Defying Gravity
#8 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Three children climb to the top of a skyscraper with the intention of jumping from the roof.
This story is independent and can be read alone. Terminology note: A drake is a male dragon, a drakka is a female dragon, and drakken is the collective term for the species. The human equivalents would be man, woman, and humans. Drak is a gender neutral honorific, the combined equivalent to sir or ma'am.
"I'm bored," Jarzyl complained. The young dragon slapped her forepaw down on the school work she was supposed to be working on. "Homework is so boring. I'm wasting my life sitting here!" she grumbled. Her scales were orange all over with a smattering of white spots on her side, but the tip of her tail was stained black with ink as she'd been using its prehensile end to write scientific formulas. Surely there was more to life than that. Jarzyl flipped open her wings and nudged her two friends and schoolmates, who were also sitting in her bedroom and studying.
Caden glanced up from her own homework. "You're always bored, aren't you?"
"I am! Let's fix that!" Jarzyl said.
Atlas, the third and final hatchling in the room, didn't look up from his studying. Whereas Jarzyl had amber orange scales and Caden had dull green scales, Atlas had scales of a deep, elegant black. He was also a cripple--he had three legs instead of the usual four, but Jarzyl had never learned precisely what had happened to her friend's left foreleg. "The faster we finish our work, the faster we can do something else," he suggested.
Jarzyl impatiently flicked her wings open and close. After class had ended in the afternoon, the three of them had done nothing but study, and that was horrible. She had already completed most of her science assignment, but the very last question had stumped her for the last thirty minutes. Forget it. She scribbled down a few formulas that seemed vaguely relevant and decided to settle for that. "Ok, I think I'm done. Are you done?"
"I'm done," said Caden.
Atlas shook his head. "I'm not done."
"How are you not done? You're the smartest of us three." Jarzyl reached over and picked up Atlas's sheet. Contrary to her friend's statement, it looked like he had finished the assignment, even including the last question which had baffled her. Jarzyl briefly considered copying his answer, but that seemed like to too much effort. She returned Atlas's assignment sheet. "You are done! You've finished everything."
"I've finished all the questions, but I still need to double check my answers and tidy up the working. And even if I was done with the assignment, we should probably study for tomorrow's quiz--"
"No, that's boring too. Let's go do something interesting..." Jarzyl decided. Standing up, she tossed her science assignment aside and onto the pile of schoolwork that was messily filling her table, and then she trotted over to her bedroom door. Just before leaving, Jarzyl grabbed a kerchief off the floor and tied it around her neck--her cloth bandana was dyed to the exact same colour as her scales, and proudly emblazoned with her clan's insignia. "Come on! Let's go do something more fun."
Jarzyl stuck her head into the living room, where her mother was sitting at the table and completing paperwork of her own. "Hey, we're going to go out and do stuff!" chirped the hatchling.
"Have you finished your homework?" asked her mother.
"Uh, yes!" Jarzyl insisted. At the very least, she had finished the homework that was due tomorrow, and everything else could wait. "We did our homework."
"Good. Where are you three going?" asked Mother.
"Uh, hang on a second." Jarzyl pulled her head back round the corner and glanced to her friends. "Where are we going?" she asked them.
In response, Atlas shrugged his wings indifferently. "I don't know. You were the one who wanted to go out and do things, while I wanted to study for the quiz. We could go to the library and study there?"
Jarzyl flicked her neck frill in annoyance. "Urrhg. Why do you always want to keep studying? You're already top of the class! All you're doing is making things harder for everyone else."
"I am not top of the class," Atlas replied. "Pyxis is top of the class. She scores perfect marks for everything--hundred out of hundred for last week's science test."
"So then you're second! How many marks did you get? Ninety-nine?" Caden asked.
"I'm not second. That's Intarial--she got ninety-nine. I only got ninety-seven," Atlas said
"_Only_ninety-seven? Whereas Caden and I were happy that we even got above seventy. I feel like we're being mocked," Jarzyl muttered.
"We're definitely being mocked," Caden agreed.
"Whatever. Any other ideas on places to go?" Jarzyl said.
"We could go to the pools and take a swim?" Caden suggested.
Jarzyl shook her head. "Atlas doesn't swim."
"What? Why not?" Caden turned to the black-scaled hatching and asked him directly. "Why not?"
Atlas looked uncomfortable at the sudden scrutiny. His tail flicked from side to side. "I just have an issue with swimming. I don't like it. Drowning isn't fun, and my scales take a long time to dry properly."
"You won't drown. And besides, it doesn't matter if your scales stay a bit wet--it's not like we need to fly or anything," Caden said.
Though Caden hadn't intended it, this last remark put a new idea into Jarzyl's head. The three of them were all hatchlings, but they would soon be fledglings who could use their wings to fly. Jarzyl had been eagerly looking forward to being able to use her wings for their intended purpose, and now she wanted to do exactly that. Young dragons were supposed to wait for flight school and proper training, but how hard could flying be? It was just flapping her wings, and she could do that easily enough.
"Oh, I know. I've got an idea. A really great idea." Jarzyl stuck her head around the corner and spoke to her mother. "We're going to go down to the marketplace and just look around over there! Is that alright?"
"Just the marketplace? So you'll stay in the central district?" asked her mother.
Crime was rare in Avaeria, especially in the heavily developed central district, so Jarzyl knew that her mother would be more likely to let her go roaming around the city if she agreed to stay only in that area. "I'll stay in the central district," Jarzyl promised.
