FALORA

Aethermist whispered out of the sides of the airship, regurgitating the clouds it passed; a symbiotic relationship for those who lacked the wings of the Dragon Gods. Notolsald's skylifts disappeared into the clouds. Hands on the railing, she resisted the urge to choke out her wonder at the spray of silver on the edges of the clouds. Pictures painted thousands of words, but she failed to grasp the tales the sky spoke in front of her, pressurising her lungs. At the wheel, Alexavier fiddled with levers and the altimeters. Arrows shifted and steadied with each turn he made of the Vortex. It rode the low-hanging clouds, frozen waves of the ocean below.

Cloudsails shimmered and flew them forward. Dizzy from the ingenuity and structure of the tried and true airship, she frowned when Orilion pursed his lips. In his pocket, the disk Zyle gave him, and he pushed it deeper when he caught her eye.

"Shall we give you two a tour?" Zyle questioned. "It's a long way to Celestan and we have the cloud kingdoms to get through." He hesitated and tipped his head at her when she leaned against the railing. "Are you feeling well, Miss Falora?"

"I'm fine!" Falora gasped and fumbled for her sketchbook to commit it to paper memories. "This is great."

"Why, thank you!" Alexavier called from the wheel. "Though I think what Zyle means is that you are a little breathless." He locked a lever, then moved for them with wide arms. "You're a Lander who's never been up this high. It'll take some time for the strips to take effect." He motioned to the arched door to the lower decks. "We've got a clear way ahead, so let us show you where you two will be staying."

Falora followed the pilot with Orilion as they went below. A small suite occupied the first level, and a small corridor of doors circled into a dome where cloud glass showed the outside. Paintings of aether creatures hooked onto the walls. Some with graceful, feathered appendages, to wicked teeth chomping at the edges of the parchment. Multiple notes pointed to weak points upon some of the aggressive ones. In the middle of the dome, a table with a map stretched across it. Falora kept her sketchbook in hand to try and put her own image upon the aether creatures, and found her lines drifting when Orilion walked past her with a more unimpressed expression.

"Farther down is our storage and freezer," Zyle explained.

Falora ignored Orilion to draw further lines of the aether creatures. "You've hunted these?" Her finger pressed against the skyshark, whose teeth serrated against the paper.

"Ah! That one. Yes, it's a story I like to tell in pubs." Alex bounced over to her. "See, aetherbeasts come in varying sizes depending on high you go." Excitement sharpened his Azari accent. "Only the most daring skyhunters dare reach the Break — the area just below where Arth'lun once rested. And that one—" He prodded the shark. "Was one of the biggest I've ever seen. It could eat an entire island, and we took it down before it got to do just that."

"It was pretty big," Zyle admitted from the corridor. "Most aethersharks don't deviate off their hunting grounds — which marked this one as odd in behaviour. It was larger than usual for what most consider a lowland aetherbeast."

Orilion stopped in front of the picture with his arms folded and lips pursed. "I've seen bigger."

Alex and Zyle turned to him with curious tilts.

Falora sent an elbow into his ribcage. "Aetherbeasts don't come to the mainland," she stated. "I'm sure this one is very big, right?" She scowled at Orilion, who frowned at her. Gods, is he unable to lie to save his own life? "It's rare for such a creature to leave the cloudlands. Back to the amnesiac god, she faced Alex and Zyle. "You'll have to excuse him, his memory is extremely foggy."

Zyle shrugged, but Alex proved too curious. "Fascinating," he said, though moved to the map. "Let me reilluminate things for your friend. Of these aetherbeasts, the largest, most powerful are referred to as Skywardens. Every skyhunter worth their salt longs to take down one of these. Legend has it that the biggest Skywarden had the ability to swallow entire skycities whole with one gulp — and, I know not how Landers refer to Asen'Orilion, but in Azarian folklore, he protected these cities from the hungry Skywardens." He drew his lean shoulders into a shrug and ruffled the hair around his horns. "Oh, my grandfather has grumbled about spotting aetherbeasts the size of entire continents, but no one's ever seen one."

Falora pursed her lips. "Wait... you mean to tell me Asen'Orilion protected cities and fought Skywardens?"

"Bet that's different from how Landers tell it, huh?" Alexavier raised a small marker off the map with a wide smile. "I mean, considering his domain... is it so surprising?"

Falora tipped back to Orilion, whose eyes widened with a spark. "Really?"

"Mhm." Alexavier hummed. "One could say he was the original Skyhunter." He clapped his hands. "Anyway, enough of that, let me show you where you two can sleep." Ushered forward, Orilion's spark fluttered into thought. Her chest hitched deeper into her heart out of wonder and the sense of heaviness on her rib-cage. Alex pointed out the bedrooms. Everyone held a modest-sized bed and a small window to showcase the outside. Orilion peeked over her shoulder, and his face scrunched in an instant.

"It's tiny," he mumbled.

"He's afraid of small spaces," Falora explained without fear of being caught in a lie.

Orilion inched out of the way of Zyle who made his way down into the storage hold. "Apologies for my rudeness, Alexavier," he spoke out Alex's name with a divine shudder in his throat. "As Falora said, I am not an enjoyer of cramped quarters."

"Hm... then I may have another place for you. Follow me." Alexavier led them back onto the main deck, then pointed upwards at the mast, where a closed off crow's nest wrapped itself in the sails and created an anchor for its wings. "It's much more spacey up there, and I could always use an extra pair of eyes."

Clouds fluffed against the scattered sunlight, and her breath escaped her bit by bit. The Vortex flew over the sea of air and wind. Azure colors sprayed across the sky and painted a picture full of words and stars. Falora climbed into the crow's nest, with Alexavier unlocking the hatch to let them both in. "Here you are." He spun in a circle to demonstrate the space. "The cost is a bed for this view."

