Mercy [Eceph's Second Flight]

[Bre]

Angel of mercy, how did you find me . . .

It was night. In truth, the fair summer gloom was bright with stars and a set of full moons, but it was still night. Besides, something brighter than the distant stars was about to rise. The last traces of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and she awoke. For a time, she waited, awake but quiet. She felt no need for noise or posturing, not right then. She knew her physical and mental superiority. They would know it and they would quake or rise to the occasion. Those silly males, come to try again. Dimly, she could remember her loyal mate, but he had faded from her mind during the past few days as her plumage grew glossy and bright in preparation for her impending flight. If he proved himself worthy again, he would win. If he failed, she would select another victor, someone who would be the best for the eyrie and healthy children.

However, such considerations were far off. The moment was finally right and Eceph rose from her couch. She was quiet, confident in her experience, but she moved with grace and poise. Every motion she made was perfect, at least in her mind. Confident enough to make every soul believe in her, lengthy enough to give her time to think. Her thoughts were starting to grow muddy and blurred, so she moved slowly. There was little time to waste, but she would waste it as she wished. This was her moment. This was her night. All of the greens could fly as they wished. All of the tawnies could rise and have their own children. However, she was queen. She was Phoenix and she was never more sure of that fact then that very night. When she took flight, only the worthiest would even try to catch her. At the ledge of her eyling, she paused for a moment.

Ro'za awoke in a cold sweat. She'd been sleeping fitfully, but she awoke disoriented, lingering emotions rolling over her mind and flooding her consciousness. What was going on? It took her a moment to realize that it was Eceph's flight. It was different this time, but she could still identify the growing lust and passion that inflicted her. It was not her lust and she did not want it, but she had no choice but to accept it. Rolling out of bed, she passed over the sword she had left in her blankets. She barely noticed it or its familiar touch. She was becoming absorbed in Eceph, lost in the blurry lines between them as the flight grew nearer and nearer, the final moment of preparation upon them. It was summer, so she had slept in underclothing. However, she failed to notice her state as she ventured out towards Eceph. It wasn't like it really mattered.

Should she wait? Should she blood or maim or pause? No, she had known her flight was coming. She was ready. Without a sound, Eceph spread her wings wide and launched herself into the air, rising quickly upward. Her feathers shone silver in the moonlight, the scaly, hard skin of her legs bright where they lay curled tightly to her chest. The brown speckles across her body and striped across her wings glinted like copper, alive and brilliant on her iridescent body. In flight, she was like a jewel. It would have been strange to a human, the sight of her rising with such an appearance up into the night sky, but she was a beautiful simourv, at least in that moment. After all, it was her moment of triumph. Only when she was above the canyon rim did she give any warning of what was happening. She gave one trilled challenge and then took off north.

Ro'za echoed her simourv's cry, but her voice was louder and more feral. It echoed off the canyon walls, rough and unrestrained. Eceph echoed those emotions, but the worthy few would only be able to see that later. For the time being, the grayrider was the wild one of the pair. She took Eceph's lust and turned it into aggression. She knew how this was going to end and she wasn't going to make it easy. She knew they were coming. She knew they had heard her call. Eceph looked forward to examining those who would dare to pursue her. Ro'za awaited them with disdain, ready to weed them out as her own feelings and her own passions slowly melted away like sand through an hourglass. Her vision blurred. Her mind was hazy. Together, Ro'za and Eceph prowled the night. It was theirs to claim and theirs alone to give as a single merciless entity.

. . . where did you read my story?

[Fox]

The muggy summer night stuck heavily in Seronaph’s feathers, the humidity and the heat making the large red fidget uncomfortably in his own skin. Summer had never been his favourite season; autumn and spring, with their calmly moderate temperatures, were more to the red’s favour. However, tonight was different. Tonight was unusual. Seronaph was awake, wide awake, even though the moon had long since risen and K’ean had fallen asleep at his desk awhile ago. The red wished to seek the comfort of sleep but he couldn’t; his skin crawled and he was restless without knowing the reason as to why. Sighing softly, eyes fixed unerringly on the star-speckled sky, Seronaph was almost contemplating going for a midnight flight when, strangely, he saw that some other had had the same idea.

Eceph.

