Thunder Rattles High

Where the lightnings dance and the thunder rattles high on the mountain climes of Tin Shareena, the space between worlds is thin. So thin, that all it may take to pierce the membrane between worlds is a single whispered word.

Or so her grandfather always told Toki Tanaka. Toki was not troubled by whispers. The thunder meant only one thing to her: storms. And with storms came high winds and the adrenaline-pulsing delight of plunging through the clouds and darting round the deadly cliffs of Tin Shareena in her ultralight plane.

"Just a little higher!" she screamed through the teeth of the wind.

A juttering came through her steering yoke and she squinted to look out at at the tip of the ultralight's left wing. The wing support was loose and shuddering against the gale.

Toki gritted her teeth and dove towards the thrashing sea where it pounded against the sides of the towering mountain islands. Time to head home and reconfigure the plane. The strut would be easy to fix.

The rain began, immediately heavy, pelting the ultralight. Only Toki's aviator goggles kept her vision clear.

She banked around the slope of the mountain, bucking the heavy rain and blustering winds and whooping with delight as her left wing-tip nearly grazed the angry sea.

"Fly! Fly free!" she called out, laughing with the adrenaline that coursed hot and heady through her veins.

Was there anything more divine than flying? Anything more human than envisioning flight, crafting the vessel, and then soaring dragon-like on the updrafts of heaven?

A bolt of lightning pierced the sky, bright and crackling. It's electric power mirrored itself inside her, till she was pulsing with the thrill of her flight.

She'd won the last ultra-light race by a hair. She'd win the next one by a full plane-length. This design was so much trimmer, and when she'd designed a better strut-

Her moment of optimism was broken by a 'crack!' as the support finally broke and the plane spiralled towards the shore. Toki yanked on the yoke and pulled the ultralight free of the spiral in time to ditch in the sea instead of crashing into the mountainside. She crawled up from the waves, dragging her sodden ultralight behind her.

Hours later, still sodden - changing her clothes could wait- and fired with the inner furnace of creativity, Toki was busy at work on her revisions. If she streamlined the strut just right and used a stronger fastener...

"Fly free..." someone whispered in the candlelight.

Exactly! Then she'd really fly! Everyone would know that tinkering with planes wasn't a waste of time like they thought. Money wasn't everything, after all.

"We need mortals to fly free. Fly between dreams and living, between spirit and flesh, between world and dimensions. We need you..."

Toki smacked the side of her head to dislodge water from her ear and gripped her brush harder. She was hearing things.

"Fly free...cross time and space. Cross with us. We miss our human riders, all dead centuries ago. We long to feel that freedom again. Fly free with us!"

She shook her head again. Maybe her grandfather was right to worry that she had a concussion from the crash.

"You need to see a doctor," he'd said, but he knew better than to stop her when she had a problem to solve.

The thunder boomed loud, high over Tin Shareena.

"We are the thunder," the whisper continued. "Thunder with us!"

Pop! Bang! A burst of violet light flooded the room and then a tiny, whirling dragon emerged, it's mane and eyes flashing gold.

Definitely a concussion,  a bemused Toki thought. I'll just finish painting the new strut design and then I'll do what grandfather said and-

The brush was ripped from her fist and the dragon spoke. It's booming voice, deep as the centuries, filled her mind.

"One chance to fly free. One chance to join us. We have missed flying with humans. Choose now."

Toki's mouth fell open. It wasn't a concussion. A real dragon hovered before her. Her throat was dry. She tried to swallow anyway.

"Choose."

How had it come to be here in her attic?

"I came because this space is thin and we heard when you called out to us. 'Fly free' you said."

What a rush! To ride a dragon! Better than ultralights. And if it didn't work out she could always come back home-

"No. No going back. Ours forever if you agree. But free! Flying free forever."

The lightnings danced and the thunder rattled high in the velvet sky over Tin Shareena.

"That is the others. They are impatient. Choose now, or I must go."

With a surge of adrenaline, Toki Tanaka chose.