@Eythan !

today, she took flight.

damask roosted at the peak of an overlook, high above the floor. the young bird of prey held her head to the roof and her wings at half-mast; a draft breathed gently through her primaries, and with a sparking stir of her stone, she willed it stronger. a trickster through and through, the wind instead swelled to a blast, buffeting her hard in the face — and yet, for once, she barely took offense. it was a feeling she savored, and only a taste of things to come. she had waited like the good, golden child she was, but she could scarcely breathe for want of flying: yearning, dreaming, knowing she was born for it.

a lofty staircase of stepping stones wrapped around the thirty-foot height of her perch. climbing it had taken a series of bursting, fluttering jumps, aided with magic to preserve her strength. a gentle aching hummed in her chest, and damask embraced it. her blood was flowing, her muscles warm — her heart, ready.

her father had appointed the date, the time, the place: an anniversary gift for the first day of her second cycle, here at this rendezvous with the lights at their brightest. however, it wasn't him she was waiting for. he had alluded (in his teasing, eluding, patently paternal way) to an unmet mentor, a bonebound companion who had trained auré himself. she didn't have a name or even a description, and if anything, the uncertainty of it inflamed her anxiety; but damask compelled herself to trust, trust her father, trust this stranger, trust herself.

her eyes slid shut, and in that moment, the airy sound of rustling feathers resounded at the farthest fringe of her hearing. only a flicker of ears and a slight skyward incline of her chin told of her notice; otherwise, she stood motionless, as if poised in prayer.

see me.

These past few weeks, Eythan'd been taking it pretty easy - sleazy even, as one might say. He hadn't done nearly as much flying as usually dictated by busting apart bones, preferring to just hunt down rats and stick close to any given pool. Azrael'd given him a few burn scars; thankfully, they were not in places where skin stretched and rubbed against muscle and bone a lot - but they hurt nonetheless. The gryphon was starting to become quite a fan of water. He could ignore the coppery tang of less clear depths if it meant a soothing cool across his skin.

At some point, though, someone had to come along and disturb his extended period of lounging. Someone had been Aure, approaching with an eager glint in his eye but muted wariness in his posture. A few shifting wings here and there, quiet chirping words of encouragement that this child - that he'd helped create but never met - was wonderful, attentive, a fast learner and would not ask about deeply buried but raw, salt-scrubbed wounds. On the off chance that she did, Eythan was to deflect or try to avoid the subject.

Fair enough, all things considered. The gryphon knew how flight lessons went when the one on the unused wings was distrusting and scared.

His brother had given a date (well, maybe not as we might know it) and a location: a stony precipice some thirty feet off the ground. Good for rudimentary gliding and flight practice. Old Aza'zel may have given a speech or two from the top of that rock, calling his family together. Sacred enough grounds to practice flight on, right?

Eythan lifted off with a few paltry beats of the wing, paws glancing against the ground as he tried to steady himself. It was a natural enough motion, but a lack of practice and stretching had left him a little atrophied in the skill department. Hopefully, it wasn't noticeable as he flitted up to the overlook, ears following Damask where his eyes did not. He banked slightly, landing on the back end of the stone and chirping softly, "Damask, right?"

Scuffing his talons slightly as he settled down, he huffed, "uh, I'm your uncle Eythan - here for giving a flight lesson, right-kiddo?"

@Damask

@Eythan !

anonymous wings rose in approach, angling around, then behind her in a backhanded arc. shortly thereafter, solid weight landed on the stone at her back. four feet by the rhythm. only two with audible claws. here an ear stood truly erect to catch those first two words:

"damask, right?"

... she knew that voice.

damask lifted the shutters, folded her wings, spun to meet him — and found herself staring into the eyes of a ghost.

oh

oh

OH
the stranger before her was not a stranger at all. she recognized every color and contour: the beak, the beard, a set of horns not unlike her father's. his features had aged, now, dulled and lined with the cycles upon cycles he had seen. common sense told her that all things differed in the eyes of a king, but somehow his size still daunted her. she could have fled between his forelegs, and a part of her wanted to. a shiver lanced its way down damask's spine. her eyes rounded, jittered once — but she was older, too. in the space of split seconds, she pinned down her face and held it still as a bird in her talons; beaten into composure, it revealed nothing save for what had already escaped. she yielded a singular nod of assent, but her gaze did not waver, searing hard into his.

