*POUNCE!* (Rhi-Rhi~)

[Anonymous]

There was nothing more enjoyable to Ife than the feeling of her hair whipping about behind her as Fifi tore through the air, slipping in between buildings as she navigated the city at a speed far greater than what was safe. Fifi tended to crash, quite a lot actually, causing what was usually rather minor damage to some buildings, but no matter how much the other dragons punished her neither they nor Ife could dissuade her from attempting to go faster.

Ife loved it more than anything. Well, anything other than Fifi herself.

She clung to the giant reptiles back, gripping a pair of handles that extended from her neck while she was securely held by the beasts mental power. They wove through the city, heading back towards the gleaming jewel in Haviah's crown, the pilot's Citadel.

As they skimmed the top of a building Ife reached out with her mind to brush against her dragon's.

"Fifi my love, why are we going home so soon?"

"To visit Siren!" came the dragon's excited reply, her voice sounding like a teenage girl.

Fifi dipped low as the Citadel approached, pitching suddenly upwards and propelling herself up the side of the building with powerful wing beats. She twisted at she reached the top, flinging herself through one of the many wide openings into the dragon eyries.

Siren was in sight, her eyes narrowed and teeth bared, Ife hanging on for dear life while her mouth twisted into a gleeful grin.

Her wings were tucked and her fore claws outstretched as the mass of dragon flesh collided with her larger brother. Ife was psychically tossed off her dragons back to land gracefully on the floor while Fifi and Siren became a mass of scales and metal.

Ife didn't bother to pat herself down, her pink ruffled skirt not needing to be straightened. The skirt fell down to her ankles, just showing her bare feet. A strip of black fabric wrapped around her chest, stopping just above her naval.

She looked around, smiling and hoping Gabriel was somewhere nearby.

[Rhi-Rhi]

A lot of the Pilots headed over to the lead rooms when they needed to escape from it all, but Gabriel found that place eerie. There was nothing soothing about it. It was where suspects were interrogated, where the Axis Point was located. It was too quiet, too confined. It made him think 'tomb', because that's what death must be like--cold, utterly silent, cramped...ugh, maybe it was just his imagination, but he supposed it was because his mind had never been silent. Even when he was a kid he was always picking up on stray thoughts that weren't his own; being blocked out and alone with only his thoughts felt like being cut off from the rest of the world.

He didn't crave peace and quiet. He didn't want to be alone.

Instead, he went to the eyries to visit Siren. True, he could have talked to the dragon whenever he wanted, connected mind-to-mind as they were, but while that sort of communication was convenient he didn't like the distance. And talking to Siren, being around Siren, was different from being around regular people. He could talk to Alaric and Roman about anything, or almost anything, but Siren knew things about him that even they didn't--that even he didn't--and he could always expect objectivity from the dragon.

Friends were for comfort--comfort he was hesitant in seeking--but Siren was for perspective. And, well, he guessed comfort, too. He never felt bad venting to him; he guessed it was kind of like how some people talked at their dogs. Not that he was comparing a dragon to a dog...but the sentiment was the same. Dragons didn't judge. Human issues were so infinitesimal to them.

It was refreshing. He didn't have to pretend.

Gabriel found Siren stretched out on the floor, sunlight glinting off the metal plates on his body and making his white scales look almost iridescent. As he approached, Siren lifted his head and stretched his long neck forward until he could nuzzle Gabriel's hair in greeting, snuffling and flattening down all his spikes. Gabriel gave a half-hearted laugh and pushed his muzzle away. "Hey, hey, stop that, you're messing it up!"

"I was making it better."

"Ha ha, funny. You know how long that takes?"

"Five seconds?"

"Two minutes after drying, thank you," Gabriel said, ruffling the back of his hair to fix it. "Two whole minutes I'll never get back, just because I wanted to look pretty for you." Siren made a sound that was something close to a groan, and Gabriel laughed and walked around to the dragon's side, leaned back against it, and slid down until he was sitting. "Sorry, I know, that was gross."

