The natural change in breathing that comes with consciousness steers Marcus focus back to the other man; first just keying into listening to him prop himself up, twist around, then looking over, unmoving from his sit. Another point of difference between them: mages notoriously recall every little detail of their dreams.
Whatever his was has been frittered apart anyway, cast aside. Instead, the three to four hours of quiet contemplation are more burdensome. Of regarding a person in a state of warm vulnerability, of some quiet unbraiding and rebraiding of thought and feeling as the sun slowly stained the sky. The Venatori came by and I murdered them all so there's no trouble anymore, might be a fun joke.
"Nothing," instead, rolling his shoulders forward and grimacing a little at the tension gathered there. Under less flattering light of encroaching day than the forgiving ambiance of runic circle (which, now, has almost dwindled to nothing, the faint marks of magic faint on the sand), they are both a bit greyer and grimier than they remember being.
Tracks Flint's hands without yet moving, as if he has yet to shake off the mode of watching over.
"Mm," is a thick sound low in the throat. He feels as crusty as he looks, grit touched at every seam. Dark coat (worn to ward off the night's cold) dusted definitively red.
From within the bag is produced: the flask, the last hard biscuit, a hock of dried meat which must be planned to parlay with the two griffons stretching wing and forelimbs a stone's throw away, and—
A lower grunt. Right.
"Do you care for either of these?"
He withdraws his hand. Turns it. There in the palm rest a heavy silver ring with flat slab into which a palm branch has been engraved, and a thin black band with a winking speck of a pale gem set into a groove. Both, undoubtedly, stripped off the hand of a corpse and forgotten until this moment.
There's a moment of blank confusion when this unexpected thing is offered, a delay until Marcus can order events around how Flint had seen to the bodies last night and this is why he has produced and offered jewelry. He presses his palms into the ground on either side of himself so that he can scoot closer and peer at them.
There are merchants who have enjoyed shaking more gold loose from him than they might have otherwise but only after enduring the length it may take Marcus to make his selections. The couple of seconds spent evaluating could be mistaken for an attempt to discern resell value.
When he selects the black band and its gemstone, taking it from Flint's hand, it could go either way. Rather, it's unique to his eye compared to the small collection he already has, and he imagines it matching well with the silver and blackstone that Flint had remarked on. Here, there are thick crescents of dirt under his nails, a bruising cut at one finger, and desert dust caught in the fine seams of his skin, but he slips the loop onto a finger anyway to check the size.
The divvying of loot can be settled with a grunt of approval or the abstaining of selection.
"Thanks," Marcus says, and instead chases the impulse that has him go and hook his fingers at the edge of Flint's red-dusted coat collar and insist a kiss against his mouth.
He has tipped his temple already—that somewhat habitual mannerism he has of slanting his head to one side and peering askance across any measure of distance—, in precursor to some note of acknowledgement for the choice, and so is easily snared. Supple to the shape of a hand at his collar. Turning his face by that farther degree necessary so as to be most easily made victim to Marcus' insistence. Something easy in the slant of his mouth that could be willingly coaxed into parting amenably.
(Had he thought much of kissing him in that glyph-lit darkness, cold air prickling across the nearly bare crown of his skull? No, actually. Not really. But it's possible that's in some sense more noteworthy than the reverse is.)
"You're welcome," he says instead, warm in that close space in defiance of the lingering chill still palming over the desert's lowest points. Give it a half hour, and the sun will have risen high enough to strip back any memory that cold has ever touched these latitudes. Inside Marcus' shadow, his fingers have closed loosely about the heavier silver band with his thumb fit absently through its center, though the ring is too small to really live on that finger and there is work to be done here in the early hours of daylight which should necessitate clambering up out of the sand rather than tilting his face up to encourage the shape of their mouths.
It's nice here, and it would be nicer to stay. It's become well familiar for that first brush of contact to have Marcus next want to press his mouth against Flint's again, to coax it to part for him. He knows that following that impulse would have him wishing he could press Flint down in the dirt beneath him and soak up what contact is made available, and then so on and on, until he runs out of things to want or he forces Flint to check him.
You're welcome and instead of anything else, Marcus loosens from that tug at Flint's collar. Raises a hand to brush a thumb over red bristle low on Flint's cheek, where a streak of sand is crumbled loose. Then, he levers himself away, not as much with the sense of having stolen something as he might have felt, not that long ago.
Muscles stiff and desert dust making interesting patterns along trousers and the drape of leather under his belt where it had crinkled. Snares up his saddlebag on his way to leaving Flint, for the minute, to whatever morning ritual can be scraped together out here.
