Azurehaven's cliff wore the Aerie like jewelry—rings of platforms bolted into stone, ladders and winches and slinglines, bronze bells bumping each other in the wind. Below, the world went blue forever. Above, rope bridges creaked in a language of knots and old bets.
Goose arrived to shouts, the good kind—work shouts, not panic. A sky-serpent had wedged itself half on, half off the lip of a loading ramp. Young, by the jitter in its coils; long as two carts, broad as a river oar. Its scales were the color of rain on slate. One wing-fin hung at a wrong angle, membrane cut where a storm had argued with geography. Every thrash shoved its mass closer to the drop.
Handlers had lines on it—three teams, two anchors, one prayer. "Ease—ease—PULL—hold—HOLD—" The cadence tangled. A woman braced in a harness spat hair from her mouth and swore at gravity like an acquaintance.
Freedom hissed once, short and intent. He leapt to Goose's forearm and then to the rail, head cocked. The hatchling's throat lit with a dim, steady glow—no fire, just warmth tuned to a purpose.
"Badge," a foreman barked without looking.
Goose clipped the brass to his belt. "We're here to help," he said.
"You and the whisper?" The foreman cut a glare toward Freedom, saw the eyes, and downgraded him to Dragon With Opinions. "Fine. We need the rhythm back. If it thrashes on the haul, we lose the fin. If we lose the fin, we lose the beast."
"On your call," Goose said.
He stepped into the blast of wind, set the drum at his hip, and touched the rail with his free hand. The cliff had a tone. The slinglines had another. The serpent's heart pounded wrong—too fast, then stalling on every third beat as pain stole its math.
He started low.
dum—dum— a steady base for the rope crews to breathe against. He didn't shout counts; the drum did the talking. He folded the bridge's faint hum into his pulse and let Hold-Fast seep into the deck boards—just enough poise to stop knees from lying. Freedom added his own note—a soft, resonant hrrr, the "calm" hum he'd used on Goose's pulse when the world tilted. The serpent's head lifted, nostrils flaring.
"On my down, breathe and haul. On my lift, ease," Goose called. "Not words—listen."
He laid three taps—tak—tak—tak—and on the dum the teams pulled as one. The winch complained. The serpent bucked. Goose slid Unseen Step under the rope squads a breath at a time; the floor took their footfalls, their panic had nowhere to echo. He gave back only what they needed—weight on the pull, quiet on the ease.
"Good," the foreman grunted. "Again."
The wind gusted sideways, ugly. The serpent panicked, tail whipping. A sling post sang; a knot shrieked.
"Hold," Goose said, not shouting now. He altered the pulse—dum—dum—dum-dum—and twisted the last beat sideways, matching the wind's spite so the rope crews leaned before the gust hit them. The thrash missed the line by inches. The serpent's eye—round and wrong, beautiful like a coin under water—blinked.
"Don't look at me," Goose told it softly. "Look at him."
Freedom stepped to the edge of the rail like a conductor with more history than baton. He opened his mouth and sang.
It wasn't a song so much as a frequency with manners. A long, even tone that found the serpent's tremor and offered it a steadier one. The hatchling's glow warmed a degree. Air smelled like distant rain on warm rock.
The serpent's frantic shiver eased.
A runner arrived with spare straps and quiet eyes. Housecarl angles. Goose recognized the ears first—slightly tapered, the kind artists always overdo—and then the gaze that doesn't blink when distance stares back.
But wait…how did he recognize…
"I'm Bran," the housecarl said, a little breathless from the steps, more from the sight of Freedom on the rail. His hand went to his chest in a gesture he hadn't trained, then stopped, embarrassed by muscles with better memory than manners. "Handler volunteer. I can anchor flank if you'll set me."
"Anchor there," the foreman snapped, jerking a thumb to a post. "You, housecarl—watch the space on your line. It'll lie."
