Inheritance

Month 1 Week 4

The Matriarchy – Northern Territories

Wind gusted past Dara’s ears in a whistling roar. Even with the protective helmet on, she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the air she was rushing through faster than she had ever traveled before. The helmet wasn’t a custom fit either, it was just one of the multi-size spares the Courier and his sentient giant bird partner kept on hand for passengers.

They flew during the day mostly, but sometimes at night. From one Courier station to another. The first trip, from the City of the Matriarch to the bustling farming community where she had just left behind Esep and May, had been longer. Sitting day after terrifying day in the passenger compartment of the beautifully carved chariot atop the giant bird’s back had cramped her long legs and tensed up her broad shoulders.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d been able to distract herself from the pain she was in from sitting in a seat designed for the smaller bones of the average citizen of the Matriarchy. But…and this was a brand-new and previously unbeknownst to her but…, Daralei Freyan was apparently afraid of heights.

Or it could just be that she was afraid of falling off the back of a giant bird and hitting the ground at abominable speeds? Somehow, she couldn’t decide if a sudden death would be better than the ache in her cramped legs or the stabbing fire of her hips being mashed together by the sides of her wood and leather seat.

Whatever the case, she spent her days in constant heart-hammering fear and her nights in the Courier stations in too much agony to relax in the too small beds. The time she’d spent on May and Esep’s farm sleeping in a barn loft to get used to living in close quarters with animals, had been pure bliss comparatively. With a shuddering sigh, Dara once again tried to relax her grip on the door handle of the chariot seat. She had been reflexively grasping it, pulling it more tightly closed even though it was already tightly closed.

With the ground sweeping by beneath her at speeds she had once believed only the Gods could have reached, was there even a point to her desperate attempt to keep herself within the seat? There was no cover on the Courier Bird’s chariot. All it would take would be one tilting swoop too far to one side or the other and whoops, out she would fall. The safety restraints were not fit for someone of her size and weight.

“That’s it! I can’t bloody take I anymore! Shut up! You are not going to fall. I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE!” The voice had started out as merely indignant but gradually grew in volume and vehement rage until it the last sentence ended in a reverberating scream of fury. In shock, the terrified exile had released her fearful death grip on both the safety restraints and the chariot door.

Damnit. Now I’ve gone and lost my mind. The thought was sooooo depressing. Immediately gripped with an all-encompassing malaise, Dara’s shoulders slumped wearily. Her body gone suddenly slack, was easily jostled by the buffeting winds upon which her transport currently rode. There wasn’t a point in struggling to survive anymore if she was hearing voices and out of her mind, was there?

“Oh, for the love of…?! Are you daft? It’s me. Valiesssse. Your Courier Bird. Courier Birds are telepaths. Duh?!” The voice was somehow rude and extremely proper, speaking with a sickeningly sweet tone and an oh-so-very proper upper-crust accent. “I know we don’t usually talk to people other than our riders, but you’ve been screaming in your head for DAYS now and I just couldn’t take it anymore. If I had to listen to you silent-scream ‘Oh, my Gods I’m gonna diiieeeee’ one more time with every single beat of my wings, I was going to fly the three of us straight into the side of a mountain just to put myself out of YOUR misery.”

“Oh my Gods!” Dara snorted quietly with a combination of amusement and embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.” Covering her hand she stifled the hysterical giggles that wanted to bubble forth from her.

Part of her had forgotten that Courier Birds could hear projected thoughts. And she’d definitely not been thinking about the fact that she was probably safer on the back of a Courier than on the back of a horse. The giant birds were intelligent. They weren’t just beasts that blindly followed a handler’s direction.

“That’s right. You are perfectly safe. But just so that you don’t start panicking again. Why don’t we have a conversation to keep your mind off of flying”? If the rider flying in the seat ahead of her could have seen the way Dara’s face transformed with joy, he’d have been very confused indeed. Valiesssse had chosen not to inform him that she had chosen to speak with Dara and he couldn’t have heard any of Dara’s spoken responses through the protective ear-muffs he was wearing or the roar of wind as they flew.

“I would so appreciate that.” Relief flooded through her system and Dara could already feel herself relaxing at just the thought of being distracted for a few hours.

“Don’t speak out loud. At this altitude, it will just dry your throat out. Just…hmmm…how do I explain this? Just think loudly at me.”