Conversely, Marcus drawing away does feel a little sacrificial. Frustrating, maybe, though Flint is aware of it only momentarily and makes no effort to delay him—the formless ember of interest slipping between the fingers before it has time to chew its way toward real heat.
With a heavy exhale, he shoves the neglected silver ring back into the saddlebag. Helps himself to a nip of the flask. Extracts the length of braided cording from his bag and lays for a long moment in his side in the cool sand while he finishes off the tail of the plaiting, knowing that the moment he clambers upright will mean shedding the easy languid sense pressed into him by Marcus' mouth on his.
But eventually, when he has rinsed his mouth out from his own waterskin and has repacked his kit, he sets the last hard biscuit between his teeth and heaves up out of the sand. The hock of dried meat is taken up too, and split between the thumbs, which must reawaken the smell for the two griffons abruptly alter trajectory from idle stretching to actively predatory. Heads swivel round, muscles ripple. Buggie clicks and bios at her siblings's shoulder; earns a sharp rebuke for it. A wrestling match is deferred only by prompt arrival of their meager breakfast portions, which they devour instantly.
There is no shaking free all the grit, but he makes some passing attempt regardless. Relieves himself in the pale sun baked brush, and promptly undoes that effort by drinking a meager measure of water while stood upright and scanning what of the landscape laid out about them can be spied from this sheltered outcropping. When there can be nothing else for it, he at last fetches his saddlebags and moves to muscle his way between the two unsatisfied griffons. Tack is adjusted. The worn length of harness strap is exchanged for the braided cording. Cinches are re-cinched. Bags are stowed.
"I'm going up to take a look," he tells Marcus before he shoves his boot into the stirrup. When they meet again on the plateau's table, it will be time to resume the stricter shape of commander and captain and he will do so without any prickle of remorse.
At the edge of makeshift camp, Marcus has picked back up his staff, slid it into its harness, buckled at the shoulder. The weight of it is a familiar and companionable burden as he takes a careful sip from his waterskin. Restraint stops him from draining the rest, as satisfactory as that would be in the moment. He can commend himself for his good behaviour, instead. Someone ought.
He repacks it as he hears the sounds of Flint making himself ready. Resecuring buckles, his ponytail, his scarf. Hesitates, then removes the ring from his finger to ferret it somewhere safe in a small compartment in his pack rather than risk losing the stone in it or scratching the shiny black.
By then, Flint is mounting up. Marcus gives a whistle, summoning Monster over despite her plainly ill temper. Reverts to a firmer hand in his handling, making her kneel properly as he reattaches saddlebags and checks her tack. Gravelled chirrups simmer down accordingly.
"Good," he says, swinging up into the saddle. Moving to secure himself there. "Better to be quick about it, lest some snake creep up on you."
A pointed look, a misbehaving boy who has just put something slimy into an upturned hand, is passed in Marcus' direction. There is something slanting in the line of Flint's mouth behind his whiskers—not laughing, but glancing toward it. Then, with a "Hup," and a kick of heels, Buggie sways round. Takes a heavy loping step, and then bucks up off the sand with a great rowing of her wingspan.
It takes only a lazy minute or two for her to clamber up to the height of the plateau, and she's happy to make a prompt landing somewhere where the sun is fuller. Flint doesn't bother to slide from the saddle. Instead he simply fetches up his glass and resumes his study of the immediate brilliant landscape from griffon back.
It's disarming, given Marcus had started by listening as attentively as a commanding officer would hope of a charge. Hesitates over some rejoinder but fails to think of one fast enough, mouth pressing into a line instead as he watches Buggie wheel around. Forced to turn away from the dust that lifts in her wake.
He tugs secure one last buckle as he mutters, "Stupid," fondly, and can imagine that Monster's impatient croak is agreement.
A minute or two later, and she's climbing for the sky, Marcus secure in the saddle. Her white wings and underbelly are dirty enough from the excursion, stained grey and red, that he hasn't bothered to soot her white feathers and fur himself. He directs her into a broad ring along the edge of the plateau, and then higher, glad to be enjoying the way the air lifts warm under her wings, and Marcus glad to indulge her.
Then, descent, a broad vulture spiral down for Flint's position on the escarpment. Monster's heavy landing several feet aside has some enthusiasm and showmanship to it, bowing forwards with a heavy flap of her wings.
Marcus stays in his saddle, taking the cue. Awaits verdict.
The rush of air that accompanies a large shape's descent, rustle of feathers and crunch of small stones warrants only a brief withdrawal of the glass from his eye. A flicked glance, barely acknowledgement, and then his attention returns to the far flung details of the desert laid out before them.
