Eirian’s Intro, Day 0, 9:03
Eirian quickly scribbled off the last line on their scroll and gave it to their dragonfly, whose name was now Quiteliterallythenamewhatever, but just Quite or Literally or Whatever for short (because seriously, do you expect me to spell all that out every time I talk about your dragonfly?). Whatever happily chomped down the scroll like a croissant. Eirian quickly shoved their pocket knife in their pocket and secured their dragon-pendant-necklace-thing around their neck. Alright. They were ready to go. Looking around one last time, was there anything they needed? Actually… there was.

“Erm… Hey, Whatever, is it possible I can add some stuff to my luggage?”

Whatever gave a wide, toothy, dragonfly grin, which was slightly unsettling, and then burped the scroll back up with a belch, and then two more burps for good measure. Eirian was already starting to like their dragonfly. They grabbed a pen and added six more items to the list, then chucked them into a backpack and slung it across their shoulders. They gave the scroll back to Whatever, who burped one more time and slurped up the scroll with an audible slurping noise.

“Alrighty. Ready to go.”

Whatever gave a teensy little burp and buzzed full speed out the door… or rather into the door. The door was closed. Whatever crashed into the door with a little thunk noise and fell to the stone floor with a little plip noise.

“Oh, no, Whatever, are you okay?”

Whatever unsteadily rose from the floor, gave another big grin, and wobbily (no, that isn’t a typo. Wobbily, not wobbly. There's a difference) hovered next to the door. Eirian opened it and the dragonfly zipped out in what was meant to be a straight line but was more of a trembling squiggle. It was possible that Whatever was concussed. But Whatever was rising into the sky now and Eirian thought it wise to follow their dragonfly, so they stopped worrying about it and took off after the little insect. It was a lovely day, with the ground wet from recent rain, petrichor rising up from it. The sky was clear, but a brisk, cold wind blew. Whatever seemed to be going in the same direction as the wind, so Eirian rode the handy gust (one of my buddies with wind powers helped coordinate that). Whatever seemed to be recovering from the crash, and was flying in an ever straighter line. The mountain forest below them was beautiful, and was zipping by very quickly due to the powerful wind adding to their speed.

Soon–very soon, much sooner that Eirian would have thought–they came upon the city at the base of the mountain. They cruised over the city until Whatever began to descend towards an airport. Whatever, who was now (thankfully) entirely recovered from the unfortunate meeting with the door, entered, and Eirian followed. They hurried through the wide atrium and through customs, which was moving quickly and only took about five minutes to get through. The TSA people also strangely didn’t seem to care about their pocketknife or about the fact that they were an eleven-year-old traveling alone. Huh.

After exiting customs, Whatever seemed rather in a hurry, zipping down the hallways so fast that Eirian had to sprint to keep up. They arrived, panting, at a gate right as it started boarding. Interestingly enough, there was nobody there except for the two of them.

Whatever hovered at the edge of the boarding area for a sec, then burped up a piece of paper that fluttered to the ground. Eirian bent down and picked it up. It was a plane ticket. Whatever fluttered next to them for a sec and then zipped off towards the boarding tunnel thingy. Eirian scanned their ticket and then darted after Whatever. Since there seemed to be nobody else here, they settled into one of the first class seats and buckled their seatbelt. The plane seemed to be totally empty, with nobody on it, not even a pilot.

But the boarding tunnel thingy was being released and the plane was starting to taxi, and so Eirian came to the same conclusion as many of our other participants and decided it was magic and enjoyed the first class seats. They had never flown first class before, and it was wonderful. There was so much legroom. They stretched out their legs and wings and wrapped their tail over their lap.

