Broken Wings

Saying Goodbye

"So, how does it feel? Is it weirding you out like when I sat above your shoulders?" I asked, forcefully tugging on the double-braided paracord rope to be sure Anea could feel it beneath her scales. The dragon rolled her neck side to side like a horse, and I could feel her breaths getting heavier from where I perched on her back.

"Well, I don't like it, but it isn't as bad as I feared. It's pretty different to you gripping the back of my neck, but it still kind of feels like you're trying to choke me. I think I can live with it though, especially if it helps you hold on back there. It will be a rather long flight tomorrow even without landing for you to rest. I'll put up with almost anything that gets us back here faster." I nodded, then took a deep breath to steel myself for what came next.

"Ok then. Are you ready for a test flight?" I asked. I felt her wings shrug.

"I'm always ready to fly. Are you sure these vines will hold you?"

"Ropes," I corrected. "Not vines. And yes, they'll hold. At least at first." Anea cast a skeptical glance back at me. "And I can hold on without them if I have to. Come on, how many times have we been over this?"

"Apparently one less than I need to be happy," she rumbled. "Ok, fine. If we're both ready..." She trailed off as she hesitantly unfurled her wings, leaving me ample time to voice any last second doubts. I had plenty of those, but none concerned our safety. I only had moderate confidence my idea would work exactly as I hoped. That was the whole point of a test flight. So, I just stayed quiet and took the extra time to adjust my left leg, unraveling then rehooking it a bit more securely through the second rope loop tied around Anea's torso behind her forelegs.

Anea didn't like that. She paused with her wings fully open and half raised to squint her distaste back at me for the umpteenth time that afternoon. I remained hunched over her shoulders in the takeoff position I'd decided on. After a few long seconds of meeting my determined gaze, she heaved a final sigh of resignation. Then she shook herself, looked skyward, and crouched low to the ground. The next second, she exploded up underneath me and sent us rocketing into the air!

Just like the last time I rode on the dragon's back, intense g-forces and wind conspired to wrench me off my perch and send me plummeting to my death from the second we took off. My focus was wholly devoted to the crucial task of holding on, but I was grateful to find my ropes made that much easier. My grip on the one around Anea's neck kept me from sliding backward while the one looped around my legs and her torso kept me centered on her back. The ropes also kept me from floating away during each stomach flipping upstroke of her massive wings. After the first dozen or so power flaps to quickly gain altitude, Anea's flight smoothed out as she transitioned into her preferred soaring style of flight with occasional shallow sweeps of her wings to keep up speed. After several seconds of level flight, I felt safe to relax my clenched muscles a bit and look around.

"Woah," I said, my heart beginning to thump with excitement instead of alarm. We were already at least a hundred feet above the treetops and still climbing fast. She must have found an updraft to ride. "See?" I asked, quite happy with how the flight had gone so far. "That takeoff was way easier than last time we did this. All we really need is something for me to hold on to."

"Alright. I'll admit it," she said, sparing me a quick glance over her shoulder. "This is going a lot better than I feared. And for once, I'm happy to be wrong." Anea dipped her left wing to roll us into a gentle bank, and my feet twitched for the rudder pedals I'd normally use to coordinate such a maneuver. Obviously, nothing happened, emphasizing to me that I was just a passenger. Not a pilot. Anea continued her slow turn for a full three hundred sixty degrees and beyond, and I realized she was spiraling to stay in the rising column of air. How does she know where the edge is? With nothing better to do, I relaxed even more and leaned up, craning my neck left and right to take in the god's-eye view of the valley gradually sinking below.