Nimble Progress and its Threats

Sensing a change in her demeanor, Beil glanced back and Nova noticed his side eye.

"Hey, sorry. I didn't mean to be so quiet for the whole flight."

"I just assumed you had a lot on your mind and left you alone so that you could think it through. There has not been much time to stop as of late."

"Well yeah, but you're the only one flying. We could have stopped for a break if you needed it." She felt bad, almost like she was one of two people on a road trip and she fell asleep the whole way or something, leaving the other person to do all the driving.

Beil looked forward. "Do not trouble yourself, I have flown much larger distances with considerably heavier cargo," he said, his tone light and a little playful.

All the guilt she had been feeling melted away with her aggravated amusement. "Did you just call me heavy?"

Beil chuckled and was quiet for a moment before realizing he could answer in a different way. Tipping forward, he went from a straight and steady flight to a twenty degree down angle decent in just a few seconds, provoking Nova to wrap her tail around his neck. She was practically floating off of his back at this point, with almost a foot between her coils and his back.

Choking or not, Beil kept going until they were just about to crash into the tree line before yanking back and almost stopping short. Nova plopped softly onto his back again and he began a slow and steady ascent before looking back to see her reaction.

What he had not expected was for there to be such a sparkle in her eyes.

"That was awesome," was all she got out before he burst into laughter.

"You were built for the skies, child," he managed when he caught his breath, "What I was going to say was 'if you were truly heavy you would have caused me to graze the trees with the downward force of your falling impact,' but that is now beyond the point."

"Why is that" she asked, still recovering from the high of free falling.

"Seeing as you hold no fear of hights or gravity, it would be wise to transform yourself while we are high enough to ensure your safety and practice flying before we reach our destination."

"You still haven't told me exactly where we're going, anyway, so sure. Take me up, like, really high. Wait, can you close your eyes until I'm a wyvern again? Is that safe?"

Choking back a smile, Beil simply nodded and angled himself sharper to rise up higher. He reached an altitude that made it slightly harder to breathe and held his position, carefully beating his wings so that he held as still as possible in the whirring winds.

"Are you ready, child?"

Nova nodded and he turned his head to look away from her. For her part, she focused on her circulating spirit energy before slipping into a meditative state, feeling it swim throughout her body. She was about to free its boundaries enough to turn human when something occurred to her. What if she could skip the middle woman?

Taking a deep breath, instead of easing the energy's reach like unspooling a ball of thread, Nova forced it to proceed like a tiny bomb, opening the floodgates.

Rapidly, and painfully, Nova grew in side and, instead of human limbs, Wyvern limbs immediately sprouted on her tail. It was like fire, just like the last time, but at least she was prepared for it. She could also tell, even though most of her senses were blocked by the pain, that it wasn't as intense as the time Beil rushed to his Nana for help.

With that thought she felt just a little irritation, remembering how he simply took it and rolled over, and her anger helped distract her from the intensity. In fact, it was over before she really thought it would be and she noticed that she was falling.

Looking up, Nova saw that Beil was diving, trying to match her falling speed. At least they were enough still that the world below looked like solid yellow with a blue string weaving through it. So there was a river?

Flipping over so that her wings were no longer underneath her, Nova unfurled them. It was a mistake. She felt her massive wings catch her weight easily enough, but not only did it yank hard on her shoulders and rip the membrane on the weaker edge close to her elbows, Beil was coming in hot and clipped her left side.

"Nova!"

Spinning out of control, Nova was still able to hear him perfectly clearly with the energy doing the talking, thank goodness, and she fought to right herself. It took a minute, but both she and he leveled out.

"I'm okay, just probably going to have a bruise. I forgot you were falling after me for a moment, my bad."

"You are bleeding."

"Oh," she said and turned her long neck so that she could see her wing. Yup, it was pretty bloody. Okay, well now what? "Should I shrink?"

"Absolutely not, we do not know where on your snake or human body that tear is placed. It could be a piece if skin or scales that are in a very risky spot."

"So, land?"

"That would be the best course. Are you in pain?"

"Not very much, I think it ripped cleanly enough that it scraped away the nerves," she said a little too calmly. Beil saw this and urged her down faster before the adrenaline wore off. When she was almost to the ground she started to swerve at a dangerous angle and her vision was starting to blur.

"I think I've lost too much blood, can you maybe grab my neck and guide me down?"

Wordlessly Beil did as she asked and they landed awkwardly in a large pond, the only clearing he could find on such short notice.

While the swim was almost the effortless with her sleek body and long tail to propel her forward, it took them a hot minute to drag her onto the shore.

"Hey Beil, I feel like I'm about to revert into a snake or human or something, my body is low on energy after all of that," she warned him and he jumped to his tallons and whipped around to stare at the forest.

"How soon?"

"Well not immediately, I was just giving you a heads up," she said with a laugh in her voice. Beil glanced back with a grin that quickly fell when he saw the damage. Crash landing into the water, though better than tree limbs, was like concrete from that height and speed and her wing injury had been torn wider.

