Air whipped past Giselle, tugging at her robes, her hair, and even her very skin as the wyvern tore through the skies. She tried to peek over the crest of the beast as they flew, trying to get a look at Lara on hers, but as soon as she passed that protective cover the resulting gust of air blasted her eyes. Involuntarily, she closed them and ducked back down. She had tried to peek over the crest multiple times throughout the flight, only to find the same result each time.

She was sitting on a saddle, gripping the horn until her knuckles turned white. They had taken off from the wyvern master several hours ago with little warning. After getting their supplies, they had come back to find the man with two wyverns saddled up and ready to go. Giselle noted with a small bit of delight she was placed on the grey one that had noticed her when they first arrived.

The wyvern master had given them a short speech, basically amounting to the fact the creatures knew where to go, all they had to do was hang on and the wyvern would take care of the rest. He had given them both a small whistle shaped like a tiny wyvern as well.

“After you land and unpack from the saddles, my wyverns will take off and leave you,” he said. Before Giselle could ask any questions about their return, he kept talking. “When you are ready to come back, blow this whistle. They will come to you as fast as they can and pick you up. You can only blow this once. Once it is blown, if you refuse to get on, they will leave and return to me. Understood?”

Lara and Giselle both nodded as they took the whistles. Giselle looped hers around her neck, tucking it beneath her robes to keep it safe. Glancing over to the librarian she saw her whistle was gone, hopefully tucked away somewhere safe too.

“Any more questions?” the wyvern master asked. Giselle opened her mouth, but couldn't get a single question to come out. She had so many she wanted to ask, but they may not pertain to the exact moment they were in. She was saved from having to pick one by Lara.

“Nope!” the librarian smiled. The man nodded and pulled out a large whistle. He blew three short notes and the wyverns lurched into the air, sending Giselle's stomach into her toes. Lara gave a whoop of excitement and they were off, each pull of the wings sending the ground further and further below until Giselle couldn't look anymore for fear of getting dizzy and falling off. She had little doubts the beast was fairly intelligent, but whether it could catch her after falling was not something she wanted to explore.

The ground continued to speed past them, far below. As they left the city, it was mostly farmlands and forests. As they continued to head west, the farms grew more sparse and the trees thinned more and more until they stopped completely. Soft, rolling hills covered in grass took over the landscapes.

“Have you ever done anything quite so exhilarating?” Lara said. She had to shout to be heard and Giselle jumped when she heard the woman's voice. Their wyverns had come side by side, or as close as it would allow with their beating wings.

Giselle shook her head.

“Don't you love it?” Lara’s face was one of pure glee, a broad smile and rosy cheeks from the wind. She pushed herself up, past the protective crest of the wyvern, and the air pulled her skin bag, stretching her into a grotesque skull, nearly. She dropped back down, panting and laughing.

Giselle just watched the woman with horrified fascination. Humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, whoever they were, were not meant to be in the sky. It's why they didn't have wings. The fact that this woman was whooping and loving this was utterly foreign, and a bit disturbing.

“Oh, I wish I had wings of my own, don't you?” Lara shouted. “I would fly anywhere I needed to be, soaring higher and higher into the air, then swooping down, getting as much speed as possible before spreading my wings and kissing the ground with the lightest touch.”

“You’re insane!” Giselle shouted back, but Lara just laughed. She gave her wyvern a nudge and the beast swooped down, going into a dive. Giselle watched, even more terrified than before, as the beast dove before spreading its massive wings and arresting its fall. They probably weren't as close to the ground as Lara had imagined, but it was enough for Giselle to look away, feeling nauseous.

The librarian came back up, happy as can be. “Try it!”

Giselle shook her head again, lowering herself closer to the saddle. Whether Lara took this as an invitation or simply was an ass, Giselle would never know. She directed her wyvern above Giselle’s and somehow, with some unholy magic or way or communicating her demented desires, convinced the warlock’s ride to follow Lara’s in a manic dive towards the earth.

It started innocuously enough, with a sort of tilting that sent your heart and stomach into your throat. The ground below seemed to lean into her vision, then the wyvern dove. Giselle had imagined falling, usually in a nightmare, but nothing prepared her for the plummeting feeling. Everything in her body was sent to her head, and she felt herself being lifted off the saddle.

Squeezing her eyes shut as hard as she could, Giselle screamed. She held on for dear life, refusing to look at the approaching ground that would surely kill them. She fell and fell, knowing this was the end, when suddenly her guts and blood was forced from her head, back through her body, and now into her toes. She came crashing down on the saddle and felt herself being pushed down.

