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I guess I can keep updating and explaining these stories. This story is the one where I discovered that my family was a little different, well, a little more different than I thought.  I enjoy thinking about them. Too bad Indigo no longer has a crush on Ducks or I would work that in.

On the other hand, she seems even more interested in Wolfie, though she slept through the first kiss. She only woke up afterwards. Then they had all that school work to make up. At least the Bitter King kept them from flunking.

Amber and I on the other hand, those ladies at the school put us through work like you wouldn't believe. I confess I'm learning my way out of the habits I got from the family curse.

But it meant that we did not get to go with them when they took the seasilk and the last of the dragonscale to the weavers. They brought a lot more than the arrangement required (they even used a pack mule -- now that is a whole new story) and took Tindalasse with them. Next thing you, they brought back some of the neatest armor I've ever seen and the entire court was talking, buzzing like bees really, over Tindalasse's new clothing. You have never seen anything like it (or him, wearing it. When Indigo writes about how good looking he is, she isn't telling you the half of it. This new armor really shows him off too, if you know what I mean. Just thinking about the way he looked on the visit he made to show it to us makes me smile. Then Porkchop came and told us all about the court. I'm sure glad we were able to find a butcher in village and that Porkchop still takes time to visit us.).

The little girl got to go on Christmas vacation.  Her Mom & Dad were going to fly down to the University in Oregon where her brother studied and was a kicker for the "Ducks" -- a football team.  He was tall (almost 6'4") and could run very fast. He had practiced iado since he was young (iado is a martial art of drawing a sword) and he also liked aki jutsu.  Her ice falcon decided to race them to 59 Degrees North, the ski resort they were going to (it is about an hour North of Spokane, Washington).

My falcon had finally gotten back to health and was just rejoycing in life and the chance to fly. It was used to being the fastest thing in its world, though it needed to learn to be wary about storms -- trying to fly through a magical storm faster than the change magic could shift it about was how it landed broken and vulnerable next to my back yard after all. But it was young, and full of life and joy and speed, and this was just the perfect outing. Not to mention, we couldn't bear to be apart and I didn't think I could tell my parents about it.

They had picked up her brother and were flying their SQ-2000 (a canard wing aircraft that has the cabin area designed as a lifting body) when lighting almost struck them -- in clear air with no clouds near-by.  Her father increased power and pulled into a steep climb right towards the sun.  He pulled an Immelman (that is a maneuver where an airplane comes right back down the direction it just came from) and passed the lighting shrike that was trying to attack them.

That's my dad, cool as a cucumber (well, I got that phrase from an old book, frosty as anything is how I'd say it) and immediately clear on the uptake.

You would wonder what a kevlar and carbon fiber aircraft could do against a magical creature that spits lightning (it looks something like a cross between a bolt of lightning, a dragonfly and a shrike [a particularly nasty type of killing bird]).  Or it did.  The airplane had two pods, one for extra luggage, one for extra fuel.  It left a haze in the air and the lightning shrike suddenly was enveloped in a huge ball of fire as it set off over a hundred pounds of fuel.

The ice falcon watched the blasted body fall and fell upon it, striking and then eating the body until all that was left was the multifaceted third eye.  The falcon carried that off for the little girl who had it made into a pin.  When she wore it she had the shrike's power to teleport over short distances (50' or so) as blast of jagged lightning.

That was more work and more magic than it sounds like. The shed in the back yard had more magic tools left behind than just the rope making machine, though every time I used a set, they were consumed by the magic that was using them. There is nothing left there now, not even the shed, when I made my last visit, what was left of the wrecked building just crumbled away.

She had a great time skiing.

That was fun. All surrounded by snow and ice and wind and speed. It must be like that a little, to be a falcon. I can feel the same feelings when it flies, even as a great gryphon.

Those who sent the shrike were nonplussed as it had been destroyed without magic.  This was another sending that had failed. Next time they would not be so careless.

As for the little girl, she didn't know what to think about her father's reaction to a magical creature attacking him out of the clear blue sky.  He had not looked back after the explosion, just kept going at full speed, about three hundred miles an hour with both turbine engines purring.  Even the falcon couldn't travel that fast (though it could fall through the air at the same speed it could dive at -- a magical ability that let it go almost 190 mph in straight lines).  He didn't say anything and they had a great time skiing.

That was back when the curse was still on us and Dad thought he had protected me from being embroiled by it. Dad's can be soooo clueless sometimes.

I miss him now. Darn, I promised myself I'd keep my mind on other things. Guess I need to write about how Jean and Marie finished transforming and what they became.

Maybe it was time to take an iado lesson or some aki-ki training.