u/IntelligentCat3645

Okay, I’ve already commented this, but figured it make it a post so everyone can have a chuckle.

My results day was years ago. But I was babysitting this seven year old on the day. (Before you ask, yes, he was exactly what you think of when you think ‘seven year old’, practically a parody of himself). As I was trying to explain it to him, we got into an argument. It got very convoluted but the main points he won on were:

a) he can spell spaghetti (it wasn’t on my bio exam so he wins the most complicated ‘normal’ word)

b) he is allowed to drink coke (I don’t like the taste, and only drink water) the full fat kind 🤨

c) I don’t have any bear yo-yos or coco pops at home

d) I don’t even have breath of the wild joycons, anyway!

e) he has more friends than me because he had 30 whole friends at his last birthday party and I didn’t even have one last year because “it’s not a birthday party if you can only get your family to come so you’re not alone”

f) his dad could beat up my dad

Then I pretended to be sad to get him to stop until he let me play spider-man in ‘spider-man fights the tiger’. This was a close escape.

Tbh, he was completely correct. I do not have a spider-man light or a batman alarm clock. And yes, this stuck in my mind enough to make a note on it in the notes app on my phone, which I still chuckle at now and then, so I have referenced it to amuse you today. So any way you spend your results day was probably better than being roasted by a seven year old.

(My condolences to the people with very little siblings, who will experience this fate either way.)

Love you all and best of luck!

“My name is Lysander Bellona and my honour is stained. If the void so meets me, to the void I shall be condemned.”

”My name is Darrow O’Lykos and that’s a bunch of pixie shit.”

*Sevro-with-a-chainsaw-jumpscare*

A bit self explanatory, but I wanted to do something a bit whimsical for this sub, so have over engineered a scenario for you all to enjoy!

But, to get you into it:

“There was it was, sitting solitary in a bed of yellow velvet, sheltered by wreckage of a half-splintered maple wood box. When you moved closer, anxiously picking it up, the fully hardened surface, thankfully appears unharmed, covered in a very shallow, faint pattern of dragon scales, faintly warm, a barely-there heartbeat pulsing deep under your fingers as you touched the globed surface. This egg was good and heavy, just slightly too large to fit in the crook of your arm.

It was beautiful, a shady, faintly glittering verdant shell, the colour of the darkest, blackest emerald, full of angles that caught the light over the patterned shell, drawing and trapping light within the dark sheen, like the gloss of a fine jewel. The keratin stuck up in elegant, almost curling, swirling hooks and curves of the darkest green, almost like ferns, intricately full of light. There were speckled, swirling patterns of lighter greens near the top, spatters of mossy-basil shades, dappled through with veins and splotches of a lighter, creamier pistachio colour, veined with greenish brown.

Just as your heart was starting to settle and you’d begun to contemplate who to call, the egg shook. You paused, only just processing what this meant, before the first opalescent chip struck free and fell to the ground. Evidently, it had decided now was the best time, of any, to make its entrance into the world. Making it, legally… Your responsibility, at least for now.”

Say there was a dragon egg that started to hatch right in front of you while on a walk or something. In your home country. It is the egg described above. No-one else is available and you have evidently been chosen to caretake it until it feels secure enough to make its own way in the world / find its parents.

Assuming it hasn’t decided to give itself a name yet,

a) what are you calling it?

b) first actions you’re taking?

c) what are you feeding it?

d) this is a shocking event, for anyone, even in the T universe. So, how are you taking it, champ?

Right. Another rant.

So as technology gets closer to achieving gene editing in humans (through CRISPR, which can cut out sections of DNA and viruses, which can add DNA), the question always comes up:

”Since so many people suffer from x, should we eradicate it?”

This sounds like a great idea for stuff like Huntington’s or severe genetic disorders. We know it shortens lifespans, leads to lower quality of life for the person, and causes distress for family members. And it’s on very few genes, so easy-peasy! Since most parents both people who have it and people who do not, would rather not have it passed on, it seems reasonable.

Bingo, no more people suffer from x.

So the goalpost moves.

”Alright, then, what about Down syndrome?”

Same thing. And it is pruned out. Cool.

But this, to me, raises a question. Who gets to define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ genes? Is it the people who are affected? Is it the parents who decide whether or not it might affect their children? Is it the governing body?

I’m sure you can see where I’m going. If gene editing gets used as a tool to remove suffering, who defines suffering. I don’t want to panic people, so quickly:

autism is on multiple genes that also control other traits, so much harder to edit out without making it worse. Many people out there are carriers but the genes just aren’t turned on, so it would be massively impractical to undertake

it is related to other facets of neurodiversity like ADHD or OCPD, so trying to experiment to perfect it means messing with neurotransmitters and reward pathways, which have a massive chance of going wrong, so it’s unlikely to be even achievable

it has a wide spectrum of symptoms, so is hard to pin down what they’d even be targeting

As a result, we’d have a few decades to see it coming and protest before anyone even got out of the theory stage. Also autism is overrepresented in research science, so many people are unlikely to green light something that hurts them. THIS IS A HYPOTHETICAL, DO NOT PANIC!

Okay, now, they just did this for the first time with a mitochondrial (energy generating) or ribosomal (protein making) disorder. They removed the nucleus of the egg, put in a different donor egg, one unaffected by the condition, and fertilised that. This guaranteed that the child born both had 3 parents and would not have their parent’s hereditary condition, improving their quality of life.

This is not yet gene editing, don’t worry.

