Work Text:
“He’s going to get himself kicked off the flying range,” Charlie murmured, watching the small group from a distance. Typically he’d be among them, but he’d ended his last flying lesson with a small wing sprain and orders from Quinn to rest his wings for a week. So now he was relegated to simply watching Fred, George, and Harry learn how to fly and talking the twins down when they wanted to try the type of risky stunts with their wings that they would normally reserve for their brooms and Quidditch matches.
He’d thought that he would have to do the same for Harry, given all that he’d heard about his flying talents—and had seen for himself in one case—but the brunet had a different Bonded watching over him.
Hovering, it was more like, as Charlie thought about it more. Literally hovering in several instances, once Harry got enough power in his wings and managed to take off from the ground. As soon as his feet were off the ground, Minh was there within arm’s reach, ready to catch him or break a fall if need be.
A fact that was starting to irk Ariki, Charlie noted with a silent sigh, spotting the tightly clenched jaw even from a distance. To the younger Beta’s credit, that was really the only sign of irritation that he was revealing outwardly.
Beside him, Idan raised his head up from the ground and simply hummed, watching the scene as well. He was sprawled out on a picnic blanket that Ethan had shoved in Charlie’s arms before they left, technically doing the same job as the Beta but he’d spent most of the afternoon cat-napping instead.
Not that Charlie minded. He’d realized over their time in Nevarah that the Air Gheyo was much more observant than he’d let on, that his sometimes lazy, sometimes overly proper attitude could turn deadly in less than a heartbeat, and that an appearance of a nap could be simply that—an appearance. With Idan for company, it usually guaranteed a quiet afternoon.
“He’ll charm himself out of it, I’m sure,” Idan murmured, before dropping his head to rest on his arms again. “He’s pretty good at talking himself out of trouble.” The Gheyo paused. “Usually,” he added as an afterthought, and promptly yawned, closing his eyes.
Charlie simply raised an eyebrow. He’d gotten the opposite impression, given all the lectures he’d heard Idan and Wikhn give the Princess during their time in Nevarah, but then again, it was the Gheyos—they were very contrary dragels when they wanted to be.
“I thought the hovering instinct would have faded away after the first few flying lessons,” Charlie commented a few minutes later, as he watched Minh position himself closer and closer to Harry until he was practically right on top of him—again. He was promptly shooed off by Ariki and the other flight instructors to an appropriate distance, only for the routine to start again. “Once he got a feel for all of the safety protections here on the range and figured out that nothing like that incident our first week could happen again.”
Eyes still closed, Idan laughed. “That’s not because of the broken portal,” he said. “He’d be like this even without that incident. He did something similar our first few trips to the Dive.”
“Not during your own flying lessons?” Charlie asked. “And it stopped eventually?”
“Already knew how to fly before I came to Nevarah,” Idan answered. “No flying lessons necessary. And yes, it stopped—after I stabbed him several times to get my point across.”
Charlie winced, still unaccustomed to the tendency their Gheyos had to actually stab each other with knives and claws—friendly stabbing, they claimed. A tendency that was heavily disapproved of by Ethan and Quinn. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s an option for either Harry or Ariki.”
Idan simply yawned in return, showing more fang than was necessary.
A heartbeat later, pale eyes snapped open and snow-white wings snapped out, the Gheyo reacting before Charlie had even seen what happened.
The redhead sighed and rubbed at his forehead when he spotted the figure wheeling about wildly in the air. Of course it was Fred. Of course.