Upon the rising heat I float, ashen wings casting shadows upon where the ground used to be.

When last I trod upon soil, when mud caked between splayed claws, I had no inkling it was something to be treasured. When the incessant sirocco dried the last of the dirt against my toes, when it scoured every remnant of the earth from my scales, I did not notice enough to mourn its passing.

Now there is nothing but abyss.

Did you know we sleep upon the wing? That like dolphins our brains slumber half at a time, alternating lazy circles through cloud-strewn skies. It would’ve been useful to know, perhaps, before the world fell.

How long I’ve been in the air, I cannot recall. There’s nothing beneath, no fortunate outcrops, no high mountains brought low.

My wings began to ache many sunsets ago; with each lingering soar, each tentative beat, my will deserts me.

A light, in the sky. Brilliant, like sunlight refracted through a thousand crystal prisms.

She is a maelstrom inverse, dragging me from the grip of lightning-wracked clouds and the ruin that awaits. She is the thermal that warms my tired bones, lifts me, grips me with opalescent talons that pierce only my soul as I weep for my salvation.

I am not alone, says half my brain. Perhaps there is hope, says the other, as it greets a new day aloft.