So the issues I see with editing autism is it could be a slippery slope. Someone could point at a nonverbal, extremely overwhelmed child, with really high support needs, who would need round the clock care for the rest of life and go ‘shouldn’t we have a duty to prevent this?’. Now, we might not be convinced, but plenty of people and even “advocacy” organisations like autism speaks and the general public may be. So then, they could easily try, over say, 1000 years to progressively point out autistic traits which neurotypical society struggles to assimilate and, bit by bit, convince people that those things, too, cause ‘prolonged and unnecessary mental suffering’ that ‘we couldn’t possibly understand since we are not affected by it’.

And some autistic kids, struggling through the hard parts of life (we’ve all had these moments), may be convinced to agree or speak on behalf of the community for the purpose of convincing the general public that we want this, in exchange for money or something which might help them be supported better.

That is to say, I see a slim but real possibility that gene editing could be used to homogenise society into being all neurotypical for the ease and comfort of the populace. The same way it used to be acceptable to lock these people up and hide them away, they would be edited out or have the autistic genes turned off in utero.

I would never choose to be neurotypical. I had some dark moments, but I am both confident in myself and extremely secure in my identity. But would the me who had the genes turned off, look at the moments of struggle and think where I am now was worth all of that? I can’t even begin to answer for that person, since they just wouldn’t be me.

Main fears:

the wealthiest % of society may induce the beneficial neurodiverse traits into themselves like heightened empathy or hyperfocus and then turn them on and off when they become inconvenient, avoiding things like sensory overwhelm or social communication struggles. (this is a really wacky one, I will admit). Essentially, designer babies. (think how Elon musk used ’neurodiversity’ to excuse the salute, wearing these traits like a costume becomes more available for others.)

slowly, but surely, autistic people may be edited out of existence, making that society less tolerant of difference as a whole

that bigoted parents may make the decision for their children about which genes they will and won’t be allowed to express / have.

Now, all of this is years off, if it is possible at all, and I sound like a maniac conspiracy theorist, even saying this out loud. And if also sounds weirdly protectionist of an abstract concept of genes I share with so many other people. Mostly, I’m just curious on what you think.

Questions:

Do autistic people count as a distinctive enough group either culturally or otherwise, for a potential genocide charge to work against this theoretical incursion?

Do you think human gene editing should be banned completely, the same way human cloning is?

So, hi. I have both ADHD and Autism, specifically Asperger’s Syndrome. (I get that some people HATE this phrase, because of the guy, and for good reason, however, I have enough mental separation between the two that it’s not an issue for me since I identify with / find the label helpful).

So I am pretty high functioning and very low support needs, hyperlexic, etc. I also am extremely fortunate to have had wealthy, very supportive parents who were willing to support me and push me where necessary. It’s the only reason I’m half as functional as I am right now. To the point that most people don’t tend to recognise me as neurotypical unless they also are neurodivergent themselves and pick up on the vibes like I (usually) can with other neurodivergent people.

So many people, when they first find out who I am, will inevitably open their mouths to make comparisons. It’s unfortunate, but kinda inevitable. Eg, either that guy from the good doctor or like ‘young Sheldon’. (If I HAD to choose, I’d much rather be compared to Anne of Green Gables or just not to be compared at all, but what are you gonna do?)

And that made me wonder. Why is so much of the ‘good’ autistic representation about super high functioning people, like Anne, or Patience Evans from Patience? I’m sure we can all remember the disaster of things like that terrible autism movie ‘Music’ or that one Christian one with the boy and his dad, based on some terrible memoirs. (I have purged it from my mind, I’m afraid), where the autistic characters tend to be nonverbal or severely struggling. These often turn out to be wayyyy worse and even outright detrimental representation.

It just feels ableist, in a way, I guess, to say it’s okay for the ‘quirky genius’ archetype or ‘eccentric but brilliant’ and similar tropes, which tend to be so autism coded, only cater to those who are high performing enough to be useful to society. Why are people so unwilling to consult the people they’re

Or just AI. I see posts about ‘should autistic people be allowed to use AI’. That upsets me on some level, both because I a) ethically disagree with it and b) I don’t think others should have to sacrifice their ethical principles either, just to make society more comfortable with them. And then people call me ableist for it. Like, no? I don’t think (generative) AI can be considered as a disability access tool.

How does ChatGPT writing a paragraph help anyone? It’s not raising their ability in any skill. All it’s doing is making someone else more palatable to an ableist society, when it’s society that should have to improve and not force others to sacrifice strongly held convictions and stances simply to be given an equal say to participate. (Don’t even get me started on how since AI was trained on a dataset that included ableist and very harmful beliefs (mein Kampf was in there, we know that, so it is fully capable of immense harm) and may even condescend to its users.)

Yet I still think that having higher support needs people having their say in their representation n media is super important for promoting a more compassionate view of autism, which is being actively undone in so many places by malicious actors. All that AI is going to do is corporatise it into inauthenticity.

I think it’s this compulsive need that people have, to say that everyone must be economically productive, when for some, that will never be the case. They will bring immense good to the world, but never in a way that is economically quantifiable, and the fact that we’re even trying to measure people by money seems fundamentally wrong, and if it takes autistic people to show that, given how many people seem to think we’re all helpless children or emotionless, hypercompetent monsters, then good!

There’s even a part of me that wants to go so extreme as to say neurodivergent people are superior to neurotypicals, either because of deeper emotions, less ability to be restrained by stupid, arbitrary rules, higher ability to achieve when motivated and deeper empathy. And that because of this, we should eugenics out the neurotypical in order to create a more empathetic, inclusive society.

