#╰ ･ FLYING POINT ✱ ∶ the cities below¸ like shimmering novas¸ tug at lonely lights like hers.

[venalier]

BIRD-LIKE WINGS.

wingbeats lift with a clatter of hooves and a puff of churning dust for the dozenth time this morning, but caeldori's gut seems to stay firmly rooted in the ground. belle's loud snort of impatience goes unacknowledged — he was the one who'd demanded her attention while she'd had something urgent to do, so he wasn't allowed to have complaints about the stopping and starting! "we'll have to widen our search," she tells him firmly — or maybe herself. "i can't imagine honomi went so far on his own, but i can't find him anywhere on these grounds. ogre toes, where could he've gone?"

bellerophon whinnies as if he had any idea what was causing his rider so much distress.

though if he were capable of voicing it, the sentiment would more likely be ' all this over some wood and strings? '

nevertheless, it was some wood and strings that caeldori was willing to turn every stone of garreg mach thrice over for — and in some places, already had. the greenhouse, the shady nook behind the pond, the lattices above the tea tables; she had returned to each of the automaton's favorite spots two or even three times, just in case she had missed the flicker of checker-spotted wings in passing.

he wasn't all that big. and he had the fear of being small and breakable instilled within him.

the thought of honomi going missing was unbearable — like a string snapping, sending a well-loved kite sailing away into the sky, an irretrievable piece of what it meant to be somebody somewhere gone forever. the flighted karakuri prototype was one of a kind, yes; it was just a toy all things considered, yes; but her panic was neither because or in spite of either of these things. the wooden bird was a memory: of a happy smile, a warm, shining presence backed by the sun; of long red hair and the whiff of camellias, and something to reach out and take hold of.

a long, curved beak; a black-speckled crest. just like — wait, just like that one!

"belle, there!" heart leaping to throat in a surge of hope, caeldori accelerates into a dive. arm outstretched to grab the flyaway bird, she doesn't realize the buffet of wings had unseated something else atop it entirely, knocking an unsuspecting rider into the wind.

   ♡   //   @hosannan

[venalier]

EVEN ODDER PARENTS.

it felt better and better to get away. each year, it seemed, the grounds of the academy closed in further. its walls loomed higher. each year, the strategies she had developed consciously or unconsciously to cope numbered greater, and their efficacy continued to dwindle. it became difficult to keep her mind focused during her morning runs and stretches; she caught it drifting away more and more during drills, classes, study halls, stable duties. work was no longer a comfortable respite, but a heated cage for her troubles, busy hands breeding an even busier mind circling the same paths with no resolution.

so far, she’s found breaking past garreg mach’s borders to be one of the few things that helped, however temporarily. though she suspected that it too would only be so sustainable a solution, for now she took solace wherever she could find it. no mission or errand was too menial — small monster nests, neighboring village repairs, running correspondences? if she could watch those sandy-grey fortifications peel away far beneath her to the drum of belle’s wings and imagine that her thoughts too could become such a miniscule speck shrouded in a panorama of budding greenery, she’d take it.

albeit even in stories, the castle in the sky crumbles eventually.

frowning, she scans the plateaus below and loosens the grip of her thighs as a signal to prepare for landing. “let’s take a break.” the pegasus snorts as though sensing that this isn’t exactly the reason why she wants to stop here, but eases the rhythm of his wingbeats nonetheless. as they descend through the cold mist of the post-dawn air, caeldori catches the movement of something small that’d blended in previously with its surroundings.

someone’s there?

a lone traveler, or a hunter checking his traps in the morning, are her first guesses, but both are dismissed as the colors and pale raiment of the church come more clearly into view. she lands with curiosity, dust swirling about her ankles as she dismounts.

her eyes widen. she’s seen that— face, before; that hair. “... you’re...” they hadn’t belonged to a storybook character? ( it’s harder and harder to be sure now, sometimes, after the recent events. reality is still like a summer storm: too loud and too quickly gone. ) then something moves in his hands, small and dark. “oh, what... is that?”

    ♡   //   @lualamina

[venalier]

continued from here.

triumph is all she knows at first, bursting in colors as rich as spring; triumph and relief. "oh honomi, there you are. wh—"

a pause at the sound of something shrill.

was that a whistle, or—?

"ah—!" a sharp sting cuts her hand, and as she lets go she sees the speckled brown shape plummeting again out of reach — no, diving, in a purposeful motion so familiar she recognizes the saving maneuver instantly. and then she watches him pull back quickly up in an elegant swoop, fine as a veteran kinshi, realigning his flight feathers to the direction of the winds with a swift barrel roll in place before coming to hover at a safe altitude. and only then, still stunned by the display of bold autonomy, does caeldori realize there's something on his back.

so stunned that she nearly dismounts out of habit straight into the middle of the air. bellerophon snorts loudly when she rights herself, and she gives him a smart dig in the belly with a heel for it. just descend already, it seems to say, but her cheeks flush nevertheless.

not something, but someone, it turns out — as if nothing about this moment could get any stranger: a person so small caeldori has to squint to make out her face as she draws level and close. but what she'd initially mistaken for a tangle of golden thread on honomi's back was a head of wind-tossed, flaxen hair, which preceded ivory skin, fair features, a full-proportioned body dressed — the capstone of all these oddities — in the officers academy's uniform and straddled across the karakuri's back like any disoriented rider who'd just been snatched out of the sky! with that, the thought that she might've be some tiny doll or puppet herself evaporates into the breeze, but only leaves more confusion in its wake.

all that comes to mind are inelegant and truncated sounds of bewilderment, so caeldori keeps her lips shut and pursed instead, wide eyes struggling to take in the truth of what they're seeing. even belle is quiet — a rarity for him, brute as he was who would more readily snap out and bite churlishly upon seeing another rider at his air height.

"i'm... sorry? that bird's, um, mine."

that doesn't seem at all appropriate for this situation, but it's the first intelligent thing her mind supplies her tongue. the sky knight shakes her head, the line of her brow furrowing too this time, as if to try and shake something else free of it. cow's teeth, do better than that, caeldori. "are you all right? er... are you a student here? why are you so— small...?"

　･ ✱ .　@hosannan

　　bird-like wings.