Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lithian shook himself, blinking and grounding his mind back in the present, the sound of Casseth’s voice helping to reel him back in. He glanced over, and beamed.

“Thanks.”

Ushering some of his now fully soaked hair out of his face, he walked back towards the shore, dripping as he came in and wriggling his toes when they met again with the warm, dry sand.

“So,” he tossed Casseth another smile, rubbing abashedly one of his ears. “Ready to give it a try yourself? I bet its similar for the earth, though of course I couldn’t say for certain. Or would you rather just work some basic sparring routines? I have several that I’ve done with my mother and siblings on occasion in the past, if you just want to practice.”

“Don’t worry,” Lithian said as Casseth prepared to attempt the move. “I failed many times myself when I was first working on it. And, as I said, I only recently got to the point where can do it fairly reliably. Just relax as best you can,” he advised, and then stood quietly, watching as Casseth shut his eyes, his warm, earthy magic casting his body in a faint glow as attempted.

For a moment, Lithian almost thought he would get it on his first try — Casseth’s skin had already started to prickle and crack with his magic — but as soon as it did, a preemptive grin broke out over Cas’ face, and when he opened his eyes to meet Lithian’s his concentration visibly broke, the magic snapping back into place and out of view. At Casseth’s disappointed look as he sank to the sand, however, Lithian immediately shook his head.

“No, no, don’t look like that — Casseth, you did amazingly! I don’t think I was remotely that successful the first few times I tried. You almost got it and you’d never even attempted before.” He smiled, trying to meet Casseth’s stare and convey how impressive it had been. “I think that was a wonderful attempt. Truly. You can practice more later, at your leisure…perhaps me simply being here is distracting.” His look turned sheepish at that comment, and he pushed his fingers back through his wet hair, flushing. “But you did do amazingly. Perhaps we ought to focus on something else for now? Some simple sparring exercises to hone some of the moves you’re already comfortable with?”

The last thing Lith wanted was for Casseth to feel discouraged at this point, particularly after that display. He hoped his point came across as well as he intended.

Lithian relaxed as Casseth smiled, and then listened when he explained what he’d worked through so far. After Cas finished, he considered for a moment, thoughtful, before taking several steps back closer to the ocean’s edge.

“Sounds like you could use some work on strengthening up those defenses, then? Maybe we can pass back and forth and tag team each other. First you can work on your shields, where your goal is to keep as dry as I can while I send water whips at you, and after we’ve done that for a bit we can turn the tide and you can shoot some rocks at me and/or try to trip me, and I’ll work on my balance, evasion, and redirection? I’m fairly good at manipulating with my magic, but the physical bits have always given me trouble, so practicing my footwork would be good for me.”

After Casseth agreed, together they did just that, and probably spent the better part of two hours tagging each other back and forth, practicing, showing off, and generally testing each other playfully. As the time wore on, though, ‘training’ inevitably gradually degenerated into far more laughing, teasing, and goofing off than hard work. By the time the sun was at its peak in the sky, Lithian was laying beached in the sand, groaning around exhausted laughter, his hair splayed like the infinite tendrils of an electric blue jellyfish across the sand. With the lower half of his body in the water and arms spread to either side of him as the incoming tide licked at his skin, he twirled a finger, drawing up a lazy rivulet of water and making it dance through the air like a worm freshly popped from the earth and unused to the sunlight.

“What now?” he asked. “I think soon I’ll be hungry enough to eat a kargoth.” Stealing a glance in Casseth’s direction, he grinned privately, silently plucking up a full orb of water, bringing it over to hover above his also-lounging friend, and dissipating it in his previous trick, turning it into a miniature shower of raindrops over him. “Any brilliant ideas?”

Startled when Casseth’s shadow moved to hover over him, Lithian glanced up, and for a moment, he didn’t even process his friend’s suggestion. Instead, his attention caught on a variety of other details: the glint of the desert sunlight of off the golden stripes on Casseth’s horns, the playful curve of his smile and the way a stripe of white-brown sand kernels had clung to the side of his damp, still-bare chest when he’d risen, giving him the vague appearance of having a plethora of brand new, tiny scales. Lithian jerked his eyes off of Casseth’s skin, cheeks burning, and forced his attention onto what his friend had actually said, not what he’d looked like while he said it.