This is very extreme, I am aware, and I don’t mean it too seriously other than in frustration at the state of the world. I get that not everyone has the same view of their neurodiversity as I do and that my viewpoint is because I have the benefit of being both extremely privileged in other ways as well as high functioning and although I can empathise deeply with the struggles of others, I cannot ever fully feel their experience the way I feel my own, therefore, it is unfair and unjust to impose my worldview on others.

I don’t know if you can tell but I am angry and feel very righteous about this.

TLDR:

On the one hand, I feel that having people of all ability levels being represented and having access to society is important.

On the other, I don’t think the way representation and accessibility is being offered to them is actually in the spirit of trying to understand them, but in the spirit of making them conform for the ease and comfort of the neurotypical (who are, again, the minority here).

So my two questions:

What is your opinion on generative AI as a tool for supporting neurodiversity / increasing accessibility?

How can we increase the empathetic and supportive representation in the media of autism at all levels of support needs, independence and ability?

So this one is stupid long. 6000 words, so I did warn you. I know I said they’d reach Antartica in this chapter, but I had to hold it off just a bit longer to let the plot cook. There is some good action in this one, even if I do go a bit nuts with description. Others should drop back to 2/3s of this length as the first plot third completes. I worked super hard to get this out in a timely fashion, so please tell me what you think!!

The Amundsen Expedition: Part 4: The Storm

“The harness finally arrives only a day before they're due to leave. Sefi leans down over the edge of her patio, eyeing it dubiously. Johansen stands there, her fist-sized eyes rolling like luminescent gemstones over the whole kit and caboodle draped into his arms.

"Johansen... Are you quite sure that it's finished?" She turns her head fully to the side and then the other way, inspecting it with hawklike skepticism.

"Quite sure. I don't think any worker would stiff off the Crown with inferior craftsmanship." He holds up another side of it, the buckles rattling together gently.

"I suppose not." She mulls. "Oh, very well. You may show me." She leans forward, claws latching securely into the tawny golden cliffside, haunches staying piled up on the edge of the upper terrace. As her weight slides forward, the skin on her forelegs ripples, her ankles swivelling around fully backwards, elbows bending up either side of her belly, without a hint of pain on her part.

Johansen, for his part, found it somewhere between physically repulsive and fascinating. She had a lot of quirks of anatomy like this, double joints, and when a new one was revealed somehow, he couldn't help but be a little alarmed. Indeed, just the other day, she'd been walking with Wisting and himself, to get a little air, when, quite out of nowhere, she had folded herself almost double at the spine to read something. Wisting had gone quite pale, even though she had promptly returned her gaze forward and remarked on one of the birds she could hear. Johansen had been a little more used to it, given how strongly Sefi seemed to have taken to him since three weeks ago.

He couldn't entirely blame her. Whether it be the isolation from Norway, or people who spoke the language, or Amundsen's deception, she didn't exactly have much options for company. She was almost entirely alone. Besides, it wasn't like it took much for him to be nice to her, inviting her a little closer to the crew. He was sure that over time, she'd come to like them as much as she did him. He looks up at her face, scaled in glittering navy, and held the harness up to her line of sight.

The harness itself was made from several parts. Firstly, the neck-collar. A stiff, oval shaped band about an inch thick, reinforced bone and wood at the core, waterproofed, bound in leather strips, treated with some chemical and then covered with leather, braided strongly around the outer layer. The inside was lined with alpaca fleece, clearly of Inca make, to prevent it from rubbing and blistering her flesh. It could be split apart at the top, to be slipped over the neck, before it was fastened closed by two stout, shining steel buckles. 

Connected to this were a further two fleece-lined leather pads, one across her shoulders, one across her chest, to distribute the weight across her torso, meant to be buckled tightly just behind her wings and to a pair of bands across the meat of her upper leg. The one on her back was arrow shaped, with two narrow arches, like handles, set almost flat against the pad, either side of several D-rings, to better secure any rider she might need to bring up.

The contraption for her tail was a little more elaborate, made of a set of bands connected with leather straps, with thicker, sturdier rings to take the actual force of the sled. One was to be fastened right above the fin of her tail, one halfway up and one across her hips, the weight once again spread through a pad across her stomach. 

Sefi, regarding the whole contraption, still looked rather dubious, one of her ears flicking slowly and heavily. She gathers herself further forward, mane puffing out as she noses at it. "Well, it is not... Terrible, I suppose. Oh, that is to say that I do appreciate greatly the leather-worker's haste and care in this most urgent matter."

"I had no doubt you would." Johansen takes a step back, trying to encourage her to come down if she wished to. Sefi shows no indication of this, rather sinking down to half lie, half-sit where she is, even though half of her body is perpendicular to the other. "Would you try it on?"

Her tail thumps heavily. "I don't see why that would be an issue at present."

"It's... Well, it isn't an issue, only it would be nicer to sort out any issues it may have now rather than a more amateur attempt later." 

"I don't see any need to make it anything urgent. Besides, as you said, surely no leatherworker would stiff off the crown." She puffs her mane out briefly again. 

He sighs softly. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Besides, I do think you might need some help getting that on, don't you?" 

Johansen eyes her up and down. "I'm not so sure about that... You aren't so, and pardon my language, but so inconveniently large. Your back is hardly..." He gives another look. "What, three metres? As well as having the crook of your elbow and your obliging assistance, I'm sure it would be of no difficulty."

