Verana laughed out loud as she soared through the spring air, banking and cutting through the mountain passes she used to practice for the drafts and winds of the ocean. After her unceremonious near disaster in the south, she had avoided the coast through the rest of the cold months. Sticking to watching the breezes and trying to figure out how to read them as Oliver said was possible.

Instead of braving the ocean, she had spent the time flying over the Wilds, practicing longer and longer journeys and more efficient maneuvers, building up her strength in the air as surely as she had regained her balance and fighting ability on her feet. The wings no longer felt like they were separate from the rest of her body. She was accustomed to them and no longer hobbled by their weight or size.

Winter had ended quickly in that part of the island and she had made the long flight north the day before, landing in the tall, forbidding northern peaks in the still chill night. Along the passes and higher altitudes, the frigid air still smelled like snow, so she had spent the previous night resting amongst the warmer Wild valleys before taking to the sky again this morning.

Verana hadn't known what to expect after such a long flight but her stamina had increased exponentially, leaving her easily managing to soar through the mountains, above the cloud cover and enjoying the brilliant sunshine that caused her wings to shimmer brilliantly.

She had planned to be gone three or four days, depending on how trying the journey was, having expected to need a fair bit more rest after yesterday. That morning, however, she had had woken, fresh and ready for flight, which she had taken full advantage of laughing as she danced through the wind currents. Her path had her scaling sheer rock walls and plunging into the depths of crevices at a moment's notice, feeling her heart thrill with the most complete joy she had felt in a long time.

She could fly. Fly.

She had taught herself and could soar now for the length of an entire day, was learning to read and adjust to changes in pressure and predicting the seemingly daunting chaos of the temperamental winds and currents around her. She was even able to do this with her swords and a small pack of supplies, adjusting for the difference in balance and weight. She felt complete, confident and indomitable. Whatever the world decided to throw at her, she felt more able to deal with it than she had her entire life.

With another yell of joy that that thought, she banked hard around a towering mountain peak, feeling the snow whip around her as she skimmed across it. As she reached the end, she took a sudden dive, following a raging river over cliffs and down through crevices and canyons, dropping her hand to skim her fingers over the icy water, the spray causing a long trail behind her.

*** 

"Prince, we'll be flying for hours, even if we turn back now." Chaven said with brooding caution to his friend and charge, the Crown Prince of Vayana. Chaven always used caution, the one out of his group of friends who always watched for danger. Evaluated the risks and advised practicality when the others in their group of young men came up with a particular plan. Like today, or last night, if they were being particular about when they had hatched the hair brained plan and taken off out of their familiar territories chasing adventure.

There had been no fighting the previous summer and winters were usually only bearable if you had war stories to relive with your friends and battle scars to watch heal. With the slow, cold inaction his Kingdom was maintaining for their enemies in the south, they had reached the end of their rope when Spring rose and word came that no battle was on the horizon.

 A second season of unanticipated peace, when last year had been the first time in centuries that the two kingdoms didn't head to the killing fields. It saved lives, for sure, but for a group of warriors looking for adventure, it was the killing blow to any sort of caution they may have had.

So they had drunk, perhaps a little bit too much, and decided that the five of them would go on an adventure, one that could carry them through long months of drill and court politics. They flew a little bit south and a lot east, out of their kingdoms, far above the lowlands and oceans that stretched out below them. They had heard that there was land this way, that there were kingdoms of short lived, ground locked races that were of no importance in the scheme of their kingdom's existence. Places that no one living had ever seen, even so close as a day's, maybe two's, flight.

They travelled all this way, merely to land on this island, on these peaks that nearly twinned their own, to look at this forgotten part of the world they had been forbidden to see. These lands were not so much out of bounds. It was just not a wise or worthwhile trip for anyone to make, let alone the Crown Prince of a Kingdom locked in brutal war. It was impractical and generally a dangerous waste of time to even attempt the journey.

They were away from the rest of their people, hours by flight from the nearest help, on a part of the earth that had no use or allegiance to their kingdom. They were not at war with this land, but whatever people inhabited here, they would not be friends. His father had refused to even talk about the place, saying often he had never wasted his time searching for it. That their people need not worry about this island when there was so much more important things to be dealing with.

But his mother would give him a look so haunted when he asked about the kingdom, the land, anything about the island, that he was sure she had been here and there was something sufficiently dangerous for his friends to find and engage. There was nothing the five of them could not face down together, they were indomitable.

So they were here at last, landing to stand on the rocky outcropping of the tallest peak of the island they had all agreed to reach, for no reason than to say they had landed on it. Prince Vasha found this friends waiting for him to give the signal of what they would be doing from here. The five of them were glancing at one another, searching for the next idea, or the decision to head home when Chaven had spoken up about returning.

"Ah, get off it. You know no one will miss us. It might even be worth staying here a night, there's a valley down there, bet we could hunt up some supper..." Anzael laughed and shook his head, motioning to a distance stretch of green far below them. Older than the rest of them, he was the furthest from the wise council in the group and Vasha half expected the man to stay by himself if they decided to leave.

Crown Prince Vashandeil looked at the two of them and then the two silent ones, who merely grinned wickedly. Yantha and Ilka would follow him into the depths of Rulin territory without making a peep, they were loyal and steadfast and often let him be the deciding factor between Anzael and Chaven's conflicting personalities. 

He was about to open his mouth to find a middle ground between the two, when they were startled by the sound of a high pitched laughter, followed by snow being whipped into their faces as someone very fast and a lot smaller than any of them banked around the peak they were on. The form cut sharply and dangerously away from where they were to dive into a crevice that looked barely large enough for their wingspans. Weapons were drawn as they turned to try and find a glimpse of the form that had raced by, as well as scanning for more forms to descend on them.

There had to be more. No one would have flown here on their own, surely.

"Rulin?" Anzael asked, his grin getting wicked. The large warrior spread his wings, readying to take flight, "this far north?"

"I didn't catch enough of a glimpse. " Ilka responded, leaping into the air and diving into pursuit, followed by Yantha and Anzael.

Chaven looked at him, raising a brow. "I don't think I need to say that the likelihood that it is a chance meeting with anyone with wings is minuscule, leading one to believe that this is a trap, and we're a day's flight away from reinforcements."

Vasha laughed at that and leapt into the air. "But its such a well played trap, we may as well indulge them!"

He left his friend cursing and hurrying to keep up. Chaven might not think it was a good idea, but he wouldn't balk at following his prince.