For a moment, the red did not understand. What was the Queen, the Phoenix, doing flying so late? Then it hit him, in a wave of lust and passion familiar in that he had felt it several times before. He half-rose in anticipation, and by the time the gray Queen’s challenge rent the air, Seronaph had already taken wing. His amber eyes fixed unerringly on the beautiful, gleaming form of Eceph, all other thoughts forgotten in a single-minded pursuit. An answering cry, almost immediately on the heels of the first, tore from his throat; rising in answer to her call. Seronaph would chase. He would chase as hard as he could. For she was the Gray, the Queen, the Phoenix, and he would not insult her by doing anything less.

Sprawled over his desk, K’ean jerked awake all at once at the mad swirl of emotion that flooded his connection with Seronaph. An inkwell smashed to the ground unheeded, black ink staining the stone floor. With his brain still fogged by sleep, he sent a disoriented, formless query to his simourv, only to be knocked back into his seat by the powerful emotions that crashed down on him along with the image of Eceph shining magnificently, irridescently silver in the moonlight. Ah. It made sense. Flightlust. Eceph meant Ro’za, and Eceph-and-Ro’za meant Commandership at stake. K’ean, still beleagured by the curious double-vision that tended to assault him during flights, rose unsteadily to his feet, surprising even himself by his bland reaction to that realisation.

As his feet carried him slowly out of his own eyling into the night-darkened halls, K’ean hoped flatly that Alianph won again. G’len was a good Commander for all his eccentricities, and though Seronaph would probably snarl at him for the thought (if he was paying attention, which he wasn’t), K’ean didn't think that either he or his volatile red were suited to a position of authority beyond that of Wingletmaster. But until the flight ended, he had no choice in the matter, and K’ean was already resigned to this even as he pushed open the door to Ro’za’s eyling.

'Here we go again.'

[Lan]

For many nights Alianph had lied in wait. His black form taking up the ledge of the eyling he shared with his life partner, G'len, he had sat patiently with only the occasional faint breeze to comfort him on hot and humid nights. Silent, unfaltering, like a gentleman waiting for the first sign of the hunt, the commanding dark simourv knew Eceph was rising soon by the small details in her feathers and her mood. Every night she had been glowing brighter. When she rose, he knew, she would be brighter than the very stars themselves.

G'len was not so observant tonight. Tired from duties, he had retired miraculously early. Further uncharacteristic was that he was wearing merely his trousers, the heat having forced his tunic from his torso. But he was not intending to go out tonight... or for anyone to actually see him. Unlike his counterpart, he had no eye for the subtle details of simourvs' rising. In fact, other than Eceph being in brilliant color, he had thought nothing of the various facts that Alianph had been filing carefully away. Instead, as always, he was concentrated on work and other practical things.

Keen simourv eyes scanned the canyon walls again. Something was stirring, and Alianph was feeling it. His muscles twitched in anticipation and his wings readjusted themselves on his back. Time was growing thin and every moment seemed to stretch itself out into all eternity. Could it be? There! A flash of silver and copper and bronze caught his eye as it struck the starlight seething with envy into relative darkness. His Queen was rising. He stood, large and dark scaled legs forming into a crouch that would launch him from his ledge. For a moment, he waited, and then... he heard Her cry.

Not the first to be off his ledge, he jumped and strove anyway to meet her in the sky. A rush of red feathers made him aware of one of his brothers that also chased, but he paid him no heed. While the red Seronaph boasted his arrival, Alianph flew silent and majestically on large black wings. The silvered feathers on his stomach and the tips of his wings paled in comparison to the splendor of Eceph on this twinkling night, but she would know through his actions that he was for him. She was not a green or a tawny or a rainbow, She was a gray who demanded his utmost loyalties and his undying attentions. Being the largest black on Pohono, he would race his hardest to be found worthy of her again this time so that together they might dare the stars of Pohono once more to try in vain to outshine their flight.

G'len woke with a start as soon as Alianph was off the ledge. He was confused, hazy, and unaware of what exactly was happening. While sweating, his body felt simultaneously chilled and he felt nothing of the discomforts of his otherwise muggy eyling. Something was happening, but what? A long-forgotten, yet somehow familiar burning gripped him so tightly he wrinkled beneath its touch, and slowly his feet moved with purpose out from under him. In a moment he was up and moving. Alianph's mind began to meld once again with his. There was a flash of bright feathers accenting the moonlight above that flashed violently before his mind's eye. It was only then that he knew. Eceph was rising. Alianph was chasing. As he made haste from his room to the room of Ro'za, the Commander tried to gulp down the knob in his throat at the memory (or rather, lack of total memory) of what was going to happen next.

