Cyrus watched the others depart through the gate, knowing that one of the groups went to the lakeside and the other, much larger one to battle with the bulk of Corypheus's army. Rolling his tongue over his bottom lip, he tasted salt. At least it wasn't bile, though he didn't think for a moment that wouldn't come later. If he made it to later. He'd do his best, of course, but there was a chance that this, here, was what he'd been put on Thedas to do. He'd never really believed in destiny, but damn if the Inquisition didn't make it a little easier to do. It hardly helped that the voices were quiet, as if the collected wisdom of ages held its breath in anticipation of what was about to happen.
He pulled in a quiet breath, trying for a moment to channel Leon's understated, quiet confidence. He certainly couldn't hope to match Khari's swagger or Vesryn's Champion-of-the-Inquisition ease. His hands flexed, and he released the breath when he spotted Astraia and Harellan, easy to do considering they were among the few slipping in through the gate rather than out of it. Cyrus didn't quite have the wherewithal to make himself obvious to them, but the need was spared when Harellan spotted him anyway, tapping Astraia on the shoulder and nodding towards him.
He tried to wipe any trace of nervous energy from his appearance as they got closer—the last thing he needed to be doing was making his partner in this madness even more uneasy than she'd already been. He thought he managed decently well, but the tightness in his guts did not ease. The dragon was still out of sight for now, but it wouldn't be long before it returned. Not long before the Inquisition's hope to kill Corypheus for good rested in a very real way on his and Astraia's shoulders.
“You can still tell me this is far too insane." It probably was. She'd called him madman once before, but it had been a joke then. He'd never quite expected to make a prophesy of it. Damn if he was going to make anyone else feel obligated to go along with that. Especially Astraia; she'd hardly signed up for this of all things, and trusting him not to kill her wasn't exactly risk-free even before the other dragon came into the picture.
"It's insane, you're right." Astraia was out of breath; she'd been near the tail end of a training session with Harellan, he knew, and she'd just ran back here besides. The upside to that was that she was already geared up. She didn't wear much armor, just some Dalish-styled leathers over her clothes, but it was better than nothing, and there was nothing on her end to delay them. "But... if I've learned one thing since coming here, it's that insane is what you people do regularly. We can do this, too."
He huffed, but nodded slightly. His thoughts were scattered, and at this moment he couldn't blame it on his internal squatters, either. He just... hadn't been expecting to have to do this so soon. Stupid of him, really.
"Somehow I doubt I need to say this, but be careful, please." Harellan glanced between them. "You both know what you need to know; of this I am quite certain." He reached towards Cyrus's shoulder and laid one hand on it, squeezing gently. "Mala suledin nadas, lethallin. Safe flying to both of you."
To Cyrus's own surprise, he did not stiffen under the touch, nor chafe at the words. Instead he nodded tightly, and Harellan departed. “I won't be able to speak, when it happens." He shifted his attention left and considerably down, to Astraia's face. “But I'll still be... me, I suppose. I'll be able to understand you, though you might need to shout. It's—I know it's a lot to ask, but try to trust me. I promise I won't let you fall."
That, he meant, even if his tongue felt like a lead weight when he said it, weighed down with the uncertainty of the circumstances. It took something more extraordinary than most people would ever be to volunteer for something like this, and he wouldn't have expected it even of his closest friends, or his sister. No doubt some of them would have been willing, but that only spoke to the number of extraordinary people he knew. The least he could do was make sure to prioritize her wellbeing.
"I do trust you." She said it earnestly, quietly, as though the admission was a rather important one for her to make. She almost seemed like she was going to elaborate on it, but she held her tongue. More pressing things to focus on, perhaps. "I'm ready when you are."
And more pressing things there were, or he might have asked about it himself. Not the time, not the place. “Try to focus your aim for the wings. We don't have to kill it ourselves—just bring it down so that everyone else can. If you don't mind standing back a little, I'm about to take up a lot more space." He tried for a wry smile, not sure he quite got there, and took several long strides away himself, picking an empty spot in the middle of the bailey.
It was time.
The itching tingle beneath his skin, that reminder that he could take up more space, could have power in his bones and muscles and heart unlike anything he'd ever experienced any other way, roared back to life as soon as he even contemplated the form he wanted. Shapeshifting was not natural to him. He'd never seen the need to assume a form other than his own before, finding other types of magic adequate to his needs and desires, but now he wished he'd thought to make study of it before. Perhaps it would have helped.
Clenching his jaw so he wouldn't bite his tongue during the shift, Cyrus reached deep, touching the wellspring of mana right at the heart of him and pulling it around himself like a shroud. It sank back into him like water into parched earth, infusing his body and cloaking him in blue. The change itself was a shock, a too-fast metamorphosis that set him reeling: all at once his skin rippled, turning a deep indigo and hardening, separating into scales as everything grew, lengthening and reorienting with a bone-grinding sound pitched higher by the sheer speed of it.