"uh, i'm your uncle eythan — here for giving a flight lesson, right, kiddo?"

she saw it in his scuffling feet, heard it in the softly faltering tone of his voice. he knows. auré told him. he knows and doesn't like it. her brow relaxed with a subtle tilt of her head. "that's right," damask said. her words resonated clearly and evenly in her ears, if not exactly easily. she was still refining herself, building her confidence — but today, today she would be fearless. "a pleasure to make your acquaintance, eythan. shall we begin?"

She - Damask (that's her name!) nodded, dissuading any wound-up nerves about misplacing identities. There hadn't just been some different, yet strikingly similar to Aure, creature perching on this outcropping in wait. (The more Eythan thought about it, the more memories of avoiding his father's warm gaze and wings surged to the forefront - and the more his claws itched with a need to do something with them.) The gryphon's weight shifted to either foot, tail's fan billowing once or twice before going slack again. Settling in and out of nerves.

"No need to be so formal, Dam -" That nickname doesn't fit right "- we'll, um, work on breaking the ice. Uncle to niece."

Were either of them humanoid, Eythan might've clapped his claws together, almost exciteable (but falsely?) at the prospect of teaching another descendent of Aza'zel how to fly under ambiguously dodgy circumstances. Aure had implied that he... well, danced around the entire subject of the old King's fall and left his brother - rudely - holding the bag. Bright eyes would've turned to the camera if it were there and ground out a vaguely spiteful and entirely resentful fuck you.

Instead, he narrowed his eyes, hid it in a blink, and took a few paces forwards.

All that circular thinking aside, Eythan adjusted his wings, rocked back onto his haunches. A beat passed. He peered down, an imploring quirk to a brow spot: "well, what can y'show me already? I don't wanna start teachin' you sum'n you already know... wastin' time and all that."

@Damask

@Eythan !

eythan betrayed his own agitation once more, this time with a switch of weight from side to side. "no need to be so formal, dam — we'll, um, work on breaking the ice. uncle to niece."

dam? breaking the ice? uncle to niece? what? it was almost impressive: every piecemeal part of that had succeeded in rankling at her. was this some facetious attempt to lighten the mood, or was he actually serious? all evidence pointed to the latter. damask flattened her ears and jerked her head an inch to the left, eyes narrowed in reproach. don't do that.

covering ground in a few long paces, he halved the distance and seated himself. automatically she picked up a foot, prepared to step back — then caught herself and pressed it forcefully to the floor.

"well, what can y'show me already? i don't wanna start teachin' you sum'n you already know ... wastin' time and all that."

"sure," she said carefully, somehow stripping all the casual informality from the word. his request was sensible, but discomfort began to prickle at her skin; she had expected him to demonstrate first, giving her time to steel herself. all eyes on you, kid. with a brisk nod, damask turned to the side of the precipice and focused on the nearest stepping stone, some three feet below.

after a brief delay spent glancing back and forth, she dropped from the ledge, wings outspread to slow her fall. she landed unevenly, but the maneuver was otherwise fine. that wasn't flying. that was the easy part.

she hopped in a semicircle to face the perch, then hesitated in palpably apparent uncertainty, mental math plucking at her features. damask had practiced, but she'd never taken a shot at this height without help. habit brought the temptation of magic to mind, and she thought she felt a residual breeze swish at her trousers — but she dismissed it, if painfully. mere minutes ago, the wind itself had all but scolded her. no spells. not today. feathered legs tensed into springs as black-and-white sails trembled tall overhead. at length she leapt from the rock and burst into heartbeat flight, if only for a second. her wings pumped hard to power the jump, and she cleared the ledge by an overshot foot, scrabbling at the rock before letting herself down with a gasp. all the while, her tail dragged at takeoff, hung limp in midair, and brushed awkwardly at the floor on touchdown, serving as little more than dead weight.

a nervous flare of nausea struck. her pulse raced, as much from exhilaration — and an overwhelming crush of self-consciousness — as the exertion itself.

the fledgling gathered herself in a deep, mustering breath, staring down the stone beneath her. "as you can see," she began quietly, "my wings are weak; my landing needs work; and this tail" — (here, she craned her neck and swept the offending appendage around to affix it with a glare) — "is too long and not very efficient."

at last she lifted her eyes to eythan's, and standing anew at his side as she was, damask realized with a recalibrating blink that their tails were almost precisely alike.

