"We'll see if it's high enough," the dragon said at last.
Anxious to test her wings in flight, Khisanth stepped from the protection of the trees and into the sunlight that had chased the rain clouds away. How the nyphids could enjoy the sun's blinding light, she would never understand. Squint shy;ing, she lumbered past her lair and continued upward some distance on the shelf.
That should give me enough room for a running start, Khi shy;santh reasoned. She raised herself high and extended her wings, once, twice, as a test. Drawing in a deep breath to con shy;centrate, she tucked her wings tightly to her sides. Leading with her right foot, she took elongated strides, gaining great speed as she approached the precipice. The ground shook beneath her; rocks tumbled away. The clawed toes of her right foot met the edge first, as she had planned. Then Khi shy;santh pushed herself up with all her great strength, drawing her wings out and driving them first down, then up.
She plummeted like a rock.
For five heartbeats, she scrabbled and clawed and flapped to no avail. Then she met the moist ground and tumbled head over wings.
Breathing heavily, Khisanth let her face remain covered by her left wing as it had fallen. She could feel Joad at her side, silently examining her right wing. She didn't stop him, though she knew she wasn't hurt.
"Thou wast trying too hard."
Khisanth's head snapped up from under her wing. She glared at the nyphid, who was hovering above her left shoul shy;der blade, his own little wings fluttering effortlessly. "How can I try …. 'too hard' to learn to do something I don't know?"
"Thou dost not need to be taught to use thy wings-drag shy;ons fly naturally. Didst thou need to be taught to walk before the Sleep?"
In truth, Khisanth could not recall.
"Thou likely took stumbling steps at first. But thou assumed upon waking that thou couldst walk, and thou didst."
"Are you saying I should just assume I can fly, and I will?" Khisanth scoffed. Standing, she brushed damp pine needles from her chest and tail and affected a look of disinterest. Still, she waited for the nyphid's response.
"No." Kadagan shook his head as he alighted to the ground. "Though the skill is natural, the knowledge is not. Thou needs to practice, but effortlessly, like a leaf falls from a tree. Thou must stop caring about flying and just do it. After thou hast practiced, it will become second nature." Kadagan could see that she was trying to absorb his words, yet her nat shy;ural hostility had wrinkled her brow into a scowl.
"Stop thinking about being a dragon, and just be a dragon."
Khisanth's thick lips ruffled contemptuously. The nyphid's gall was limitless! "If there's anything I know more about than you," she stormed, "it's how to be a dragon!" With that, she spun her snout around and thundered off again toward the shelf above her lair.
The indignant dragon posed herself as before and pre shy;pared to sprint down the hill toward the ledge. But at the last second, she caught a glimpse of Kadagan, standing far below, arms crossed expectantly, face tilted up to catch the sun as he watched her. Whether from spite, or some emotion far more powerful, Khisanth abruptly conjured a brief mental picture of herself flying above the earth. She stopped think shy;ing of every step she would take, of leading with her right foot so she could push off with the same. She commanded herself to move, to run, and when her toes touched the edge, she sent no conscious message to her wings.
She was over the brink. Her wings snapped up, then out. The dragon's horned head jutted forward, and her four wing shy;less limbs stretched backward beneath her expanding chest, in starched, straight lines, parallel to the ground.
Khisanth was gliding. She saw the tree line fast approach shy;ing and tensed for a moment, then remembered to simply be a dragon. Her wings angled slightly on their own, and she rose sharply above the thick green leaves and into the wait shy;ing blue sky. Coming at last out of the glide, her long, leath shy;ery wings folded, then sprang open again with a snap. Wind currents tugged at her, jostling her as she soared. She let the wind take her where it willed.
Khisanth saw the whole of the world as the gods had cre shy;ated it-rugged land, shifting water, turbulent air-and she thought what a loss it would have been to sleep through her entire life beneath it all. Looking back, she saw herself with an admiring detachment. The scales above her rippling mus shy;cles were sleek and black like polished onyx. What perfect creations are dragons, Khisanth thought. Surely as god-touched as the land itself.
Ah, flying…. The blood-rush it inspired was akin to that of gorging, especially when a tail wind helped her cruise with impossible swiftness. She pushed herself on this maiden flight, past the first ache of her wing muscles, until the legs that would help her land cramped as well. She located the edge of forest that shielded her lair and let her body take care of the details of returning to earth.
Either she had flown too long, or her body had little practi shy;cal knowledge of landing, because her legs buckled upon con shy;tact with the ground. Khisanth tumbled head-over-tail, losing count after the tenth rotation. At last her tail met with a stout tree trunk and she stopped, unable to tell up from down.
"Not bad," said Kadagan, as ever at her shoulder. "Not good, but not bad. Next time thou wilt know not to fly beyond thine endurance."
Khisanth was still smarting from Kadagan's chastisement when she awoke the next day. She had wanted to make him choke on the smug look he maintained during his insuffer shy;able preaching about qhen. Khisanth had proven that she could fly, and the greatest compliment he could offer was "not bad." She'd asked him about it, challenged him. The nyphid had said with maddening serenity, "Thou canst fly. So can a mosquito." She'd cast him a scorching look that made her golden eyes look like burned amber. He'd been unmoved. Then he'd left her for the night. Before following the younger nyphid, Joad had handed her some herbal lini shy;ments with the unspoken understanding that she should apply them to her stiffening muscles.
Stretching painfully now, Khisanth was sorry that she had defiantly flung the small, unused pots of balm across her lair the night before. Spotting the cracked vessels of ointment, she dabbed the fleshy ball beneath one claw into a partially dried puddle and touched it to the sorest muscles in her wings. To her surprise, the goo provided instant, if not total, relief. The dragon reached down for more and was dismayed to realize that she could not salvage enough from the sandy floor to apply to her whole body. It enraged her to think that her anger had cost her the cure to her ills. Her tail lashed out, and she sent the shards of the crude ceramic pots flying through the lair's opening.
"Anger will defeat thee in battle as well as in life," said Kadagan, calmly dodging the flying fragments as he flut shy;tered into the cave. "An old nyphid maxim."
"Does nothing enrage you? Aren't you furious those humans took Dela?"
"Anger is energy spent foolishly."
Khisanth's eyes rolled up in exasperation. "It never ceases to amaze me that such a wise and all-knowing race has come to the brink of extinction," she stabbed.
As usual, Kadagan did not rise to the bait. "A cruel trick of nature hast given nyphids wisdom without the physical strength to defend it. Thou hast the opportunity for both." Kadagan settled himself, pulling up his tunic slightly to sit cross-legged on the dirt floor. "Art thou prepared for the next lesson in qhen?"
"Qhen?" snorted Khisanth. "I intend to fly today."
Kadagan watched the dragon's stiff, jerky movements as she shuffled around the cave.
"I feel fine! I'll have no problem flying," Khisanth croaked defensively at the nyphid's cool gaze. "Besides"- she whirled on the small creature — "I thought you and Joad were in a hurry for me to rescue your Dela. I'm just trying to oblige you." She crossed her claw arms in a challenging pose.