And then he blinked, and the scope of his vision had widened, and he found himself looking down at the bailey from a towering height. He looked most like one of the Vinsomer dragons, scales gradated in varying shades and depths of blue, his underbelly almost teal. Spikes ran the length of his spine; he could feel them only as weight, as they were insensate except where flesh parted around them. Talons curled into the earth, tearing up the hard-packed dirt and leaving deep furrows behind where he kneaded them. The end of his tail was heavy with more spikes, but the hardest part to wrap his head around was and always had been the extra limbs. The wings, leathery and enormous enough to lift this rather ponderous body off the ground. He stretched them carefully, reminding himself just how they worked before he blinked, eyelids clicking audibly. Slit pupils contracted as he focused on the ground, tilting his head until he could see Astraia.
Carefully, Cyrus picked one of his forelimbs off the ground and stretched it over towards her, creating an easier angle for her to climb up at.
She proceeded onto it carefully, climbing slowly as she had one hand always holding her staff. She wouldn't have been all that much trouble to pick up and carry in his human form, and as a dragon her weight was trivial. At least it was enough that he would notice if she slipped from him somehow, but judging by the white-knuckle grip she was employing even now, it seemed likely that wouldn't be a problem she made of her own accord.
She settled atop him in front of where the wings protruded from his back, near the base of his now elongated neck. He could feel the grip of her free hand settle over his spines. She shifted her weight until she was as comfortable as she could manage, her legs squeezing to hold her in place. "Okay." Her voice sounded different, like her throat was constricted. Nervousness bordering on terror, no doubt. "Let's go."
He craned his head back to check her exact positioning with one eye, still not used to the way they could take in completely different things. As soon as he'd sighted her though, he nodded, something that no doubt looked more than a little strange for a dragon to be doing. Slowly at first, but still aware that their time was limited, he turned, giving her some time to get used to the way such creatures moved, though he tried to jostle her as little as possible, even when he shifted back onto his hind legs to place his forelimbs on one of the side walls and pull them up.
Some of the crenelations crunched and cracked under his weight, but for the most part everything held, and then they were looking out over the massive drop over the wall and the cliffside it was built upon. Pulling in a deep breath that expanded his sides like a bellows, Cyrus gathered his feet underneath him, stretching both wings out to the side, and driving them down at the same time as he pushed with all four legs off the wall.
At first, there was a weightless feeling, and then a lurch as they began to fall. But this much, he knew how to do, the barest trace of draconic instinct telling him when to beat the wings and when to glide. It was almost like swimming, really, and he tucked his forelegs underneath him, using the tail like a rudder and coasting through the air in search of the red lyrium monstrosity.
If it had been any situation but this one, at any other time, he'd have exulted in the feeling of flight. Why he'd never pursued it until now was beyond him—maybe it was just the form edging in on his thoughts, but it felt like flying was something he was born to do.
"High and on our right!" Astraia called, needing to yell for her voice to be able to cut through to him. "It's gone above the clouds!" The cloud cover wasn't complete, the sun able to poke through in many places, but there was definitely enough that it could be used for concealment for a fight such as this. There was little to do but gain altitude and seek it out; here and there Cyrus could spot hints of it as it soared through and above the clouds. Already he could feel Astraia gathering a spell, the magic gathering at his back in the form of dense rock, hovering around Astraia's staff.
The dragon had either sighted them, or was simply ready ahead of time, as it burst out of the clouds heading directly for them right as they got close. Its mouth opened to breathe fire, but Astraia's preparation paid off. She was able to launch the stonefist directly ahead on reaction, the spell smashing into the dragon's neck and throwing off its aim. It was still hurtling straight for them on collision course.
Cyrus shifted, rippling the line of his body to reorient his trajectory and come at it from an angle. He hoped Astraia was holding on tightly, but there was no time or way to be sure, so he trusted her to see this coming.
His body collided with the red lyrium dragon's in midair, a heavy thud nearly knocking the wind from his lungs. His angle was better, but it had the extra weight of gravity, and it dragged at him, pulling both of them into freefall as he reached forward with his claws, trying to find some kind of purchase on the stone-studded scales. His talons screeched over it, audible even over the sound of the rushing air.
Astraia switched to spirit magic, launching bolts rapidly and aiming for the dragon's face. About half of them missed, sailing on through the air until they would eventually impact a mountainside somewhere far below. Half of them hit, however, and while they didn't do too much damage outright, it kept the dragon from clamping its teeth down anywhere, and even cracked apart a tooth or two.
Unfortunately, it didn't do anything to stop the claws, and one of them found his side, just where his neck became his shoulders, leaving a heavy trio of tear-gouges in his scales. He curled his digits in the same way he'd felt it do, lips pulling back from his teeth when he felt them sink in near where the catapult had already wounded it.
