Snakes and Ladders 7

Chapter 7

The air is so beautiful up here in the sky above Highwood. We bank and we soar and over the massive canal like sea. We pass by air-ships and over regular boats and ships and fly out of that canal over this cliff-side down to beach like city only about seven our eight miles from the palace and the whole canal opens up into this wide open sea.
We bank as Bhlaze catches the thermals that come with the sun hitting the water and we shoot up so fast it’s like the ground just falls away and as not being in the world as I’m living lately this, this was so open, so freeing.

I think I kept thinking that this being a moon it’d be small that I’d see something that would kind of say small, but the scene below just keeps expanding below me. I could go on about this for a long time but it’s all like this. Riding a dragon is like skydiving a riding a race horse all mixed in with the maneuverability of a stunt plane. I’ve been in a two seater crop duster a few times. Dragon riding’s like that only about ten times more intense. I can feel the living being under me thing with every wing beat, I love that feeling, the rub of the saddle, the feeling of my breasts pressed into Shaya’s back.

We’re riding thermals and gliding and Shaya’s pointing out things as we fly. A set of islands connected together with bridges and glittering glasslike domes and hundreds of piers and landing platforms. Dozens of those glass swan shuttles are moving in and out of the area. “That’s Star-Dock! It’s home to the Royal Stellar Navy ship yards and command!” It reminds me of an airport, but better and yeah fascinating. It’s something I’m going to have to learn, have to. If there’s ships like this here I’m so going into space.
“I want to learn how to fly one of those!” I yell into the wind.
Shaya laughs. “Me too! I’ll have to ask my sister Galadriel, she’s a Wing-Captain, maybe she’ll pull some strings.” I lean over. “What’s a wing captain?”
“It’s a naval rank; it means she commands a group of fifteen ships.”
“That’s a big deal, or it is back home.”
Shaya’s trying to process what I just said. Then she nods. “Yes, even here it is. A big deal.”

Shaya points out Celestine the city below us as the capitol city of the Sylvan realm. It’s beautiful even from here built along the cliffs that are part of the canal sea and the ocean side of the northern shore. There are huge beautiful buildings built in tiers amongst these great stands of trees all designed to blend together. It does strike me as so different that the capitol city of Shaya’s people is maybe at the most about 70-80 thousand people at the most. Compare to home it’s a lovely but a small city. God, Washington could swallow this city whole and not even notice. Well they’d notice. It’s too nice. The biggest set of slums in DC is not even ten miles away from the White House.

She’s showing me the mountain of kings where the kings and royals of old are buried when we hear this tone. It’s this clear pure singular note and I can feel it go through Shaya and Bhlaze. It came from the palace. “What was that?”
“Dragon call, we’re being summoned back to the palace.”
Oh….
We do a little bank and Shaya yells out. “Hang on!” and that’s about all the warning I get as Bhlaze tucks in his wings as he does a roll over and we plummet from 25 thousand feet heading down at a slant to cover the ten plus miles we were away from the palace at hundreds of miles per hour. I’m sure it was faster than a diving bird of prey, far faster…I know why as we come at the palace roof where there is an almost Greek roofed and pillared structure like the Acropolis? Actually most of the roof is covered with those and small gardens and two huge domes on each end of the palace.

….There’s this ripple from Shaya that touches through me and it’s coming from Bhlaze as his wings open up like a parachute and I feel this wave of something and we slow down like the matrix stuff like we’re shedding the actual physics and we land like gently like a feather…after the headlong dive and to stop and land so…magically. There’s tears running down my face partly from the wind sheer and just partly from the experience.

Shaya slides off then I follow suit and almost go flat on my butt from the whole difference in the whole feeling on my legs. It’s kind of like readjusting to getting off a horse. No problem if you’re used to it. Me, I’m not used to it.

My Shaya catches me from falling though and holds me steady for awhile with her hands around my waist. I could get used to being treated like this. I smile at her. And she smiles back and then kisses me. I really like getting kissed by a beautiful woman. I kiss her back and get lost in that feeling for a while of her soft lips on mine. She stops thankfully? Before she gets me going to the point of me not wanting to stop. Hell who am I kidding I didn’t want to stop as soon as she gave me that first kiss.

Shaya takes my hand and walks me inside with Bhlaze following. There are more dragon riders inside doing things to get ready for various things but there’s a large table with this stunning elfin woman there behind it and with the table is stacks of scrolls and papers and golden leaf or foil large envelopes and other really official stuff. There are other elves around her doing all sorts of stuff the looks very secretarial but like in a military way. The link, bond thing kind of brings up the feeling/knowledge of these being both Pages and squire to the crown.

We stand and wait, Shaya’s at parade rest and in that skin-tight plated armor of hers and stuff she looks….handsome and dashing in this lady knight sort of way. Y’know like if all those knight in shining armor fantasies most girls might have were all of a sapphic bent. Gosh, she just looks amazing. Achingly so actually.

Me, I’ve no idea how to stand so I actually just kind of drift back and sort of stand against Bhlaze. A lot of people didn’t really get the fact that I can be actually quite shy when I’m not putting on that show that I had to all of my life.