"When will you be back?"
"We'll be back before dinner."
"And you'll stick with your friends? And not get into trouble?"
Jarzyl glanced back at her two friends. "Yeah, I'll stick with them!" She didn't make any promises for the second question.
Her mother nodded, finally signally her assent. "Alright, go ahead then. But you'd better be back by dinner! If you're not here by sundown I shall start to worry, and I don't like that."
"Ok! Thanks! We'll be back early." Jarzyl trotted to the front door, followed by Atlas and Caden.
"So why are we going to the marketplace? Do you need to buy something?" Caden asked, as they walked towards the marketplace. Jarzyl's home was located right on the border of the central district, at the edge of a commercial and a residential zone, which meant her house was a conveniently short distance away from useful places like a market square and their school.
"Not really. I've got better ideas than that," Jarzyl said. "Just follow me! Trust me, it'll be great."
"Whenever you say that we always get in trouble," Caden replied.
"Not always. Just most of the time," Jarzyl agreed.
The three hatchlings took about half an hour to reach the marketplace, walking slightly slower so that Atlas could keep up even with his three-legged gait. Because it was the middle of the afternoon, the bazaar wasn't crowded when they arrived, but Jarzyl ignored the stores and kept walking. She led her friends through the market, then past it, until they were in the commercial office area which was at the centre of the whole city. Here everyone walked or flew with a busy, impatient manner as if they were in a great rush to be somewhere, and almost every dragon was wearing official clan pennants or kerchiefs as identification.
"So where are we going?" Atlas asked.
"Up!" replied Jarzyl. "The roof of my clan's headquarters is pretty high. Let's go there. I want to go climb somewhere high."
"What? Why?" exclaimed Caden.
"Because it's there! I want to go perch right at the very top and look down over everything. Then I'll open my wings and feel the wind gusting over them." Jarzyl threw open her wings as she walked, already imagining how it would feel like to be on top of the city.
"Why do you want to do that?" asked Caden, but Atlas could sympathize with Jarzyl.
"I get it," said the black-scaled hatchling. "It's just nice to perch, watching everything below and seeing things from up high."
"Yeah!" Jarzyl flapped her wings hard and jumped upwards, but she couldn't fight the inevitable pull of gravity yet. "We're going to go to clan headquarters, climb to the roof top, and then I'm going to jump off!" she declared.
"What? Why?" exclaimed Caden and Atlas together.
"Because I'm going to fly, obviously! I'm going to be a fledgling!"
Atlas shook his head. "But what if you aren't big or strong enough to fly? I don't know if I'm ready..."
"I'm ready, I'm rea-dy!" Jarzyl insisted. "I can feel it in my scales. I have to fly!"
"But flight school starts next month. We should wait for the teachers to tell us how to fly," Atlas insisted.
"Nah. I don't need someone telling me how to fly! We're dragons! It's just instinct. How hard can it be?"
Atlas did not share Jarzyl's optimism. "Very hard? Otherwise why would they need school and classes to teach us flying?"
"I'm sure that's just for the advanced stuff like loops or, uh, flying in a storm. All I want to do is a glide or something simple." Jarzyl pranced from paw to paw, making her neck frill bounce up and down. "I think this is going to be great!"
"I think this is a bad idea," said Caden.
Atlas nodded. "I also think this is a bad idea. What if you fall?"
"Yes, but what if I fly?" Jarzyl retorted.
"But what if you...fall?" Atlas said, repeating his question more slowly.
"Yes, but what if I...fly?" Jarzyl said, imitating Atlas's sceptical tone. "You have to fall to fly. It's like that song: Sometimes I get so high; falling is the only way to fly! Gravity pulls on me; this is the only way to be free!" she sang.
"You know that song is not actually about flying, right? It doesn't mean 'high' in that way," Atlas told her.
Jarzyl cocked her head, but remained undeterred. "Oh really? What's it supposed to mean, then? Anyway it doesn't matter. Let's go!"
"We're definitely going to get in trouble," Caden decided.
With all the confidence a hatchling could muster, Jarzyl walked into the main lobby of her clan's headquarters, followed by her two friends. Adult drakken were strolling in and out of the building, heading to various parts of the office tower via a series of elevators blocked behind security gates. A few drakken seemed surprised to see three hatchlings stroll into the office tower, but no one stopped to question them.
"Uh, this is an adult place where they do their adult things like taxes and paperwork. I get the feeling we shouldn't be here," Caden murmured.
Jarzyl sat back on her haunches and pointed towards a large sign which covered one wall behind the receptionist's table. "Do you see that sign over there? Do you see what it says?"
Caden let out a prolonged sigh which made her sound distinctly adolescent. "Huuh... It says Mintaka."
Jarzyl raised her neck frill proudly. She gestured to the bandana she was wearing around her neck, pointing at the logo woven into the fabric. "Yep! And what clan am I from? That's right--Mintaka! Oh yeah. Best clan in Avaeria."
"Just because this is your clan's headquarters doesn't mean we're allowed to be here," Caden retorted.
"Of course it does! Mintaka is an inclusive clan which welcomes dragons of all social backgrounds and magical affinities. That's what my grandfather said," Jarzyl cheerfully declared.
"I think he was referring to your clan's recruitment process, not literally inviting anyone to enter clan headquarters."