The dragon screeched, rearing back. He caught the glint of molten embers in its throat. He had no idea what that would do to him, but it would certainly reach far enough back to damage Astraia. Cyrus did the only thing he could think to do—he pushed off the other dragon, releasing the grip of his claws, and rolled over in the air, shielding his back side with his front at the same time as he tried to escape the inevitable breath attack.
The fire hurt about as much as he thought it would, heating his belly uncomfortably at first, until the pain was blistering and he swore he could smell himself charring.
That pain was enough to distract him momentarily from the fact that he could no longer feel Astraia's legs around his neck, or her hand gripping his scales. And a scream cutting through the air was all the confirmation he needed to know that she'd somehow lost her grip and was now falling.
There was definitely enough human inside the dragon to feel the cold grip of panic. Cyrus pulled his wings in towards his body and let himself fall, pointing his nose down towards the ground. He could feel the sting of the wind against his burnt underside, and the way speed tore the dripping blood away from his wound, but he was too busy trying to find her to give much of a damn. Probably the dragon again—he'd never had the world's most excellent pain tolerance.
The other dragon didn't follow: either it thought them finished or was prioritizing something else. That thought ought to worry him, but just now he had a promise to keep.
There. He spotted her plummeting some distance below him, gritting his teeth when he realized he wasn't getting any closer. He might have been aerodynamic, but he also had a lot more mass for the wind to drag against, and he wasn't going to make it at this rate. Spreading his wings, he drove them down, accelerating to breakneck speed in the descent. Closer, closer... there!
He reached out with his foreleg and wrapped the talons around her midsection as delicately as he was capable. Lashing his tail, he reoriented until he was not completely vertical, than forced his wings open with a snap.
The pain was excruciating; it felt like they were being torn from his body, which lurched sharply with the inelegant motion. For a moment, he couldn't muster the strength to do more, and he was left gliding, slowing their fall without really stopping it, and the ground continued to rush up towards them, dizzying in the speed of its approach. Cyrus strained against the limitations of this body, instinct forcing the same thing he always did when he hit his physical limit: magic.
He drove his wings back down, pulled them through the fade as much as the air, and the fall became a swoop, close enough to the ground that his feet almost skimmed the surface of the lake, and then they were flying again, each flap straining his injuries. Only then was he able to check on Astraia, still held gingerly between his claws.
Of all the things for her to be doing, she was casting a spell. Healing magic, it looked like. She was spattered with blood, but considering the lack of obvious claw wounds in her from when he'd grabbed her or otherwise, the blood had to be his, sprayed on her in the course of his reorienting and his efforts to keep them from crashing into the ground. The magic, too, was aimed at him, trying to at least stop the blood loss from what the corrupted dragon had done to him. She looked to be in shock, to some extent, her face almost blank of emotion. Perhaps it was all just a bit too much to process. Her lips moved, words lost to the wind as she forgot to shout this time, but Cyrus could read them well enough. I'm okay.
If he'd had the capacity to express his relief, he would have. As it was, he doubted a dragon's face was any better at conveying that kind of thing than a shocked one, and so he could only lift her back towards his shoulder, letting her get closer to the wound she was trying to heal and attempting not to let himself sag with relief at the cool touch of the magic. The burn he could deal with: painful as it was, he wasn't in serious danger from it. But if he didn't stop bleeding, he might pass out, and that was the last thing he could afford to do in midair.
While she healed, he ascended, flying back towards Skyhold because if the lyrium dragon was going to be anywhere, there would be it. He tried to stay above cloud cover, in hopes of getting the drop on it this time, but he couldn't climb too high. The air was already thin here, and he was the only one with a flying creature's lungs.
He spotted it just as it descended on Skyhold's front wall, waiting just long enough for Astraia to climb back into position properly before diving after it. He'd never tried to use a breath weapon before, but he could feel it there, in his guts, not entirely different from the way magic always felt. Crackling, like a thing alive. At this distance, he might need it.
Breaking through the clouds, Cyrus exhaled, a cloud of thick grey smoke erupting from his lungs, bolts of lightning snapping through it. It neared the the lyrium dragon's hide just as the creature pulled away from the wall to attack the Inquisition troops marshaled on the ground. As if it had sensed the attack coming, it rolled, much more expertly than he had, leaving the lightning to only graze the outer edge of its left wing. But it wheeled away from the Inquisition and back into the air far above. Cyrus gave chase.
Astraia peppered it with magic attacks, switching to her own lightning spells and loosing them with little hesitation at the dragon. She was able to hit it more often than not, leaving fierce scorch marks along its hide and wings. It turned its head and bellowed fire back at them, but Cyrus was more easily able to dodge it this time, and did so without shaking Astraia from his back. They were driving it where they wanted now, over the lake, but that still left the matter of bringing it down. Cyrus could feel Astraia sag against him slightly, the effort required to almost constantly cast powerful spells wearing on her, but her grip didn't waver.