Transformed in the glinting light of morning, dark variegated texture has resolved into alternating patterns of rust and mustard seed colored sand; yellow shoot brush and a ribbon of green suggestive of yet another gravel flood wash. Red sand, pockmarked by clustered shrub and cactus, and the jagged teeth marks where the land gives way to switch-backed ravines and undulating rows of rock piercing up through the sand like the spines of porpoises breaching past the sea's surface.
And, naturally, the Venatori encampment spilling out of the mouth of a cavern a few marka south and west. At night, the slanting collection of shades and clustered outbuildings with their scrub covered roofs and mottled netting would have looked like so much brush and the scattered spray of loose stone at the base of a cliff face prone to crumbling. In daylight, from this height, it's easy enough to mark and not impossible to take some guesses as to how many Venatori are encamped there and what their purpose is.
Click, click. Flint closes the spyglass. He tips his attention up as he works the telescope back between his hip and his belt, marking the angle of the sun. Then, turning in the saddle rather than reining Buggie around—
"Looks to be a secondary excavation effort. Too many for us to manage. We'll make our way back."
And see an assault organized, presumably, but that decision must lie outside of Marcus' purview and he feels no urgency to remark on it.
Marcus nudges Monster forwards, instead. It's a different sensation to directing the plodding motion of a horse easing himself along compared to the graceful, predatory roll of the griffon's walking gait, but she responds well enough, coming to stand near the lip of the plateau. Predictably unconcerned with heights, talons curling against the weathered rocky edge.
There's little he can see from here without his own spyglass, even under the light, but does appear to snag his focus on the marks of structures near that rise of landscape.
It's a good thing Monster doesn't speak Trade, as Marcus offers, almost instinctively, "I could remain behind. Find a perch nearer, watch for any movement." Winding lead absently in his hands, he glances back to Flint, already doing some arithmetic on the viability of it after its suggested, and before its responded to. The numbers are spare, but not improbable.
A flicking glance of assessment, a measurement. It will be dusk before any effort can be organized and brought back here. If he were to order Marcus to stay behind, it would be on foot crouched here with his spyglass rather than on griffon-back. He measures the possibility for a long moment. Considers the math of it, and reaches behind him to flip open the flap of his saddlebag. Squeeze his waterskin to measure how much remains in it—
"It will have taken the dracolisks another ten or twelve hours to make it this far. If they're expected, they won't be missed until morning at the earliest." Things happen in the desert; delays are natural, particularly when scouts are the type to find lodging in the night.
—Is an unnecessary rationalization when he might have simply said: "I don't see that you staying here wins us much," and be done with it. It's hardly as if Marcus can see down into this cave from this or any angle. "The longer we linger here with the griffons, the more likely someone will take notice."
Marcus absorbs rationalisation and conclusion both, impassive save for his focus, and certainly not passionate enough about his suggestion to defend it. He nods to it, silent acceptance, the stiffly quiet formality that had defined their interactions prior, between the bouts of bristling.
He shifts in his saddle in preparation for a launching off. Knows a quiet small thrill for the prospect of directing Monster to leap off the edge, a far more exhilarating means of taking to the air than enduring the labour of lift-off from the ground, but good practice dictates he not take off without direct order first, even if in the form of Flint taking flight.
But he does say, "We shouldn't race," in the tone of someone who would like to.
An askance look as Flint buckles the saddlebag's flap closed against. No, they shouldn't. Not because he suspects that Buggie will be the inevitable loser.
"We should make our withdrawal at speed," is a different thing, technically. A heel encourages the animal under him to reorient herself, though she clicks out some argumentative remark for being made to spin round and face the cliff face. She is hungry and grouchy, and this short wing up to the caprock hasn't satisfied either of those gripes. Why should she twist round and be made to sidle up alongside her sister?
"And keep low until we've put some distance between us and them."
"Aye," Marcus agrees, regarding the strictly unnecessary repositioning of Buggie with absolutely no trace of humour in his expression.
Looks out instead, regarding the craggy formations that lay between here and the direction of the forward camp. Pulls up Monster's reins in a subtle gesture that seems to make her readier for flight, some amount of tension coiling up through her haunches and shoulders. She, too, is hungry and less than thrilled, but restless enough to be keen for the hot sky awaiting her.
"On count of three?" is also not strictly necessary, but in the interest of coordination—
—Narrowly precedes a sharp thump of heels and Buggie starting forward, dropping like a stone off the escarpment's edge. There is probably come colloquialism about not entering into honorable contests with pirates.