“I, ah…” He glanced towards the aforementioned cliffs, brow pinching together uncertainly. “Rock climbing…? Those look fairly steep,” he said, wariness creeping into his voice despite his best attempts to not sound nervous. “Are you sure that’d be safe? I’ve never tried it before, but it sounds…risky.”

Lithian watched as Casseth climbed, and huffed at the comment, ignoring the small part of his stomach that fluttered with brief panic each time Cas swung to a higher grip point and lifted himself up.

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, pulse beating fast in his throat as he took in the scene, Casseth casually utilizing his magic to progress farther up the cliff. “Walking on water is also easy, you should try it sometime…” His words had lost their edge, though, and the further Casseth moved up, the more concerned Lith grew. “Are you sure this is—? Nnh.” Lith grit his teeth, well aware that his friend was hardly paying attention at this point and far from likely to listen to his cautionary suggestions at this point. That in mind, he eyed the cliff face.

He hadn’t been lying when he said he’d never attempted such a thing before. Trees, yes. And there was a small waterfall back on the Plane that he’d slipped under and scaled the back of very briefly into the miniature cave there, but that climb was barely taller than he was — hardly anything to write home about. This, on the other hand…

Lithian’s eyes scaled up the cliff. And up. And up.

He winced. Then, drawing a deep breath, he gathered his nerve, and forced himself up, slowly starting after his friend. In comparison to Casseth’s smooth, quick, and almost effortless climbing, Lithian felt like an insect with two legs missing, scrabbling clumsily for foot and handholds, holding his body rigid as a plank and having to re-convince himself that this was not a deadly idea every inch he progressed upwards.

He shouldn’t have let Cas drag him off without his flasks or boots, either. He felt naked without them. Weaponless.

What if something attacked?

But, Lithian told himself stubbornly, nothing would. He was overreacting and hyper-concerned. Relax. Breathe. And climb. He could do this.

Lithian flushed, embarrassed that — apparently — his lack of skill at this was blatantly obvious, but he accepted the help anyway, gratefully making use of the hand and foot holds Casseth provided and then gratefully scrambling up onto the makeshift ledge. His pulse still beat a rapid rhythm in his chest, not helped by the fact that he dared to look down soon after gaining his balance, and he swallowed hard, pressing his body back flat as it could physically manage and only just barely curbing the urge to squeeze his eyes shut.

“Is this high enou—?” Before he could finish that sentence, though, Lithian noticed Casseth was already moving on, happily sweeping up the rocks as easily as most people walked on level ground, and Lithian’s shoulders sank, a low groan crawling up from his throat. “Casseth…when do you plan on—?”

Then, he spotted it. A familiar glint of golden, almost metallic light glinting from over the cliffs upper lip a good ways off to the right. Casseth probably hadn’t even seen it yet, but even squinting in the bright light of midday, Lithian felt he knew that color. That glint. The same one he’d dealt with in droves for his first ever encounter with dragons in the desert. He’d been eleven, then, and flanked by his sister and brothers.

Kiandri.

Sure enough, moments later, the distant golden spec moved, broad wings spanning wide to either side of its body as it leapt off the cliff face and its scales caught the sun’s rays like armor. It had spotted them.

“Casseth!” Lithian’s throat attempted to stop itself up, familiar panic breeding like a virus in his veins, but he forced the words out. “Casseth, we have dragons on us — climb down!”

Lithian’s heart hammered in the cage of his chest as he watched the dragon swoop in, helpless to do a thing to help even as Casseth only barely maneuvered out of the way of the first lightning bolt. Then Cas was in action again, whipping around, manipulating the earth of the cliff itself and sending a massive chunk of it cracking down on the beast’s head. Lithian felt the air rush from his lungs as the dragon plummeted, toppling like a broken doll to the ground below and dissipating to dust as it hit.

“Cas—” Before his tongue could get any further than that, though, a second dragon’s roar interrupted, and Lith felt the color drain from his cheeks. Water, he needed water. He had nothing. He was weaponless—

When Casseth called out to him, Lithian’s eyes darted up just in time to see Cas fall. For half an instant, Lithian felt his world slow to a stop.

Panic.

Guilt.

Anguish.

