Gnawing, gnashing, scraping and chewing. The bat fiercely attacked the lock of his cage, sinking his fangs into the coating of rust that clung harder to the metal than he did. Searching for a firm hold onto the lock the bat fumbled his claws unto it also, shifting it slightly, til eventually his maw found a firm grasp in a small hole on the lock. Now was his time to strike, the bat carefully grasped the bars of his prison and held as he thrashed and thrashed his head. The lock was wildly smashed into its chain and the bars of the cage. The prison lock loudly clanged and echoed throughout the rest of the dark room in protest of his struggles. The bat, unyielding to the desire of the lock, hastened his thrashing. Blood escaped his gums; the taste of his own vital fluid mixed with the rusted iron furthering his frenzy. That is until, he heard the thumping.

Thumping could mean only terrible things, pain and torment. The bat ceased his assault and lay still pricking his ears up as tall as he could, til they made contact with the roof of his cage. He listened intently but aside from his own hyperventilating onto the unbudging lock the only sound was the thumping. The thumping grew louder now and he noticed something different, there was disharmony in the thumping, the frequency of the thumping's thumps was heightened as if two thumpers were thumping in discordant unison. The panic of the bat grew as the volume of the thumping grew louder still. He tensed and shivered until it stopped; the thumping climaxed just outside of the room. The bat could see a dim and familiar shadow cast beneath the thick oaken door of the room, just barely.

Soft jingling of keys could be heard by his sensitive ears, a door swung wide into the room and a familiar face could be seen. The bat looked upon the frame of the man filling the doorway as he lay down his green silken hood and pulled his shaggy brown beard from his cloak. "Mir" he spoke, pointing towards three separate candles with three separate fingers. A small pulse of light left each finger making contact with each candle, igniting them. The man stepped forth, the thumping of his leather boots echoing throughout the room. The bat stared intently on him, carefully measuring his every movement til an unusual sight caught his attention in the corner of his eye. A second frame stood in the doorway, this one was smaller though, not quite enough to fill the doorway like the other. "You may enter, apprentice" sighed the large frame. "Yes, sir" squeaked the small frame obediently.

The small frame walked into the now dimly lit room and stood in a proper manner, her shoes neatly joined in perfect symmetry. She stood still with her sleeves joined and her head held low. The bat inquisitively kept his eyes on the only visible detail of her face, her chin. "You may cease with the formalities, we - you have a job to do now." Spoke the large frame "Apologies, sir. I've not been exposed to such a casual atmosphere before." spoke the small frame. "Yes well you'll find there is very much a difference between floor thirty-seven and the masons lodge. And please, call me Simon." The small frame parted her once joined sleeves and revealed a pair of calloused white hands that reached for her hood and pulled it down. Her skin was white, her brown eyes matched her now bare, short, brunette hair. "Yes, Simon, you may call me by my first name too, if you wish. I'm Cynthia, but you may call me Cindy if you'd prefer a less formal method of addressing me." The small frame looked up from her previously bowed position and moved her focus to Simon. The aura of discomfort radiated throughout the bricked room causing even the bat to whine quietly in tension.

"So I hear you are rated at the top of your division, normally I do not get apprentices, you must mean something very special to the masons." Said Simon perkily as he crossed his arms leaning back on his workbench. "I was placed in the Golemancy sect, I've been told I'm adequate; the masons aren't much for flattery" She replied. "Well, I'll be the judge of your work now. Scraping at rocks doesn't hold a candle to the requirements of a true master of animation" Simon boasted as he beckoned the young woman to his workplace. A Long wooden tabletop coated with varying shades of black scorch marks and red splats contrasted the brown, thick legs which still bore the original colour. The oval table was nestled into the concave stone wall. Upon it was a sack of medical equipment, a variety of organs and parts, most notably being the splayed corpse of a rat frozen solid in a block of ice. Dirty water seeped down the table and into a runway carved in the table itself as the ice thawed. "I understand that you've been prepped on the fundamentals, yes?" Sneered Simon as he stood behind Cindy, looking over her shoulder at the frozen rat. "Yes, Simon, I've read your encyclopedia twice over and I believe I'm ready" Cindy said confidently. "Oh?" He scoffed in reply, placing his palm upon the ice cube. "Mir-Ul" whispered Simon as the ice swiftly melted under his hand, leaving a small waterfall of murky water spouting from the engraved runway into the runway on the floor.