In the moments that G'len found the Phoenix's eyling, Alianph had made great leaps and bounds to close the gap between himself and his red brother who had beat him on the starting line... and therefore had closed just a bit of the distance between himself and the stunning object of his affections. Queen Eceph... how stunning she was cursing all other sources of light on this bright summer eve! He longed to be her King again, to intertwine claws with her in that graceful dance he had enjoyed just over a year ago. His good humor, his bright determination, only then produced a deep and melodious call from his throat. It was not boastful, although it was proud, and it was more like a song than a heedless crow. While he was confident, he wished her to know he was there... the first few notes of his old song came and went before he fell into silence again. Alianph was here, his Lady would know. Large sweeps of his wings dug at the air currents in an attempt to pass his smaller, red brother.

G'len managed to stumble unceremoniously into Ro'za's chamber, still befuddled by the strong affects on his mental state that this royal flight left him with. He could see Eceph and Ro'za both equally in the sky and in her dimly lit eyling. There was another there before him. K'ean-Seronaph. Usually in good humor, G'len-Alianph at this moment saw him as a competitor and as such he took an opposing side to the redrider's in what would soon be a half-circle surrounding the brilliant Phoenix. He stayed to the side, out of the way until She should call him. With a gruff sigh, he closed his eyes and took wing with Alianph. He didn't like this part of being a simourv rider, but there was nothing to do but wait it out.

[zeis]

Sleep was over-rated. At least Canph thought so as he rolled restlessly over on his ledge, mindful of his distance from the steep drop off the side. He didn't sleep easily or much most nights. The red needed very little rest to function, and resented the early to bed early to rise schedule his rider lived by. He didn't hide this resentment, and would have been mentally badgering and prodding K'huna still if the man hadn't finally drifted off. That was no fun. That left him alone and bored, unable to sleep, unable to talk to anyone. It was so late all his kin were probably asleep, and those that weren't wouldn't appreciate a curious intrusion into their minds at this hour.

The red gave an obnoxiously loud whuffing sigh, and perked his head up hopefully when he saw glimpsed K'huna rolling over, kicking off his meager blanket in an effort to beat the heat. Sadly, his rider did not wake up after this, and simply went still again. Canph lashed his tail a bit disgruntledly, and set about idly preening and grooming his wings, stretching them a bit obsessively. There was another reason why he couldn't sleep. Somewhere there were some powerful emotions building, known to him only by some incessant and fidgety tension in his mind and body that refused to go away. His wings and legs itched, brimming with energy and with no currently discernible way to spend it.

He stretched his wings expansively to their limits, and flexed them, a near silent exercise his Winglet students were well familiar with by now. Even that didn't help though, and he was about to be resigned to a night of restless and little sleep when he saw her. Tearing upwards and away into the sky, feathers and long tail trailing in a glittering streak of silvery gray and copper. Gray Eceph looked like sleek platinum comet flying low over the earth, and beckoning all awake at this hour to turn their eyes up to the sky in awe. And oh, was he awed.

Canph reacted without thought. Suddenly the itch and the ache made sense, and he was a fool to not have recognized it for what it was. The Phoenix was flying, and so was he. It was a pleasure and a challenge he had dreamed of seeing again ever since her maiden flight. Not only that, it was his duty as a red, as a warrior, to court her and pay her respect where respect was due. He rose at once to his feet at her single cry, and flung himself powerfully into the air. The beating of his wings sent a blast of cooling air into his eyling, along with a few large red and pink feathers swirling lazily in the eddies.

K'huna blinked open his yellow eyes just in time to register one of these plumes settling delicately on the bed next to him. Something was going on. Canph? The red-rider asked slightly dreamily, as he pushed himself up to peer drowsily at the ledge of his bonded. His simourv was gone, and somewhere out in the night the beasts cried and beat their wings. There was no verbal response, only the first salvos of an emotional barrage that would in short order lay siege to his rational mind. K'huna's own sight was abruptly taken from him, laid over with images of what Canph saw, the glittering elusive form of Eceph.

