fandomhigh | Multicultural Fair! [The Gym

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!event: multi-cultural fair

Multicultural Fair! [The Gym - After Classes]

The benefit of doing something like this for the second time meant that Joan and Turtle had a much easier time of setting things up since they knew what worked and what didn't.

Turtle had, once again, provided decorations from Turtle & Canary. There was the requisite refreshment table, though it was primarily there to provide beverages, since most of the booths featured culturally appropriate food.

After set up was complete, Joan and Turtle sat down to catch up while they waited for the fair to begin.

[~~wait for the ocd or Turtle will kick you in the shin~~ OCD up! No shins were harmed in the making of this post!]

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"I'm not sure," Karla admitted. "I should really ask Uncle Saetan if it's all right. I'd like to have you all up for Windsol, but Dinah told me that there's an important holiday in that world around the same time. But we'll see." She grinned. "There's a ball and a feast and presents! It's very fun."

It took some more squeeing, but Karla was able to drag her mind away from Windsol and the prospective trip and towards answering Raven's oher question. "Kaeleer and Terreille have been almost completely cut off from one another for almost fifty-thousand years. There was a war that devastated both the Realms and Kaeleer just closed up. But when we travel from Kaeleer to Hell, there are special gates to take us between Realms. One of the jobs of the Priestess caste is to care for the Dark Altars and the Gates between the Realms."

"Ah, so you cannot merely wander between them, you must take a gate," Raven said, nodding. "Like the Great Door in Azarath."

"I suppose so," Karla said. "Jaenelle knows of another way, but I don't understand what she does or how she does it. She speaks of 'jumping the Webs.' I know what she means when she says Webs, but I can't imagine how she jumps them." Karla shrugged, dismissing a concept which still gave Saetan and Geoffrey the willies when they tried to figure out how she did it. "The Gates are connected to candelabras at each Dark Altar. When the candles are lit in the proper order, the wall turns to mist and the Gate opens."

"Opening the Great Door is not so complicated," Raven said thoughtfully. "All it requires is the proper key."

"How does one get the key?" Karla asked. "Or is it only allowed to Azar?"

"They are freely available to those who need to travel between worlds that way," Raven said. "So if one has a need to pass through the Great Door, they may do so. The only time I have gone through the door was when my father sought me out, and that time the Door opened by itself somehow."

"That probably didn't make anyone particularly happy," Karla said, looking troubled. "He came to find you and the door opened by itself?"

A gust of wind interrupted whatever else she was going to say by blowing her hair into her mouth and eyes. "Blech," she said, pulling her hair back. "I love my hair, but not for dinner." Her eyes flicked over Raven and she smiled. "You look lovely with wings," she complimented.

Uh, surprise?

"I felt him summoning me," Raven said. "I walked to the door and it opened, and he was waiting." She forced the tremor of remembered fear aside. "But this is to be a pleasant trip, we should not discuss such things. I will tell you what happened later, if you wish."

And then the rest of what Karla said sank in. "Wings?" Blink, blink.

Unlike the wings Karla had back in Fandom, constructed from metal and fabric and Craft, these were real wings of bone and muscle and sinew. These were large, black, and membranous, like bat-wings. "These are the wings of an Eyrien warrior," Karla explained. "They're a race of people here in Kaeleer. They make their home in the mountains of Askavi. They're how you're going to fly."

With a rustle, Karla flared her own wings. "Do you trust me?" she asked, holding out her hand.

[Okay for occasional mod?]

Raven glanced over her shoulders, flexing the wings in wonder. "My Soul-Self can fly, and I experience what it does, but I have never flown like this before," she said, delighted.

She took Karla's hand. "Of course I trust you," she said. "You are my friend."

[Of course!]

"Then it's time to do...this," Karla said, closing her hand over Raven's and diving into the canyon.

Free fall. Hawk fall. They seemed almost to drift for a moment on the wind, before gravity sent then plummeting downward. She reveled in the speed, the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Ice walls sped up to meet them until Karla opened her wings, caught the White thread and took off down the Blood Run. Raven, her body caught by the memory, did the same, taking to the air as if she'd been born to it.

Raven could scarcely breathe as they fell, but when they began to fly she couldn't help but gasp in delight. She felt so agile and powerful. "This is incredible!" she said.

"I thought you'd like it," Karla said, grinning like a delighted child.

They danced on the Winds, twirling, spinning, dropping from one Wind and catching another. Karla lead the dance, probing ahead to untangle the Winds and choose the threads that would keep them relatively safe in the center of the canyon. Raven could probably feel when they switch Winds--the very air itself would change, sudden currents would buffet them, causing then to gain or lose altitude, or skim across the surface of the ice walls, so close their breaths turned to mist. And the darker the Wind, the more wild the power, the harder to tame the air and stay aloft.

The greater the exhilaration, too.

Raven was enjoying the exhilaration, soaking it in. She had never felt anything like this before, either in Azarath or Fandom. It was perhaps even, she thought, better than sex. She followed after Karla, though part of her was almost tempted to try to soar off on her own.

They swooped through another quarter mile of the Run; darting around large protrusions of ice, diving down almost to the bottom just to catch an air current and get flung upwards again. Raven seemed to be having a lot of fun. Karla decided to really let her experience it.

"You're turn!" she shouted, letting go of Raven's hand. "This Wind goes steady for a bit. You lead!" She pointed in the distance, where a large ice wall thrust up out of the ground to meet them. "Till there. Go!"

Raven was a little unsteady leading at first; following Karla's lead had been much easier. But she felt almost like she'd been born to this, and soon she was unable to hold back a grin as they soared toward the ice wall.

The far well kept zooming closer and as it did, the Winds got rougher and more turbulent. "You're doing very well," Karla called, "but don't let your guard down now!"

Even someone with the borrowed stamina and reserves of an Eyrien warrior got tired, though, and started to slow down. This was the trickest part of the Run; as the body's energies ebbed, the power of the Winds increased. A current grabbed them, and tried to spin them out. Karla grabbed onto Raven's hand and pulled her close, holding tightly as they glided through the middle of two closely-positioned jagged peaks.

"Here we goooo!" She yelled to be heard over the rushing wind. An updraft sent them spiraling up into the sky and then a vicious crosswind sent them hurtling towards the wall. "Reeeeady..." she said, "...and break!" She let go of Raven's hands, giving her a quick push with Craft, so they could both get out of the current before smashing into the wall.

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Multicultural Fair! [The Gym - After Classes]

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