To Ride the Wind

The small, stone-coloured tropeo bounded precariously close to the edge of the cliff. She had been strengthening her wings for months against the winds that rose off the surface of the ocean and carried salty sea-spray up to their nest, and now it was finally time. It had to be.

“Come on, I’m ready to go!” She spread her wings and beat them furiously, the strength of her wingbeats almost pushing her backwards and even just lifting her off the ground.

Shiloh and Banshee looked at their offspring, the wind coming in from the horizon and her rapid wingbeats ruffling their feathers. Apprehension hid behind both of their gazes. This was it. Their little pebble would ride the wind and rise above, or she would fail and likely either drown, or be consumed by wicked things with sharp teeth that patrolled the waters below before she could make the swim back to the shore.

They could have nested further inland to avoid the swimming teeth, of course, but there would have been no fewer trials. Nesting further inland meant the chance for their nest to be raided by other dinosaurs, getting tangled in trees, or… being caught in a plume of ash or fire, if the mountain’s mood turned for the worse. And if they had nested inland, there would be roaming teeth to snatch up fallen young tropeos.

At least here there were plenty of places to perch, and any land-dwelling dinosaur would be foolish to try to steal from a nest that hugged the cliffs.

“You’re going to tire yourself out before you even start your flight,” Banshee chided as she stepped up to nuzzle her hatchling - her growing hatchling, her child - and ran her beak along the juvenile’s. The white patches that coloured her feathers, half-grown between hatchling down and adolescent feathers as they were, were growing as well. Slowly spreading across her body and starting to connect. Shiloh and Banshee both hoped, privately, that it was just an oddity and not a sign of ill health or weakness that would lead to a premature end to her first flight.

“I’m not tired,” their young one protested. “I could fly for days! I’ve been practicing for so long, I bet I could fly forever. I could outfly the black clouds!”

Shiloh clacked his beak in amusement, and clacked his teeth along the surface of her feathers in preening motion. He believed in her. He was still worried, but all parents worried about their offspring’s first flight.

“We’ll be right there with you,” Banshee assured. Though there would be nothing that they could do if she fell into the water. She was too big now for either of her parents to carry.

“And remember, if you start to get tired -”

“- don’t land too close to the shoreline, or you’ll get taken by the tide,” their child finished, speaking in time with Banshee in such a way that she even matched the lilt of her mother’s voice. She had heard this at least a dozen times before. She was ready.

Shiloh clacked his beak quietly again, the warmth in his eyes softened by an unusual sadness. They could not put this off forever. If she thought she was ready, then she was ready. Delaying it could only make their young one decide she wanted to fly on her own, without them beside her.

Banshee murred quietly and dipped her head before shaking out her scraggly feathers. “Exactly right, little pebble.”

Banshee glanced towards Shiloh, apprehension shadowing her gaze as well. Maybe “pebble” hadn’t been the right nickname for their little one. Pebbles dropped from the air and disappeared beneath the waves.

“Follow us when you’re ready,” she said before she turned back towards their eager offspring, who squawked an affirmative.

Effortlessly, Banshee leapt from the cliff face and soared out over the sea, tilting her wings to come back towards the shore in a broad arc. Shiloh followed close behind, joining her as they turned to face the cliffs where their single child remained.

The young grey and white tropeo ran up to the edge of the cliff, as she had done so many times before, eager to let the wind carry her away this time - but she stopped short, suddenly uncertain. What if the wind really didn’t catch her as she had been lead to believe that it should? What if she sunk like a stone to the bottom of the ocean? What if she was stuck here on this cliff forever?

But then the wind picked up and pulled at her feathers. Her parents called for her to join them in the sky, and she felt a tug in her chest, urging her to make the jump and spread her wings.

So she did.

She backed up, just enough to get a running start, and threw herself into the open air, spreading her wings and bidding the wind to catch her and carry her to safety.

And it did.

Flight was everything she had ever hoped that it would be - freedom, weightlessness, joy. The crashing waves roared beneath her and sea spray clung to her feathers, but nothing could drag her down. It felt like the sun itself, warm on her back, was lifting her up. Unimaginable happiness, feelings of rightness and belonging, filled her with energy.

She beat her wings, not nearly as powerful as her parent’s, but strong enough to propel her through the air. It was so different from the way that it had felt when she practiced jumping around on the cliffs and strengthening her wings from the ground. She felt the air pushing against her wing membranes on the downstroke, felt it swirling in eddies behind her as she brought them forwards again. If she closed her eyes, she swore she could feel the way the wind blew over and between every single feather, the way it pushed up on her wing membranes and the way it parted ahead of her as she surged forwards. When she tilted her wings, it carried her in a broad arc that mimicked what she had seen her parents demonstrate just a few moments ago.

It brought her around to face not the vast, open and endless expanse of the ocean, but to look upon the bare and rough rocks that she had been hatched on. The cliffs looked so small from this distance - she had not realised how far she had flown already, how fast the wind had made her. It was almost effortless, compared to running and jumping around on land.

A shadow passed overhead, a brief moment of cool when the sun was cut off from reaching her feathers. She looked up just in time to see that Shiloh was sailing in beside her. Banshee banked in the air to be closer to her as well, though there was plenty of space still between the three of them so that none of them were flying too crowded.

The young tropeo made a delighted squawk which turned into a plea - “Can we see the black scar now? Please??”

Banshee chuckled, relief making her feel feather-light. The creeping white markings on their little one's feathers was not a warning of ill health, the nickname she had thoughtlessly given her when she saw the hatchling's dull grey colour was not a curse. A look towards Shiloh told her that he felt exactly the same. The hard part of the first flight was over - their little one had survived the jump and was showing no signs of premature fatigue.

“We can fly wherever you like, pebble,” Banshee called, raising her voice to be heard above the rush of wind. Though it might end up taking them a couple flights to make it all the way across the island to the black scar. And… there was still the matter of showing their little one how to safely land.