Monster barely even needs the swift kick of heels from Marcus that comes a split second later, immediately launching off after her sister even quicker than that. She doesn't understand good sportsmanship, and so her enthusiasm is unalloyed from indignance.
She also knows better than to make a sound, even if a screech from her might have been instinctive before her training. There is, however, a surprised and barked laugh from Marcus made barely detectable in the roar of wind from the steep drop.
Talons stretch. He will pull her out of the swoop a moment earlier to make up some distance.
The roar of wind in the ear and the sting of it across the eye nearly steals away that laugh. If he cares to, he might easily convince himself that he's imagined it, or that the sound of objection more than anything else as Buggie's overcast colored wings come unfurling and she shoots out of her nosedive. But why would he do that to himself?
Were he not already buckled in tight, it might serve to throw him hard down into the seat of the saddle. He is still aware of the strain of the buckles, the briefly catching shape of the harness across his hip as they race over the tops of thorny brush, patterned sand rendered into an indistinguishable smear.
A shadow passing overhead—the lighter colored griffon cutting up and over. Buggie, notably delinquent in her behavior, whistles after. Surges up, clawing for that extra elevation with a row of heavy wings as she makes to give chase before Flint can urge her faster along her current trajectory instead.
The noise of wings cutting through dry desert air, the slight predatory cast of a large animal sliding by overhead. Monster's deep croak is quiet enough that Marcus doesn't check her on it, glancing back past his shoulder in an attempt to mark Buggie, barely catching sight of the tops of her wings, the shape Flint makes on her back.
A nudge from him has Monster dipping down to cut her off from gaining ground, to taunt her into a chase that keeps her in the lead. It's clear they've both likely played this game before, either with one another or other siblings, and that Monster plays to win. There's a harsh cut of hot run off wind from her feather span that buffets back against Flint as she slams into forward position.
Marcus is tilted forwards to help the flow of air around them, standing just a little in his stirrups on reflex as if she were a galloping horse, harness straining.
Soon, a large swath of landscape will have passed them by, and then will begin the climb up for altitude.
Conversely, it's instantly evident that Buggie enjoys pursuit more than she has any desire to eke out a lead—indulging in chasing that offered bait despite a brisk curse from her rider. Slashed by that hot gust of Monster's wing, Flint bends low over the saddle's pommel rather than make to stand in the stirrups or twist from that sharp cut air. Urges the griffon nearer and closer in to that shadow of frictionless air that must exist right at the heel of Monster.
It serves to earn them no lead as the paired animals in flight pass rapidly over various washes and the shallow erosion slabs of striped sand. Clipped shadows casting briefly glimpsed shapes. The positioning only saves her energy, and indulges the grey griffon's bad habits of following close and whistling after her sibling, so that may be once some justifiable distance has passed she can be convinced with a pull of the rein and a dig of heels to wing up and out of Monster's slipstream. Streaking up into the wind current and climbing rapidly thanks to the buoyancy generated by the other animal's own lead.
There's a shared and instinctive glance upwards at that sense of a shadow, the sound of wings: Monster's slight head tilt, Marcus twisting enough to clock the grey rise of the other griffon.
A jerk of the reins has Monster peel off a little more sideways, less direct pursuit, although Buggie is already past any benefit from the run-off wind of her wings. The climb for the sky happening above means there is a little time to sift around for some advantage, and the one Marcus finds it not incredible, but something, spying the wide dip in the dunes where heat is gathered like water in a bowl, where the natural rising lip of it, some hundreds of feet across, caught the sunrise early.
Not that Flint would be stopped from curving off, gaining the same benefit, but Monster makes for it like a shot arrow, wings flaring wide to push herself upwards. Her harsh trill is happy (even if it doesn't sound it), barely audible at the edges of Flint's hearing.
Marcus lets her ascend about as high as she wishes, keeping an eye on Flint's progress.
Low in the saddle, leaning across Buggie's shoulder in an effort to keep some eye open toward Marcus' trajectory, he isn't blind to the cut of the white griffon's tack only slow to steer round to chase off on a similar path—his own griffon lazy about adjusting the angle of her wingspan to follow the tug of rein and nudge of heel. With the advantage of height over her sister (even as Monster comes firing upward) breeds a certain snub nosed complacency in the grey griffon that no encouraging click or hiss seems to counter.
What does seem to motivate her, once Monster reaching sufficient height, is winging over and making to drop like a hawk stopping after a field mouse in her sibling's immediate direction. It comes as a nasty surprise to Flint astride her, Buggie's play predatory shriek punctuated with a distinctly blue oath that may or may not be entirely robbed from anyone's hearing by the wind.