Apparently she still had reserves left, too, as the momentary pause in the casting was simply to prepare something all the more powerful. She thrust her staff forward, primal magic leaping from it and wrapping around the corrupted dragon's back. Solid rock encased its wings around the base, a strong petrify spell disrupting its flight. There was no way she'd be able to petrify the entire beast, but just that small critical part of it was more than enough to slow it down. It struggled as it began to lose altitude, the rock encasing it already beginning to crack, but the delay was all Cyrus needed to close the gap, and try again to bring it down.
This time, the positioning advantage was entirely his, and he took it, slamming into the dragon feet first and pinning one of its wings against its body, sinking his claws in and wrenching, tearing rents in the thinner, purplish membranes. Almost belatedly, he remembered he had a mouth full of sharp teeth as well, and angled his neck down, careful to pick a spot on the wing muscle without the red lyrium protrusions. He hooked his teeth over the smaller scales there and squeezed until he felt them give way.
With his head out of her direct line of fire, Astraia was free to aim for the other wing, now the only thing keeping the dragon even slightly steady in the air.
She unleashed a much less directed constant blast of lightning, no longer needing to aim at much of anything. It crackled like a miniaturized version of Cyrus's dragon breath, hissing and burning at the membranes of the wing until holes were burnt through them, spreading and tearing wider with the unrelenting magic.
Cyrus pushed off, certain that the damage they'd done was enough. They'd wound up close enough to the ground that the fall alone probably wasn't going to do much, and they were coming down on the far side of the lake, but if they were lucky, the dragon would at least break a leg or something.
It spread its bloody wings, crimson trailing in ribbons from its descent. Cyrus could still taste it on his tongue, the thrill of a foe injured not entirely a product of his extra instincts. But he too was fading fast, and the nearness of the ground was more blessing than curse as he brought himself and Astraia down after it.
Landing was not a skill he'd mastered, and though the lyrium dragon was the more injured, his was the harder impact; it jarred up his legs enough to shoot bolts of pain through his entire body, and he just barely had the wherewithal to crouch and put himself as close to the ground as he could before he lost hold of the form, blacking out for several seconds of insensate numbness and reawakening back in his own body, wracked with pain. He curled in on himself, breaths fast and shallow, shudders traveling up and down the length of his spine. He knew he needed to get up, needed to stand and help Astraia hold out until the rest of the group arrived, but his muscles refused to obey his commands. He choked softly, the sound a shortened version of the raw yell tearing at his throat, without the air needed to escape.
He heard her groan softly somewhere nearby, from the ground. No doubt she'd been thrown when he'd been forced suddenly out of the dragon form. She at least was able to regain her feet, using her staff and a nearby tree to support herself. The dragon was far from dead, and still dangerously close, smashing trees aside as it angrily tried to get its bearings. The two of them were the first thing its eyes settled on, and Astraia had no choice but to meet it, or otherwise let Cyrus die.
She pushed away from the tree, actually moving towards the dragon, perhaps to put more distance between where they'd fight and where Cyrus lay. A stonefist flew from her staff, but it was half as big as the one she'd mustered to start the fight, and it bounced off the dragon's chest in an explosion of rock. It leaped and dove at her, forcing her to dive out of the way. For a moment she disappeared in a cloud of kicked up dirt where the monster came down, but when it cleared Cyrus could see her on the other side of it, struggling back to her feet. She threw a spell at its back, lightning that found one of its open wounds and clearly caused it significant pain.
The dragon's tail swept sideways, and Astraia never saw it coming. It smashed into her torso with a heavy thud, tossing her swiftly aside through the air, her bladed staff flipping away to the edge of the lake. She collided with a tree at speed, her velocity brought to a sudden halt, and from there she collapsed to the ground face down, and moved no more.
Somehow, Cyrus found the wherewithal to reach his hands and knees. His stomach lurched, threatening to show him his lunch a second time, but he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to slow them down even if each of them shook like he was the site of his own local earthquake. Astraia wasn't moving. He had no idea if she was unconscious or—better not to think about it. Better still to make sure the dragon didn't either.
His hand found its way to the one steel sword he still wore, tugging it awkwardly free of the sheath and stabbing it into the ground so he could pull himself to his feet. He doubted he had what it would take to conjure one from the fade right now. In fact, he was pretty sure he had exactly one spell left in him, and he had to make it count.
Lightning, raw and crackling, wreathed his entire left arm; without the energy to focus it, he let it fly like that, just the basic spell, no clever tricks or skilled focus to it.
