The next morning, I was up early, and saw that Neil was already waiting for me when I left the captain’s mess, haven eaten only a light breakfast. I still had a bit of sport ahead of me, but Tony did only agree to meet with me on the court in a few hours.

There were a few other things I had to take care of, and the cool morning wind was refreshing, blowing over the aerodrome field as I walked across it. Neil trailed along, gaping at the spectacle a morning training class, the first of the new recruits into the Academy.

There was a small training airship, the Goldbeam if memory served, doing circuits around the field. I chuckled as one turn tossed a recruit off the ship’s deck and he plummeted downward for a few moments until his training harness automatically trigged and he just floated there until his ship swung around and under him where one of the instructors caught a hand and hauled him back aboard. I could hear the enraged cries from across the field as the man gave the terrified cadet a serious dressing down.

“And that’s why you always stay lashed in.” I laughed at Neil’s horrified expression. “You know they don’t issue rigs with ballast to normal hands, just a parachute pouch on their harness. They use those more expensive training harnesses because, without fail, on almost every first cruise someone goes overboard.”

He nodded and kept staring across the field. I looked at where his gaze was fixed, and my eyes lit up in wonder as I saw a very rare sight. Two sun dragons were shepherding a young dragon without a rider past a gaggle of recruits looking for imprint candidates.

The elder dragon, an old patriarch of the sun dragon clan was nuzzling the fourteen-foot hatching dragon who had curled into a ball and seemed utterly disinterested in the candidates the academy had picked out for it. A huff of frustrated steam billowed out of the ancient dragon’s muzzle and she spun around.

The little dragon was more than content to just sleep away the morning. Neil looked longingly at the dragon as we passed, but the creature didn’t even look up, it just kept dozing there in the morning sun.

The candidates filed dejectedly away and the patriarch gave another huff of irritation and stomped off in the direction of the colossal hanger that I could see a few other tails and snouts of various dragons poking out of.

Neil’s longing made me chuckle a bit and I shook my head at him. “Just be glad you aren’t a dragon’s pilot boy, that’s not life for anyone.” I pointed to my tiny ship. “Sweetwind can outrun any dragon, and you don’t worry about becoming nothing more than a pawn to those that want to use your dragon half.” I chided and he gave a forlorn nod and ran to catch up to me.

“How are they chosen?” He asked and I just shrugged.

“No idea, most of the time it’s by someone who is sensitive to what they call dragonsong, but I be not knowing the what the heck is meant by that. Mostly the gift runs in families, but still the dragons are pretty picky beasts and won’t take on just anyone who can hear their speech.” I said and he nodded.

“That dragon must be a late bloomer, as they try to bond their first pilot at a hatching, and I’m betting that didn’t work either or he wouldn’t be so old and without a pilot.” I looked over the bustling activity surrounding the skiff and spotted Cid as he hung out of the refractory compartment guiding the completed gimbal down the stays along the keel. It was carefully being lowered in by the gigantic boom that was built into the ceiling of the hanger and ran along tracks near the roof.

A team of his assistants swarmed around him as he called out for tools and equipment. A clicking thud sounded from inside the refractory and he grunted and heaved the repaired gyroscopic gimbal’s frame into its place and his assistants rushed to help him secure it as a second line held the ballast crystal inside the device while he sealed it’s wardings back into the ship with a portable inscriber.

The ballast crystal spun in its new mountings as if it was trying to get its bearings and then settled down as Cid chided it and worked to help calibrate its alignment. Even from here I could feel Sweetwind’s glee at the long-awaited repairs.

There was a commotion behind us and I looked back onto the field and saw that a draconic head was peeking up out of his folded wings as another dragon set down on the field. This one was one of those polar dragons. Instead of the long, snake-like body of the sun dragon it was the classical large hulking lizard form of a Noria Greatwing. It gave a screech of greeting towards the hanger I had seen the other dragon disappear into and I saw the golden snout of the patriarch peek out then come galloping across the field.

Crew from the massive white dragon poured off the back, and I saw a short, stocky girl, who was its pilot slide down the side and coo at the tiny sun dragon as her own dragon exchanged polite greetings with the patriarch. The young sun dragon yawned and pranced around in a circle for a second, then curled up and went back to sleep.

“You know, I’ve always likened dragons to cats, those things are born grumpy, just like griffins.”