"If you are so knowledgeable then surely you will demonstrate your skill to me, child." Said Simon in a condescending manner. Cindy looked upon the freshly thawed rat corpse calmly, she noted Its wet mass bore no wound and was thus likely frozen alive. "Wait a moment," said Cindy, "I can smell iron." Both Simon and Cindy scanned the room before she noticed the large rusty cage dangling from the ceiling. "Ah yes, that would be our friend, the Medichiroptera, though you can just call him Medic for short, I'm sure he wont mind" Said Simon smiling at the creature. Cindy glared nervously at the six foot tall bat and the blood dripping around its mouth. Medic glared back. "Er... I suppose you've recently fed him, then?" Simon snorted and let out a soft chuckle "He'd be lucky not to starve before you get to continuing my work on him. If we keep delaying your training with this yapping at least. Now then, the first rule of Golemancy, Cindy?"

Without hesitation she replied: "Keep your tools ready at hand." Simon nodded silently with his fist resting under his chin as she reached for the pouch of medical supplies. "What is it you ask of me?" Cindy inquired, Simon paused for a moment before announcing "Gills. Why not, we'l start with something simple, I know that you've likely never used the same tools as I before." Simon plucked a shining scalpel out of his pouch and lay it carefully parallel below the cadaver of the rat. The bat saw the shine of the scalpel and hid at the base of his cage. "The second rule of Golemancy, Cindy?" She cringed at the question despite knowing what was coming and said
"The form must take shape."
"Indeed. The same applies to my craft"
Cindy picked up the Scalpal and turned to Simon, "Have you any gloves?" Simon gave her an angry look and scolded her, "Does an artist wear gloves as he paints? Does a potter wear gloves as he shapes clay? Does a poet wear gloves as he scribes? Clearly, you are experienced in involving work, all I need to do is look at your hands. You will do this properly."

Cindy breathed deep, she had never worked with flesh before, let alone with bare hands. Reaching for the sopping wet rat corpse she dragged it along the table closer to herself and the first criticism came in from Simon. "Had that rat been any less fresh and you'd scrape the fur straight off of its skin. You will properly handle your mold lest you want your chimera to look like a northerner." Cindy was no stranger to criticism however, and comfortably brushed off the rookie mistake from her conscience. She then flipped the rat onto its back and took a deep breath, making her first incision into the neck just below the jawbone in the shape of a gill, and thus the second criticism arose."You must forgive me, I was under the impression that severing a vital artery such as the jugular would result in catastrophic bleeding, could you please elucidate your reasoning behind such a brave maneuver?" Cindy, now slightly perturbed by the lack of manners from the man breathing down his neck, put her scalpel down and turned to the Simon. "Do you find it necessary to be so critical for my first practice? Surely you weren't immediately a master either?"

Simon raised his nose up at Cindy to where she could see his eyelashes strain under the weight of the wrinkled folds on his eyelids. "You know what the order does to those who fail to reach their potential, Cindy? They expunge them. I did not take you for a fool, do you really think you'd last out in the world alone? So pretty please, with a wigglefruit on top, finish the gills before I lose my temper and an expulsion will be the last of your worries." Cindy took an unsteady, fluttered breath and muttered
"Yes, Simon."
"Refer to me as Sir."
"Yes, Sir" Cindy replied timidly, reaching now for a selection of bottled chemicals on the table.
"I see you are not entirely mentally destitute, Cindy, now then what would be the first alchemical administration in this circumstance?"
"Well, Sir, There's no necessity to graft any new flesh as the shape already befits - and thus there is no need for any suppressant. I suppose a stimulant would be best to ensure the lucidity."
"Well, get to it."

Cindy steadily grabbed the middle of a tall phial filled with white fluid by her fingertips while reaching for a syringe in the medical sack. Not moving her eyes off of the phial, she carefully steeped the needle of the syringe into the white fluid and pulled the plunge, drawing the viscous fluid into the container. Once done she moved her attention back to the slightly less cold but still sopping wet rat corpse. "You may want to be careful. This is a slow burning zero order stimulant and you've drawn enough to give a man a heart attack. Please measure your fluids properly." Cindy nodded but as she was hovering the needle of her instrument near her incisions on the rat Simon let out an exasperated sigh. Not being deterred she penetrated the rat and slowly injected the fluid inside. "Now then, the next step would be to take the fish extract and-" Cindy was interrupted by an ear shattering pop. The head of the rat had exploded violently, spreading small chunks of gore and viscera across most of the room. Steam now slowly radiated out of the remaining stump accompanied by the sizzling hiss of a recently exploded head.

