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Chapter 21: To Catch the Wind

The soft hush of dawn rested upon the forest like breath held in reverence. Pale light filtered through the trees in ribbons, touching the grass and turning dew to silver. The dragon did not move at first. He remained curled in his resting coil, wings half-draped and heart slow, savoring the last threads of a dream that clung to his soul like silk, warm voices, shared laughter, a fire under starlight where all three of them stood as equals, as kin.

A future yet to be, perhaps. But sweet enough that he feared exhaling might dissolve it.

He blinked lazily to the quiet stirrings of the camp. The weight upon his chest remained. Familiar, now. Human-sized. Axton lay curled against his underscales, sound asleep.

One hand was still resting over Nelneras’ chest, fingers twitching with dreams. He’d drooled a little, but only at the edges. Nelneras decided, graciously, not to mention it. Instead, he allowed himself a moment, a small one, to gaze down at the man.

There was a vulnerable tenderness to him like this. Unarmored. Peaceful. The thought came unbidden, but true: He trusted me enough to fall asleep on my heart. That trust, however quiet, stirred something protective in the dragon’s chest. Nelneras whispered, “We’ll build something good, you and I. You'll learn... and maybe I will too.”

But the camp wasn’t whole. His gaze lifted, scanning with a predator’s instinct. Roran’s bedroll lay empty, the fire long since ash. A frown tugged at the corners of Nelneras’ noble maw. “Gone?” he murmured.

Worry slid into his chest unbidden, cold and unwelcome. He had been careless to fall so deeply asleep. One paladin, wandering the woods alone? Yes, Roran was strong, built like an anvil and twice as stubborn, but even fools could stumble upon something they weren’t meant to awaken.

Just then, Axton stirred. His eyes blinked open and focused, sleep-drunk and bleary. “Is something wrong?”

“The wolven has vanished.” he answered with practiced calm, though his muscles had already begun to tense for flight.

A yawn preceded the reply. “He’s jogging.”

The tension softened. “Jogging.” he repeated, tasting the word as though it were foreign.

“Every morning,” the mage mumbled, now fully upright, face pink. “Says it helps him think.”

“Incredible,” Nelneras said softly. “I assumed he communed with the gods by punching tree trunks.”

“Maybe that’s how he listens for answers. Not all prayers need to be whispered.”

A slow ripple of movement passed down his spine, one vertebra at a time. Talons flexed into the dew-damp loam, anchoring him to the earth even as wings unfurled in a stretch worthy of the morning sun, great feathered limbs fanning wide, casting long shadows that reached like silent banners through the veil of mist.

He breathed in, slow and deliberate, the air crisp against the back of his throat. The wind carried the scent of thistle and damp bark, old riverbed and distant bloom. He listened, not as a creature of instinct, but as something older, shaped by sky and storm.

“No storms today.” he murmured, as if confirming a rumor passed from mountain to breeze. “Clean air. Clear sky. If we hold our course, we’ll reach the ravine by midday. Just past the ridge that looks like a sleeping wyrm.”

“You can tell that… from the breeze?”

There was genuine wonder in the question, and he allowed himself the barest smile. “When the sky is your cradle,” he said, “you learn what to look for in time.” He stole a look to catch the blush that followed. It made a satisfied rumble pass along his scales. “You’ll want to prepare your spells,” he continued, stepping over the cold firepit with a flick of his tail. “Shield. Mage Armor. Feather Fall. Expeditious Retreat, if you can spare it. Levitate would not go amiss. Personally, I suggest vortex warp.”

Axton stilled, “Those all sound like... escape spells.”

“They’re versatile.” The dragon gave a toothy grin.

“They’re ominous.”

“They’re both.”

Suspicion tightened his features. “You’re not going to throw me, are you?”

“Would I ever do something so crude?” His wings gave an indignant rustle. “I would toss you. Gracefully.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

Dusting off his robes and procuring his tome of spells, Axton gave him a queer look, not trusting. “Seriously, what are we doing today?”

One golden eye glinted as Nelneras leaned down, whiskers twitching faintly with amusement. “Stretching your limits…in a manner of speaking.” he said with a hint of mischief. “And your legs. That’s all I’ll say for now.”

A rustle at the tree line caught their attention, followed by rhythmic thudding, like a drumbeat in soft earth. Moments later, Roran emerged at a light jog, radiating the triumphant glow of a man who had gone to war with his own morning and won. His fur glistened with dew, muscles outlined in motion like a sculptor’s final pass. Axton blinked rapidly and looked away, too late. His ears had already turned pink.

“Morning!” Roran called, grinning wide, tail swaying with lazy pride. “Didn’t miss anything cool, did I?”

“You’re… glowing.” Nelneras blinked at him.

Roran puffed up proudly, flexing just slightly as he lifted his pack. “Thanks! Did my prayers, chased a squirrel, got in some lunges.”

“Why were you chasing a squirrel?” Axton squinted at him.

“She looked like she knew something.”

Nelneras opened his snout, paused, then slowly closed it. He turned to Axton instead. “Is this… normal?”

“This is normal,” Axton sighed. “Distressingly so.”

The paladin plopped down by the firepit, unbothered. “Oh, and I found a rock shaped like a bear! I named it Commander Growlsworth. Took him along for the ole collection.”

