Echobright

"What's wrong! Are you hurt?"

"I'm alright, it's just my dodgy leg. I just need to..."

"You need to lie down. Come on."

I let her half guide me, half carry me into her cave. She lived in a traditional hyeloki home, little more than a tunnel carved deep into the rock, but it was dry and clean and sheltered from the wind and cold. We reached a place at the very back and she laid me down on a soft bed of earth and dry mosses, arranging me carefully curled up on my good side with a firm gentleness all of her own.

"Are you comfortable?"

I was. And yet...

"No. Not yet. I don't think I can be until you lie down next to me."

She laughed and lay down behind me, her belly pressed against my back, her head nestled on the back of my neck, one leg resting over my hips, one wing draped over my weary body. Our body heat filled the little space, keeping us warm. No sound from the outside world made it back there, and no light either, so it was as if me and Echobright and our bed were the only things that existed in the whole world. I knew I could drift so easily into sleep, and wake up feeling more rested than I ever had, wonderfully entwined with my lover.

She stroked me gently with her fingers, the pleasing sensation just enough to keep me awake. As I was lying with my right side up, her fingers ran over scarred and burnt skin.

"Grey-Eye, what happened to you?"

I hesitated. I didn't like to talk about it. But she needed to know some time, and now was as good as any.

"There was an explosion. Nothing malicious, just one of those accidents of negligence and bad luck that can conspire at any time. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong moment. One minute, I was sitting in the sunshine, singing out my part in the Song to the world, the next..."

The next: fire, noise, pain. I'd blacked out, before they came to help me. Then waking up to pain, pain, endless pain, and even that couldn't hurt me as much as the news they'd had for me.

"My mate died instantly."

The woman I had loved so much, gone in an instant. Saying it now, I was surprised to learn that it didn't hurt so much any more. It was in the past. The only woman who mattered now was the one lying pressed against me, whose slow steady breathing I could feel ebbing and flowing as she listened.

Echobright didn't reply. Again I was glad that she wasn't one to say the meaningless phrase "I'm sorry." Instead, when I turned my head to face her, she kissed me, slowly and tenderly.

A few minutes passed by before she spoke.

"I know you're tired, but I want to keep you awake just a little longer."

Before I could reply she let out her tongue and licked my neck, just slightly, in a tender way that somehow promised much, much more.

"You can keep me up as long as you like, so long as you keep doing that."

At that she began licking me profusely in long, slow, sensuous lines down my neck. I turned slightly to expose my sensitive throat, and sighed in satisfaction as her tongue tingled and tickled against my skin. I tried to lick her own neck in return, but she seemed disinclined to let me, and I was too tired to argue, so I lay back, closed my eyes and enjoyed what she was giving me.

It wasn't just licking. Her fingers began playing across my chest, stroking back and forth in rhythm with my breath. Her leg rubbed insistently against my hip, and even her tail coiled and insinuated against my own. I moaned out loud, needing more. It wasn't that this treatment washed away my exhaustion. It was more that it supplemented it, turning it into a kind of tired but demanding arousal.

Echobright continued to coat my neck, chin and face in sumptuous kisses, making me squirm in pleasure. Her fingers stroked more vigorously against my chest, moving down to my belly. Her legs rubbed more urgently against me, finally closing her clawed foot around my flesh and gently squeezing, giving me a shiver of excitement. Even her tail upped its attention on my own, squeezing and sliding with serpentine dexterity.

I wasn't surprised, only relieved, when her fingers slid down further to close around my erect cock for the second time that day. Instantly all the licking, the rubbing, the stroking stopped as she dedicated her full attention to that part of me, gliding her fingertips up and down its length, from base to tip.

"You're not so tired that I can't have a little fun with this, are you?"

I shook my head, feeling exhausted but invigorated at the same time. We kissed again, intensely, while she gripped hard around me and pulled slowly back and forth, stimulating me agreeably.

Her fingers walked themselves up my shaft to the tip, where they explored curiously, finding the liquid seeping relentlessly from me and spreading it around the sensitive head. I groaned.

"Is this good?"

"Yes... yes..."

For a moment I was disappointed as I felt her fingers move away, letting my desperate manhood stand unsupported. But then I felt her lean over me, bending round her long neck to put her head between my legs...