The Elfin lady behind the desk running the show is all sorts of intimidating. First off she’s really tall, like six foot seven or so and she’s really thin in that elfin size zero kind of way but also she has these curves that a lot of her elfin sisters do not. She’s probably not all that skinny it just she’s got that long perfect neck and these long, long legs and these long and slender graceful arms. Add that in with that delicate model bone structure and the perfect complexion. Her eyes are perfectly shaped and very grey almost a fine steel color.

Her hair is this white-silver kissed platinum blonde and regally braided with two braids going back from the top of her head and a long braid in front and behind her ears as well as another starting from over the top of her ears. Those over her ears actually are tied backwards like a regal circlet and hold her hair back all the while tying together with the two braids on the top of her head to make this intricate celtic styled knot design but leaves the four ends to dangle down from it each of the end on them and all of her braids are capped with somekind of hair clamps made of platinum and set with diamonds, and to set it all off is this really fine platinum chain that goes from the start of the braids on top of her ears and draped just perfectly over her forehead completing that circlet look and another perfectly cut, perfectly sized diamond rests in the very center of a tiny knot medallion that matches the way her hair is tied in the back.
Add in the perfect touch of make up and this very stunning very simply cut almost Greek or roman dress that’s really low cut and the fact that she moves and speaks and does everything I see her do with this soft spoken grace mixed with that kind of aura that only comes from having real authority.

Yeah, I’ve no idea who the hell she is but given who I am and my background I’m more than intimidated. She’s got to be the Queen.
~No, She is not the Queen.~
“Who is she?” I’m whispering up to Bhlaze.
~She is the King’s Advisor, The Royal Chancellor.~
“Oh…so, really important.”
~She is. She has been the second of the kings since King Dorian’s Grandfather.~
“That’s old right?”
~She is said to have been to Ea.~
“Where?”
~You’re world before they had left it.~
“Whoa.”
~Indeed…Whoa.~

Eventually she catches Shaya’s eyes and Shaya steps forward and I kind of stay put but got a glace from the woman. I don’t hear all of it and don’t get most of it with it being comments on stuff she’s getting Shaya to read. Once read She inks her thumb and presses it to the document she was reading as well as what from what as far as I can tell is a receipt that proves that she read that document. Then the document goes into one of those shiny golden envelopes and the woman runs a finger over the flap and it melds together like it never was a flap and I can see symbols almost hiding in the shiny reflection of the gold but actually not in the gold.

It takes actually about an hour because there’s like fifty some documents all put into this black leather satchel. She accompanies Shaya over moving in this sexily slinky slithery super model walking the runway style. “Wren, this is Issabella A`Tir Tangir. The Royal Chancellor and family.”
“I’m uhm honored to meet you Ma’am.”
“Please Issabelle is just fine Wren.” She takes my hand and shakes it like a fine lady but a fine lady from home. Like an European type she gives me a polite kiss on each cheek. There’s a warmth in her face that I didn’t expect. “Okay then Issabelle it is.”
Shaya smiles a warm real smile. “Issabella or Issabelle’s been with my family for a long time. She knew my great, great grandfather. She’s sort of a cross between an aunt and grandmother to most of the family.” The love and admiration for this woman is obvious and written all over her face and her beautiful smile. Issabella looks a bit… “I’m sorry Erendae to interrupt your introduction to life here and at court but there is a mission of vital dispatches that Shaya must take to the defense fortresses that enclose The Darklands. You of course do not have to go and you can stay and be welcome in the palace for as long as you wish.”
“How long will Shaya be gone?”
“I do not know, the situation in that region is violent and fluidic.”
“Then I’m going.”
“It will be potentially dangerous.”
“So is Lady Kite.”
“This is true, you untended at court could be problematic perhaps, She and those she serves and is allied to would seek to press their advantage.”
“So this gets me out of sight and out of mind?”
“Yes, and Shaya is a blade mistress one of the very best period. This can be a good way for you to train away from prying eyes.”
“Then it’s settled, I’m definitely going. Plus I love her, I’m not sure how long I could be without her right now.”

Issabella smiles at me warmly, like I just said that I loved one of her own family. “Thank you Wren, I worry about her. Shaya needs someone, sometimes like with your run in with Lady Kite she needs somebody to stand up for her because my little Shaya will not do this enough for herself.” As she said it she looked at Shaya like a mom would or a grandmother. Shaya even in her knights armor tucks her head and blushes. We hug her again and she rubbed Bhlaze’s snout and then Shaya leads us away from the area and we mount up again. “Are we going to need, supplies?”
“No, not here. Well resupply at the Holy City.”
“The Holy city?”
“It’s better that we just show you.”
Bhlaze does that little run off thing and this time I’m ready for the run off the roof and dive we do down and over the canal. It’s fun this time, It was fun last time but I’m ready for it even wanting it a little. Down we go and up again but catch other thermals and head away from the palace and up over this beautiful hardwood forest. It’s a huge amount of forest too like the size of New York State, uncut, unbroken and untouched or at least untouched by human hands.