“You named a rock?”

“Well yeah,” Roran said, as if it were obvious. “He seemed noble.”

The dragon considered this. Then gave a slow nod. “I once met a mountain named Bevarthak who declared himself king of goats. I see no reason your rock is less legitimate.”

Roran beamed.

Axton gave a heavy sigh. “Please don’t encourage him.”

“Oh, I intend to do far worse than that,” Nelneras said, eyes glittering. “I may train him.”

Roran’s ears perked. “Wait—you wanna spar?”

The dragon’s grin curved like a drawn bow. “Eventually... If you can keep up.”

“Oh-ho, challenge accepted.” Roran crossed his arms, chest puffing as if by reflex. “Just so you know, I don’t hold back. Not even for dragons with fancy speech and polished scales.”

“I’d expect no less,” the dragon murmured. “Though try not to dent your pride if you bounce off.”

“I’ll aim for the soft spots.” Roran said with a grin, cracking his knuckles.

Nelneras chuckled low in his throat, head tilting in that pleased, predatory way. “You may find there are fewer of those than you think.”

Roran’s grin widened. “Then I’ll just hit harder.”

“This is going to be a long trip.” Axton groaned.

The hour that followed unfolded like a quiet symphony of contrasts, each of them moving in rhythm, yet guided by a different beat.

Near the glowing remains of the fire, Axton sat cross-legged, not reading but working, the kind of arcane labor that bound will to thread and thread to spark. His spellbook lay open before him like scripture, pages heavy with layered ink and buried theory. But it was no simple reading. His breath moved in tandem with his fingers, each rune traced in the air not for show, but as mnemonic anchors, sigils tested, bound, partially cast, then sealed with whispered breath and subtle hand.

The air around him shimmered faintly, as though reality bent just slightly with each invocation. One spell trembled into place like a taut string drawn back. Another left a faint scent of ozone, as if lightning had brushed the edge of thought. Nelneras watched with a tilt of his head, the dragon’s eyes narrowing, not with judgment, but fascination.

So rigid. So careful. Axton did not channel the Weave. He negotiated with it. He did not swim through magic, he constructed a vessel and rode upon it, measuring depth and current before ever getting wet. The dragon let the mage finish in peace, with Axton’s final act being the renewal of his arcane ward, a powerful magical barrier wizards of the abjuration masteries learn to summon that acts like a shield for them or others if they choose to protect them from harm.

Across the camp, the wolven could not sit still. Roran had checked the bedrolls twice, perhaps three times. He unpacked a pack to “optimize” it, then decided he liked the original arrangement better and reversed the whole process. He jogged once around the clearing then dropped into a perfect plank position and began reciting a hymn to Sartren, syllables rattling between clenched teeth.

Nelneras turned away for a moment, hiding the amused snort he gave. Ridiculous. Earnest. And strong in a way most dragons had forgotten how to be. There was no guile in this paladin, no masks, no posturing, just a living monument to devotion and will. It was as though someone had carved a prayer out of obsidian and gave it a wagging tail.

If half the dragon lords back home had a fraction of that purity, Nelneras thought, perhaps the realm wouldn’t creak under its own pride.

He stretched his wings wide, slow and deliberate, letting them drink in the sky. The Twilight Plains lay stretched before them, an ocean of gold and silver grass, bending beneath the hush of wind. Here and there, crooked trees clung to the land like old sentinels, and moss-covered stone formations marked places where stories once grew like vines. Somewhere beyond the ridgelines, the ravine waited.

The sun had climbed just high enough to set the plains aglow, burnished gold waving under a sky painted in endless blue. The wind had a texture now, the kind that invited wings to rise and hearts to race. Camp was broken, packs stowed, wards checked, and the only thing left… was the sky.

Nelneras stretched his wings with deliberate grace, “Well then Axton,” he said, voice casual. “Shall we take to the air? You could join me this time.”

Axton, halfway through tying a loop on his satchel, froze. “Define ‘join.’”

The dragon blinked with innocence. “Why, fly together, of course.”

“You mean carried.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘carried,’” Nelneras mused, already crouching. “More… accompanied. Elevationally.”

“I know what that means,” Axton said darkly. “That means paws. That means I get hoisted into the sky like a startled picnic basket.”

Roran barked out a laugh. “You did shriek last time.”

“I did not shriek,” Axton snapped. “I… protested. With volume.”

“I assure you.” Nelneras tilted his head, all innocence. “I had no intention of dropping you. Or traumatizing you. Again.”

“I had windburn on my spine.”

“A sign of a successful flight.”

“No.” Axton crossed his arms. “This time, I’m flying with someone who doesn’t treat me like a surprise delivery.”

“That’s me!” Roran, already grinning, flexed both arms.

With a theatrical clap of his paws, the wolven stepped into a pulse of silver-blue light. The shift was seamless, one heartbeat of divine energy, and the next, he stood as a great feathered direwolf, wings unfurling like banners in the breeze.

“Hop on!” he said, tail wagging. “Guaranteed smooth ride. No talons. Snacks not included.”

Nelneras let out a long-suffering breath and flicked his tail. It made sense, after the surprise he’d given him the last evening, “Very well. Fly with the lumbering altar-boy.”