"No, I prefer my interpretation of it. And I come here all the time! Follow me." Jarzyl walked over towards a café at the side of the lobby that was selling beverages and snacks. "Just pretend that we're getting food or something. Act natural..." Glanced around, she made sure no one was watching before she darted from the café and towards the lift lobby. Jarzyl dropped to her belly and rolled under the closest security gate. "Come on!"
"Why are we bypassing security if you are allowed to be here?" Atlas asked, as he crawled under the security gate behind her.
Caden crouched down on her belly to carefully squeeze under the gate. "That is an excellent question."
"Oh, that's just because the gates are coded to be unlocked by recognizing your specific type of magic. It's no big deal," Jarzyl explained. Only adult dragons had magic (not hatchlings or fledglings) and this was the excuse her father had given when she'd asked how come he got to open the security gates while she had to ride on his shoulder, last time he'd taken her to see where he worked.
Jarzyl reared up on her hindlegs and bumped the elevator call button with her nose, and then she strolled over to the stairwell and pushed open the door. She waved her friends over. They all hid behind the partially shut door and peaked out through the crack where it met the door frame. "Ok here's the plan. When the elevator comes, we wait for anyone to get out and leave, and then we sprint over and go inside," Jarzyl told them.
"If you're allowed to be here, why are we acting all sneaky?" Atlas asked.
"That is also an excellent question," Caden said.
"Uh..." Jarzyl took a moment to consider this new line of inquiry. "Ok. When I say I'm allowed to be here, it's more like...we probably won't get in too much trouble if they find us, but they will probably kick us out. And my mother will ask why I went to clan headquarters, and if I explain it to her she definitely won't be happy, so let's just keep it a secret. It's easier this way."
"Hmf. I think you are definitely getting us into trouble again," Atlas decided, but he didn't sound too unhappy or reluctant about being dragged on an adventure.
"I think we should have just gone to the swimming pools," Caden said.
The elevator arrived. After waiting for a few seconds to check that the coast was clear, the three hatchlings ran into the elevator car, and Jarzyl reared up on her hindlegs and jumped so she could reach the highest button.
"So in summary, the Sector Forty-Nine project is running slightly behind schedule, but we anticipate being able to catch up in phase three as per improved projections regarding the propulsion system integration. Furthermore, budget predictions are looking very good."
The drakka used her tail to tap the light field projector's controls, trying to change the displayed image, but then something out the window in the distance briefly caught her attention. "Our liaison with Taslin clan has... uh... indicated that Taslin has finally started... begun to accelerate production... construction..." The wingleader tried to turn back to her presentation, but then she did a double take and stared out the window again. "I'm sorry to side-track, but I think there's something on the shield spire over there. Is that a...?"
Several of the other wingleaders also turned to stare through the large glass windows at the side of the meeting room. Their pupils distorted and become magnified as natural telescopic lenses slid into place within their eyes to enhance their vision, and there were murmurs of surprise as several of the dragons realized what they were looking at.
"Can't possibly be..."
"I think it is!"
"What? What are we looking at?"
"The spire--at the top! On top of tower one!"
"Don't just stand around. Someone contact security!"
"What's that up there?"
"Who's that up there, you mean."
"Just another thrill-seeker?"
"Would be a very _small_thrill-seeker."
On the top of the neighbouring skyscraper was a tall metal spire which contained emitter equipment for Avaeria's storm shields. And near the base of that spire was a tiny blot of orange colour, clinging onto the rooftop. From a greater distance it might have been mistaken for a flag or even a splash of paint, but the assembled wingleaders were close enough to see otherwise. "North, look at that!" rumbled one of the senior wingleaders, her tail twitching from side to side in surprise.
North Mintaka, prime wingleader of Mintaka clan and one of the most important drakken in the city, also turned to see what the distraction was. He didn't even need to activate his farsight--once he saw the orange colour he immediately recognized what he was looking at. After more than a century and a half of life, with almost a third of that spent leading one of the largest clans in Avaeria, there were very few things which could surprise him--or so he had thought. Now his eyes went wide.
"If my eyes do not deceive me..." he said slowly, and in a voice so quiet no one else could hear, "...that...is my granddaughter."
The wind at the top of the tower was much stronger than Jarzyl had anticipated, but not anywhere near strong enough to dissuade her from her adventure. She was now standing at the edge of the rooftop with her tail wrapped around one of the spire's supporting spars so that she could balance and look out over the edge. Gusts of wind were battering her side, but the view alone was worth it--she could see over everything! Towering skyscrapers filled the city centre like jagged metal teeth, and numerous dragons were flying from point to point, so small that they sometimes resembled nothing more than specks of colour flitting from one building to another.
Most buildings in the City of Wings had been designed with draconic flight capability in mind, and therefore had open rooftops for dragons to come and go from--but the particular office tower was one of the rare exceptions because it housed a large emitter spire for the city's storm shields, and therefore the only access to the rooftop was via a maintenance hatch. This also meant that despite its height, there would be no one else up here who might question why the hatchlings were there.
Jarzyl glanced behind and beckoned at Atlas, who was also standing on the rooftop. "Come and see this!!" she yelled. The rushing wind almost drowned out her voice even though she was shouting as loud as she could. "You have to feel the breeze! This is what it feels like to be alive!"
Atlas shook his head and pointed his tail towards the access hatch from which they'd climbed out from. "Ok, you've seen the view! Now can we go back inside?!" he yelled in reply. Atlas had been willing to follow Jarzyl out onto the rooftop, although he remained closer to the central shield spire where the winds weren't quite as strong.
