Dual Wielding

The edge of The Northern Plateau.

“I can see it…” Corrin froze, eyes glued to the view which had just barely become visible on the horizon. Though, maybe it had been visible before, and he was only now realizing what it was.

What he’d originally thought was a rock formation at the top of the cliff was actually a row of buildings, so large that the entirety of Straetum could be lined up against it three times over with room to spare.

After what felt like years of staring at the city in the distance, Corrin’s feet began to move, but a firm hand grabbed his shoulder, holding him back.

“We’ll be there soon enough, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Wyn said. He sounded calm, but his eyes were trained straight ahead, and his hand was fidgeting with the pommel of his sword, a nervous habit the two of them shared.

Just a bit longer...

The other members of the caravan milled around them, the only indication they were approaching the city were a few sighs of relief, or a faint smile. Unlike him and Wyn, most had seen this sight many times. Still, Corrin didn’t see how it didn’t amaze them.

Will I get used to sights like this someday? He wondered. The thought seemed unbelievable, but he found he was excited by the prospect.

He paced up and down the carts for the next few hours, trying and failing to avoid sneaking a peek down the plains whenever possible. The city still seemed so far off. But eventually, Corrin was able to make out windows and doors, and then the movement of people, and after another eternity of waiting, they were at the edge of the buildings, hundreds of them, even bigger than the church back home.

Precipice ran along the top of the plateau, shockingly narrow, with a single main street separating two rows of buildings. More people milled about in the street than Corrin had ever seen in one place, but the street and people just kept going. For some reason, Corrin had always imagined cities as having large imposing walls, but at the edge of the city—the one facing back towards the plateau—there wasn’t anything other than guard towers dotted along its length. Despite all that…

“I thought it would be bigger,” he said, voicing the thought at the front of his mind. The stories had always made “cities” seem so immense. Despite its length, only two rows of buildings didn't make for that much space.

One of the caravan members groaned. “Story of my life.”

Another snorted. “Farm boy wants to talk about how a city should be bigger.”

Trell wandered over, clapping a hand onto Corrin’s shoulder. He started pulling Corrin towards the edge. “Here’s some free advice kid, you shouldn’t get into gambling.”

“What?”

“Never call the game until you’ve seen the other guy’s entire hand.”

“Trell, what the hell are you talking about?” Trell dragged him and Wyn past the first row of buildings, through the crowded main road, and then past the second row of buildings. As they came out the other side, the view finally opened up.

Words escaped him.

Standing at the edge of the plateau, with nothing but a small guard rail between him and a several thousand-foot drop, Corrin stood entranced. As far as he looked, stretching all the way to the horizon, was The Grass Sea. Even from the top of the plateau, thousands of feet above, Corrin could tell each blade of grass below was taller than a building and thicker than his torso, to the point he even wondered if it could still be considered grass, but the resemblance was uncanny. As it got out further from the city, he could no longer make out the individual blades, and they blurred together as the bright green below the plateau faded into a more yellowish hue, with only a single lonely spire of rock in the distance breaking up the monotony in the distance. Waves of shifting color and light moved across the endless savannah as the grass swayed in the breeze, an indicator of the strong winds that seemed to be blowing down below.

But not until he looked at the cliff itself did Corrin understand what Trell had meant.

Enormous wooden platforms jutted out from the cliffs, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some had supports driven into the side of the stone itself, while others stood on posts that went all the way to the ground below. Bridges and lifts of all varieties stretched out between them, the city spreading to the edges of his vision in either direction. What must have been thousands of people moved around in patterns so chaotic and complex, that Corrin felt a little nauseous, and he loved it.

At the bottom of the cliff, civilization met the vast green. The section of grass just below the city was cut significantly lower, and at the bottom several buildings stood only a few yards off the ground, dwarfed by the titanic vegetation around them.

There was something else too, something that took him a moment to put his finger on as he deciphered a strange set of movements that he didn’t understand at first. In the air between platforms, and even out over the Grass Sea itself, some of the people were flying. He watched as a boy on a nearby platform ran towards its edge, holding a strange, winged device at his side. He leapt into the air and held it aloft. For a moment, the boy disappeared out of view beneath the platform, but then he came soaring back up, flying on a gust of wind as he twisted and spun in the air at breakneck pace.

That was all he needed to see.

