"Nope."
"Oh come on it's not that bad, and you've done it before!"
"No I refuse to stand on one of those things again."
"Look do you want to learn how to fly or not?"
"How are you possibly going to teach me?"
"Well it's not like any other method has worked!"
"Guys we're being too loud."
"You muppets are going to get caught, and I'm not going down with you on this one." Hemlock started to walk back towards the school when he was grabbed by his arm.
"Oh Hemmy you're no fun." But he ignored his partner's taunts and continued to leave.
"Hey where's Teal? I thought she'd have wanted to watch."
"Watch what? I'm not standing on that death trap."
"Oh look there she is!" They all turned to face the same direction as Buck and saw a blue haired figure walking towards them; she was still wearing the academy uniform despite the day having ended several hours ago.
"Hey Teal!"
"Hi Cherry, what are you guys doing out here?"
"Flying lessons!" She looked at Buck suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged and walked over to the tall purple haired girl standing by one of the launch pads that had been used at initiation.
"Hey Rain, can I talk to you for a sec?" The girl answered with a nod and followed Teal back to the school building, the group watched them walk away, and once they were out of sight Buck grinned.
"Well, now that the mature one has gone."
"How is Rain the only mature one here?"
"Wynter we're stood here in our pyjamas trying to fire our friend off a cliff, I'm pretty sure Rain's the most mature." Cherry pointed out.
"Anyway," Buck managed to drag the conversation back to what he was saying, "Now that the mature one has gone, you're going to fly."
"Am not." But he wasn't listening as he picked his snoring floppy eared teammate up off the ground and plonked him down on one of the launch pads, and then jumped backwards before the mechanism could take him with it. The contraption burst forward with a clang, sending Rao somersaulting through the air.
"What the hell are you going to do if that doesn't work?" Buck didn't answer Wynter's question; he just looked at Navi expectantly. The brunette was shifting her focus from Rao to them, to the launch pad and back again.
"Y-you're just going to stand there?! He doesn't have his weapon!"
"He'll be fine, besides, you're going after him aren't you?" The siblings fixed their gazes on her with almost identical smirks, Navi fiddled with the hem of her vest and nervously flexed her wings. She studied Rao's fall and sighed with closed eyes.
"You're good." They didn't get any further explanation as the brunette had already stepped onto the launch pad, and with a whoosh of air she left the cliff.
The wind tore at her hair, how was she going to open her wings in this weather? What had Rain said? Your wings are based on a falcon's, you'll have to fly like one if you don't want to crash. Right, falcon, oh crap.
"Okay Navi, you can do this." She tried to reassure herself, it didn't work all too well. She sucked in her breath, made herself as straight as possible, and leaned forward, pretty soon she was hurtling head first towards the Emerald Forest, it grew closer and closer until she could begin to make out the individual leaves. At the very last second she screwed her eyes shut and opened her wings to full stretch, she didn't feel anything except air rushing past her, no scratches, no tangle of branches.
Cautiously she opened one eye, the canopy was a few feet below her, she opened the other eye and looked around, she was parallel to the top of the forest, her wings keeping her level as much as they could, but she was still descending. She did her best to keep still as she tensed the muscles in her upper back, and flapped her wings again and again, clumsily at first, but it worked well enough to lift her away from the forest and up into the night sky.
She flew higher until she felt like she could touch the moon, Navi curled her wings and spun, she dipped and soared, she sped up, slowed down, she let her mind go blank and ran purely on instinct. She was flying! Suddenly she froze, and her head whirled, she'd forgotten the reason she was up here in the first place.
Rao.
***
"Look Rain I'm really, really-"
"No I don't want to hear it." Teal looked genuinely hurt and tears began forming in her eyes, hands appeared on her shoulders and Rain smiled gently. "I don't want to hear it, because you're not the one who should be apologising."
"But?"
"For once could you stop arguing with everything I say and just listen? Please?" The blue haired girl wiped her eyes and nodded. "Right, first, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, and I definitely shouldn't have used his name the way I did." She breathed shakily, trying to prolong the time the tears stayed in her eyes for. "And second, I spoke to Wynter." Teal gasped. "And you're right, I am too protective, you're not my little sister, and we had exactly the same training, so you're as capable as I am, on a basic level at least."
She lost the battle with her tears and chuckled, "I'm just scared you know? We already lost one of us; I don't know what I'd do with myself if I lost you too. So I'm sorry Teal, I'm sorry for treating you like a child, I'm sorry for it taking over a week to come to this, and I'm sorry that I didn't offer to help when you needed it most."
"You can't get rid of me that easily, and anyone who tries is in for a shock, especially when you show up, like you always do. Maybe I was just being stubborn, but now I see that you'll always be there to bail me out, and the least I can do is not yell at you when you save my behind, so I'm sorry too."
"Guys Navi did it! She's not dead!" Both of them spun around to see Wynter running towards them with a huge grin on her face, they jogged over to her and she grabbed their wrists, dragging them over to the rest of the now smaller group who were busy staring into the sky.