Unlike him, Caden had taken things one step further and refused to even step out onto the rooftop. Atlas glanced back into the access hatch, then he turned back to Jarzyl. "Caden agrees! She says it isn't safe, and we should all go back inside!"
This remark made Jarzyl bark with laughter. "Bahahaha! Safe? I don't want to be safe! Safety is for those who resist adventure! Tell Caden that dragons shouldn't be scared of heights! Then come closer--you can see much more from the edge!"
"I think we shouldn't be here!" Atlas repeated.
"But we're already here! At least come see the view!"
Atlas looked conflicted, but after a few seconds he slowly crept towards the edge of the office tower's roof where Jarzyl was standing. He kept his wings partially unfurled, but in a reverse configuration that gave downforce to push him down onto the floor and let his claws grip better.
Jarzyl tried to raise her neck frill, but the wind just blew it forward and over her eyes, so she flicked it back down. "What are you doing with your wings? Oh, that's gives you grip, right? Let me try--ahh!" Jarzyl tried to unfurl her wings and imitate Atlas's posture, but the rushing wind flipped her onto her side before she could react.
"Jarzyl!!" Atlas dashed forwards and hurriedly grabbed onto Jarzyl's tail with his jaws, anchoring her down so she wasn't blown off the roof.
"Woooo hooooo! This is amazing!" Jarzyl rolled back to her feet. Her bandana came loose from her neck and the rushing winds immediately snatched it away, but she didn't really care about this minor loss. She was on top of the world! "I'm totally going to jump--like a backflip, or something cool. Watch me fly!"
"Don't jump! Don't jump! Mmf! Noooo!" Atlas tightened his bite on her tail, which made his voice sound muffled. "No! Of all the bad ideas you've had, this is quite possibly the very worst! Just calm down and think about things for a moment! This is, uh, hey! Look... look at that..." The three-legged hatchling used the tip of his own tail to gesture off the edge of the roof.
Jarzyl wasn't sure what her friend was pointing at. "What?!"
"Look! Coming from that other tower!"
Jarzyl turned to look, and now she saw what Atlas was talking about. A pair of dragons had just leapt off from the neighbouring office tower (which was also run by her clan) and into the air. "Yeah! I'll fly just like them! What use are wings if we never use them?"
Atlas shook his head and tugged on Jarzyl's tail, which he was still holding in his jaws. "No, I mean look! They're coming right for us!" The two dragons were clearly flying in their direction, meaning that they were approaching the rooftop of this office tower.
"Huh. You're right. Maybe the shield spire needs some maintenance? Or...uh..." Jarzyl's voice trailed off as she realized the most likely answer. "Oh no. They're coming for us. Let's get out of here before we get in trouble--it's time to go!"
"Yes! Yes please!" Atlas tried to pull Jarzyl's tail and drag her back from the edge, but she resisted this motion.
"You know, the shortest way out of here is just to jump and fly away..."
"No! I'm not jumping! And Caden definitely isn't either! Come on, let's go!"
The adult dragons had almost arrived--Jarzyl guessed they had no more than ten seconds before they reached the rooftop. "Alright, fine... We'll take the elevator. Let's go!" The two hatchlings turned around and quickly scampered back through the access hatch they'd come from. Atlas was the first to re-enter the office tower; then Jarzyl entered and used her tail to pull the hatch shut behind her as she dropped down.
The upper level of Mintaka Tower One was actually a high-class restaurant, but at this time there was no one inside. As the two hatchlings dropped back inside the deserted corridor which ran just behind the restaurant, Caden was waiting for them. "Jarzyl, you are absolutely insane--" Caden began to say, only to be cut off.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You can lecture me later," Jarzyl muttered, waving a paw dismissively. "We don't have time for that right now. We've got grownups coming."
Caden unfurled her wings and wrapped them around herself defensively. "Oh by my scales... We're in big trouble, aren't we?"
Jarzyl just laughed. "Haha, not if I've got anything to say about it. Let us be...away!"
As they were riding the elevator down, Atlas nervously speculated that there would be people waiting for them on the ground level. "Maybe we should get out at the second level and take the stairs for that last level," he suggested.
Caden shook her head. "What's the point? If we're getting into trouble, we're getting into trouble. They'd probably be covering the stairwell entrance too. This whole thing was a bad idea from the start, and we'll all be grounded for this. I'll be lucky if my parents don't beat me."
"Why are you two always so pessimistic? We're not getting in trouble. Everything will be fine," Jarzyl assured them. And sure enough, when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor there was no one else at the lift lobby. "See? We're fine. Now let's get out of here."
The three hatchlings slipped under the security gates and left the main lobby, then they left the Mintaka office building. Atlas visibly breathed a sigh of relief when they had made it around a street corner. Things were almost anticlimactic.
"What now?" Caden asked. "Back to the marketplace? Or the swimming pools? Or somewhere else?"
"Somewhere else," Jarzyl decided. "Let's go to the park near my house. I've got another idea--not as exciting as climbing up a skyscraper, but still pretty good."
Atlas didn't say anything, but he made a noise that was a mix of an exasperated sigh and a groan. "Rrragghh..."
"Come on, just admit we're having fun! It the three of us on an adventure together!" Bumping her shoulder against Atlas's, Jarzyl grinned happily.