"Not having a bed isn't that much trouble..." Orilion said and prodded the plush seats dug into the circumference.

Freedom choked her throat, and her whole world twirled with the passage of the clouds. Chills swept up her spine when she held onto the railing by the staircase into the nest. Orilion left his examination of the seats to stare at her. "Falora, are you alright?" His voice was a part of the wind, so distant and so soft. He spoke not with his throat, but with the sky. Dark edges crept in her vision, lost in the sphere's vision. A cyan glow lit up the center of the hurricane's eye, but when she blinked, the world returned to normal. Beautiful worlds disappeared, and she found herself on the floor, with the Azarian and the amnesiac god standing over her.

"Oh dear..." Alex mumbled, his voice distant. "Can you hear me?"

"I can." Falora tried to catch her breath. Both men hauled her by the shoulders to sit her on one of the seats. "I can't breathe." It ripped and tore fangs through her lungs with each inhale.

"I'll have to see if Zyle has another strip," Alex said. "Unless your friend here happens to be a master air elementalist to be able to expand someone's lungs... which even Zyle can't do."

Falora eyed Orilion when dawn's realisation filled his face. It brought back the spark with an added touch of terror and a glow of awkward embarrassment. Her fingers dug into his forearm to steady herself when she tried to stand up.

"I... might be able to do something," Orilion admitted in a gentle, but powerful voice. "I advise you to go get a strip anyway, just in case... this doesn't work."

Alexavier brought two fingers up to his brow and gave a salute. "I'll go do that and leave you to concentrate on whatever spell you have up your sleeve," he said, then opened the hatch to slide back down to the main deck. Out of sight, Orilion closed the hatch and turned to her.

"And what are you planning?" Falora drove her hand into her ribcage. High in the sky, her life crumbled beneath her feet, abandoned on the ground.

"I can help you," he said. "But only if you want me to."

How are you going to help me when you can barely help yourself? Is your power returning up here? Why would you help me? Questions bounced with the bubbles, but the rest of her wanted the taste of air in her lungs, to relish in the feeling of freedom. "What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"I can give you a taste of my power," he said, rubbing the back of his black hair. "Enough that you'll be able to breathe up here."

"Taste?"

Orilion gave her a tight nod. "It's not a spell, but to taste my power... well..." He motioned at her.

It lit up in her mind. "Oh."

Another uncertain nod from the dragon god.

"You know what?" Falora waved her hand at him. "I really don't care. I just want to breathe. Do what you have to, Asen'Orilion."

"Are you—?"

"Yes," she gasped. "I'd rather not suffer this any longer. I'd like to enjoy the sky."

His gaze flicked from side to side with draconic confusion. "Very well," he said, then motioned for her to stay still when he took a small step back into a whisper of a cyan gale. He brought his hand up into two fingers as a glow brightened the tips. He swung it slowly as a draconic growl rumbled her bones from a point too far away. With the storm's eye created, he drew not hands, but a mirage of claws closer to his chest as he took in a deep breath of the misty gale as celestial draconic sang past his lips. Wings. Feathered wings, a blur against reality when the gale disappeared, and his eyes glowed brighter with beaded pupils when he released one final exhale of steam. His breath went silent as the growl subsided.

"Are you... holding your breath?"

He nodded.

"Well... what are you waiting for?" Falora chewed on what was to come.

Cyan swirled and closed off his pupils, before he closed them with his hands on her shoulders and leaned forward.

Emraine often regaled her with evocative descriptions of what a perfect kiss would be like for her. Falora both laughed at her and squicked at the idea of her friend and brother locked in an intimate moment. Someone had to retain their dignity, and common sense left her with the question of why anyone would want their kiss to leave them breathless after her experience with being breathless.

If a kiss left one so breathless, the enjoyment was stolen away.

Falora never bothered to imagine it for herself, nor had she expected it to do the complete opposite of leaving her without her breath. Air slipped over her skin when Orilion pressed his lips against hers. A taste of the sky with all its gentleness and sharpened ferocity. Imagination danced with its truth and the entirety of the sky of their world. It collected her lungs in a single moment.

She could breathe.

Orilion let her go once the gale dissipated and he took a large step away from her with one last ripple of draconic mist through his nose. "Done."

On cue, the hatch opened to reveal Alexavier. "I got the strips..." He looked between the two of them, and Falora tasted the sky itself with every breath as Orilion huddled out of their way. "So, I assume the spell worked then?"

"It did." Falora went from breathless to speechless. "Thank you, Alexavier."

"Oh, good." Alexavier handed her a strip. "You can just call me Alex. If you're still feeling unwell, do lie down."

I feel... I don't even know what I'm feeling right now.

Orilion kept his back to them before she could give him her gratitude in turn. Exhaustion swept down his face and slacked his body as he sank into the seats.

Guess that took a lot out of you... Adventure left its sweet taste on her tongue as she twitched. Heat flowed through her cheeks, and she slapped them as Alexavier lowered himself from the crow's nest with ease. At least he told me before actually doing it... but for a moment, I swear I saw his—

Her thoughts wandered to the cruel passages of religious history, of Orilion forcing himself upon unwitting mortals — or driving his teeth into blood sacrifices with a depraved hunger. His scales dripped with rot and decay. Wings tattered and bloody. Fists clenched, she cast the imagery back into the sky and came closer to him. "Orilion?" she whispered with the hatch closed.

His lips pursed as he tucked into himself on the seats.

"Thank you for that."

Orilion broke from his empty staredown to study her. "You are welcome. You've helped me get this far. It was only right that I returned the favor somehow." He relaxed. "I won't need to do that again, at least, so apologies if it was uncomfortable."

A single, kind action.

I didn't just taste the sky's true power.