“Casseth—!” The name ripped its way out of his throat, loud enough to hurt, dry and sharp as splintered wood, but then Cas’ wings were out, catching and cupping the air, slowing his fall to a loose glide. Lithian was still breathless and raw in the throat as he watched his friend rotate midair and catch at the ledge. “Cas—”

Lithian felt his heart trip over itself as Casseth scrambled up, righting himself on the ledge and pushing it out wider, but again, before his mind could barely begin to process the chain of occurrences, Casseth was turning again, wings fanning out and shielding him defensively. As the second kiandri struck, Cas buried a spike of earth in its belly.

When, precisely, Lithian’s fingers found their way to the skin of Casseth’s back he wasn’t sure, but he found that as the second kiandri crumpled like whetted paper to the ground below and shattered like brittle ice into nothing but its remaining soul, his hands were hard pressed not to tremble. He resisted the immediate, powerful urge to drag his friend close and cling. Instead, he breathed out sharply, jerking his fingers off of Casseth’s skin no matter how much it comforted him to remind himself that his friend still lived and shook his head.

“Down. Down. We’re going down.” Lithian was already moving as he said it, crouching, swallowing his panicked pulse as he made the mistake of actually looking down and then shutting his eyes before carefully moving off the edge and finding hand and footholds as he went.

As it turned out, going up — tricky as it had been — was a good deal easier than going down, and after several my near-death experiences — real or imagined — by the time Lithian actually made it to the ground, he had sworn on his own beating heart that he would never go rock climbing again. At least, he consoled himself with a glance to the nearby ocean, now close enough to draw on with his magic, he was no longer weaponless among other things.

“Casseth, don’t—”

But Lithian’s words came too late, his friend already shoving him down, out of the line of fire, and Casseth’s scream tore into Lith’s heart. His fault. This was all his fault. Casseth was taking the bite for him, and when Casseth’s eyes squeezed shut, a whimper accenting the tail end of his initial cry, something in Lith snapped. By the time Casseth instructed him to run, Lithian barely heard it, his teeth already grit as he slid out from beneath his friend.

“I am not leaving you. Abronaxus damn me if I leave you here like this.” Lithian felt his magic roil within him. An untapped typhoon, spinning, pressing, fighting against the bonds of his skin because this was Casseth and they were hurting him. He locked his mind on the sea behind him. Breathing its power, submerging himself in it, and grounding his magic, he rooted his stance and — meeting the sparking, lighting gold eyes of the beast looming over Casseth — he gripped and lifted. “Challenge the ocean,” he said, drawing up something akin to a massive, writhing waterspout that twisted like a snake up from the ocean behind him “…and drown.”

With a sharp pivot, he threw the pillar of water forward, pounding it into the body of the startled kiandri and sending it toppling, spinning, and shattering like a rowboat under the force of a broken levee. Careful to keep the force of the crashing water off of Casseth, Lithian released his immediate hold on it afterwards, letting it fall loosely to the sand and sending it to slink back towards the ocean’s edge as he turned to face the remaining three.

“You want to fight?” he snapped at them, moving back as he spoke, closer towards the ocean both for ease of access and to draw them away from Casseth. “Fight with me, cowards. You’re nothing more than a bunch of oversized, overly proud lightning bugs!”

That earned him their attention.

All three kiandri turned on him in unison, swooping in, and Lithian dipped, feeling rush of the incoming tide, the ripple of the ocean over the backs of his heels as he took another step back into the wet sand. Then up, he gripped with his fists at his sides. Raising them and splaying his fingers again, he brought up a full wall of water — like a wave frozen in place — and, crouching low, he took another step back. With one sweep of his arms up and over, he sent the wall rushing in a perfect arch over his head and crashing into the three approaching dragons.

The all but one shattered under the force, dissipating to nothing but sea foam and their glinting golden yellow souls. The remaining dragon fought messily to fly again despite its wet wings, but with limited success, and the instant it attempted to send a bolt at him, Lithian shoved a tunnel of seawater into its open mouth, forcing the water down, and down, and down the beast’s throat until it drowned under the pressure and shattered like its brethren.

Immediately, Lithian ran back to Casseth, and was on his knees beside him the second he got there. “How deep did its teeth go?” he queried, hands already hovering over the damaged area and picking at the cloth of Casseth’s pants, trying to ascertain the damage. “Did it break anything? Can you walk? Was it just your leg, or did anything else get hurt also?”

He needed his belt with fresh, clean water, but before he could do anything he wanted to know what precisely he was working with and how badly his friend had been hurt.