The day Lift finally believed that Storm Fall was real, that it wasn't just a myth to warn Aeriat warriors from flying too far south or a story traded amongst the Arbora late at night, the skies had been clear and the air had been cool, crisp, and perfect for flying.
He had been cruising above the canopy, looking out at the tops of the mountain-trees which spread out all around him, unobstructed for hundreds of ells. The canopy, having grown unforgivingly dense over thousands of turns, hid the life that thrived below it - Kek, Kithkal, an endless assortment of predators that Lift would be perfectly happy to never meet, and most importantly, he thought, dozens of Raksuran courts.
Such as the one he was supposed to be circling back to just about now.
Lift dipped his right wing to start his return and felt the pull due south familiar to every Raksura orbit around to his left side. He looked up to the sun, figuring from its position that he would finish his patrol just on time.
He had hardly registered the sound of something pushing up through the canopy when a familiar voice behind him called out, "Lift!"
"What?" Lift dropped down, used his foot claws to find purchase on a thick branch, and turned to Cast, one of the young warriors he had been patrolling with.
"Consorts! Foreign consorts - and six of them!," Cast hissed urgently. He waved for Lift to follow him and, before Lift had a chance to respond, disappeared back beneath the ruffled green leaves he had just emerged from. Lift couldn't help his spines' rising in confusion and quickly climbed after the teal-green blur of Cast's scales.
Once he had emerged from the underside of the canopy, Lift swung his head around as he tried to find Cast. The warrior was already speeding away, curving around the nearest mountain-tree's trunk and rapidly disappearing from Lift's line of sight. Lift hissed in frustration and let himself drop down, plummeting for a brief moment towards the forest floor below before snapping out his wings and taking off again after Cast.
He beat his wings harder and harder, knowing that as one of the fastest warriors in Ocean Winter he would catch up to Cast soon enough and that Cast knew it too. What is it about these consorts, Lift wondered to himself, that Cast wouldn't be willing to waste a single second taking me to them?
When he could finally see Cast again, two more pairs of warriors had come up behind him, flying in a V formation with Cast at its tip. One of the warriors took note of Lift's rapid approach and looked at him with a sideward glance, her eyes reflecting the same mixture of wariness and concern Lift felt coursing through himself now. Lift shook his head and continued to push himself forward, only slowing once he saw Cast bank downwards towards a nearby platform branch.
Lift cupped his wings, not fully able dispel his forward momentum, but slowing enough that he managed to land beside Cast with a heavy, skidding thunk instead of an awkward stumble.
"There," Cast said, nodding straight ahead.
As four more thunks marked the arrival of the rest of the patrol, Lift squinted his eyes and caught sight of the approaching foreigners. Six Raksura, all with the characteristic black scales of consorts, were approaching rapidly - much faster than all but the oldest of warriors would be able to. Even at this distance, at which most groundlings would hardly be able to tell the visitors apart from small smudges in the sky, Lift could see the consort flying at the front watching him intently.
"Where are the rest of them?" Cast whispered.
Lift shook his head as the other warriors' spines bristled. It was unheard of for consorts to travel alone, unescorted by a queen and a group of her most loyal warriors. Even then, a queen only ever brought a single consort, and only to signify that her court was, or wanted to be, allies with whomever they were visiting.
But these consorts, Lift thought, didn't seem like the any of the other delicate and gently-bred consorts Lift had ever met. Instead they flew with an unperturbed confidence and liquid grace that triggered Lift's prey reflex and made his whole body twitch.
Except for the one in the front, Lift realized. The consort at the fore, the smallest one and yet the one moving so quickly it almost seemed to strain his larger peers, eerily triggered neither Lift's prey nor predator reflex. In fact, Lift could feel nothing from him, not even the innate presence that told Lift when another Raksura was nearby.
And that was what worried Lift most of all.
"Stay with them," Lift said forcefully as he stood and unfurled his wings, "but keep your distance. Don't let them out of your sight, especially once they approach the colony."