Siren blew air out his nostrils and lowered his head back to the ground. "You don't look well. Did you want to talk?" Leave it to him to cut straight through the bullshit to the heart of the matter.

Gabriel shrugged, reverting to mind-speech. "I don't know. You know what's been going on. I guess...I just wanted to think. I think better here."

"Think?" Siren snorted. "I think you've been doing enough of that already. It looks like sleep would suit you better."

Gabriel hummed noncommittally in response, closing his eyes and relaxing. He wanted to talk, but this time he didn't know where to begin, and he was afraid of the answer he would get when he touched on subjects even he had been avoiding. He just needed time to organize his thoughts into something less emotional and more rational. That was all...

"Are you asleep?"

Gabriel jolted at the mental nudge combined with a very physical one at his shoulder, and when his eyes snapped open he found himself staring into Siren's blue ones. Eyelids drooping, he leaned his head back against Siren's side and yawned. Whoa. He hadn't even realized he'd dozed. "Not anymore..."

"Good, because..." Siren pointed his snout toward a faint dot in the sky. A dot that was growing bigger and bigger. A dot that he'd viewed through the eyes of other dragons and knew was not just a dot. "We have visitors. You should move."

By then the dot was dragon-shaped and familiar. Gabriel had only a second to think, "Oh crap," before he scrambled to his feet and bolted out of the line of fire while Siren drew himself up into a crouch, teeth bared in a draconic grin. No sooner had Gabriel moved and Siren braced himself when the smaller dragon slammed into him, the sound of their collision, of metal clanging against metal, ringing throughout the eyrie. Fifi was smaller, but she sent him sprawling, though not for long. He collected himself and pounced her, growling playfully as he tumbled with her, smoke rising from his nostrils.

Gabriel watched them for a moment, blinking slowly, before he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and realized he wasn't the only human there. Turning, he quickly wiped some sleep out of his eye and then flashed a grin at his friend, waving. "Heya, Ife!" he called. "Trying to kill me again?"

[Anonymous]

Fifi was smaller, but that just meant she got to be more aggressive. If Siren hurt her she'd cry, because you weren't allowed to hurt girls. Sure she couldn't actually cry, and those human ideals didn't actually hold true with dragons, hell they rarely even held with pilots, but human was the flavour of the month. Well, flavour of the decade really. Time held different meaning when you were a gigantic magical flying lizard.

When they finally finished tumbling they were halfway across the eyrie, having sent worker drones scurrying away and leaving several as little more than scrap metal pancakes. He was on top, but she had him by the neck, powerful jaws gripping the flesh of his throat.

She giggled, her psychic voice that of a teenage girl. It brought to mind images of blonde hair, short skirts and fake breasts, not of scales, teeth and piercings the size of tires. Quite a few of them were new too.

"I win again brother," she said cockily, as if she'd outright beaten him.

Ife meanwhile was busy pouncing Siren's better half.

Gabriel didn't stand a chance against the little ball of happiness that latched onto him, nuzzling her head into his shoulder.

"Always Gabbkins, always," she muttered, pulling away and looking up at him. He was always doing that, being tall.

Her empathy couldn't be turned off, but it did sometimes take a while to kick in. She liked to imagine it like echolocation, little waves she sent out then read them as they bounced back. Gabriel was a shield specialist, so they bounced back off him slower, like moving through molasses, but they did come back.

She smiled sweetly. He was upset, feeling alone and like he needed to vent. It was why he was here, she supposed. Many pilots went to their dragon's for aid. The bond between dragon and pilot could be as weak as Marshal and his dragon, who barely spoke, or as intense as Alesku's with his own.

Reaching up, Ife ruffled Gabriel's sandy hair. "What's up Gabs?"

A friend was what he needed, and a therapist. Luckily for Gabriel, she was both.