On the tray was a strip of flimsy and written on it were the following words: “Dress, eat, and come outside. I’ll be waiting—Han.”
Bria read the note, raised her eyebrows, then went off to do as it said.
Her curiosity was so strong that it even muted the constant craving for the Exultation. Sometimes the longings came in waves so intense that she felt that she might go mad. But as the days passed, such occurrences were rarer.
Bria prayed to all the true gods of the universe that someday they would cease altogether.
When she reached the courtyard outside the building where they’d been quartered, Bria found Han waiting for her. He was sitting astride a mosgoth, with a pack and a blanket strapped behind the saddle. As she stood there uncertainly, he leaned down and held out a hand. “C’mon!
Climb up!”
She stared from him to the mosgoth, to the open reaches of the Togorian sky. “You want me to fly with you on this … creature?” she asked. To fly in a spaceship, or aboard a landskimmer, was one thing.
To climb aboard a huge reptile and soar off into the sky seemed quite another.
“Sure!” Han leaned over to pat the neck of his mount. “This is Kaydiss, and she’s a real sweetie, aren’t you, girl?”
The mosgoth arched her sinewy neck and flicked out a long, forked tongue, obviously enjoying the caress.
Bria took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. After all, she thought, the worst that can happen is that we’ll fall out of the sky and get killed.
Then I wouldn’t have to worry about the Exultation anymore, would I?
Grasping his hand, she put a foot up onto the beast’s leg, which it obligingly crooked to help her mount. With a pull and a scramble, she was up, sitting before Han. His arms were around her, as secure as a safety harness. Bria gasped, then shut her eyes as he clucked to Kaydiss and twitched the reins.
With two huge leaping strides and a thrust of the mosgoth’s powerful wings, Han and Bria were airborne and climbing steadily. Bria opened her eyes to find herself high above the tops of the buildings. The wind rushed by her face, blowing her hair, bringing tears to her eyes.
“Oh!” she cried. “Han, this is wonderful!”
“Yep,” he said, a pardonable note of smugness in his voice. “And just wait till you see where I’m taking you.”
Bria held the front of the saddle (with the two of them squeezed together, she wasn’t too worried about falling off) and exulted in the feeling of really flying.
Forests and rivers flowed by beneath them. Bria stared down at the fields, the towns, and the lakes, grinning ecstatically. She hadn’t felt this good since … well, since her last Exultation.
But even the Exultation seemed to have lost its power over her, for the moment. Leaning forward, Bria opened her mouth, drinking in the wind of their passage. She wanted to wave her arms and whoop aloud, but she resisted, not wanting to chance unbalancing the mosgoth.
“Won’t it tire her out, carrying double?” she shouted back at Han.
His voice came almost in her ear. She could feel the warmth of his breath.
“She’s used to carrying male Togorians. You and me together don’t weigh as much as Muuurgh–or even some of the smaller males. Kaydiss is fine.”
Half an hour later, the broad river they’d been following widened, until it branched into a large delta. Han turned the mosgoth north, and then, within a few more minutes, Bria saw the curling white breakers breaking over silvery-gold sand.
She turned to give Han an excited smile. “The beach!”
“I promised myself that someday we’d go to a real beach,” he said.
“One where we could swim, and not worry about getting eaten.”
He was guiding the mosgoth lower and lower now, and finally, she came to a halt on the sand. Han slipped on her wing hobble, then left her to forage for herself in the nearby salt marsh. He returned, carrying the blanket and their lunch.
“Swim first,” he asked, “or food first?”
Bria looked at the white surf and felt the tug of the water. Her family owned a beach house on Corellia, and she’d loved to swim ever since she’d been old enough to walk. “Swim,” she said.
Glad that she’d worn a one-piece singlet beneath her shirt and trousers, Bria pulled off her outer clothes and raced into the water.
Han, having stripped down to his shorts, followed her.
She soon found that, to her surprise, he couldn’t swim.
“Never got the chance to learn,” he admitted, a little embarrassed. “I was always working, and when I wasn’t actually working, I was swoop racing or something. I told you, the beach on Ylesia was the first time I’d ever seen a lot of water all together.”