Bran took the coil and didn't argue. He slid into a harness with the lack of drama one only gets from years of doing dangerous things carefully. The rope in his hands behaved. Freedom glanced back, pupils wide, pupils slit, indecisive on how to categorize a friend he knew before names.
"On the call," Goose said.
He layered the rhythm. Base for the pull. A side pattern for the riggers—tak-tak-shh for the lock, dum for the brace. He listened for the serpent's heartbeat—there, too fast again—and threaded a low counter between pulses until the body remembered how to keep time. He stole the rookies' panic with Unseen Step and returned quiet in its place.
"Now," he said, and everyone moved like a thought.
The serpent slid a handspan up the ramp and then two. The damaged fin caught and rasped a sound that made even the rope fibers want to flinch. Goose let his drum fill that gap, not louder, but present, a kindness over grit.
"Stop," Bran said from the flank. No bark—warning. "Anchor two—your line's kissing the edge."
The anchor crew checked. They couldn't see it; Bran could. Housecarls see space like others see color. They shifted a single foot of rope and a future tragedy did not happen.
"Good eye," the foreman said, and meant thank you with the same breath as do it again.
"Again," Goose said, and gave them the downbeat.
The serpent fought itself, then listened. Freedom held the note. Goose held the crews. He borrowed the wind on the worst gusts, returning it as lift when it could help and as a lie when it would hurt. He felt the floor begin to trust him. It isn't mysticism—it's craft: wood answers hands that know what to ask.
They got the head onto the platform. That was the miracle part. The rest was medicine.
"Splint," Goose said, and the healer team slid in like a hand under a falling cup. "Don't touch the fin yet. Let the song work."
He shifted the pattern once more, this time for the snake alone: dum— —dum, staying the panic, giving it a place to put pain. He kept the crews breathing to it without them knowing he was stealing their lungs for borrowed calm. The serpent's eye slitted, not in anger—information.
"I've got the near-joint," a healer said, palms pressed to membrane. "It'll take a seal. Not the big burn; she's young."
"On your breath," Goose said.
He felt her inhale and timed the crew's ease to her press. The seal set with a sigh like a page turning.
Three more beats. One more pull. The tail came free with a wet, mean pop. The serpent went still in that total way animals do when the pain has a name again.
"Done," the foreman said, voice gone soft in relief. He patted the post like a horse. "We're done. Stand down slow. Don't spook her."
Ropes loosened by inches. A handler climbed the ramp with a cloth soaked in bitter herb and respect. The serpent's tongue tasted the air, the cloth, the boy's fear. It did not bite him.
Freedom's note lowered, then wound itself into a contented hrr that vibrated the rail.
The Aerie exhaled. Bells bumped each other like tired friends.
A pane of text blinked, genuinely pleased for once:
[System]
Aerie of Scales — Rescue Complete!
Contribution: Significant (Rhythm Conductor / Calm Aura)
Reward: Drakefeather Mantle (Spirit • Green)
Trait: Glide (short), Shock Dampening (wind & impact)
A handler pressed a folded cloak into Goose's hands—feather-light, dark with a teal iridescence when the sun had an opinion. He opened it; the mantle rippled like a thing built to forgive mistakes.
"Wear it," the foreman said. "You earned it twice. And tell your… supervisor he can sing on my deck anytime."
Freedom fluffed to his absolute full three additional millimeters and accepted the praise as his due.
Bran unhooked, coiled his line, and came over with a hesitance that didn't match his eyes. Up close, Goose caught the faint, clean scent certain old families carry—lawful sea and old maps. He didn't put words to it.
"You heard the wind turn before it turned," Bran said. Not praise. Observation. "And your dragon—"
"Freedom," Goose said. He thought a bit and then added, "He also likes to be referred to as a whisper."
"Freedom's whisper sang the old note." Bran's mouth softened. "We haven't heard it on this side of the cliff in a long time."
"Old note?" Goose asked.
