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*
Pietro does not object to being pulled out of the tavern and into the street. He did think of an objection — such as, Hey! That's something I do— do OTHER people! — but it came out as:
Hrrssmmthn…purple…
When he and 'Busty LaRoux' — known for her assets above and below deck, to use a nautical analogy — reach the streets, Pietro collapses to the ground, struggling vainly to dislodge himself from the vampiric whore's grasp.
To little avail.
"Hrm…" he mumbles. "Lillhllp…Li'l… Little help!! Vamp — vampire!! No, not me! Her…" And he fights the urge to stay conscious.
*
Shadows lie over the shuddering side street in Port Royal, a pirate haunt perched on the hard slopes of a tropical island where they meet the azure sea. Colourful awnings conceal the businesses plying relatively legal trade, the plank and cobbled road weaving along the slope. Disturbances are plentiful enough that ambling buccaneers or residents in their frockcoats wear swords, naked or not. Several responded to Tommy blitzing out from a popular watering hole, dragging a slightly older version of himself and a busty harlot. The two lie in an amorous embrace midroad, nothing new. Shattered glass as a female privateer leapt through a window, equally not as worrisome, nor the brewing fire in a cellar fed by fifteen kegs of rum. A brigade of unhappy pirates chasing a British naval officer and an escaped Spaniard captive equally warrant a standard day.
Tommy's disappearance at speed marked a concerned look, though. The return of Don Tome, Portuguese missionary, marked the descent of an aerial horror seizing his heavy frock in ephemeral claws, while storm clouds and thunder roil in a proud eye, feathers fletched in cumulus fronds. And that guardian is good enough to get buccaneers going for cover. Particularly when the second arrows down from the heavens nearly invisible, and snatches up the romantic couple. Pietro and harlot screech in varied tones, one low and groggy, the other high and offended. But rules are rules as the elemental shoots up.
*
And here we begin…
*
From on high, the size of Port Royal compared to its surrounding lush island, clothed in verdant jungle greenery, becomes apparent. Jutting docks clutch to the curving bay protected by a natural breakwater and reefs offshore where ominous shapes lurk in the crashing surf, proof of the navigational hazards and strange sharks dwelling among the aqua depths. Shorter buildings planted around a tangle of crooked streets gives way to an attempt at a radial spoke pattern in the outer fringes, broken up by the cliffs and rising elevation near the water. Staccato peaks mark belltowers and church steeples, such as they might have in this godless city in a different dimension. Still, the fine architecture is breathlessly lovely when claimed on high by airy claws and the sinuous, plundering body of the aerial guardian.
Many rooftops bear inviting cisterns and long tracks of terra cotta tiling, thatch, even stone shingles. If his feet could reach them, Pietro might as easily traverse a winding, serpentine course from the slums to the very foot of a grandiose spire that lies in the northeast quadrant of the city, one whose proximity to the jagged granite backbone of the island leaves it buffeted by the winds. Which more than likely makes it the Chapel of the Winds they’re seeking to reach.
Mind, that seems to be the destination of his aerial transportation, the stormcloud shape of a leonine body and sinuous lines blended as a distortion against the blinding azure sky. The opalescent sheen of wicked claws and lightning-charged eye preclude against trying to wrench himself away, not the least because the ozone scent of its partially corporeal body speaks to crackling lightning. It is phased slightly and he might feel his limbs sinking into the microstorm, tumbling winds and strange currents coursing along his bared skin.
Busty LaRoux is no friend to it, flailing and screeching, plaintively trying to escape from the unwanted escort. The vampire whore lashes out periodically and keens, trying to suck some form of sustenance from the gryphon without success. Her eyes roll and flash as somehow, she stays clothed.
*
Pietro's clothes end up shredded by the elemental griffon's claws, not that he is complaining. The creature saved him from the vampiress, Busty LaRoux, and that is good enough for the speedster. For now.
He does try to shuffle as far away from the vampiress as he can, while still being held by the griffon — so it does little good… except that vibrating at high speeds may cause a charge to build up in the elemental and maaaaybe fry the vampire…
Pietro can dream.
"Wh-where are we?" he asks breathlessly as they reach the 'Chapel of the Winds'. "Please tell me is not a church… I have already confessed this year."
*
The creature still clutches the vampire, the pretty whore he plucked from the tavern doing her damnedest to escape the maelstrom. Her olive arm lashes out through glistening distortions in the air and she shrieks in frustration, the cutting words distorted with every powerful wingbeat propelling the elemental avian higher into the air. The consistency of the swirling aerial body shifts, composing itself into something far more tactile, consuming her within and buffeting the poor woman from every side.
Nothing so much as flesh lies under Pietro or, more importantly, onto him. Great talons might reasonably be expected, but their sheer absence is likely far less comforting than the rising smell of ozone filling every breath. Darkening miasma blots out the skyline below the hint of a curved leg and its belly visible to him, and his hair floats in bleached waves above him as the rising static charge takes effect.
Yet, it’s a wonder to behold on the steep and furious descent of the creature from the sky. Like a peregrine it stoops, but far more sinuous and elongated, merging gryphon to celestial dragon in an impossibility refusing to reconcile itself with his mundane senses. Sped up, he’s lifted aloft and flung forward like a rollercoaster ride at speeds usually achievable only by speedsters, and typically ones that end poorly when connected to a wall or any inanimate, immobile object.
Gorgeous curving architecture streams past too fast to enjoy and they careen at a sickening angle, spun around on a tight spiral, as the guardian plunges in a suicidal dive for the ground. Sky sweeps underfoot, the earth forming a close dome in the heavens, and the engraved, baroque spire connecting the two appears to stand even taller than anything else around them. Two quick wingbeats launch them at far too narrow an archway, one limned in frozen metal and marble latticework. They’re sure to smash through the delicate creation, and bash him to pieces, or make Pietro no more than a cloud of red mist.
Volume is no issue for the aetheric guardian, for it compresses itself through that narrowed eye, the pressure squashed around the entrapped man, pushed inwards uncomfortably so. Thus he ends up hurled at velocity through a literal sky cannon at the floor, a narrow groove sliced down the middle apparently for events such as these. Or decorative ones.
The prostitute has a far better time of tumbling without looking like a pinwheeling ragdoll, flung into a basin.
*