Risking cracking an eye open, blue skies filled her vision again. Opening them both, she saw they were now flying back up, Lara laughing that damned stupid laugh next to them. She sidled her wyvern over.

“Wasn't that fun?”

Giselle just shook her head.

“Let’s do it again!”

“Absolutely not!” Giselle found her voice. Lara raised a hand defensively, but kept smiling. “Fine, no more drops. But there is no way we can avoid the next bit of fun.”

Giselle followed to where the librarian was pointing ahead of them. A mountain range was looming, high jagged things with ice covered caps and thin valleys between the spire like peaks. Clouds coalesced around the mountain tops, looming grey specters that kept the peaks perpetually snow and ice bound.

“We packed stuff to go through the clouds, right?” Giselle asked. Lara just laughed again, her face flushed with excitement.

The mountains were looming nearer and nearer as they sped towards them. Giselle tugged at the saddle, wondering how to control this stupid flying beast as the wyverns guided them toward the tiniest sliver of opening between tow razor sharp mountainsides.

“We are going to go above, right?!” Giselle shouted, her eyes wide.

“Here we go!” Lara answered, letting out a riotous laugh.

Their wyverns turned sideways, and it was all Giselle could do to hang on and not scream again. Swooping into the mountain range, the warlock forced herself to keep her eyes open this time. Falling was terrible, but whipping through mountains that would splatter them like an egg if they made a small misstep, seeing was better. Well, only marginally better. Enough to keep her eyes open at least.

Lara’s wyvern was just ahead of hers, swooping left, then right at impossible speeds. Giselle barely had time to register the scenery passing them, mostly rocks and lonely, misshapen pine trees, before they were past it and onto the next bit of mountain. Rocks and cliffs came out of nowhere at them, only avoided by the wyverns' last second turns and maneuvers.

With each tilt and shift, Giselle felt her stomach growing looser and looser. Her breakfast was slowly but steadily making its way up, trying to invade her throat. She prayed to whatever was listening, even the demons from the Other, hoping they would make it through or level out before she retched all over the wyverns back. She had a sneaking suspicion the beast would not take too kindly to being treated that way, and couldn't help but wonder if anyone else had vomited onto a wyvern and what happened to them.

Mercifully, thankfully, and likely not in answer to her prayers and wild bargains she had made to whatever was listening, the mountain range ended. On maps it appeared short, and Giselle was intensely relieved to find for once the maps were accurate. While short in width, they were incredibly tall and imposing, leading to a massive rain shadow on the side they had just emerged unto.

Before her stretched a desert of immense size. Where the mountains were tall and narrow, the desert was mostly flat, with the occasional dune and rolling hills of sand, but wide, further than she could see. Tan sand, broken up only by the occasional black rock jutting out, stretched in every direction she could look.

“Immense, isn't it?” Lara said, next to Giselle again.

“I think immense is a bit of an understatement. Also,” Giselle said, making sure to look pointedly at the librarian. “If you ever take me on a flight like that again without warning me, I will sell your soul to the demons.”

Lara laughed again, but there was a bit of hesitation to it this time. Giselle smiled and turned back to the desert. That should teach her to surprise her with such nonsense.

“So where do we go now?” the warlock asked.

“We keep flying west. The monolith is pretty easy to see from miles away.” Lara smiled a bit sheepishly. “To tell you the truth, I was hoping the wyverns would bring us directly to it.”

“Well, that is what we ordered,” Giselle said. “And I trust this guy to bring me exactly where I need to go.”

She patted the wyvern on his side, and felt a low rumble within him. Unsure if this was a good thing, she quickly withdrew. The wyvern turned his head back, eyeing her. Tentatively, she placed her hand on its side again and it rumbled once more, turning back towards its flight. Giselle gave Lara a wide eyed look, and Lara only gave a thumbs up.

Turning back to the desert, flowing quickly below them like the rushing of river rapids, Giselle tried to see the monolith Lara had spoken of. A quick glance back showed they had travelled much further than Giselle would have thought, the mountains that had proven a hateful adversary quickly diminishing into the distance, now not much larger than her hand held sideways.

“How wide is this desert?” Giselle asked, but Lara was not listening. Perhaps the words had been taken from her mouth and lost to the wind. Either way, the librarian was leaning back in her saddle, letting small bits of wind whip her hair around, her eyes closed. Perhaps that was the best thing to do.

Giselle leaned back as well, slowly, her stomach and muscles protesting the whole way. She closed her eyes, this time her mind screaming at her to stop. Taking the reins on the wyverns, she wrapped it tightly around her leg, that way, if something did happen and she fell she would at least hang onto the beast and not drop to her death. Hopefully.

Finally, she allowed her body to relax a little and, against all odds, sleep took her.