It slammed into the dragon's side, hitting one of the mangled wings, and its head snapped towards him. Spitting blood—his or its, he didn't know—to the side, Cyrus pulled his falcata from the ground, opening his free arm away from his body. “Pick on someone your own size."
It probably couldn't understand him, but the words were for himself, the only trace of his bravado he could summon.
He really hoped the others got here soon, or he wouldn't live to regret it.
He pulled in a quiet breath, trying for a moment to channel Leon's understated, quiet confidence. He certainly couldn't hope to match Khari's swagger or Vesryn's Champion-of-the-Inquisition ease. His hands flexed, and he released the breath when he spotted Astraia and Harellan, easy to do considering they were among the few slipping in through the gate rather than out of it. Cyrus didn't quite have the wherewithal to make himself obvious to them, but the need was spared when Harellan spotted him anyway, tapping Astraia on the shoulder and nodding towards him.
He tried to wipe any trace of nervous energy from his appearance as they got closer—the last thing he needed to be doing was making his partner in this madness even more uneasy than she'd already been. He thought he managed decently well, but the tightness in his guts did not ease. The dragon was still out of sight for now, but it wouldn't be long before it returned. Not long before the Inquisition's hope to kill Corypheus for good rested in a very real way on his and Astraia's shoulders.
“You can still tell me this is far too insane." It probably was. She'd called him madman once before, but it had been a joke then. He'd never quite expected to make a prophesy of it. Damn if he was going to make anyone else feel obligated to go along with that. Especially Astraia; she'd hardly signed up for this of all things, and trusting him not to kill her wasn't exactly risk-free even before the other dragon came into the picture.
"It's insane, you're right." Astraia was out of breath; she'd been near the tail end of a training session with Harellan, he knew, and she'd just ran back here besides. The upside to that was that she was already geared up. She didn't wear much armor, just some Dalish-styled leathers over her clothes, but it was better than nothing, and there was nothing on her end to delay them. "But... if I've learned one thing since coming here, it's that insane is what you people do regularly. We can do this, too."
He huffed, but nodded slightly. His thoughts were scattered, and at this moment he couldn't blame it on his internal squatters, either. He just... hadn't been expecting to have to do this so soon. Stupid of him, really.
"Somehow I doubt I need to say this, but be careful, please." Harellan glanced between them. "You both know what you need to know; of this I am quite certain." He reached towards Cyrus's shoulder and laid one hand on it, squeezing gently. "Mala suledin nadas, lethallin. Safe flying to both of you."
To Cyrus's own surprise, he did not stiffen under the touch, nor chafe at the words. Instead he nodded tightly, and Harellan departed. “I won't be able to speak, when it happens." He shifted his attention left and considerably down, to Astraia's face. “But I'll still be... me, I suppose. I'll be able to understand you, though you might need to shout. It's—I know it's a lot to ask, but try to trust me. I promise I won't let you fall."
That, he meant, even if his tongue felt like a lead weight when he said it, weighed down with the uncertainty of the circumstances. It took something more extraordinary than most people would ever be to volunteer for something like this, and he wouldn't have expected it even of his closest friends, or his sister. No doubt some of them would have been willing, but that only spoke to the number of extraordinary people he knew. The least he could do was make sure to prioritize her wellbeing.
"I do trust you." She said it earnestly, quietly, as though the admission was a rather important one for her to make. She almost seemed like she was going to elaborate on it, but she held her tongue. More pressing things to focus on, perhaps. "I'm ready when you are."
And more pressing things there were, or he might have asked about it himself. Not the time, not the place. “Try to focus your aim for the wings. We don't have to kill it ourselves—just bring it down so that everyone else can. If you don't mind standing back a little, I'm about to take up a lot more space." He tried for a wry smile, not sure he quite got there, and took several long strides away himself, picking an empty spot in the middle of the bailey.
It was time.
The itching tingle beneath his skin, that reminder that he could take up more space, could have power in his bones and muscles and heart unlike anything he'd ever experienced any other way, roared back to life as soon as he even contemplated the form he wanted. Shapeshifting was not natural to him. He'd never seen the need to assume a form other than his own before, finding other types of magic adequate to his needs and desires, but now he wished he'd thought to make study of it before. Perhaps it would have helped.
Clenching his jaw so he wouldn't bite his tongue during the shift, Cyrus reached deep, touching the wellspring of mana right at the heart of him and pulling it around himself like a shroud. It sank back into him like water into parched earth, infusing his body and cloaking him in blue. The change itself was a shock, a too-fast metamorphosis that set him reeling: all at once his skin rippled, turning a deep indigo and hardening, separating into scales as everything grew, lengthening and reorienting with a bone-grinding sound pitched higher by the sheer speed of it.