Cindy turned to see the grim visage of Simon, his menacing, tired frown was somehow a more troubling image to Cindy than the rat eye stuck in his hair. "I suppose you now know the consequences of not expelling any potential air pockets in your needle before administering a stimulant" he muttered while intricately flicking away rat tooth resting on his beard. Cindy was mortified. She'd had her fair share of screw-ups in the Golemancy sect before but covering her tutors face with blood and various body parts was definitely not one of them. "Simo- Sir, I had no idea that-" stuttered Cindy as she frantically grabbed some medical gauze from behind her to wipe the stains of blood off of his nose. Simon gently pushed her hands down "That won't be necessary, Cindy, I'll go clean myself off. Oh, and would you mind incinerating that failed experiment off the board? I assume you already know the incantation" Said Simon as he forced a smile.

Cynthia froze as she thought of how to explain herself to Simon. "I don't have any...  I don't possess that gift.. Sir." Simon took a moment before he understood what Cindy was trying to say. He huffed and gave off a few bewildered blinks before turning to the door pinching the top of his nose. "I suppose they'l let any Skern into the order nowadays. I'm going to have a word with the grand Arcanist about this, but not before I scrub this filth off of my face!" Simon paced out of the room grumbling and slammed the door behind him, Cindy and Medic listened as he briskly thumped down the stairs. This was the final straw for Cindy, she'd tried her hardest but simply couldn't manage to meet her mentors expectations. She slumped to the ground and began to sob softly into her knees. She could now hear a deep skittering set of noises akin to squeaking, looking up Cindy saw Medic, who has seemed to have gained some courage in Simon's absence. Cindy looked at the trapped creature as it climbed to the top of its long cage and hang from it upside down. The cage swayed moderately on its long chain as he moved.

"You know, I thought I may have been lucky to be chosen for this position. But now I realise that I was only just smart enough for someone to have grand expectations for me. And now? Now I don't know." Cindy said to medic while sniffling. "You're from the Medi-lands, aren't you? I know assuming is rude but it is in your name after all." Cindy rested her chin on her knees as she looked up at his cage. "It must be nice there, I've read about it you know. Trees so large you could build a city on them and air so fresh it could cure disease." Medic only looked down at Cindy from his perch as she vented her emotions to him. "I empathise with you, really. It must be dreadful being stuck in there having been taken away from your home and made to endure unimaginable things you've never even asked for." Cindy continued as she stood to her feet and wiped her tears from her eyes. "I hate to be dramatic but maybe we're not so different, are we Medic? I'm just as able to leave this tower as you are able to leave your cage." Medic stretched his wings momentarily revealing his massive, yet, emaciated figure to her. "Simon really wasn't lying about not feeding you, was he?" Cindy paused for a moment before reaching to the partially combusted rat corpse behind her and immediately Medic dropped to the bottom of his cage, clasping the bars as he looked hungrily at the rat.

Cindy, rat in hand, angled herself to accurately throw the rat into Medic's cage. It was not a particularly far distance, maybe only twice her height, she thought. But the idea of missing and accidentally hitting a phial of magic fire made this rat toss a high stakes maneuver. Eventually she lined herself up and threw the rat upwards. It just about reached zero velocity as it paused in the air just outside of the cage, appearing to be a miss until Medic ferociously plunged his wings forwards outside of the bars. Medic enveloped his sacred prize and pulled it towards his mouth. In a matter of only a second there was nothing left of the rat as it was swallowed whole. "You know, I never quite got along with anyone here in the order. Everyone else earned their position through years of hard work, but me? I was raised here, my peers say that I'm lucky or undeserving but the truth is that I'd never asked for a lifestyle like this. I was robbed of that decision when I was abandoned here and now it's all I've ever known." Cindy's newly appointed therapist let out a mellow squeak of solemnity and licked some remaining rat fur off of his lips. "Simon was right though, boiler only knows what my tutor saw in me when he put me up for this position. I can't cast a spell to save my skin, I simply just was not born with the ability. I'm the only person here incapable of it." Medic closed his eyes let out a long breath comparable to a sigh as if hinting he's had enough. Cindy looked away from the giant bat and absentmindedly daydreamed towards the door of the room.