He turned toward the wind with regal disdain, wings lifting once, twice, then with a beat that cracked the still air, he launched skyward. Grace and power in motion, his voice trailing back like a golden comet: “Try to keep up, landbound lovers!”

Roran gave a playful growl. “He is so asking for it.”

Axton barely had time to shout, “Don’t race the dragon!” before the direwolf lunged into the sky after him, wings pumping, laughter rising like wind behind them.

The Twilight Plains fell away beneath. And the chase began.

* * * * * * * * * *

The sky cradled them in wind and warmth as the three shapes carved their path west, dragon, direwolf, and mage. Below them, the Twilight Plains stretched like an ancient scroll, half-unfurled, marked with stories written in hill and ruin.

From above, the land looked soft, golden grasses swaying in waves, broken only by jagged stone outcroppings and the brittle bones of long-fallen towers. But Nelneras knew better. He’d flown this route before. The softness was a lie. There was history buried here, violent, fractured, and still seething just beneath the soil.

To the north, they passed a massive ridge-ditch, like a scar carved by something not quite natural. Long and deep, it sliced through the prairie in a crescent, its sides jagged and scorched black, what some old texts called a Mana Burn. He'd seen three like it in his lifetime. Once, he’d even dared land beside one and felt the magic still churning faintly in the earth like embers under ash.

Below them, glass grass rippled, translucent blades that shimmered pink and gold in the morning light. A rare mutation of natural growth and arcane fallout, they were beautiful from above, but razor-sharp if disturbed.

Axton peered down at it with wide eyes, mouthing the words, “Is that... natural?” Nelneras only grinned.

They passed the husk of an old Rothdell town next, Kessarin, if memory served. Roofless buildings scattered like the teeth of a broken jaw, half-swallowed by weeds. A flock of storm wings, birds with streaks of living lightning veined through their feathers, nested in the shattered spire of what once might have been a mage’s observatory. When Roran banked too close, they scattered with a cry that echoed like thunder trapped in a bottle.

Two hours in, they saw movement across the plain, a slow, lumbering herd of tremporoxen, massive bison-like creatures with stone-plated shoulders and fault-line cracks glowing faintly along their flanks. Nelneras pointed them out with a flick of his tail, letting Axton wonder aloud whether they were tied to the earthquake surge that had ruptured this region a decade prior.

The wolf soared a little lower, curious, until one of the oxen raised its head and snorted, cracking the earth beneath it in a shallow tremor. Roran quickly pulled up.

Halfway through the journey, they crossed a low valley known as the Fingersink, a cluster of deep, narrow sinkholes veiled by tall grass and morning mist. Nelneras angled higher without thinking; he’d once seen an entire carriage vanish into those holes, the screams swallowed faster than the wheels could splinter.

Wildlife returned near the third hour, sun-furred jackals, long-legged and bright-eyed, darted in the shadows of old stone roads. In one clearing stood a solitary dreamstag, its antlers blooming with luminous flowers, feeding from an overgrown fountain. Axton leaned over Roran’s back in awe, sketchbook clutched tight to his chest as he tried to capture what he saw before it vanished into the underbrush like smoke on water.

As they neared the final stretch, hills rolled up from the earth like the crests of buried serpents. Stone markers, ancient and cracked, some etched in old Draconic, jutted from the earth like bones breaking through skin. One bore a rune for "warding." Another simply said, “Beware what waits under skyfall.” Nelneras didn’t explain that one either.

They pressed on. Clouds rolled low as they neared the ravine, though the sky remained clear. The wind was with them, steady and cool, the kind that dragons called “flight blessed.” And though Nelneras kept his eyes forward and his wings wide, he did glance back more than once, at the tiny mage clutching thick direwolf fur, wind in his hair, eyes bright with curiosity. It made the dragon become a mirror, rumbling deep in his throat.

Though despite this, he knew the countryside was but paint to hide the rot that had once been. How the mages of Rothdell had enslaved those without strong magical ties. For centuries they had ruled in one form of another, bringing great devastation and suffering to go along with their magical progress. He was no stranger to the fact they were partly how Lumara came to be formed, and the world was brighter for the passing of such an empire.

Rumors now circulated how warlords, old governors or gangs had taken over since the kingdom collapsed, but that was a small price to pay. Perhaps in time, just like the scared land below, things would heal. They reached the edge of the ravine just before noon.

From the air, it looked like the land had been punched in the chest by something old and angry. Jagged black stone bit through the earth in crooked teeth, laced with glowing veins of crystal that shimmered like water catching fire. The crater’s edge wasn’t soft, no slope, no warning, just a sudden drop, steep and cruel, with wind funneling upward in strange, shifting currents.

Nelneras angled his wings and landed with practiced ease at the crater’s base, talons finding purchase on a patch of cracked slate. The air here was heavier than the sky above, alive with something that didn’t belong to wind or light. He felt the hum of it in his ribs, in the base of his skull. Not dangerous, not today. But awake. Always awake.

Behind him, the wolf dove in. Roran landed less gracefully, skidding a few feet before regaining his footing with a wag of his tail and a sheepish grunt. Axton climbed off, breath caught halfway between wonder and wariness. His boots met glowing stone, and he froze.

