"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.
There, at the top of the sky, Flint marks the shape of the white griffon rolling. The tuck of her white wings, their stain inconsequential at this vantage and under the mid-morning catch of the sun. Marcus, a dark shape nestled there amidst gleaming secondary feathers, the light glancing mirror-like off his armor.
It would be easy to loose Buggie's rein, to give her an encouraging word and drive her down into a matching dive. Sweep rapidly down in over red sand and make their final approach on the Riftwatch picket line at breakneck speed. He can feel the grey griffon eager to follow, to feign down out of the sky. For a split second, Flint twitches after the impulse. Wants to finish this biting after Marcus' heels, in high spirits and blasé to the effect that Riftwatch's Commander and her Captain coming rushing in after a night staling Venatori might have on the assembly.
Instead, he lets Marcus go. Keeps Buggie on a strict rein as her sister falls away and the distance between them rapidly lengthens. The grey griffon is tired. She needs to learn some discipline. Either of these things can be rationalized to explain away their more measured, spiraling descent.
Wings flare, braking their descent, cat paws and bird talons touching the red earth with soft thumps of impact. Rustling feathers as wings are folded back in, Marcus catching his breath from the natural rush of the rapid descent and the limited ability to breathe during, and he doesn't have to twist around to catch the sight of Buggie's grey shape on her slower spiral downwards when he looks up.
The little twinge of disappointment is childish, he knows, and so is therefore cast aside, spirits still high from the chase. The jangle of tack, leather and metal, follows his dismounting once free of the harness, hands setting on the griffon's neck to reward her with a deeper scratch. Even without fresh meat immediately presented to her, the scents and sounds of being somewhere familiar has already eased Monster's temper, shaking her ruff free under his attentions.
Good thing, as he doesn't immediately go to start tending to her, keeping track of Flint's descent to see if he will land near, to give some parting word or order, or avoid being named a cheater.
(Evidently, the company is at least used to Marcus dramatically crashing in on griffon back.)
The grey griffon with its rider all in heat soaking black winds down, down, down, and lands with a heavy thump and spray of soft sand a length from Monster and Marcus. Flint, hand hard, forces her to stand there with the underside of her beak to her feathered chest for a further moment of emphasis. And then the rein gives and Buggie lengthens her neck into the slack, ruffling her feathers from head to wingtips in one last fragment of a temper tantrum. Flint gives her a scratch at the base of her neck anyway, follows it with a pat and then makes to unclip himself from the tack.
Across the curve of her folding wing, a brief glance: Flint's brow lowered against the sun, his attention fixing on Marcus. Crooked line of his mouth, something like the suggestion of a slanting smile flexing there at the corner.
And there Buggie flexes her wing high, and when she's finishes, Flint has slid out of the saddle and ducks now out of the shadow of her wing. A hand catches her rein and draws it free. When Flint steers the grey griffon in the direction of Marcus and Monster, it's to pass those reins into his possession.
"See to them. I'll have word passed in an hour if you're with the riders who go out."
Marcus meets him halfway, drawing around with Monster's lead in hand. She only follows in the curve of her neck, intent to nibble at the top of his boot in nagging reminder of her presence and her needs. It's gentle enough that he allows it to happen, attention locked it on the other man. If there is a cast of a smile to his own expression in return—
Well, it's likely more apparent in the moment Marcus sobers himself from it, subtle as it is. Or maybe it only feels subtle. Maybe the exhilaration of the ride and the playful game of it has stamped itself more plainly on him, but either way, there is some small adjustment, a return to business as usual.
He accepts the second lead, and if he has regret for the news he might be riding out again so soon, or is keen to be a part of the team that finishes the thing begun—well, neither show. He only nods assent.
"Aye, Commander," comes easily, and so does, "I'll appreciate the headstart if so."
"Very good," he says, and if there is a crack to be made about the boyish racing or or anything else, then it fails to materialize. Perhaps the suggestion of the good humor lingers though, visible only in the fine lines of his face and very up close.
Or maybe not. Flint's nod is curt, the heavy lay of his hand reserved for running over Buggie's broad square face between the set of her eyes—smoothing fine feathers and subsequently rewarded with a click of approval from high in the animal's throat.
Then saddlebags are fetched and slung over Flint's shoulder, and he goes. In a little over an hour, word does come running down to Marcus by way of a note that yes, he will be going. Here is his roster of names (none of which include Riftwatch's Commander, who evidently must have more pressing matters to attend to or no desire to fly out again and the luxury of deciding so), and a brief summation of orders and a suggestion of when and how to approach the cavern encampment and the demand to communicate back results by crystal by no later than ———.
They are typically terse instructions, lacking in any winking flourish pencilled in only for the benefit of this particular recipient.
No further comment from Marcus as Flint turns to collect his things and be on his way. An encouraging whistle is met with dual answering chirps and feather rustles as the three move off in the opposite direction.
Seeing to two large beasts is enough to eat up an hour, although he leaves them to their own grooming rather than skip out on tending to himself. Food is eaten fast and only slightly less ravenously than Monster had set upon the scraps of goat that had fed some of the company last night. Shucks off armor, splashes his face and neck clean, changes some pieces of clothing from his pack in his tent, refills his waterskin, all with the expectation of a missive directing him to return to the sky and the cavern. It is not strictly necessary for him to take out the black ring he had stowed away, consider it, and decide to keep it on his person.
