The Colors in the Dark (@Hyacinthus)!!

[wandering_giraffe]

"You do know what's in storm clouds? Lightning? Lightning and Yoreiqi don't mix, you know. I'd rather be tied up in a boat again. But if you say so..." Arlen sighed and steeled himself to fly......straight into the roiling dark grey cumulonimbus clouds.
"I am very grateful. I would have died without you finding me," he finally said, after being quiet for a moment. 

The thunder was growing louder, and becoming more frequent.

[Hyacinthus]

"Good grief," Kolara reaffirmed, a flap of her wings bringing her just slightly above Arlen's own flying form, "Just trust me, for cryin' out loud. You're not flying with some ordinary Yoreiqi."

The question, however, was just that— what WAS she doing? It was hard to tell, just as it was on the beach... but from just above Arlen, an unnatural heat began to radiate from Kolara's body— almost enough to scorch, and definitely enough to be noticed even in the midst of the skyward winds and the mist-heavy clouds.

The further into the storm front they flew, the darker and more consistent the tell-tale calls of lightning became. Kolara could feel her hair charge with static, and her skin tinge slightly from the sensation of the latent electricity. Danger seemed near— inevitable, even... and yet, for as long as they flew through the clouds, no matter how many strikes occurred around them, not a single one targeted either Kolara or Aren.

Which was strange, truly— almost as strange as the realization that they'd been able to see, for the most part, well ahead of and around them, despite the misty... wait, where was the mist? The space they flew through was rather dry by comparison— as if the accumulating rain had simply... evaporated. It left behind a beautiful sight— an eye in the center of the storm, through which the powerful strike of lightning could be seen all around them... at a distance.

Kolara smirked a bit as she continued onward— her body aglow in a flourishing gold, like embers touched by the gentlest breeze. "This takes a little concentration when I'm doing it for a space this big— but as long as you stay close, it's simple enough."

[wandering_giraffe]

"Woah," Arlen breathed as they flew through the lightning storm.
"This is...beautiful. Scary, but beautiful. Kinda like you."

If Arlen coulda died right there he would have. He did not mean to say that out loud. Oh well.
He coughed awkwardly.

[Hyacinthus]

Kolara had taken several blows in her lifetime. Physical, magical, mental. One of the hardest times she'd ever been hit was by a Taowanwa-- A giant, mud-dwelling, eel-like monitor, something like a normal person and a half in size, and a loaded wagon in weight. Left some bruises, rattled her head a little, but she shook it off just fine.

But this... this was torture. It was cruel, and unusual, and as she covered her face to hide the obvious shade of red she'd turned, she found herself questioning for the first time in her life what she'd done to deserve such suffering. "...Just... Just keep close." Was all she could manage as a reply, completely defeated by the embarrassingly blunt statement.

And then, her ears perked. The color drained from her face, and her eyes sharpened as she removed her hands. It wasn't clear what she heard-- at least, not at first. But she definitely heard something-- or felt something. Why else would she suddenly be so on-edge? "...Hells. Are they THAT starved this time of year...?"

[wandering_giraffe]

Arlen saw the color drain from her face. He looked around. They were mostly out of the thunderstorm now, save for an occasional flash of lightning from behind them.
"Is what hungry this time of year?" He cautiously asked, dreading the answer.

[Hyacinthus]

A low rumble echoed through the clouds, as well as the bodies of the flying Yoreiqi pair. Thunder? No... something else. Something far, far worse. A bead of cold sweat rolled down the side of Kolara's face as her lungs rattled from the overbearing noise, and her eardrums trembled. Goodness knew how Arlen was faring-- but she couldn't slow or stop to ask him. Not with that thing so close.

What thing, exactly?

"...Arlen-- no matter what, keep flying forward, okay? Don't look back, don't slow down, and don't panic."

An unnatural wind swept the hollowing cloud they'd been flying through. The winds disrupted natural currents-- as if something with great, massive wings had just made a quick beat and shifted it's own flight path. Another low, powerful growl echoed out-- even heavier than the first-- followed by a vapid, feral growl. The shadow of a massive, winged creature slowly, surely began to appear above them; Like a giant snake, with several sets of wings.

