Lesson Eight: Formation Dedication (Alpha Winglet)

[zeis]

Today was going to be grueling work. The Wingletmaster looked forward to it as he rode along with Canph, who sailed low over the Winglet's Barracks and throughout the length of the Eyrie. The red was in excellent color and spirits today, looking smug and well groomed in harness. K'huna had no doubt it had to do with his not-to-recent victory, which he brought up at every opportunity with as many people as he could. Alphas! Hot today isn't it? Want to know how to stay cool under pressure? Even if you don't, report to the field near the pond! Today we ride!

Glad his red had kept it short, he leaned far back against his riding straps and let the cool rush of air pass over him with a sigh. The Wingletmaster himself had dressed to keep as cool as possible, knowing what work laid ahead of them, and he hoped his students were wise enough to do the same. Still, he had scheduled todays lesson near the pond for a reason. They were going to need plenty of water today. Canph angled into a dive with little mental urging, and K'huna relished the stomach turning drop down to the canyon bed, restraining himself from the urge that told him to hold on. The red slowed just over the ground with some gusty beats of his wings, and skipped the short distance toward the pond, dipping his head down to drink while they waited for their students to assemble.

K'huna watched them with interest as they filed in one by one. Each rider astride their simourv, all looking healthy and strong despite the absence of I'dou. The Wingletmaster was sad to not have the gray winglet here, but had no doubt Ro'za was filling in where he had left off. Still, the presence of a gray-pair had a rallying inspiring effect in battle. He cleared his throat, and gave Canph a little mental nudge. The red stretched his front legs with a nonchalant yawn, and padded forward to meet the still smaller simourv. He chirruped a pleasant greeting to them as K'huna started speaking. "Today we begin formation training. You'll learn how to fly and work together, watch, help, and protect each other. A simourv can't take on a wave of xymooxi alone, so be smart, you'll live longer."

His tone was flat, dead-serious, and left no room for argument. "There is rarely just one. They come in packs, and fight as a unit. If we can't do that, and do it better than them, we lose. Now line up!" Canph padded among them, nosing and gently directing a few of the chicks into a straight line. The end result was a little ragged, everyone in no particular order. The red surveyed them for a minute, then stepped away and bobbed his head.

Hmm. Laraph is not here, so one of our black brothers will take her place. We are going to get in a vee formation, shaped like this. He clawed a large 'v' in the grass with one claw, and considered his students again. Pretend that Dionyph is the point of the vee. If we get into formation on either side of him like the sides of the vee, it gets much easier to fly a long distance. Sometimes we will have to, if Koxi show up at Saiyaie or Itnala.

Lets try it! Canph trilled with amusement and nudged Dionyph gently forward, his manner both teasing and affectionate. The red picked and chose from the remaining simourv, calling names one by one forward and positioning them into the vee as he saw fit. The end result was a large vee formation, with the largest most combat effective simourv at the center making the driving point, mainly the non-present gray, blacks, reds, tawnies, and the largest blues. The point of the vee would take most of the wind burden, since they could handle it the best while the smaller simourv, mainly greens blues and rainbows, made up the majority of the sides.

There are lots of other formations for combat, rescue, flanking, and retreat. So listen to your rider and your siblings. Keep in contact, watch for danger, and follow orders even if you don't like it. Things are always changing so sometimes we need to change places very quickly. You must know where everyone is, and where you have to go. Canph explained with a ruffle of his feathers, and spread his wings with a happy trilling sound. It's a little harder to do these drills on the ground, but your wing feathers are growing in! Soon I'm gonna teach you how to fly, and you'll all be so amazing at these drills already, it will seem so easy!

K'huna and Canph then led the class in practicing some other formations for travel and strategic positioning and what weapons the riders should prepare to use in different situations. The lesson wore on, but the heat of the day persisted. It was hard work, even with the frequent breaks K'huna ordered for potentially dehydrated winglet pairs to relax and drink. Near the end of the lesson day found the Winglet's running across the field in vee formation, while Canph followed and circled overhead calling down to them. When I call out a direction change, stay in formation and head that way, like we practiced. When I call out a formation change, get in position as best you can, try not to run into each other! Remember, we have to work together! Ready? Canph asked playfully, feeling a little weary himself from work, but relishing in a job well done.

Go! The red started calling out a series of directional and formation changes for different situations, giving them time between each to get the change completed. The pace was slow at first, but as the exercise wore on he made the changes faster and faster. Mistakes were inevitable, but his tone was excited and encouraging, sending what strength he had into the smaller simourvs efforts. K'huna observed and commented privately to his bonded with approval. They were shaping up nicely.

