Chapter Text
Not everyone is fond of traveling. Most will say it’s a bother, a waste of time, that the effort used for those ‘travels’ is better spent working away instead.
Lyra is one of the minorities, it seems. She’s never content with staying in one place, she wants to go on an adventure! To her, the idea of discovering new horizons seems much more enticing than living the rest of her life repeating the same boring routine everyday.
That’s a sad life. ‘Sad’ and ‘Lyra’ do not coexist in the same sentence.
To feel the cool wind blowing through her chestnut colored pigtails, to feel the ribbons loosen themselves in the breeze and allow her soft locks to flutter freely, oh what a wonderful sensation! To be so high above the ground, where she gets to greet the birds and graze the clouds, the feeling of flying through the sky never fails to make Lyra giddy.
“Oi, pigtails. You’re gonna fall off if you keep laughing like that.”
A gruff voice cuts through the wind, snapping Lyra out of her brief reverie. The draconic beast, whose back she’s sitting on, looks back at her. The brunette merely flashes him a playful grin, much to her companion’s annoyance.
“C’mon Silver, I’m not gonna fall off that easily.”
“Says the one who tumbled off at a 2000ft height because she wanted to touch a sparrow.”
“It was a cute sparrow, I couldn’t help it…”
Lyra pouts, but does take Silver’s warning and tightens her grip on his blazing red mane. He is even kind enough to slow down for her, even just a little. The two backpacks slung across his sides are a bit jostled from her movements, which she manages to refasten before they can fall off. Once he is sure that Lyra and their supplies won’t fall off mid-flight, Silver picks up speed once more.
Lyra considers herself to be a pretty lucky lady. Befriending a dragon is no small feat, especially one who is armored with jet black scales and piercing grey eyes, whose claws can tear a building to shreds. Their first meeting isn’t exactly smooth, and it did take a while for Silver to trust her, but Lyra is patient as she is adventurous.
A lot of things has happened between them, becoming travel buddies is a pretty considerable milestone by most standards.
“We’re almost there. Hang tight.”
Lyra shakes off her thoughts as the destination comes into view. A majestic tower sits in the distance, surrounded by trees of autumn time. How odd, isn’t it spring right now? It was as if someone took the colors of the sunset and painted it all over the foliage.
Silver begins his steady descent, his feet landing on the fallen leaves in a practiced motion. He leans to the side slightly, allowing Lyra to slide off his back and unpack their luggage.
Once the backpacks are settled neatly on the ground, Lyra unzips the smaller bag and tosses a black kimono to Silver, which the dragon catches with his teeth. Once he disappears into the nearby bushes, she takes the time to tie her ribbons back on, now bearing pigtails once more.
When the leaves behind her rattled, Lyra whips her head around to greet Silver. But the one who emerges isn’t a dragon three times her size, but a young man fashioned in a black kimono. Even as a human, Silver is still taller than the average adult. His skin is pale, a stark contrast to his midnight colored scales. Red hair pours down his neck not unlike a dragon’s mane. While his draconic parts has been tucked away, Silver’s platinum colored eyes shine with an intensity that makes him no less intimidating. Though, they only appear bored as Silver takes a look at the brunette walks over to him.
“Looking sharp as always, Sil!” Lyra giggled and poked his chest lightly, to which he rolled his eyes.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” Silver sighed and reached out to straighten her red kimono, disheveled by the earlier flight “Those old geezers in the Bell Tower are a total hassle, you gotta look at least presentable if you want in.”
Once they’re done, Silver slings the largest backpack onto his back, whereas Lyra carries the smaller one. With that out of the way, the duo follows the dirt road sprinkled in autumn leaves, their path illuminated by the soft sunlight above.
As Silver treks the path, Lyra talks his ears off with another one of her stories. The tweets of songbirds in the trees serves as a good ambience alongside the crunching of leaves. The way her voice sounds almost melodic as the brunette gets lost in her storytelling, combine with how her pigtails bounce like flapping wings with each step, makes Lyra seem like a songbird herself. Silver muses, but the blush that comes after forces him to regain himself before he can entertain the thought too much.
Traveling alongside Lyra has been an interesting experience for Silver. He’s no stranger to most places they’ve been to, but the added presence of the bubbly brunette makes the journey so much more…lively. Long before their first meeting, Silver was an aimless wanderer who terrorized people as a dragon and inconvenient them as a human. There was nothing for him to lose.
It seems that their journey alongside one another has given Silver a sense of purpose. Perhaps it was to protect the girl who has saved his life, who has cared for him when others wanted him dead.
A sappy sentiment, but comforting to think about. It lets Silver regain focus as the two make it to the entrance of the Bell Tower, where the ten-story structure stands tall beneath the light. Lyra stares in wonder at the intricate details of the red wood, the blue tiles of the roofs and the phoenix statues stationed at the front. There is more to discover, and she can’t wait to see everything the tower has to offer.
“So, what do you think?”
“It’s better than I imagined!”