As her tongue whipped out to lick my tender head, I cried out.

"How about this?"

"Oh, Echobright..."

The tongue moved in again, licking and licking the head, licking it clean of precum, then licking it again when more replaced it. I stretched and writhed my tired limbs to show my unbearable pleasure, desperate now for her to go further and provide me with release.

As though reading my mind she moved her head forwards a little, letting just my tip move into her mouth, cradled between her tongue and the warm roof. She toyed with it slowly, unbearably, rolling it around, wrapping her tongue about it. As I shouted out silently she carried on forwards, slowly pushing my entire length into her long mouth until I felt my tip nudge against her throat just as her chin pressed against my groin.

For a moment we just lay there, relishing the feeling of me resting inside her. And then she began rubbing her tongue over my engulfed shaft, slowly at first, then more vigorously, soon moving her whole head back and forth with relentless rhythm, pumping me mercilessly, faster and faster.

My mind was drowning in ecstasy, and my breathing came in deep ragged gulps. Summoning energy I didn't know my exhausted body possessed I began actively thrusting in rhythm with her own motions, intensifying the sensation. When she felt me doing this she stopped her own movements and let me push myself as hard as I could in and out of the warm wet welcome of her mouth, driving myself headlong towards release, faster and faster, back and forth into her gorgeous head... in and out... in and out...

I exploded into her, screaming out wordlessly, again and again, she making no complaint as I gushed my semen into her mouth. Only when I had let myself collapse into a panting stillness did she draw herself slowly from my cock and nuzzle her head tenderly against mine. I licked her throat fondly, and as I did I felt her swallow, felt the liquid seed I'd left in her be accepted into the core of her.

Dearly I wished I could return the favour, could bring her to her own orgasm. But a new, even more irresistible wave of exhaustion was rushing over me, claiming me. Echobright must have noticed, because the last thing I remembered before falling into a deep and satisfied sleep was her resting my head gently on the soft bed and draping her wing lovingly over me.

In my dreams, I could still fly. Dream-flying wasn't like real flying: it was a floating, effortless, wonderful thing. It let me focus all my attention on the woman flying alongside me, just ahead of and a little above me. Usually, it was my long-dead mate who flew with me in my dreams. Now it was Echobright, her wings stretched taut and magnificent as she cut effortlessly through the air. She was more than I could resist. I flew towards her, needing to touch her...

In the manner of dreams, unbound by constraints of continuity, we were quite suddenly curled up together on the ground, amidst long waving grasses, her wing draped over me and her fingers playing gently across my skin. I sighed, letting the soothing balm of her touch seep into my soul...

...and gradually I realised I was awake. No field of grasses, but still lying in the quiet darkness of her cave; but there were her fingers, softly, ever so softly stroking my skin, that had reached right in to touch me in my dreams. And there was her embrace: she clutched me tightly to her, like a child holding onto a beloved toy, and I was sure she'd held me so all night. Nothing about it displeased me, and I lay as still and quiet as I could, pretending still to be sound asleep.

She must have guessed I was awake, though, because after some time she whispered into my ear, so quietly that it couldn't possibly have woken me.

"It's a shame you're still asleep, right when I want to give you the first kiss of the morning."

As bait to lure me out of my false slumber, it worked. I turned to face her, barley visible in the deep shadow of the cave, and we kissed delicately, saturated with that slow but sexual sensitivity that comes so naturally upon waking.

"Mmm, that's a great thing to wake up to. When do I get the second kiss of the morning?"

"When you get your lazy carcass off my bed and out of my cave, of course."

She licked me playfully on the nose before pulling herself up and away, leaving me lying on my own. I stretched and eased myself up onto my feet. The night's sleep had done wonders: my legs felt a little stiff, but no worse for their ordeal of the day before.

I had to feel my way along, fingers sliding across the rock walls, until I reached a point where there was enough light to be able to see my way. Reaching the entrance, the golden morning sunlight blinded me with its intensity, and I had to blink uncomfortably until my eyes accustomed enough for me to recognise Echobright silhouetted against the sky. She sat on the very edge of the shelf of rock outside her home, looking out over the landscape for all the world as though she could see it. I went to sit next to her and we cloaked each other in our wings. And she gave me the second kiss she'd promised me.