And then he blinked, and the scope of his vision had widened, and he found himself looking down at the bailey from a towering height. He looked most like one of the Vinsomer dragons, scales gradated in varying shades and depths of blue, his underbelly almost teal. Spikes ran the length of his spine; he could feel them only as weight, as they were insensate except where flesh parted around them. Talons curled into the earth, tearing up the hard-packed dirt and leaving deep furrows behind where he kneaded them. The end of his tail was heavy with more spikes, but the hardest part to wrap his head around was and always had been the extra limbs. The wings, leathery and enormous enough to lift this rather ponderous body off the ground. He stretched them carefully, reminding himself just how they worked before he blinked, eyelids clicking audibly. Slit pupils contracted as he focused on the ground, tilting his head until he could see Astraia.
Carefully, Cyrus picked one of his forelimbs off the ground and stretched it over towards her, creating an easier angle for her to climb up at.
She proceeded onto it carefully, climbing slowly as she had one hand always holding her staff. She wouldn't have been all that much trouble to pick up and carry in his human form, and as a dragon her weight was trivial. At least it was enough that he would notice if she slipped from him somehow, but judging by the white-knuckle grip she was employing even now, it seemed likely that wouldn't be a problem she made of her own accord.
She settled atop him in front of where the wings protruded from his back, near the base of his now elongated neck. He could feel the grip of her free hand settle over his spines. She shifted her weight until she was as comfortable as she could manage, her legs squeezing to hold her in place. "Okay." Her voice sounded different, like her throat was constricted. Nervousness bordering on terror, no doubt. "Let's go."
He craned his head back to check her exact positioning with one eye, still not used to the way they could take in completely different things. As soon as he'd sighted her though, he nodded, something that no doubt looked more than a little strange for a dragon to be doing. Slowly at first, but still aware that their time was limited, he turned, giving her some time to get used to the way such creatures moved, though he tried to jostle her as little as possible, even when he shifted back onto his hind legs to place his forelimbs on one of the side walls and pull them up.
Some of the crenelations crunched and cracked under his weight, but for the most part everything held, and then they were looking out over the massive drop over the wall and the cliffside it was built upon. Pulling in a deep breath that expanded his sides like a bellows, Cyrus gathered his feet underneath him, stretching both wings out to the side, and driving them down at the same time as he pushed with all four legs off the wall.
At first, there was a weightless feeling, and then a lurch as they began to fall. But this much, he knew how to do, the barest trace of draconic instinct telling him when to beat the wings and when to glide. It was almost like swimming, really, and he tucked his forelegs underneath him, using the tail like a rudder and coasting through the air in search of the red lyrium monstrosity.
If it had been any situation but this one, at any other time, he'd have exulted in the feeling of flight. Why he'd never pursued it until now was beyond him—maybe it was just the form edging in on his thoughts, but it felt like flying was something he was born to do.
"High and on our right!" Astraia called, needing to yell for her voice to be able to cut through to him. "It's gone above the clouds!" The cloud cover wasn't complete, the sun able to poke through in many places, but there was definitely enough that it could be used for concealment for a fight such as this. There was little to do but gain altitude and seek it out; here and there Cyrus could spot hints of it as it soared through and above the clouds. Already he could feel Astraia gathering a spell, the magic gathering at his back in the form of dense rock, hovering around Astraia's staff.
The dragon had either sighted them, or was simply ready ahead of time, as it burst out of the clouds heading directly for them right as they got close. Its mouth opened to breathe fire, but Astraia's preparation paid off. She was able to launch the stonefist directly ahead on reaction, the spell smashing into the dragon's neck and throwing off its aim. It was still hurtling straight for them on collision course.
Cyrus shifted, rippling the line of his body to reorient his trajectory and come at it from an angle. He hoped Astraia was holding on tightly, but there was no time or way to be sure, so he trusted her to see this coming.
His body collided with the red lyrium dragon's in midair, a heavy thud nearly knocking the wind from his lungs. His angle was better, but it had the extra weight of gravity, and it dragged at him, pulling both of them into freefall as he reached forward with his claws, trying to find some kind of purchase on the stone-studded scales. His talons screeched over it, audible even over the sound of the rushing air.
Astraia switched to spirit magic, launching bolts rapidly and aiming for the dragon's face. About half of them missed, sailing on through the air until they would eventually impact a mountainside somewhere far below. Half of them hit, however, and while they didn't do too much damage outright, it kept the dragon from clamping its teeth down anywhere, and even cracked apart a tooth or two.
Unfortunately, it didn't do anything to stop the claws, and one of them found his side, just where his neck became his shoulders, leaving a heavy trio of tear-gouges in his scales. He curled his digits in the same way he'd felt it do, lips pulling back from his teeth when he felt them sink in near where the catapult had already wounded it.
The dragon screeched, rearing back. He caught the glint of molten embers in its throat. He had no idea what that would do to him, but it would certainly reach far enough back to damage Astraia. Cyrus did the only thing he could think to do—he pushed off the other dragon, releasing the grip of his claws, and rolled over in the air, shielding his back side with his front at the same time as he tried to escape the inevitable breath attack.