"your advice?"

As far as first impressions went, this may be a close second for the worst - and that was Eythan's feeble shreds of optimism showing. He was unsure of what the first worst might be. It didn't get much thought put to it, since he preferred to not look back upon his terrible attitude; especially not with any sort of fondness. The sweetness of life now made him wonder a lot, though: why did I let myself be like that? If he had just broken the Vita chain of emotional unavailability, would 'ol Aza'zel still be -

Bright eyes blinked once, pupils dilating slightly as if diving back into the darkness of reality, stirred by a wary "Sure."

The kid could glide down and land relatively safely; a comfort in of itself. If she overcorrected or failed to steady herself mid-flight, at least she wouldn't be in a dangerous tussle with gravity and stone. Damask could, also, flutter with all the determination in the world. That movement was a hallmark of fledgling flight, later to be honed and made more precise. Climbing was good, even if the landing needed some work. He wouldn't have to, at least, start at the absolute bare basics. Damask had given some thought, at least, to flying and getting those basics in - even if they were a bit reminiscent of a hummingbird.

All in all: "that's all good! That's a good start, kiddo." Eythan crowed genuinely, bobbing his head once or twice. He swept his own tail about his talons, the fan of it somewhat subdued and flush with the rest. "Your wings'll get stronger as you practice and grow, Damask." (He's taking notes.) "Don't worry too much if they're weak right now. You'll get y'form down pat soon enough."

The gryphon's tail lifted up, feathers deliberately spreading out, flicking up to direct attention back to his eyes, "I don't think tails are as inefficient as y'think. They're good for helping you turn and stay steady once you pick up speed 'n air under your wings."

Anyways - more practical advice. Eythan rocked up to his feet, padding forwards and rolling his shoulders slightly. Wings going looser at his side, he peered over the edge of the outlook, and craned his neck back over a spotted shoulder. "Here, let's try something out, I'll show you," he chirped, flicking his tail as if to beckon Damask over to watch.

Even if she didn't come to his side, he'd move ahead, "I'm gonna go off this edge and let my wings out, and try to stay at the same height. You don't gotta flap a lot and or even that hard, just enough to keep steady until you get tired and need to land. Just get a feel for it and tip back a bit if you need to slow down and land." A bit like gliding, but sustained.

Eythan did just that, taking a few steps off of the stone, a half-hearted jump, and some deep beats of the wings. Once he was in the air proper, he simply stilled, broad wings catching wind beneath and keeping him aloft. The gryphon went a few yards out, and hovered - twisting in the air to call back to Damask, "see? Try that out. I'll catch you if I gotta." Whirlybirding down to the floor, Eythan watched, weight shifting from either foot again, to see how his impromptu exercise would go.

Well, he hoped.

@Damask

@Eythan !

"that's all good! that's a good start, kiddo ... your wings'll get stronger as you practice and grow, damask."

the fledgling licked her lips in embarrassment, but privately she glowed at his praise, and her features softened when he used her full name. i'm not the only one who's learning. eythan was rough around the edges, yes, and — there was also ... that, pressing and needling at the back of her mind; she was wrestling to keep it where it was. as he went on, her focus drifted back down to his tail, then shifted to her own. she emulated his movements, snapping her frond-feathers open and shut like a paper fan before (oh!) finding control. wide eyes and contracted pupils followed in rapt fascination as her tail slipped from one position to another. she took a fumbling stab at asymmetry, folding one side and spreading another — but that would take practice.