About half an hour later, Caden was sitting down in a grassy field that was part of the park just beside Jarzyl's home. "Atlas?" asked Caden.
Atlas was sitting beside Caden, and the two hatchlings were both in the shade of a large tree. "Yes, Caden?"
"Do you think we're enablers?"
"What?"
"Do you think we're enabling Jarzyl? I feel like we should be stepping in to intervene in her self-destructive behaviour."
"Jarzyl's not self-destructive..."
"Are you kidding me? She's obviously is, and we're encouraging it by following along." Caden nodded towards the tree they were sitting under. "How else would you describe this behaviour if not suicidal?"
Atlas glanced up towards the tree's canopy, squinting his eyes. "Crazy, but not suicidal."
"What's the difference?"
"There's a huge difference. I don't think Jarzyl wants to die, I think she just wants to do things where she might die, so she feels all the more alive."
Jarzyl halted her climb and glanced down from her position halfway up the tree. "Hey, I can hear you two!"
"Oh?! That's strange because you don't really seem to be listening!" Caden retorted. "We are not catching you if you fall. Come down from there right away, you idiot."
"I don't need you to catch me! It's just a tree, not even a skyscraper!" Jarzyl plucked a leaf from a branch and tried to drop it on Caden, but it caught the breeze and missed. "We've climbed plenty of trees before and you never complained. Are you coming or not?"
Caden lay down on all fours and flicked open her wings so she could start grooming them with her tongue. "No, I'm not. It's one thing to climb up a tree for fun, it's another thing to climb up a tree so you can jump from the top. This is childish."
"I'll go. Maybe I can persuade her not to jump." Atlas got to his feet and started slowly climbing up the tree, using his tail and moving more carefully to overcome the fact that he only had one foreleg instead of two. He extended his claws so he could dig into the bark and get a better grip.
"This is what I mean by enabling," Caden grumbled, but Jarzyl grinned and leapt down a few branches to help her friend. She lowered her tail down, and Atlas grabbed it in his jaws so she could help him up.
"Mm. Thanks." Atlas pulled himself onto the tree branch beside her. "I'm just here to tell you this is a horrible idea, though."
"You say that now, but wait till I'm flying. I'll be a fledgling! Not a hatchling anymore." Jarzyl lead the way as they continued climbing up the tree. This was a tree which she had climbed many times before over the years of her childhood, many times also with Atlas or Caden by her side.
Atlas followed after her. "You're not really going to jump, right?"
"Sure I am! It's not even that high." Jarzyl pulled herself up to another higher branch. By now they were about three-quarters of the way to the top of the tree. "I want to fly--no, I have to fly. I have to feel the wind under my wings. It just... just a feeling of..."
Atlas finished her sentence for her. "Freedom. I get what you mean. I want to fly every bit as much as you do--possibly, maybe even more than you could understand."
Jarzyl stopped mid-reach for another branch. "So you do know what it's like to want to fly." She turned around and stared at Atlas, as the dark-scaled fledgling pulled himself onto the branch where she was standing on.
Atlas nodded his head. "Of course I do. I'm a dragon, same as you are, and it's not like I don't want to be a fledgling. I've had dreams where I was high up over everything, just flying wherever I want, where I could spread my wings and be free. Those are the best dreams. But those are just dreams, not real life. In real life I...I see you running around and jumping and having fun and playing, but I can't do that. I'm not..." Atlas didn't finish his sentence, but Jarzyl glanced towards her friend's left shoulder where he was missing a limb.
"That's not true! I play with you. We have fun," Jarzyl insisted, but Atlas only shrugged.
"I know that. We're friends, but I just can't...I can't climb as well as you can, and I can't run as fast as you can. I can't run at all--all I can do is limp around. But I do have these." Atlas flipped his wings open and extended his flight scales. "And if my wings are good, then I could fly, and in the air I would just be...like any other dragon. A normal person, not a cripple."
Jarzyl suddenly had the intense desire to hug her friend. She would have done it too, except that they were both standing on a tree branch and that made things a little difficult. "You're not a cripple!"
Atlas laughed quietly. "Hah. Of course I am. It's the truth and I've learned to live with it. My point is that I want to fly every bit as much as you do, but I still think it's a bad idea to jump out of a tree. Don't do it. If you get injured it is...not fun at all. You should play it safe. We'll be in flight school next month and you can fly then."
A wave of guilt washed over Jarzyl. "Is that how you lost your foreleg? From...from a bad fall?"
Atlas shook his head. "Not from a fall."
"Then...how?" Jarzyl asked. They were close enough friends that she knew Atlas wouldn't be offended from her curiosity. It was far from the first time she was asking about how he'd ended up a cripple, but he had never given her an answer. Today was to be no different.
"I don't want to talk about that right now. But just...don't jump, please. Let's climb down and join Caden."
Jarzyl felt her neck fill drooping flat against her neck. "You always make life boring, you know that? But alright..." The orange-scaled hatchling slowly inched along the tree branch, moving radially away from the tree trunk. "At least we got to see the view!"
"I bet this view will be nothing at all once we can fly," Atlas replied.
"You're probably right." Jarzyl kept taking small steps until she was perched right on the edge of the tree branch, so that she could stick her head past the leaves. Now her vision wasn't obscured by anything and she could see across the rest of the park. "I can see my house from here, and the clan headquarters. The sky's gone all orange; it's really pretty."
"It's the same colour as your scales," Atlas noted, which made Jarzyl grin.
