Jeannie fell through the sky like a rock. The thought of flying had always scared her, and now she finally convinced herself she had been right to fear it all along. There was nothing more horrifying than not feeling anything solid under your feet, and the ground was so far away that Jeannie could only pray to the Lizards. Landing was out of the question. She had no idea what was going to happened from now on, but one thing was clear: it was not going to depend on her.

The black cloud was just as wet as a normal morning fog. Jeannie was surprised by how familiar it felt. Yet there was one big difference: fogs didn’t leave scratches. The moment Jeannie entered the cloud, small, black particles started flying left and right, occasionally hitting her body and scratching her. Jeannie closed her eyes and wrapped her wings around her body as tightly as she possibly could.

She did not see how the cloud became darker and darker the further she fell; she also did not see how it turned purple and then pink at some point. The particles kept getting bigger and were leaving serious marks. Jeannie was wise not to look.

Frank was only a few meters in front of Jeannie. He had just come out of the cloud and was about to spread his wings. Frank quickly scanned the area with his eye lenses and noticed Jeannie was getting closer to him. He slowed down and glided to the right, but noticed that Jeannie was just falling through the air at the same speed as before. Her entire body was hidden behind her wings, and she was accelerating incredibly fast towards the ground.

Frank tried signalling something to Jeannine, but he quickly realized it was in vain. Jeannie couldn’t see or feel anything. Why wasn’t she paying attention?

There was no time to waste: Frank cursed the Lizards and dived through the air. He tried to reach Jeannie, but there was no way for him to match her speed: she had been in a free-fall the entire time. She would turn into a pancake long before Frank could reach her.

He slowed down and watched in horror how Jeannie was falling towards the ground. There wasn’t enough time to do anything at this point. Frank attempted one final, desperate dive in the air in the hopes to somehow grab her a few meters before reaching the ground. A small portion of hope was something he could afford to spend on Jeannie.

A sudden air current tossed Jeannie to the side and forced her to readjust her wings; in those short, few seconds, she felt a soft light touch her scales. Jeannie opened her eyes and saw Frank gliding above her in front of an endless black cloud which stretched across the entire horizon. He was signalling her something, but Jeannie couldn’t understand a single word. She turned her head and noticed a never before seen landscape: dust, trees, tiny human houses… And all of that stood solid on what must have been the original ground. Jeannie would have felt mesmerized, was she not overwhelmed with nausea.

She panicked, spread her wings and tried to flip her body, but the adrenaline rush was making her entire legs uncontrollable. Not a single muscle was responding the way it should. She managed to glide for a few meters before losing control again.

Jeannie suddenly felt two pairs of legs grab her. She didn’t try to resist; anything was better than falling and being aimlessly tossed around in the air.

Jeannie thanked the Lizards, even though she could clearly feel from the cold sweat on Frank’s face that he was not happy about the situation. He carried Jeannie above what seemed to be an entire forest, followed by a few small ponds. The numerous human houses were of no interest to him. Jeannie noticed a few of the taller buildings had large holes blown in them, possibly so that humans could easily fly away. That seemed to be practical, and she wondered why it was that there were doors in the strange building on the Grand Patrol’s tree.

The two of them finally reached an incredibly tall building that stretched above the entire town. A window was left open on one of the last floors. Frank dived through it like his life depended on it, and tossed Jeannie on the floor the moment he was inside.

Jeannie rolled over a few times before she could figure out what was happening. She turned on her back and noticed Frank was standing in the opposite corner with his claws on his hips. A stench of anger filled the room within seconds.

“Why didn’t you join the Grand Patrol as an officer, hatchling?” Frank asked all of a sudden in a tone that could make anyone’s blood freeze.

Jeannie just stared at him. She did not have a good answer to that. At least not one that was going to get her anywhere with Frank.

“I don’t know,” she lied.

“Of course you do. Let me verbalize it for you. You’re too scared to do anything. Living in the shadows is easier for you, isn’t it? Let me make this clear: this ends now. A lot of things are at stake here, do you understand? I’ve been part of the Grand Patrol for as long as I can remember. If you could see the big picture, you would understand how foolish you have been acting so far.”

Jeannie was stunned. She hadn’t thought of it that way; even though Frank had met her hours ago, he seemed to have already created a very detailed picture of her in his mind. One which might not have been too far off from the truth.

“I apologize, sir. This won’t happen again,” Jeannie replied.

Frank nodded.

“You bet it won’t,” he flapped and adjusted his wingswear in the broken glass miraculously hanging from the window frame.