At the last moment before she cheerfully slams into Monster—either from instinct or from Flint jerking her short or some combination of the two—Buggie flattens, rolls, and drops the few additional feet. When she comes rowing back up after the other griffon, it's with the intent to carouse after the animal's heel.
The indignant shriek out of Monster (drowning out Marcus' own hissed curse at that sensation that is a predator's shadow dropping in) is decidedly unplayful—or at least, it sounds it, bristling rebuke sparked off hot temper. If there was no rider on her back, there's a strong chance she might wheel around and goad Buggie into a minor aerial slapfight. Or rather, if there was no rider on her back who might anticipate this, as Marcus' mere presence would be unlikely to stop her.
Instead, he is fast to haul in the reins, forcing her head to curl in so that the only real option available is to continue flapping forwards. She grumbles her discontent, talons slashing at the air, but her temper evens out by the time he lets up, reins slackening at the same moment he thumps his heels against her with a hyah, directing her back into that climb.
A glance back checks Buggie's position, and Marcus encourages Monster into a few dips and swerves with the intent to encourage the other griffon's worse instincts as they make for greater altitude, where they can properly glide.
A similar effort of shortening rein is being made on the other griffon, Flint making to lash Buggie's face in tight to her chest and sitting up now very straight in the saddle is some concentrated effort to keep Buggie boxed in between hand, and leg, and seat where she might be less likely to veer off in chase, or commit to any other unprompted aerial gymnastics.
All the effort makes for an admirably straight flying path, considering the buffeting of the air and the temptation of Monster's zigging and zagging; it also checks her pace by a half degree or two, the grey griffon's reduced to heavy wing beats to find her elevation rather than surfing on the rising thermals.
The more direct ascent keeps Monster's lead short for some twenty or fifteen seconds, but in short order the combination of effort and the restriction of her head begins to wear on Buggie. She lapses a length behind. Two. Given the oily feeling left in his stomach from the abrupt dive, Flint finds himself remarkably tolerant to the concept of losing.
Long wing strokes see Monster encouraging her own advance, settling into a more measured rhythm atop the buoyancy of desert air. Flying smoothly, no longer attempting to goad and play as Marcus registers the slight quieting that comes with Buggie falling back. A glance to confirm, and a curl of unapologetic boyhood-adjacent satisfaction for having claimed the lead.
An approving pat to Monster's neck will have to be followed by prompt feeding when they land if it's to be worth any favour in the future.
Up here, there's a period of necessary rest, furious flapping traded for languid gliding. Even if Flint or Buggie are compelled to take a chance on a lead, he doesn't push Monster to meaningfully maintain it, not for the moment. Instead, Marcus tips his focus to bright landscape beneath, the strange scale of everything, the distinct shade and shapes of the Anderfels as compared to a mountainous Free Marches or its ruined coastline, or the fields around Nevarra and Orlais.
It's when they are encroaching on the camp's airspace that he begins some calculation, marking where Flint is in the sky. It will be something of a judgment around when to drop out of a glide and into the inevitable breakneck dive, or how long to maintain that greater altitude for greater effect.
And after his denied count of three, Marcus doesn't chance it, swift to kick Monster into a nosedive.
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no subject
Whatever his was has been frittered apart anyway, cast aside. Instead, the three to four hours of quiet contemplation are more burdensome. Of regarding a person in a state of warm vulnerability, of some quiet unbraiding and rebraiding of thought and feeling as the sun slowly stained the sky. The Venatori came by and I murdered them all so there's no trouble anymore, might be a fun joke.
"Nothing," instead, rolling his shoulders forward and grimacing a little at the tension gathered there. Under less flattering light of encroaching day than the forgiving ambiance of runic circle (which, now, has almost dwindled to nothing, the faint marks of magic faint on the sand), they are both a bit greyer and grimier than they remember being.
Tracks Flint's hands without yet moving, as if he has yet to shake off the mode of watching over.
no subject
From within the bag is produced: the flask, the last hard biscuit, a hock of dried meat which must be planned to parlay with the two griffons stretching wing and forelimbs a stone's throw away, and—
A lower grunt. Right.
"Do you care for either of these?"
He withdraws his hand. Turns it. There in the palm rest a heavy silver ring with flat slab into which a palm branch has been engraved, and a thin black band with a winking speck of a pale gem set into a groove. Both, undoubtedly, stripped off the hand of a corpse and forgotten until this moment.
no subject
There are merchants who have enjoyed shaking more gold loose from him than they might have otherwise but only after enduring the length it may take Marcus to make his selections. The couple of seconds spent evaluating could be mistaken for an attempt to discern resell value.