“…This isn’t natural.” he said.

“No.” Nelneras replied, stepping aside so they could see it for themselves.

The crater yawned across the earth like an ancient wound, wide enough to hold a castle, though none remained. Shattered foundations jutted like bones through the moss; their edges crusted with luminous lichen that whispered in the wind. Patches of glowing moss clung to fractured stone, casting green and violet light across the scorched bowl.

Threaded through the cracked basin ran veins of aetherglass, slender, translucent filaments embedded in the rock, humming with dormant power. They pulsed faintly beneath the surface like threads of spun lightning; some twisted into loops where spells had once broken mid-shaping. Here and there, the runes of old attempts still lingered, half-formed, half-faded, as if the stone itself refused to forget.

Roran sniffed the air and frowned. “Place feels… twitchy.”

Nelneras didn’t correct him. It wasn’t the wrong word. “This is where we’ll begin.” the dragon said.

The moment Roran dropped his spell form; he groaned like a man casting off a mountain. Silver moonlight slipped from his fur in a lazy ripple as the direwolf shape collapsed into mist around him, leaving behind a very large, very sweaty wolven with a wide grin and no shame.

“Finally,” he huffed, stretching both arms above his head until something cracked. “I get to use my legs again. Thought I’d have to grow talons at this rate.”

“You seemed content to spend the flight barking windward theology and flapping like a distressed duck.” Nelneras raised an eye ridge.

“That was strategy,” Roran said quickly, trying to flex his arms without making it obvious. “Keeps morale high. Builds team spirit.”

“Ah. A tactical sermon.”

“Exactly.”

The dragon snorted.

“What was this place?” Axton asked, crouched and staring at the thread of aetherglass as it pulsed.

“A wizard once tried to ascend here, to become greater than any living soul. Tried to fuse his soul to the Weave. He did. For a moment. Then the magic turned inside out. This crater is what remains.”

“And here I thought overcasting a cantrip was reckless…”

His voice was quiet, barely more than breath. He stared at the crater like it might shift beneath him, as if the Weave still remembered the man who had tried to rewrite it.

“What did it feel like, I wonder. That one moment. Before it all tore loose.”

“Like standing on the edge of a storm, I suspect,” Nelneras murmured, his eyes fixed not on the crater, but on Axton. “The moment before lightning kisses the earth and names you for its own. Most imagine power as warmth, as light. But the Weave doesn’t love you. It only listens. And sometimes, it answers with teeth.” His whiskers twitched once, slow and deliberate. “He wanted eternity. He got truth instead.” The dragon padded a few steps, “But let’s focus on more present matters…your lesson.”

“Do you need rest?” Axton asked, glancing up.

“I don’t tire from coasting on air,” the dragon replied. “Not unless the wind offends me.”

Roran flopped onto a smooth patch of stone. “Bet the wind gets really offended when you show off like that.”

“Only when it loses,” Nelneras said. Then, without shifting posture or tone, “Lesson begins now.”

Axton straightened. Spellbook already open, pen in hand, eyes bright. “Alright, are we starting with Weave mapping? Or magical field sensitivity? Oh! Are we testing leyline resonance in this crater? It feels like it could amplify low-tier sigils if—”

“No.” Nelneras said.

Axton blinked. “Ah. Then—concentration under chaotic conditions? A test of terrain-based—?”

“No.”

“…You’re not going to tell me, are you.”

“I am telling you. You’re simply wrong.”

Roran lifted his head. “Do I get to do the lesson too?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you would attempt to wrestle the Weave and break your elbow.” Nelneras arched a brow at him.

“I could wrestle the Weave.” Roran muttered.

“No one is wrestling the Weave.” Axton said quickly.

Nelneras ignored them both. “This lesson is not about control. It is about using your heart.”

There was a long beat of silence. Then Roran frowned. “Wait… like evil magic heart stuff? Blood sacrifice and spooky organ chants?”

Nelneras gave him a long, flat stare. “No. Not the murder-heart.”

Axton rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I meant the one in your chest,” Nelneras clarified, pacing a slow, deliberate circle. “The heart that keeps you alive. The one you smother beneath precision and fear, like a scribe so obsessed with perfect ink lines that he forgets what the words were meant to say.”

“Oh,” Roran said, nodding. “Right. The chest one.”

“They use it too.” Nelneras added, deadpan.

“Who does?”

“Evil wizards.”

“See!” Roran said, triumphant.

“It stays in your body,” Nelneras hissed. “You are not removing it. You are listening to it.”

“Oh.” Roran’s ears twitched. “That makes more sense.”

Axton coughed and turned away so they wouldn’t see him laughing.

The dragon spread his wings, just enough to stir the aetherglass into a faint shimmer. “This place remembers the old ways. You’re going to learn one of them.” He looked at Axton then, not teasing, not smug. Just calm. Steady. And very sure. “Ready yourself. You won’t need your staff. Just your mind… and what’s beneath it.”

“But… how can a heart cast a spell?” Axton furrowed his brow.

Nelneras exhaled through his nose in a sound suspiciously close to a snort. “It can’t. Not literally. Unless you plan to throw it at something.”

“That would be evil magic.” Roran added helpfully.