very curious how her tail and her mentor's were so similar, though. auré's and aza'zel's were a far cry from hers, and she'd seen from her father's illusory illustration of giggle that hers was nowhere near it. if it had skipped a generation, it'd been more than one.

but eythan was standing now, looking over the edge, and damask's attention snapped back in his direction. "here, let's try something out, i'll show you." nodding, she picked her way carefully to his side (though the proximity did bring an uneasy shuffle to her wings). as he began to speak, her eyes trained on his, ears trembling to catch and catalogue every precious word, but especially these: "you don't gotta flap a lot or even that hard." now that was a novel idea — and a wise one. her eyes clouded, then clarified. she had been flapping and fluttering in some farcical imitation of the lessers she hunted, but their wings were short and round as a fish's fins; hers were the broad, fingered sails of an accipiter, and she was meant to soar like the bird of prey she was.

damask observed his demonstration with all the absorption of a straight-A student, memorizing every tilt, curl, and beat of his wings. he's unsteady, she noted in the way that they quavered; but then, maybe age was taking its toll. "see? try that out. i'll catch ya if i gotta." her brows lowered over eyes flinty with resolve. you won't need to. she would make sure of it.

once he had settled down to earth, the fledge stepped to the very edge of the precipice and peered over, feathers ruffling at what she told herself was a sudden breeze. softly: "all right." her wings unfurled slowly, hesitantly into the wind; she gave them a shake, and the last remaining wisps of down fell away, swirling past what felt like miles to rest on the floor.

finally she exhaled, crouched down, and sprang into flight.

all of eternity opened below. against her instruction, her wings flurried into frantic strikes at the air underneath, beating too hard, too long — her legs dangled, one much lower than the other — her tail bobbed up and down in a failing effort to snatch at the wind — and her breath came in desperate, panting gasps. panicky chirrups of distress burst rapid-fire from her lips. i'm dying i'm dying i'm dying, oh NO — !! she felt her chest tiring; any moment she'd begin to fall, she was holding her breath now, waiting for stone and broken ribs and oblivion —

don't be afraid. let go now. trust.

her sails and tailfeathers spread strong and still at her sides, and she was floating, and her heart all but caught fire.

the atmosphere cradled her, held her level, guided her feet to tuck into place. you got it! you got it! she twisted her wingtips, angled the right just below the left, and just like that, she tilted and turned in a smooth, swooping arc. the floor had come a few feet closer, but all it took was two easy flaps to reclaim them. damask wanted nothing more than to fly higher, surmount every last inch of altitude, see all the caves' rooms and tunnels in three-dimensional space. and soon, you will.

she glanced at eythan, grounded far beneath her, and adjusted her course to a wide halo overhead. her call came down the leading edge of a wing, sliding his way: "how do i look?"

and for the first time in her life, a joyous hint of laughter colored her words.

Seems like I've given her a bit of a damn revelation, he thought amusedly as Damask's attention shifted, falling upon her tail. Eythan's smile grew yet bigger as she tried maneuvering it to and fro, feathers fanning in and out. Once or twice, they clumsily worked in asymmetry, like one attempting to move their pinkie without the ring finger. She'd get the hang of it eventually. All of it would get figured out in practice. You can't teach this kind of stuff with words, Eythan mused as he settled into place, wings fumbling and sore at his sides. Clearly unused.

The monochrome raptor resumed her position at the outlook's edge, wings outstretched once more. She felt for the flow of air, and into the air she went... like a hummingbird. Eythan took a few lilting steps forwards, calling sharply through the chirrups, "hey, hey - ! Remember!" and tensing to spring up and catch her.

Whether or not that fell upon deaf ears, Damask let herself be held by the wind, trusted it enough to carry her from under the wing. Her legs came up with natural ease and her silhouette against the ceiling came to be smooth, streamlined, perhaps even predatory. She cut through the air smooth as silk; Eythan swore he could see the air parting so fluidly to allow her passage. Her flight carried her into a vulture's circling and she called down... and let us say it'd been a long time since the gryphon celebrated so much.

