Flight School: Hunter

Ball Box

A/N: Hi Stars! I'm so sorry for the late update. If you've been following me on Instagram, you'd noticed that my hand is in kind of a bad state and typing makes it painful :') Still in the process of recovery, but! Well, trying my best. Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Also, remember how monochromacolor made laptop stickers for Falrir & Sylvain, Jiro & Slayne? She made new ones for  Io & Luka in the same art style and they are absolutely beautiful. So if you want to get a collection of those, you can support her by heading over to her Instagram account (the same name in bold and italics above)! ^^ 

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It seemed as though chaos had reached its peak when the thunder of voices rumbled and shook the hall, dulling as soon as he closed the door behind him and turned to see nothing more than an anxious old man, stepping up onto the rails of the balcony's balustrade. Inside, the screech of orders and instructions to remain seated, muted by closed doors, could still be heard. More than anything else, Io could make out each and every thought, picked up in a whirlwind in which he stood in the centre of.

"Come, get on my back," said the dragon in a voice he could barely hear. Feeble and hoarse, he could almost hear the age in the other's voice; such a person was telling him to get on his back.

"But, but sir," Io was politely honest. "Won't it break?"

"Could carry Syl for a mile," he chuckled, dropping his walking stick into a bush down below. "Hurry up, tiny moon. We don't have time to waste."

Carefully and as quickly as he could, Io stepped onto the balustrade before gingerly climbing onto Falrir's back, hoping that he hadn't gained several pounds from the jar of trifle and late-night-snacking with Luka on sunflower seeds. Thankfully, he didn't hear a crack.

But by the time he was beginning to wonder how getting on the dragon's back was going to get them to the east wing on time in perhaps the fastest way possible, they were falling forward into open air at a height that was enough to make Io highly uncomfortable with falling. In an attempt to hide his surprise, the boy had intended to keep his lips sealed but this somehow translated into biting his tongue—leaving him with a pained expression and the taste of blood in his mouth. All before the fight had begun.

To think that injuring himself was enough to distract Io from the speed and magnificence in which Falrir's shifting encompassed, he must have been in unfathomably high levels of pain. The tug of gravity on the creature in his cage was the start of them pulling out of a dive, leading smoothly into a steady climb where the trees below shrunk in size and blades of grass were no longer singular but a whole, massive land.

The world didn't look quite like itself on the back of a dragon. His point of vantage wasn't quite as illuminated as it was on the back of the moon; a path of flight that resembled a magnificent cruise sailing cutting through the open seas, very much unlike the sort of transcendent gliding he was familiar with. Luna's scales were often masked by the ethereal glow melded together with a trail of stardust hovering around her like tiny stars, chill to the touch and, depending on her mood, soft and malleable at times. Falrir's on the other hand, were mostly uncomfortable to sit on. His back, ribbed with an armour of crimson shade, hardened by heat and flames and coated with layers of nature's most impenetrable elements—bulletproof.

Io fidgeted in his seated position, doing his best to find an angle that minimized the number of scales jutting into the sides of his legs and, well, whichever part of one's body they used to sit on something. This attention of his had to be shared with Lyra, who, unlike Victoria, was not capable of keeping up with the terrifying speeds of a dragon and resorted to curling up in Io's palm that he held over his heart; his other hand holding on to a scale for dear life.