Taking Flight : Chapter 1
Disclaimer: The world of Shannara, including the Wing Hove and the Wing Riders belong to Terry Brooks!
She lay there on the grassy bluff, overlooking the Blue Divide feeling the warm summer sun beat down on her tanned face. She could smell and taste the light sea breeze as it floated by. It was a beautiful day, a day that was meant for flying. At that very thought she drifted off into the thoughts of the past, of the past that offered opportunity, but a future that looked bleak.
Her people were elves, a different kind of elves, but nonetheless elves. They had immigrated from Arborlon long before the time of the First War of the Races and maintained their isolation at the coast of the Blue Divide in the Westland, just below the Irrybris Mountains. The only communication they received from the outside world would not have been possible if the Rocs were not trained.
The Rocs were enormous birds of prey that shared the habitation of the Wing Hove with the sky elves. These birds are the lifeline of the Wing Hove. The great birds helped find food, act as messengers and are great companions to the sometimes lonely Hove. In return the sky elves protect, care for, and heal these fantastic birds. The two different lives of elf and bird are forever intertwined. It is a great honour to be chosen as a Wing Rider and Lillieanna wanted that opportunity more then anything.
She was the youngest daughter of Raleid, the greatest Wing Rider in the entire Wing Hove, and the granddaughter of Hagol, the first sky elf to ever train and fly a Roc, and it was in her blood to want to fly. Her sisters, all seven of them, had little use for flying, they concerned themselves merely on the upkeep of Wing Hove. The only use they saw in Wing Riders was as potential husbands, nothing more. She on the other hand wanted, no, rather needed to fly and yet she could not simply because of the fact that women cannot be riders. A ridiculous notion to be sure, but it was one of the strictest law at Wing Hove.
As her thoughts continued to drift to another time, when there were little complications in the Wing Hove, her startling sea green eyes, that marked all the Wing Riders in her family, flew open. Upon hearing the flapping of her Roc's lavender wings, she pushed herself into a sitting position and smiled as she saw the giant bird flying overhead. Lillie watched the bird for a few moments in awe of the powerful wings and then signaled for the bird to land. It did so immediately in a clearing close to Lillie, as she ran towards the Roc, she noticed she was not alone.
Lillie reached the Roc and looked out into the forest beyond wondering who was out there; the Roc seemed not to have noticed, which suggested she was no danger. Lillie ran her hands over the feathers of the bird and she replied with a soft cooing noise.
"Did you enjoy your flight, Violet?" Lillie asked with a quizzical look on her face.
Violet looked at her with her large eyes amid the amethyst hue of her feathers and then she looked hurriedly toward the forestland. Lillie followed her gaze and there stood her father, with a small smirk on his face.
"My daughter, how on earth did you ever get up here? This is much too high a cliff for you to climb, isn't it?" her father said in a mocking tone.
Lillie began innocently, "No father I climbed the lower side of the bluff, how else would I get up here?"
Her father simply burst into fits of laughter and a playful grin crossed his face as he shook his head slightly. Raleid had known his daughter had a love of flying, ever since he took her up on the wing of his Roc when she was just a little girl. His other daughters had all gotten sick on their first flight, demanding to be taken down almost before they pushed off the ground, but Lillie was special. He had always wanted a son, but Lillie was the closest he would come to one. On her first flight she demanded they go higher and faster, she easily took control of the Roc and he knew that she would not be so easy to raise after that one flight so long ago.
Now Lillieanna was almost sixteen and she often left the house in the early morning and would not return until late at night. Her mother had worried, but Raleid had known exactly where she had been going as he too longed for the flight of the Roc, but he was too old now, no longer the young wing rider he had once been. Raleid had told his wife that he would follow Lillieanna and make sure she was not getting into trouble; he laughed now thinking back about how his father had done the same for him. He thought he would teach Lillie, in secret, the way of the Wing Riders, but she flew as if she were the greatest Rider there had ever been, and she quite possibly could be.
Well there's chapter one, I hope you enjoyed it! It will get better, well hopefully! Please review! Thanks