Sefi's ear flicks a little. "I suppose, still-"

There's a low sound, fluting, almost, coming from the hollow of the harbour below them. The dragoness cranes her head down, almost instinctively, eyes easily spotting the Fram, Amundsen standing on deck, glancing every now and then at a pocket watch. Of course. 

"Oh..." She interrupts herself with a grumble. "And that'll be Amundsen again, I suppose."

Johansen lets out his own, slightly irritated sigh. Giving it only a moment of thought, he shifts the harness to his spare hand, reaching up a hand and placing it on her jaw. The scales were warm, both with sun and body heat, not rigid, firm-edged plates, like he'd imagined, flexible scales, soft as rose petals. He strokes, tentatively at first, to the curve of her jaw, and then back, growing in confidence as it goes on.

It was a strange gesture. He didn't mean it in the same vein as one might, stroking a cat or a horse. It didn't have any assumption behind it. It was closest to resting a hand on a friend's shoulder, to restrain them from something rash. He speaks lowly. "I suppose we can leave the harness for now?"

The gesture makes Sefi pause. Her golden-amber eyes shift to Johansen's face. The scales around her eyes soften, her muscles relaxing as she settles back into her perch. "That would be most pleasant, thank you." She nudges him gently back, before pulling her head away. "I suppose we'd better go down, though." Her voice is tinged with reluctance, her ears flicking back in sync. "It would be just like him to leave us."

"Yes. It'll be a long walk, so I expect we'd better get to it." Johansen spends a moment, trying to figure out how to fold the harness into a more convenient shape.

Sefi pauses at that. Her mane frills out, that flinty scraping sound coming from her throat again. "Walk? Walk, Johansen? Nonsense!" She tosses her head up proudly. "That is perhaps a flutter at most. I will not let you walk all that way, carrying something on my part."

Johansen blinks, as if this hadn't occurred to him. "Oh, no, you don't have to-"

Sefi snorts, peering down at him between her forelegs. "Well! I am not walking all the way there, and I don't want to wait for you in case-" And here, her ear-tufts go flat back to her head, her face all angry, snarling lines, as she casts a filthy look down at the ship. "They try to leave you behind. I promise I will take great care of you, it will only be a moment."

"It's a most generous offer, but we really should get to walking so they don't try to, if that's what you're worried about.  We don't want them to think the expedition has lost our faith." He gives her a smile, dripping the harness over his shoulder, already setting off on a brisk walk.

"I assure you-" Sefi calls out after him. "There would be no time wasted in conversation if you'd only let me carry you."

He cast a glance back at her. "Very well then. But." His voice turns a touch stern. "Just this once."

Sefi perks up. Her wings snap open, before she lunges, lightning-quick, off the edge of the terrace. She approaches slowly. Not only is Johansen a little on the older side, compared to the others on the voyage, but humans are descended from creatures that needed to be wary of attack from above. She had no desire to scare him. So she flared her talons open, almost scraping the ground, wrapping them delicately around his torso, using the straps of the harness as padding against her claws. 

She was most careful not to prick him or skewer his clothes by accident, bringing her hind leg up close, so he could be protected by the shelter of her belly. She uses her other foot to push off the ground, leaping skyward.

All Johansen sees is an inky-blue shadow closing in over the golden stone before he's snatched away, the edge of the cliff bounding up until it's falling away under his feet. Wings snapped open above his head, beating once, twice, then falling still as she got higher, rippling serenely in the sea breeze. His stomach flipped a little, quickly overtaken by the delight of being in the air.

She banked gently towards the Fram, the wind singing as it split over the forefront of her wings, body staying almost perfectly still, letting her wings do the work. The angles were flat and gentle, easy to stomach, even for a child. And before he knew it, the foredeck was solid and gently swaying under his boot heels.

Sefi set down gently beside him, the boat hardly stirring. Pride radiated from every part of her. "You see? But a moment. That easy to save you half an hour of walking downhill."

He soothed his nerves, smiling back gently. "Thank you."

Amundsen, puffing silently on his pipe by the port side, snapped the face of his pocketwatch closed. He tucked it back away into his pocket, breathing out a wave of hazy blue smoke, watching the two, before he stalked away to consult with the captain.

The next few weeks of sailing were as calm as the way in. 

Sefi had persuaded him, over several days, into 'taking some morning air' with her, in exchange for letting him put the harness on, to adjust the fit. This, of course, meant flying, something he'd had to get used to. It was quite pleasant, actually. The air was brisk and clear, tinged with salt, ruffling through his hair. Her mane of blubber was an excellent windbreak, enough so, that he was able to write letters and journal entries with perfect ease. 

Then she’d bring him down, tucking herself under the spare main sail - which had been suspended over the deck to give them shade while they passed the equator, and nap the rest of the day away. Ever since, she’d been making good time towards Cape Horn, ready to come around to approach the Antarctic from the Bay of Whales at the south.

On one of these journeys, sometime in November, they were flying leisurely, Sefi banking up and down against the ocean surface. She dipped her talons under, skewering fish with the same docile, perfect ease ladies did with embroidery, to be hauled back later for supper for the men. She was half dozing, bringing them in an arc behind the Fram’s course, a slow and steady two hours flight, in the whole.

Settled on her back, in the borrowed navigator’s harness, Johansen was writing an account for his eldest children; Trygve and Margit, who had been delighted to learn of the presence of the dragon aboard the Fram. His eldest son, only eleven, still had his heart set on becoming a dragon crewman in Norway’s still fledgeling winged brigade. 