"Sing with me, Grey-Eye."

I wanted to, but...

"I haven't joined in the Song since my first mate died."

I noticed myself use the word "first" in that context for the first time.

"Then forget the Song. Just sing with me."

She started to sing. She sang in much the same way as I'd heard her sing in the mire, with no regard whatsoever for the Song around her, but now her music seemed more vibrant, more energetic, more exuberant. It seemed impossible to listen to it and not be carried away by it. And eventually it was impossible to resist joining in. I let myself sing a soft accompaniment to her melody, blocking out all the other voices in the sky and just singing with her, gaining in volume as I gained in confidence.

Soon, I was singing as loudly as I could, and she was singing even louder. It had been so long, I had almost forgotten how much I loved to sing, and how good I was at it. I had been content to let her lead and to provide her harmony, but Echobright began to pass melodies to me and bend her song to my own. And so I found us singing a private two-part Song of our very own, each oblivious to every voice but the other's.

When we stopped, we did so quite simultaneously without the slightest signal passing between us. The Song rushed in to fill the vacuum we had left, and it was with some astonishment that I realised it was singing our Song. We had sung so well that the Song had been forced to reweave itself around us. Neither of us spoke as our music spun through the air, gradually unweaving into threads of song which spread out and wove themselves into new musical fabrics until they were almost unrecognisable.

"Your leg feeling better after all that sleep?"

"Not just my leg, Echobright. I feel marvellous.Allof me! Is this cave blessed with some improbable healing powers? Or is it just that you know exactly how to hold me to soothe all my aches and strains? Either way, a few more nights' sleep likethatand I feel I could regain even my long-lost power of flight."

"And your pretty talk might just help cure my dead eyes. Describe for me what you can see right now."

The valley was spread out green and vibrant beneath our high vantage point, the reflected light of the red sun making the rivers and streams look like threads of molten gold. But I had no eye for that right then.

"Oh Echobright, if only you could see it, it's exquisite. The elegant curve of your back, the strong supple sweep of your neck, the brutal beauty of your jaw leading to the tantalising..."

"Grey-Eye! You know full well I didn't mean me. You have a devilish mind and a tongue that spits out the most trite, syrupy nonsense I've ever heard. Never, ever change."

And you, I thought. Never, ever change.

"Have you always been blind?"

"No. When I was very young my eyes were fine, but then I got sick, and the disease took my sight. I can't remember what it was like to see."

"That may be the best way. I can still remember flying vividly and it torments me. It was always just a part of life I took for granted until I lost it, and now I yearn for the feel of wind rushing under my wings."

"But you can still glide?"

"Yes, if I climb up somewhere high I can glide back down to the ground. But it means a lot of climbing for very little time in the air."

"Could you glide from here?"

I looked down. Beyond the rocky shelf where we sat, the ground dropped down almost vertically for some distance. A perfect jumping spot for a glide.

"Yes, I should be able to glide all the way down to town from here with this wind."

"Off you go then."

And quite suddenly, with a great heave she pushed me right over the edge.

I fumbled and panicked in mid-air, a falling confusion of flailing limbs, before instinct kicked in and I pulled up into a controlled glide. Once my shock had receded, I could appreciate the wind roaring under my wings, and the way the world slid by so far beneath me, and the feeling of immense, exhilarating freedom that flight afforded me. This last was illusory. My damaged right wing was stretched out to catch as much lift as it could, but it wasn't enough for true flight. I had to hold my left wing slightly retracted to avoid spinning in an unbalanced spiral, and between the two I could only stay airborne by slowly but constantly losing height. The ground, still so far below, would rise inexorably until it once again claimed me as its own, and then the only way back up to Echobright's cave would be another long, hard climb. But for now, I let myself forget this, and enjoyed the refreshingly thrilling sensations of wheeling and diving and spinning through the air whilst they lasted.

Click-click-click-click-click.I heard the rasp of Echobright's sonar close behind me and closing fast. I shouted into the roaring sky.

