Wind streams across the plates of blue scales covering his body, whistling here and there where signs of his age have left nicks and nacks. Two slitted red eyes peer down the bridge of his snout, using the horn at the tip like an archer would the tip of their arrow, to line up his sights. Hundreds of feet a way, a young undescript female humanoid figure sprints towards a cliff edge. Once there, she leaps, and he smiles. The dance has begun, a dance with so many moves he knows well, but are rarely the same. His heart leaps with excitement, as he gives chase.

With a simple gesture of his wings, the world turns upside down, letting the sun beat off the bluish white, tough leather scales on his underside. His wings brace before his spine arches, and he zips over the cliff’s edge in chase. He performs a spiral, and levels out with the woman maybe three or for lengths in front of him. She was close, he could see the wrinkles in her taught blouse and leather jerkins as she plummets. With her arms and legs spread wide, she falls slower than he. The two plummet toward the earth below, and he passes under her.

Though familiar, and his heart full of anticipation, it is this moment that he fears the most. The world rushes up to meet them both, and he can’t look back. His body streamlines through the air, that any movement on his part will alter his course. Trust, is of great importance. The leather straps about his chest tighten, and he can feel the saddle on his back tug lightly. She’s there, she’s seated. “Gotcha!” the sound faintly reaches the holes hidden behind the fins aside his cheeks. Knowing she is in place, slants his wings and arches once more, pulling up with such force that he lets the air in his lungs out in a horrific roar. The two are off, skirting the tops of trees and a few outcroppings of rock. Black birds fill the sky behind him, like pepper dashed into the winds.

Fulfillment and joy fill his very being, for while flight in itself is an amazing gift, it is nothing compared to sharing it with another trusted soul. Higher he rises with her hunkered down in the saddle upon his back. So bonded are the two, that he can feel her every shift in the leathery seat as to monitor her well being, and she can persuade him to move one way or another with a simple lean. Neither feel chained to the other. One being in the sky, but two very free souls.

The clouds glow with the sun’s warm rays, and the two dance between the fluffy pillars, working together to draw a graceful path through this heavenly terrain. The two share the sounds of whipping wind and thundering wings together, for to him, what feels like an eternity. Any worries that haunt his mind, now forgotten entirely.

“Chioxin!” Her distressed cry startles him.

The two plummet from the skies. Wings flail and flap this way and that, but all laws of physics have escaped him. Panic snaps his head this way and that in a futile attempt to reorientate the horizon in a way he’ll understand, in a way he can pull out of this unwanted predicament. She flashes before him several times in his downward spin, and every time he reaches out, retracts and expands his wings in ways his body memory knows should work to alter his course, nothing happens. His efforts are fruitless. Helplessly he watches the events unfold, and the world below grows larger and more detailed, until...

He awakes.

His head shoots up from his resting spot, breath gushes in and out of his lungs, and his eyes and snout dart about the world around him to take in his surroundings. The colors are all a blur, but soon he can make out the brown trunks and branches from the green bubbles, who's details crispen into leaves. They shake and dance, and his ears register the sounds of a forest breeze passing through, followed by its gentle caress over his body laying there between the trees. Just then, he can feel his talons dug into the cool earth and the smell of cut grass fills his nostrils. Everything is ok.

His breath stops when his eyes glance over the once ornate saddle laid out at the base of a very large tree. In that moment, he is certain his own heart stops as well. His head grows heavy, and sinks toward the earth, his neck laying in the cradle of his fore limbs before he comes to rest. A single breath fills his body, before he lets it out in one giant sigh.

Another breeze carries through the forest, and he closes his eyes pressing out a small stream down his cheek. It’s been some time since sharing such a gift, and so few are worthy of such thing. Time moves on, as do those who are gifted. This is just another painful reminder that the gift is not always a blessing though. At times, it is a curse.