"Aren't you nervous, Shiba?" Hojji asked, pulling the wire brush through the Schattarneki's thick fur one last time. Not that she needed to be groomed, but habits were habits.

Afraid? The Schattarneki tilted her head towards the human, and continued out loud. "No, not really. Should I be?"

Rabosii, who was tagging along mostly because Hojji had been assigned to this, rolled his eyes. You DO know what you're about to do, don't you, fluffy?

Anii-shiba gave him a glare worthy of a demon, which caused the wingless blue dragon mutt to blink, slightly taken aback. "Yes, I do," she said, and then grinned, showing clean white teeth. Sharp ones. "It's perfectly normal."

Rabosii, who had never been a chaser before, tried to look knowledgeable and not at all nervous that a fertile young female was in very close proximity to him.

"Okay, you're nice and fluffed now," Hojji said, stepping back from the Schattarneki.

"Thank you!" She stood and stretched her paws, wiggling each of the claw-tipped toes. "Do you think I can go talk to... to them? Do you think it's allowed?"

Hojji rubbed his chin, wishing Lakota had not sent him on this "mission". It wasn't that he didn't know what happened at the end of a flight, but dragons were a wild card. They looked like animals, and thus he shouldn't feel embarrassed at being present, yet they were as intelligent as humans, and then some. So it also felt a bit like peeping into the bridal chamber at a wedding where he was not the groom. "Umm," he said slowly. "I don't see why you can't go talk to the males. After all, they're going to be pretty important pretty soon, you know? You might as well get to know them a little."

Shiba nodded. "I'll be back in a little while, then. Will you two be okay here?" She glanced over at Rabosii, who towered well over her at fourteen feet tall; she was only ten feet at the tips of her ears.

Hojji smiled. "We'll be fine. Rabosii and I will keep each other company."

I'm used to that by now, the blue mutt said in a mental voice tinged with suffering.

Shiba trotted off, her wing-spikes crossed neatly on her back. The five males were all collected at one end of the Bay, with their bonds or caretakers. Several of them looked like they would be happy to start a brawl with the other males. At least most are around my size, she thought to herself as she approached them. Schattarneki were on the small size for dragons, and that often led to some interesting problems during breeding season. But it looked like only one of the males, a fellow with red fur that seemed to be nearly twice the size of Shiba herself. One of the other males, interestingly enough, was wingless and appeared to be getting fitted with a sort of mechanical harness device. As Shiba neared them, the device hummed into life, and large, translucent wings sprouted from its metal surface. The wingless male looked just as startled as Shiba felt, and his brow furrowed. The wings flapped and his forequarters lifted off of the landing platform ever so slightly. He grinned toothily, and the attendants clapped. Shiba wondered how he was making the wings flap like that. The device may have been able to sense the dragon's intent to flap, but how could he even know how to intend to flap wings since he had never had them?

It was baffling. Shiba pushed it aside and went to speak to her suitors.

After ten minutes, during which Shiba had had little time to do more than learn the males' names and species, several humans announced they had to get this flight on the road. Or rather, the air. The bonds and caretakers chuckled at that, but the dragons rolled their eyes.

Shiba allowed herself to be led to the edge of the platform. Far out in front of her stretched open air, which appeared to be somehow populated here and there with bright yellow pylons. These pylons appeared to be floating without any anchor, giving some depth and location to the otherwise still air.

The males lined themselves up shoulder-to-shoulder behind her. Shiba allowed a ripple to flow through her body, shivering every last fiber of muscle. Her fur prickled, skin "goosebumping", causing her entire pelt to poof out slightly. Her breathing was deep and even as she saturated her tissues with oxygen in order to facilitate blood flow.

She was ready. And she knew that each of the five males was waiting on a visual clue from her, anything from an ear-twitch to angling her wings for the jump. A malicious spark lit her heart for a moment and she hunkered back, flexing her back legs as if gathering her weight for a leap off the platform. The thick-furred ice-blue Whorling, Chime, actually lunged forward, almost off the edge of the platform, as his body instinctively reacted to launch him in pursuit of Shiba. He realized her mischief just in time and scrabbled at the edge madly to keep from going right over into the empty space of the flight deck.

The four other males tittered.

Huffing and snarling, Chime pulled himself all the way back onto the edge and went back to his place in the row of males.

Ready now, Shiba thought to herself. No sense in torturing the poor things any longer.

