Dazik dug his sharp claws into the dirt as his strong legs propelled him forward, past jagged rocks and rose bushes, black as the ash they sprouted from. Dust and ash trailed behind him, cut into three streams by two vestigial wings that hung limply from his leathery back. In each sharp-taloned hand, he clutched the handles of a heavy chest, entrusted to him for delivery.
Navigating the Basin's floor, Dazik rushed past more dark vegetation and spinetrees with their vermillion leaves, carrying his burden toward a large orphix farm at the base of Mount Draxa. He could see the impressive mountain ahead, its jagged slopes supposedly tortured by a battle between gods long ago. Aurvos, in its red splendor, hung giant in the purple Vylari sky, not quite banishing the darkness with its light.
Dazik covered the remaining distance to the farm faster than any other zreccan likely ever had on foot. As he reached the base of Mount Draxa, he could see hundreds of his brethren in flight. The mountain was home to many of his species, especially those of the higher caste. Closer to the fields now, the acrid smell of orphix tantalized his nostrils and he realized that his stomachs were gurgling.
Slowing pace as he approached the delivery point, Dazik acknowledged the two zreccan Laborers who awaited him there. They each took a handle as he passed the chest to them, hoisting it together with considerable effort. Like Dazik, they each wore leather straps that wound back over their shoulders, down past their wings and through clips on a belt at their waist, then back up again to connect to a large, circular metal plates on their chests, the symbol of the Labor class prominent on the plates. It was a vestige of days past, before the zreccan on Vylari were united, when the Laborers were Warriors instead. The plate protected a soft, fleshy area on their chests, a remnant from when the zreccan used to crawl on four legs, or so the Educated Ones taught.
“Well done, zrixac.” One of the Laborers mirthfully rapped the hard surface of his tongue on the top of his mouth, the other echoing his clicking laughter before spreading wings and taking flight.
It wasn’t the first time Dazik had been called that, but he still flinched. He thought he was beyond it, but being referred to as the rodent that crawled the lowest holes of the Basin still stung. He was not the proudest zreccan, but he had his pride nonetheless.
Such was Dazik’s life. A pat on the back to veil a slap in the face. Looking up while others looked down. He watched the Laborers as they soared away higher, toward the hold of the wealthy patron where they would deliver the chest. It was a location he could never reach. What would it be like to ride the winds like his brethren? Dazik stopped himself as he always did when his mind went down that path. It was a world he would never know. Not a zrixac like him.
Shaking his head, he flexed his powerful arms. They were not yet worked enough today for fatigue to set in. The day itself was especially hot in the Basin. Water may be boiling in the Three Pools to the north. That would be a fine sight to see.
As Dazik often did of late when this close to the mountain, he hazarded a gaze up the steep cliff, toward a veranda where he had seen her weeks before, sipping spineroot tea among her friends. To his surprise she was there today, chatting with three others in cloth garb marking them as Aristocrats. It was too far to hear what they spoke about, but he drank in her visage as if it were wine. The nasal sound of a yetrir player wafted down from over the balcony.
Dazik stared at her for a while, until he realized she was looking back at him. Propriety required that he avert his eyes, and he did. Dazik knew his place, and hers. Eyes as purple as the sky burned in his memory, though, and a snout so slender and slight that it could be cupped in a single hand. Awkwardly, he glanced back up, and only part of him was relieved that she had returned to discussion with her peers.
Dazik walked over to a street vendor who was selling grilled zrixac and dug through his pouch for an obsidian half-shard to pay for it. The sharp smell of orphix glaze reached his nose as the vendor handed him a zrixac with a wooden skewer through it, coated in the steaming, black ichor. He didn’t immediately eat it; the treat always tasted better after a few moments in the open air.
But then the ground shook with a terrible rumble that seemed to never end. Looking up the slopes toward the source of the sound, Dazik saw something he could never have imagined. Streams of fire and smoke were erupting from the top of the mountain. The shrieks and cries of surprised zreccan reached a cacophonous roar that almost drowned out the rumbling. As Dazik watched, he saw that the fire was starting to come down from the air. Far above that, the purple sky was darkening as clouds of black billowed out from the top of the mountain.
Zreccan from all heights along the mountain fled to the air. Ironically, the Nobility who lived highest up had the least time to flee as fire and brimstone rained down upon them. Dazik searched for the female he had seen before, but couldn’t find her in the ensuing chaos. Without a word, the zrixac vendor took flight from his cart, soaring away as fast as his wings would take him. With one last, desperate search for the female, Dazik set his legs into motion, running down the mountain side as fast as they would take him. He hoped she had escaped.
A heat like nothing he had experienced before pressed down upon him mercilessly as burning rock fragments rained down around him. One giant, molten stone crashed down just in from of him and the strength of his legs was the only thing that kept him from running headfirst into it. The heat from it was unreal. How could something be that hot?
Running back through the grove of rose bushes now, many of them were aflame as burning debris continued to rain down. Their thorns tore at Dazik’s legs as he ran through them, but he did not slow, cutting a straight line away from the mountain. He hazarded a look behind as he ran and saw a burning river flowing toward him, bright red and only a hundred paces back, and gaining.
As he hurtled down the slopes of the mountainside, Dazik realized he was going to die. Already he could feel the heat of his impending doom on his back. Scanning the sky, he saw zreccan flying away from the mountain, outpacing him with each beat of their powerful wings. The muscles in his legs burned as he pushed them beyond every limit, trying desperately to catch up with them. His claws dug furrows in the soil with each ground-eating stride, but those in flight still outstripped him.
Dazik slowed, surrendering the race he knew he could not win.
Just as he resolved himself to death, though, sharp claws dug into his shoulder and he was partially lifted off the ground. Startled, he looked up to see a set of two purple eyes – the only purple left in a sky of black ash. Two more claws grabbed his other shoulder and together the two zreccan lifted him into the air. Below him, the burning river rushed past, its heat rising up and singeing his feet.
Higher and higher Dazik soared on borrowed wings. Up and up, through acrid clouds of ash blotting out the heavens, until the purple sky opened up once again, and a flightless zreccan finally learned what it was like to fly.