Medic's ears pricked up as he then fell to the floor of his cage once more. Cindy however paid no attention to her new friend and continued to apathetically gaze while pondering her situation for a few seconds more. That is until the thumping was audible to her. Cindy snapped out of her daydream with a decisive blink and breathed deep to quash her anxiety. Fully expecting the grand arcanist to barge through the door and give her an earful, she didn't necessarily expect to be banished from the order over one exploded rat. But what was to come certainly wouldn't bode well for her. Medic quivered as the light jangling of keys could be heard from outside once more. The oaken door swung upon however, the familiar sight of the large frame was all to be seen. Simon had returned and this time without any guts decorating his face. "Sir I-" Cindy said before being quieted as Simon gently raised his hand signalling for her to halt. "Please do forgive me, Cindy, I had let my temper get the better of me. I'm very much used to working alone and I've never been much of a patient teacher. It's like my sister has always told me: I'm much like a dragon, I breathe fire on the outside but I'm all green and mushy on the inside!" Simon said with an uncomfortably hearty smile. Cynthia slightly conflicted between the relief of forgiveness and the awkwardness of Simon's terrible social skills could only produce a small smile in return. "Yes, well she was always quite a bit soppy perhaps I shouldn't have shared that. No matter, I've something to help you."

Simon plucked a handful of phials from the inside of his cloak, all containing a bright blue fluid that danced and rushed throughout the container. Running from the curved bottom of the phial to the rough cork at the top and back again. "This is Miranarcis; also known by its ley name, Magic fire." Spoke Simon, "Yes I'm quite familiar we use this to clean the-" replied Cindy before being once again cut off. "Yes I'm sure you've used it plenty but I'd much prefer to explain its nature to you myself lest I end up covered in the remains of another creature again - or worse" Simon backhandedly jested. "Yes, Sir" Cindy replied obediently standing up straight. "Very good" Simon said under his breath as he walked over to a large wooden cabinet that reached so far up the room the candlelight couldn't reach the top. Sequentially he drew out half a dozen draws while muttering to himself "no... no... that's not the one... Ah, yes." Simon, having finally found what he was looking for picked up an unspeakable mass of flesh, teeth and bones by what Cindy assumed was its tail from inside the draw. Triumphantly, he waved it in her direction, "one of my old failures, worry not, it's been dead for a few days." The abomination was soaked in its own unidentifiable juices and the alchemical reagents that had been used on it.

"Behold" said Simon as he carefully popped the cork off the top of the phial and made a small throwing motion into the direction of the heap of wretched failure. Quickly a large whizzing noise much like a firework blew from the small phial as the blue contents expanded and flew out of the bottle onto the mass. The blue fire quickly began to eat away and burn it as if it were mere kindling, the bones fizzed into ash and the teeth cracked into dust. Simon quickly let go of the tail as the flames climbed closer to his fingertips, the mass had already entirely burned out before it had hit the ground and the bright blue flame was now gone. Simon brought his hand closer to his face, blew on it gently then gave it a good shake to ease the heat it had radiated onto his fingers. Medic looked on in terror at the power of the fire while Cindy looked at Simon with a mild curiosity. It was not the first time she had seen blue fire, but she had never seen its affect on enchanted flesh. "Now then, let me contrast this for you." Simon took another phial of magic fire from his other hand and once again, popped the cork off the top and made another throwing motion to tip the contents out. This time the phial was aimed at the large wooden cabinet he had pulled the abomination from, the cracking firework sound pierced everyone's ears once more. The blue fire exploded out of the phial and expanded, crawling and flying up the enourmous cabinet, searching for something to burn. But alas, it found no purchase. The brilliant blue light illuminated the room for only a few seconds before the fire entirely vanished off of the front of the cabinet.

