Welcome to Gaia! ::

After attaining Mirela’s agreement to at least some minor training and perhaps some adventure and travel, Jijikko happily set himself on that path. He ate with her, finishing the hastar meat, for the most part, and storing the rest deep beneath the earth under hyper-compacted particles — forced that way via magic — to discourage rot and waste. Once satisfied with his work on that front, he left the rocky outcropping, heading into the desert at large with his smaller companion in tow.

While it had been near to noon when he’d first happened upon her — perhaps just edging past it into the early after hours — the sun was now clearly sinking into the latter half of the day, but with plenty of light left for some lessons. He settled himself in a good, flat stretch of more compact earth and glanced over to her.

“My father always used to say…” Jijikko squinted, frowning out over the grit before him. “I actually don’t remember. I tuned him out a lot. But something, I think about persistence and focus and…other things like that. What you’ll want to do, though, is balance your forward thrust…” He demonstrated with a powerful forward bound, “…with your upwards lift.” To demonstrate the second, he stretched his wings, giving several sweeping beats of his wings, successfully stirring up a great deal of dust and sand — which he stamped back down with his magic as soon as he settled — but not getting terribly far up, though, with his level of practice, it was possible to perform a dead lift into the sky. “Your wings are not fully grown in yet,” he said, “so you can’t expect them to perform perfectly…but you’re of an age it should be coming to you and you can get it with a little work.”

Jijikko blinked and then tilted his head as he watched, his long neck shifting with the tilt as the girl lifted — almost, almost, almost made it — and then fell again to the earth. The young diabi was close — very close — but not quite to the point where she could keep herself steadily aloft. He gave a thoughtful rumble in his throat, sniffing and testing the wind with a flick of his wings before approaching her and nosing against her side.

“I’ve an idea,” he said. “If you’d…be willing to hop on my back?” he suggested. “I’ll try to lift you, and you can work on your maintenance from there, mm? I’m large enough, I’m sure I can carry you, and you seem quite apt at slowing your fall — it’s just the steady flight that’s tripping you up.”

Jijikko huffed, accompanied by a low, companionable rumble. He nosed forward, butting snouts with her gently. “I will not drop you,” he assured. “And if we do fall, we fall together — it won’t be far.” He shifted, stomping at the earth and calling on his magic to gather up a stiff, makeshift ‘staircase’ of compact sand leading up his side to his back that she might climb. “I’ll take off, and you can begin to try to keep pace and hold yourself up. I’ll fly slow, and you can drop back down onto my back at any point you have trouble. Yes?”

Jijikko purred, a warm feeling gathering in his gut as his smaller companion settled atop him. For all his failures, this sort of victory pleased him. He wanted to help, to do something good and memorable, and to be able to do it in this way — with a youngling, at a crucial tipping point in her life — was as gold as he could ever ask anything to be. He gave a nod of acknowledgement, and then stretched his wings.

“Hold tight, little miss,” he said.

One — two — three, and…

Off, they were, up, up, up, one bound, a push of his hind legs a thrust of his wings and they were skyward, catching the desert winds as easily as fish caught currents. “Now,” he instructed, “keep your wings stretched and try to start holding your weight off of me for as long as you can, but don’t be embarrassed to let your talons back down and catch hold. We’ll do it together until you can hold yourself all aloft. No shame. Yeah?”