It took me a few seconds to step through the doorway, simply because I knew they planned to close it. Citrine laid down on the same cushion as last time and patted the open spot in the middle of her half-way curled body.

Thankfully, the door was still open, which made it easier to sit. Citrine's tail curled around my legs, and pulled me close enough for my back to touch her side. With a yawn, she rested her head on her hands, her relaxed pose at complete odds with how my heart raced and my eyes darted between the door and the windows.

But nothing happened. The door remained open, and the airship didn't so much as shift. Slowly, my heart rate subsided as my confusion built. Had I misunderstood something?

Jasper came through the doorway and set the woven figures and maps on another cushion. With a glance at us, he touched the wall beside the door, and it slid closed. I couldn't pull my eyes away from it. Citrine shifted her head onto my knee and gave a comforting hum, although I barely registered the sound.

The door was closed.

It had been my greatest fear the last two days, and it had just come true. If it hadn't been for all the windows, I probably would have panicked. Even though I knew it wasn't possible to climb out through them, they gave the illusion that I wasn't completely trapped.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to control my breathing. I had agreed to this. We'd be coming back. Jasper ambled over and nudged my shoulder with a comforting hum of his own. The contact seemed to jar me out of my panic, and I patted his neck, unsure of what he wanted.

Citrine and Jasper exchanged a series of hums and hisses, and he went to the windowless wall. When he touched it, part of it slid aside, revealing a very different part of the ship. Two bizarre chairs were present—clearly meant for Saursunes. Under the big front window were all sorts of controls and stuff that looked vaguely similar to the magazine picture of an airplane's control room.

Small bluish-purple crystals were scattered all over, and an odd misty light thing created a map that actually hung in the air. It showed the airship and the area outside, right down to every big rock and tree. I could even see faint light silhouettes of two lions farther back.

The panel slid closed behind Jasper. To my surprise, I was disappointed. It might have been Saursune technology, but the controls and light map thingy had looked really cool.

Citrine nuzzled my knee and rested her chin on her hands. Outside, the leaves shifted on the trees, although I couldn't hear them rustling. In fact, I couldn't hear anything outside. Just some sort of faint, deep humming that seemed to come from all around us.

Then I realized the trees were moving down. No, the airship was rising. My breathing sped up, although it didn't feel like we were moving. It wasn't possible to see the ground while sitting, although that might have been a good thing.

The airship's hum deepened, but all I could see by now was sky outside the window. My weight shifted slightly, as if there was some sort of forward motion, and my hands moved to brace myself as it increased, kind of like when riding on a cart or wagon.

Citrine hissed faintly at Jasper's hidden door, and the feeling eased. The floor didn't quite feel solid, almost like when walking on the floating plant mats by the marsh. Perhaps because we were in the air?

Citrine curled closer around me, her body giving me more support than the soft cushion, but pushing my hands out of the way in the process. The urge to hang onto something—however much or little it would help if something happened—remained. I rested my hands on my knees as Citrine continued to hum comfortingly.

And...nothing else really happened. The cloudless sky outside the window gave no clues about how fast we were moving. I certainly wasn't about to stand up to check. Memories of the airships zipping along in the distance made my stomach do flip flops, and I really hoped we weren't moving that fast.

I slowly relaxed and let my weight lean against Citrine. How long would it take to reach all these places? It took three hours to walk here, and the other crystal was in the opposite direction, so I would have had to retrace my steps and then go an extra three or four hours to reach it on foot.

The jungle picture was similar to a place that had jaguars, not lions, although crocodiles were present in both, so I had no clue how close they were together. The pine trees were in a drier, mountainous location.

The airship shuddered slightly as if struck by a small earthquake. My hands flew down, landing on Citrine's arm and hind leg. She nuzzled me with another hum, apparently not minding how I was holding onto her arm. How was she so calm about this? Wasn't she worried about falling out of the sky? Did airships ever crash? Was this how my passengers felt when I ported?

That thought, as odd as it was, made me take a deep breath and try not to hyperventilate. I had been porting for years; it was familiar and the port itself held no fear for me, just whatever might be waiting on the other side. But I'd ported more than a few villagers who were terrified of accompanying us in our "disappearing act".

Citrine had likely been riding in airships longer than I had been porting, presuming she was around my age, which I had no way of knowing. The airship was just a different method of transportation. It was something she was comfortable with, even if it was a completely new experience for me.

That didn't make it easy or mean that I liked it, but it made it a bit easier to accept. I also suspected this wouldn't be my last ride. I would have felt much safer porting, but I couldn't port to a specific place if I hadn't been to it yet. My grip slowly relaxed, although my hand stayed on Citrine's arm. Just in case.

Tree branches appeared outside the windows before my heartrate completely returned to normal. I stared at them in disbelief. Surely we couldn't be here already... An airship couldn't turn a seven-hour walk into a ten-minute flight, could it?