Nelneras ignored him. He stepped forward and unfurled one great wing, “How does a hawk know the wind will catch her talons when she dives?” he asked. “How does a serpent feel the vibrations of prey before the ground moves? How does a phoenix rise from ash without instruction? A pegasus fly without scrolls? Or a sea wyrm navigates by stars it has never studied?”

Axton’s eyes flicked back and forth, trying to decide if he was supposed to answer.

“Um… their parents taught them?” Roran offered, raising a paw with confidence.

“Ancestral wisdom?” Axton added, clearly hedging.

“Trained in the nest?” Roran tried again, less sure now. “With… feathers and lectures?”

“Blessings from a moon-touched egg?” Axton guessed, glancing at Nelneras. “Or... starlit whispers?”

The dragon’s coming stare could polish stone. “Instinct,” he said flatly. “They act because it is in them to do so.”

“Oh.” said Roran, ears flattening slightly.

“But… we don’t have that.” Axton looked down at his hands. “Not like dragons. The Weave doesn’t live in us unless you are a sorcerer. We reach for it. Shape it. There’s no instinct in that. Just control.”

Roran nodded in agreement, crossing his arms. “Yeah. Our kind doesn’t do the whole ‘magic by feelings’ thing. That’s a dragon deal.”

Nelneras turned slightly, looking over the quartz-threaded floor of the crater as if it might offer him patience. “You’re right,” he said, finally. “You weren’t born with the Weave inside you. You weren’t shaped by it like my kind. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from those who were.” He turned back and tilted his head slightly. “I once modified a rebound ward after watching a reefrunner fish dodge lightning strikes. It turned on a flick of its tail. Always the right way. No scroll taught it. No incantation explained it. It just knew.”

“You learned a spell from a fish?” Axton blinked.

“I learned from watching a fish,” Nelneras corrected. “Then adapted what I saw into magic. That’s what I want from you.”

“To become a fish?”

“No.” the dragon growled.

“To dodge lightning?” Roran asked, hopeful.

“To stop thinking in boxes,” Nelneras said firmly. “To stop asking what the spellbook says and start asking what the wind says. What your pulse says. What the Weave says when you stop shouting instructions at it and finally listen.”

Roran opened his mouth.

“No,” Nelneras said preemptively. “You may not name your heartbeat ‘Commander Pulsington.’”

“Darn. That’s a good one.” Roran snapped his fingers.

Axton exhaled slowly, closing his spellbook. “Alright… how do we begin?”

Nelneras smiled. “By falling.” The gold dragon paced a slow arc in the aetherglass dust, the tip of his tail curling as his gaze traveled from head to foot. “First question,” he said, “Have you ever flown before? And before you answer, I mean under your own power.”

He expected a bashful shake of the head. Perhaps a mumble or a lesson from Lumara’s queen. Although the response he got was not what he expected.

“Once before, when I was transformed into a dragon.” Axton said.

The gold’s step faltered, not from fear, but from sheer incredulity. That sort of transformation wasn’t just rare, it was myth. He narrowed his eyes, curiosity eclipsing pride. “You were what?”

“Briefly!” Axton held up his hands, as if the gesture could soften absurdity. “I didn’t cast it, but I… was a dragon. Sort of. It was amazing, terrifying, but amazing.”

“That’s…” Nelneras shook his head. Being transformed into a dragon was nearly unheard of. Even the elder wyrms of his kind rarely managed such a feat, and none, none among them had ever successfully done it to another. Not even Zovradet, Queen Endreross’ most accomplished arcane advisor, had spoken of reaching that threshold. “Being transformed into a dragon…” he muttered, mostly to himself. “That’s a feat even the Pyreborn of Varrigal failed to stabilize. And they burned half a province trying.”

His eyes hooded with reluctant amusement. Of course, Axton would be full of surprises. “I should cease my bewilderment,” Nelneras grumbled, “Evidently, you’re going to be a continual amazement.”

Axton flushed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Is that… a problem?”

“No,” Nelneras said, voice flat but not cold. “Merely inconvenient… for my sense of superiority.” He paused then, with a tilt of his head and the slow curl of a whisker, “Shall I presume the Emperor of dragonkind himself had a paw in this? Or perhaps a passing deity felt generous?”

“I mean… if you count the Emerald Lady as the Emperor,” Axton said, voice dipping, “she was a shard of his soul after all.” He looked away quickly, fingers fidgeting at his sleeve, already tumbling into the weeds. “Technically that raises fascinating questions about fragmented identity and arcane soul-division, but—”

“You’re pulling my tail.” He huffed.

“Not really,” Axton muttered, “Please don’t let that discourage the lesson.”

“It’s not going to.” Nelneras growled, not loud, but enough to make Roran glance over in reflex. The paladin straightened, but Axton remained still, recognizing the sound for what it was: irritation, not true anger. “No matter,” the dragon muttered, pressing a paw briefly to his snout before exhaling through his nose. “We’ll continue. Dragon or not, the lesson remains unchanged.”

“Alright… I’m ready.” Axton gave a shaky smile, hopeful, steadying himself. “Master…Please don’t say it involves falling.””

That gave Nelneras pause. A single brow lifted. The title was unexpected, and devastatingly well-timed. A warm ripple unfurled in his chest, irritation fading like morning mist. Leave it to the man to defuse a storm with the brush of reverence.