Bran's eyes went a little far, as if reading something that hadn't been inked on a wall. "The first dragons taught the housecarls to fold space on rope. Their voices bent the lines, not the other way around. The song is how we knew when to throw and when to haul. Our… practice forgot it. Practice forgets a lot when you survive too long."
Freedom leaned toward him, intent. He tasted the air near Bran's wrist and made a soft, shocked peep that sounded like recognition and indignation in equal measure.
"You feel it too?" Bran asked, and laughed, startled at himself. "Right. I'm not mad. Just… relieved."
He held out his hand to Freedom first—good manners. Freedom bumped it with his forehead, then bit it very gently in a ceremonial way and let go. The spot he'd mouthed warmed, a tiny spark of nothing the Housecarl probably wouldn't notice until later when a knot came easier than it should.
"I'm Goose," Goose said, late to his own introduction.
"Bran Kestrel." He hesitated. "Of the… rope house no one remembers correctly. My grandmother called us space-tenders when she told stories. My father calls us dockhands when he pays bills. I—"
He checked himself and gave a quick, honest smile, "I'd like to train with you sometime. Not… teach. Train. I have tricks. You have ears. The Aerie needs both."
"Anytime I'm not dead," Goose said.
It was becoming a policy.
"Even-days," Bran said. "Dawn. The rope-house by the lower docks. Bring gloves."
"Make me," Goose said, but he nodded. "I'll come."
The serpent, newly splinted and insulted by pain, gathered itself and slid off the ramp with a grumble. It didn't fly. It swam the air just above the drop, body long and sure, wing-fin stiff. It cast one brief, black-coin glance up at Freedom as it passed. Something like thanks moved through the air. It went away into the bright.
The foreman clapped Goose's shoulder.
"Don't make me request you twice," she said. "And don't let that one" —she jerked her chin at Freedom— "eat the bell ropes, no matter how politely he asks."
Freedom pretended not to understand Common when it lacked compliments.
The platform cleared. Ropes were coiled, seals checked, and winches kissed. Bran lingered just long enough to look at Freedom again, to look at Goose again, to file both under impossible and here, and jogged for the ladders.
Goose fastened the Drakefeather Mantle across his shoulders. It seated itself with a soft cling, as if remembering a back it had liked in another century. He leaned into the wind and felt it catch, a promise—not flight, but not falling either.
"Try it later," the foreman warned, reading his weight shift. "We've already saved a sky-serpent. Don't make me save a drummer."
"Understood," Goose said.
He meant to leave. He didn't.
Because the Dream Codex warmed against his ribs.
He drew it without thinking. The cover—woven light, Oryn's sarcasm and all—fluttered like a breath. New ink bled into old page:
[Thread Trial Unlocked: Nameless Mercy]
Reason:You chose restraint over rupture.
Site:To be revealed.
Thread Boon (Potential): Gentle Hand
Freedom put his head in the crook of Goose's neck and made a contented rr people mistake for purring until they look at teeth. The mantle's edge tickled his wrists like a cat refusing to admit it was affectionate.
"Not today," Goose told the Codex gently. "Soon."
The page held its breath like a friend who understood.
The foreman was already yelling at somebody for cleaning with the wrong oil. Bells clinked. A gull cursed in a dialect no one admitted to knowing. The wind changed a hair, and the mantle sighed, accommodating.
"Go get shouted at by a librarian," the foreman said over her shoulder as if she'd read Oryn's name from Goose's face. "If you're going to be useful, you might as well know why."
"Plan," Goose said.
He turned to go. Freedom glanced back at the cliff once, put a tiny paw on the mantle clasp like a claim, and then settled.
On the lift down, the operator leaned against the lever and eyed Goose without moving his head. "You the boy with the bridge drum and the dragon that sings?"
"Occasionally," Goose said.
"Good," the operator said. "We like occasional. Always is bad luck."
The lift took them to the terrace. Goose stepped off into the city's afternoon, the mantle breathing light over his shoulders, the Codex warm at his ribs, a dragon humming old notes at his ear.
The aqueduct under the Scriptorium was already counting four.