City Sector Uplift part 8
#60 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Two dragon fledglings sitting in a tree, F, A, L, L, I, N, G
So I've been busy! I went on vacation (alps are nice for skiing this time of year), then SoFurry died and came back to life, then things at work got really hectic with some major projects coming due. Anyway, here's the next chapter of Jarzyl's story. Expect there only to be 1 or 2 more chapters after this.
At some point, Atlas put his head down to nap. He didn't doze off for very long or even very deeply, but there had been a fair share of exertion and stress this morning from the airship ride and their exploration of the new city sector.
When the sooty-coloured fledgling next blinked his eyes open, however, he noticed that the park had far fewer dragons in it. Atlas glanced at Jarzyl--she was on the tree branch right beside him, with her wing still resting loosely on his back, but she was fast asleep.
Atlas peered down from the tree canopy they were high up in, looking around the park to see where everyone had gone. He saw that the crowd was now gathering close to the two airships and forming lines to board them again. Then his gaze was drawn upwards by activity in the skies--sector forty-nine's shield flickered repeatedly as lighting struck it at different points, and numerous airships were now hovering all around the edge of the sector, waiting for the sector to fly.
Atlas glanced back at Jarzyl and decided to wake her up. He reached out his forelimb to shake her shoulder, but he stopped just before touching her. Was it his imagination, or did she look... different? Her amber-coloured scales seemed oddly vibrant, almost like they were faintly glowing.
Atlas checked his eyes, but he wasn't wearing his dark goggles. Perhaps this was some sort of optical illusion, caused by the bluish-greenish illumination from sector forty-nine's shield grid as it filtered down through the tree's many leaves, which was making it look like Jarzyl was had a subtle glow.
Then again, they were both about the age where dragon fledglings got their magic, and Jarzyl had previously been adamant that she'd had a magical surge or two before. Just brief glimpses of power--a yawn that tasted of smoky firebreath, or the brief sensation of a healing touch. Could it be magic?
Or maybe it was just a trick of the light. Atlas shifted his furled wings, nudging Jarzyl's wing which was still resting on his back. "Jarzyl," he said firmly. "Jarz, wake up."
"Mbbnnnarhh??!" With an incoherent grunt Jarzyl jolted awake, and her legs and wings all flailed. This had the unfortunate effect of pushing Atlas and shoving him off his tree branch right beside her.
Atlas's claws slid against the bark, but he was too far off balance and he fell. He could possibly have barely held on if he'd grabbed Jarzyl, but that would have risked them both falling, so instead he fell alone. Throwing open his wings as fast as he could, Atlas immediately caught the air and turned a vertical plummet into a controlled dive. He touched down gently on the grass, landing at the base of the tree beside its massive trunk.
Jarzyl landed beside him a few seconds later, with a flutter of her wings. "Sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do that!" she exclaimed, looking sheepish.
"Hah." Atlas let out a chuckle. "Yeah, I'd hope that wasn't deliberate."
"Of course not! I was just... startled! I wouldn't... I'm so glad you're fine and--"
"Shh." Atlas cut her off with a hush and a sharp gesture of his paw. "Hold perfectly still." He stepped towards Jarzyl. She looked confused, with her neck frill half perked up, and her frill perked up all the way fully when he leaned close to peer at her face, then her neck, and her wings. But her scales looked normal again, without any faint glow.
Jarzyl was wide eyed and flustered. "Atlas?"
"Hmm. So earlier before you knocked me out of the tree, while you were still sleeping, I thought your scales looked a little strange. Almost like you had a very faint, barely noticeably glow." Atlas stepped back and shrugged his wings. "I don't know. Maybe it was a little magic. Or maybe I imagined it."
"I..." Jarzyl still looked a little groggy from her nap. "Hahh, hhmmm."
"It's not important anyway." Atlas gestured down the hill. Shorts queues of dragons had formed at the passenger airship that were landed in the park, all of them waiting to climb up the boarding ramps. "Look, all the visitors are getting back on the airships. The tour of sector forty-nine is over."
Jarzyl yawned, then she blinked and glanced around. The two fledglings were no longer in the tree canopy, but they were still at the top of the hill and had a vantage point to look around the park. "Yeah."
"What time is it? Surely they must be starting the sector uplift soon, so that's why the visitor tours are all ending. We should go with them. Ride the airships back up to the city," Atlas decided.
