1x1 with sugarbird

[sugarbird]

----The familiar dodged the first few hits of her tail, but was swiftly knocked away by the final blow. Though it was magic, it didn't make it much less physical than an actual animal. Lehra's tail was quite heavy, being as big of a dragon as she was, and it was more than enough to fling it back a good ways. It fell back past Orion, and he thought for a moment there that it was defeated. "Y-yeah! I'm okay!" he called back, already too out of breath to say much. This flying business sure was demanding. How could wild dragons do it all day, and do it so easily if their wings were as heavy as his? Or even more so?

----A familiar snarling could be heard from behind him, and the thing was actually back in the pursuit once he turned back to see it. Seems that physical hits weren't going to do much to this thing. Orion didn't spend a lot of time reading about familiars, but he did know that fighting magic with magic was best. There were tons of spells out there that disarmed fighting magic users, and spells that cancelled out opposing magic forces. What good would a sword or spear be against someone who uses the very bending of elements to their whim? This looked like a job for either his magic or Lehra's, but how could they fight against something that's behind them? It seemed this familiar knew that going in front of these dragons to stop them would be a death wish. Orion was further behind her, so he blindly in a panic turned himself around midair and spread his wings further to block its path.

----Orion blew a huge breath of ice cold mist down on the thing. And it.. actually worked. He was greatly surprised to see his actions turn out to be successful for once. The familiar was encased in a hard shell of ice that materialized on its body. Its legs froze in place and couldn't move anymore, and its jaws were frozen together as it made the mistake of closing it back up to bear teeth. It suddenly stopped flying towards them and fell towards the ground like a brick. That would at least buy them some time, he figured. Orion strained himself to turn back around to follow after Lehra. His muscles started to burn. They still had a long ways to fly before they would be safe to rest. "Okay.. okay, it seems to be gone." Orion's instincts allowed him to fly this far, but he didn't know how much longer he could keep going. "Uh-- where are we.." he panted heavily. "..where are we going?"

----Alphonse watched the whole thing unfold. Everyone stopped firing by now. They were too far away by now to shoot at without wasting ammo. He watched his familiar fall all the way down to the ground, shattering upon impact. Again, he didn't think Orion was capable of fighting in the heat of the moment like that. How much did he underestimate him..? Their big wings carried them very fast from the mansion. By this point, they were already just outside the barriers surrounding his property. They still had to deal with the civilization that Alphonse lived among, but it seemed like no one below was quick to notice two dragons flying by. Even if they did notice, his mansion was easily the most heavily armed place in the city. There was no way a bunch of lower city folk would stop one dragon, let alone two if his forces didn't stop them already. Dragons haven't been out of hiding and near human civilization for years at this point. Nobody would be prepared to fight these.

----Alphonse stared at the two giants flying off, scowling deeply. Orion turned back, seeing the tiny silhouette of his old master staring up at him. A chill ran down his spine and he gulped, still feeling just as afraid of him as he always was. He better not get caught by the angry wizard, unless he wanted to get ground up into a potion. Alphonse watched helplessly, his scowl turning into an expression of devastation. He lost everything. Not just his newest accomplishment, but his older one too. For as long as he's dismissed and underappreciated Orion, it hurt a lot to actually see him get away. He never thought he'd see the day. His gaze demanded him to come back. It was even laced with deep sadness to get some pity from the drake. Orion's sharp eyes saw this, and he couldn't help but pause briefly and gaze back. Ignoring the wishes of Alphonse felt.. wrong. Even if he deserves it. He has no pity in his heart for that man. He's just submitted to him for so unbelievably long now that it felt almost unnatural to suddenly defy him. He turned back towards Lehra, then back at Alphonse. Turning away with slight guilt, he proceeded to follow after her.

----"I will get you." he whimpered under his breath as he watched him leave. He never should've let him near that dragoness in the first place. His anger came flooding back after his brief sadness. "I will get you both! I will get every last dragon on this region!!" He balled a fist and shook it at them as they escaped before turning back and storming back towards the mansion. Several guards came to escort him in, and he waved them off furiously. "Don't follow me! I need time." They shakily stopped, watching him disappear through the front doors.

[Bronzewing]

She kept looking back at the creature chasing them down- it seemed persistent, but of course it was! It was a creature of magic, after all, and didn't have to rest or eat or breathe or think about anything other than what it was doing at that exact moment- unlike Lehra, who had to think about a whole LOT of things all at once. Escape, not getting killed, the thing on her tail, where they were going... Would magic kill it? In that case, she didn't really have much in terms of that- maybe the heating of her scales was magic, but it didn't feel like it. Besides, she would have to get waaay too close.