[Lan]

E'an was not a fan of hot weather, but it was still a pleasant change from the cold of winter and spring that had made her bad ankle stiff at the joints. At the moment she was back in her room, feeling over the harness that had been given to Kaslimeph at one of their previous lessons. It was a nice gesture, one that the bluerider wasn't completely used to having, and she always made sure the harness was in peak condition--to the best of her ability anyway. It felt good to get a present. Even Kaslimeph was much more proud when he was wearing it. For the first time, the full effect of what it meant to be a simourv rider began to hit E'an. She was partnered, for life, with Kaslimeph... and they would fight and die together. It felt both invigorating and terrifying at the same time. Kaslimeph... he was part of her now. Just as she was part of him. Now that, E'an was quite sure her feelings about.

E'an... time to go. The blue's voice entered her head with a comfortable familiarity and simultaneously the two moved to harness Kaslimeph and then, once outside, E'an mounted him and they continued to the place where Canph had called them. It was still a bit weird sitting so high up atop the towering blue, who was already far taller than any horse. E'an had never considered herself particularly tall, so the experience was very new for her. Still, it gave her a sense of purpose, and gave Kas a sense of purpose well. The blue strode as if he was carrying the most important cargo in the world--which was just as well because, to him, it was.

Both partners listened impatiently to K'huna and Canph, eager to get moving instead of just standing around. Beneath her, E'an could feel Kaslimeph's muscles on his forelegs twitching anxiously to do something. Then, suddenly, they were lined up as the much larger red prodded some of them into a straighter and more organized unit. We are going to move in a vee... Kas passed on, his voice dull but serious. At first unamused, the blue was much more excited when he was placed near the front, much further than all but one of his blue, green, and rainbow siblings.

Together they moved, in a dull but strenuous exercise where Canph would call out different formations and Kaslimeph would follow... to the best of his ability. Excuse you! He called to Dareph as he all but collided with the larger red during one of the turning maneuvers. Of course, he was convinced it was Dareph's fault and not his own miss-stepping. E'an sighed and rolled her eyes. You sure that wasn't your own clumsiness, Sir Confidence? She taunted. A faint grunt was his only reply.

[Kat]

Dionyph woke before Ri’ley, which was an unusual occurrence, lately, if only because the human was the kind of person to wake up every day. Dionyph was responsible, and he never over-slept, but he did not wake up at the crack of dawn like his rider. He got up when he needed to get up, often only quarter hours after his rider, but Ri’ley almost always woke up first. The human, though, was growing more and more exhausted with every passing day. While he had thought that he would never be more tired than he was after Eceph’s hatching, Ri’ley was beginning to learn that he had many more days of being exhausted ahead of him. And Dionyph was equally tired, if not more so, which left the pair at the whims of their own bodies. Dionyph slept more, true, but he had also been working harder, at least Ri’ley thought, with the constant lessons of riding. Ri’ley only had to control and to sit on his mount; Dionyph had to be the mount, and he had to bare the weight of his large and awkward rider. Today, Dionyph was ready; he was ready to assault the world and to control his environment, because he was a leader. Dionyph hatched a leader. He emerged from the egg as a protector and a defender, and the older he grew, the more he became more than a protector, but a leader. Ri’ley was noticing the change in his simourv; Dionyph seemed to hold all of his original ideas, yes, but he had also grown a certain sense of entitlement, as if he knew that he was now a leader, a king, and that the other simourvs should respect him as such. Dionyph was never forceful or arrogant about his position, but he was entitled and demanding at times. Ri’ley could see it, or feel it, in the way Dionyph expected to be treated.

But with his position as a black simourv, as a leader, Dionyph also gained responsibility. Already instilled with an intense and compulsive sense of duty, Dionyph was only becoming more and more aware of his blossoming responsibility. While his rider seemed to want to downplay their position, Dionyph was ready to embrace it. Ri’ley, though, was not born into his position of leadership, which changed the situation between him and his kingly simourv. Dionyph woke Ri’ley up with a nudge of his beak against his rider’s cheek. Ri’ley’s eyes pulled open slowly, inching upwards and slowly unraveling. At first, his brown eyes were glazed, a dull, whispery hesitance, before they finally opened and woke to the intervening sunlight. Lips pulled into a frown which was almost a snarl, but he turned over, before he dropped his large body out of his bed, so that he rolled on the ground and stood up in one fluid movement. By that point, Canph’s voice rang in the heads of the pair. It was an expected interruption, one for which Dionyph had already woken. Ri’ley started to pull on a set of clothing, dirty and permanently stained, but pressed and cleaned to perfection, and Dionyph nudged the harness off of the hook on which Ri’ley placed it. The leather straps were carefully clutched in Dionyph’s beak, as he brought it to Ri’ley. The man began to apply the harness to his simourv, and his hands were familiar enough with the task by now to fly over Dionyph’s black and gray feathers with ease. Once the harness was securely clasped, the pair trotted out of their room and moved towards the gardens.