“Very well… apprentice.” he purred, the word drawn like silk between claws. He circled Axton slowly, appraising, not just his stance, but his readiness. “You will not cast this lesson,” Nelneras said. “You will become it. I want you to imagine the Weave not as something you command, but as something you are. Let it move through you, like breath in your lungs or wind through feather.”

He stepped back, letting the thought settle. “You are not a guest at magic’s hearth, Axton. You are its ember. Its voice.” His voice softened into wonder. “The world has tides, if you learn to feel them. Not with your mind. But with your instinct. The current of the Weave is already touching you; it always has. You need only stop trying to hold it.”

Flare of wings. A breath drawn deep through molten lungs, and with it, the Weave stirred. Nelneras rose onto his haunches, turquoise eyes narrowing. His feathers shivered, not from wind, but from the song of spellcraft rising through his bones. Ancient and precise, the word he spoke was exhaled, shaped in the curl of his tongue, the flex of his spine, the rhythm of his tail. The magic did not strike. It sank. like dawn light into still water.

Before Axton could blink, it wrapped around him. Lavender smoke surged from the earth in a bloom of color and scent, infused with the dragon’s breath and will. It was not harsh. It was not cruel. But it was total.

“What—what’s going on?” Axton gasped, trying to step back, already too late. “Nel?!”

“Stay calm.” came the measured reply, as Nelneras, calm as sculpture, inspected his paws with feigned interest. “It won’t hurt. It’s merely time you saw things from another angle.”

“Nelneras!” The rest dissolved into sharp, indignant screeches.

“Hey—what was that? Nelneras?” Roran barked, ears twitching, fur already bristling like storm-swept pine. “What in Sartren’s fluffy tail just happened?!”

His claws half-drew from their gauntlets as he turned, eyes narrowing on the dragon still lounging with maddening serenity.

“Transformative instruction,” Nelneras replied, polishing a talon against his chest scales. “Relax.”

“Transforma-what?! Is that supposed to sound normal? You didn’t even give him a warning! He screamed your name!”

A second, shriller cry cut through the air like a thrown dagger. Lavender smoke drifted aside, clearing like a curtain tugged by wind. There, standing in a fluff of outrage, was a red-tailed hawk, small, fierce-eyed, his plumage a striking blend of rich brown, pale breast, and that unmistakable flare of copper-red trailing from his fanned tail. The little hawk stomped in a clumsy circle, feathers puffed, wings twitching in awkward protest. Another sharp screech burst from him; wounded dignity wrapped in down.

Nelneras gestured with one claw, as though they were presenting a painting. “There he is.”

Roran stared, blinked, then leaned in nose twitching. “That’s Axton?”

“That’s Axton.” the dragon confirmed, far too smug for someone who had just birded a man.

“He’s… so small,” Roran muttered, ears flicking. “You turned my best friend into a feathered lunch entrée. He looks like something that belongs on a noble’s crest, not flapping around with no pants.”

Axton screeched sharply in protest, puffing up and flapping his wings with agitated dignity.

“I know, I know,” Roran said, holding up both paws defensively. “You’re majestic and ferocious and would definitely scratch someone’s eyes out. But still, hawks get eaten too, you know? I’ll carry you if I must. Maybe a little shoulder perch? Or wait, do we have a pouch? Something reinforced?”

“Axton is perfectly capable of defending himself.” Nelneras said smoothly, though his whiskers twitched in unmistakable amusement. “Still… I admire your enthusiasm to make him your satchel phoenix.”

The red-tailed hawk flared its wings wide in an unmistakable don’t you dare gesture.

“I see you, Axton,” Roran grinned, “and I respect your feathers.”

The dragon rose with unhurried grace, the light of the weave gathering along his scales like sunlit oil over water. His wings flared once, broad, golden feathered, catching the wind with a sound like pages turning in a cathedral, and then the transformation began. Magic rippled outward in a slow, spiraling pulse, drawn deep from breath and bone. Lavender smoke enveloped him. Feathers shimmered where scales had lain, talons reformed into hooked claws, and with a final gust of wind, the great beast was gone. In his place rested a striking hawk, sleek and sharp-eyed, his feathers obsidian-black edged in Sunfire gold, his posture still unmistakably regal.

The red-tailed hawk beside him ruffled his feathers and shrieked indignantly, short, high-pitched, “I cannot believe you just—just did that,” Axton snapped, feathers bristling as he flapped once and nearly turned a somersault. “No warning, no ritual, no verbal cue, do you know how many magical laws that breaks? At least three that I’m aware of and probably one that hasn’t even been documented yet!”

He hopped twice in place, as if movement would help him regain his dignity.

“I’m a wizard, Nelneras! You can’t just polymorph people into birds! I haven’t even studied avian anatomy in-depth! What if my bones collapse in mid-flight? What if I forget how to preen?! What if I must sneeze?! Do birds even sneeze?!”

Nelneras blinked once. His golden-tipped feathers shimmered in the sun, utterly unruffled. “You’re not going to sneeze.” he said mildly.

Axton fluttered again, barely managing to stay upright. “Oh good. That’s comforting. While we’re at it, maybe next time you could ask before you casually rewrite my anatomy!”