Trying not to panic in order to keep her calm, Beil pretended to think of something good. "I think you need to meditate, it might just help you."

"Yeah, okay," she said rather sluggishly and Beil forced himself to stay still else he trot over and try to carry her again.

Unawares, Nova closed her currently slightly dull blue eyes and took a deep breath. Meditation was becoming easier and easier for her now and she simply slipped into herself like stepping through a doorway. Her energy was slippery at the moment, zipping from her core to the edges of her empty body darkness, tinging it with blue.

She studied it, watching how it moved like a living creature on the pursuit of its own goal, and following the thickest strand.

A gap where she could see light, not too big but it definitly wasn't unimportant, was filling with her energy like blood almost like it was trying to keep the light out.

Nova reached her subconscious hand out, Emilias hand... no, a combination of Emilias slightly tan skin and Novas slim fingers, and touched the edge of the gap.

Instantly she yelped at the pain and, angry that she managed to hurt herself, held on tighter until it stopped hurting where she touched.

A small patch of darkness was back, just where her hand had been, which was now burning with blue flame. It was very confusing how her hand was on fire, but didn't hurt. In fact, the flame sat gently on her skin like warm silk. Nova smiled at it like a familiar face.

"So you really have accepted me, huh."

Turning back to her wounded shell, Nova set herself to the task of repairs. She kept note of the minimal energy that she had left this time, making her core look like a glass sphere with only a third left, and moved quickly.

Beil watched as she broke into a cold sweat, yelped in pain, and for some reason smiled afterwards before she began making a variety of wincing and grunting sounds. He continued to watch in stunned silence as the tear in her wing membrane slowly but surly started to close itself at a pace much faster than natural healing. It was still slow compared to a healing spell, but it was still working beautifully.

Before long Nova opened her eyes, which looked completely clear now and shiny with life if not a little bit of a glow, and stretched her now perfectly healed wing.

"Much better, though I think I need to jump back into the pond to wash off the blood, one moment," she said and did at she said she would.

Walking easily back out on her tallons, clean and chipper, Nova noticed his face and frowned in concern. "You okay?"

"Yes, are you alright?"

"I'm much better, but you still hit me too, so?"

"I apologize."

"No, you idiot, I'm asking if the crash hurt you too?"

Beil sheepishly scratched his head where he'd made impact both times and nodded. "I shall be okay, this is nothing."

"If you say so," she said with obvious uncertainty, but he was an adult and he knew what he could take before it became a problem, or at least she hoped he did. "Still, do you want to stop for a minute? I can practice take-offs from the ground while you rest, you look like you need it."

Beil nodded and sat, curling his scaly tail around his feathers like a cat and resting his head on a tallon. "Go ahead, practice will always help."

Nova smiled, and without much hesitation, attempted several leaps off of a rock into the sky. As he watched her try and fail a few times, landing in the water like a kid during the summer months. His eyes never left her as he thought back to the food stall where that girl and her father had talked with him.

Yes they had said her next meal was free, he had been telling the truth, but that was not the only thing that was said. He warned Beil that, in the future, she had best not let just anyone know that she could not only sense the intensity of spirit energy in the food she was eating, but also that she could shift forms at all. Not just yet, anyway.

Speaking out loud with spirit energy was still considered advanced for her age as a kinsoul. If she went to school and turned into a human or a wyvern at the drop of a hat like she had earlier, with her inexperience at spell casting or the threats of this world that even he was unaware of, she could get into some serious trouble and there was noting he could really do about it.

Quite frankly, he was pretty damn weak. He'd known this for many years, and even though he was seven-hundred years older than her she had basically surpassed him by a third already, and her potential was still going strong.

But still, he held no envy for that power, in fact it only bothered him that she was increasing in strength of energy and will so rapidly because she was bound to leave him behind all the quicker. His loneliness was deep, and no matter how much he tried to make himself feel okay with his reality, it sometimes snuck up on him at times like this.

Surprised from his reverie when a wave of air swooshed over his head, Beil looked up at a now successfully flying Nova and smirked sadly, or he would have had he had lips instead of a beak.

"I think I've got it, what do you think?"

"Rudimentary, but you have begun the basics of flight, yes," he said and stood up. His head wasn't pounding anymore so it was time to travel. "You can turn back into a snake now, we're close to the city I'm bringing you to and I'm not sure how they would react to a Wyvern all of the sudden."

"Why is that? Do Wyverns have a bad rap," she asked but hid in a bush and compressed her energy all the same, turning back into her snake body.

"A little, it is more because they are a rare and beautiful species, and highly sought-after, but yes there have been incidents of Wyverns, Drakes, and Dragons wreaking a little too much havoc in larger cities in the past. It would be better to lie low."

"Okay, " she agreed innocently and Beil swallowed the lump of anxiety in his throat as he motioned for her to climb up onto his back once more.