As K’huna explained what the day would hold, Ri’ley wished he could see diagrams and charts. He had a very good memory for spoken words, but the photographic condition of his mind’s relationship to visual stimuli made Ri’ley remember anything he saw on a chart or diagram with few mistakes. His mind was perfect for the work of a surgeon, for the intricate memory work which he had grown up performing, and he found that it was less useful in the world of the simourvs and riders. The life of the rider required more hands-on learning, more muscle memory, and more physical action than the life of a surgeon. Like Dionyph, though, Ri’ley played rapt attention to K’huna’s words. They did not want to miss a moment, miss a tidbit of information, because it was so, so important to the wellbeing of their future.

When Canph nudged Dionyph into the head position of the formation, Dionyph swelled with pride, which he displayed across his whole body in his carriage and posture. His chest puffed and stuck out, and his head was thrust confidently upwards. Ri’ley’s lips twitched into a small smile as he felt his simourv’s feelings. He liked it when Dionyph was happy, after all. Dionyph was proud that in Laraph’s stead, he was the one that became the leader, and he would fight for Laraph until he died. Of course, had she been there, he would have submitted to her every whim, allowing her to lead the group, and he would perform that action with pride and affection, as Laraph deserved to be the leader, but now he enjoyed his own time in the spotlight. As they altered formations, Ri’ley found the heat almost unbarable, and he could feel his own body weakening. He tried to consume enough water to combat the feeling, but he was not doing a very good job. He wished he had worn a shirt without sleeves, but he had made a poor wardrobe choice, and he now had to live with it. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, but some of it trickled into his eyes, which made his eyes sting and burn from the salt. Dionyph seemed not to notice Ri’ley’s physical condition, and the black remained focused and dedicated to the task at hand. The exorcise they preformed was quite dull, which only provided Ri’ley with more time to dwell on his physical state weakness. He grunted, too tired and hot to speak, and Dionyph finally acknowledged Ri’ley’s pain.
Mine, we need to stay focused under all conditions. If we were fighting koxi, we would have to fight even under the worst duress. I think we should understand this exorcise as a lesson in the importance of readiness and the power of positive thinking.
Dionyph instructed, and it was clear from his statement that he had no tolerance for Ri’ley’s weakness. Ri’ley grunted again, and then he pulled in the air around him into his lungs. He would just have to do as he was told by his simourv, and try to think about the situation in a positive light built to make him grow as a person and a warrior. He needed to, basically, toughen up, so he ignored the messages, the warnings of his body, and he endured.

[Bre]

Like soldiers march on . . .

If Romaph had been good at staying in a line, she wouldn't have been Romaph. She was positioned near the end of one tail. While not a particularly small green, all of her blue brothers were larger than her. She simply happened to be taller than seven of her nine green sisters. It was a blessing that there were only a few of them between her and open ground. She was a terror in the line. She never actually knocked into anyone, light on her feet, but she constantly forced others to move out of the way and never seemed quite in sync with the others. She was always either one step behind, one step ahead, or moving in a different direction. She understood the concept of formations and motion together, but she had trouble executing it. The heat didn't bother her and she forged relentlessly on with the exercise, but she failed to improved much.

M'rion wasn't really much of a help. She was attuned to her simourv and they failed as one. Neither of them were designed to follow orders. They were the ones who would argue with the grayrider or blackrider or redrider or whoever it was if they didn't agree. The only thing the winglet did was smile over at E'an, completely unashamed on her traipsing simourv. They stayed mostly in line, some of the time! The heat didn't bother her, dressed in a skimpy shirt and shorts, attire she believed perfectly suitable for the occasion, and she remained happy as a butterfly as the day progressed, watching Ri'ley sweat like a pig up at the front as Dionyph acted like he had actually had control. They were such a cute pair! Together, M'rion and Romaph were undeniably happy and stubborn, even if they lacked the marching skills of their peers.

. . . if we can make it through the night, we'll see the sun.