Conditioning

The air whips past her tiny frame, the ground below her approaching at speed. Desperately, she claws up at the clouds, as if their cotton appearance could manifest as handholds. The rushing wind howls in her ears, her flyaway hair framing her face stings as it flits back and forth. Her shoulder blades twist into the starting nubs of wings, her fear of falling overriding her fear of failure for just a moment. Still, despite the overwhelming dread, she holds fast to her resolve. The pain of falling pales in comparison to the thought of having to go through this ordeal again. She would not fold this time. She would not try to escape her punishment. She would face it, and she would endure it. She closes her eyes and braces herself for the pain to bloom across her now well-bruised back.

Osthryn sits bolt upright in her bed, her chest heaving with shaky breaths. Her chemise is soaked through with sweat, and hot tears run unchecked down her cheeks. Her hands grip the sheets beneath her like linen handholds that would save her from plummeting down a cliff face. With some more deep breaths, she orients herself: she is not at the base of Devil’s Peak cliff in the Bettramon Mountains. She is not going to be taken back to the top and thrown off again for trying to break her own fall.

Osthryn’s breathing slows, and she presses her palms against her eyes. She listens for any noise that would hint at her disturbing her hosts, but the house meets her with perfect quiet. Relieved that she didn’t call out in her dream, Osthryn gets up and makes her way to the washbasin. Sleep is a goal better abandoned when she is awoken like this, and she resolves to get herself ready for the day and wait for the first morning light.

It has been three hundred years since the last time the elder Dragons tested her, but to this day a faint sting blooms across her back whenever she looks down from any height. That their conditioning still holds all these centuries later is a testament to its effectiveness, however bitter she is to admit it. She only wishes the memory of it would refrain from repeating itself in her dreams so often.

It feels like no time had passed at all before the first light of the suns peek through the shutters of her bedroom window. Osthryn takes it as a signal that she could now seek out the teakettle in the kitchen without disturbing Oswald and Martina. Lacing up her boots, straightening her kirtle, and ensuring her braid is arranged correctly in the mirror, she steps out into the common-room. Her passage to the kitchen is uninterrupted, and she finds Martina already at the teakettle.

Martina greets her with a warm, sympathetic smile, and Osthryn returns it with a sneaking suspicion that her night terrors might not have been as under-cover as she had hoped.