And then, to their left, another. And beneath them, another.

Gods...

[wandering_giraffe]

Arlen felt a different kind of thunder. An earth-shattering thunder that went seemingly through his soul.
"What the fuck is that?"
Kolara warned him to keep flying and don't look anywhere but ahead.

Curiosity killed the cat, as they say.

He tried to not look, he really did. But then something seemed to block out the sun, a shadow overtaking both him and Kolara.
Arlen thought he was doing a very good job of not panicking, considering he had never been off of Yoreiqi before this, and had certainly never even heard of things that can block out the sun.
His hunter instincts were kicking in though. If they could hunt him...he could hunt back.
"Do we have a plan or are we just going to fly here like sitting ducks?" He yelled to Kolara.

[Hyacinthus]

Kolara frowned. Arlen had one job.

"That," she mentioned in a low tone, "Is a sky serpent. And they're relatively blind, this far down. They only dip this low when they're hungry... think, whales... bobbing for apples."

It wasn't exactly a spectacular analogy, but it'd have to do under the pressure. Kolara's eyes darted from shadow to shadow, her field of warmth and embers shuddering as the echo of another massive, unnatural growl, followed by a distinctly serpentine hiss cascaded through the nearby clouds. "You hear that sound? That growl? It's like echo-location... except that's not all it is. When they're ready to pounce, they'll let out a... call it a 'death roar'. Big things like them, it might sting their ears a little, stun them— small things like us? Your lungs, ears, your brain could all rupture— you'll pop like a balloon. And then they just 'bob' and catch you right out of the sky." A grim, almost horrifying explanation for an equally horrifying situation.

"Listen, I know what you're thinking. I'm as Yoreiqi as you— hell, I'm twice the Yoreiqi you are— and I could probably take ONE of these things in a— Okay, what's done is done. Arlen, when I give you the signal, dive. Low as you can, fast as you can without losing balance. DO NOT LOOK BACK— just dive."

This wasn't a test— another bead of sweat ran down Kolara's face as she tried to prep her ward the best she could before the inevitable occurred. "I'm going to let off a flare— their eyes are underdeveloped for this height, so it should blind them a bit and buy us some time. That'll be the signal, got it? You dive, I'll be right behind you to guide you from there. I'm not screwing around— when I say dive, you dive!" Another heavy growl echoed outward into the cloud— louder than the one prior, practically deafening. The shadows shifted, almost as if agitated. They were posturing. Time was short.

"...Now! Dive!" She screamed, before her wings began to glow hotter and brighter than they had ever shone before. There was barely time to argue, if any— a flare was truly set off— a flash of light, almost like a second sun, whipped through the thundercloud. The creatures hissed— Kolara's plan worked, and the massive, winged serpents began to slow down, distracted by the light. But there was barely time to rejoice— perhaps out of panic, or spite, a low, powerful echo was ringing— so heavy that the sky itself seemed to shake in response. With every split second it grew— as if it were building up energy, soon to explode. This was it— the 'death roar' was coming, and it was coming fast.

[wandering_giraffe]

As soon as Kolara yelled for Arlen to dive, he dived, seeming to go as fast as a peregrine falcon as he disappeared through the clouds.  There was just one problem. There was a bandit camp on the ground, and Arlen dived straight into it. Well. He had traded a problem for another problem. What a pickle to be in.
Arlen was very lucky there was a tent to break his fall.
Angry shouts and curses could be heard, and when Arlen finally untangled himself from the tent and stood up, there were five very angry bandits surrounding the once usable tent with swords drawn.
Arlen put on the act of a prophet.
He very boldly walked over to the nicest looking bandit and gently pointed the bandits sword to the ground. Arlen gestured at the sky.
"You hear the thunder? That is just an omen of what is to come. Thunder is not what we thought it was. It's a beckoning of a Phoenix, an ethereal being from another world. I am just the messenger." And he bowed low to the ground, the bandits looking at each other and then nervously at the sky.
"Any minute, the Phoenix will come blazing out of the sky, and if any of you even look in her direction," and he theatrically fell to the ground, one hand clutching his heart for dramatic effect, "she will cause you to burst into flames."
A loud roar of "thunder" happened just then, and Arlen casually lounged in the tent wreckage.

