SC ARPG Fills

The Slumbering Sequoia was the biggest tree Hess has ever seen. Its branches stretched so high above the ground that they started to disappear from view, and with the clouds mingling with its leaves it looked like the tree itself was holding up the sky. Azua pawed at the ground, giving herself—and Hess on her back—a small shake. “I know, I know.” Hess had been staring up at the branches crading the sky for several long minutes. Azua was patient, but they did come here to fly and so far they’d made no move to leave the ground. It was absolutely beautiful up there, but the idea of getting up there made Hess’s stomach flip flop uncomfortably.

Edgar had mentioned this when he sent Azua over to help Hess out, but without actually being here, in the forest, and seeing what he was talking about there wasn’t any way to understand the scale of it. ‘Fly to the top of a tree’ had a different sort of ring to it when the only trees you knew were the ones close to town, or the fruit trees Dahlia grew. It sounded doable! Maybe a little scary when you’d never been that far off the ground before, but not much worse than climbing that same tree. But this… This was something else entirely. It was like the rest of the world stopped and then the tree kept going. It wasn’t just tall, it was massive. And Hess was supposed to go above that?

Azua snorted and paced forward a bit, turning to look over her shoulder at Hess. He swallowed hard. “Right. Right! Edgar said it’s fine. So it’s… probably fine.” He looked back up and adjusted his grip on Azua’s reins. The strap was digging into his palms from the death grip he had on it. “Okay.”

Azua jumped, her wings flaring out before Hess could do more than squeak. Apparently his attempt to reassure himself had been taken as permission to take off. Hess leaned forward, hugging as tightly as he could to Azua’s back. He’d done his best to keep his eyes open on the ride here, watching the ground fall away from beneath Azua’s feet was too much. He dragged his gaze upward instead, looking toward where Azua was going. The wind rushed past them and Hess felt like he could feel the ground getting further away. The sensation might have been his imagination, but the sequoia’s trunk sped past them and the branches were rapidly approaching, so it was definitely happening. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, all his energy channeled into keeping his grip on Azua’s reins and staying firmly on her back. The urge to look down rose up in the back of his mind, to see if they were really as far from solid ground as he thought. He squeezed his eyes shut instead. He was sure that if he opened his mouth he was going to scream, and he didn’t want to do that. If he startled Azua she might accidentally throw him—or more likely she’d move in a way he wasn’t expecting and he’d lose his grip because it would absolutely be his fault if that happened—and he didn’t want to think about what would happen then. The quick ascent was bad but a quick descent would be a thousand times worse.

Azua made a soft noise—or maybe it was loud and the wind made it hard to hear—and Hess realized they were no longer flying directly upwards. They were still definitely flying! But they weren’t in a perfectly vertical battle with gravity anymore. Azua had leveled out, and Hess could feel bits of condensation blowing through his fur. They weren’t moving nearly as fast.

It took a lot for Hess to convince his eyes to open, and then only he managed a squint. He peered past Azua’s neck and saw a blur of white below them and blue above. He pried his eyes the rest of the way open and looked around, still clinging to Azua’s back for dear life.

It really was like a different world. The sky surrounded them, blue above them and to every side. It was so bright, the layer of white reflecting the sun back up at them as if the ground itself was glowing. The blanket of clouds below them almost looked like solid ground, but when they passed through some of the taller piles of fluff they felt like nothing—just a dusting of mist. It was beautiful. Hess could appreciate the view—as long as he didn’t have to see whatever lay below the layer of clouds—but his tight hold on Azua didn’t ease in the slightest. He could appreciate it and still wish desperately to be back on solid ground.