“I have to try that.” Corrin started running to the side, towards the nearest platform, maybe thirty or forty feet down the cliff face.

I should be able to make that.

“Hey, where are you going?” Wyn yelled.

“I’ll be back later!" Corrin shouted back. "Let's meet at the merchant guild building!”

With that, Corrin vaulted over the side, Wyn's protests lost to the sound of air rushing past his ears. As the platform approached he drew as much mana as he could to his lower half. He hit the deck, and the mana flared in his legs as rolled out of the landing painlessly, about half of his extra mana reserves gone from the impact. He started channeling to replenish his supply as he ran towards a group of boys he’d seen flying the things.

“Hey—Watch out!” A voice yelled frantically.

Corrin spun around just in time, bracing himself as something slammed into him hard from behind, knocking him to the ground. He tumbled with whatever it was for a few feet before they came to a stop. It wasn’t too bad, but it came as quite a shock.

“Ow…” A boy about Corrin’s age was sprawled out on the ground next to him. He had a mop of curly brown hair on his head and a wiry frame, he was wearing a pair of weird-looking glasses that held tightly to his face, and his hand was clenched around the frame for a pair of artificial wings, like the ones Corrin had seen before.

The boy eventually got up and began frantically checking over the contraption, looking for any signs of damage. He mumbled to himself as he went. “Wings, check. Flaps, check. Right stabilizing arm got a little bent. Wait, no that’s from yesterday, that’s why it felt off...”

“Um, hey there.” Corrin said awkwardly.

The boy flinched, like he’d forgotten Corrin was there. He turned to face him, pulling the glasses from his face and squinting. They released his skin reluctantly, leaving behind distinct red marks around his eyes. “Oh. Hey sorry, some jerk cut me off and I got caught in a gust of wind trying to avoid him. I thought this spot was clear for an emergency landing, but I guess I didn't see you. You seem alright though, that’s good. Can we just forget about this crash? I’d rather not get in trouble with the guards again.”

“Can I try that?” Corrin pointed at the wings.

He glanced down at the wings, then back up at Corrin, then back down at the wings. Corrin could almost see the gears turning in his head as he held up the strange contraption. “My glider? Have you never seen one before?”

Corrin faltered. “I haven’t. I’m from up north by the mountains. Do most people here fly on them?”

“Well, no. But most have tried at some point or another. Did you say you’re from The Windfall Mountains? What town?”

“Straetum.”

The strange boy blinked slowly. Then, he clapped Corrin on the shoulder and grinned. “Never heard of it! Never fear though my new friend. I, Finian Windborn, will teach you everything you need to know about flying! Anything to help someone take their first flight. Follow me and we’ll get you fitted!” He began walking off without checking to see if Corrin was following.

Corrin followed though, excitedly glancing around the platform. This was easier than he’d thought it would be. “I have to get fitted?”

“You’ll need to be yes,” Finian said. “I’m afraid my glider is a little too big for you. Plenty of people start on one too big or small for them, but it's better to start on a good one. Plus, my glider is a little difficult to use compared to most. What’s your name by the way?”

“What makes it harder to use? It’s Corrin.”

“I’ve made some, let’s say modifications, to my glider to make it fly better. They also make it almost impossible for most other people to fly though. Nice name.” Finian turned around, walking backwards through the crowd while he showed Corrin a series of pulleys and pedals attached to different points on the glider, demonstrating how each changed the flap of the wing or angle of the tail in one way or another. There was even a tube on the back which he claimed was “only for emergencies of insufficient speed”, whatever that meant. Once it was all pointed out, it did seem quite complex.

“So where exactly are we going?” Corrin said, ducking under a supporting beam for one of the buildings. He was having a hard time navigating the crowds of people, and even with Finian walking backwards, Corrin found that following him was proving more difficult as they got towards what appeared to be a more densely populated area.

“My father owns a workshop over by the fourth fissure, so we sell most of the gliders in this area. We should have a spare for you to try out. First flight is on me! After that you’ll have to pay though”

Corrin’s pockets felt unbearably empty, and he found himself wishing he’d waited to collect the bounty reward. “And if I don’t have any money?”

Finian hummed cheerfully. “First flight’s still free, just come back and buy one when you have some.”

Well, Corrin wasn’t one to turn down such a deal. “Let’s get moving then!” He increased his pace to catch up with the taller boy, and they made their way through the streets quicker.