"Echobright! You crazy, unpredictable, outrageous, sexy thing! I'd be really angry if I wasn't having so much fun right now!"

"Shut up and watch out, I'm coming in on top of you!"

"What? What are you doing? Hey..."

What did she think she was doing now? She manoeuvred herself with impressive precision until she was flying directly over me, then dropped, closing the distance between us, probing with sonar all the while. My instincts screamed to dive down out of the way of imminent collision but I overruled them and held my course steady, trusting that she knew what she was doing, and desperately hoping that I was right to do so.

She bumped gently down onto my back, and in a moment she had her legs wrapped firmly around me, just behind my wings, gripping tightly, locking us together. With a few beats of her huge wings, sending powerful downthrusts of air whistling over me, she sent us both lunging forwards. Pulling me faster. Lifting mehigher. In an instant I realised what she was doing for me.

"Oh! This can't possibly work! But it is! We're flying! Higher! Faster!"

We went higher still, and faster. This wasn't mere gliding any more, I was flying! Well,wewere flying. But it was more than I'd ever expected to experience again. Echobright was giving me back the skies.

"Keep your wings out! I can't do this if you're dead weight."

"Sorry! Wheeee! Hey, you've stopped echolocating, how do you know where you're going?"

"I don't. You do."

Until then I hadn't realised that Echobright needed me to help her fly as much as I needed her. Echolocation only worked at short range, and could only let her fly very low over the ground: any higher and she would lose all track of where she was and be instantly lost. To fly at any reasonable altitude, she needed my eye. I could giveherthe skies.

"Oh! Right. Sorry. Left a bit. Bit more. Fine. Angle down just slightly. Let's do a flyover of the town."

We gained speed as we dropped towards the town, its confusion of white houses getting larger as the wind howled louder and louder in my ears.

"Here we go, level off, keep it straight. Wheeee! There's my home!"

I saw Fall-Of-Snow and Lens-Of-Infamy lying together on their decking and whistled a greeting; I thought I saw Infamy wave back, but I wasn't sure, and in a moment they were out of sight. I whipped my head left and right, eagerly soaking in the sight of the familiar streets from the best possible angle.

"This is amazing, I'd forgotten flying was so much..."

I chanced to look back straight in front of us, and saw a line of tall trees oncoming at some speed.

"...up, up, pull up! NOW!"

Echobright pulled sharply upwards, less than nimble with me underneath, and the topmost branches just brushed my belly. She shouted down at me harshly.

"Pay attention or you'll kill us both!"

"Sorry! Oh, damn it. Three old friends on intercept course."

Three winged figures had flapped up from the rooftops and were headed straight for us.

"Who?"

"Disdain, disgust and pity."

Cloud-Splitter fell into formation just behind us, the usual two companions at her tail. There was a smirk on her face and another smirk in her voice.

"Oh now what is this? The cripple leading the blindandthe blind carrying the cripple? This is justadorable!"

I felt Echobright's body tense at the sound of her voice.

"Go find another patch of sky, Cloud-Splitter, or I'll have my mate steer us right at you. We've both got quite a bite, remember?"

Mate. She just said "my mate". I glowed inside.

"Hey, if you two are going to perform this circus act in broad daylight, don't complain if you get an audience."

I intervened before Echobright had time to either make another threat, or act on the first one.

"Come on Echobright, we don't mind people watching us, do we? In fact, Cloud-Splitter, why don't you go fetchyourmate and he can watch as well?"

Cloud-Splitter stared at me as though I'd bitten her again. Without another word she turned her bandaged tail to me and flew away. I felt Echobright laughing silently before Cloud-Splitter's two shadows edged closer to us and addressed us nervously.

"Hey, sorry about her."

"And congratulations. I think you're kind of cute together."

Echobright shook her head in disgust.

"Piss off the pair of you."

They wheeled away after Cloud-Splitter, leaving us alone in the air once again.

"You really hit a sore spot. How did you know she's never been able to find a mate?"

"I just guessed. I can't really imagine anyone being that desperate."

We flew on, me directing Echobright but not going anywhere in particular.

"Where are we?"

I remembered that she'd asked me to describe the view earlier, and I had passed it by in favour of an opportunity to flirt. It seemed a good moment to make up for it.