“Oh, come on! Can’t I go one full day without drawing any attention?” Vaeludar swept Marina off her feet. His wings spread out as wide as he could stretch them and was going to jump over the cliff.
Marina looked happy by what Vaeludar just did; he was carrying her like a real princess. “This is something else I wanted to do with you: go flying with you,” said Marina.
“Hang on then,” warned Vaeludar. He found Marina placing her arms around his neck tightly; strong enough to choke him to death. However, his neck muscles were strong enough to resist Marina’s tight grip and still breathe through a tight air pocket in his throat. Then he proceeded to jump over the platform and dived like falcon.
This fall made it feel his brains were going to his feet. His eye sockets were tearing up. His wings could barely maneuver. His joints stiffened with a great amount of nerves reacting. He was going down in style before he would move his wings for him to fly again.
He crunched his spine by pulling back both his scapulae as back and tight as he can. This made his wings loosen and able to move. His wings maneuvered at a ninety degree angle, making him go from a flying object to a full, flying flyer.
Marina was captured by surprised. “My, my. I thought you were going to kill us both,” she said.
“Hey, if I killed us both, the Three Gods would have turned me away from you. And you and I wouldn’t go into the Realm of the Gods like the beings with the greatest purity and—”
“Oh, shut up,” said Marina rudely in a soft, human tone and kissed him.
They both shared a romantic kiss while a flying Vaeludar wasn’t looking where he was flying. Vaeludar was now the surprised one to be a surprising move again the other; the tables were turned on him when she suddenly kissed him.
Marina softly removed herself from him. “There is the kiss I wanted to give before we were promptly interrupted by an ancient king.”
“Earlier, I was the first to confess my love for you and now you’re doing the same thing to me,” said Vaeludar. He flew some distance from the city to rejoin the dragons flying ahead of them. It was a joyful flight for the two lovers.
“It seems we have a pair of turtledoves in our presence,” called out the Dragon King’s voice.
Vaeludar drew to a halt, still floating in the sky with his wings flapping softly.
From a short distance between Vaeludar, the Dragon King, his guards, and the Griffin were flying towards them. The Dragons, which were carrying Flavius, Wonomi, Monico, and Galvin, stopped yards away from Vaeludar.
“I never knew you would be able to fly at this height,” said the Dragon King. “I thought humans would have a great fear of heights.
“I’m half-half. My dragon half wasn’t afraid, but my human half is afraid of this great height I’m flying at. What else is there besides being a hybrid?”
“A pair of odd married couple,” answered Flavius.
Vaeludar gave a glare at his foster brother. “Marina and I aren’t married yet, so don’t go there. And I haven’t proposed to her. We are ‘lovers in the sky.’ We don’t need any comments of what or who we are. So can we continue to what we were doing before we lose daylight?”
The Dragons and Vaeludar flew quickly to the mountain region they saw before they eyes. The speed they were flying at was an incredible speed it was taking them minutes to travel in the air instead of walking for weeks by the ground.
“You’re going have to go quickly,” said the Dragon King. “You may not be able to make it back alive.”
The hybrid sighed and soared ahead of the flying dragon. “Come on,” said Vaeludar. “We’re still losing daylight. I don’t want to be flying in the night. It’s hard to see when you don’t know where you are heading under a cold, night sky with hardly any light. Moonlight may help, but where we’re going there will be no light.”
The Dragons followed after the hybrid flying ahead of them, when it was them who were supposed to be leading the hybrid. Behind the big Dragons, the Griffin floated within some distance, not wanting to get involved with any talk of the big beasts or the hybrid, who the Griffin knew nothing about.
SETTLING DOWN
V
aeludar, the Griffin, and the Dragons landed on a mountain somewhere in the rockiest parts of the mountain border. For a half-day, the Dragons had flown from the castle and into the mountain region. For long hours, the Dragons slowed their speed, fearing the magic barrier would topple their flying and make them crash into the ground.
After slowing their speed, they landed in a spot they thought would be soft enough to land. Vaeludar followed behind the Dragons and Flarefur came following behind Vaeludar.
The sun was setting in the west. Clouds, violet as lavender plants, covered the night sky. A handful of plants were green but green as envy. The sky was black as evil. The moons were red as blood. This place was not an ordinary place to at all.
Vaeludar placed Marina on her feet and grabbed the sword from his wrapped tail and gripped it tight by the scabbard with his left hand. Flavius, Wonomi, Monico, and Galvin dismounted from the dragons. Flarefur landed on a high rock.
Vaeludar gazed at an endless view of mountain ranges. There were canyons that curved downwards and back up. It looked impossible to cross the mountain ranges on foot.
“This is as far as we dare go,” said the Dragon King. “We Dragons cannot venture far away from the borders. We already feel our flying abilities going out of reach. More importantly, Vaeludar,