“So what brings you all the way here from… what was it again? Straetum?”

“Yeah,” Corrin said. “I’m on my way with a friend to Taravast, we’re gonna enroll at the Royal Swordcraft Academy.”

Finian whistled appreciatively, “Well damn, that’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t mind visiting the capital myself someday. They don’t have gliding there though, so it wouldn’t work long term.”

“They don’t? And gliding is that important for you huh?”

“Gliding is my life, my first love, my calling—if you still believe in that stuff. I’m gonna ride the winds till the day I fall!” He coughed, “But yeah, Precipice is the gliding capital of the world my friend. We can only fly here thanks to how consistent the winds and updrafts are. You’ll find more wind spirits here than anywhere else on the continent. There are a few other places around Aeora that are similar from what I hear, but none come close to what it’s like here.”

“That’s so cool!”

“Isn’t it?” Finian nodded excitedly.

A few hundred paces later, the crowds seemed to thin as they weaved through some of the cluttered buildings and across several smaller and smaller rope bridges. Eventually, they reached a small lift, only about six feet wide at the edge of a platform that seemed a bit out of the way to Corrin.

“Well, here we are!” Finian said.

They stepped onto the lift and began descending with the pull of a lever. The lift creaked dangerously as it went, but Finian’s smile stayed the same as ever, so it was probably fine.

Probably.

The lift only descended about thirty feet before sputtering to a stop in front of a dingy building underneath the shadow of the larger cliff platform. The actual base of the building seemed to mostly be constructed of various scrap metals and wood, with canvas stretched across several sections, and over the front, though Corrin wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to be covering, since the platform above them would already guard against rain. To the side, several gliders of various sizes and styles were displayed on a rack. The sound of a hammer against steel rang out clearly from inside the building.

Finian walked under the canvas to the rack of gliders, holding each one out and glancing over at Corrin. “Let’s get you—”

Ding!

“What?” Corrin asked.

“I said, let’s get you—”

Clang!

Finian shouted towards the doorway. “Dad! Can you cut it back on the racket? By the winds that’s so loud!”

A gruff voice called back from inside. “Oh shut your trap boy, I’m busy working! If you’d get off your ass and help out, maybe I wouldn’t have to!”

The flap to the tent opened up, and a large man walked outside. This was Finian’s father? In all but hair color, they couldn’t have been more different. Whereas Finian was tall and lanky, this man was large and bulky, with muscles likely developed through years as a craftsman. He had a rough beard that looked as though it wasn’t properly cared for, and though Corrin couldn’t tell due to the glasses on his face—there were the same type as Finian wore, which oddly clung to the skin—he was pretty sure the man was glaring at him.

“Who’s this? A customer?” He grunted.

Finian paused. “Well… he might be eventually.”

“Boy, do you have any money?”

Corrin looked away. “Uh, no…”

“Well, that’s that. You can wander up on out of here then.”

“Dad! I promised him I’d let him fly. I’m gonna take out one of the gliders. He’s new to town and he’s never done it before–”

“What is it with all of you and the damn gliders!” He snapped, “How you ended up a Windseeker is beyond me. But I already told you to stop flying anyways. You’re just going to end up getting yourself killed. It’s high time you give up on that damn nonsense. You have more than enough talent to join me in the shop, right here is where you should be.”

Finian stiffened. “That’s not going to happen. I’m taking a glider and we’ll be leaving.”

“Fine, do what you want like always. Just get the hell out of here, and don’t come crying to me if you or your new friend here get hurt.” He walked back inside and slammed the door behind him. Except the “door” was really just a flap, so it looked a little silly.

Finian walked over to the rack and grabbed one of the gliders, a much simpler one than his own, a relatively simple canvas and frame with a few pulleys and handles which connected to various flaps along the wings and tail. When he spoke, it was more subdued than before. “This one should work. Sorry you had to see that.”

“It’s alright, I guess things aren’t great between you two then huh?”

Why’d I say that? Corrin winced internally.

“You could say that… Now, let’s get you flying!” He smiled, and even Corrin could pick up on how he was changing the topic. Which was fine by him, it’d been really awkward third wheeling that conversation anyways.

“I’m ready to take off!” Corrin said.

“No, you’re not,” Finian chuckled. “But you’re going to love it.”