"Now you see, then, the useful properties of miranarcis. What would be flammable to a normal fire is not at all flammable to miranarcis. However, anything with magical properties will be set aflame in proportion of course to the concentration of magical power in said item. With that being said, where on Verdance is that rat from earlier? I think it's about time we dispose of it." Cindy froze and looked for an excuse, she didn't want to immediately get back into trouble for feeding the giant bat. "I threw it down the runway" she said, gesturing to the sloped, square hole covered with sickeningly bright colours from countless prior alchemicals. "I see, well you should really refrain from doing so in the future. The only reason the hole is large enough is so we can send someone down there to clean it once in a while. You wouldn't want to know the sorts of reactions that can occur in an alchemical runway." advised Simon as he placed the remaining few phials of magical fire onto the work table. "Now then, I believe you're ready." "Ready for what?" Replied Cindy. Simon turned and confidently spoke "hulthis-ul" with his arm extended towards Medics cage, he bunched his fingers into pairs, creating a three pronged fork shape with his hand. Yellow lightning intensely and crudely arced from his fingertips and made contact with the metal cage.

Medic howled and fluttered around the cage in agony fruitlessly attempting to escape the shocking currents burning his skin and spasming his muscles. Simon kept a steady stream of pulsing energy into the metal cage as Cindy could only watch in discomfort and pity as she watched the poor animal be tortured. Eventually, after no less than half a minute of electrocution, Medic fell to the floor of his cage, motionless. Cindy knew what was to come. "Lower the cage, would you Cindy? The lever is just over there, let me fetch my key." Simon went over to the cabinet again only to pull a smaller draw out and began sifting through a wide selection of keys. "Was it really necessary to do that?" Cindy asked. "Ah well, technically no, not necessary. But as soon as you volunteer to manually inject a sedative into a chimera larger than yourself then I would personally deem it necessary." Cindy moved over to a lever on the other side of the room with a small stamp labelled 'Medic' above it. The stamp was only the most recent layer of stamps above the lever, the edges of prior labels peeked out from underneath Medics. Cindy felt conflicted and hesitated on pulling the lever before eventually doing so, causing the cage to fall quickly to the ground with a deep thump as it made contact with the ground.

"Very good Cindy, now give me a hand would you? This thing is too blastedly heavy for me to lift on my own, you grab it by the shoulders and I'll get the legs." Said Simon as he twisted a key in the rusty blood stained padlock "Yes, sir" Cindy said, hiding her upset. She briskly walked over to the open side of the cage and watched as medics unconscious head flopped out of the open hatch. It was quite hard to see in the darkness of the ceiling but Simon had already done a fair amount of work on Medic. His eyes were round and large, brown feathers were dotted along his silken wings, his teeth were enormous and his feet bore large talons. multiple long, black spindly tongues lay limp outside of his mouth. "Well, come on then Cindy, Medic wont operate on himself, ironically" Simon chuckled to himself grabbing the giant creature by the ankles. "Lift on three; one, two, three!" The pair heaved the giant bat unto the work table, there was just barely enough space for Medic to not knock over any of the tools or phials on the edges of the table. "Now, then, Cindy, Medic is just about finished here and the last, but most important step remains. Do you know what that is?" Cindy thought to herself for a moment before letting out an embarrassing shrug. Ah well, never the mind - quite literally! We're going to perform a lobotomy. The last thing we want a Chimera doing in the field is disobeying an order or worse, turning on us. With a few simple reagents and a moderate amount of tissue excision we can make this beast obedient.

Cindy turned towards Medic as she felt tears well up in her eyes, Simon noticed her dismay and rested his hand on her back. "Look, you may feel bad at first but you have to trust me when I say you get used to this." Cindy rubbed her eyes with her sleeve and asked "I know you're probably sick of hearing this, but is this step also really necessary?" Simon looked at his pupil in the eyes and replied "Yes, I'm afraid so in this case. The Medichiroptera is an incredibly intelligent species and that amplified with the work I've already done on him. Theres no way he would ever obey any orders without this, even with years of training." Hearing exactly what she did not want to Cindy took a deep breath and calmed herself once more. "What now, then, Sir." Simon ushered her with the hand on her back over to the other side of the room. "Now we need my bonesaws. You can demonstrate your knowledge on what specific instruments to use." Simon and Cindy walked over to the entrance door to pick up the box of saws before walking back over to the colossal bat laying on the workbench.