“You see, if I have my way about it, my boy will go into the army, the same as I did.”

“You have some issue with them?” Sefi rumbles back from under him.

“Not at all. It’s a perfectly respectable branch of service. Indeed, Norway would be glad of it-“

“That she would.” Sefi inhales a little, gaining them a little height, noticing the waves frothing more anxiously under her. 

“Rightly so, they’re still growing, given that independence had no need of them.” Johansen leans back, pressing the paper down firmly against the leather pad, to keep it from the winds grasp. “And she would be deeply grateful for the numbers. Only, I’m sure aerial life would only cause him to get into some reckless way of living that makes him thoroughly averse to settling down when he needs to. Why, he’d be away half the year, especially if they’re one of those new lift-assisted ultraheavyweights. He’d hardly set foot on land in week intervals. It’d spoil him.”

“You know…” Sefi muffles a yawn, waking herself up more to beat her wings against the quickening wind. “They used to say that about the navy, you know.”

“You’re right there,  I suppose. Both of those only encourage the worst of a young man’s wanderlust.”

Sefi let out another gravelly snort. “As if you have any right to speak on that, Hjalmar.”

Pausing, Johansen gives her a wry look. “I suppose I do not.”

A sudden, sharp gale whisks across her back, drumming against her scales and whipping away the letter he’d just been about to amend. Belatedly, Johansen snatches at it, even as it’s sucked up higher by another hearty heave of wind.

“Oh…” She glanced after the parchment, skittering away like a leaf in the wind, her wingtips already swivelling.

“It’s alright.” He lays a hand on her shoulder, feeling her muscles gather to dart after it. “I remember what I wrote. It’s not as if there’s anyone here besides fish to read it. Besides, small blessings, I still have the pen.” He tucks it away into a pocket, offering her a smile.

“Mm.” Her tail flicks irritably, only to be distracted as a sudden flash of rain spots in from above. She shakes her head to dislodge the worst of the drops. “Oh, dear.”

“Hey-oh. Sefi?” Johansen calls, peering at the clouds, sweeping in quickly from behind them.

“Yes?” She all but turns her head.

“I do believe that’s a storm coming in.” He squints up above them. A dark, amalgamated mass stretches above, penetrating cautiously into the thicker choke of grey-whipped clouds, in great, inky fingers. It was hazed by a purpling-yellow edge, like dust on a hot day, or a blotch on a severe slab of stone. And was galloping on across the sky at a prodigious pace.

Sefi’s mane prickles, but a quick inhale of the air confirms it. “It shouldn’t be too bad, this time of year. I shall make haste back to the Fram, though. It’s a good a warning as any.” Her wings begin to strike up and down with the grace of stones skipping on the water’s surface, angling back on herself. “Even if it did have to cut our flight short.”

“I’m sure it could be made back at a later date. I would certainly be delighted for it.” He hunches back over her neck, as not to give her so much drag it would make her course difficult. 

Thankfully, they had not been so far away as to get stranded, the Fram was a quarter-hour flight ahead. Sefi looped around once, flaring her wings slowly wider, to slow them, before coming down onto the foredeck, cocking her shoulders to the deck to let him down more easily. She furls up tightly, watching him leave in the direction of Amundsen’s cabin, keeping one watchful eye on the still-serene sky. She only hoped he’d be reasonable about it.

A brutal slap of water startled her up. She jerked to her feet, heart almost visible through her skin, the Fram buzzing with activity. The world was roaring and dark around her, a brutal wind hollering down between the sails. The men were busy shortening them in the canopy of rigging, writhing over one another like a bed of ants.

She swung her head around, tufts flat to her skull. “Johansen?” 

He was nowhere to be seen.

“Johansen!” She bellows louder, starling Neptune from his snug perch in her forelegs. “Stupid dog.” She leans down, taking his spine in her teeth, lowering him into the hold, despite his complaining struggles. “Stay.” She snaps, before rearing up to search the rigging.

“Where are you?” Her head cartwheels this way and then another, wings flaring up with concern. “Oh! You haven’t done something stupid and gotten washed overboard, have you?” She casts a doubtful, shaky glance at the churning throat of water.

All of a sudden, a blistering gale harries over the deck, quite nearly snatching her off the deck. She bellows in panic, dropping to the deck, digging her claws in with a clattering, feeling it rattle through the brittle scales of her mane, before retreating to wait for another attempt.

“I’m quite fine, you silly beast. You almost got yourself killed.” His voice is next to her, almost shouting to be heard.

Her heading snaps back around, dropping to be quite sure it is him. He stands there, almost indistinguishable beneath the heavy oilskin coat and thoroughly sodden sou'wester, the rain hammering down upon him like Hephaestus. Instinctively, she tries to crane a wing down to shelter him, only to be nearly swept away again, causing her to hastily retract the gesture, even as he waves it off.

“There you are! Why is everyone in such a tizzy?” Belatedly, it occurs to Sefi that she might need to be put under storm chains, great heavy things, atop a tarpaulin, to stop her from shifting the ship or falling overboard. It’s not a prospect that she relishes, but if Johansen were to stay close, perhaps it would not be so bad.

Johansen merely points. She tips her head around, stopping stiff when she spots it. A glimmer, on the horizon, coming in close. It’s a black line, the sea gathering up before it, building and building as it goes along, beginning to curve wickedly like a scimitar. It was as if someone had used a ruler to scrape all the sea behind it into this one spot. It took Sefi a while to work out what it was. For, it was hard to reconcile the steel-grey, ten-foot, at most, things that came down on the monochrome shingle at home, or the sparkling greenish-blue ripples at Funchal with the pitch-black, knife-edge hooked wave roaring steadily towards the Fram.