He isn't sure how he'd have felt, exactly, had it not. If he'd wondered if it was practical to ensure individuals of Forces aren't overworked, or some kind of favour that he should feel fondness for, or if it would bother him, and prick at pride. One of those things that would work itself like a splinter to be picked at until it finally came loose or disintegrated with time.
And there is no need. The instructions come. He answers by rousting those on the roster, dispensing brisk orders of his own, and soon, after some minutes spent towards readiness, a small flock of griffons take to the sky above the camp, Buggie left to sleep in a catlike curl.
When news comes of a successful incursion, it signals the end of Riftwatch's business in the Anderfels, and by the time the group returns, there will be little time for anything but being what it is they owe to the company, leaving behind only the impressions of tents and campfires to signal they were ever there.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
"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."
no subject
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.
no subject
"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."
no subject
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—
no subject
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
It would be easy to loose Buggie's rein, to give her an encouraging word and drive her down into a matching dive. Sweep rapidly down in over red sand and make their final approach on the Riftwatch picket line at breakneck speed. He can feel the grey griffon eager to follow, to feign down out of the sky. For a split second, Flint twitches after the impulse. Wants to finish this biting after Marcus' heels, in high spirits and blasé to the effect that Riftwatch's Commander and her Captain coming rushing in after a night staling Venatori might have on the assembly.
Instead, he lets Marcus go. Keeps Buggie on a strict rein as her sister falls away and the distance between them rapidly lengthens. The grey griffon is tired. She needs to learn some discipline. Either of these things can be rationalized to explain away their more measured, spiraling descent.
no subject
The little twinge of disappointment is childish, he knows, and so is therefore cast aside, spirits still high from the chase. The jangle of tack, leather and metal, follows his dismounting once free of the harness, hands setting on the griffon's neck to reward her with a deeper scratch. Even without fresh meat immediately presented to her, the scents and sounds of being somewhere familiar has already eased Monster's temper, shaking her ruff free under his attentions.
Good thing, as he doesn't immediately go to start tending to her, keeping track of Flint's descent to see if he will land near, to give some parting word or order, or avoid being named a cheater.
(Evidently, the company is at least used to Marcus dramatically crashing in on griffon back.)
no subject
Across the curve of her folding wing, a brief glance: Flint's brow lowered against the sun, his attention fixing on Marcus. Crooked line of his mouth, something like the suggestion of a slanting smile flexing there at the corner.
And there Buggie flexes her wing high, and when she's finishes, Flint has slid out of the saddle and ducks now out of the shadow of her wing. A hand catches her rein and draws it free. When Flint steers the grey griffon in the direction of Marcus and Monster, it's to pass those reins into his possession.
"See to them. I'll have word passed in an hour if you're with the riders who go out."
no subject
Well, it's likely more apparent in the moment Marcus sobers himself from it, subtle as it is. Or maybe it only feels subtle. Maybe the exhilaration of the ride and the playful game of it has stamped itself more plainly on him, but either way, there is some small adjustment, a return to business as usual.
He accepts the second lead, and if he has regret for the news he might be riding out again so soon, or is keen to be a part of the team that finishes the thing begun—well, neither show. He only nods assent.
"Aye, Commander," comes easily, and so does, "I'll appreciate the headstart if so."
no subject
Or maybe not. Flint's nod is curt, the heavy lay of his hand reserved for running over Buggie's broad square face between the set of her eyes—smoothing fine feathers and subsequently rewarded with a click of approval from high in the animal's throat.
Then saddlebags are fetched and slung over Flint's shoulder, and he goes. In a little over an hour, word does come running down to Marcus by way of a note that yes, he will be going. Here is his roster of names (none of which include Riftwatch's Commander, who evidently must have more pressing matters to attend to or no desire to fly out again and the luxury of deciding so), and a brief summation of orders and a suggestion of when and how to approach the cavern encampment and the demand to communicate back results by crystal by no later than ———.
They are typically terse instructions, lacking in any winking flourish pencilled in only for the benefit of this particular recipient.
no subject
Seeing to two large beasts is enough to eat up an hour, although he leaves them to their own grooming rather than skip out on tending to himself. Food is eaten fast and only slightly less ravenously than Monster had set upon the scraps of goat that had fed some of the company last night. Shucks off armor, splashes his face and neck clean, changes some pieces of clothing from his pack in his tent, refills his waterskin, all with the expectation of a missive directing him to return to the sky and the cavern. It is not strictly necessary for him to take out the black ring he had stowed away, consider it, and decide to keep it on his person.
He isn't sure how he'd have felt, exactly, had it not. If he'd wondered if it was practical to ensure individuals of Forces aren't overworked, or some kind of favour that he should feel fondness for, or if it would bother him, and prick at pride. One of those things that would work itself like a splinter to be picked at until it finally came loose or disintegrated with time.
And there is no need. The instructions come. He answers by rousting those on the roster, dispensing brisk orders of his own, and soon, after some minutes spent towards readiness, a small flock of griffons take to the sky above the camp, Buggie left to sleep in a catlike curl.
When news comes of a successful incursion, it signals the end of Riftwatch's business in the Anderfels, and by the time the group returns, there will be little time for anything but being what it is they owe to the company, leaving behind only the impressions of tents and campfires to signal they were ever there.