The fire hurt about as much as he thought it would, heating his belly uncomfortably at first, until the pain was blistering and he swore he could smell himself charring.
That pain was enough to distract him momentarily from the fact that he could no longer feel Astraia's legs around his neck, or her hand gripping his scales. And a scream cutting through the air was all the confirmation he needed to know that she'd somehow lost her grip and was now falling.
There was definitely enough human inside the dragon to feel the cold grip of panic. Cyrus pulled his wings in towards his body and let himself fall, pointing his nose down towards the ground. He could feel the sting of the wind against his burnt underside, and the way speed tore the dripping blood away from his wound, but he was too busy trying to find her to give much of a damn. Probably the dragon again—he'd never had the world's most excellent pain tolerance.
The other dragon didn't follow: either it thought them finished or was prioritizing something else. That thought ought to worry him, but just now he had a promise to keep.
There. He spotted her plummeting some distance below him, gritting his teeth when he realized he wasn't getting any closer. He might have been aerodynamic, but he also had a lot more mass for the wind to drag against, and he wasn't going to make it at this rate. Spreading his wings, he drove them down, accelerating to breakneck speed in the descent. Closer, closer... there!
He reached out with his foreleg and wrapped the talons around her midsection as delicately as he was capable. Lashing his tail, he reoriented until he was not completely vertical, than forced his wings open with a snap.
The pain was excruciating; it felt like they were being torn from his body, which lurched sharply with the inelegant motion. For a moment, he couldn't muster the strength to do more, and he was left gliding, slowing their fall without really stopping it, and the ground continued to rush up towards them, dizzying in the speed of its approach. Cyrus strained against the limitations of this body, instinct forcing the same thing he always did when he hit his physical limit: magic.
He drove his wings back down, pulled them through the fade as much as the air, and the fall became a swoop, close enough to the ground that his feet almost skimmed the surface of the lake, and then they were flying again, each flap straining his injuries. Only then was he able to check on Astraia, still held gingerly between his claws.
Of all the things for her to be doing, she was casting a spell. Healing magic, it looked like. She was spattered with blood, but considering the lack of obvious claw wounds in her from when he'd grabbed her or otherwise, the blood had to be his, sprayed on her in the course of his reorienting and his efforts to keep them from crashing into the ground. The magic, too, was aimed at him, trying to at least stop the blood loss from what the corrupted dragon had done to him. She looked to be in shock, to some extent, her face almost blank of emotion. Perhaps it was all just a bit too much to process. Her lips moved, words lost to the wind as she forgot to shout this time, but Cyrus could read them well enough. I'm okay.
If he'd had the capacity to express his relief, he would have. As it was, he doubted a dragon's face was any better at conveying that kind of thing than a shocked one, and so he could only lift her back towards his shoulder, letting her get closer to the wound she was trying to heal and attempting not to let himself sag with relief at the cool touch of the magic. The burn he could deal with: painful as it was, he wasn't in serious danger from it. But if he didn't stop bleeding, he might pass out, and that was the last thing he could afford to do in midair.
While she healed, he ascended, flying back towards Skyhold because if the lyrium dragon was going to be anywhere, there would be it. He tried to stay above cloud cover, in hopes of getting the drop on it this time, but he couldn't climb too high. The air was already thin here, and he was the only one with a flying creature's lungs.
He spotted it just as it descended on Skyhold's front wall, waiting just long enough for Astraia to climb back into position properly before diving after it. He'd never tried to use a breath weapon before, but he could feel it there, in his guts, not entirely different from the way magic always felt. Crackling, like a thing alive. At this distance, he might need it.
Breaking through the clouds, Cyrus exhaled, a cloud of thick grey smoke erupting from his lungs, bolts of lightning snapping through it. It neared the the lyrium dragon's hide just as the creature pulled away from the wall to attack the Inquisition troops marshaled on the ground. As if it had sensed the attack coming, it rolled, much more expertly than he had, leaving the lightning to only graze the outer edge of its left wing. But it wheeled away from the Inquisition and back into the air far above. Cyrus gave chase.
Astraia peppered it with magic attacks, switching to her own lightning spells and loosing them with little hesitation at the dragon. She was able to hit it more often than not, leaving fierce scorch marks along its hide and wings. It turned its head and bellowed fire back at them, but Cyrus was more easily able to dodge it this time, and did so without shaking Astraia from his back. They were driving it where they wanted now, over the lake, but that still left the matter of bringing it down. Cyrus could feel Astraia sag against him slightly, the effort required to almost constantly cast powerful spells wearing on her, but her grip didn't waver.