Her tufts go flat against her head, the moment she notices. “Johansen, we must do something!”

He gives her a look, halfway between bone-terror and gaping audacity. “What on the green earth do you expect to possibly do against that?”

“We must alight. I’m sure I can think of something.” It’s as much out of a selfish desire to keep Hjalmar safe and aloft with her as much as to try and save the ship. After all, if anything were to go wrong, she’s sure she could find her way to some rocky atoll on which she could shelter him until it passed. “It is best you come with me! Do not look at me like that! You yourself say often enough that we have no time to waste!”

“How am I to get up?”

She arches her head back, an enormous effort for having such a short and bulky neck, pressing it nearly flat to the deck. The closer look this grants her makes her realise, with distant, horrified shock, that he is out of harness. She has hardly a moment to protest before he’s already moving closer.

"My apologies." Johansen whispers, placing his boot on the bony ridge between her nostrils, feeling the breath coursing through, crouching low to steady himself. Sefi lunges to her feet all in one go, flicking her snout up towards her back, sending him falling straight into the tangle of harness upon her ridgeless back.

The movement is so familiar as to almost be muscle memory. The dragon beneath him may as well be a springboard, the manoeuvre just another part of the routine. His legs are already snapping straight, to gain a little extra height, even as her head reaches the apex of its arc. It is by no means done without fear, but muscle memory overrides any paralysis it may have caused. Johansen's body becomes weightless, his elbows tucked tight to his sides, body already angling for the larger strap over her shoulders. His knees buckle willingly under him as soon as the slick ground of her scales registers, bringing him down, not ungracefully, onto her spine, quite nearly overshooting the dragon's back.

He hits her back with incredible force, taking a brutal blow to the ribs, sprawling flat to her back. The wind is beaten out of his solar plexus, his jaws snapping shut around the tip of his tongue, tainting his mouth with iron. For a moment, all he can do is gasp like a beached fish, soupy-thick nausea rising in his throat, blood dripping from his tongue, lash-fast rain soaking him to the bone. However, the shifting of her muscles under her hide renews his desperation, adrenaline the only thing letting him move. He spares one shaking hand to shove back the tangled mess of hair from his face, trying desperately with the other three limbs to keep any sense of a foothold to her harness.

Sefi crouches her belly flat to the deck, Hjalmar's weight still shifting frantically over her back. The blackening swell above them continues to build, lashes of white froth falling down the sheer face, splattering messily onto the desk, as if the sea itself was mocking at them. Her heart gallops against her ribs. No time to wait.

Her human is smart enough to buckle himself on, she hopes. Or, at least, to hold on with all the strength in his mortal body.

He can already feel her muscles bunching, gathering strength, wings spreading out as wide as they can. He pulls his aching knee under him, pushing off the nearest buckle, throwing himself  towards the neckband. The stiff ridge is only three inches thick, padded with fleece on the inside and almost flush to her neck. He forces his fingers under, despite the cramped gap, knowing that when his fingers are numb, his brain dazed by the turns and body nearly slack with unconsciousness, they might be the only thing to keep him on. He just manages to shove his foot through another loop, praying it will hold fast. There is no time to wait for a more secure grip.

With all her might, she leaps for the sky, wings snapping open to deliver a savage downbeat, right as the strongest gale yet shreds over the deck. The pair are flung into the sky at a dizzying rate, the Fram almost instantly shrinking to a splinter below. Ice cold seawater flurries through the sky, raining down on their backs like a hail of needles. 

Sefi gasps in a breath, equal parts seawater and air, rivulets of water trickling down over her nostrils, trying desperately to orient herself. To no avail. There's not so much a glimmer of starlight to distinguish up from down. The world is a screaming orb of bruise blue and black, knives of water sinking in from all directions. The wind is louder even than her own thoughts, clawing desperately at her wing-membranes, tossing her about like a kite, one minute plunging her down, almost into the pitchy water, the next yanking her up into the cathedral of cloud above. Each random direction rips at the muscles of her shoulder, bending her wings to and fro and inside out, the spines sticking out like the broken tines of a bike wheel.

Panic strobes at her, some instinctive reaction telling her that if she just presses flat and breathes in quick enough, she can spear through the clouds and be in calmer skies in barely a breath, instead of this hell of indistinguishable sky and sea and wind. It's an instinct to be pushed aside.

The salt burns his eyes worse than fire, punishing sheet after punishing sheet of water slice in at every angle, like the blows of a god trying to wash him off Sefi's back. If he forces his eyes open, against the shearing wind, he can make out the great shadows of her wings, flailing around amidst the darkness, the bones at sickening angles to one another, as if they were an umbrella turned inside out. She banks sharply as another wind throws them perpendicular to the last, hooking her wings in another cruel direction. 

As she fights to level out once more, Johansen braves another glance down. His stomach plunges away from his throat. Far below the falcon-sharp tips of Sefi's claws, the Fram braves the churning inky ocean, plunging up and down like a rocking horse, wave after wave crashing into her with cleaving force. His heart is as loud as thunder in his ears, watching her crest the last one, only to be hopelessly faced with fifty, fifty-five, sixty feet of endlessly rising water. She is a toy in the bathtub of a child, meant to be dashed against the ocean floor, until her floatsam is all that's left, mere toothpicks in the face of nature herself.