"Mmhh. Yeah. I'm good... I'm good for today. My quota for adventure has been met. We can leave now." But then Jarzyl's attention turned towards a different part of the park. "Yet there are still people in the park. See, on the other side of the pond? What are they doing over there?"
"Another group of tourists?" Atlas guessed. "We can do a quick flyby to see." Slowly spreading his wings, he took a few steps down the hill, then opened his wings fully and glided the rest of the way down. Jarzyl followed after him. Flying close to the ground at low speed, side by side, they approached that other group of dragons.
As they flew, Atlas noticed that there were also other dragons flying into the park and coming in for landings around that new group. Glowing stripes marked their wings, making them easily visible even in the dimness of the stormy skies. "Hmm. Jarz, I don't those are visitors come to tour the sector."
"How interesting! Who could they be then?" Jarzyl replied. Her curiosity had been piqued, and now she picked up some speed and pulled ahead.
Atlas looked to the side. One of the passenger airships had finished boarding and its ramp folded back up into the hull. "Brrooom!" There was a melodic rumble as the airship sounded its horn, then it lifted off the ground and started to climb away into the skies. The other airship was almost ready to leave as well, with only a short queue of tourists left to board.
A few seconds later, Jarzyl and Atlas touched down on the grass, closer to the new group of dragons who were assembling at the other side of the park. Up close, Atlas could see the new group was clearly different--the tourists had been dressed up in formal attire with fancy adornments and accessories, but instead this group of dragons looked plain. There were some kerchiefs tied around necks showing off clan insignias, particularly for Clan Mintaka and Clan Taslin, but certainly no jewellery or long trailing wing pennants.
Glowing painted stripes were marked on the top and bottom of their wings, but this didn't look like a fashion statement--it looked practical, to make them more easily visible in the dark skies. Then Atlas spotted the most obvious clue--half the dragons were also wearing radio sets attached to their harnesses, with antenna wires strapped to their tails. "Ah. Definitely not tourists. I think they're technical workers helping with the sector lift."
"Uhh," Jarzyl said awkwardly, and she came to an abrupt halt.
There were several dozen technicians already assembled in the park, forming a loose crowd in several groups. Food and drink packets were placed on several tables, and these items were being distributed to the all the technicians. More groups were arriving from the air, landing and adding more groups to the crowd.
Jarzyl and Atlas were now stopped at the edge of the loose crowd, standing noticeably apart. But one of the drakka who seemed to be in charge noticed them and beckoned. "Come on. Hurry up! Everyone hurry up and collect your meal. Hurry up, people."
Jarzyl nervously nudged Atlas's side. "What should we do?" she hissed.
"We do not belong here," Atlas noted. "These are technicians. Looks like they are getting some breakfast."
"Yeeeah," Jarzyl agreed. "What should we do? Should we just run away back to the tour airship then?"
"Why run away if we haven't done anything wrong?" Atlas countered.
"Cause I don't think we're supposed to be here..."
Atlas laughed. "Aha. Since when do you like listening to rules? You were the one who was happy to ride on top of an airship all the way down here. You wanted adventure, yes?"
"That is true. But that was because I was bored sitting up in the viewing gallery. I am no longer bored, and I am now adequately satisfied with the amount of adventure we've had."
"Fine." Atlas nodded. "Let's go ride that tourist airship back out of here."
They turned to go, but as they were doing so, Atlas noticed something. Out of the dozens of technicians, there were a few who didn't appear to be adult drakken. There were some who looked noticeably smaller and lankier in body form compared to the others--they were either fledglings, or at least young adult drakken who couldn't have been more than a year or two older than fledglings. "Hey, Jarz, is it just me or... do some of these people look like they might be fledglings? Almost like our age?"
"I don't know. I don't want to interfere with professionals doing their job..." Jarzyl said nervously.
Atlas kept looking around, and then he spotted someone he recognized. "Oh. I think I see someone..." Strolling forward, he went towards one of the groups and approached an individual who appeared distinctly familiar--a female with dark grey scales. "Chale?"
The drakka turned around, and she looked surprised to see Atlas. "Atlas? Why, hi there." Whereas her back and the tops of her wings were dark grey, her chest and underbelly were a lighter grey. Her wings were coloured with stripes of that luminescent high-visibility paint, but she also had natural markings, with a band of pale colour running up her side where rows of scales were white instead of her majority grey. That white stripe continued up her neck and even ran diagonally across her face, giving her a bold appearance.
