Flight School: Predator

Best Tragedy

It was an intriguing phrase to the twelve-year-old boy then, seemingly simply but with a pleasant and necessary depth. Surely, living by this phrase would be the best decision he'd ever made in his whole life. The prospect of repeating it during interviews when he'd made it big was tempting. It made him sound mature; demanded the respect of others.

But it was recently that Dmitri soon began to see the flaws of the golden rule in which he abided by. The very rule seemed assume that treating others how one wanted to be treated was appreciated by other people, and that treating others how one wanted to be treated would make someone a happier person in general—that treating others well would give way for reciprocity. Others returning the favour.

Abiding by his golden rule meant that Dmitri wouldn't speak, wouldn't interact, wouldn't help the people he didn't see necessary in his life. After all, he didn't require them to 'do unto him' what he did to them. What would be the benefit of treating them nicely when he would get nothing in return?

This one. I'd like this one to do unto me as I do unto them. The golden rule had always required him to sort people into categories and determine their worth. After all, it was impossible to continue giving others one's all when he or she gets nothing in return. Knowing the latter (that he would get nothing in return) excused him from the effort of kindness and generosity.

And so the falcon found himself a little confused—having stepped out of his comfort zone—when he dived from his soar and swooped low, skirting the canopies before targeting where he should land in front of Pipa.

His entrance was noisy and uncouth, very much unlike how every other Heart was trained to land. Dmitri could not bring himself to really care about how he looked when it came to people he didn't need to impress.

Pipa had stopped every movement of hers and hurriedly unclasped her choker to hand the falcon her charm. She'd thrown it haphazardly, but Dmitri caught it with a stretch of his arm and gazed at it with a hint of a laugh.

He shifted, approaching her. She identified him as her brother's predator almost at once, wondering just how he managed (or even planned) to find her, if this was the right or wrong turn of fate. She also wondered if he knew Iolani Tori.

It was hard to look when Dmitri was only a step away. Pipa couldn't conceive what he was about to do next—if he was going to leave her here, having robbed her Mark and lost her worth.

He didn't.

Instead, he grabbed her hand and forced it to open, placing in the heart of her palm her very own choker before taking the handles of her wheelchair.

You know Dmitri,

Sometimes it's despite knowing that they'd never treat you the way you want to be treated

And continuing to give them your very best

That makes one the strongest of them all.

He laughed out loud, unable to believe that Iolani Tori was in his head at every point in time.

________________________

The moment Reux was out of his sight, Vaughn found that he could finally breathe. The vulture had been swimming in the darkness with the absence of a light, searching for the surface. Leaving the shrike behind was the only way he wouldn't drown in an abyss that the former had conjured. The very air he breathed was toxic.