Fun
The Low-Key guild's ship sat waiting at the shoreline, considerably improved from the vessel that had first landed eleven days earlier, hull reinforced, boiler efficiency upgraded, several golem-assisted modifications woven into the design during the brief window before the situation had turned. It was large, sturdy, and, crucially, big enough to house everyone.
Everyone except Thoth.
"...He won't fit belowdecks," Nettle said, studying the newly rebuilt frame, long body, folded wings, a wingspan that made the ship's cargo hold look laughably inadequate. "Not even close."
"He doesn't need to," Arista said, watching Thoth stretch his wings experimentally at the shoreline, cloud material catching the late afternoon light. "He's got wings now. Actual, proper wings. This is exactly what they're for."
Thoth's dish turned toward her, processing. "...You intend for me to fly alongside the vessel. Unassisted."
"I intend for you to test whether you actually can, before we're relying on it as our only option," Arista said. "No pressure. Just: see what your new body does."
He considered that for a moment, then, without further hesitation, extended both wings fully and beat them once, hard, testing the resistance of the air against cloud material built specifically to cooperate with force rather than fight it.
He lifted.
Slowly at first, the unfamiliar mechanics of flight clearly still settling into whatever processing framework now governed his newly rebuilt body, a slight wobble, an overcorrection, wings catching air unevenly before he found the rhythm his frame actually wanted.
Then, abruptly, he found it.
Speed built fast, faster than any of them expected, Thoth's long body arcing upward in a clean, sweeping climb that left the shoreline shrinking rapidly beneath him, wings beating with increasing confidence, adjusting in real time to weight distribution and lift and the specific, cooperative flex of his own cloud-material wingspan.
"...Oh," Colm breathed, watching from the ship's deck, spyglass forgotten entirely in his hand. "He's fast."
"He's adjusting," Claire said, tracking the flight pattern with professional fascination. "Look at the wing angle, he's correcting his own aerodynamics in real time, faster than I'd expect from a first flight."
Thoth banked in a wide, sweeping arc above the ship, circling once, twice, gaining confidence and speed with each pass, until he leveled out alongside the vessel's bow at a steady, controlled altitude, wings beating in smooth, practiced rhythm as though he'd been flying his entire existence rather than mere minutes.
"...Report," Arista called up, grinning despite everything, despite the exile hanging heavy behind them, despite the entire weight of what they'd left behind.
"Flight is... acceptable," Thoth's voice carried down, resonant and strong through the amplified core, something unmistakably like joy threading through the flat, careful precision. "Correction. Flight is exhilarating."
Bram let out a short, surprised laugh. "...There it is. There's the emotion."
"I do not fully understand the sensation," Thoth admitted, banking gently to keep pace with the ship's steady progress out to open water. "But I find I do not wish it to stop."
Arista watched him soar alongside the departing vessel, wings catching the wind with growing, confident ease, carrying an entire unclaimed world of exploration ahead of him despite the civilization that had just cast him out for daring to become it.
"...Neither do I," she said quietly, mostly to herself, watching the golem city shrink behind them on the horizon, exile and consequence and everything else fading slowly into the distance beneath Thoth's steadily beating wings.
"Let's go home," she said, louder now, to the whole crew. "We've got a lot to figure out."
Thoth banked closer to the ship's railing, wings adjusting smoothly to match the vessel's speed, dish rotating toward Arista where she stood watching him from the deck.
"Creator. Would you like to ride on my back?"
Arista blinked, caught off guard by the sudden, unprompted offer. "...Ride?"
"I analyzed the request parameters," Thoth continued, matching pace effortlessly alongside the ship's bow. "Your species demonstrates elevated positive response indicators when engaging in activities involving controlled risk, novel sensation, and unnecessary physical exertion absent survival requirement." A brief pause, processing. "I believe the correct classification for this experience would be... fun."
Arista stared at him for a long moment, something warm and delighted spreading through her chest despite the exhaustion of exile still hanging heavy behind them.
"...You calculated that flying me around would be fun."
"I calculated that it would satisfy the parameters commonly associated with the concept," Thoth corrected, precise even now. "Whether it is actually fun remains dependent on subjective experience I cannot fully model. Direct observation would resolve the uncertainty."
Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Bram, leaning against the railing nearby, snorted. "...He's basically asking to run an experiment."
"He absolutely is," Arista said, grinning, already climbing up onto the railing without a single moment's hesitation. "And I am absolutely willing to be the test subject."
"Some things never change," Nettle called out, though she was smiling too, watching with open fondness.
Thoth angled closer, wings adjusting with careful, deliberate precision to bring his back within safe reach of the railing, and Arista swung herself across, settling onto the space just behind his shoulders, gripping the ridged plating along his spine with practiced confidence.
"Ready?" she called down to the ship, mostly out of habit.
"You're already in the air," Claire pointed out. "A little late for that question."
"Details." Arista turned her attention forward, toward the open sky and the endless stretch of ocean ahead. "Okay, Thoth. Show me what fun feels like."
Thoth beat his wings once, hard, and climbed.
The sensation hit her immediately, wind tearing past, the ship shrinking rapidly below, the specific, exhilarating rush of speed and altitude that no glider, no wingsuit, no carefully engineered machine had ever quite delivered in the same raw, unfiltered way. Thoth banked smoothly, adjusting his flight path with increasing confidence, clearly running his own internal calculations on exactly how much thrill his passenger could handle without exceeding whatever safety parameters he'd quietly set for himself.