Natasha grinned at the display outside as she slid down out of the bow helm of the Sweetwind and nodded the scene. The perplexed pilot of the white dragon prodded the coiled form of the other dragon, shrugged and stretched as she ignored the delegation of Messenger Guild representatives that had exited the nearby customs and way building.

She pointed to a man in strange uniform that I didn’t recognize who was unloading items from the back of the harness, the delegation broke around her as she walked towards our hanger, watching with interest as Cid manipulated and calibrated the ballast of Sweetwind.

“Never saw a ship like this little one. She yours?” The woman’s burr was exotic and it turned more than a few heads. I nodded at the dark-haired girl who had skin in a shade of light brown that was of an ethnicity unknown to me. Slowly, I gave a curt bow of respect out of reflex. “Captain Becca Marshall, be at your service Dracon.” I gave the formal title and rank that in some cases, was equal to Captain of an airship. Most dragon pilots held a very high honorary rank in their crew, but were not always in charge of anything other than the piloting side of their dragon. It often depended on the culture, service or military the dragon served in. Of course, there were independent dragons, but they were exceptionally rare.

Shaking her head, she pointed to the unfamiliar ranking insignia on the front of her leather flight tunic and gave a bit of a laugh. “I’m no Dracon, I still have a few turns of the sky mother yet before I has my own crew. Right now, I’m bound into the tutelage of Loremaster Naraka. My proper rank is at Novice I’m afraid.” She pointed back at the large man who was glaring at his charge as he dealt with a small crowd of officials from the guild and the aerodrome’s custom offices.

The girl rolled her eyes at my astonished expression and extended a hand in greeting. “Novice Amka Kadima to your honor Captain Marshall.” Her clipped voice chirped and I smiled as I returned the gesture.

“No need for all that captain stuff, I get enough of that from the academy brats. Becca will do just fine.” I returned and she gave me a grin.

There were few people that instantly met with my approval, but Amka was one of those few free souls that my instincts inclined me to trust on first sight. She wasn’t the kind of person that had a devious bone in her body, she was just a free spirit like myself.

“I’m not familiar with that uniform, and I’ve been around a fair bit, what country is that?” I asked, perplexed. The uniform did look like I had seen it before, but in a book or something.

“We a special envoy sent by Silverberg Spire, in the south pole.” Her thick accent rasped, I narrowed my eyes, confused. I knew that the south pole was inhabited, but it was on the other side of the great rift. I had heard of the group of eccentrics that were rumored to live out there only in passing. Scholars and Magi worked with the Walkers of the spire, and braved the great labyrinth of sorrow, a massive sunken library from before the cataclysm that was filled with all sorts of horrors.

“Us sky folk don’t get past the great rift very often, as ballast tends to be unreliable near it.” I explained to her and she gave an empathetic nod. I had actually been near the rift a few times, when I was a teenager and our family was chasing the sky herds along the edge. Those moments of sheer terror still stuck with me the few times Sweetwind had gone into crash dives to escape force void areas, spots where the ballast wouldn’t catch the planet’s lifeforce.

“Ah yes, I have heard tale of that. You know it is not only ballast that acts… strange around there.” She studied the hull of Sweetwind with longing, as if she wanted to climb aboard and get a closer look.

I nodded, remembering having to work on corrupted enchantments for months after returning from the rift areas. My mother had taken the opportunity to teach me the special scripting that the inner workings of Sweetwind were written in. We never did quite get everything working right, that was when the older equipment on the helms had started acting up and my mother had cobbled together a workaround.

I had always pondered the mystery of the rifts, and why they existed around each pole of Prime. From what I had gathered, they were from the very formation of Endaria, and there was nothing like them in any other realm.

Also, the area at each pole that the rifts encircled was… odd to say the least. They overflowed with wild forces of the elements, and there were all sorts of weird phenomena in them including the occasional wandering world tear, sort of natural occurring world gates that could lead almost anywhere in Endaria.

The wind folk were terrified of the area, and many of the ghost stories we told about spectral airships were centered around that part of Prime where the natural laws of Endaria tended to break down into confusion.

Still, the mighty sky whales would migrate between the poles, and follow the rift each season along with all the other biota that would accompany the herds. It was the best time to locate a good harvest, even if you had no intention of going anywhere near the herds. How the massive creatures managed to navigate them were a popular mystery that was one of Prime’s great unknowns.

“He is a traveler?” She gestured at Neil who had wandered back to Sweetwind. I nodded and sighed as I saw the quizzical look on the woman’s face.