His enthusiasm would be unrivaled as he danced in place, tail flicking at its tip and beak clicking with lighthearted, awe-struck chuckles. "Just like that, kiddo!" he crowed up to Damask, "you look like a professional! Lemme -" His wings flared out again despite the lingering soreness, taking a running start to climb to some ten feet below. Better to shout from here than thirty feet below.

Eythan didn't seem to care much about his slight unsteadiness in the air, opting to move counter to her circling and calling up, "do you wanna stay up here for a bit or are you ready to figure out a landing?"

@Damask

@Eythan !

never had damask imagined she could feel so powerful, so alive, as if she could eat up the cave from wall to wall and back with a single swipe of her wings. there was a giddy, nervous excitement in it that held her heartbeat high in her chest. quit feeling, start thinking, growled a voice in her head — and for once, the others were louder. the wind is singing, can't you hear it? you know what to do; listen, and follow. she found flight not in her body, but in the whirl of ether around it, bending and bowing at her command. with that kind of loyalty, her success was all but guaranteed.

far below, eythan exulted with a laughing dance from foot to foot. he doesn't do that very often, does he? an irresistible tug of pride played at her mouth. but then, neither do you.

"just like that, kiddo! you look like a professional!"

the fledgling's smile widened into a crooked grin, even went so far as to show a sliver of teeth. "thank you," she said, and was that a hint of something smug in your voice just now? given the distance, she'd likely spoken too softly for hearing, more to herself than her mentor; but her gratitude was plain and true, a rarity coming from her. another crowing call came up, loaded with intention. "lemme —" he got ready to join her, and damask's attention dropped entirely to study his takeoff: clever how he took that running start, built up momentum ... focus! in her distraction, she'd dipped somewhat in the air, and her smile fell away as she corrected the loss with a swift downstroke. pressure bubbled up in a buoy beneath her. oh. that was — sort of cool. another lapse; another rise. she porpoised through a circuit, experimenting with the strength in her breast and the skill in her sails.

"do you wanna stay up here for a bit or are you ready to figure out a landing?"

"soon!" she threw back. "but i'd like to go higher, first — farther, if i may." here, a knowing twinkle of mischief crept in as she eyed his wobbling wings. "i hope you're prepared to show me how."

There's some pearly whites! Eythan's mind chirped as he climbed, his own mouth quirking into a broader grin. His talons struck through the air a few times as he drew closer; some sort of half-hearted running motion, or maybe eagerness unable to be contained.

Bright eyes tracked the fledgling sleek aerial predator as she bobbed. The first dip - small and involuntary as it was - had him listing closer with barely a shift of the wing, positioning himself slightly under her small frame. Her wings swelled, feeling for the air, and carried her through another bounce... and another, and another. Eythan blinked, drifting away some few feet, giving Damask free reign of the skies; she was already swimming through it with all the ease of a fish. Any disastrous falls were bound to have already happened.

So, he was content to stay up as long as she wanted to, flying along in companionable silence after she threw back the proverbial bone.

"I hope you're prepared to show me how."

Was that - "Hey!" the gryphon cawed through a barely-stifled laugh, "was that a dig at me, kiddo?" As if on cue, one of his wings stiffened, cramping at the shoulder. His voice drifted up an octave as he bit through it, "it's been a hot second, a'ight?" Phrasing might've suggested offense, but he was all pained grins and relaxed as could be in the air. At last, he stretched that wing again, course-correcting where he'd veered slightly to the left without aid of the folks at starboard.

"Anyways," Eythan whistled through the remnants of his ache, "going higher's simple as flapping those wings a couple extra times." To demonstrate, he did just that, arcing smoothly up to be level with Damask - with a fair few feet of distance to keep their wires from getting crossed. "some caves'll make it hard to go too high, though. The air gets real thin, I think - y'can't really breathe up there." Higher vaulted ceilings, like the one in Fornax, would be difficult to climb to.

An idea popped into mind, and he twisted to look back at Damask, "hey, I've got an idea of where we can go - if your dad hasn't showed ya already." Brow-dots quirked up, one higher than the other, "lots of green and lights ringing a bell?"

@Damask