Chapter 7: Trip to Arieton

Kashira was pleased that he managed to hang on as she took off. She had always heard that jayune wings were decorative, and his preoccupation with not falling from her shoulders confirmed it to her.

She was glad as he seemed to settle just fine as she started to fly. After the first minute or two passed, she felt relatively confident that he was going to do fine for the rest of the trip. She felt him shift to look down over her shoulder. 

And then he just slipped right off and began to fall without a word.

She turned her body midair and began to beat her wings as he fell motionlessly through the air. What happened? He didn’t even move to ball up; he was tense with his eyes tightly shut and his face scrunched up. 

I see. Fight, flight, fawn, or freeze, and you go for freeze when it becomes too much for you. Poor cutie.

Kashira opened her mouth carefully and scooped him out of the air just as they were reaching the treeline. She winced as her wings and belly broke off the tops of a couple of them as she skidded through them to correct. Her wingbeats knocked snow off many of them as she came out of her dive and back up in the air. It wasn’t her most graceful maneuver, and spots where trees had struck her smarted. She held him carefully in her mouth until she was able to level out and focus on him.

The dragon felt a slight familiarity with the sensation of his locked-up little form resting on her tongue. She contemplated landing, but then she decided he was already wet, so there was no use in stopping. She tipped her head back, and she gulped. There was another pang of familiarity as she felt his rigid form bulging its way down her throat; as he got a bit past her collarbone, she flexed her muscles to drop him back into the hoard gullet. 

Goren made a soft little weight there that somehow felt heavier to her than when he was riding on her back. She put her right paw to her stomach, feeling the little slight bulge, and she rubbed the space firmly as if to reassure him. “It’s all right, I got you,” she said loudly, firmly, barely hearing herself over the wind. “I probably won’t be able to hear you for a bit, but it will be all right. I got you. You’re completely safe with me.” 

Her heart raced a little when she felt him moving, as if rubbing back, instead of lying frozen where he was. You are a good bunny, she thought warmly, so pleased with him.

When Goren slipped off her shoulder, he was sure he was dead. The ground racing up at him made that dizzy and nauseated feeling even worse as the wind roared in his ears and tore through his clothes. All he could do was close his eyes.

But then he got a face full of wet heat as he stopped roughly, the now familiar smell of her mouth pressing over him as her mouth closed, pinning him face first right where he was. His heart pounded so hard he felt sick and faint, but she held him firmly as she tossed her head, trying to recover from her dive. The sudden movement made his stomach feel like it was jumping, but he was incredibly grateful to be here and not broken on the hard ground.

Goren didn’t have even the slightest will to resist as she tilted her head back and just gulped him. His clothes pulled tight on his body, and it felt really weird to still have his boots on as her throat gripped him. 

It still felt intense. He felt like he was a bit bigger than this tight, muscular tunnel wanted him to be as it push-pulled and squeezed him hard enough that it pressed some of the air out of his lungs. Just as he had yesterday, it was a squeeze that he felt over every inch of him. Whereas last time it had felt like pressure that confined him so he could not move, here it grounded him. He wasn’t falling through the air but was instead gripped by something physical in every direction. 

He heard and felt the same fleshy flex that dumped him into the somewhat more open and softer space, and he just lay there and listened to his heart rushing in his own ears. The feeling of panic-tingles left his paws a little at a time. I can’t believe that I got that disoriented and just slipped off.

Goren heard her loud but muffled reassurances that she had him, and he huffed. Snatching him out of the air mid-fall was certainly one way of expressing that she had him. Then, she rubbed over him, pressing up on him from below, squishing him into the soft surface above him. She is trying to pet me?

His heart was still racing, but he rubbed her back, reminding himself to be calm. It was easier; he had been here an extended time before, and now the sensations were not entirely new. He pressed into those rubs, trying to communicate his appreciation that she hadn’t let him fall to his doom. Her belly settled lower again as her paw left, and he had a lot more room again.

Goren huffed and stretched out. It felt warm; his heart was slowing. He could hear her heart clearly; it beat faster than before. She was still flying based on the rocking motions that carried through her, so her breathing was a bit quicker as well. I suppose I have never been up so high before. I did not realize it was going to get to me like that. He puffed air through his whiskers and turned on his side, and he willed himself to feel less embarrassed. It didn’t work, so he turned over again, burying his face in his arm. 

Wet clothes over wet fur made everything feel at once tight and uncomfortable, almost sticky. He supposed there was nothing for it. He was the one that fell off her and made her have to catch him. The more he thought about it, the more embarrassed he felt.

It’s actually really hot, he thought, so warm compared to the outside. He closed his eyes, and at some point in his process of trying to think about anything apart from his embarrassment, he ended up just falling asleep in the heat.  

Kashira flew through the day, the landscape passing beneath her wings until it began to get dark. It was further than she had flown in a long time. However, she felt that there was some urgency if they wanted to have any chance to see if anyone important to her bunbun remained in Buetarn.

She made herself fly until she saw the lights of the city, and the wind carried the mixed smells of it to her. I have not been here in at least a hundred years, I think. She reached up to scratch at a scar on her neck. I was a lot smaller back then. She was fairly confident they would let her in, even if she had not gone on to take any kind of title or claim a space near the City of Dragons.

Yet, flying up to it felt like it was just going to make a big scene. Even titled dragons were sensational wherever they went. She almost lost heart about the whole scheme. Just land outside the city and walk up to it. Overthinking this won’t help anyone; just do it.

It still startled a few people near the road, who went scurrying down it at a more rapid pace to get distance from her. She waded out of the snow and onto the road. The city glowed with light and warmth in the darkness, and she followed the road to the checkpoint. 

Even if she ended up making a scene by being a dragon near the city, it didn’t change the reason she had to come here. The point of all of this was to wrap a cloak of protection around Goren by the neck, and so the more people that knew about it, the better off he would be. It is all just a little humiliating, though, and I never did look to come back here.

She approached the gatehouse. The guards were a selkie with a bearskin cloak and a minotaur big enough he probably could have reached up to her shoulder. “A dragon? What is your business here?” The minotaur tried to be gruff, to posture at her a bit.

She spoke softly, wanting to put them all at ease. “I want to visit the Exotic Exchange. I am likely to buy some things. Today is just a visit.”

The bear selkie looked her up and down, swiping through bits of information on his Seeing Slate, images of a few different dragons coming up on it. “You are Kashira?” She was surprised to see an enchanted device like that in his hands. A hundred years ago, they were only accessible at the Exotic Exchange.

“Yes.” There must not be many blue dragons in the area, or perhaps someone knew where she had gone after she escaped. She resisted the temptation to scratch at her neck. Paranoia prickled at her at the idea of the increased monitoring of everyone that this implied.

He squinted as he read some of the squiggly things that floated across the screen: writing that was too tiny for her to read. “You have a good record. You may enter. The Exotic Exchange runs at all hours these days, so you are likely to find someone there. Do you know what the building looks like and where it is?” 

She had been there before, a long time ago. “Yes, thank you.”

He waved her on through. “Don’t make trouble that gives you a record.”

She just smiled.