Welcome to Gaia! ::

The relief that filled Malodore was detectable even without illithid mind-powers... though having them helped a little bit. The plague doctor sagged visibly, its beak opening wide in a smile. "Grazie a voi, miei cari, cari amici," it said, that relief twined through its voice. "It is a hard thing to ask for. That the wings are not granted except by the elders... it is something long ground into our minds, as plaguelings." Its hands worried at the edge of one sleeve, the nervous gesture automatic.

"But they have given me nothing, and I will take nothing from them. This I will do on my own... no. On my own with your help, I will do this thing." It straightened and nodded at them, meeting their gaze absolutely directly for the first time since they entered the room.

"And... yes. Plans." It smiled again. "Jericho, I would be most gratified to learn... what I think I require is to figure out which muscles feed into the wing structure. You can fly in your humanoid form, can you not?"

"And from you, now, Riley-" It looked at her now, radiating a burst of affection and pride. "I will need to strengthen those muscles, to have a hope of being able to bear those wings... and you are the master of the fitness club, are you not? Who better to know?"

Still, one other thought was made available to Riley's mind. And later, when it is time to... to implant. I will need you then.

Malodore was receiving a similar amount of emotional swell from Riley, as it spoke - but hers was filled with nothing but pride. It was a paragon of strength, as far as she was concerned. She couldn't have been prouder, than she was at that moment.

And, in the back of her mind, she couldn't have been more ashamed of her own, quiet weakness. Where Malodore succeeded, Riley was failing - and it wasn't going unnoticed.

The master of fitness. She repeated with a chuckle. Her amusement gave way to critical thinking as Jericho explained the difficulties of observing muscles at work, from the vantage point of his arms. Her eyes fluttered quickly, as a plan began to form.

Not necessarily.. She murmured quietly to Jericho. You see, you're assuming you need to be in the air, to flex those muscles. Perhaps we can simulate the movement of flight, without actually letting you go.

She reached out, and wrapped her hands around the dragons wrists. I can't be certain, but if we're careful, I could get a firm grip on the ground and keep you from lifting off completely. You could fly a few inches, using your wings within viewable distance of Malodore, but you wouldn't get very far.

Her eyes crescented in amusement. It would be like I were flying you like a kite.

Jericho's eyes lit up at Riley's proposal. It was a rather good idea indeed.

"Right. Let's just hope you can find a good thing to hold onto otherwise you're coming up with me," he chuckled before looking towards Mal, "Yeah, we better head outside. I'll be generating quite a bit of wind with my wings, especially if I'm being held in place."

He was also going to have to be careful to not accidentally smack Riley with the limbs while they did this.

"So.. shall we be on our way then?" he grinned while taking a few steps towards the door.

It was kind of exciting really... helping out Mal reclaim the skies that were taken from it.

On their way outside, Jericho went ahead and removed his coat and shirt. If Malodore was going to observe the muscles, it would need to be able to see them in the first place. Aside from revealing Riley's mark upon his chest, there were a few other things of note. Along his arms, were a few dark scales. He didn't really know what was going on with that, but they had slowly begun to appear lately. A part of him wondered if he should be worrying about them at all. But they didn't itch or hurt or anything.. so perhaps not.

Once they had reached their destination, he set the clothing aside and turned towards Riley.

Grinning to her, he nodded over to Mal and took in a deep breath. Upon the Mindflayer's command, he began to beat his wings down to take flight. While he expected Riley to hold him down... this wasn't quite the case. Instead she went up with him.

Because he had been expecting to be held in place, his flight-balance was thrown and in turn he ended up flinging the Illithid over his head up into the nearest tree while flopping onto his backside with a thud.

Wait-

She felt her so-called footing loosen at once, and the world tumbled around her as the force of Jericho's flight had her flying instead - right into a tree.

There was no scream. There was no flailing, or surprised awkward movement. Instead, as soon as she was launched in the air, Riley's eyes widened, and then instantly slit - and this was the extent of her reaction. Her body curled up into a ball, until it hit the tree, where it unfurled and latched onto any surface it could. The sound of breaking branches and scraping wood could be heard as she tumbled down, down, and slammed onto a branch too thick to break, with her rear.

Then she sat there, as the tree shook in dismey around her, and let the leaves she had ripped apart fall like rain on her person.

.. Well that didn't work. She muttered to no one in particular.

Riley brushed all of the leaves off, and dropped like a stone down out of the tree. Her knees bent fully upon impact, only to straighten up and immediately. She wrapped an arm around Malodore, who'd come to her side, and led it back to Jericho. I'm okay. The tree is the only casualty.

All right. She growled in determination once she arrived back beside Jericho. So I'm not strong enough to just hold you down by my own sheer force of stubbornness. I have another idea.

She looked around for what she needed, finding a nice set of gnarly rooted fallen tree trunks beside one another. It would be perfect.

She kicked deep under each trunk, so that her foot disappeared in the dirt, and her face crunched up in dark determination.

Let's do this.


...and then, quite unexpectedly, a squirrel that had been caught unaware by her sudden appearance in the tree earlier and captured by her dress, finally mustered up the courage to scuttle out of her skirt and run away. It kind of ruined the mood.

Malodore would have held its breath if it breathed regularly. As it was, it simply had to wait tensely as Jericho spread his wings once more and began beating...

Only for nothing to happen, in terms of intense vertical movement or illithid-flipping. A cloud of dust rose around the dragon at first, and then settled as all the nearby leaves, twigs, and small forest animals got blown away.

"Affascinante," Malodore murmured, allowing itself to fall into 'scientist-mode' - not exactly difficult! It paced around Jericho, staring at the dragon's body. In an entirely clinical way, of course.

"Can you try a few different... ah, there are different wing-strokes involved, yes? Is it possible to try?" it called out.

It was kind of strange to be held in place like this while in flight mode. It instinctively had him beating a little harder to try and counter act it, but it likely wasn't enough to pull Riley out of her rooted stance. While Malodore paced around, he glanced over at the Plague doctor and sort of nodded.

There wasn't enough room to show how a dive was done, but he did angle his wings here and there to show how to bank. It wasn't easy with his restrictions but he had to do his best to let Mal see.

It was unfortunate he couldn't really show how gliding was done either due to how low he was to the ground.

Riley was a little surprised. She hadn't expected Malodore to finish all of it's notes so soon, but at the same time she was grateful. Her arms were strained, and she knew she wouldn't be able hold on much longer.

So, in true Riley fashion, she gave Jericho one quick mischievous look, and simply let go. After all, Jericho had flung her into a tree. It was only fair she sent him off on his way, as well.

Of course. She bounced over happily.