Apparently she still had reserves left, too, as the momentary pause in the casting was simply to prepare something all the more powerful. She thrust her staff forward, primal magic leaping from it and wrapping around the corrupted dragon's back. Solid rock encased its wings around the base, a strong petrify spell disrupting its flight. There was no way she'd be able to petrify the entire beast, but just that small critical part of it was more than enough to slow it down. It struggled as it began to lose altitude, the rock encasing it already beginning to crack, but the delay was all Cyrus needed to close the gap, and try again to bring it down.
This time, the positioning advantage was entirely his, and he took it, slamming into the dragon feet first and pinning one of its wings against its body, sinking his claws in and wrenching, tearing rents in the thinner, purplish membranes. Almost belatedly, he remembered he had a mouth full of sharp teeth as well, and angled his neck down, careful to pick a spot on the wing muscle without the red lyrium protrusions. He hooked his teeth over the smaller scales there and squeezed until he felt them give way.
With his head out of her direct line of fire, Astraia was free to aim for the other wing, now the only thing keeping the dragon even slightly steady in the air.
She unleashed a much less directed constant blast of lightning, no longer needing to aim at much of anything. It crackled like a miniaturized version of Cyrus's dragon breath, hissing and burning at the membranes of the wing until holes were burnt through them, spreading and tearing wider with the unrelenting magic.
Cyrus pushed off, certain that the damage they'd done was enough. They'd wound up close enough to the ground that the fall alone probably wasn't going to do much, and they were coming down on the far side of the lake, but if they were lucky, the dragon would at least break a leg or something.
It spread its bloody wings, crimson trailing in ribbons from its descent. Cyrus could still taste it on his tongue, the thrill of a foe injured not entirely a product of his extra instincts. But he too was fading fast, and the nearness of the ground was more blessing than curse as he brought himself and Astraia down after it.
Landing was not a skill he'd mastered, and though the lyrium dragon was the more injured, his was the harder impact; it jarred up his legs enough to shoot bolts of pain through his entire body, and he just barely had the wherewithal to crouch and put himself as close to the ground as he could before he lost hold of the form, blacking out for several seconds of insensate numbness and reawakening back in his own body, wracked with pain. He curled in on himself, breaths fast and shallow, shudders traveling up and down the length of his spine. He knew he needed to get up, needed to stand and help Astraia hold out until the rest of the group arrived, but his muscles refused to obey his commands. He choked softly, the sound a shortened version of the raw yell tearing at his throat, without the air needed to escape.
He heard her groan softly somewhere nearby, from the ground. No doubt she'd been thrown when he'd been forced suddenly out of the dragon form. She at least was able to regain her feet, using her staff and a nearby tree to support herself. The dragon was far from dead, and still dangerously close, smashing trees aside as it angrily tried to get its bearings. The two of them were the first thing its eyes settled on, and Astraia had no choice but to meet it, or otherwise let Cyrus die.
She pushed away from the tree, actually moving towards the dragon, perhaps to put more distance between where they'd fight and where Cyrus lay. A stonefist flew from her staff, but it was half as big as the one she'd mustered to start the fight, and it bounced off the dragon's chest in an explosion of rock. It leaped and dove at her, forcing her to dive out of the way. For a moment she disappeared in a cloud of kicked up dirt where the monster came down, but when it cleared Cyrus could see her on the other side of it, struggling back to her feet. She threw a spell at its back, lightning that found one of its open wounds and clearly caused it significant pain.
The dragon's tail swept sideways, and Astraia never saw it coming. It smashed into her torso with a heavy thud, tossing her swiftly aside through the air, her bladed staff flipping away to the edge of the lake. She collided with a tree at speed, her velocity brought to a sudden halt, and from there she collapsed to the ground face down, and moved no more.
Somehow, Cyrus found the wherewithal to reach his hands and knees. His stomach lurched, threatening to show him his lunch a second time, but he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to slow them down even if each of them shook like he was the site of his own local earthquake. Astraia wasn't moving. He had no idea if she was unconscious or—better not to think about it. Better still to make sure the dragon didn't either.
His hand found its way to the one steel sword he still wore, tugging it awkwardly free of the sheath and stabbing it into the ground so he could pull himself to his feet. He doubted he had what it would take to conjure one from the fade right now. In fact, he was pretty sure he had exactly one spell left in him, and he had to make it count.
Lightning, raw and crackling, wreathed his entire left arm; without the energy to focus it, he let it fly like that, just the basic spell, no clever tricks or skilled focus to it.
It slammed into the dragon's side, hitting one of the mangled wings, and its head snapped towards him. Spitting blood—his or its, he didn't know—to the side, Cyrus pulled his falcata from the ground, opening his free arm away from his body. “Pick on someone your own size."
It probably couldn't understand him, but the words were for himself, the only trace of his bravado he could summon.
He really hoped the others got here soon, or he wouldn't live to regret it.