[Hyacinthus]

And indeed, as 'the prophet' proclaimed, so too did it happen; Thunder roared out across the plains, the likes of which was like to be unnatural even for such a flatland... but no phoenix came 'blazing out of the sky', as Arlen explained earlier. At least, not immediately. There was, in fact, nothing that came blazing out of the sky for a time; Nothing but another thunderous roar, and a few more flashes of light-- as if explosions of a solar kind were being set off high above the clouds.

It was a disturbing, uncomfortable pause of a few moments-- perhaps a few minutes-- before something did come blazing down from the heavens... just not exactly what Arlen described. A light; A fiery, streaking light, like a start removed from the skies was the first to fall. Shortly behind it, however, a pair of large, ungodly shadows began t darken the sky; A foreboding pressure exerting on the world below as the atmosphere caved to the force exerted upon it.

The winds stilled, then shifted; The clouds above parted to make way for what followed behind the firelight. It was...

'Leviathan'. No one word in the Le'raanan dictionary of common tongue could accurately capture the description of the massive, scale-winged, shark-headed, snake-like 'fish' that plummeted to the ground behind the stray firelight. Who could truly say how large they were from the distance; Only that they dwarfed the falling streak of fire by leaps and bounds in size. Their scales were translucent, yet reflective; In the skies, they likely blended perfectly into the atmosphere, or looked like creatures made up entirely of mirrors. So close to the ground, and scorched thoroughly as they were now, they gave off the horrid look of enormous, darkened eels. It was indeed not hard to tell, even from a distance, that stray cinders still burned from their bodies as they fell; smoke streaming behind them as they descended to the ground somewhere close to a mile away from the bandits, and Arlen.

The streak of fire made contact first; An unceremonious collision with the ground, inconsequential to the environment around it as the fires that trailed behind it seemed to simply fade, or maintain, at the collision point without spreading. The two giants behind it, however, shook the very continent; Their collisions with the earth sending tremors far and wide as the wildlife of the plains panicked and sought to escape the realm as best they could. They kicked up a veritable mountain of dust and debris with their landing, but before long, all of the violence of their descent came to settle, and stillness swept the plains again in the wake of the fallen creatures. Stillness... and a lack of a phoenix, or so it seemed at a mile distance's glance.

Seemed that Kolara made good on her promise, twofold even... but at what cost?

[wandering_giraffe]

The thunder shook the plains so much in fact, that the bandits took off as fast as they could in the other direction, leaving behind their entire camp.
Arlen watched with excitement which quickly turned to worry as he realized that Kolara was rather falling out of the sky rather than flying.
And then the serpent like creatures fell after her, looking very much dead and very much burnt.
Arlen stood up out of the tent wreckage, horror in his eyes as he watched the far off scene unfold.
Arlen immediately took off for the chaotic scene, himself a black and purple blur, going so fast that he made it to Kolara's side in one minute.
"Kolara"—-his words failed to form in his brain and he trailed off, saddened by the sight in front of him.
Kolara lay in a small indent in the ground, probably from the force of her fall. They seemed cut off from the rest of the world by the serpentine giants that lay motionless around them, giving an eerie but somber note to the atmosphere.
The sky was still, the clouds still parted from Kolara and the leviathine forms falling through them, the clouds frozen apart, leaving an ominous gaping hole in the sky.
Arlen didn't know what to do. She had saved his life at least twice now, and he'd done exactly nothing in return.
"Kolara? He asked softly, his black wings limp in sorrow, his entire figure covered in regret.
Was there something else he could have done—something else he should have done?
He ran. Like a coward. His throat felt tight, his eyes watery.

"Kolara, you can't die like this, not alone. Not-" his breath caught in his throat, "not with me. You're stronger than this. You're a phoenix!" Arlen's tears slowly dripped off his face and fell onto the hot ground, sizzling for a millisecond and fading into vapor.
"Cmon," Arlen whispered, gently shaking her by the shoulders.
He knelt there, head bowed, a broken whisper of "angel" slipping out of his lips.

