§127 Pegasus (Patreon)

Princess Mariella — Avimore

They had put her in sweltering leathers with too many straps, and a fur-lined helmet that squeezed her head. According to her attendant, it was supposed to feel like that. She was supposed to be preparing for school. Instead, she was trussed up like a bird for roasting. Mariella had seen them in the kitchens, legs and wings and breasts strapped tight and fitted onto a spit.

A pegasus loomed over her, one of the giant specimens bred by the imperial family, monstrified with care until its back could fit three passengers and its wings could propel them so far into the air that, without magical assistance, humans would freeze and suffocate. The beast was more than twice as tall as she was at the shoulder, and felt as solid as a building. How was she supposed to mount the thing?

Mariella was here because the IEF needed an expert in cleansing corruption. His Imperial Majesty had not intended to send Mariella on this expedition, but the latest report had changed his mind. She would travel by the fastest available to the empire to join an expedition already underway.

That he selected Mariella specifically could mean one of two things: either he had confidence in her, or he was trying to get her killed. She took some comfort from the knowledge that her brother Wolson was already with the expedition, had helped organize it in fact, and Father considered him worth keeping.

Eterine, her attendant and bodyguard, checked her straps for the last time. The lady wore a similar outfit, but showed no sign of discomfort. She had a habit of wearing steel corsets under her dresses, and Mariella had a new suspicion about why. She had given up on being a member of the emperor's personal shock troopers to become a princess's handmaiden, and she missed it. The armored corset was a reminder. The woman's eyes glinted with delight.

"You're too happy about this, Eterine."

"Pardon me, Princess," responded the attendant, without the least sign of real regret. "I have long wanted to share this experience with you. I thought the day would never come. But thanks to your studies with Miss Wibbles, my dream is coming true."

"You just want to fly again."

"That, too." Eterine pushed her toward a young man with a bright smile, wearing a flight suit that looked like it had been through a hundred missions. His hair was too artfully windblown, and his swagger had the annoying effect of making her heart race even faster than it had been. 

"I'm Lieutenant Primm, your driver for the day. While you're with me, I'm in charge. You do what I say, when I say. When it's all over, you can be a princess again. Our destination is south of Pritchard, Estfold. We'll be airborne for three hours. Have you ever flown on the big boys before?"

"I've never flown at all," she said. She was quite satisfied with how little her fear showed in her voice.

He held up a mithril bracelet. "Then you're in for a real treat. Hold out your left arm."

Mariella offered her arm, and the lieutenant promptly slapped the bracelet into place. "When it's time to dismount, just relax and let Eterine do the work. Eterine?"

The attendant held out her arm to receive a bracelet. Finally, Primm slapped one on his own wrist. All three glowed slightly. "Any luggage?"

"One," said Eterine, and kicked a hard-cased cylindrical pod at her feet. It had loops for straps. It didn't look very large, but it was magically expanded on the inside.

"Let's mount up." Primm went first, by leaping and grabbing onto a rung dangling from the three-seat saddle. Eterine tossed up the pod, and the driver strapped it to the rear of the saddle. If they tried to sit with their legs around the massive beast, they would all be split in half by the end of the ride. To accommodate both people and animals, the so-called saddle was more like three chairs molded from leather, lined up back-to-front, with space to put their legs to either side of the person in front of them.

Mariella was next, boosted by Eterine and hauled up by Primm like she was another piece of luggage. Eterine came last, with a leap and climb just as the lieutenant had done it. Then came a sequence of strapping their harnesses into the seats, checking the straps again, and verbally verifying that all safety measures were in place. Finally, the driver strapped himself in.

The massive creature under her hardly moved through all of the activity, except to breathe. That changed when Primm took up the reins. The great body under them rocked, breathed faster, and grew warm. The pegasus raised its great head and sniffed the air, as if it could read the wind from there to Estfold while standing still. The sky was almost cloudless, and a good breeze came from the north.

"Elbows in, for the first part of the ride," Eterine shouted to be heard through the furry helmets. Her hands pulled Mariella's goggles down and gently pulled her head back. "Let your head rest on the headrest. When the speed kicks in, tighten up your body."

"And if you feel afraid," added Primm, "remember that Betty was meant to fly. You're in her element, and she'll take care of you."

"Betty?" Of course, a beast that large would have a diminutive name.

The winged horse raised her head and made a very un-horse-like noise, a rising call that sounded out the sky. Mariella didn't see what sign the driver gave her, but Betty surged forward with a strength the princess had never felt before, not even those times she urged her horse into a dead run, against the advice of her teachers. She was pressed against her seat. Suddenly, she worried that all those belts and straps weren't tight enough to keep her in place. She didn't ride the pegasus; she was tied to Betty's back while she surged like an ocean in a storm, heaving up and down, and all the while she was still pressed against her seat. Experimentally, she leaned forward, just to see if she could resist that great force, but Eterine's hands came around her seat and pulled her back.

"Lean back! The fun's about to start!"

Two seconds later, the mare's wings opened. The upward force left Mariella flailing for something to hold on to, and she wished for armrests to go with her seat.

Then, to her astonishment, Betty not only climbed but accelerated, driving Mariella even harder against her chair.

"Yaaaahhhh!" called Eterine

"I bet you missed this," Primm called back to her, somehow rising above the torrent of wind in their ears.

More words were exchanged, but Mariella couldn't follow them. The world below them was falling, falling, and falling. The city of Avimore looked both bigger and smaller at the same time: the buildings shrank, but the city's impressive scope could be taken in all at once. Betty banked as she climbed, and Mariella gave a very un-princessly moan of thrill as she leaned into open space over the plains outside of Avimore. The rest of Betty's herd was tiny white dots in an expanse of brown and green. They climbed and turned until they faced south. Each beat of her wings propelled them ever faster.