Yet neither natural or artificial colouration could fully distract from her most striking feature--one of her eyes was milky white and unseeing, whereas her other eye was dark and sharp as it focused on him. That blind eye was the reason Atlas knew her--they were both clanless fledglings living in the same sheltered home.
Chale was older than Atlas by around a year and a half, and hence she was slightly larger than him, almost at fully adult size. She was wearing a radio set just like many of the other technicians--strapped to her shoulder with the antenna wire clipped to her tail--but instead of proper communication traffic, there was loud, lively music playing from her radio.
Chale spun a knob on her radio to turn down the music, then she dipped her head in a quick bow towards Atlas--an easy gesture between friends. "Atlas, Atlas, Atlas. What a surprise to see your face here! I didn't know you were involved with all this too? You're part of the Taslin internship program?"
Atlas shook his head. "Nope."
"Then under Mintaka?"
"Not that either." Atlas grinned, and he nodded his head over in Jarzyl's direction. Jarzyl was standing beside and a little behind him, looking awkward. "This is Jarzyl. She's a friend from my school, and she had some tickets for the sector launch. Uh, Jarz, this is Chale."
Jarzyl bowed her head. "Hi..."
"Nice to meet you." Chale returned the bow, but she mostly kept her attention of Atlas. "Well, well. You came down with tour airships, getting a sneak preview of the sector? That's fun. Yeah, fun. And now that I think about it, you're one year younger than me, so your school won't send you for internships until next year."
Atlas nodded. "Exactly." But I see that your internship with the Taslin shipyards must be very interesting, if they're letting you be directly involved with the sector launch."
Chale eager nodded. "Yes! I thought they would have do things like... like organizing filing cabinets or constantly fetching drinks for the office--and yes, I do all that menial stuff--but they also get me involved with the real work. We're building airships, and they let me help." Sitting back on her haunches, Chale gestured at the radio set attached to her flight harness. "And now we're launching this sector that we built too. I really lucked out with landing this Taslin engineering internship. You know all those great big propulsion modules that are integrated into the bottom of this sector? My team built one of those."
"Wow," Atlas replied.
"The best. We're going to be spotters for the launch. We sit on the building tops all around the sector to monitor progress of the lift, looking out for structural issues, incoming floating boulders, or anything else that might affect the lift operation."
"Sounds like a good learning experience."
Chale grinned. "Atlas, Atlas, Atlas. Trust me. You should apply here when you're choosing an internship next year. Not every place would take someone like you or me, but Taslin didn't have any problem. I would highly recommend the Taslin Shipyards." With an exaggerated wink of her one working eye, Chale grinned at Atlas. "Also I know that MHI--uh, that's Mintaka Heavy Industrial--they have an internship program too. They call it something different, but it's the same idea. Although I have spoken with some of their interns, and they get paid less, so there's that. Hah. Definitely go with Taslin over Mintaka."
Atlas chuckled. "Noted, thanks for the tip. Well, you lot look busy, so I won't keep you from your work."
"We should catch up some time! We haven't had a long talk recently. Maybe when I've got more free time next week? I'll see you around, Atlas." Chale extended a wing and put it around Atlas's back, then she pulled him into a quick half-hug.
"Yeah, sure! Good luck with the sector lift, Chally," Atlas told her. "And one more thing..." He spoke a little softer, his words too quiet for Jarzyl to catch, but Chale laughed.
"Oh of course..." Leaning close, Chale murmured something back.
"Got it, thanks." Then with a bow of his head, Atlas turned and strolled away.
Jarzyl scampered beside him, sticking close to his side. Once they were a little further away from Chale's group of technicians, she muttered, "Atlas, Atlas, Atlas, pah!" in a dismissive imitation of Chale's voice.
Atlas glanced at her. "Hmm?"
Jarzyl threw a suspicious glance over her shoulder. "Who was that fledge? Is she... she another friend of yours?"
Atlas nodded. "She's from the sheltered home, same as me. Clanless because of her missing eye, obviously."
"You called her, Chally?"
Atlas shrugged. "Yeah, her name is Chale, or Chally for her friends. Her full name is Chalerelewalan, which is just painfully long on the tongue."
"She seemed awfully friendly with you."
"Chale is friendly with everyone. She's nice," Atlas said.
A low, displeased sound came from Jarzyl's throat, almost a growl, but maybe just a grunt. "Ngrrr..."
