𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄 - j. grace, ocxoc ¹ ✓

xiv. leafed up !

XIV. KAORI OKAYAMA !
⋆ ★
letting it snow

               Tumbling through the sky, Kaori quickly woke up without any tiredness. Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away the body of the bronze dragon spinning out of control, its wings limp, fire flickering in its mouth like a badly wired lightbulb.

A body shot past her—Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. "Not coooooool!"

"Kaori!" Kaen screamed, too far away to reach her.  She tried to call to him, but he was already too far below. Her heart raced as she realized that almost all of them were below her.

Somewhere above her, Jason yelled, "Kaori, level out! Extend your arms and legs!"

It was hard to control her fear, but she did what he said and regained some balance. She fell spread-eagle like a skydiver, the wind underneath her like a solid block of ice. Then Jason was there, wrapping his arms around her waist.

Thank gods, Kaori thought.

"Kaen! Delilah! Your friends!!" was all she could manage to shout.

Their fall slowed as Jason controlled the winds, but they still lurched up and down like the winds didn't want to cooperate.

"Gonna get rough," Jason warned. "Hold on!"

Kaori locked her arms around him, and Jason shot toward the ground. She probably screamed, but the sound was ripped from her mouth. She buried her face in his shirt as she remembered why flying was the worst thing to ever exist. Missing land when her mom told her to beware it wasn't the best thing for a daughter of Demeter.

And then, thump! They slammed into more bodies —Delilah, Piper, Kaen, and Leo, who was still wriggling and cursing.

"Stop fighting!" Jason said. "It's me!"

"My dragon!" Leo yelled. "You gotta save Festus!"

Jason was already struggling to keep the six of them aloft, Kaori couldn't imagine carrying that many people. She knew there was no way he could help a fifty-ton metal dragon. But before she could say anything, she heard an explosion below them. A fireball rolled into the sky from behind a warehouse complex, and Leo sobbed, "Festus!"

"Leo, stop!" Kaen desperately shouted. "We can't save him!"

Jason's face reddened with strain as he tried to maintain an air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slow-downs were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, it felt like they were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time, which wasn't doing Kaori's stomach any favors.

As they wobbled and zigzagged, Kaori could make out details of the factory complex below—warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences, and parking lots lined with snow-covered vehicles. They were still high enough so that hitting the ground would flatten them into roadkill—or skykill  —when Jason groaned, "I can't—"

And they dropped like stones.

They hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into darkness.

Unfortunately, Kaori tried to land on her feet. Her feet didn't like that. Pain flared in her left ankle as she crumpled against a cold metal surface. She let out a painful wail from the pain and felt tears threaten to come down. For a few seconds she wasn't conscious of anything but pain—pain so bad that her ears rang and her vision went red.

Then she heard Jason's voice somewhere below, echoing through the building. "Kaori! Where's Kaori?"

"Ow, bro!" Leo groaned. "That's my back! I'm not a sofa! Kaori, where'd you go?"