"Where are you going?" one of the other warriors asked, failing to suppress the quaver to his voice.
The warrior next to him, Ivy, slapped him in the back of the head, but with a restraint Lift knew to mean that she was also loathe to be outnumbered by the visitors. "To tell the queens," she hissed.
Lift nodded once and took a last look at the approaching consorts. The smaller one was still watching him, his piercing gaze not having once faltered. Lift turned, an unwilling growl escaping him as he leapt from the platform, snapped out his wings, and raced back to his court.
By the time Lift reached Ocean Winter, he had flown himself ragged and knew that he would feel the punishing aftereffects of his breakneck return for days afterwards.
It's not the time for self pity, Lift chided himself. Not yet at least. He folded in his wings and twisted midair, diving down towards the entrance platform to Ocean Winter's mountain-tree. Too exhausted to slow himself down properly, he slammed into the platform, the wood reverberating with the loud crack of his landing. He hissed as he felt a sharp pain in his ankles, knees, and wrists, and rolled off to his side to disperse some of the force of the impact. He groaned, only barely managing to keep himself from collapsing completely and shifting back into his groundling form.
When Lift, breathing heavily and half-crumpled to the ground, finally looked up, he saw a familiar face - lean and angular, with amber skin and eyes: Slate, first consort to Flame, the only sister queen of Ocean Winter.
Slate eyed him wordlessly, absorbing Lift's frenzied state. "Come," he said, shifting into his Aeriat form, his dark clothes and heavy gold bracelets blurring into a dark mist that reformed itself as matte black scales with a blood red undersheen.
Lift staggered to his feet, ignoring the worried looks of the Arbora scattered on the platforms around him and the Aeriat perched in the branches above him. Slate leapt first, snapping out his wings and propelling himself upwards towards the queens' level. Lift unfurled his wings sluggishly and took off after him, bracing himself for the vertical climb.
Though Lift, after visiting some of the larger courts in the Reaches, had returned to Ocean Winter underwhelmed by their colony tree's relative lack of grandeur, he was grateful now that the queens' level was only three flights up. When he was close enough to the balcony that marked the entrance to the queens' hall, he reached out and dug his claws into the hard bark of the trunk, using the vines that wrapped around the tree and the balcony railing to pull himself upwards.
Slate, who had already vaulted over the railing and shifted back to his groundling form, reached over the balustrade, grabbed Lift's wrist, and hauled him upwards. Lift, grateful for the help but too prideful not to pretend otherwise, let out a weak growl. Slate ignored the warrior's protests and continued dragging him further into the hall, through one of the high-ceilinged archways and into Flame's bower.
"Flame," he said softly as he finally let go of Lift's wrist. Slate glided over to where Flame sat with Torch, her clutchmate and leader of her warrior faction. When Slate failed to take a seat besides her, Flame raised an eyebrow, uncoiled, and rose to her feet, shifting into her winged form in a single, fluid motion.
"What is it?" she said pointedly, her glance quickly flitting first to Slate and then to Lift.
Lift recoiled under the sister queen's stare, in part because at some point while being dragged along by Slate he had shifted back to his groundling form, but also because he was pledged to the faction of a different queen. He managed to raise his head and look directly at Flame. "Six consorts, unescorted, are coming in from the southwest. I left three patrols behind to watch their approach, but the consorts are moving quickly enough they should be here any minute."
"All consorts? You're certain?" Slate questioned as he narrowed his eyes and watched Lift carefully.
"Yes, I'm certain," Lift hissed, frustrated that he had let himself be handled by a rival queen's consort.
Flame and Slate traded an incredulous look before Flame's spines went rigid with sudden realization. Turning sharply to Torch, she said, "Go get Vermillion and Garnet, now."
Torch, who had risen with Flame but had remained in her groundling form, flicked a spine towards the main entrance to Flame's bower. "Looks like they've already heard."
