Flying

“Hey! Look at that!” Bookworm yelled.
“What now?” Shade asked. “If you’re showing off those kunai again…” Bookworm had been repeatedly throwing her kunai daggers and demanding that everyone stop to look at how well she had thrown them. This was getting very annoying. As she proved during the Quidditch game, Bookworm has terrible aim. Despite her bragging, it was obvious that none of the kunai had gone in the correct place, which made everything even more annoying. The good thing was that the random kunai attacks had forced all the forest creatures to seek shelter. The Squirrel King had been planning to lead his army to take the shiny marble from the annoying human creature, but his plans were now ruined. Unfortunately, Bookworm’s friends did not know this and were just annoyed at her.
“No! I think… Yeah! That’s smoke over there!” Bookworm pointed at a small plume of smoke just visible over the trees.
“You’re right… Keyblade, you’re going to have to wait a little longer for the flying practice. I want to see what’s going on over there,” Shade said. Keyblade nodded in agreement. She was curious too. They all hurried to the edge of the forest, where a terrible sight met their eyes. It had clearly been a small village sometime recently, but had been reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble.
“H-help…” a weak voice called. Bookworm dropped her kunai knives in surprise. She ran in the direction of the voice and found the only surviving villager. A purple drake was lying against a piece of burnt wood from one of the houses. Her clothes were stained with blood.
“What happened?” Bookworm asked, kneeling beside the drake to see if she could help.
“Attacked… green drake… revenge…” the purple drake gasped. Her wounds made it very difficult to breathe, but she knew she had to speak quickly. She did not have much time. “Please… human… tell King Rainheart…” With the last of her strength, the drake handed Bookworm a sphere. A moment later, the drake was dead. Her sphere turned purple.
“Come on, Bookworm,” Keyblade said. “We should find Rainheart. It’s what she wanted. Her essence is in the sphere now, like how Goldd’s essence is in mine.”
“Yeah… okay,” Bookworm said, still in shock. She stood up and started to walk away, then turned back. She couldn’t bury the drake’s body, but she didn’t want to just leave it. “Incendio!” As soon as Bookworm said the incantation, flames engulfed the corpse. She then picked up her kunai and followed Keyblade, Shade, and Mithos out of the destroyed village. As they approached the gorge, they had to stop again.
“Hey! What’s that?” Mithos pointed up ahead.
“It looks like some kind of shrine,” Shade said.
“Cool!” Mithos ran to investigate it. In the shrine, he found a silver marble. “Ooooh! Shiny!” He grabbed the marble.
“Mithos, what are you doing?” Keyblade asked.
“I found a shiny marble!” Mithos shouted, sounding remarkably like the Squirrel King.
“Let me see,” Shade said, snatching the sphere before Mithos could protest. “It’s silver. That means it contains the essence of Sylvrr, Goldd’s mate. Its power is second only to Goldd’s marble.”
“Cool!” Mithos grabbed Sylvrr’s sphere again. “I’m more powerful than Bookworm! And I’m taller than Keyblade!”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Keyblade asked in annoyance.
Mithos shrugged. “Does this mean I can fly too?”
“We’ll see when we get to the gorge,” Shade said. “We’re almost there now.”
A short time later, they reached the gorge.
“Yay! We get to fly!” Bookworm cheered.
“Me first! Yippee!” Keyblade’s wings and tail appeared in a golden haze. She ran to the edge of the gorge and jumped off! Immediately, Goldd began to give her instructions and advice. (An essence-containing marble gives the wielder the ability to communicate with the drake through a mental link.) With Goldd’s help, Keyblade quickly mastered flight. She whooped with glee as she soared above her friends.
“You are just like Cat when she learned to fly,” Goldd told her. Keyblade smiled proudly.
“My turn!” For the first time, Bookworm’s wings and tail appeared. They were a dark bluish-purple, like the drake who had given her the sphere. “Yay!” She excitedly jumped off the cliff, but instead of flying like Keyblade, Bookworm immediately started falling.
“Move your wings! Bookworm! You have to move your wings to fly!” Keyblade shouted as she flew by.
“She’s right! If you don’t move your wings, you’ll just fall! Move them back and forth!” At the drake’s words, Bookworm finally stopped screaming and tried moving her wings back and forth. It worked! She flew past Keyblade, cheering happily.
“Your turn now!” Shade said, pushing Mithos off the cliff. He screamed and fell, moving his wings up and down. “No! Move them back and forth, not up and down! Back and forth!”
“BACK AND FORTH!” When Sylvrr’s screaming voice joined Shade’s, Mithos finally flew correctly. He immediately crashed into the gorge wall.
“Ouch…” He was barely conscious but was still trying to fly. Unfortunately, his collision had caused him to forget that he was supposed to move his wings back and forth, not up and down. Flying incorrectly, he began to fall again. Before he hit the bottom of the gorge, Keyblade and Bookworm caught him by the arms and together managed to drag him along as they flew to the top of the cliff.
“Is he unconscious again?” Shade asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Keyblade nodded.
“No… I’m not unconscious… yet…” Mithos said weakly. “I’m gonna try flying again… I have to do better than Keyblade… I’m taller than her…”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Keyblade demanded. “And why do you always bring that up?” Mithos didn’t answer.
Shade rolled her eyes. “Mithos, are you capable of walking? If so, we should head to the capital to meet Rainheart.”
“Can’t we fly there?” Bookworm asked eagerly.
“And crash into a tree like Keyblade did? No way!” Shade shook her head.
“Yeah, I think I can walk. And I can fly too!” Mithos shouted.
“Hey Shade! Don’t you want to fly too? Couldn’t you put a drake essence in that empty sphere or something?” Bookworm asked randomly.
“Don’t worry! I’ll fly soon! But now we need to find Rainheart,” Shade said. She grinned evilly and went back into the forest, leaving Bookworm very confused.