Looking back again, she realized that her tail lunge had done something- she watched it, but soon after it just came back on the offense. That wasn't good- but then again, she didn't do much to it. As long as she could get it away from her. From the corner of her eye she saw the creature chasing after Orion- she was about to call out a warning when the blue dragon flipped over and froze the thing solid. She couldn't resist letting out a joyful hah! as the thing fell to the ground, hopefully shattering into tiny pieces! It would take a while to come back, at least- and now they knew what beat it.

"Good job, partner!" she called out. "Good job! That beastie will take some time getting back to us!" There was a joyful tone in her voice, and she was tempted to do a flip in the air- but she was never good at flips, due to the large size of her body. She wasn't a swifter dragon like Orion was, built for speed instead of power.

She looked down- they were out of the mansion, although human civilization still stretched below them. She doubted they would- or could- do anything against them, or at least the weapons and nets they owned wouldn't stand a second against one of them. They were home free, unless the wizard sent something else after them. Breathing heavily with adrenaline powering most of her flight, Lehra tried to catch her breath to be able to speak.

He is definitely angry." she said with a small chuckle- "Well, too late to go back to him, even if you wanted to. Besides, it's so, so much better out here." She glided for a while, wings spread out to catch the wind. "We're not stopping here. Once we stop seeing civilization, that's when we can glide down. We want to be as far as possible from the men." One more moment to catch her breath. "They're bound to be looking for us."

[sugarbird]

----Orion listened to Lehra excitedly celebrate their escape. When she mentioned how angry Alphonse would be by now, he briefly turned back to gaze at the mansion they just left. Already, there was quite a bit of space between them and it. "Yeah.." he gulped. He was certainly going to send something after them for sure. Maybe more men, perhaps another familiar. He wasn't sure. But Alphonse was capable of a lot. He was not looking foreword to seeing the challenges that would be in store for them that the wizard would set up. "No doubt."

----After that little exchange, there was a pause. The adrenaline was still very much there of course, but it was now lowered to the point where his head was now at least halfway functional. And now, he was starting to fully feel all of the pain he's in. The tiny wounds given to him by the men, along with the crippling fatigue of flying for the first time, was really starting to take a toll on him. Orion was focusing on keeping himself afloat alongside Lehra, panting heavily as he strained to keep his wings working. Flying was terrible! How could dragons do it? He then paid a bit more attention to Lehra's way of flying. She was flapping here or there yeah, but she was also simply holding her wings outwards to glide.

----Orion was terrified of doing that at first, attempting once or twice before getting scared of falling and flapping his wings again. He couldn't do this for much longer- he needed to figure out this gliding business right now. Eventually, after four more tries of desperately figuring out how it worked, he finally managed. His wings were more than enough to keep him from descending again, as he eventually caught a good breeze in the air to surf along. It felt almost warm under his downy feathers. Were her scales really hot enough to be felt from this distance? Just another reminder not to get on her bad side. Letting the flapping stop for a while greatly helped him- but he was still completely exhausted and nervous about this soaring business.

----"Uh.." he managed to choke out after a moment of heavy breathing. "How do you.. how do you fly so well?" It was a stupid question to ask her, and he knew that after a second of saying it. She was a wild dragon who's done this countless times before. Of course she could fly just fine. He was mostly asking this to just complain a little bit. He's never flown for this long in his entire life. Thankfully, due to the size of Orion, he was able to keep up with her fine. It was mostly the flying part by itself that was the issue.

[Bronzewing]

"Not sure what they can send after us now that we're so far away- but we do need to make it harder for them to tell where we're going."Hm- what was a good idea? Maybe they could fly up higher until the clouds covered them- that would make it harder to track them. However despite the wind helping her stay in the air, she wasn't at all sure if the two of them still had the energy or strength to fly upwards like that. Could Orion take that?

Now that there were no more arrows flying at her face, she was able to turn her head back to look at the other dragon. They were still flapping their wings despite the wind- she knew that they wouldn't be able to get up much higher. If she felt a good updraft, maybe she would move above the clouds- but Orion didn't even know how to ride a simple draft, never mind a more complicated spiral!

She turned her head forward again, no longer staring at him- although the change in the noise from behind her gave her the hint that he had finished it out. Maybe now he wouldn't tire as quickly, although the feathered dragon had already lost a ton of energy. How long could they even keep going for until adrenaline cut out and they had to move down, maybe right where the men were waiting for them?