When he selects the black band and its gemstone, taking it from Flint's hand, it could go either way. Rather, it's unique to his eye compared to the small collection he already has, and he imagines it matching well with the silver and blackstone that Flint had remarked on. Here, there are thick crescents of dirt under his nails, a bruising cut at one finger, and desert dust caught in the fine seams of his skin, but he slips the loop onto a finger anyway to check the size.
The divvying of loot can be settled with a grunt of approval or the abstaining of selection.
"Thanks," Marcus says, and instead chases the impulse that has him go and hook his fingers at the edge of Flint's red-dusted coat collar and insist a kiss against his mouth.
no subject
(Had he thought much of kissing him in that glyph-lit darkness, cold air prickling across the nearly bare crown of his skull? No, actually. Not really. But it's possible that's in some sense more noteworthy than the reverse is.)
"You're welcome," he says instead, warm in that close space in defiance of the lingering chill still palming over the desert's lowest points. Give it a half hour, and the sun will have risen high enough to strip back any memory that cold has ever touched these latitudes. Inside Marcus' shadow, his fingers have closed loosely about the heavier silver band with his thumb fit absently through its center, though the ring is too small to really live on that finger and there is work to be done here in the early hours of daylight which should necessitate clambering up out of the sand rather than tilting his face up to encourage the shape of their mouths.
no subject
You're welcome and instead of anything else, Marcus loosens from that tug at Flint's collar. Raises a hand to brush a thumb over red bristle low on Flint's cheek, where a streak of sand is crumbled loose. Then, he levers himself away, not as much with the sense of having stolen something as he might have felt, not that long ago.
Muscles stiff and desert dust making interesting patterns along trousers and the drape of leather under his belt where it had crinkled. Snares up his saddlebag on his way to leaving Flint, for the minute, to whatever morning ritual can be scraped together out here.
no subject
With a heavy exhale, he shoves the neglected silver ring back into the saddlebag. Helps himself to a nip of the flask. Extracts the length of braided cording from his bag and lays for a long moment in his side in the cool sand while he finishes off the tail of the plaiting, knowing that the moment he clambers upright will mean shedding the easy languid sense pressed into him by Marcus' mouth on his.
But eventually, when he has rinsed his mouth out from his own waterskin and has repacked his kit, he sets the last hard biscuit between his teeth and heaves up out of the sand. The hock of dried meat is taken up too, and split between the thumbs, which must reawaken the smell for the two griffons abruptly alter trajectory from idle stretching to actively predatory. Heads swivel round, muscles ripple. Buggie clicks and bios at her siblings's shoulder; earns a sharp rebuke for it. A wrestling match is deferred only by prompt arrival of their meager breakfast portions, which they devour instantly.
There is no shaking free all the grit, but he makes some passing attempt regardless. Relieves himself in the pale sun baked brush, and promptly undoes that effort by drinking a meager measure of water while stood upright and scanning what of the landscape laid out about them can be spied from this sheltered outcropping. When there can be nothing else for it, he at last fetches his saddlebags and moves to muscle his way between the two unsatisfied griffons. Tack is adjusted. The worn length of harness strap is exchanged for the braided cording. Cinches are re-cinched. Bags are stowed.
"I'm going up to take a look," he tells Marcus before he shoves his boot into the stirrup. When they meet again on the plateau's table, it will be time to resume the stricter shape of commander and captain and he will do so without any prickle of remorse.
no subject
He repacks it as he hears the sounds of Flint making himself ready. Resecuring buckles, his ponytail, his scarf. Hesitates, then removes the ring from his finger to ferret it somewhere safe in a small compartment in his pack rather than risk losing the stone in it or scratching the shiny black.
By then, Flint is mounting up. Marcus gives a whistle, summoning Monster over despite her plainly ill temper. Reverts to a firmer hand in his handling, making her kneel properly as he reattaches saddlebags and checks her tack. Gravelled chirrups simmer down accordingly.
Looks up at that, nods. "I'll follow."
no subject
A pointed look, a misbehaving boy who has just put something slimy into an upturned hand, is passed in Marcus' direction. There is something slanting in the line of Flint's mouth behind his whiskers—not laughing, but glancing toward it. Then, with a "Hup," and a kick of heels, Buggie sways round. Takes a heavy loping step, and then bucks up off the sand with a great rowing of her wingspan.
