Fynaurie woke with a start. She was blinking away the sleep for a full five seconds before she remembered why she felt such excitement. Today would be her first ranging.
She slid her pale legs out of her cot. The trainees slept in rooms of eight. Four pairs of cots cut into the stone walls. Jilleth was close to becoming a full Dragoon and had the cot above hers. Higher was always better. Fynaurie stuck out her head carefully and made sure she wasn't going to get kicked accidentally again. The others were not yet awake.
She quickly dressed into her leathers and tried to sneak out of the room as silently as possible. The door caught on the latch. She heard a groan of complaint from inside. Fynaurie had never quite mastered making herself quiet.
For all her excitement the stairs managed to sap some of the spring from her step. Higher was better, so the trainees were well below the eyrie itself. The full dragoons were able to sleep just below it. Barely two floors from their eagles. She couldn't imagine such a luxury. Not arriving in the eyrie with her leathers already soaked with sweat.
Everyone who lived in Kearth rode. It was their way of life. The dragoons were the best riders of course, or so Fyn would happily announce to anyone who asked. They protected Kearth and of course each of the other three cities inhabited by Sky Elves and their eagles had their own dragoons.
Not that there was much to defend against. Each tower was built high in the rocks where no one would both them. A feat they probably could not replicate today. Each was thousands of years old. There was no settlement within a hundred miles in any direction. They had not gone to war for three centuries, though they enjoyed the tale of chasing off a dragon a few decades ago when it had looked to settle in the mountains nearby.
It was an argument she had with her trainers when they chided her for not taking her job seriously. Those arguments usually fell on deaf ears and led to additional chores. Old elves took themselves far too seriously.
She was too excited to feel truly hungry, but she stopped at their kitchens. Weary dragoons who had returned from their sorties were talking over bowls of hit soup. She grabbed some bread and some jerky for her bag and continued on her way. They all wore their full leathers, coloured to match the blues and reds of their eagles. Her own leathers were drab shades of grey with just a touch of blue trim to mark her as a trainee.
She was still chewing when she made her way into the eyrie. She could see a few tired dragoons had just fallen asleep near their mounts. Some eagles were said to tolerate as much. She suspected that if she tried to curl up in Vaxor's nest that he would nip at her until she left.
There was a row of ether-glaives on the wall. Dormant, but their blades still gave off a gentle glow. Despite having trained with a regular lance she would not be allowed to even hold one until the next stage of her trainint. A dragoon could dive with an ether-glaive in hand, when they approached the ground a beam of pure light would eviscerate the ground beneath them. If Fyn thought she could get away with it she would have tried one out. Knowing her nature the senior dragoons watched her carefully whenever she was near them.
She grinned as she heard Vaxor's greeting call. She was glad he was here. The eagles came and went as they pleased and although she had asked him to be here for their ranging she was early and the eagles did not always consider time in the same way.
"Morning you," she said softly. He bowed his head in greeting, turning an amber eye the size of a saucer towards her.
The great eagles were intelligent creatures. Perhaps as much as the elves they lived with. They could certainly understand the elvish spoken here, though they could not communicate it back to their riders.
Vaxor turned his head to preen at his feathers before stopping and looking down at her. A clear sign that he was in a lazy mood and wanted her to do some grooming. They never let their brilliant feathers fall into dissaray and would preen all the time, but grooming together was part of how they bonded.
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