Betty called again, and Mariella felt mana at work, coursing with the wind, measuring the currents of air. A slight tilt of the pegasus's body warned her ahead of time that a change was coming, and the air itself seemed to lift them higher, while the beast barely had to beat its wings. Surely, they were higher than any mountain by now. With a shock, she realized they were above the scattered, wispy clouds.

"How are we breathing?" Her voice was thin, and ice gathered at her lips.

"The saddle has protections built into it," came Eterine's reply. "The crystal budget for a trip like this is huge, so you'd think they'd add better heat. But we get fur lining instead. Don't ask me why!"

The flight leveled out, with their mount making small adjustments along the way. At times, Betty charged through the currents, but mostly she rode on them like a boat on water, seeking out advantageous flows. For a very long time, Mariella could only gawk at the vast world beneath her. The great Sunglaze River was a thin line. Townships were small blobs surrounded by quilted fields. Cities were cloth woven from a grid of roads inset with grains of sand for buildings. Bostkirk's famous city walls looked flimsy. The round dome of Mount Bakarik dominated their view on the right, while the Rosewood forest extended to the horizon on their left. Beyond Rosewood rose the jagged edges of Rossignol Range, as if mountains were newly broken from the bones of the world.

Betty half-folded her wings. Gravity lost its meaning, and Mariella nearly lost her breakfast. They weren't quite plummeting, but the princess found herself groping for something, anything, to hold on to. She settled for hooking her hands into her own straps and gritting her teeth for all an imperial princess could possibly be worth. Gradually, the world took a different shape. It grew smaller as she saw less and less of it, while its details took shape and grew larger. She could see trees in the forest and make out minor paths crossing the roads. The great heights of before had given her a strange feeling of security, so high up it became impossible to think of falling instead of flying. Now that she was close enough to see the ground properly, her fear of falling returned. If she fell from this height, she wondered how big a splash she would make.

Primm mumbled something ahead of her and scanned the ground left and right. There followed a series of banking maneuvers to lose altitude, she thought, but maybe he was lost and had to look for their destination. Betty settled into a graceful flapping, her back rising and falling, Mariella's stomach falling and rising with it. The banking movements became steeper, left and then right, and on the second set, Mariella spied an IEF convoy of fast carriages, perhaps twenty in all, enough for a battalion of fighters and their support. A flare of magic red light shot up from the convoy. In return, Primm dropped a red flare to float downward.

Suddenly, the luggage pod was in Mariella's lap, and Eterine was shoving her arms through some new set of straps. Before she knew it, the pod was firmly attached to her.

"What are we doing?"

"Dismounting." Somehow, Eterine was standing over her, hands releasing the straps that held her to her seat.

"Eterine! Let's land before unbuckling!"

The attendant held her firmly from behind, bodies close, her mouth close to Mariella's ear. "Trust me, Princess." Metal fasteners snapped into place, and she felt their bodies cinch together. Eterine's arms wrapped around both her and the pod she was forced to hold. They were standing on their seats now. "Relax. This is the best part."

Betty banked again, a little at first, and then all at once they were upside down. Mariella screamed. Eterine whooped. The horizon turned over twice, but then it settled. She wished her stomach would settle, but it couldn't rest while they were falling, gaining speed.

Then, they weren't. They were still in the air, but a firm resistance beneath them pushed back against the speed and tumble. She was upright, with Eterine's arms around her.

"Breathe," advised the attendant. "In. In more. And out. Again. One more time. When we reach the ground, I want you to stay standing. Like you do this all the time, got it? What are you going to do?"

"Not kiss the ground?"

"Trust me, this lot is going to be impressed with how you got here. But it ruins the effect if you fall to your knees." She pat Mariella's shoulder hard. "Let's show the IEF grunts some bravado. Right?"

Mariella craned her neck and found Betty, circling them in a wide sweep. She waved at the handsome Primm to let him know they were okay, and imagined the young lieutenant's white grin. Betty swept her wings once, twice, and a third time as she shot up and away. "Wow. She sure is fast."

Eterine slapped her shoulder twice to get her attention. "Knees bent. Keep your hands on the pod, elbows in. We'll touch down at a slight run. As soon as we stop, I'll unbuckle you."

"In four," counted Eterine, "three, two…" They hit the ground on two, lighter than Mariella expected, with a forward momentum equal to a jog. Eterine hopped to a stop, and her practiced hands loosed the straps connecting both the pod and Mariela at the same time. The pod dropped and tumbled away. The princess would have fallen if her attendant hadn't kept one hand firmly on her harness.

She was glad she stayed upright. She barely had time to remove her flight cap and shake out her hair before an IEF officer and several soldiers rode up on horseback, with two riderless gallifreys in tow. When they were close enough to hear, Mariella punched her handmaiden on the shoulder, pretending she was jolly instead of shaken. "You were right. That was fun."

"Told you."

"Do we get to fly back?"

Eterine laughed. "Not unless you can manufacture an emergency that requires your personal presence."

The IEF officer introduced himself and politely asked them to mount up quickly so as not to delay the caravan. Secretly, Mariella wanted nothing more than to lie down and feel the ground firmly underneath her. But she was grateful for a saddled gallifrey, a mount that would go no higher than two feet off the ground, and that she knew how to control. The soldiers slyly watched her and Eterine, gawking at the two women who dropped from the sky to aid them.