I know, that’s kind of a downer statement but I’ve driven over so much of home and seen so much of how we messed up our planet. This is beautiful.

Of course this is when it kind of comes to me. “Shaya isn’t where we’re heading on the planet?” I’m kind of excited. Space, I’m going to get to fly into space!
“Yes love, The Holy City and The Darklands are both on Sylvania.”
“So we’re taking a ship?, A shuttle?”
“No…Why’d you think…oh…”
“What? Oh?”
“The planet is the holy lands, we do not take the ships to the planet.”
“Then how?”
Shaya points over the palace as Bhlaze banks us over turning us towards it, we’re picking up speed and not soaring either, he’s beating his massive wings hard and just pulling air. I look to where she’s pointing and I see two other dragon riders and their dragons then there’s this compressed flash. It’s like they turned into blue-white light and that light compresses into a line the that line folds into itself…”Whoa..”

If anyone’s ever seen the new Battlestar Galactica? Those two dragons vanished, they jumped like the ships did on that show…Yeah, I think I was justified on the Whoa.

I feel the change, Bhlaze does something and the wind sheer is gone but I can kind of feel this space around us like just force, but this force is like this streamlining thing, and we pick up a lot of speed. It’s fascinating, scary, thrilling. I’m or I was a trucker amongst other things I kind of like speed. But this, this was so…cool. Then I feel this thing like the hair rising on my body or static then it happens.

The world lurches into a stop or a near stop and there’s a crack of light, this hole in the air filled with somewhere else. The world is lit up in this blue white light that washes everything out, and is silent, the only sounds are ours. The wing beats and the creaks of our leathers and our gear. We head flying through the hole of light and as we pass the edges of one place into another it becomes this streak of everything in between here and there. It all took less than a minute I figure but it’s burned into my brain.

The first time I’d dimensionally shifted.

My mind was trying to just adjust to the relocation. The physics of it, the implications. We just traveled so far in no time at all and….
Then I saw the Tree.

The Holy City sits around a lake but inside and rising up out of the lake is…the tree. Sorry no… The Tree, is huge and we circle the thing and it literally a wooden mountain. It has to be a single solid mile across at the trunk. It’s into the clouds like a mountain top and the lake is close to twenty five miles or so wide and the roots are all over the place being used by them as roads. There are boles and knurls in The Tree that have been made into living spaces with balconies and everything and up in the higher places of The Tree has villages built in these nooks that are hundreds of feet wide sometimes. Some of these places are temples by the look of them. The canopy of the city covers the entire city and then some.

There is plains to the north and west of the city and there’s hills and Laurencin like mountains to the south and there’s forests instead of the hill before the mountains to the east. We soar and sail around the city, the lake and the tree.

I don’t say anything because what could I really say?
I cry for the sheer wonder and beauty of the place.

We settle into a glide and I look at the city. It’s really old, ancient and made out of white gray stones like you’d seen in Rome or Greece, light colored marbles and granites and sandstone are the most common, the rest is done in what looks like matching color schemed brickwork and tiles. It’s about ten or twelve blocks wide from the docks to the city walls. The walls remind me of the great wall of china twenty feet wide or thick and sixty feet high. Think of that stone look but thousands of years old but maintained it’s like the entire place is like an antique. We come into a glide to this place on the eastern side of the city and it’s an estate amongst other estates about four acres by six and walled and built of this white stone mixed with pale grays and blue grays. It’s walled with a fifteen foot brick wall and has a carriage house and a brick lane that’s more of a road and a roundabout that stops in front of this large house that’s like an old manor house that you’ve crossed with a southern plantation house. The yard is full of great big trees…lilacs…lilacs so large they’re tree sized and cover in some of those Sylvan bio-luminant flowers and regular mosses and ivy, both on the tree and on the house. This place here with that city view and The Tree…We land in the roundabout and I’m just breathing to take it all it. I think…I thought. I thought I was done being shocked, but all of this.

Shaya smiles and does a deep inhale. “This is Sylvania, the holy lands of my people…This is The Holy City, This is Lilac House, My father built this house with his own hands and planted everything here for my mother. Every child in my family was born here Wren, all of us.”

Shaya turns in the saddle and looks at me and kisses me…There’s a lot more passion to the kiss and so much feeling in it and I ache for her. We come up for air as servants come out waiting for us and grooms for taking Bhlaze’s harness and stuff. “It’s beautiful Shaya.” It is but, I’m just still in shock to really drink it in. She nuzzles me and we slide out of the saddle and down to the bricks. We kiss some more as we stand away while the grooms take care of Bhlaze. ~Go, both of you my bondeds refresh yourselves as I myself will before we alight anew.~
Shay leads me up to the steps nearly skipping. “Welcome to the real family home Wren, we might work at the palace and live there. But this, this is our heart Wren…I love you, Wren, I love you and I want this to be your home too.”
She pulls me into the front doors and she’s passionately kissing me…pushing me against the wall and frenching with me and trying to play with my breasts through all the stuff I’m wearing. She breaks the kiss and hauls me up the stairs by my hand.
“We’ve two hours maybe three if we hurry…”