Meanwhile, the plane pulled onto the runway and began to go faster, and they thought it would be wise to put on their seatbelt, so they did. They were pressed back in their seat, squished against the cushy leather. They loved the rushing feeling of the takeoff, the feeling like you were going faster than you ever had before. They grinned and reached out to the window, flicking it open as the wheels began to leave contact with the ground. Whatever perched on the windowsill happily, little dragonfly face pressed up against it as they rose up and the ground fell away. Eirian watched the mountain they had lived almost all of their life shrink away until it was the same as all the others, just near-identical green and gray mounds like the peaks of properly whipped whipped cream.

Soon it was out of sight, and Eirian focused their attention forwards. The landscape ahead was strangely blurry, like a smear of paint, a void of color, with no distinct markings, just a blue sky that smudged into a vaguely green ground! As the plane grew closer and closer to where the ground blurred, Eirian grew more and more concerned. What would happen when they crossed into that space? Would they just become another smear of paint? They glanced at Whatever, who merely grinned at them and blew a raspberry. Apparently dragonflies had tongues, or at least this one did. Eirian braced themself for some form of pain as they traveled into the blurred land. But nothing happened, at least not as far as they could tell. They looked behind at the comforting, detailed ground as it slowly traveled out of sight. Welp, there was no going back now, they supposed, and got settled again.

It was impossible to tell how quickly they were going with no landmarks, but it seemed like only a short while before Eirian glanced out the window and noticed that far ahead, the land looked like land again. As they got closer, they could make out the features of a lush forest or jungle. They were flying surprisingly low. Eirian had thought they were higher up than they were, but each tree was visible, although not very large or distinct.

Soon they were almost across the imaginary line where the ground began again, and Whatever took off from the spot on the windowsill and buzzed around Eirian’s head in busy agitated circles. Confusedly, Eirian picked up their bag. Whatever seemed to like that, and the dragonfly alighted on Eirian’s other hand, gripped it with six little dragonfly legs, and tugged Eirian forwards. Normally a dragonfly wouldn’t be strong enough to do this even if it wanted to, but we have already deduced that Whatever is not a normal dragonfly. Whatever’s tugging became more insistent, until it was more like a pull, and then all of a sudden Eirian was jerked off their feet. Whatever was flying straight for the window! But unlike the incident with the door, Whatever crashed straight through the window, pulling Eirian through after.

“Aaaaaahhhhh!” Shards of glass fell out after them, glinting in the sun. Whatever dove for the trees below, Eirian towed after them. They got closer and closer to the ground at a breakneck speed until they were crashing through the tree canopy, and then they were almost to the ground and theyweregonnacrashtheyweregonnacrashtheyweregonnacrash was the only thought running through Eirian’s head and then–

They came to an abrupt but somehow smooth stop, Eirian dangling from Whatever, who suddenly and unceremoniously dropped Eirian. They fell the one foot to the ground and landed on their butt.

“What was that for?” They asked the dragonfly in annoyance, slowly rising to their feet and taking in their surroundings. They were in a beautiful forest. It was incredible.

“And what do we do now?”
~~~

Hehe while I was writing this, I kept forgetting that Whatever was the name of the dragonfly.

Also, I thought I'd clear up some confusion about who I am. 

I am a different identity of a CBer who you probably know, because everbody knows everybody. However, I don't use the name Scuttles just for my ski lodge but also for some other things.  Originally the plan was to reveal my identity at the end of the ski lodge, but I've honestly gotten too attatched to Scuttles. I'd like you to think of Scuttles as their whole own person.

Progress report--

Hoping to have Rueby's part posted by next Monday. Might be Tuesday though.

Sorry, Reuby, I know it's already been a bit of a wait, but your part might be as late as Wednesday or even Thursday... I've been very busy recently, and I can't get online on the weekends so I couldn't work on it then, and it looks like I won't get much writing time this week...

I was hoping to get three parts out this week but at the most it'll probably be two, maybe even one.

Also I've been rereading some of these parts, and I wish I'd proofread them before sending them off... there were a few bits there I didn't want to include yet, and some mistakes, and parts of it was just word vomit. But I shall adapt, and it shall only take a little editing to the storyline I've been plotting.