"Ro'za..." He stated in his last moments of sanity without much surprise, feeling both relief and some misgivings. It had been suspect that the gray would rise again soon, and he was glad the night was finally here. Like the other riders, he was not thrilled to have his initiative taken, but the experience wasn't entirely terrible. His resignation was replaced with a wistful longing, and agonistic determination. He rose from his bed, unmindful of his current state of undress. The ponderous march to the Phoenix's quarters allowed him no time to clear his thoughts as the bond between rider and simourv seized him fully.

He didn't linger long in the entrance to the gray-rider's eyling, and strode with numbed but unshaken confidence in between K'ean and G'len, boldly taking the middle ground in their half circle. His golden eyes cast fleeting glances to either of them before locking on the feral and tempting form of the Phoenix, their rightful and powerful leader. The man clenched and unclenched his fists as his muscles hummed with the energy that drove Canph to chase. He was here, and ready.

In the air over the Eyrie, Canph sliced through the humid air in pursuit. He dimly recognized the minds of Alianph and Seronaph around him, blazing with a similar power and energy, but not as brightly as the beacon that was Eceph. The primal mental suggestion to chase whether it originated from her or somewhere else was like a siren's call, irresistible and all encompassing. The itch and the ache did not lessen as he barreled after her in the darkness, but instead grew more insistent and urging as the flight got underway. There was no turning back from this, and he wouldn't have wanted to anyway.

Gradually closing the distance between him and his brothers, he breathed in deep and gave a deep bellowing call that was half crow and half howl. Canph would fly for Eceph until his throat cried for water, and his wings for rest.

[Kilnarak]

Something was happening. Teimoph sat upon the overlook in his room, a ledge which mirrored that of the larger simourv but in a decidedly smaller scale. He had been sleeping, just as His was sleeping now, curled within his nest of pillows and blankets. It had been a long day, the morning spent at their lessons and the remainder of the day wasted hunting the Eyrie's pests - while His seemed to find the little creatures palatable, Teimoph was quickly finding them too small to be worth the bother. Teimoph had been sleeping, but something out there in the night had awakened him and now he searched for it.

At first, Teimoph had thought it was His. N'raan had caused similar sensations in the past, before the young red had put his foot down (quite literally) and put a stop to the nightly excursions. This was... different, but similar all the same. It made him restless and uncomfortable, it made him want to move, want to do... something. He wasn't entirely sure what. He did not like it, at least, he did not think he liked it - he wasn't entirely certain, and that annoyed him. His first thought was that His had snuck away somehow, but no, the dark-skinned winglet was still sleeping and his dreams were hazy and formless, nothing that might cause this.

The young red had growled and paced for a few moments, before a trilling call had lead him to the overlook - which had in turn lead to him sitting there now, his golden eyes peering out into the night. While his sight was certainly better than a human's in the dark, still it had taken him some moments to find the source of the call. Eceph hovered over the canyon's rim a moment, then the moon-silvered grey's form darted away. It confused him. Why was she awake now? And why did looking to her only redouble that uncomfortable sensation building in his gut. He wanted to go to her, but he could not - his wings yet untested - and yet he did not. The conflicting desires made him growl all the louder, and behind him, in his nest of blankets, N'raan stirred and mumblingly echoed the noise.

It was only when a trio of forms rose from the Eyrie in pursuit of the grey, shrieking their response to her call, that Teimoph realized what was going on. He didn't entirely understand it, this courtship dance, but at the very least he understood that was what it was. The red growled again to himself, and then crowed his annoyance loudly out over the overlook, calling after his elders. He could surely do better than they could, and if he could now he would have proven it.

If Teimoph's pacing and growling had not awoken N'raan, then his angry cry had. He sat up with something of a start, and blinked blearily at the red. Teimoph had taken up stalking from one side of the ledge to the other, growling steadily at the night. "Th' hell is wrong with y'?" he grumbled, rubbing at his eyes and ending the question with a yawn. Teimoph's conflicted emotions roared through him, but that wasn't so strange - he was grown used to the red's frustrations, and if there was an added, slightly lustful edge to them, well, that wasn't so strange to wake up to either (if not normally something of Teimoph's).

