Travel On, With Nothing But A Shadow

The chrysalis affixed to the tunnel wall was obvious enough. Even with the snow and frost building up on it, the soft pink of rose quartz was still recognizable. And it wasn't much longer, judging from the way it shuddered.

The snow and ice started to cleave off, landing on the ground in the pile. Before long, fragments of shattered quartz joined them. Once the chrysalis wall was weakened enough, it gave out all at once with a resounding crack!

Suddenly the occupant was tumbling out onto the icy floor in a tangle of wings and tails. Fulgur lands on his belly, wings pointing every which way. Smaller creatures scatter around him, his Flock just as disoriented as he is. They squirm through the snow and flutter around Fulgur, seeking his warmth.

Cold... is what his mind helpfully supplies him, as he pulls his wings underneath him and lifts his chest up off the floor. The Flock comes to settle on his back, about ten of the little things coiling up on top of him. It's an odd sensation, but it feels comfortable. Like this what is supposed to happen. He decides to sit there, sitting on his clawed wings and his tail for a moment, as he considers what to do.

The chill is not particularly enjoyable, Fulgur decides. Reaching out with his wings, he starts to have crawl half amble down the rocky corridor. Claws latch into ice and snow, and he does his best to keep his chest above the floor.

It's slow going, using his wings to clamber up over ridges and snow-slick rocks. Four sets of claws anchor into the ice, heaving him up over the rough terrain. The Flock hold tight, holding on with claws only large enough to hold them on and tickle Fulgur.

This is hard. Is there an easier way? he asks himself. He thinks about it as he drags himself along the tunnel.

Returning to Pegasus was never a pleasant experience for Eleanora, so deprived of fur to cover herself with. The biting cold of Ursa and the tunnels that connected it were nearly impassable for her at the beginning. She distantly remembered struggling through the snow, freezing cold, rubbing her arms to keep them from getting frostbite. She'd encountered snow in the Vaa, of course, but she had come with so few belongings. Nothing that prepared herself for the cold, harsh winter air.

Now, however, months after her arrival in the caves, she was more ready to face it. Clad in a thick fur coat and heavy pants with boots to match (they had all taken her some time to make, but she was proud of the craftsmanship, basic as it was), she traveled more easily through the icy tunnel, golden hair tucked under the hood that protected her face from the biting winds. She moved quickly, for although she was more protected now, clad in winter gear, it still was not her passage of choice.

She almost missed the creature on the ground - almost. So fixed on the ice at her feet so that she didn't slip, she didn't notice them until she was nearly right on top of them. She gave a small "Oh!" of surprise as she stopped short from stepping on one of their wings. She looked over the creature, a good few feet long, but obviously a child. Four wings and...creatures on its back. Perhaps at one point this would have shocked her, but after all the strange creatures she'd seen in the last few months, this one was no stranger.

She carefully walked around to its head and crouched down, glancing again at the creatures perched on its back. They almost looked like carrion crows, to her, or at least the caves' equivalent that she'd encountered, and the thought that they were hindering this creature quickly passed her mind and, perhaps foolishly, she waved an arm at them, as if to shoo them away. She wasn't going to let this child sit here and get bullied by birds.

"Hello," she offered, looking back at the creature's face. "Do you need help? Are you cold?"

He hadn't been looking up, so Eleanora's voice startles him briefly. He's luckily on flat ground at the time instead of halfway up or down a boulder. His six eyes blink as he lifts his head to better look at her.

As Eleanora waves her hand at the Flock, about half of them take to the air, circling around the two of them in the icy breeze. The rest pull away from her, staying on his back.

"Hello," he offers back, before continuing. "We don't like the cold." Fulgur glances back at the little avians around them. I have to protect them, clicks something in his mind, they settle back down on his back.

Fulgur finally asks, "Is there someplace warmer?"

She kept an eye on the birds, as they lifted off from the creature, circling overhead. They didn't leave, many of them settling back on the child's back. To her, they didn't look like they were hurting or bothering him. He was giving unbothered glances back to them as well so she didn't make another attempt to shoo them away. She'd rather they not get aggressive. Those beaks looked sharp.

She smiled gently. "No, I don't like the cold either. It's not very pleasant." She adjusted her coat a bit more tightly around her chest as a cold breeze drifted through the tunnel. She moved more in front of Fulgur to block it from from reaching Fulgur.

"Of course. Did you just hatch here?" She looked up and spotted the chrysalis shards back where he had been coming from. What an unpleasant place to hatch, stuck between two chilly caves, with all the snow and ice to tread through. "Ah, well yes, there are many caves that are warmer. I was just heading to one - I can take you there if you'd like?"

He closes his eyes against the stinging winter breeze. It's a brief gust, and Eleanor's positioning does block some of it. Before long he looks back up at her.

"I hatched, yes. Somewhere else would be nice," Fulgur answers, stretching his wings and back. Something tells him he should be doing something other than dragging himself around, but exactly how hasn't clicked yet. Hopefully he can figure it out sooner than later.

She felt the breeze against her back and although it didn't penetrate through the furs of her coat, she knew that the poor creature, fur-less as it was, was probably freezing with the chill of the tunnel, especially if it had only just hatched. She glanced back to the mouth of the tunnel, quickly mapping the fastest route to Pegasus in her mind. "Okay. It isn't too far, but we have to travel through Ursa - that's the cave just past here. It's also cold, but we'll be in a warm cave soon."

She looked back at Fulgur and began to think about the mechanics of how she would take him back. Carry him in her arms, like she was carrying a bundle of furs? Over her shoulder like a log? Or maybe over her back, holding onto her shoulders. Just like she had done with Adam back when he -

Nope. She cut the thought off right there.

"I can carry you. Whichever way would be ost comfortable is your pick. In my arms, on my back, whichever. Unless you can walk or...fly?" She looked at the wings and wondered if that was their purpose, of if they were like strange fins for swimming. But then...why the birds?

He listens, as he braces himself against the howling wind. Ursa? he thinks to himself, before it finally clicks that it is a place. Through Ursa...

"...Fly?" Fulgur thinks aloud, the cogs ticking into place. "I can try," he decides, as he realizes that he'd failed to figure out how he was supposed to move on his own. That's a little silly of him.

He braces with his wings, preparing to attempt to launch himself in the air with them. Leaping up into the air, Flock holding tight onto his back, he opens his wings to catch the air. He struggles to steady himself against the gale shooting down the corridor, but before long he is hovering in the air, wings pumping rhythmically, one pair then the other.