#qree

As Apollon lunges forward, Qree is already moving backwards — away and up, in the one direction they know he can't follow. Their wings strain to catch the air, forcing their whole body towards the jungle canopy and its cross-hatch of vines.

The branches and leaves score like whip-marks across Qree's face, stinging and blinding, but they only beat their wings faster. Their mind only occupied by one thought: up and away. Up and away, or it's all over.

Qree breaks from the muggy heat below the treetops into clean, fresh air. The scent of freedom, if they can fly fast enough to keep it. 

Only seconds later, a flash of heat impacts them between their shoulder blades, at the base of their wings. It sends them tumbling, twisting as they flail to right themselves and stay moving forward at this frenetic pace. And they are... sparkling? The hot sun gleams on Qree's feathers in an unnatural way, haloing them. They cannot spare a glance back the way they've come, but fear hammers in their chest alongside their racing heart.

A whistling sound. Bone shards zip by them, two streaking blasts they have seen before — not from Apollon but from Melissa. Apparently the two have more in common than an aloof attitude and a tendency to treat their goblinoid party member like dirt.

Qree flies in the direction of camp, an easy direction to figure out from this high up. Though no ranged attacks hit them after the first one, they don't slacken their speed in the slightest. They may be out of range, but as long as they are alive and alone, Apollon and the cleric will come for them.

Their wings can pump many times more quickly than their mind can turn over, but Qree thinks as they fly: about what they heard, about what they will do. They were over-clumsy and it nearly cost them their life, but they have stumbled on something important. A secret that is apparently worth killing for.

Qree hardly knows the adventurers they have clustered with — Maria and Fern and Tek — but the four of them have been bound together by the same secret, the same threat, the same promise. Qree decides that they will tell them this new information. Qree will beg for their protection, and spill the words they overheard, if only to make it less likely that something important will be lost if they are silenced.

Qree will trust them now, because Qree doesn't have a choice.

***

2. MUDDLE

"This mission," Qree says to Maria, "was in many ways a success."

Their words are clean-edged because they are speaking the truth, but iron-heavy because they are also very tired. They peel off from Maria as she heads back to her tent and trudge toward the outskirts of camp — with the admiral's trust in them restored, they have been added once again to the watch roster. There are several more hours tonight to spend nipping at the insects buzzing around them before they will be able to return to their bedroll and Fern's eerie stillness.

Not that Qree actually thinks they would be able to sleep at this moment. They were mostly silent as the admiral talked, as she laid out deception and collusion between the factions here with unwavering military precision, but the scope of the matter confounds them. They knew already on some abstract level that greed can provoke people to do terrible things, but it has been brought home to them like a gut-punch in the past week.

The yuan-ti, serpentine and sibilant and sinister, weapons trained unerringly on Qree and their friends. Threatening obliteration if the party doesn’t sabotage the same outpost they have been struggling to protect and construct.

The Friends of Brian, swept up in the charismatic current of a warlock with more rage than wit. As volatile as the kaysium crystals, ready to detonate against Qree one moment and eager to sell each other out the next.

And now the admiral, and the alliance she represents — gods, is there nobody on this continent who is here purely to explore? To fight and find and fly through endless skies toward an unknown horizon?

Apparently not. 

Qree murmurs a greeting to Fern when they do eventually return from watch. The druid is folded into themself in a strange, boxy way, and the fire flickering inside their chest is banked low — maybe only smoldering coals. There is no external response, but Qree has been assured by Fern that Fern can still see and hear everything when they are in this sentinel mode, so Qree tries to be polite.

Qree loosens their tunic by a few buttons and their breeches by a few inches of drawstring, and tries to get comfortable on their bedroll. They haven't said anything — partially because Fern is so stoic and uncomplaining — but this tent really is very small, and it is hard to find a comfortable position without spreading their wings out and invading Fern's personal space.

Qree ends up in the same configuration they have most nights: lying on their side, one wing pinned under them. Their head turned around almost a half-rotation to tuck their beak into the feathers of their back, at the spot between their wings that is still sore from the cleric's Guiding Bolt. On their side like this, they'll have to wake in the middle of the night to flip over, or one wing will be stiff and sore all tomorrow.

It's all right, for now — Qree won't say anything. They do like Fern quite a bit, hearing the similarity between the two of them in Fern's awkward, stilted speech and reading a vague aura of constant confusion in their ember eyes. Qree and Fern are not different in the same way, exactly, but they seem to encounter a lot of the same questions when they interact with the people out in this wilderness. It's something of a comfort, though Qree can't shake the suspicion that Fern equates not understanding people with not caring about people in a way that Qree does not.