When the branches stopped rising and the deep hum faded, I presumed the airship had landed. Citrine stood, and after a brief stretch and lazy yawn, she nudged the underside of my elbow. I got up and followed her. She touched the wall and the door opened to reveal a full-grown crystal only ten paces away. It wasn't a crystal I'd seen before either.

My excitement was immediately overridden by caution as I looked around to make sure nothing was lingering nearby. I examined the acacia trees in case a lion or leopard was hiding in the branches. Citrine glanced over at my sudden reluctance to leave the airship, then she stepped outside and trotted a circuit around the crystal.

With Citrine present, I figured it was safe enough to walk to the crystal. It took mere seconds for me to familiarize myself with it and write a location name in the dirt. Apart from a few trees, there wasn't much at this location.

Citrine soon appeared at my side and escorted me back inside the airship. Going inside was easier this time, although when Citrine closed the door behind us, the sight sent my heart racing just like it had the first time. She nudged my arm with her nose and went to lie on the cushion, tapping the open section.

With no real options, I sat beside her, this time close enough that my back brushed against her so she didn't have to pull me across the furs. She rested her chin on her hands while humming comfortingly. Jasper somehow knew we were seated, and the tree branches started sinking below the window.

~

Despite a few more airship shudders that had me clutching Citrine's arm, boredom slowly crept in. I might have been accustomed to sitting on resting hides for longer than I cared to, but there had been people to talk to or things to watch. It was just the walls, ceiling, floor, and windows with the endless blue.

It was impossible to tell time without seeing the sun or shadows near a stationary object, but I guessed it had been at least half an hour, and we were still flying. Citrine remained curled around me, but it wasn't exactly possible to talk with her the same way I chatted with Merryl or Liam. If nothing else, the inside of the airship was rapidly becoming a familiar scene.

Even the idea of flying was slowly losing its terror since the cloudless sky never changed. I still didn't like it, but nothing bad had happened, and it was hard to tell we were moving.

Citrine lifted her head, and seconds later, leaves and branches rose in front of all the windows. Unlike the last stop, where they had been some distance away, the dense jungle foliage swayed from our passage and brushed against the airship. Leaves and branches rained down past the windows. I leaned back against Citrine, taken aback by their abrupt appearance and violent swaying.

We stopped moving downward, and the hum subsided. When Citrine started to move, I stood up and took a cautious step forward, peering out a window, but all I could see was a jumble of plants.

The front door slid open as Jasper came out and closed it behind him. I blinked at his unexpected appearance. He opened the side door and skipped back as several branches swung inside. I stepped away, bumping into Citrine. Jasper pushed the branches out the door and disappeared outside.

When I took a curious step forward, Citrine's tail swung in front of me as she gave a soft jaw clack. I stepped back and looked out a nearby window instead. Judging by how many broken branches were on the ground, the airship must have forced its way through the canopy.

Jasper wrestled armfuls of branches, vines, and all sorts of foliage away from the doorway. I didn't see the crystal, although my view was very much hampered by the thick jungle. When the green Saursune started using his claws to slash a path through the greenery, I shivered and stepped away from the window.

Citrine glanced outside, then rubbed her cheek against my arm with a soft hum. I rested my hand on her shoulder to reassure her that I was okay. Jasper wasn't the one responsible for the memories and old fears that plagued me. At least, I didn't think he was.

It wasn't long before Jasper stuck his head inside and gave a faint hiss. There was nothing menacing or threatening about the sound, so when Citrine walked to the door, I went with her. Jasper bounded down the newly-made path to the crystal twenty paces away.

I paused in the doorway and looked around uneasily. I had never liked forests this dense; it was too hard to spot danger in time. Citrine stepped outside and waited for me. I forced myself to step outside, finding it ironic that the airship felt like the safest spot currently available.

My eyes flickered across the walls of foliage, although I doubted anything lurked there after the airship crashed through the canopy. Several fruits and nuts had fallen to the ground from above, so this would be a good spot once we cleared back a lot of the undergrowth. I grabbed a few as we passed them and tucked them into a belt pouch to nibble on later.

I reached the crystal—it only had two spires, something I'd never seen before—and carefully memorized it. It was bestowed with the super original name of Jungle Twin Spires. The jungle gave me the creeps, and the airship's interior was now a familiar reassurance of safety. I didn't even hesitate at the doorway, which earned me a surprised glance from Citrine.

Already accustomed to the routine, I sat down beside her without any encouragement. Jasper came in last and closed the outside door before retreating into the hidden room, presumably to pilot the airship once more.

I caught a glimpse of the mist-light map thing, which showed an interesting three-dimensional layout of the forest's ground and trees. I couldn't tell which of the rocks was the crystal I'd just visited before the door closed behind him and blocked my view.

Branches brushed against the window as the airship rose straight up, easily pushing its way through the canopy. I leaned back against Citrine and mulled over how quickly I'd gone from being scared of the airship to rushing back inside to escape a jungle I considered dangerous. I might not be completely relaxed, but the airship no longer terrified me.

Then I realized I had leaned against a Saursune without a second thought, far more at ease in her company than I should have been.

It gave me a lot to think about as we started our next flight.