Eceph is Flying, Teimoph growled as he ceased pacing and instead sat near to the edge of the overlook. His tail lashed behind him, and he did not look to His but instead watched the northern skies unerringly. N'raan frowned at his back, and drew one of his stolen sheets up about his shoulders. "S' wha'? She flies all th' damn'd time, anyway..." Of course he didn't entirely understand Teimoph's meaning, and the red cast a brief glare back at His, snorting sharply through his nostrils. So what!? But he couldn't find the words to explain it, and so he only glared at His for a few moments longer before turning his watchful gaze back out over the Eyrie's skies. N'raan waited some long moments for an answer, but time passed and none came he slowly lowered himself back to his bedding, curling about one of his pillows. "G' back t' sleep, Tei," he grunted, then tried to follow his own advice.

Of course, Teimoph didn't listen. He needed to see this through.

[Bre]

All I wanted to say, all I wanted to do . . .

Eceph knew that they followed. Canph, Alianph, and Seronaph chased her. They fought for her and she gazed upon them with golden eyes, each glance quick and uncaring. Her wings carried her effortlessly out in front of them. Compared to her, they were tiny, Alianph the only one worthy to be called large beside her. Of course, size wasn't everything, not to her, a woman of sensibility. She had the entire world spread out in front of her. She was bigger than everything, an angel come down for just a time to touch them with her grace and virtue. Only a true saint or the best sinner could win her affection and her acceptance. She strove for the sky, putting no thought to making their lives easier. They would follow her or they would lose. There was no middle ground. The gray of the matter would come later. She would come later. Right then, she simply flew.

Ro'za reacted to the males in her eyling more strongly than Eceph, but her reaction did little to affect the proceedings. She remained in flight with her gray, even as she inwardly seethed and paced the precipice of her room's ledge. Males! Lowly, little, lying lifeforms in her eyling of all places! They did not deserve her time! They had not won it yet! She glanced at them with her dark eyes, gaze furtive and feral. However, her vision was hazy and they were soon lost to her. She knew they were there. She hated them. However, she was truly in the sky, aloft on wings she half owned. In the air, she wanted them to pursue her. She wanted them to show their merit and do good for the eyrie. Up in the air, everything made sense. It was logical. Behind the lust, the same sensibilities remained. Up in the air, Eceph and her were untainted by idiocy.

High in the sky, Eceph led them on a merry chase. She focused on going higher, drawing them forward. She rose an inch or two with each stroke of her wings, pushing herself upwards and onwards. It taxed her, but she paid that no mind. In her moment of glory, she was timeless and immortal. Her mind could not bear the foresight of death. It thought dimly of children and mostly of lust, the timeless urge to choose a mate pulsing in her veins. It was an urge that crushed loyalty, but raised up the ideal of doing what was best for all. Light and free on her wings, she soared far out across the mountains until the summer heat gave way to the chill of high air and frigid peaks. She was beyond the world. She was beyond the seasons. Her muscles ached, but she did not feel it. A crowning jewel in silver and bronze, she flew without doubt or constraints.

However, the gray knew that it would all come to an end in time. She knew when it was right. She watched them. She watched they way they flew and how they acted, even if it didn't seem like she always had an eye on them. She was the hawk and they were her prey. She was always watching. In the end, every moment had its place and she knew exactly where they belonged. She knew when the time came for her to make her choice. She knew who she would choose. With a flip of her wings, she cartwheeled artfully through the air and snatched her chosen from the sky, locking her front talons with his in the blink of an eye. She crooned to him, saying his voice lowly in her mind. Alianph. He had proven himself again. It had been any easy choice. She did not mind the others, but he was a black, big and strong. He had done well and was picked for it.

Ro'za moved as Eceph moved, striding towards the men who dared to infect her eyling. She held herself back for only a moment, waiting until she herself became fully aware of who her simourv had sensibly picked. Then she tackled G'len, lips seeking out his as she unceremoniously collided with his chest and her legs tangled with his. Actions she would normally never even consider doing became a pattern that was half remembered. Her thoughts were long gone. She merely acted, something she found easy. Fueled by the lust and the dance occurring in the sky above her, she acted and did so with little more too it. She didn't have the capacities to say whether she liked kissing G'len. She wasn't much of a romantic and probably never would be. She wouldn't later on bother to think whether she liked kissing him or not. The kissing hardly mattered.

. . . is fall apart now, all I wanted to feel.