The entire journey had turned into a frozen dream, with Birdie falling into an endless rhythm of wingstrokes. She followed the faint golden glow of the dragon, a star which had constantly led her on, almost in a hypnotic state.
This state ended abruptly when the dragon stopped and hovered in mid-air. Bird, awoke from her dream state as she crashed into the dragon's scaled tail, and skittered down it's length. She recovered and slowly circled the length of the now massive wyrm, wishing - not for the first time - that crows were of the hovering kind.
She had not realized how cold and high they were, wondering for a moment if they had somehow lost their way and had wound up in the Reagions of Everlasting cold. Below them yawned a vast, dark fissure in the earth. "The Rainbow Cleft", Bird knew it to be called, but there was no rainbow brightness to it now. It looked like a gigantic slash of ink in the landscape below. The mountains to the north gave off a faint glow of starlight from their snow-shrouded peaks.
Mithadan turned and shouted to Birdie: "Stay close! We don't want some eagle making a snack of you." The skin-changer started, looking around wildly, then sent a mock-glare at the Man-Elf. As if the likes of Thorondor and his kin would interest themselves in munching on crow. May as well say that Gwaihir the Wind Lord would fancy a snack of housefly.
"Since when did the Eagles hunt at night?" Bird shouted back. But then the entire party looked to the East. The faintest milk-glow of light - not even light, but a mere description of light - was touching the far horizon.
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