“I did imply the lesson would give you a new perspective.”

“That is not what that meant and you know it! You could’ve warned me! Or, I don’t know, asked?” Axton clacked his beak in indignation. “I nearly died of fright!”

“And yet here you are,” came the dry reply, “alive, intact, and notably fluffier.”

The wizard gave a pitiful hop and fell on his side again with a squawk. “Why are we even doing this?”

“Magic,” Nelneras said, fluffing his feathers and gesturing with a sweep of one wing, “is not a recipe, nor a code. It is a current. A rhythm. A wingbeat. You do not wield it. You join it. You asked how we dragons wield magic. This is your answer. Or rather…” he stepped closer, “—your first attempt at understanding it.”

“But what does this have to do with spellwork?” Axton struggled upright again.

“You cannot imagine a storm if you’ve never stood in the wind.” Nelneras leaned down, nudging him gently with his beak. “Up there, among the currents, I want you to feel. Flight is not a tool, it is instinct. Magic, true magic is no different. Now,” he added with a playful glint in his hawk eye, “wiggle your tail feathers and try not to embarrass yourself.”

Axton groaned. “This is ridiculous.”

“So is trying to master the arcane without ever listening to it.” There was a pause as he nudged him again, “In theory.”

“I have no idea what you two are chirping about,” Roran muttered, crouching nearby, “but if he’s upset, I’m on his side. Just so we’re clear.”

Minutes passed as Axton attempted to take flight, leaping about and fluffing his wings. Eventually, he flopped, wings splayed, talons scrambling against the lichen-slick stone. Though his sharp remarks had quieted, the tension clung to him like mist. Nelneras could feel it, tight as a bowstring. Perhaps, he mused, he could have used a gentler method. But then again… when had growth ever come softly?

“Breathe,” Nelneras said, calm threading through the morning air. “Let the panic pass. I know it’s disorienting. But there’s an old saying among dragons: In change, we find our true shape. Transformation is not an act of control; it is an act of surrender.”

“I didn’t ask to surrender.” Axton muttered, beak twitching.

“Think of it another way,” the dragon fluffed his wings, “You are not less for having wings. You are not reduced. You are you, with different eyes, different tools. Magic has gifted you new senses, use them. Feel the wind against your feathers. The pull of the sky on your chest. The song in your bones. Don’t resist. Listen.” He paused, eyes softening. “Dragon’s outgrow our scales. We shift. We learn the truth beneath ourselves. This—” he motioned with a wingtip “—is no different.”

“Easy for you to say,” Axton snapped, hopping sideways and nearly tumbling. “You’re built for this! You probably came out of the egg with a thesis on thermals! I’m—” He flailed his wings, clearly trying and failing to gain lift, “—not!”

Nelneras chuckled, the sound low and smooth.

Axton scowled. “You couldn’t have included the learned movements?”

“Because it’s a lesson, not a shortcut,” the dragon said, stepping in to gently right him. “If I gave you flight without effort, you’d never understand what it meant to rise.”

Axton didn’t respond at first. He merely stood there, talons sunk deep into wind-brushed loam, chest heaving as the last of his pride boiled off into the sky. He stared, his eyes narrowed, his wings half-flared in frustration. The silence stretched. Too long. Too loud. Then he muttered, sharp and defensive, “That’s unfairly profound… for someone who just made me a bird.”

He shuffled back a pace, beak clenched. Tried to hop, tripped. He tried again. Wings jittered, off-rhythm, all wrong. More minutes passed. More failures. He would run, flap, hop, and each time he was slapped back to earth like the wind was laughing at him. A branch snagged his tail feathers. A gust knocked him sideways. Once he leapt with such dramatic effort he ended up in a bush. Roran called out in concern. Axton barked back that he was fine, and Nelneras said nothing at all.

That silence was worse than mockery. It was patience. And it forced him to listen. To the wind. To the world. To the ancient truth in Nelneras’ words: Transformation is not control. It is surrender. He said nothing as Axton tripped for the fourth time. Or was it the fifth? It hardly mattered. The hawk fluffed in defiance, eyes sharp with the same fire he’d seen in the man’s gaze back in Entis.

Another attempt, too rigid, too loud. The wings moved, but they did not listen. And then, without flourishing or frustration, the human paused. The wind caught beneath his feathers, not as resistance, but invitation. A twitch of muscle. A tilt of wing. Then, Axton launched. No sharp lurch. No panicked flutter. Just motion. Clean. Pure. True. The young hawk rose. Nelneras felt like a chord struck deep in his chest, that moment when instinct finally overtook intellect. There was no spell behind it. No incantation. Only surrender. The human was flying, not because he knew how, but because he had stopped trying to force it.

Above the ravine, Axton wheeled once in the sun, wind chasing him like a lover. “I’m flying!” He cried, voice shrill with astonishment, defiance, and joy. “I’m actually flying!”

“So you are, little ember.” Nelneras murmured, rising from the ground with a single, golden beat. “So, you are.”

Together they soon flew. Not in formation, not with precision, this was no soldier’s drill, but in spirals of joy and widening arcs of discovery. Axton faltered at first, wings jerking too wide or tucking too soon, but Nelneras was there gliding beside him, not correcting with words, but showing. A tilt into the breeze. A rise with the thermals. A sudden stop to let the world fall away.

