Time To Fly

The air was cold and the clouds were thin as pale brush strokes on a vibrant blue background.

The beast that she called Kraytu that carried the dragon rider was no more a pureblood as she was. The dragon had a wingspan greater than a hundred feet from tip to tip. Not red or black, but a mixture of both of the great dragons in one. Horns on its head and fire in its belly.

A saddle and halter had been rigged several years ago to him so that she could ride without falling off.

Vestra leaned in against the wind, not too far or she would have the dragon's neck butting against her face and doing damage. Crimson hair with hints of black in it flew back on the wind and wipped about, along with the cloak that she wore over her hunting leathers. Knees moved and boots got a better hold in the stirrups.

Over RhyDin, they flew. Over the great buildings and those of less worth. Seas and mountains, woodland and desert. They soared over all of them as one, vibrant and zealous heart.

Laughing out loud, for none at those levels above the lands and waters, she guided him out of the wind. Now that it was at their backs, they raced it to the reaches of the immediate continent's edge.

RhyDin Dragon Riders and The Ancient Great-Talons

The ancient Great-Talons (dragons) did not have the talent or ability for true speech. Their bodies simply were not made for it. They were instead psionic with one another and with those few they allowed to ride them.

The days of Dragon Riders is recent, being only in the last few thousand years. At the beginning of the War of the Humans and Elves.

Vestra only knew these through the tales told by Kraytu and the other two and true Dragon-Riders she has ever met. But the tales are dark and devestating. They were at during the barbaric and uncivilized existence of RhyDin and before peace was once again brought to its beautiful and vastly diverse lands.

The ancient Great-Talons were known to be enormous, taller than most Human and Elven structures. Most were known by four distinctions: black, red, green and white. But when it came to those who now survived, few were so specific.

Kraytu, the dragon to its rider Vestra, was a beast that would not have had a place among the ancients. Though he is fiercely face and large, strong and would have put his ancestors to shame in such things, his color would have outcast him. Kraytu's colors are a shimmery large-scale mixture of black, red, and even gold along much of him. Blazed down his the front of his head and to his fire-breathing snout is white.

But to Vestra, the ancient one is beautiful.

Kraytu is older than much of RhyDin proper that's still standing at nearly five hundred years old. Alongside to be compared to him when she thinks on it too much, she feels like a child and very unworthy to be his rider.

A Visit Home

Kraytu was a large beast, strong and noble. And blastedly proud. He had left his Rider with her brood — seven other sisters and brothers! — and taken off on the summer winds as if he owned them.

Well. Vestra knew that at least, he patrolled them when he was not ferrying her around. She laughed aloud at the nearly snobbish departure of her dear friend, Kraytu, and pulled the leather skull cap from her head to let fire-red hair loose and free. Torrent, crimson hair fell down about her waist and hips.

She stuffed the pliable cap into the right, back pocket of the leathers she wore a lot: leather britches and a man's small tunic with an open short leather vest over it. Her boots stepped light against the ground as she approached the two story stone house.

But for all her stealth, a man poked his head out of a window upstairs.

"Vestra? Girl. Get yurself in here! Yur mother's a had dinner ready for hours!" Then he pulled his head inside and was gone, out of sight.

She grinned and knew well he was exaggerating. Dinner wasn't even ready at that hour, but she headed up the porch stone steps two at a time.