"Can we not administer an anesthetic?" Cindy suggested. "No, no absolutely not. The creature must not only be lucid but mentally active throughout all procedures. This is the key difference between Golemancy and Chimancy, Cindy. A Golem has never lived until you complete your work but a Chimera? A chimera is alive throughout everything. Is having pieces of your brain torn out while being paralysed painful? Yes I'm sure, but if he's no use to use then he would simply starve to death. Not a particularly appealing alternative." Cindy was overwhelmed, she couldn't bring herself to torture this animal no matter what Simon said to convince her yet she asked "What is the next step then, sir? Another stimulant?" "No, no absolutely not. Any stimulant in this case may wake the beast when I make contact with its brain tissue with my scalpel. We must simply work swiftly, we only have about an hour to complete the procedure before it -" Simon couldn't finish his sentence before he was interrupted.

A soft popping could be heard. A familiar popping, Both Cindy and Simon heard the popping come from the table. The pair leaned quizzically over the table looking behind Medic to see if any phials had fallen over but none were to be seen. Suddenly a small object flew out of Medics mouth, Simon looked over to his left and saw something on the floor, a small cork. Only a moment had passed before Simon realised what was happening. In a flash of panic he looked back over to his right to see Medic with his head now propped up on the table, no longer subdued. Simon immediately began to yell an incantation as he moved his hand towards the beast but he could only get out a "Mir!-" before Medic spat out a phial towards the pair. Cindy looked on in shock as the blue contents of the phial rushed out accompanied by the foreboding sound of fireworks. The magic fire engulfed the two as Medic propped himself upwards stretching his enourmous wingspan out and letting forth a blood curdling shriek. Simon felt the skin and flesh of his face be incinerated as the heat boiled his eyeballs and hungrily ate at his skull. He tried to scream but the magical fire had already burned his throat to ash. He fell to the ground dead and burning still while the flames rushed further down his body as Medic set his eyes on Cindy.

Cindy was petrified to stillness with terror. The magic fire had left her unharmed but the giant wild predator set his eyes on her intently. Medic Was tall, but even taller still while standing on the table looking down upon her. His head stood tall into the dark ceiling, the only visible detail being the slight reflection of Simons burning cadaver on his teeth. Medic plunged into the small frame pinning her to the ground in an instant. She shook from fear as the wild animal looked directly into her eyes. She could feel him breathing quickly on her face and chest. Medic was exhilarated. He opened his mouth. A set of eight separate tongues emerged out of his giant, tooth ridden jaw and made soft contact with her delicate face. The sensitive probes twitched in response to Cindys trembling, he could taste the salt in the tears rushing from her eyes and even the blood that lay under her skin. Medic was not hungry. He was starving. The tongues rushed back into his mouth as he edged even closer to the small frames face, she averted her gaze and closed her eyes until she heard in a thick, rough, inhuman voice in front of her "Cynthia." Cindy looked at the Chimera as it spoke to her and let out a gasp; the shock finally overtook her as she fainted.

Yet Medic did not bite into Cindy and instead sat himself up getting off of her and scanned around the room, looking for an exit. The runway? No. He was too large for that. The window? Possibly. It had been weeks since he had flown and he was unsure if he was still able to in his emaciated state. Unfortunately he could find no other exit aside from deeper inside the order, a surefire suicide. Medic could hear the thumping already from the commotion he had caused and knew he only had a few seconds before the other arcanists would be upon him. He grabbed Cynthia with the claws of his feet by her shoulders and rammed into the large, closed window smashing it open in only a single battering. The outside was pitch dark, he let out a series of squeaks to orient himself and realised he was not high up in a tower. The tower was instead built in an underground cave system. Without any choice left he heard unknown voices yelling from outside the door as the thumping grew louder. He dived outside of the tower with Cindy in his grasp still unconscious.He felt the wind rush against his skin and began beating his wings fervorously he attempted to slow his fall with the small frame weighing him down and his atrophied muscles, the effort was difficult. But not impossible. Medic latched onto the stones outside of the tower and assessed quickly.

Below him? Thirty seven floors of arcanists. Above him? The tower stretched maybe about twice the length upwards but then he saw it; he could just barely see it. A small light directly above him, he let go of the tower and began to use his giant wings. The force of his flaps blew harshly into Cindys face as she lay limp in his grasp. Medic fixated his vision directly upwards as he struggled and heaved his breaths to bring himself closer to the light he saw above, each individual flap making the light ever so slightly greater in size. He could feel the stimulants in his blood rushing, it was all that was keeping him going in his current state but he was certain it was enough. The flapping, the heaving the gasping continued until eventually there was no darkness left to see. The sun shined and the light scorched his eyes as he flew free into the open with his friend.