"Thanks. Caden's missing out on this--"
Suddenly a loud sound interrupted her musing. "Crack!"
"What was that noise?" Jarzyl asked, but Atlas figured it out before she did. It was a simple thing, related to what they'd been writing in their science assignment--leverage.
"Come back!" he exclaimed. "You're too far and the branch can't--"
"CRACK!" Before he could complete his sentence, the tree branch snapped and both hatchlings tumbled from the tree.
Jarzyl almost managed to grab onto another branch, but her claws pulled the bark loose and she found herself falling through the air. Without even thinking about it she threw her wings open to instinctively right herself, and for one brief but glorious second the air rushed under her wings and she was gliding.
But then the air seemed to stop and she fell. She flapped her wings as hard as she could, but this only seemed to slow her descent by a tiny fraction. The grassy ground was approaching very fast and she couldn't control her fall as she spun without control.
Then Jarzyl hit the ground hard, landing on her right hindleg instead of on all fours. Pain exploded from the limb. It was pure, white-hot agony; her face was scrunched up and her eyes closed tight, and the entire world vanished as suffering overwhelmed all her thoughts.
When the pain finally faded away, Jarzyl realized that a green-scaled hatchling was nudging her side repeatedly. "Jarzyl?! Jarzyl! Oh gods, wake up! Please wake up! Jarzyl!! Please!" Caden exclaimed, her voice a terrified squeak.
"Wake up? I'm not asleep," Jarzyl murmured. "What are you going on about?"
Caden appeared to be hyperventilating. "I thought... for a second you were... you weren't... you hit so hard and then you didn't move and I thought... I saw you guys but I didn't think... When that tree branch broke I... I..."
"Calm down. Just take deep breaths." Raising her head and glancing around, Jarzyl realized that Atlas was standing beside her and watching with an equally concerned look. "What are you looking at?" Jarzyl asked, squinting at her three-legged friend.
"You, obviously," Atlas replied. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Jarzyl tried to push herself to her feet, but a sharp burst of pain exploded from her right hindleg the moment she placed any weight on it. "Ow!! Ahh..."
Caden let out another horrified whimper as Jarzyl dropped back to the ground. "Jarzyl!"
"Ok, maybe I'm not so fine. I might have twisted something--my leg hurts a bit."
"Careful! Can you at least move your leg? If you can move it that means it isn't broken," Atlas suggested.
Jarzyl slowly pushed herself onto her side and tried to move her right hindleg. She couldn't move it. She could wiggle her toes, but the rest of her leg muscle felt incredibly weak and powerless.
"I'll go get your mother. She can fix this." Atlas turned to head towards Jarzyl's home, but she stopped him.
"What? No! Don't call my mother. Don't tell her."
"What?!" Caden exclaimed, looking far more traumatized then Jarzyl felt. "Isn't your mother a healer? You're injured!"
"No, don't tell her. Maybe this is just a...bruise or something. I'm sure it'll heal right up on its own." Jarzyl took a few deep breaths, then she frowned at Atlas. "How did you get down so fast? Did you fall too?"
"I fell, but I didn't land as hard."
Jarzyl groaned and dropped her head, resting against the grass. "So you didn't fall, you flew."
Caden nodded. "He flew better than you did! You dropped like a brick--a really dumb brick with bad decision-making skills and impulse control issues."
"Thanks... You're such a great friend, Caden," Jarzyl muttered.
"I am, aren't I?"
Jarzyl tried to raise her neck frill. "Yep. So if Atlas and I had both gotten injured when we fell from the tree, who would you have gone to help first?"
Caden was brutally honest in response. "Oh that's easy--Atlas, obviously. He was only trying to talk you down from your madness, while you were the idiot who decided to jump off a tree in the first place. Now look what you've done to yourself."
"I did talk her down. The branch just happened to break before we could climb down," Atlas explained.
"It's not my fault. It's this stupid tree." Jarzyl pushed herself to her feet, moving very, very slowly so that she didn't put any strain on her right hindleg.
Without saying anything, Atlas walked over so Jarzyl could place her wing on his back. "Thank you..." Jarzyl murmured. Caden went to her other side and did the same thing, and together her two friends helped her limp home.
"Are you sure you don't want to tell your mother?" Atlas asked, yet another time.
"No need. I'm sure I'll be fine." Jarzyl sat down one of the floor cushions around the dining table. Her hindleg produced another flash of sharp pain in complaint, but she managed to ignore it with only a grimace. Atlas and Caden sat down on either side of her.
An adult drake with scales of golden yellow--Jarzyl's father--walked into the room less than a minute later. "Ah, you kids are back, and just in time too. Dinner will be ready soon." He gestured to Jarzyl's friends. "You two are both eating here, I assume?"
Caden shook her head. "No, sorry. My parents are expecting me home for dinner. I have to leave soon."
"That's fine. We'll be glad to have you back some other time for dinner, and your parents are invited too. And just let me know when you need to go--I'll fly you back to your house so you don't have to walk. What about you, Atlas? Are you eating here?"
Atlas nodded his head. "Yes, if that's no trouble, drak."
"It's no trouble at all to cater to guests and friends--" Jarzyl's father began to say, smiling warmly, but he was interrupted by a ringing bell coming from another room. The telephone was ringing.
"Galon? Can you get that? I'm taking the pan out of the oven," came a voice from the kitchen--Jarzyl's mother.
