Mom and dad stood in front of me with their heads held high. Mom looked like she wanted to cry, but dad was watching me with pride in his eyes.

They truly are proud of me...

I was dumbfounded. Honestly, I was. Never in all my lives had anyone ever been proud of me.

"I'll see you soon." I said.

"Of course," My father snorted.

"Be careful out there."

"Yeah yeah, enough with the sappy stuff already. I'll watch out for the squirt." Gri said confidently.

Our parents looked at each other, then nodded their heads. "Look out for him, Rage. You know how Gridar can get."

"Hey! I'm the older brother! I should be looking after him!" Gri protested.

"Somehow, I don't think they'd trust you to watch over a pot of boiling water, Gri." Kali said offhandedly. She was one of only two siblings that bothered to come see us off. The other being our only other sister, Shali. Our brothers opted to send their regards with mom and dad, while they began their new jobs inside the relative safety of the nest.

"Hey, I'm—"

"We'll look out for each other." I agreed to stop any further protests from Gri.

"You do that." Kali snorted.

"Kali, you're being rude." Shali scolded.

Kali and Shali were polar opposites of each other in terms of personality, even though they looked almost identical. In fact, the only way to truly tell them apart as long as they weren't speaking, was to look at their eyes. Kali's eyes were black while Shali's eyes are golden-brown.

"Just you wait, mean-chick. I'll come back a hero and you'll eat those words." Gri said as he stared down Kali.

...

"Okay, I'll tell you what. You come back a hero and I'll never make fun of you, or your stupid face again." She replied.

"Puh-lease, mean-chick. You can't go ten minutes without insulting someone."

"Actually, I think the only she actively tries to insult is you..."

I sighed out loud. I stepped up to Shali and wrapped my wings around her first, then Kali, then mom and dad. After stepping back to allow Gri to do the same, I bobbed my head.

"Wish us luck."

"You don't need luck, Rage," Dad said.

...

"Well, I'd appreciate some, all the same."

"Good luck, Rage, Gridar." Mom said after thwacking dad with her wing.

"Thanks, Ma." Gri replied with a puffed out chest. He tossed one more glare at Kali, then marched over to the other cadets.

"Thank you..." I bobbed my head.

"Rage," Dad called. "If you ever find yourself in serious trouble and you don't know what to do... Call out for *Father, okay?"

...

I nodded my head.

I heard the thwack of my mom's wing on dad's head as I walked away.

"Why'd you tell him that? What do you think calling out for you is going to do, huh?" I heard her whisper.

I couldn't hear the rest of the conversation since I'd gotten too far away, but even so, I learned something... Mom didn't know Dad was religious? Why didn't he tell her?

"Hello, cadets." A deep voice called.

I snapped out of my thoughts and began looking around. At some point, I'd found Sonny and was standing next to him in our travel formation. The cadets were lined five abreast and six deep, with Sony and I at the back of the third and fourth lines, respectively. The few non-flying members of our group were standing on mats woven from vines, sticks, and leaves. The basic idea was the three non-flying members would be carried on a rotating basis, and at each stop, a new team would take over.

Of course, I'd volunteered to carry Sonny on the first shift... but my offer was declined. Something about him not wanting to crash and die in the first five minutes of the mission. And to my surprise, Gri wasn't one of the flyers. Guess he'd spent all his points on size upgrades...

"Everyone ready?" C.R asked from the front of the group.

Truthfully, it wasn't easy to see his small form from the back of the line, but his voice somehow came through loud and clear.

"Yes!" we replied in unison, as we'd been trained to do.

"Excellent. Move out."

The carrier teams grabbed the wooden handles on the sides of the mats with their beaks, then began running forward. Upon reaching the end of platform eight, they leaped off the edge and began flapping their wings furiously as they took to the skies. I looked back at my family one last time, Mom was staring after us with a tired look in her eyes, dad was watching us intently with no discernable emotion on his face, and the girls were nowhere to be seen.

I sighed.

"Suppose that's fair."

I took a deep breath to steady myself, then raced after the group. Memories of the week I'd spent learning to fly flowed through my mind as I caught up to the last bird in line and leaped from the branch...I soared gracelessly through the air with my wings tucked in close to my body... Then, I spread my wings and caught an updraft. The wind filled every inch of my wings as I pushed down, the first flap pushed me out of my dive. The second flap helped stabilize me. The third flap pushed me onwards as I flew with all my might to catch up to the group. Every flap of my wings caused panic to flood my nerves as thoughts of plummeting to my death ran through my mind... But fly on, I did. All the practice I'd had with dad allowed me to stay airborne.

I still flew with all the grace of rock fired from a catapult... But hey, at least I was in the air.

"You look nervous!" One of the birds carrying Sonny said after I'd returned to the formation.

"Little bit!" I agreed.

"Don't be! C.R knows what he's doing!"

"That wasn't at all what I was worried about..."

...

"Okay!" I replied as confidently as I could manage.

"Cogi is right!" The other member of Sonny's carrier team said. "We've been apart of C.R's team for two years. Haven't had a problem, yet!"

"Yeah, what he said!" The first bird, Cogi, agreed. "I bet our trip will be completely boring, and we'll be wishing for some action by the time it's over!" He laughed.

It was at this moment that I was reminded of an old saying... A favorite of the Knight I served.

"He who tempts fate should be prepared for fate to take the bait."

...

I could only hope he was wrong, and this trip would be uneventful.