One cannot describe how powerless one feels, when they truly understand that something is pointless. Sefi stares down in horror, wishing desperately that she had something to roar out that had the slightest chance of trying to right this. Divine wind. Fire. Water torrents. Johansen heaves in another breath upon her back, starting to tremble. The both of them, adrenaline-shot and desperate, scramble frantically for a plan, all while the wind tries its best to keep them away.

At last, Sefi grasps one. It's a horrible plan. It's the best one they have. "Johansen!" She screams, the wind whipping her voice up, to needle into his ears. "I need you to drop into the rigging and fetch me the biggest rope you can!" There's no time to wait for an answer. She drops her head. 

Johansen only catches fragments of words, shredded to rags by the wind, a paltry skeleton of an idea. He has but a moment to grasp it, before she flattens out almost completely beneath him, dropping like a stone.

He digs his fingers in tight, his hair raising away from his scalp in weightless spikes, every bone in his body screaming at him the sheer impossibility of the task. With every sweep of her wings, the neckband crushes deeper down onto his numb fingers, the strap around his ankle pulling tighter, only pure force of will keeping him from being pulled off. The unbuckled straps of her harness lash at the empty air, snapping and creaking with each turn, slapping at him with each beat of her wings, as if even the harness was trying to spur them faster.

She swoops past, faster than a cutter, her body shuddering terribly against the turbulence. His ears blister at the force of the world going past, tears ripped from his eyes, streaking down his cheeks before being blown off into the wind. It is hard to impress just how terrible it feels to be diving almost straight down into the sea in conditions like this. Each blink brings them closer to being snatched up forever. 

The sea is slavering for them, a thick lather of froth building at the surface. Pyramidal peaks lash out from the surface like the cruel teeth of a predator. A tongue of black water, dripping and writhing, leaps from the surface, scarcely a metre from them, an anteater after an ant. Sefi only just throws them high enough to avoid being pulled down, the spray covering them both an icy slap of water.

She gasps, but bears them higher, angling as close as she dares to the rigging. Right before she would have collided with the sail, she barrel rolls almost completely vertical on her side, executing a hairpin turn. The movement, taking less than a second, hooks Johansen off with ease. He only has a moment to realise what she wants, managing to tear his hand free and push off into empty air.

There's a moment where he's a rag doll in the wind, all-too aware of the fact that the conditions could change and snap his limbs and spine as easily as taking the wings of a fly. It's quickly cut short as he snags safely into a maze of sailcloth, rigging and rope. He only has a moment to see her, one wing scraping the surface, the other bending unnaturally to keep her path steady, right as she careens away and is sucked back into the sky, beating desperately fast to try and stabilise herself again. No time to see that she's alright. 

He has a plan to follow. 

Reaching around blindly, he sees a long rope, hanging loose amongst the writhing netting and cables. It's thick, sturdy, surely large enough for Sefi to hold. He throws it over his shoulder, the end pounding into the small of his back as he starts the climb. His breath saws like a mad violinist, through the back of his throat, burning with each gasp for air.

Johansen's arms and legs burn as he hauls himself higher, clicking in their sockets, already drained from trying to stay on Sefi. Every little pocket of rope in the rigging is a hidden deathtrap, a walkway of nooses. It could take getting an ankle stuck during high wind to have it broken and useless. A hand slipping to entangle you at the shoulder and hair with a hidden bit of metal. He's moving too slowly, and he knows it. He abandons caution to move a little faster, nerves almost breaking at every sag of rope underfoot, every metallic clink that came a little too close for his liking, scrambling up like a monkey in a tree.

All the other sailors melt away, his entire world one stick-thin perspective of rope and climbing and desperation. He knows not how long it's been. Whether the wave is already falling upon the Fram. If Sefi has even managed to hold on this long. All he knows is when he reaches the end.

The sky is dark and hungry above him, empty as a void. He turns his gaze down to the rope over his shoulder, pulling it off, ignoring the vicious slashes of agony through his joint sockets, beginning to loop it back over itself.

The rough, tarred fibres of the thing, nearly as thick as his arm, tears at the softened skin of his palms like tissue paper. He fights the fatigue slowing his muscles, winding it back on itself, despite the stiffness fighting him every step of the way, working in a knot, pulling it as tight as he can manage. He's sure it's not enough, but now, the terrible wave blocks out even the sky. Nothing to do but heave with all his might, throwing it out onto the void.

It waves like a python, its own girth working against it, already arching down to plunge into Davy Jones far below. Heaviness presses down all at once, hanging from the netting like a broken spider from its web. He can do nothing but watch it spool down. Until a dark shape plunges out of the shadow of the great wind, thrown forward by its tailwind. Raptorial claws snatch for the thick knot at the end, holding fast, to his immense relief, as two enormous wings begin to beat like hell itself is chasing them.

He remains limp, watching her work above him. All the strength is wrung from him like rags, helpless to do anything but watch. The rope burns, itching, tarred hairs pressing into his cheek, heart beating a tattoo underneath the skin. The wind dies, replaced by a stagnant, expanding presence, as the wave cuts closer across the sky, filling half of his vision entire. 

The very ends of her wings are moving in figure-eights in the opposite direction of the other two-thirds, trying to keep her steady despite the Fram's already beginning to list to one side. Lather drips onto the membranes of her wings, the crest already falling back on itself. One final, dread gust of air rattles through the rigging, pushed along down the length of the tube of water. The metal buckles and pulleys lash against their supports, flailing like an octopus.