“We have one traveler with us at the library. He has made a hermit of himself, and I have not seen him for more than a few years now.” I nodded knowingly at her words, about how oddly most travelers behaved.

Neil looked up, I guess sensing our eyes on him and I saw his face redden at our gaze before he ducked back down into the refractory to watch Cid work.

At that behavior we both laughed and the woman nudged me. “He is kin in spirt to my brother. I can see his aura, it dances just like his.” She said, with a distant expression and I frowned, wondering just what this strange girl could see that my own gifts could not. I casted a working over my eyes and studied her own curling whirls of power that surrounded her like a cloak and she grinned at me as I followed the strange patterns with my mind. Glancing back to her crew, she caught a gesture of beckoning from her minder from across the field.

“Becca, well I do need to be off, I can see that my little chat has caused some impatience with Loremaster Naraka.” As she bounded off, I could see the man’s stern gaze track me like a hawk. Unlike her, I didn’t get the same sort of feeling in my mind when I focused on him. His eyes seemed to study me intently as his pupil caught up to him and he turned to her to start giving some sort of stern lecture.

I smiled and wondered if she would be sticking around for a while. It would be nice to have someone to talk to other than my often quite annoying family or infuriating bureaucrats.

As if on cue, I looked up and smirked as I saw Tony stalking across the aerodrome field, in full dueling gear, looking uncomfortable in his borrowed combat rig, that looked maladjusted and tight on his massive frame.

“Hey Tony! Over here!” I called and he narrowed his eyes at me before grinning like a wolf.

“Read for your beat down?!” He roared and I hunted around for Neil before pulling him away from Cid who was using his as a tool monkey.

“Let’s be off Neil, I have to give my honored cousin a good thumpin.” I laughed and he slunk behind me as I shrugged into my combat harness after I had Natasha fetch it for me along with an old set of worn dueling armor that Tony handed me from a flight bag. Judging by the fit I assumed that he had borrowed it from Aunt Gracie.

I tossed Neil his own flight harness and he gave me a look of surprise when I told him to put it on. “Your my second, so you will need this.” Tony and I both tried to keep from laughing at the astonished traveler as the mix of panic and bafflement warred on his face.

Tony and I headed onto the far side of the aerodrome, and I saw that Tony had already marked out the circle.

I saw a small girl, of about twelve already in the air high above us, and I looked up, my goggles tinting as the sun struck them and gave a whoop as I pushed power into my harness and gave it a leap, rocketing into position at one side of the circle.

Neil, not to be outdone, clumsily pushed himself up into the air spinning head over heels a few times before he finally righted himself, causing a peal of laughter from the girl that was watching his antics from above us.

“Gina get down here, you’re supposed to be Tony’s second!” I scolded the girl and she blew me a raspberry and tucked her arms out, the wings of her flight suit, flaring as she dived on Neil, cackling with glee.

He gave a surprised squawk and I saw him lose control over the power he was feeding to his harness and went spinning away, end over end before I smoothly caught him before he could go into a dizzying, out of control spiral that I knew from experience was often the result of such a mistake.

We both rotated, weightlessly around each other as I pushed against his spin with my harness and we came to a halt in the air, Gina sliding up behind me as she studied the unsteady boy with incredulous eyes.

“Sorrrrry!” She finally said when I gave her my best “I’m gonna to get you.” Look. Gina knew from experience that I was quite inventive in my revenge.

“Gina, help him to his side of the circle!” I smiled at the girl and she nodded quickly and grasped Neil, gently pulling him to the other side where he bobbed uncertainty, as he fought to stay in position against the brisk wind blowing over the aerodromes’ field.

Far below us I could see the little dragon glancing sleepily up at our antics, his head on his forepaws as he watched our activity with lidded eyes. I could also see the academy brats that had been offering to bond with the dragon watching us intently, their instructor handing one of them a spyglass and cheering something at Tony who waved at him.

I had cleared this corner of the field with the tower for only a half hour. The sky folk often used this side of the field for their little bouts and it was nothing remarkable to them. Still, I was betting that they were watching us intently through their massive spotter scopes and taking a pool on which one of us would win.

Tony floated up to me, and I crossed my arms and grinned at him as he pulled his goggles over his eyes and gave me a sarcastic salute. I returned him with a rude gesture as Gina cackled with laughter.

