Cutlerine
Gone. Not coming back.
Hang on and hope it lands or slows down soon.
The ride feels endless. More than once, you come close to slipping back into unconsciousness – but you refuse to go; you bite your tongue, over and over, trying to sting yourself into wakefulness. You don't want to put the strength of your grip to the test. If it slackens, you will find out very soon how high up the Charizard is flying, and it will probably be the last discovery you ever make.
So you cling on, burnt and bleeding, as the dragon continues on its journey. After a while, your hearing begins to come back, and you can hear the sound of its occasional wingbeats, like thunderous knives splitting the sky apart. It does not flap often, for which you are thankful: nestled above its shoulder blades as you are, every beat of its wings jolts you hard against its spine.
As the day wears on, however, it begins to beat a little more often. The sun is sinking, the sky is darkening, and the air is getting cooler; the thermals the Charizard was riding are beginning to give out. Now the wind is not hot but lukewarm. Against your burning skin, it feels blissful – you are reminded of the water you drank when you first woke in the desert. The cool sting of it revives you a little, and so you are fully conscious when the Charizard begins to land.
Its wings flare suddenly, its body swinging suddenly to the vertical; you are tossed into the air, clutching fingers afire with pain – and then you slap back onto its shoulders with enough force to drive the breath from your lungs and make you hope distantly that you have not broken a rib. On either side of you, the vast blue wings windmill frantically, throwing you from side to side with each movement―
With surprising gentleness, the Charizard touches down, dropping to all fours to absorb the impact. The dust has barely settled when your fingers give way and you fall painfully to the ground at its feet.
You lie there, unable to move or even think about where you might now be, and as the Charizard's inquisitive yellow eye fills your vision you at last lose the battle with fatigue. Your body takes over, and you slip into a sleep deeper and darker than the cave.
You never really hoped that you would feel better when you woke. That is why you are not disappointed when you do, and find that nothing has improved.
The first thing you notice is that it is dark: the moon is high overhead, and you suspect it must be sometime around midnight.
The second is that it's cool.
You sit up with surprising speed. The sudden movement sets your head whirling, but you master it; you will not fall now, not when you have one experience like this already under your belt. You have done it before. The wasteland won't beat you this time.
You are sitting on the crest of a hill, looking south at the desert below – a vast, unending sheet of pale sand, unbroken save for the occasional dot of a hunting Cacturne. None of the dots are people, you know. No one rides this way – you think you are on the southeastern foothills of the Argent Peaks, and the only traffic that passes over those is formed of airgalleys heading north and west to the forest cities of the Peak folk.
To your left, the Charizard is curled up in a clear space between two banks of scrubby bushes, its tail carefully tucked under its breast so as not to set anything alight. In sleep, it is easier to overlook its gigantic size and see it as an animal rather than a force of nature; you can see now the livid marks around its jaws where the metal bands held them together, and the thinness of its limbs and trunk. When was it captured, you wonder – and has it been fed since then?
You are about to get up when another wave of dizziness hits you, and you fall awkwardly onto your side, your cry of pain coming out as a gasp for lack of breath. A shadow passes over the moon. You look up, and catch the edge of the bird's wing in silhouette as it flies by.
If it really is a scavenger, you think grimly, its patience may just have paid off.
You are thirsty.
You are badly injured.
Note: I hadn't planned anything. I was counting on your basic sense of self-preservation for you not to jump. I'm so glad that the gamble paid off, or this would've been a really, really difficult update to write. Here's to good luck and the common sense of my readers!
The ride feels endless. More than once, you come close to slipping back into unconsciousness – but you refuse to go; you bite your tongue, over and over, trying to sting yourself into wakefulness. You don't want to put the strength of your grip to the test. If it slackens, you will find out very soon how high up the Charizard is flying, and it will probably be the last discovery you ever make.
So you cling on, burnt and bleeding, as the dragon continues on its journey. After a while, your hearing begins to come back, and you can hear the sound of its occasional wingbeats, like thunderous knives splitting the sky apart. It does not flap often, for which you are thankful: nestled above its shoulder blades as you are, every beat of its wings jolts you hard against its spine.
As the day wears on, however, it begins to beat a little more often. The sun is sinking, the sky is darkening, and the air is getting cooler; the thermals the Charizard was riding are beginning to give out. Now the wind is not hot but lukewarm. Against your burning skin, it feels blissful – you are reminded of the water you drank when you first woke in the desert. The cool sting of it revives you a little, and so you are fully conscious when the Charizard begins to land.
Its wings flare suddenly, its body swinging suddenly to the vertical; you are tossed into the air, clutching fingers afire with pain – and then you slap back onto its shoulders with enough force to drive the breath from your lungs and make you hope distantly that you have not broken a rib. On either side of you, the vast blue wings windmill frantically, throwing you from side to side with each movement―
With surprising gentleness, the Charizard touches down, dropping to all fours to absorb the impact. The dust has barely settled when your fingers give way and you fall painfully to the ground at its feet.
You lie there, unable to move or even think about where you might now be, and as the Charizard's inquisitive yellow eye fills your vision you at last lose the battle with fatigue. Your body takes over, and you slip into a sleep deeper and darker than the cave.
*
You never really hoped that you would feel better when you woke. That is why you are not disappointed when you do, and find that nothing has improved.
The first thing you notice is that it is dark: the moon is high overhead, and you suspect it must be sometime around midnight.
The second is that it's cool.
You sit up with surprising speed. The sudden movement sets your head whirling, but you master it; you will not fall now, not when you have one experience like this already under your belt. You have done it before. The wasteland won't beat you this time.
You are sitting on the crest of a hill, looking south at the desert below – a vast, unending sheet of pale sand, unbroken save for the occasional dot of a hunting Cacturne. None of the dots are people, you know. No one rides this way – you think you are on the southeastern foothills of the Argent Peaks, and the only traffic that passes over those is formed of airgalleys heading north and west to the forest cities of the Peak folk.
To your left, the Charizard is curled up in a clear space between two banks of scrubby bushes, its tail carefully tucked under its breast so as not to set anything alight. In sleep, it is easier to overlook its gigantic size and see it as an animal rather than a force of nature; you can see now the livid marks around its jaws where the metal bands held them together, and the thinness of its limbs and trunk. When was it captured, you wonder – and has it been fed since then?
You are about to get up when another wave of dizziness hits you, and you fall awkwardly onto your side, your cry of pain coming out as a gasp for lack of breath. A shadow passes over the moon. You look up, and catch the edge of the bird's wing in silhouette as it flies by.
If it really is a scavenger, you think grimly, its patience may just have paid off.
You are thirsty.
You are badly injured.
Note: I hadn't planned anything. I was counting on your basic sense of self-preservation for you not to jump. I'm so glad that the gamble paid off, or this would've been a really, really difficult update to write. Here's to good luck and the common sense of my readers!
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