It takes only a lazy minute or two for her to clamber up to the height of the plateau, and she's happy to make a prompt landing somewhere where the sun is fuller. Flint doesn't bother to slide from the saddle. Instead he simply fetches up his glass and resumes his study of the immediate brilliant landscape from griffon back.
no subject
He tugs secure one last buckle as he mutters, "Stupid," fondly, and can imagine that Monster's impatient croak is agreement.
A minute or two later, and she's climbing for the sky, Marcus secure in the saddle. Her white wings and underbelly are dirty enough from the excursion, stained grey and red, that he hasn't bothered to soot her white feathers and fur himself. He directs her into a broad ring along the edge of the plateau, and then higher, glad to be enjoying the way the air lifts warm under her wings, and Marcus glad to indulge her.
Then, descent, a broad vulture spiral down for Flint's position on the escarpment. Monster's heavy landing several feet aside has some enthusiasm and showmanship to it, bowing forwards with a heavy flap of her wings.
Marcus stays in his saddle, taking the cue. Awaits verdict.
no subject
Transformed in the glinting light of morning, dark variegated texture has resolved into alternating patterns of rust and mustard seed colored sand; yellow shoot brush and a ribbon of green suggestive of yet another gravel flood wash. Red sand, pockmarked by clustered shrub and cactus, and the jagged teeth marks where the land gives way to switch-backed ravines and undulating rows of rock piercing up through the sand like the spines of porpoises breaching past the sea's surface.
And, naturally, the Venatori encampment spilling out of the mouth of a cavern a few marka south and west. At night, the slanting collection of shades and clustered outbuildings with their scrub covered roofs and mottled netting would have looked like so much brush and the scattered spray of loose stone at the base of a cliff face prone to crumbling. In daylight, from this height, it's easy enough to mark and not impossible to take some guesses as to how many Venatori are encamped there and what their purpose is.
Click, click. Flint closes the spyglass. He tips his attention up as he works the telescope back between his hip and his belt, marking the angle of the sun. Then, turning in the saddle rather than reining Buggie around—
"Looks to be a secondary excavation effort. Too many for us to manage. We'll make our way back."
And see an assault organized, presumably, but that decision must lie outside of Marcus' purview and he feels no urgency to remark on it.
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There's little he can see from here without his own spyglass, even under the light, but does appear to snag his focus on the marks of structures near that rise of landscape.
It's a good thing Monster doesn't speak Trade, as Marcus offers, almost instinctively, "I could remain behind. Find a perch nearer, watch for any movement." Winding lead absently in his hands, he glances back to Flint, already doing some arithmetic on the viability of it after its suggested, and before its responded to. The numbers are spare, but not improbable.
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"It will have taken the dracolisks another ten or twelve hours to make it this far. If they're expected, they won't be missed until morning at the earliest." Things happen in the desert; delays are natural, particularly when scouts are the type to find lodging in the night.
—Is an unnecessary rationalization when he might have simply said: "I don't see that you staying here wins us much," and be done with it. It's hardly as if Marcus can see down into this cave from this or any angle. "The longer we linger here with the griffons, the more likely someone will take notice."
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He shifts in his saddle in preparation for a launching off. Knows a quiet small thrill for the prospect of directing Monster to leap off the edge, a far more exhilarating means of taking to the air than enduring the labour of lift-off from the ground, but good practice dictates he not take off without direct order first, even if in the form of Flint taking flight.
But he does say, "We shouldn't race," in the tone of someone who would like to.
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"We should make our withdrawal at speed," is a different thing, technically. A heel encourages the animal under him to reorient herself, though she clicks out some argumentative remark for being made to spin round and face the cliff face. She is hungry and grouchy, and this short wing up to the caprock hasn't satisfied either of those gripes. Why should she twist round and be made to sidle up alongside her sister?
"And keep low until we've put some distance between us and them."
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Looks out instead, regarding the craggy formations that lay between here and the direction of the forward camp. Pulls up Monster's reins in a subtle gesture that seems to make her readier for flight, some amount of tension coiling up through her haunches and shoulders. She, too, is hungry and less than thrilled, but restless enough to be keen for the hot sky awaiting her.
"On count of three?" is also not strictly necessary, but in the interest of coordination—
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She also knows better than to make a sound, even if a screech from her might have been instinctive before her training. There is, however, a surprised and barked laugh from Marcus made barely detectable in the roar of wind from the steep drop.
Talons stretch. He will pull her out of the swoop a moment earlier to make up some distance.
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Were he not already buckled in tight, it might serve to throw him hard down into the seat of the saddle. He is still aware of the strain of the buckles, the briefly catching shape of the harness across his hip as they race over the tops of thorny brush, patterned sand rendered into an indistinguishable smear.