"How do I fly so well?" she said, repeating the question. "Well, I'm used to it. Although I very rarely fly this high- our kin prefers to be close to the dunes- we need to get good from an early age." Lehra paused, allowing that to sink in. "We need to be able to fly for a long time, and sometimes fast when the storms come by." She had no clue how to teach somebody to fly- it was almost natural to her kind, dragonets learning the skill soon into their life. What a shame that Orion had never been allowed to do it!

[sugarbird]

----Oh-- great. So you had to have been taught how to fly in the first place to be so good at it. Orion never had anyone teach him to fly. He was going off of his basic instincts here. "Oh.. okay.." he panted pathetically, trying hard to just keep himself from flapping too hard again. Not only were his wings really tired, but they were also hurting quite bad from working as hard as they did. He was afraid of suddenly popping them, or injuring them. They felt as if they were going to snap in half. The fear of falling back down to the ground and getting captured by men again overruled his tiredness, though. So, despite his pain, he had no intentions of stopping.

----"So, uh.. w-will I never be good at flying, then?" He fully expected her answer to be no, and his worst fear to be realized. But, the strangest thing happened the moment his eyes grazed over his wingtips that were spread out to ferry him along the wind current. They locked onto his primary flight feathers, watching them rustle in the breeze. Despite being so tired and burning with hurt, his wings didn't move, or go unsteady one bit. Orion himself knew that going down to rest was a death sentence. And because of that, his body forced itself to keep afloat. And he realized that, although he may not ever fly as well as Lehra or any other wild dragon, he was still capable of flying. He was flying. Actually flying, not just hopping off the floor to very briefly flap to a higher spot.

----And he now knew just a bit more why Alphonse never let him fly at all. Not only because he didn't want him to make a mess, and not only because there flat out wasn't room in the mansion anyway. It was also much harder to control a dragon when it was in the air. And now, for the first time, the master wasn't in the background of his life. This still felt very wrong, very unnatural to do. But Alphonse wouldn't be here to reinforce that in his head anymore.

----Orion's eyes lit up a bit as he thought about all the things he could see. It was as if his brain suddenly unraveled and opened up into new territory, thinking about such pretty, fantastical things. "Stupid dreams," as his master used to call them. He's only expressed a want to go outside to Alphonse once-- and he learned fast to never do it again. But here he was! Outside! With another dragon no less. He never thought he'd live to see the day. "H-how much more land do we have to cover?" Even though he was flooded with newfound excitement, he was still awfully tired.

[Bronzewing]

Lehra had a feeling that she would be the one to teach Orion how flight worked. Maybe sometime there would be a chance for her to show him the ropes and how to move their wings- but for now she would do what she could until the two of them were far from the palace of the men. And by doing what she could, she meant helping them at least stay in the air. "I must admit. I'm surprised that you're staying in the air as well as you are." Soaring for a while longer, she rapidly added: "But don't stop now. I'm not comfortable with how far we are right now- I want to see no humans at all when I look down."

She gazed downwards, and there it was: human villages, human stuff, not pure forest like she wished. They were still noticeable and Lehra didn't want that, she preferred the unaltered beauty of the forests and plains- only as an alternative to the glory of the desert. Nothing was better than the desert full of its history and ruins, but anywhere without many humans was a good second best! She would gladly put the mansion as her least favorite place in the world, worse than that stuffy scribe's den... where had the scribe even gone? Dead, like the rest of them?

Orion would never understand what it was like to lose specific dragons. The only person the feathered dragon knew personally was that master of theirs, and that dude would never die just based off what he was doing to dragonkind. Besides, if Orion had liked the guy, then she felt bad. Why would somebody ever have feelings for a person that horrible? Especially not once you find out what they've been doing to your kind, making them into stuff for your own purposes... rancid man. Worse than rotting eggs- or whatever the lumps of dust that had once been eggs could be called.

"Well, you'll never be as good as you could have been if you had started from when you were a hatchling, no." she began. "But you can at least learn what to do, how flight works, and how to well, do things in the air. How not to tire yourself and all that." Steadying her wings, she looked downwards to see how much ground they had covered. A fair amount- good. Maybe soon they would be able to land and finally be done with this whole debacle. And then...she wasn't sure.

"I guess I can show you the basics." she said before looking at the world around her. It was different than what she was used to, a wonderful place, but it just...wasn't home. Turning her head back, she realized just how happy Orion would be to finally be out here. They had never seen this after all, and definitely not from this height- so while she was struck by homesickness, he would be hit by an overwhelming feeling of freedom. Ah, to experience that for the first time again!