[Hyacinthus]

She did not respond. She could not. Up close, the scars of the short, explosive war that the fire-winged woman had fought with the sky serpents was far more noticeable; Far scarier to comprehend. At a glance, shhe was bruised here and there, the worst of it coming from the fall, and more specifically the collision. What was truly worrying, however, was the blood; From her lips, her nose, her ears, even her eyes, streams of red dripped; Her life, or what was her life, draining from her body as if nothing was left within to hold it inside.

Perhaps this was the consequence of the 'death roar' that she'd warned Arlen about. It was as if her insides had been practically liquefied; The color draining from her vibrant, caramel skin with every passing moment. Her chest didn't rise or fall; No beating, even in the faintest, echoed from her heart. Before long, even the bleeding seemed to slow to a stop, if only because of the fact that nothing within her was actively pumping blood anywhere to begin with.

She... she was really...

...Hiiiiiisssssssss...

Before the cold reality could truly set in, a horrifying sound filled the nearby air; The shadows of the blackened beasts shifting slightly in the otherwise silent plains that surrounded them. It was a familiar sound-- though much weaker, and almost desperate in it's utterance. The hiss... that damned hiss, though no guttural, aggressive growl preceded it. A shiver ran down the length of one of the fallen, towering giants... and then it's body began to slowly, faintly writhe.

One of the creatures... had somehow survived, if only barely. But even clinging to life as it may have been, who could truly say how much of a threat a leviathan of the skies truly was?

[wandering_giraffe]

Arlen couldn't believe it.
He remembered what Kolara had warned him about. The results of the death roar.
Why did he survive and not her? There was nothing he could do. He didn't know the first thing about medicine. Or healing.
"I'm sorry," Arlen whispered, his mind racing.
He was in denial. There was no way she was...but the more he looked the more glaring the answer was.
He shakily removed his shirt and gently covered Kolara's still form with it.
And then a sound filled the air.
A warning.
One of the serpents seemed to be alive.
Arlen's head whirled toward the sound, slowly standing up and preparing to fight to the death.

[Hyacinthus]

Indeed, a fight to the death it seemed it would be, as the massive, monstrous creature's body slowly began to wind and coil, giving it the strength to raise it's mighty head from the ground, if only slightly. Granted, 'slightly' for a creature of such monstrous size still had it towering a couple men's height above the fallen Kolara and Arlen, but as it's head whipped one way, then paused, then the other, it was clear that something was wrong.

It couldn't see. Indeed, just as Kolara had once before mentioned, so obscured by the thicker layers of the atmosphere, especially at ground level, it's eyes were poorly developed for land. Extremely poorly. Another hiss rang out; one far more aggressive and pronounced than the first. Only now, with it's appearance fully visible to the eye was it's thin yet massive, barb-covered tongue visible to any who saw the creature. It rang through the surrounding plains with such fervor that the dislodged earth trembled, the nearest tree swayed, and Kolara's body vibrated. Indeed, Arlen likely felt it as well, as the monstrosity turned to 'gaze' at the spot in which the two Yoreiqi remained.

It was just as Kolara had said. Echolocation. Those hisses were somehow relaying their presence to the beast! Glazed, serpentine eyes narrowed as the burned monster bore it's fangs and, with what strength it could muster, slung it's head down at the two Le'raanians with intents to swallow them both, and a chunk of the land itself, whole.

[wandering_giraffe]

Arlen watched as the monster seemed to locate where they were. There was not a moment to lose.
There was a louder, scarier hiss.
"I'm sorry about this, you can kill me later." Arlen carefully picked Kolara up, unfurled his wings, and just before the serpent closed in, took off in the opposite direction.
Arlen flew back to the now abandoned bandit camp, carefully laying Kolara's body down and covering it with the tent, before finding a sword and flying back towards the monster, intent on killing it. He flew straight towards the monster and at the last second, barrel rolled so he was above it, aiming his sword for the top of the monsters head.

[Hyacinthus]

Clang!

The disheartening sound of tempered metal against tempered metal rang out in the nearby distance of the plains. Arlen's blade had met its mark, but to no immediate avail; the hardened scales of the giant serpent repelled his blow handily. In spite of this, the sky serpent, which had let out a hiss while he'd been away with Kolara, did not seem to react; Either the blow was not heavy enough to draw its attention, or the beast could feel even less than it could see.