"Yep. I got it!" Jarzyl father hurriedly trotted out of the room, leaving Jarzyl and her friends alone again. The telephone bell went silent a few seconds later.
"You have such nice parents." Caden nudged Jarzyl's side. "They're so friendly!"
"They are," Jarzyl agreed. She loved her parents.
Strange smells were emanating from the kitchen where her mother was working on dinner. Jarzyl's mother normally worked as a doctor in the medical centre while her father did the housework and handled some architectural design for their clan, but for today it seemed like her mother had decided to try cooking.
Barely a minute later, Jarzyl's father returned. He was no longer smiling, and his neck frill was drooped low around his neck. "Your grandfather just called."
Reflexively, Jarzyl put on her most wide-eyed, innocent look. "Oh?"
"Yes." Galon walked over and sat down at the table opposite from the three hatchlings. "Where did you three just come from?"
Atlas remained quiet, but Caden let out a quiet, nervous squeak. Jarzyl spoke up quickly. "We came from the park! We were just outside, watching the sunset."
"Is that so? And where were you before that?" Galon leaned forward and across the table. He glanced to all three of the hatchlings, but most of his attention was on his daughter. "Because I have just heard that this afternoon there was a minor security incident at clan headquarters. Apparently someone (supposedly young dragons) might have been trying to tamper with a storm shield spire. Do you happen to know anything about that?"
Jarzyl briefly considered trying to act as if she had no idea what her father was talking about, but she could tell that Caden's tail was frantically twitching from left to right. This was not the look of someone who had nothing to hide. "Uh... Well... Maybe..."
Her father let out a long, frustrated sigh. He didn't seem enraged--Jarzyl had never seen her father ever become outraged enough to yell or roar at her--but he was clearly unhappy. "What did you do?"
Reluctantly, Jarzyl had to reveal the truth. "It was my...idea. We miiight have been at clan headquarters earlier. But we were just trying to see the view from the roof! We weren't trying to tamper with the shields!"
Galon stood up and walked towards the kitchen. "Jarzyl we need to talk, away from your friends. Come here," he said quietly.
After a quick glance to both Atlas and Caden, Jarzyl tried to get up. Even though she moved slowly, her hindleg let out a sharp burst of pain at the motion--the sudden agony was enough to make her feel dizzy, and her posture and her facial expression made it obvious something was wrong.
Her father stopped and his expression switched from anger to concern. "Are you alright? What's wrong?"
"I'm fine...!" Jarzyl tried to say, but her voice came out choked and Atlas shook his head.
"You should tell him," Atlas said.
"Tell me what?" Galon asked, turning to look at the black-scaled hatchling.
Right at that moment, Jarzyl's mother entered the room, trotting on all fours and using her snout to push a serving cart laden with dishes of food. She was a drakka with scales of a deep azure colour, in contrast to her mate's yellow or Jarzyl's orange. "Food's here! Sorry for the wait, but I'm a bit out of practice. Very out of practice, actually. I hope I didn't keep you all waiting too--" And then she stopped midsentence and halted, her head turning to stare directly at Jarzyl. "What have you done?"
"I..."
"What have you done?!" The serving cart and food were pushed aside and forgotten as her mother rushed towards Jarzyl. She placed a paw on her daughter's shoulder and sparks of light seemed to flash and dance across from the point of contact as she summoned her healing affinity. "Jarzyl, Jarzyl, Jarzyl, my dearest, precious daughter, what have you done?"
Jarzyl let out a soft gasp of relief as the pain faded away, blocked by her mother's magic. "Oh. I...uh... umm..." Suddenly her father was there as well, standing on her other side.
Jarzyl's mother had worked for decades in the medical centre, as a doctor and later also as the head of a ward. Being in management, not to mention her own upbringing, had given her much time to master the art of how to glare. So when she glared at Atlas and Caden, it didn't take much for the hatchlings to crack. "What happened? Tell me!" she ordered.
"Jarzyl-was-climbing-a-tree-and-I-said-it-was-a-bad-idea-so-Atlas-went-to-talk-her-out-of-it-but-a-branch-broke-and-she-fell-and-I-was-so-scared-because-she-didn't-move-but-then-when-she-moved-her-leg-wasn't-working-properly-and-Atlas-said-that when-you-can't-move-your-leg-it-means-its-broken-and-I-said-Jarzyl-should-tell-you-but-she-said-it-might-just-be-a-bruise!" Caden exclaimed, all in a single hurried breath.
"Transverse fracture. I can heal it, but we'll need to bring you to the medical centre so I can get the crystallography scans done. Why didn't you come find me right away?! You shouldn't have been walking on a fractured leg!" exclaimed Jarzyl's mother.
"I didn't...I didn't want you to worry. I didn't think it was so bad..." Jarzyl said.
Her father leaned closer and spoke in a softer voice. "You have to tell us these things. We are your parents. No matter what happens, no matter what you do, and no matter what anyone else says--you have to trust us. We will always care for you and love you. You know that, right?"
Jarzyl nodded meekly. "I know. I just... I...didn't think that it was so bad... I know."
"Good. We will discuss what happened at the office tower later," said her father.
Then her mother picked her up by the scruff, and Jarzyl felt all her muscles instinctively go limp from the sensation at the back of her neck. "Eep!" she chirped, but there was nothing she could do as she was carried like a tiny hatchling only a day old. Her broken hindleg was dangling in the air, but her mother's magic kept it still and prevented it from hurting. "I don't remember getting in so much trouble when I was a child," muttered her mother, her voice muffled as she carried Jarzyl.