"We should be nearing the thicker forest. I want to find a place where it will take them some time to get to us, even if they know where we are."

[sugarbird]

----Orion felt his heart skip a beat when she expressed her surprise at him making it this far in the air. How hopeless of a dragon could he possibly be? He couldn't fly, he couldn't fight, he couldn't do much of anything that normal dragons did. He read so much on how powerful and superior dragons were, and never once did Orion ever think about how capable he could've been had he avoided getting captured as a hatchling. He was always in a completely different world apart from the only world he knew when he read- that being the mansion. He always felt like a brain in a jar; dissociating every time he found himself reading about nature and all of its wonders and dangers. All of this he did without ever once realizing that he was a force of nature himself.

----And now, the opportunity to become a proper wild animal like he was naturally built for was right here for the taking. It's not like he had a choice anyway.

----Orion took in a deep breath, smelling a whole bunch of things he's never smelled before. He's smelled greenery plenty of times thanks to the garden he visited daily back at his old home. But never before has he smelled.. pine trees? is that what they were? Looking down proved to be a bit of a mistake, as Orion's flight pattern wavered slightly in shock of how high up he was. He caught himself though, and despite being so dreadfully tired, he didn't let himself fall. But there they were- pine trees. Even when he was so much higher off the ground than them, his keen eyes could still make them out in much better detail than he's ever seen them before. There were still too many homes and human influence down there though..

----"O-oh-- okay. Thank goodness." he panted in response, tiredly soaring alongside her despite this overwhelming want to land. One of the things that kept him going though, was the huge feeling of accomplishment. This was easily the longest Orion's flew in his life so far. This was proper exercise for a scrawny weak drake such as himself, and despite all this pain, he never felt more alive. Watching his wings splay out and caress the breeze for the first time was such a surreal experience. It was like something out of a dream. "Heh.. heh heh." he chuckled. "Hehe! I can't believe it!" He looked down below him to see the houses slowly start to thin out, and the trees grow more common. Orion's eyes showed some of the first signs of actual spark and life in many years. "I-I'm going to see a- a forest! I've read so much about them."

[Bronzewing]

Lehra flew straight ahead, eyes gazing down at the ground every so often, keeping herself aloft. Soon they would be able to land as the trees started to cover her entire view, with the smoke characteristic of human settlements becoming less and less common. Besides, small settlements like this were nothing to a dragon. They didn't have the forces of experience to stop them if they wanted to go on a rampage, and whatever small nets they had wouldn't be capable of taking them down. Of course, she wasn't entirely sure about that. All she knew was from scrolls about them and the few small camps in the desert- maybe forest humans were better than that.

Of course, she wouldn't admit to Orion that despite being wild she didn't know everything. She knew next to nothing about forests, not well versed in the ways of humans, and had no clue what could even be out there. The desert was her home- but the humans would check there first. Besides, Orion couldn't last a day among the heavy sand and scarce water. They'd collapse in an instant!

Pine trees- she had smelled them before, their characteristic aroma, but this was so different than what she was used to. It was stronger, more concentrated, as if a bunch of pine was right below them...and it was. A full forest of pine, stretching out as far as the eye could see, no human smoke from their settlements or cleared patches. Untamed wilderness, the kind that would be good for a pair of dragons. Maybe this would be the place to land.

"They may be pretty different from what you read." she warned. "Books tell you a fair amount, but you can know about forests yet not how to survive in one." She flapped her wings again, moving further, faster- soon she would break out into a dive. "Good news for you. This looks like a good place- we can dive down very soon." And by very soon, she meant in a few moments, since quickly once the words left her jaws she pinned her wings to the side into an elegant dive down towards the trees.

[sugarbird]

-----Orion was a little annoyed that she, again, downplayed reading. She was objectively right, nothing will ever truly prepare him for survival except actual, hands-on survival. Or claws-on, whatever. He had a clear bias for the books that he grew up with and loved so dearly, since it kept his half-dead half-alive brain somewhat occupied for the decades he's been stuck living in the mansion. And even though he was so ready to leave his old life behind now, going without reading for prolonged periods of time will be a hard thing to adjust to. Luckily though, his mood was lifted the moment Lehra suggested they land.