She gathered her body for real now and then shoved outwards with all of her might, snapping her wings open as soon as she was clear of the landing platform's pylons. She heard the quiet rustle of four pairs of wings and one slightly high-pitched hum, which was Kovar's artificial wingset. She could sense the males parting her wake behind her, seemingly bare inches away. She almost expected a paw to close around her hind ankle at any second, even though she knew she had a head-start. She flapped her wings a few time. It was strange flying in the dead air; there were no wind currents or thermal, either natural or artificial. It required more of the dragon's muscle and stamina to keep itself aloft. There was no free ride here.

After a few wingbeats, she heard an angry snarl behind her. Risking a glance over her shoulder (there were none of the strange floating pylons near her) she saw that the ice-blue Whorling had hit wingtips with one of the other males, the large warm-rainbow-colored Geperna mutt. The mutt, whose name Shiba remembered was Nirej'Sitawi, had apparently lost a few wing-feathers in the collision. They wheeled crazily in the wake of the dragons' wings and were quickly left behind in seconds as the female and her pursuers continued through the flight deck's open air. "Hey," Nirej hissed, eyes on Charm, "you weren't supposed to be that close to me."

Chime deigned not to answer, angling his wings to make a dive at Shiba's tail, silvery claws outstretched.

"Oh hell no," a new voice said, and abruptly a bright red body rammed full-force into Chime.

The Whorling screamed in a mixture of anger and rage and dropped out of sight below them. His attacker, who was the large red dragon Shiba had noticed earlier, jostled into the Whorling's vacated place, snapping his teeth at Nirej'Sitawi. "I'm going to catch you," the red dragon named Ontellonji promised, and Shiba could see with another glance that he meant it. His wings worked steadily and tirelessly, the fur-tufts at the top fluttering with each stroke. He rumbled again, almost in an intimate whisper, "Looking forward to it? I am."

Shiba crinkled her forehead. He was a little too forceful and strong for her, but there was no way she could leave him behind. He was simply too large and too athletic for her to outfly. She folded her wings tightly against her body and let herself plummet. It was a frightening move, as it was difficult to see what was below her, if anything, while she fell. But Ontellonji had been caught by surprise by the Schattarneki's bold move, and he had to brake and wheel around. The other three males, having been further back and with more time to react, had each arrowed after Shiba without having to adjust their flight too much. The other Whorling, a four-winged dragon with a deep purple coloration, put on a little extra speed and surged forward. He had seen his fellow Whorling get taken out, quire literally, by the much larger red dragon, but Siteloh now felt safe enough to make his own move with Ontellonji temporarily out of the picture.

But a strange feeling was growing in Shiba's mind. She wasn't sure if the entire purpose of a flight was for the strongest, cleverest, or most resourceful male to catch her, or if the female had any choice in the matter. I suppose not, she mused. I'd have just chosen a mate, were that the case. No need for the flight itself. She was, she admitted, having a great deal of fun, but she didn't really want the Whorling to catch her. She didn't dislike him directly; she couldn't pinpoint exactly how she felt. She sensed Siteloh looming behind her, and she twisted her wings and gave them a mighty flap. She lifted up high, and Siteloh actually shot across her path, but below her, out of reach. He glanced up at the last second, but couldn't re-angle his path.

The furred sunset-colored mutt was right below her now, staring at her in surprise, and she dove at him as if she were the male pouncing on the female! He squawked and folded his wings. She fell after him, giggling, and reached out one paw. She actually trailed her digits through the fur on his shoulder before he growled his frustration with this strange behavior and wheeled away, abandoning whatever the pursuit had become. Shiba flapped her wings and pulled up short, hovering in one place as she watched him flap slowly towards the landing platform. It seemed to her that the wolfdragon mutt was far more upset than he should be.

"Wonder what got into him," a pleasant voice said to her right.

Startled, she snapped her head around, and found herself looking right into the wingless male's gleaming black eyes. "Err," she said.

He was hovering right next to her, still flapping those mysterious magical device-wings. She remembered, belatedly, that his name was Kovar. His thick fur was broken up here and there by strange, though pretty, patches of opal. She looked to his left and his right and realized that all of the other males were gone.

Shiba met his eyes again and grinned. He had a cute face, and he was remarkably close to her own size. And besides...

She stretched out her neck and touched noses with him. "I'm curious," she said softly. "How do those wings work?"

He nuzzled her back. "Come with me," he said, "and I'll show you."

That, she decided, was an eminently appealing proposal.