Lift followed Flame's gaze to see Vermillion, reigning queen of Ocean Winter, stride purposefully towards the center of the room where he and the others stood. She was a full head taller than Flame and, true to her name, had brilliant scarlet scales with a bright gold webbed overlay, accentuated by the polished gold sheaths she wore over her claws.
Behind Vermillion trailed Garnet, daughter queen to Ocean Winter, and Muse, the leader of Garnet's warrior faction. Like Vermillion, Garnet had a gold overlay, though superimposed atop emerald green instead of scarlet scales.
As the newly arrived queens came to a stop, Slate moved to stand behind Flame, and Lift did the same, edging over to stand next to Muse behind Garnet. The three female Aeriat all took in Lift's ragged appearance, the moment only broken when Vermillion finally spoke.
"They've arrived," she said stonily. Vermillion looked over at Muse, who first looked over to Garnet before she cleared her throat and said, "Six consorts just landed at the entrance. One of the older ones introduced himself as Breeze, secondary consort to the court of Storm Fall." She looked around confusedly as Vermillion narrowed her eyes and Flame let out a low hiss. "He, the one called Breeze, then introduced another consort, the leader I think, as Howl, his patron consort and primary consort to the same court." Muse, having hurriedly stumbled through her words, held her breath and looked out nervously.
"Primary consorts? Patrons? What-" Slate's voice caught in his throat as he furrowed his brow and looked between Flame and Vermillion, who were sharing a knowing stare, though Garnet seemed as confused as the rest of them.
Before Slate could continue, Lift leaned forward and hissed, "Storm Fall is real?"
Vermillion sighed, her tail twitching slightly. "Yes, Storm Fall is real, and it's our fault for letting so much of the colony think otherwise," she said, flicking a spine towards Flame. "The last we treated with them was ages ago, and though many in the Reaches have chosen to ignore or willfully forget about them since, last our ancestors knew, Storm Fall was very much alive and thriving."
Seeing that Slate and the others seemed visibly no less confused, Flame crossed her arms and said flatly, "Storm Fall is an outcast court. Centuries ago, around the time Opal Night had first come into the height of its power, it spread the word that it would see any attempt to treat with or aid Storm Fall as deliberately antagonistic. Everyone had thought that Storm Fall was on the verge of destruction then and cut off ties with it without a second thought."
"But why brand a court that way?" Slate said as he stepped forwards besides Flame.
Now it was Lift's turn to stare at Slate with some measure of disbelief, and he saw he wasn't alone in doing so. Then he realized that Slate, who had come to Ocean Winter from Sunset Water, may never had heard the Arbora's stories the way Lift and the others had growing up. "If Storm Fall is real," Lift started, "and the stories are too, then its probably because they treated with the Fell. Allied with them, even against other Raksura. Because they needlessly warred with other courts, slaughtering everyone and stealing royal clutches to breed with since no other court would dare touch them."
Lift looked to the queens to see if they would confirm or deny his words, but Vermillion remained stone still and Flame only turned her head away from him. Maybe they don't know if the stories are true or not either, Lift thought to himself.
Vermillion let out a low growl and snapped, "Enough. We don't have time for this. Outcast or not, Storm Fall is said to have enough power to rival even Opal Night, and I don't intend to antagonize them, particularly in light of the current state of the colony." She scanned the room and, with a gravitas that suggested any attempt to test her authority would be met with a merciless beating, continued, "Muse. Return to them. Invite them in for a formal greeting with our sister and daughter queens. Then find Crush and tell him to pull all patrols back towards the colony and instruct the Arbora to return inside."
As Vermillion turned to leave, Lift looked to Garnet and asked, "Is she going to be there too?"
Before Garnet could respond, Flame snorted as she turned toward the southwest, perhaps trying to conjure a mental image of the outcast court. "It's the first known delegation from Storm Fall to a court of the Reaches in centuries. Of course she'll be there."