Unfortunately, one section of cord, hitched up on the rope clutched in Sefi's talons, bends back almost double in the stirring, cracking down upon the scaled ridge of her cheek. It lands with all the force of an overseer's whip, with just the same hair-clenching snap, the metal edge biting clean through the scale. A vivid slash of dark blood bursts against a backdrop of water. Starling against the pain and the noise, Sefi rears back almost vertical in the air, catching a rolling gaze of the sea behind her.

Her chest jumps almost concave, a horrific cry, somewhere between the last bellow of a dying bull and the mortal-terror scream, so loud and full of horror, that it falls straight to Johansen's soul. Her wings throw back, talons shredding the air like the hooves of some mythical steed. There's a silvery flash of teeth in the dismal light of a single guttering lantern. Then the wave falls down upon them, a crazed hatchet upon a tree. The world is swallowed up by the void.

Incredible force smashes her down. The world is black and cruel. Her ears are filled with the demon-screaming of the ocean and the wind. The slice just above her eye burns like hellfire, lightning flashes of pain strobing across her vision with each heavy rake of salt across her scales. Instinctively, her body is already bending to move with the water, allowing herself to be pulled deeper and deeper. The tearing weight of rope in her talons spurs urgency back into her.

Blind, deaf, electric with adrenaline, she struggles against the cooling water. Air fizzes and bubbles in the gaps in her scales, wings billowing open and shut against the pressure. Down here, everything is too quiet, too still, too heavy to move like the knows she has to. It's only her and her instincts alone in the depths.

The world heaves around her, currents seething in one direction, indistinguishable from up or down or north or any familiar course. Peeling one eye open against the wash, she snorts out a collection of silvery bubbles. They're churned away by the water, rising liquidly further into the dark. No chance to reconsider. She batters her tail blindly against the water, snapping desperately along with them, thrashing like an eel.  The water builds around her, lightening to a slate grey, swelling as it pushes her up.

Sefi bursts from the sea, riding from the crest of another monster wave into the sky. Water sloughs away from her back, blurring her vision, hearing still full of fuzz. Looking around desperately, she searches for any sign of the Fram. Nothing but her rope, dropping away into the seething tunnel of water, perfectly straight and parallel with her below.

Oh. God.

Sefi redoubles her efforts, seawater beading like sapphires on her scales. She flies straight over the top of the water tunnel, battling with all she has to keep straight and steady. The rope is so enormously heavy in her talons, as if fixed to the seabed itself. Fear is acrid and caustic in her throat, smothering her nostrils with the scent. Each wingbeat feels hollow, too close to failing, not doing enough to strain against the horrendous weight: slowly but surely pulling her into the water.

If the Fram is lost, she will be too. Already too fatigued to seek land, she'd surely drop stone dead from the sky, if not drown horribly amongst its wreckage. She's just not big enough to save it. A wretched sob wells up in her throat, even as the wind tries to shred her wings like tissue paper.

Blood slicks down the side of her face, dropping into the heartless ocean below. A tear follows, even as the ocean drops closer.The wind howls like a pack of hungry wolves.

Then it comes to her. 

The wind.

She fans her wings as wide as she dares, billowing painfully full of air. It lifts her a good twenty feet, enough to carry her away if not for the anchor in her claws. Then she drops her head, falling forward as quick as she can, friction tearing away the extra water. She's perhaps ten feet from the ocean surface, when she feels give. The tiniest bit of give, lurching into the rope, before it pulls tight again.

It makes her heart soar with her body as her wings snap back open. Wheeling high again, she readies herself for another dive. She throws herself down, a great, subsonic creaking vibrating through the rope as it gives again. Wings open. Dive. Rope slackens further. Wings open. Dive.

Over and over, she throws herself into the monotony, her very skeleton aching to the bone. Her muscles hold on by a thread, shaking terribly with each increasing stain she asked of them. But at long last, the rope snaps tight again.

Behind her, sailing like a ghost out of a wreath of mist and salt, is the Fram. Her deck shudders, from bow to stern, as she leaps out from a hidden gully by a wave, crashing down onto the turbulent surface. She looks worse for the wear, water dripping from her sides, rigging swollen and heavy, sails limp and sodden. Despite this, her masts still stand strong, her proud silhouette low in the water, bobbing merrily through the waves like a rubber duck.

Sefi turns her head, back winging to watch her. Each breath feels dreadfully thick and heavy, her eyelids drooping. Still, she gulps down air, only the buffeting wind keeping her aloft, singing out an almost musical roar across the waves. She beats closer, talons scraping the sea spray, craning her head up to peer for Johansen in the railings.

He isn't in the very top layer of the rigging where she left him, but a little more searching reveals his waterlogged figure hanging from the net of rope. She hefts herself over the edge, meaning to land gracefully, but her legs crumple under her as soon as she puts weight on them. Her body crumples like a great felled tree, a huge looping mass on deck, hindquarters still hanging off one side. Her breaths turn leaden in her lungs, shoulders aching, wings limp and twitching over the foredeck. 

The rope is tangled up amongst her coils, half of it still tangled up in the sea. Her head thumps down onto the deck, the storm still roaring around them, even though the worst half was behind them. "Johansen?" Sefi struggles to get the words out, strength waning from her body. 

"Johansen...?" She repeats plaintively, dropping further onto the Fram. All around her, fresh calls and movements flicker, metal and rope and boots upon the deck. All far too far away to help. Darkness flickers in and out of her vision, her muscled tail falling limp as floatsam upon the waves.”