Flury woke up in his own room, embarrassed and aching, and saw numerous healers in sleeping bags around him. As soon as his head showed any sign of wakefulness, two healers went up to him and explained the situation of his injuries.
"You fell from about a hundred feet, Mr. Flury, and you gave us quite a scare. You broke your right foreleg, I'm afraid, but it can be mended in a couple of days, and you're bruised quite badly," one said, kneeling beside him.
"I wasn't in a healing coma, was I?" Flury asked weakly.
"No, we didn't think it was necessary," the other replied.
"Then it wasn't that bad." Flury said, struggling to his three non-injured feet. "Would you mind setting this? I've got classes to teach and Eldas to go after."
The two healers expertly brought out their materials and wrapped his leg with a splint in five minutes flat. If Flury had had teeth to grit, he would have had them thoroughly gritted, the pain was so nasty. He did know Deucalion's "helping nature along" method of magic, but it drained him a great deal, whereas Deucalion could do it effortlessly.
"Thank you. What time is it?" he asked. He could tell he had only been asleep through the night by the way his bruises still ached.
"The sun hasn't even risen," the healer replied. Flury nodded and took his worn bag from the wall. It was extremely difficult to manage with only one foreleg, because he had to balance on his hind legs. He limped out of his room, cautiously avoiding healers and their sleeping bags. The two that had set his leg had already packed up and were waking their drowsy counterparts.
As he entered the courtyard he saw a nasty sight. There was Querida, sitting on the plinth, and glaring at him quite nastily. Flury immediately shrank, and hobbled over to the snaky wizard.
"Do you realize the set-to you caused by not sending any warn spells? We could have helped, Flury, and you had to go and play the hero. Wizard Derk's daughter is now officially missing, and Kit and Blade set off on their journey to the other continent last night! The only people connected to her still left on this continent are Derk and her little group of friends," she hissed.
"You're the only one capable of traveling large distances now, Flury. I'm setting the task to find her upon your shoulders, and you will come back with her flying next to you, or I'll--" Querida apparently couldn't think of anything horrible enough to threaten him with. Flury shrank quite a bit more as he heard this.
"I need to heal myself first," he said to her.
"Deucalion is out looking for her, if you must know. Do it yourself." Querida replied, guessing his mind. She translocated with a bang, and left the tiny Flury shuddering at her mere presence in the courtyard. He immediately became larger and limped back to his room. The healers were gone, so he felt around in his mind and drew out his healing power. He felt the leg mending efficiently, and deviated a bit of it to heal the bruises. It left him feeling as if he had just flown over the ocean and back again, though the injuries were mended.
This was one of his fantasies came true, he reminded himself, and the phrase "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it," echoed in his mind. He set an alarm spell to go of in four hours, and fell asleep again.
The spell came much too soon for Flury's liking; but he felt quite a bit better even so. He got up and tested his leg shakily, removing the splint with a claw. It was completely healed now, to his relief, and he took his bag and stuffed everything to do with Dragonlore in it, then walked out his room.
Thankfully, all of the students seemed to already know where he was going, and a few of the older ones saluted his as they passed. Elda's group was now in their second year, and they rushed over to him when they saw him. He noticed with a bit of irritation that they looked incomplete without Elda there.
"We heard that you're going to save Elda." Lukin stated feverishly. He seemed to not like talking to a prominent wizard like Flury in such a conversational way. It irritated Flury even further.
"There's no need to look so scared of me, my good man. I might be your teacher, but I'm still quite close to your age," the griffin said, trying to be patient.
"Lukin's always like that." Olga replied, staring at Flury haughtily. "But we're here to wish you luck, and we wish we could help you." All of the others nodded in agreement.
"Thank you. I'm glad that at least some people believe in me. Querida threatens me as if I'm going to come back in five days saying it's too hard to accomplish," Flury said. He really was thankful. "I'll be back with her as soon as possible, don't you worry," he told them much more confidently than he felt. They all simply looked at him with expectant faces, and then hurried off to their next class. He took off laboriously and flew a course for Bolero's valley. She could help him, he knew. He felt quite guilty now that he was finally up and after her, that he had been so impatient with the dragon. It took five minutes to reach the valley, and there was the white Bolero, reclining in a dragonish way on the valley floor. She was three quarters the size of a house, and filled up the little valley quite snugly. She spotted him and rose up to look at him.
"Wizard Flurian!" she boomed, gesturing to the large rock embedded in the hillside next to her. He swooped and landed hastily on the rock, almost losing his balance.
"You cat-birds are so funny!" she said as he lay in an undignified heap.
"I'm just not in top form today. I'm actually here to ask you about a young dragon that passed this way last night. It kidnapped my friend Elda." He thought it right to call Elda his friend rather than his student.
"She was a human?" the dragon questioned with great interest.
"No, she was a 'cat-bird'," said Flury.
"Even more interesting! What did the fledgling look like that took her? I have a suspicion about who took this cat-bird."
"It was red with a lot of golden and white scales, and it had very powerful magic. It knocked me out of the air and injured me with magic alone."
"I think it was Senera. Could you tell if it was male of female?"
"No. It was quite slender, the way it flew, but all young dragons are like that, aren't they?"
"It was Senera. Senera is a male, and he's a little revolutionary in the making. He left the northern reaches and went to join up with the dragon revolution. Naturally there are only about five dragons in it, but they're all fighting males, and quite dangerous. Are you proposing to go and save this cat-bird, because if you are, I'm coming." There seemed to be no arguing with Bolero, and she was quite serious now.
"Of course you can come with me. I need help, for sure." Flury agreed. He was glad the great white dragon would be coming along.
"Deucalion won't like this, but he really doesn't have any choice, now does he?" she said, grinning and getting ready to take off. She turned to Flury again. "Their lair lies in the far south, and it'll take us at least a week to get there. We can translocate if you like later on, but we'd end up in the middle of the desert, and maybe actually ahead of Senera and Elda." She gave Flury a bit of time to get into the air, and then took off, the wind from her gargantuan wings making the trees in the valley whip about.
Together, the dragon and griffin flew into the south; towards the Empire and the dragon revolutionaries and the great deserts.