“Hey Tony! First of three or code Thaka rules?” I said and he just shrugged and grinned at me, and I rolled my eyes at him, as his cracking shield of energy flared around him expanding, filling the special enchantments of the dueling armor.

I did the same, feeling my heart thump and my excitement climb at our coming clash. I formed balls of flaring power in each hand, and I saw him harden his own palms as they began to glow.

We charged. Power shot between us as the air shuddered with a cracking boom, our fists meeting and striking out at the glowing point circles on our armor, each one of us directing wind and power, pushing away blows and reflecting attacks.

I fell into the fury of the conflict, with a zeal and glee I had missed in the many years since I had last fought Tony. There were few equals of my power among the sky folk, but Tony and I had always tested our strength against each other over the years, much to the disapproval of our family.

The family discouraged conflict, but our relationship was more friendly rivalry than any sort of feud that it often appeared to outsiders.

With a cry of glee, I found an opening and slammed my power into Tony’s ward structure and watched it shatter along with his deflection. He careened off the blow and his dueling armor lit up with a flashing red glow as he righted himself and saluted, then held up two fingers as I grinned at him.

Best of three it was.

He got me in the next exchange, slamming past me as I pushed a feint away and attempted to break another side of his shields. The blow blasted through my barrier and knocked the wind out of me, sending me sprawling through the air before I caught myself just bare inches from passing the circle and being disqualified.

We grappled in the next exchange and, and our spell structures fought a desperate battle as we both tried to shatter each other’s defenses. They burst at the same times and in a fiery flash both our dueling vests lit up with angry red.

My body started to bubble with laughter as Gina shrieked in triumph and gave Neil a nasty smirk. I was about to call the little girl off, but it was far too late, as she went bouncing towards my second as we both ducked below them to watch. I wish I could have said it was like watching a perfect falcon release, but it was more like an over-enthusiastic puppy performing a running tackle.

I really should have explained things to Neil beforehand as the confused countenance he presented made it quite apparent, he had no idea what to do. I still remember that expression on his face, it was priceless!

The girl barely gave him any time to react as she flipped over at the last possible instant and planted both her tiny boots into his stomach, sending the boy flying out of the circle. She crowed her victory and zoomed around him as he tried to right himself, spinning end over end, the wind merrily blowing him down the field.

“Gina, bring him back here and stop fooling around!” Tony called to the girl who waved to him then grasped one of Neil’s flailing legs and latching onto it as she arrested his tumble and towed him back to the circle.

“You planned that! Tony accused me and I tried to keep a straight face, but we both failed and burst out laughing at the queasy expression on my apprentice’s face as he tried not to heave.

“Well, he needed some practice in the harness!” I said as Tony admonished me and shook his head as I considered just how hard it was to stay angry at my cousin.

“When did Gina become your responsibility anyways? I didn’t know you needed that little bandit as your partner in crime.” I laughed and he shrugged.

“Wasn’t my idea, sis thought her little imp needed to get out and see the world, so I got stuck with her when she found out Gracie was sending me along with you.” He groaned and we all winced as Neil lost the battle to keep the contents of his stomach. I had a different theory, and that was that her mother needed some Gina free time, and just wanted some peace and quiet.

My face resumed its snarky grin as I remembered the first time I had encountered the little fiend, she had jumped onto mom’s harness as she was flying over to Sweetwind from Argos, laughing the whole way with mom shrieking and spinning, trying to grab her and unlash Gina from her harness. They had both plowed into the mainsail and startled me at the helm nearly causing me to slam the deck up into them from below as they landed. I couldn’t quite recall whom my mom had been more pissed at, me or the reckless brat.

“Ewww… he actually gets the sky jimmies Aunt Becca?” She looked at Neil with fascinated horror that only someone practically born wearing a harness could.

“Well, not normally, I think. I don’t think… that blow to the stomach was very nice of you Gina, you could have just pushed him out!” I admonished the girl who suddenly became the picture of hurt innocence.

“I was Uncle Tony’s second! OK? So there!” She gloated as I shot a glare at her role model. “I know where she get’s her sense of fair play from!” I accused, my glare boring into my cousin like a harpoon.

Tony shrugged and pointed at the little dragon below us who was looking up and sniffing the air. “Is that normal?” He said and I saw the long form of the sun dragon turn its snout upward and give a keening cry.

We looked at Gina in shock as she had frozen and locked eyes with the dragon. Almost in unison Tony and I uttered choice curses as we both realized what was happening. We had both been present at dragon bondings before.