And then there's Maria and Tek, who have pulled the bird and the robot through the chaos of this week with, respectively, tired dignity and mysterious suavity. Qree doesn't doubt that on their own, Qree would have stammered and stuttered and possibly confessed the whole damn thing to the admiral, and then whose fault would it have been when the yuan-ti slaughtered everyone in camp? 

Qree, they decide to themself as they tuck their legs up into the fluffy feathers of their belly, was definitely right when they told Maria the mission was a success. The only person who was hurt irrevocably was trying to warp minds with magic, a frightening crime that Qree has no real sympathy for the perpetrators of. Qree kept their beak shut like they had decided to, and all that has really been lost is a few days of sweaty labor by the workmen, who will be paid for their trouble anyway.

And in exposing Apollon's ruthless nature and discovering the admiral's knowledge of the kaysium deposits, Qree has scratched out some truth for themself amidst the lies. That's a worthy achievement, even if their throat clogs with guilt every time they see a worker make a superstitious warding gesture into the jungle night.

Qree nestles their beak deeper into their feathers and squeezes their eyes shut tight. Tomorrow they will leave this place, where the very earth itself is veined with danger and unseen forces squabble over territory like chicks for a scrap of fish.

Tomorrow, a new day will dawn, as it always does.

***

3. MONTAGE

Qreellaahk takes a few days when they return to Coalition Cove to plan out a new and more rigorous training regimen, of the kind they haven't committed to since falling from Zephyren. There is nobody who can match them in the air, so their flights above the sea to build endurance are as solitary as ever — but it is easy enough to find companions who will spar with them, and a training master to drill them mercilessly.

With their fragile bones and slight stature, Qree will never be able to smash through enemy defenses by strength alone — their advantage lies in their speed and agility, which they well know. But they train until the breath heaves in their narrow chest, and endure beatings from adventurers twice their size until the healers in the infirmary just roll their eyes when they see Qree come in, chucking them the bruise salve to apply their damn self. The salve makes Qree's talons sticky, and tastes rancid in their mouth when they find it later preening, but it is preferable to waking up with their muscles so tight that Graz has to lift them out of bed to set them on their feet.

Qree knew they had more discipline than most aarakocra their age, but they are pleasantly surprised to discover that their zeal earns them respect here in the Cove as well. Weary seems to remember their name now, which is more attention than she pays to most trainees, and Qree's sparring partners begin to offer a quiet deference, nodding when they cross paths in the dormitory or on the streets.

It is mostly determination that drives Qree to practice day after day, a fierce and expanding pressure at the core of them. They are tired of being the first to crumple in combat, and of draining the resources of allies like Maria who could be using those spells to protect others. Their determination is salted, however, with prickling concern. They want to be ready for the next challenge, whatever it may be — yuan-ti or Behemoths or Apollon and the goblin returning from the jungle to take their revenge.

On the surface, every one of his senses is screaming at him that he is plummeting to his death. Panic and terror shred his thoughts until he cannot remember why he is falling, or whether he meant to. But deeper, somewhere at the core of him, lies a serenity he has spent years perfecting. Qree gives up his mind without hesitation, because he trusts himself.

It is instinct alone that angles his body for him, fights against the mighty force of the air currents to position him head downward to face the vast green earth that rises toward him. Qree straightens out until he is falling like an arrow, like a lightning bolt finding ground, and opens his wings — now.

Hundreds and hundreds of feet above the continent, Qree turns his fall into a dive, and then his dive into one long swooping curve. It all happens so blindingly fast, at the speed he is traveling, but that's probably good because if he overthinks this or hesitates for even a fraction of a second, the howling wind will tear the wings right off his back. He might be a creature of the air, but she is an unforgiving mistress.

Qree's wings ache with the strain, but he steadies out into a glide with all his limbs intact. He glances down at himself, because his arms have gone numb, and confirms he still has his backpack bundled close to him. He has finally slowed his descent enough to make out the broad details of the expanse of land below him — emerald forests and golden grasslands, crowned by silver cities glistening in the sunlight. 

Hispern, he thinks. A name he has heard repeated often enough to lose all meaning, just nonsense syllables with no mental picture to attach to it. But now it sprawls from horizon to horizon, as far as his keen eyes can see, gigantic and alive and so, so real. As he faces his first real taste of adventure, Qree's heart is as light as the thermals that keep him soaring.

He banks away from the larger cities, knowing already that he will find the life of ground-dwellers exceedingly strange and overwhelming. Best to start small, landing near a village, or perhaps a modestly sized town. Qreelaahk has brought very little with him — just a few days' rations, some money, and maps that are disappointingly sparse on fine details. And his mother's necklace, tucked under his tunic. He rarely wears it around his neck like this, but it was the one thing he was not prepared to lose in the fall.