Raising an eye ridge, Atlas frowned at his friend. "What? Did you get a bad first impression? That's a little surprising. I'd have thought you would like her--Chale's got a deep interest in airships, just like you. Maybe come next year when we have to start looking for internships, she can help get you recommended into the industry?"
Now Jarzyl definitely growled. "Grrr, as if I'd need her help. And to work in Taslin Shipyards? No way."
"Are you jealous of her or something...?" Then recognition dawned, and it made Atlas laugh. "Haha, oh, I get it! It's because she told me to choose Taslin instead of Mintaka?"
Jarzyl squinted at him. "I'm not jealous! And you wouldn't really do it, would you?! Taslin Clan--really?"
Atlas laughed even harder. "Hahaha. Come on, Jarz! You know I'm clanless--I'll take any clan I can get. And if somehow by some miracle of accomplishment I could get into an apex clan, then I'm not stopping to be picky between Mintaka or Taslin."
"Yeah, sure. I... I know, yes, that any clan is better than being clanless. But Atlas Taslin? That just sounds wrong."
"I think it sounds great. Much better than Atlas no-clan, or Atlas Tyces-the-non-existent-clan," Atlas retorted. "Atlas Taslin. Not bad at all."
"Sure, Taslin is a powerful clan. But... but Mintaka is better."
"Of course you would think that. You've been a Mintaka dragon from even before you hatched from your egg, and all your family is from Mintaka."
Jarzyl's neck frill twitched, and she scowled as if facing some great internal conflict. "That... is... true."
Atlas smiled. "You've got way more friends from other clans! Would you really be so upset if I got an internship under a Taslin workplace, not even scholarship or full clan membership?"
Jarzyl unfolded her wings and wrapped them around herself, looking uncomfortable. "I guess not, when you put it that way. And it's not my place to tell you what you can or can't do. It wouldn't really change anything if... if you were from Taslin or Dirak or Hasilt, or any other smaller clan. We'd still be friends." She took a deep breath, then nodded at Atlas and smiled faintly. "Although, uh, you definitely should try for Mintaka though. It's a good clan."
"We'll see what the future holds." Atlas agreed.
Jarzyl sighed. "Yeah. That's just... eh. Hmm." She glanced away, then peered at Atlas with a side-eye. "What was... You two were whispering something at the end...?" she asked casually.
Atlas felt a flash of warm amusement. Jarzyl had always been naturally curious, and now she seemed a little jealous too. He could tell that if he chose not to tell her, she wouldn't push for an answer, but not knowing would bother her. "Hahaha. She told me, seven-eight-nine, four-six-two."
Jarzyl's curiosity was piqued. "Huh?"
With a grin, Atlas gestured at Jarzyl's shoulder. "I ask Chally how she was able to play music from her radio set, and she told me the wave code is seven-eight-nine, four-six-two." Atlas shrugged. "It seemed like something you might want to know. Play some music, dance along, enjoy a sector uplift. Seems like your sort of thing."
Now Jarzyl laughed. "Ah ha. You do know me..." She tuned her own radio, and suddenly there was quick, lively music coming through. The music was a little distorted, but that didn't deter Jarzyl as she bobbed her head and shifted her body to the beat.
The two fledglings continued walking along, Atlas moving with his asymmetric pace, and Jarzyl prancing along in time with the music. After a moment, Jarzyl added, "Also, I'm not jealous but, uh, your friend Chale? Those stripes look so bold, don't you think?"
Atlas nodded. "The point of the wings stripes is specifically to be eye-catching, obviously. With her wings all painted glowing, and that radio set strapped to her harness, she looked professional."
Jarzyl made an indifferent shrug of her shoulders. "She did. But I didn't mean the glowing stripes on her wings, I meant her natural white stripes over her grey scales--that's a nice colouration. I wish I had stripes."
Atlas grinned. "Those are eye-catching too. She is pretty."
Jarzyl had been mid step, but she stumbled and made a faint but overly dramatic noise, like she was choking. "Ghhahhkk..."
That made Atlas burst out in laughter again. "Hahaha. I thought you just said you weren't jealous?"
Jarzyl glanced away, furiously avoiding eye contact. "Meeehhh... I'm... not jealous. Definitely not. Although... ehh... No."
"Good. Also, for the record, uh..." Leaning close, Atlas bumped his snout against Jarzyl's neck, under her chin. "I think you're pretty too, if you care what I think."
Jarzyl still refused to meet his gaze, but he saw her smile.
TO BE CONTINUED