As Bolero and Flury flew together, the wind became stronger and hotter, and the sun became harsher and brighter. During the night, when there were clouds, they flew above them, and the waxing gibbous moon lit up the surroundings to create a completely alien landscape. They were beautiful, and Flury had to say that he was enjoying this adventure.
They went down three times a day to gather their strength, and they became close friends as they went. Though the dragon dwarfed him, he still though of her as simply another griffin, whom he could talk to and open up about his feelings. After the second day, he was telling her all about his feelings for Elda, and she was telling him about her ambition to have a family of her own. She was very talkative, and her talkativeness affected Flury a great deal, creating a completely new griffin. It turned out that Bolero was an extremely powerful magic user who had somehow offended Deucalion, and that she had been glad to go out of hiding from the valley.
"Flury, why don't you tell Elda when we find her?" Bolero suggested on the third night, as they looked at the lovely clouds. "You're quite nice, for a cat-bird. Why doesn't she like you?"
"She doesn't like when I'm apologetic," he replied sadly, "I really can't help it, though. I think Querida finds it irritating as well-" he was interrupted as an extremely quick moving object hurtled into him. It knocked the wind out of him completely, and he fell through the clouds. He managed to spread his wings and fly back up to Bolero, and found her hovering next to a motley group of griffins, frightening them with a snarling tone.
"What on earth were you thinking? You could have killed the poor thing!" she roared at the group.
"Sorry ma'am, but we thought he was that rogue griffin. He looked like 'im," said the small gray griffin, struggling to hover properly.
"What rogue griffin?" Flury called at them.
"Wizard Flurian!" the gray one shouted, looking quite surprised. All five griffins made some sort of salute, which was made quite difficult by their hovering. Flury nodded and glided over to them.
"What rogue?" he repeated sternly. Bolero was impressed at how respected Flury was.
"Laugriar. We've been after him for at least a year. He's the same color as you, and he's always seen flying with a dragon," a white female replied.
"So naturally you thought I was him. I can see why you were so sudden. But how did Laugriar get over here, may I ask?" Flury asked. Laugriar was a dangerous convict, and Flury himself had fought the criminal down and jailed him a year earlier.
"We don't know. We got reports about him from some legionaries of the Empire, really. We don't know if he's even really here, to tell the truth," replied a third tan one.
"Well, it's prudent of you to be searching for him, but I'm also on a mission." Flury said.
"I thought you were teaching at the University, sir," said the white one.
"I was. But a dragon kidnapped Wizard Derk's daughter Elda recently, and I was sent by Wizard Querida to find her. You all know Elda, I presume?" The five nodded. "She was kidnapped by a young dragon revolutionary called Senera. Do you know of him?"
"That's him, it is!" screamed the first one. "He was seen flyin' with a golden griffin on some sorta magical leash! That musta been Elda!"
"Yes, yes. Do you know where they were headed?" Flury asked, tossing his head about expectantly.
"Nothing, except that they were going south," replied the tan one. Flury sighed.
"I see. Well, the best of luck to you. I must be on my way." With a quick nod to Bolero, they both flew off into the distance as fast as they could.
"So now revolutionaries are in league with cat-birds?" Bolero shouted to herself once they were out of earshot. "What is our race coming to?"
"I don't understand." Flury said, rising up to flap next to the dragon. "Why do dragons need the help of griffins?"
"It's political, I'll bet you, because dragons are powerful enough on their own not to need cat-birds. It's positively baffling, however you look at it."
"It is," Flury agreed, "but convicts like that won't be any use to their revolutions. Griffins are naturally educated, and the criminals are almost always stupid. Laugriar was not too bright, let's just say."
"Is it something to do with the cat-birds themselves, I wonder? They might be building an army of sorts, and might need all sorts of creatures to be on their side. They'll have humans for sure, and maybe some dwarves, if they're going for something like that."
"But why would dragons do that?" Flury asked her. It wasn't making sense for the dragons to be revolutionaries, because dragons were naturally some of the most powerful creatures in the world in the first place.
"There have always been two sides to the dragon population. The wise who believe that the races should all deal with themselves, and the foolish who believe that dragons are naturally superior in the hierarchy of races," she explained. "It's foolish because though dragons are wise and powerful, no race has the right to be superior in this world, and dragons live for such a long time that it wouldn't be quite that fair."
"No, the world would become some sort of wasteland if that happened." Flury said, musing to himself what it would be like to be ruled by dragons. There were hierarchies in griffin society, but the government had been developed over thousands of years to become very educated and reach the pinnacle of perfection. As a result, it didn't exercise much power over its subjects.
The fourth day came and went in scalding heat, and they finally reached the desert. It spread before them like a gigantic tan rug, and when they came to land it was only at scattered oases; for Flury couldn't bear the heated sands during noon hours. During the night they shivered and huddled together to keep warm, though Flury benefited from this the most. The fifth day came when they reached the capitol of the Empire, and the deserts became a mild sort of warm grasslands, with hills for Bolero to roost in comfortably. Flury went immediately to the Emperor Titus, who received him readily into the great palace.
He spent a time in Titus' palace, and learned that in the nearby region to the west there was a gathering of dragons. Naturally, no one liked to disturb dragons, so not much had been learned about this unlikely gathering. Flury left a day later, with carefully penned notes (about the gathering) stuffed into his bag. He was glad that they had given him food in the palace, as he wasn't very good at hunting for himself. He returned to Bolero, relayed the news, and then they set off to the west.
A day later they were following a small river the led west, and were entering rockier lands closer to the ocean. That was where they found the gathering. They were almost seen, but Bolero found a cave in the rocky cliffs big enough for both of them.
"I can't continue, if you're going for secrecy, my good wizard. Dragons are no good for stealth missions, I'm afraid," she said sadly.
"I thought about that, and I think you should send some sort of message to the dragons in the north. They need to know about this, because it looks dangerous." Flury replied, not meeting her eyes. He would have liked the stable mass of dragon behind him while confronting these massive, fire-breathing titans. It looked as if he was alone, as he had been all his life.
"I've already sent an urgent warn spell, but they won't be here for at least a week. We have to save this little cat-bird before anything can be done to her," she said, digging her talons into the ground. Flury had learned that she did not like to feel useless.
"Build up your strength so you can translocate the three of us as far away as possible. I think that would be best," he told her stoutly. She didn't reply
"Don't worry; I'll be back with Elda in tow, and I'll see what sort of revolution these dragons are planning."
"Goodbye," Bolero growled, "and good luck, wizard. Come back soon."