"Feel it," he called through the wind, "Let the current lift you. Don’t shape it. Don’t fight it. Just—follow."

And Axton did.

The sky opened like an unwritten page. Together they carved its lines with wingbeats, drawing patterns in the vault above the ravine. For a moment, Nelneras forgot the world below. Simply enjoying the mere act of flight. He looked over, seeing Axton flourishing. He banked close, brushing wingtips. Just once. Not a command. Not a challenge. An invitation. To trust. To rise. To see the sky not as a ceiling, but as a promise.

Together they danced across the sky. Not with steps, but with wings, each movement a whisper of trust woven into motion. Axton flared wide, wobbled, corrected. Nelneras let him. He didn’t chase, didn’t instruct. He mirrored, swooping beside him, circling higher on rising thermals. With each pass, the mage grew steadier, the wild flailing turning into rhythm, then grace.

Somewhere between the sunlight and the hush of wind, Nelneras felt it: the fragile, precious joy of watching someone become. Axton had no scales. No birthright of flight. And yet here he was, laughing, wild, free. A flash of russet feathers banking hard above glowing quartz, tail adjusting as if he'd always known how. Nelneras followed him through a sudden spiral, watching the hawk’s form blur briefly against the clouds like a comet reborn. It stirred something deeper in his chest, beneath bone and flame.

He’d brought humans to the skies before. But not like this. Not one who looked at the world with such bright ache in his eyes. Not one who made him forget that dragons were supposed to keep their hearts guarded, far from mortal reach. Axton called something jubilant across the wind, his cry half-laughter, half-song, and Nelneras gave chase, hawk-form slicing through sunlight, until suddenly—

A stutter. A wingbeat mistimed. The red-tailed form wobbled sharply, dipping too fast, too steep. The current bucked against him, and Axton tumbled wings folding in panic as he spiraled downward, toward the jagged lip of black stone and luminous grass.

Nelneras didn't hesitate. The hawk vanished mid-plunge.

In his place, the dragon burst through the air, molten gold unfurling in a thundercrack of wings. Heat shimmered off his scales as the wind howled past his horns, and in one breath, just one, he reached down with a word of power coiled in his throat.

"Alari veymora." The word left Nelneras like a vow.

The magic bloomed beneath the falling hawk in a shimmer of gold-threaded air, catching Axton before the earth could. His descent slowed to a graceful spiral, but still unsteady, wings flapping wildly in a last-ditch attempt to correct.

Wind howled past as he folded into a controlled dive, paws stretching toward the plummeting hawk. He caught him, cradled gently but securely, like a fragile scroll he dared not crease. With a low snort, the dragon banked upward again, rising from the bowl of the ravine like the sun reborn. He hovered there for a moment, still high, alone with the trembling bundle in his grasp and murmured the counterspell.

Lavender smoke wrapped the hawk, curling tight, tightening, and then unfurling like a flower in reverse. With a flash and a surprised squeak, Axton reappeared: human again, flushed and blinking, suddenly sprawled in the dragon’s paws like a very confused parcel of robes and limbs.

“Wh-what…” he wheezed, arms flailing slightly before grabbing hold of Nelneras’ wrist.

“You did well,” the dragon said gently, voice low and steady. “Truly. You let go.”

Axton blinked up at him, mouth opened then snapped it shut, then opened it again like he wasn’t sure how much of his dignity he had left. “I… I felt it,” he gasped. “For a second, I—I actually felt the wind! but... the motion. Like the wind knew where I was meant to be. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t calculating. I just moved.”

“You were not shaping the world, Axton. You were part of it. That is the lesson.”

“You’re saying it’s like magic?”

A low hum stirred in the dragon’s throat sound neither laughter nor approval, but something warmer, something deeper. “No,” he said at last. “I am saying it is magic. Or rather… what magic could be, if you let go of the leash. It’s why most of you only ever taste a fraction of its song. You treat the Weave like a beast to be bridled. I would have you dance with it instead.”

“I think I was getting it—until, you know—” He waved vaguely toward the ground below. “The part where I almost died.”

“You only almost died,” Nelneras corrected his flight. “Progress.”

“That was sarcasm.” Axton narrowed his eyes.

“I prefer to think of it as… supportive commentary.”

The moment Nelneras’ claws touched soil, Roran was already moving, paws pounding, “Axton!” he barked, bounding over like a man chasing a falling star.

Strong arms locked tight around him, protective and trembling. Then, just as quickly, Roran pulled back and began inspecting him, “You, okay? Say somethin’! Blink twice if you forgot how words work!”

“I’m fine!” Axton managed, flushed and overwhelmed, trying to swat him off like a persistent nursemaid. “Just rattled.”

“You fell from the sky, Ax! I saw you go down like a sack o’ wet laundry tossed off a roof! That’s more than rattled!” He stood up and turned on Nelneras with a dramatic point of one clawed finger. “And you! Next time you pull a stunt like that, maybe tell someone! Or at least circle lower so he doesn’t hit the ground like a sack o’ wet laundry tossed off a roof!!”

Nelneras only smiled, unrepentant. “Where’s the fun in that? Tis the dragon way paladin.”