A shadow passing overhead—the lighter colored griffon cutting up and over. Buggie, notably delinquent in her behavior, whistles after. Surges up, clawing for that extra elevation with a row of heavy wings as she makes to give chase before Flint can urge her faster along her current trajectory instead.
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A nudge from him has Monster dipping down to cut her off from gaining ground, to taunt her into a chase that keeps her in the lead. It's clear they've both likely played this game before, either with one another or other siblings, and that Monster plays to win. There's a harsh cut of hot run off wind from her feather span that buffets back against Flint as she slams into forward position.
Marcus is tilted forwards to help the flow of air around them, standing just a little in his stirrups on reflex as if she were a galloping horse, harness straining.
Soon, a large swath of landscape will have passed them by, and then will begin the climb up for altitude.
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It serves to earn them no lead as the paired animals in flight pass rapidly over various washes and the shallow erosion slabs of striped sand. Clipped shadows casting briefly glimpsed shapes. The positioning only saves her energy, and indulges the grey griffon's bad habits of following close and whistling after her sibling, so that may be once some justifiable distance has passed she can be convinced with a pull of the rein and a dig of heels to wing up and out of Monster's slipstream. Streaking up into the wind current and climbing rapidly thanks to the buoyancy generated by the other animal's own lead.
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A jerk of the reins has Monster peel off a little more sideways, less direct pursuit, although Buggie is already past any benefit from the run-off wind of her wings. The climb for the sky happening above means there is a little time to sift around for some advantage, and the one Marcus finds it not incredible, but something, spying the wide dip in the dunes where heat is gathered like water in a bowl, where the natural rising lip of it, some hundreds of feet across, caught the sunrise early.
Not that Flint would be stopped from curving off, gaining the same benefit, but Monster makes for it like a shot arrow, wings flaring wide to push herself upwards. Her harsh trill is happy (even if it doesn't sound it), barely audible at the edges of Flint's hearing.
Marcus lets her ascend about as high as she wishes, keeping an eye on Flint's progress.
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What does seem to motivate her, once Monster reaching sufficient height, is winging over and making to drop like a hawk stopping after a field mouse in her sibling's immediate direction. It comes as a nasty surprise to Flint astride her, Buggie's play predatory shriek punctuated with a distinctly blue oath that may or may not be entirely robbed from anyone's hearing by the wind.
At the last moment before she cheerfully slams into Monster—either from instinct or from Flint jerking her short or some combination of the two—Buggie flattens, rolls, and drops the few additional feet. When she comes rowing back up after the other griffon, it's with the intent to carouse after the animal's heel.
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Instead, he is fast to haul in the reins, forcing her head to curl in so that the only real option available is to continue flapping forwards. She grumbles her discontent, talons slashing at the air, but her temper evens out by the time he lets up, reins slackening at the same moment he thumps his heels against her with a hyah, directing her back into that climb.
A glance back checks Buggie's position, and Marcus encourages Monster into a few dips and swerves with the intent to encourage the other griffon's worse instincts as they make for greater altitude, where they can properly glide.
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All the effort makes for an admirably straight flying path, considering the buffeting of the air and the temptation of Monster's zigging and zagging; it also checks her pace by a half degree or two, the grey griffon's reduced to heavy wing beats to find her elevation rather than surfing on the rising thermals.
The more direct ascent keeps Monster's lead short for some twenty or fifteen seconds, but in short order the combination of effort and the restriction of her head begins to wear on Buggie. She lapses a length behind. Two. Given the oily feeling left in his stomach from the abrupt dive, Flint finds himself remarkably tolerant to the concept of losing.
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An approving pat to Monster's neck will have to be followed by prompt feeding when they land if it's to be worth any favour in the future.
Up here, there's a period of necessary rest, furious flapping traded for languid gliding. Even if Flint or Buggie are compelled to take a chance on a lead, he doesn't push Monster to meaningfully maintain it, not for the moment. Instead, Marcus tips his focus to bright landscape beneath, the strange scale of everything, the distinct shade and shapes of the Anderfels as compared to a mountainous Free Marches or its ruined coastline, or the fields around Nevarra and Orlais.
It's when they are encroaching on the camp's airspace that he begins some calculation, marking where Flint is in the sky. It will be something of a judgment around when to drop out of a glide and into the inevitable breakneck dive, or how long to maintain that greater altitude for greater effect.
And after his denied count of three, Marcus doesn't chance it, swift to kick Monster into a nosedive.
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