Right before Jarzyl was carried out of the room, she heard her father speak to her friends. "I'm terribly sorry about this, but I don't think we'll be having dinner with you tonight. You two can take some of the food back, but you'll need to find your own way home--we're taking Jarzyl to the medical centre."
Jarzyl tried to glance back. She managed to see Caden nod at her, and Atlas raised his wing to wave goodbye to her. "I'll see you in class tomorrow, Jarz. Hopefully."
"Good evening, welcome to the Pinnacle. How many seats can I get for you?" asked the waiter.
North Mintaka made a quick, polite nod to the waiter. "Three."
"Right this way, drak." The waiter was impeccably polite and courteous, as was expected for service staff who worked in the Pinnacle--the restaurant located at the top floor of Mintaka Tower One. He took them to a table near the windows, and the three drakken sat down on their floor cushions. After taking their orders for drinks, the waiter politely bowed his head and trotted away.
The restaurant's windows were made from a solid pane of glass which ran from floor to ceiling, entirely enclosing the restaurant. North stared out the window for a moment, taking in the sight of the entire city, and then he turned to his dinner companions--Mintaka's overall chief of security, and the facilities manager for their headquarters. "So tell me more about this incident."
The facilities manager nervously let her tail wrap around her paws. She was a young drakka who had only just recently been promoted to this position--North could remember interviewing her just a few months ago. "Ahem. This afternoon, building security was alerted that there was reportedly a...young dragon on the roof of Tower One, for unknown purposes. We redirected a patrol to investigate, but we were unable to locate any intruders."
North was hardly surprised. If there had been good news, the staff wouldn't have been hesitant to report it. "Cameras?"
The chief of security spoke up. "I had my team check on the security camera footage. It was a blind spot--we can't identify who this hatchling was, or even if it was a hatchling at all. Could just have been a very small adult dragon, coupled with some trick of perspective." The drake picked up his glass and took a sip. "Mm. This is good stuff."
North didn't take a drink from his own glass. "A blind spot? There's a shield spire up there! That's mission-critical tech and we weren't monitoring it?"
"We were, but the cameras are either focused on the spire itself, or they're placed on the rooftop edge and looking outwards. There's a small region on the rooftop where we weren't recording and that just so happens to be the place where this..._intruder_was." The chief of security shook his head. "Honestly speaking, shield spires are very hard to damage--they can absorb the full blast from a lightning strike, after all. We get thrillseekers coming to this rooftop all the time, and usually we just let them be. That rooftop is the highest point in Avaeria. It's got this nice scenic view, and young couples especially seem to find it romantic. That's why we never bothered to plug the camera gap--we can see who flies towards the tower, and we can see if they try to mess with our spire, but we don't need to see what else they do on this rooftop. Let them have their fun, I say."
North turned to the facilities manager. "Have you ever been up there?"
The drakka's neck crest twitched. "Uh, yes. For... for orientation purposes. All strictly professional, of course."
"Of course. Then let's go take a look." North got to his feet and left the table. He headed into the back corridor of the restaurant, trailed by the two other drakken from his clan. The restaurant staff seemed surprised to see the prime wingleader of their clan wandering through the kitchen, but they recognized the facilities manager and let them all through.
When North finally pulled himself through the access hatch and onto the rooftop, the sky was darkening and it was almost sunset. The security chief stepped out onto the rooftop beside him, and the facilities manager stuck her head through the hatch to observe. "Careful drak, the winds are strong," she said.
"I'm not that old yet," North muttered.
"Hah!" The security chief let out a bark of laughter, but North let it pass. They were old friends--both past middle age, but not quite aged enough to be considered elderly. Or so he liked to think.
"Well, you were right. This is a nice view," North said. Although if he were to be completely honest, he had already been aware of this information. This rooftop had been the highest point in the City of Wings for a long time now, and dragons loved high places.
Even at a hundred and fifty years old, North could still remember the one time he'd brought a special friend up to this very rooftop just to impress her. That had been more than a hundred years ago, but that single night of irresponsible indulgence had become a self-perpetuating problem. After all, North could hardly have stopped his friend when she'd decided to keep their egg, and then he could hardly have stopped his daughter when she'd decided that she was going to be just as headstrong and stubborn as her parents both were, and now who knew what sort of nonsense his granddaughter was getting up to.
Strolling over towards the shield spire itself, North spotted a fluttering piece of cloth that had become caught in the metal base structure. Reaching down, he plucked it free--it was a bandana with the Mintaka logo, and the fabric was a very familiar shade of orange. If not for that tiny piece of cloth, he might just have been able to forget what he'd seen and persuade himself it had been some _other_hatchling who was too smart, too curious, and too adventurous for her own good, but no such luck.
Jarzyl Mintaka. I always thought that the other clans would be the death of me, but perhaps I underestimated my own blood.
The bandana was sized for a hatchling, and it would have been too small to go around his neck. North contemplated simply opening his paw and letting the wind blow it away, but instead he tied the piece of cloth around his left wingtip, letting it trail like a pennant. The facilities manager looked slightly confused that her clan's prime wingleader had tied what looked like a rag onto his wing, but the security chief grinned--he probably recognized the colour.
Furling his wings up, North beckoned the two other dragons back inside the access hatch, where food and beverage was waiting for them. "I've seen enough. Let's go back in--I need a drink."
END