And then they had leveled out, and Numair had wrapped his legs involuntarily around Hawk's waist, though Hawk's hands were still holding him behind the knees securely.

"You still with me, Mari?" Hawk asked. "I know you prolly don't wanna look down, but you're gonna have to tell me if we're up high enough yet."

Numair opened his eyes and peered reluctantly down over Hawk's shoulder. The park spread out well below them, with tiny dots of color that were people roving across the grass and milling around the fields and the pavilion. At the edge of the park was a line of thick trees, and now that they were this high up, they could see that the land dropped away beyond the treeline. Below the trees continued, with the vague shapes of buildings poking up among them, until they met the edge of the intracoastal. From here they could even see the narrow coastal peninsula beyond that, which ran flat from one end and swept up into rocky hills and arches at the other where it connected to the rest of the land, and where the intracoastal let out into the sea. It was raining over that way, from clouds that were lit white on their tops while their undersides faded and blurred into dark grey.

Numair looked, and after a moment managed, "This is high enough."

"Yeah?"

Hawk was flying quite easily and steadily, his large wings outstretched fully on either side of Numair. He kept still while Numair's arms slowly and shakily unlocked from around his neck.

"In--" Numair had to clear his throat to get rid of the waver in it-- "In Aetheri, er, we h-have statues of our modern founders that stand as high as our trees once were, before they all burned." As he spoke he very slowly began to sit up, which was a struggle in itself, because it involved not holding onto Hawk with his hands any longer. "I think, ah, we are at about that height now. I ah, never really understood how tall they were. I'm rambling," he added sheepishly, finding himself now sitting upright, hands free, holding onto Hawk with only his legs, still trembling a bit.

"Naw, you're fine," Hawk said encouragingly. "It's a nice view, ain't it?"