"...OKAY," Arista shouted, laughing, gripping tight as the wind whipped past. "This is genuinely incredible!"
"Query," Thoth called back, voice steady despite the speed. "Confirm classification. Is this fun?"
"YES! Absolutely, unquestionably, one hundred percent fun!"
A brief pause, processing, and then, unmistakably, something that sounded almost like satisfaction threaded through his usual flat precision.
"...Hypothesis confirmed."
Arista laughed again, leaning into the wind, watching the ship below continue its steady path across open water while she soared above it on the back of a dragon who, eleven days ago, had been lying half-dismantled in a scrap heap, quietly waiting to stop existing.
"...Thoth."
"Yes, Creator?"
"Thank you. For trying this. For being brave enough to actually want something, instead of just calculating what was efficient."
Another pause, longer this time, genuine consideration rather than simple processing.
"...You are welcome," he said finally. "I find I want a great many things now. This experience has proven a useful starting point for cataloguing them."
Arista grinned, holding tight as they banked together through the open sky, exile and consequence fading further behind them with every passing mile, replaced instead by something considerably lighter, genuine, uncomplicated joy, shared between a demon blacksmith and a dragon who was only just beginning to learn what living, rather than merely functioning, actually felt like.
Thoth banked back toward the ship, wings adjusting smoothly, and Arista swung herself down off his back and onto the railing, then dropped lightly to the deck, legs still faintly unsteady from the exhilaration of the flight.
"Thoth... could you pick up Bram with your legs?"
Thoth's dish rotated, processing.
"Clarify objective."
"I want to know if Bram would consider it fun."
A pause.
"I lack sufficient observational data."
"Then we test it," Arista said, grinning.
Bram, catching the tail end of the conversation just a fraction too late, went very still.
"...Absolutely not."
Thoth, entirely, earnestly serious, banked gently back toward the ship's deck. "Counterpoint. The previous hypothesis regarding aerial transport produced a positive outcome."
"Exactly," Arista said, delighted.
Bram had already begun backing away, hands raised. "Why am I always the control group?"
Thoth's dish turned toward him with unhurried, deliberate focus. "Creator has suggested a new experiment."
"I reject the experiment."
"Rejection noted." A brief, processing pause. "However. Creator outranks you."
"That's not, that's not how any of this works, Thoth, she doesn't actually outrank—"
Thoth's claws closed gently, almost apologetically, around Bram's shoulders before he'd finished the sentence, and lifted him clean off the deck with the same smooth, careful precision he'd used adjusting his own flight path minutes earlier, firm enough to hold, gentle enough not to bruise.
"THOTH—"
"Hypothesis testing has commenced," Thoth reported, climbing steadily, wholly unmoved by Bram's increasingly creative protests.
"I HAVE BEEN EATEN BY A HYDRA. I HAVE FALLEN OUT OF A GLIDER. I HAVE BEEN LAUNCHED FROM A CATAPULT NINE SEPARATE TIMES. I DID NOT SIGN UP TO ALSO BE ABDUCTED BY A DRAGON—"
"Query," Thoth called down toward Arista, banking smoothly with his passenger dangling, safely, if indignantly, from his claws. "Subject's vocalizations suggest distress. Should I discontinue?"
"Ask him directly!" Arista called back, laughing so hard she could barely get the words out.
Thoth's dish rotated toward Bram. "Subject. Please rate current experience on a scale of terror to enjoyment."
Bram, wind whipping past, ship shrinking steadily below him, was quiet for a long, suspended moment.
"...I hate that it's not entirely terror," he admitted finally, grudging.
"Clarify."
"It's, okay, fine, it's a little fun. A very small, extremely reluctant amount of fun. I want that on record as the absolute minimum acceptable threshold."
"Noted," Thoth said, something in his tone unmistakably, mechanically pleased. "Hypothesis partially confirmed."
Nettle, watching from the deck, called up cheerfully. "Bram, you've officially become a load-bearing data point in dragon-based fun research!"
"I would like everyone to know," Bram shouted back, wind tearing at his voice, "that I did not consent to this specific study!"
"Consent was implied by prior participation pattern," Thoth said, banking gently back toward the ship, beginning his careful, controlled descent. "Statistical precedent strongly favors continued cooperation."
"That is not how consent works!"
"Noted," Thoth said again, entirely unbothered, lowering Bram with exquisite care back onto the deck the moment they reached it, claws releasing gently the instant his feet found solid footing.
Bram stood there a moment, breathing hard, adrenaline and grudging exhilaration both fighting for control of his expression.
"...I hate all of you," he said finally, to the assembled, delighted crew.
"You're smiling," Claire pointed out.
"I am not."
"You are extremely smiling," Nettle confirmed.
Bram opened his mouth to argue further, found he genuinely didn't have the energy to deny it convincingly, and simply sat down hard on the deck instead, letting out a long, exhausted, thoroughly amused breath.
Thoth fell back into a steady glide alongside the ship once more, wings adjusting smoothly to match its pace, dish rotating toward Arista with what might, in a being capable of true satisfaction, have been quiet pride.
"...Experiment successful," he reported.
"Extremely successful," Arista agreed, grinning, watching Bram's traitorous, lingering smile refuse to fully disappear. "Welcome to the team properly, Thoth. I think you're going to fit right in."