Sure enough, a dark silhouette was there, and Rain smiled at her partner, feeling a surge of pride in knowing that she helped. Then she turned and counted the number of them present, 5, minus Navi, obviously, and Hemlock, who was probably asleep by now, that didn't make sense. "Hey guys?" Several bright pairs of eyes met hers, "Where's Rao?"
***
She turned on the spot, scanning the world for the Faunus boy, becoming increasingly worried when she couldn't see him anywhere. Left, right, behind her, below her, nothing.
There.
She blinked and squinted her eyes, thank Dust for being able to see in the dark, the boy was still falling, but he was dangerously close to the forest, and the fall might injure him. She didn't want to think of the consequences of being injured and unarmed in a forest full of Grimm.
Navi threw herself forward and tucked in her wings, flapping every couple of seconds to keep her speed up. She shot towards Rao, who was thrashing wildly, doing everything he could to slow his fall. By the time she reached him he barely a meter above the trees, like she was earlier, only he didn't have wings.
There was no time to think, she had to act now or it would be pointless. She flew up next to the boy and wrapped her arms around his waist so that both of them were now falling backwards; Navi stretched her wings to form a makeshift shield around them and braced herself for the impact.
They crashed into the forest in a storm of broken branches and disturbed leaves, luckily avoiding most of the trees there. That was until Navi winced in pain as her back collided with the trunk of an oak, and she dropped Rao without meaning to.
She struggled helplessly to free herself from the tree's grasp as she watched Rao tumble to the ground, but she was well and truly stuck, and one twitch the wrong way sent a spasm shooting up her left arm. The boy hit branch after branch until he managed to keep a hold of one and finally bring his fall to a close.
He hung on by his arms as the rest of him dangled underneath, he stayed still for a moment before swinging his legs back and forth, gradually increasing the arc until he could hook them over another branch stuck out nearby, one more swing and he did, using both branches to pull himself to a sitting position. He leaned against the trunk panting for breath, then looked around for Navi, only to find her suspended in the air from the very same tree she had hit earlier.
She kept wriggling, which only succeeded in making her more tangled up, so Rao got to his feet and called out to her, cautious of alerting any Grimm in the area. "Hey, Navi?" She stopped moving and looked at him with her large blue eyes. Wait, since when were they blue? He pushed that thought to the side and looked for a way to get closer, when he found one he scurried along the branches and came to a stop beside her, "I'm going to get you out of, whatever this mess is, okay?"
Navi kept as still as she could whilst Rao scurried about, looking at the layout of the branches and moving anything he could to get her free. He kept working at it until there was only one branch holding her in place. "Okay, as soon as I move this you're going to fall okay?" She nodded and braced herself.
Rao pulled on the branch with a grunt, there was a creak, a snap, and an 'oof'. Navi opened her eyes and realised she was out of the tree, but any attempt to push herself off her stomach resulted in pain shooting up her left arm, and she would collapse back on the ground with a thud. Rao saw this and rushed over to her, using him for support she managed to stand, and quickly let go of his shoulder with a blush.
"Thanks for err, not letting me die I guess." She looked up at him quizzically, then understood what he meant and nodded, her face tinted pink slightly. "Are you okay? You're arm looks messed up, and you hit that tree pretty hard."
She looked at her wings, then down at her arm, it was swollen and painful, but couldn't be that bad. "It should be fine, I mean, what's the worst that could happen right?"
"Right." He said with a laugh, "Think you can fly again?" She nodded, more confidently this time as she flexed her wings and shook the leaves from them. "Good because there's a pack of Beowolves right behind us." She spun around just in time to see several pairs of burning red eyes glaring at them from the shadows. "Right we're getting you out of here come on there's a ledge this way come on come on come on hurry!" He began pushing her up a small hill where she could take off.
"But what about you?"
"Oh I'll be fine just let me worry about me and you get out of here now flap!" She did what he said and flapped her wings, after a few seconds she was hovering, but she refused to leave him, much to Rao's frustration. "Look, Navi." She turned and met his brown eyes with her own, "Trust me, I'll be fine, just get back to the cliffs, get help." She sighed and flew back to the cliffs, where the others were waiting.
"Navi!" She almost fell over when she landed, and put her good hand on her left arm, supporting it as she slumped to the floor.
"Rao," She managed between breaths, "Down, Beowolves, needs help."Rain dashed over to Navi before she passed out and picked her up, making sure her arm was comfortable before addressing Cherry and Buck.
"Do you have your weapons on you?" They nodded, Rain was surprised but thankful that they did, and inclined her head towards the launch pads, "Go." At once the pair was gone and Navi panicked, she hadn't told them where Rao was, how were they going to find him? She was relieved when she heard Cherry call out that she'd spotted him, and despite not being able to see them from Rain's arms she could hear the sound of Bucks weapon being fired before she fell unconscious.