Another hiss. The surroundings vibrated, and the creature's barbed tongue retracted almost immediately this time as 'tasted' the skyward man's location once more. It raised a set of its giant, scaled wings, but lacked the strength yet to fly, nor use them in any effective way. It could only whip its head about, turning to face Arlen once more, and lunge forward to attempt swallowing him whole once more.

Yet it did so with much more force and fury than it had prior; more of its burned body coiled behind it, allowing it to dig deeper and strike harder. This wasn't good... injured though it was, it seemed to be shaking off the phoenix's assault, slowly but surely. If it was allowed to recover much more...

[wandering_giraffe]

Arlen swore as the blade seemed to just glance off the monster, sending shocks of vibrations through his hands. The serpentine monster lunged for him again. These things were fast. Much faster than he was expecting.
The serpent just missed Arlen, who ascended to a higher altitude, his hunter instincts kicking in. There was always a weak spot with predators and prey alike.
He narrowed his brows, studying the slowly awakening creature.
He ascended alittle higher and then turned and dove straight towards the monster, sword out and ready, reaching as high of a speed as he could. He let out a fierce roar just before the sword and he slammed into the creature.

[Hyacinthus]

CLANG!

Once more, and with far more force, the blade in Arlen's hands ricocheted dangerously off of the giant serpent, this time with force enough to echo throughout both their bodies. Something fascinating, albeit difficult to notice happened; While the beast didn't seem to register any sense of pain, the single scale-- blackened by Kolara's flames, and hammered by Arlen's sword, cracked slightly. Temperance, and repetitive force... was that the key? The serpent's blind eyes tracked the winged man almost immediately this time, and with unnerving speed, it slithered and coiled back-- a tucking gust of wind filling the absence that it's massive head left, before lining it's eyes up with the space where it had felt Arlen's impact.

What came next was almost too difficult to follow with eyes, but not with ears. The creature let out a piercing hiss-- almost like a high-pitched scream, or a deafening whistle. This 'screech' seemed to shatter the wind itself-- blowing a massive, concussive burst of air directly at the spot it'd felt the vibrations from moments prior with the effective sharpness of a fired ballista bolt. Kolara hadn't mentioned this 'attack' before!

Another 'bolt' of wind fired from it's barbed tongue, and then another; Each wildly thrown near to the area Arlen had been prior. Was it learning? Was it recovering it's strength, and testing the vocal capability of it's air sacs? It hadn't released a death roar, nor shown an intention to yet... Was it building up to it?

[wandering_giraffe]

The force of the hit echoed through him, Arlen almost dropping his sword from the shock of the blow. And yet, the serpent's armor seemed undamaged, and Arlen had only served to anger the thing more, the serpent whirling around ridiculously fast, almost too fast for Arlen too react. And then the blasts came.
The first one managed to disorient Arlen, but the second one actually threw him back into the air a few hundred feet, Arlen managing to unfurl his wings so that he didn't slam into the ground. What the fuck were those?! Arlen could not recall Kolara mentioning those. He shot up into the sky relatively safe from the serpent, slowly making his way back to where he had hidden Kolara.

[Hyacinthus]

For a time, it appeared as though Arlen had made good on his escape. His aggressor, the massive serpentine creature, only let out a seemingly fruitless, enduring hiss that rang out across the open plains, though with distance there was no doubt that Arlen wouldn't have been as affected by it. As he absconded, the creature writhed on the ground once more; It's charred wings and molten scales still recovering from the scorching they'd taken earlier.

And then it happened.

It was a massive beast, after all— And with every writhing movement, it seemed to shift across the plains just a little, as if trying to orient itself to the idea of being grounded... but eventually, it did. Clumsy though it was, the leviathan's body shifted back and forth across the ground, and the massive creature began to slither at great speeds in the direction of Arlen. What few trees remained in its wake were offset and damaged alike.

It was in fast pursuit of Arlen, now— another bolt of wind projected toward his fleeing form as the two quickly approached the location of the fallen Phoenix...

...Who they would quickly learn, was nowhere to be found.