Legend of Ransera

Æden had made routine patrols around Solunarium rather frequently. As he was usually stationed in the city proper, unless sent on a special assignment, it was not uncommon for the Praeventores to be assigned a direction to circle. What they found varied from nothing to the drama of attacks by the creatures that hid in and under the sands. Sometimes a caravan was lost, or someone was separated from their caravan. Sometimes it was corpses decaying in the heat, their eyes plucked out by carrion crows.

In this case, it was a lone woman in the setting sun. Sandworm noticed her first in the dim light, and began to swoop down before Æden had given her the command. The great Wyvern, scaled in muted earth tones and one of the breeds that carried a great scorpion-like tail behind them, landed gently in the sand some distance from the woman, close enough to be noticeable. Æden stayed on her back and watched the woman for a moment. She was human, Vastian-looking, a touch sunburned.

They were some distance from the city, but she did not look like she was trying to escape, or run away. She looked like she was searching for something.

”We’re thirteen miles from Solunarium.” He shouted, dismounting from Sandworm with a puff of sand at his feet. He walked closer, though with the careful warding on the bottom of his golden greaves, he didn’t sink into the sand. he was dressed in a set of steel plate armor, though he had removed his helm and held it in the crook of his elbow as he approached, his hair tied back into a ponytail. ”Are you lost?”

Æden watched where she looked. She was ill-prepared to spend the night in the desert, but at least she knew where the river was — the river full of crocodiles on a good day. She was even pretty for a human, with a sense of wind-swept dusty wildness about her, like she belonged out here. But she was not prepared, and in his flight, he did not see any camp. He tilted his head to the side, but his face remained impassive, his eyes searching. No weapon, at least, not one readily available. Then he looked at the sky, as stars began to reveal themselves. Predators roamed at night just as they did the day, but at night, they tended to be far more prepared than people.

He sighed, quiet, and looked back at her. "Were you going to return to the city?" He asked. If she were running away, she was as good as dead like this. Even if she were not, she'd have to make the trek back. Or she could sleep in the sand between cactus and dust and become breakfast for vultures. An overtly bad decision. She was lucky he had found her, in all the vastness of the sands, and she was lucky that he was feeling so generous.

"Do you have a certain predilection towards wandering off without a way to defend yourself, or did the sun addle your brain?" Her long skirt was not even tied at the legs for how far she'd come. "You're no gazelle. You can't outrun wild dogs, let alone what else seeks you out."

"What is your name?" He didn't offer his own. Sandworm lay in the sand, but saddled as she was, didn't roll around in it. The time for play was when the saddle was off, and as troublesome a wyvern as she was, she knew the difference well.

"Walk?" He asked, his head still tilted. He was perceptive enough to piece together that her appearance and location did not match her demeanor. The meek didn't wander into the desert at sunset. But it was a given; and she was smart enough to know her place and to appease him. But Æden didn't care much for meekness, even from the Vastii. But it was who they were as a people, and it didn't bother him so much that he wished for them to change. They were as they were for a reason.

"Foraging for tracks? Or distracted and wandering while foraging for plants?" He followed up with another question, though both seemed a bit rhetorical. He didn't much care for why she was out here, but he was working, and as a guard he didn't find it seemly to let someone wander back to Solunarium in the middle of the night. No, there was room enough for a woman and her backpack on his wyvern. Gods knew that everyone and their mother seemed to be riding with him.

"Hilana." He spoke, testing her name. "Come. We return to Solunarium on Sandworm. She can take us both." he gestured to the wyvern, and then turned himself to return to the large reptilian beast. Her scorpion tail was curled up, alert. Æden stood beside her and pet her flank with one gauntleted hand. They were due back in the city soon, for Sandworm to be stabled and fed. He donned his helmet once more, partially obscuring his eyes from Hilana, though he could still see her.

"Do you need help up, or can you leap like a gazelle as well as you think you can run as one?" He knew he was being mean. It was a delicate balance; he could not be so rude if he were not assisting her. Teasing and impudence were to be mixed with favors and kind actions. It allowed him careful distance, provided the delicate line between sincere care and total disregard. He tread it like an acrobat.

Æden raised an eyebrow in curiosity as she bowed and greeted the wyvern. The woman was clearly enamored by the creature, and he could not argue that she was wrong to be. Wild wyverns were a terrifying sight, but a tamed one, raised from the egg, that you could approach — rarer still, unless one was with the Praeventores or a wyvernkeeper.

He stepped back as Hilana scrambled up her side. There was a few steps she missed that would have made the ascent easier, but that didn't stop the Vastian from ending up in the back of the saddle, an expression of pride and delight on her face. Æden smirked a bit, his mouth visible from under his helmet; she had been determined to show him up, to live up to his insult, and he could respect that, even from the Vastii. Æden didn't say anything but grabbed the reins of Sandworm in one hand and mounted the wyvern. He settled down in front of Hilana, though he couldn't avoid sitting on part of her long skirt.

"Hold on with your legs and with your arms around my waist," he instructed, "As if you will die if you are not holding tight enough." If her hold on him was not firm enough, he would adjust it manually. Situated, with the reins now in both hands, he whistled to sandworm and made a fluid motion from his hands to his feet, alerting Sandworm that they were ready to take off. The wyvern balanced on her back legs and began to flap her winged arms, the blowing up a cloud of sand and dust before she launched herself and they were suddenly airborn.

"It's a lot easier when there's a cliff to take off of!" He called, as the position before they had reached level mid-air had been one where Hilana would have fallen if she had not had been clinging onto Æden. But in the air, one could almost be persueded to relax their grip. It would lead to their deaths if there was a gust of wind or a fidgety wyvern, but it was a smooth ride now regardless. They flew a bit slower with a passenger. Extra weight and excess danger was enough reason.

In the distance, the evening lights of the Luxium were revealed, and Solunarium could just be seen. Below them the land seemed to rush past. Even at a more relaxed pace, Sandworm was faster than a racing camel. "It should take us less than thirty minutes to reach the city." He called back, unsure if his voice was going to be lost in the wind. He looked behind him, to give Hilana a better chance at hearing him, and yelled,

"Gazelles can't run that fast, eh?"

The flight back to Solunarium was natural to Sandworm, and he did not have to do much directing to ensure that they arrived back at the city. Hilana would come off at the stabling yard, but she seemed capable enough to walk herself home in Solunarium at night. Gods, if she was wandering around the desert at sunset he doubted her fears lay in the realm of man or beast. He was quiet for a moment, most of his thoughts towards deciding if he wanted to indulge her questions or not. He'd already inadvertently given her a nickname, and though they just met, she seemed to indulge it. He chuckled at the thought of a gazelle riding a wyvern, but hid it with a cough.

"I joined the Guard six years ago. I joined the Praeventores, and I did have her since she was a hatchling," He replied, tilting his head again towards her so that she might better hear him. "They do not start you with your own Wyvern, no, an older, tame one is used to teach you how to fly. She's already thirty feet long, if she gets any larger, they may not have a big enough holding!" Solunarium grew closer as they flew, and he was quiet for a bit longer, debating if he should talk about his patrols or not. Frequently the Praeventores who were stationed in Solunarium were sent out for missions that the Imperialis Vigilia could not get to, even on their basilisks. But they trawled the Atraxian desert, and he had even been further abroad to Kalzasi — a rarity for anyone.

"If we were on patrol without our wyverns, we would just be Imperialis Vigilia, no?" He answered her question with one of his own. "No, gazelle, we are sent for time-sensitive patrols, for long distances, for scouting... It is rare that I'm on a flight like this. Perhaps you were very lucky."