-----"Ahh.. good. Th-thank the stars." he huffed tiredly, descending with Lehra as best he could. He was shocked and left in awe watching her gracefully dive down to the ground. She was so quick! He's never descended in flight before like that. He's only ever fluttered up to certain places and jumped down from them. No matter, he literally had no choice here. His fly downwards was.. rough, to say the least. To lose height, Orion's only solution was to flutter his wings a little, stop and fall, and repeat to catch himself a pace or two after. This was not only exhausting, but it was terrifying. He couldn't say he was afraid of heights, but he was pretty scared in this moment in time. He felt just a little more courage when Lehra flew through the air with him, but now that she was out of sights and into the trees below, it was scary. Falling to the ground and breaking all his bones was something to reasonably be afraid of.

-----Eventually, he made it to the tree level and near the ground. Not knowing how to land, Orion clumsily flapped his wings hard near the ground as he was anticipating feeling the ground under his feet. He quickly wore himself out after that and ended up falling to the ground a good twenty or thirty feet from the air. Orion winced at both the pain of the fall, and the sound that he made upon impact. Hopefully no one heard them.

-----"Oh.. my goodness." he groaned, getting up to his feet and feeling all the hurt and fatigue that collected over his escape. He got up no problem, though, he was not used to feeling so much at the same time. And.. smelling so much at the same time. Orion felt something strange under his feet, and turned down to look at the grass. Grass.. grass! Nature! He was feeling it! But it was so overwhelming! The tiny blades stabbed his scaled talons and caused him to awkwardly pull each one up off the ground. He put them back down, patting and prodding the grass with his toes. There wasn't any grass in Alphonse's garden, only flowers, so Orion can't remember the last time he's truly felt grass. It was soft. Yet also sharp? How weird.

-----His nose stung from all the new scents. He smelled green everywhere, but also a ton of things he's never smelled before. His eyes were overwhelmed, almost. The trees that towered over them were so intimidating up close. He smelled pine, but also.. an earthiness. Dirt? Was it the dirt? But despite the strange sensory overload, Orion was so pleasantly surprised at how quiet it was. The forest was so silent compared to the upper floors of the mansion. Alphonse had servants in literally every corner of the mansion, servants or guards or guests, and they would talk. Servants would talk amongst themselves all the time, Alphonse would talk with a servant, or Alphonse would talk with a guest. He loved to chat with anyone the moment he could, and no place in the mansion was really safe from chatter. It melted into the background over the years, and he grew accustomed to it. But this was near total silence, with the exception of Lehra, some chattering birds, and the breeze shifting the leaves of the trees. So strange.

-----No photo, illustration, or book could ever capture the true beauty of nature, he'll admit that. To be in it, to actually be a part of it in person, was like nothing he ever remembered experiencing. His white face lit up, ears perked and swiveling to capture every sound from every angle. He sat there staring upwards from whence they came down from, admiring the sunshine that filtered through the canopies. For a moment, he forgot about everything. "Everything in this forest looks so.." he mumbled quietly, tapping his tail lightly against the ground. "Mighty."

[Bronzewing]

Opening wings up towards the ground, Lehra dove towards the ground, placing her claws solidly on the ground. Clutching the grass in warm claws, she looked around the forest- strange. So crowded, so dim, nothing like the heat and open spaces she was used to. Would it really be that bad to just go back home to the desert? Maybe there was a spot in there they could use to hide from the humans... but no, Orion wouldn't be able to take a place that hot.

"Long flight, I know. Must feel even worse for somebody who hasn't flown in... how long has it been?" she asked him, slowly twitching her tail as she spoke. It had been ages, hadn't it? She flew all the time and knew how to survive over long trips, but...she was amazed that Orion could do it without having to take fifty breaks. Maybe the wind helped a bit more for feathered dragons. She really wasn't sure.

Turning around after hearing a thump, she realized that they had literally fallen to the ground. Well, she guessed landing was another thing they needed to know, but to literally drop from the sky? That was...less than ideal. "By the way. That...is not how you land." She was greatly tempted to ask whether they had read any books on flying, due to their strange love for slabs of paper- but maybe she shouldn't mess with them. They technically didn't need one another anymore, but...well, maybe Orion did. They could barely lift up in the air, and she couldn't just let them fend for themselves out there.

"Yep. Forests are rather pretty." she said with a smile. "So, was this anything like your books said, or is it better?"

She rubbed her claws on the grass- how long had it been since she touched this stuff? A long time, she guessed- she had only been out of the desert a few times, and never for long. Why leave home and go to a cluttered place like this? Far away...where it got cold...and she kind of missed home now. The blades of grass whirled around her claws due to the wind, but the breeze was less noticeable than she had thought- not like the rough, sandy wind in the desert. Strange. She would have to get used to this.