Prompt 30
Author's Notes
in iapya, wings can be conjured by anyone with magical ability, granting flight to any non-avian tinkers.
magic is an energy- and willpower-based system. a certain amount of energy is needed to create a magical force and maintain it. the force of will strengthens the magical force and can maintain it even when the caster is out of energy. certain objects (in this case, cato's sapphire), if they have a lot of meaning to the tinker in question, can store energy indefinitely, and if the tinker is touching the object these reserves can be tapped into and used at any point. however, they can only be used by the tinker who put the energy in there to begin with.
a so-animal is what we would consider a normal animal, one that did not go down the same evolutionary route as the intelligent species of the land. for example, if one mentioned a fox, they would be talking about a large, intelligent, magical fox who can walk both on four legs and two, but if one mentioned a so-fox, they would be talking about a perfectly ordinary, small, non-magical fox.
Cato landed atop the city walls, pearly white wings fading away. Berlin drifted down beside him. Her golden wings shone magnificently in the evening sunlight, legs stretched out elegantly as she landed in a graceful manner beside him. If he could catch moments in a jar and keep them forever, that would surely be one of them; flying alongside his best friend, sitting in a place they surely weren't supposed to be, looking across the arid landscape towards the setting sun. It felt perfect, and no words needed to be exchanged between them to know what the other was thinking.
Of course, not all was well.
Where the should only have been trees dotting the landscape and small bushes scattered among the rocks, sinister dark figures lurked. They had gathered en masse just out of the reach of the city's defences. Though they could not see any of the towns and villages behind the wall of figures, Cato knew that there would only be ruins. Nothing left untouched. A look of worry had appeared on Berlin's face, as though she was thinking much the same thing, and he would not be surprised if she was; unlike him, who had been born in the city, she had moved there from a distant village in search of a better life. In some respects, she had found the life she had been searching for, but now it seemed the cost had been the loss of her family. Surely they now lay in her distant village, their remains nothing more than ashes drifting on the wind. He shifted closer to his friend in a comforting manner, pressing his small, fluffy body against her larger one. He suspected her short fur and lean muscles weren't providing her much protection from the incoming cold winds. The sharp chill would only bite all the harder with the dark thoughts on their minds.
"Do you think it'll be okay?"
Her voice was soft and with a slight lilt to it. It wasn't often she spoke quietly.
Cato spoke with an undeserved confidence, making sure his voice didn't portray the tight know in his stomach. "Of course it'll be okay. They'll never be able to get through the walls. Nobody has been able to before, and we've only strengthened them since then."
She nodded, but it was clear she didn't believe him. Without a word, she stood up, conjured her wings, and leapt off the parapets, silently gliding back to her home.