked, Hiran learned, regardless of kingdom, Skill, or class.

So, months later, Hiran doesn't push it when Finn never answers, though his interest has been piqued. Perhaps in time, under better circumstances, he can tweak the elements back in his favor and hear the end of this curious tale.

The flying contraption lurches suddenly and Hiran, knife poised over a row of diced onion slices, winces, one hand gripping vise-like on the counter in front of him. He can't tell if the unnatural movement was a result of bad winds or a sudden stop of the motors, but he knows that he'll never get used to it.

"What in the blasted skies are they doing?" he demands as a nearby door opens with a whoosh of rushing air and Tara steps inside, looking a little windswept but unalarmed.

"One of the men thinks he saw something below," she answers, throwing a leg over the bench and plopping down across the table from him. Her chin tilts slightly upward as she eyes the dishes in front of him.

"Are those omelets?" she asks hopefully and, a wry smile twisting at the corners of his mouth, he slides over a bowl of some. She doesn't need a verbal invitation: the egg-stacked fork is already at her mouth when he picks up the knife again.

He's dicing some tomatoes when the room lurches again and he feels his feet slide as he shoves the knife into a head of lettuce and grips the counter with both hands.

"We could die in this god-forsaken thing," he tells Tara, who has not allowed the turbulence to stop her feasting.

"At least," she opines through a slew of half-chewed egg and cheese, "we'll die happy."

He snorts and, as if he can't help himself, he prods a plate of seared potatoes toward her too. Hiran had never considered himself much of a cook until he met Tara but it's quickly becoming a favorite pastime.

"You know," he says, leaning over the counter toward her as he sets the plate over her now empty one, "in those woods I was thinking that if it had to be the end of things, I was glad I would be facing it with you."

"Ever the optimist," Tara rejoins dryly as she digs in, and her dark brown eyes glance up, a smile lingering just out of sight on the corners of her mouth.

He feels his lips curving up in response, not a winning smile, a dashing smile, but something that feels real.

"Well, I mean, I'd rather it be you than Finn," he says, shuffling his diced vegetables around. He doesn't really know what he's doing with them but he likes to think it looks like he does. "Can you imagine what he'd be talking about while you expired? He'd probably tell me all about the mentally deficient raccoon that would feast on my ankles."

Yes, there's definitely a smile coiling around her mouth now, crinkling the corners of her long-lashed eyes.

"They are very delicate ankles," she states courteously and so he plops his foot on the table, food safety be damned.

"They are very nicely shaped," he admits, turning his heel so his ankle can be bettered admired. "I'd say they are my best feature."

A small huff, a short bark of laughter escapes her lips.

"Well," she says, sparing his leg a glance before returning to her food, "they are vastly superior to your brain."

This stings, and he opens his mouth to say something about it when the door bursts open again.

It's one of Grismen's men and he glances curiously at the cut up vegetables and Hiran's exposed ankle before he says: "We think we've found the Paragon."

And it is her. The balcony of a large object hovering leagues above the earth is not the place Hiran wants to be, and yet here he finds himself, hand clutching tightly to rope as he watches the Paragon appear through the hole in the floor, an ashy gray specter of ghosts and dreams. The longer he's around her the less he can believe he never figured it out before; she jumps down from the rope, all muscle and agility, and the thick fur of her hood is not heavy enough to hide the dark, shifting eyes or her tousled, ink black hair. She has always seemed a touch too serious to him, removed by a thin hair from true laughter, except for very rare moments.

Of course, this might be because Hiran more often than not sees her in the company of Lieutenant Lei. As Hiran has learned over many long weeks of travel, Lei Chaudri drives the Paragon nuts. 

Chaudri, he muses as the devil himself appears on the pulley too, surly and ringed with dark circles under his eyes. Now there's the interesting point. Did I know his surname was Chaudri before this?

It would interest a great many people to know who Lei Chaudri's mother is. His sister too, though frankly Hiran would rather not think about that metal-headed maniac. It skeeves him enough just thinking about how much she might be thinking about him.

Yes, Hiran is very curious about this new development—curious to know how much Allayria knew prior to the mission. Tara's gaze flashes toward him for a moment, her brown, long-lashed eyes holding his in a silent query.

It's the question lurking in his mind too, one he had been musing on in the aftermath of their rescue:

How much can one trust the disgraced son of the Imperator?

A/N: Guys, can't we all just be friends?

Thanks so much for all the well-wishes last week, it was really lovely and I really, really appreciated it. I wish I could tell you that I'm now doing a lot better now, but I had another episode this morningand nearly passed out in the midst of a class presentation (yeah, I was that person).

Anyway, long story "shorter," I'm getting blood work and my doctor is doing some tests on my brain on Monday (never thought I'd say that!) so hopefully we figure it out soon. It sounds kind of scary, but the likeliest possibility is that its stress-related and I'm dropping like a bag of rocks every five feet because my brain and blood pressure are admitting what my thick head won't, which is that between a new job, three classes, and my family moving away, these past two weeks have been and the next two weeks are going to be incredibly hard, and I'm a little overwhelmed.

That's all to say that next weekend my posting might be a little delayed* like this week or last week, not because I don't want to send it out to all you lovely people, but because I need to slow down and not be a lunatic. It's a little hard because it's a hereditary trait, lol.

*(But like, delayed to Saturday, maybe Sunday if things are going poorly. Let's not get crazy here.)