echo hears them coming and signals as much with a fanning of her tail, though does not raise her head from the pond. freya pats her side and waits, smile brimming as the dragonair and its rider land nearer them. the other dragon gives them a berth, enough so that echo does not feel possessive of her tamer.

echo finally lifts her head after having drunk her fill. she stays on all fours, wings tucked against her sides. she lifts her tail again, moving it in a pattern freya recognizes as body language for welcome.

and with trust earned from the beast at her side, she speaks. "i've only got a bit of a head start. they told me they were calling a ranger in." she walks around the pool of water to peer over the side of the cliff. the water runs over the edge, but wherever it goes, the crashing is so far it can't be distinguished from the other waterfalls that line the rocky ridges and fissures of meteor falls.

"i'm freya, by the way," she says without looking back. echo slides away from the pair to join freya and at her command, lifts her wings. she flaps them as her claws scrabble at the rough stone, keeping her grounded. 

as the muscles at the base of her wing flex up and down, scraper and file meet. a melodic series of chirps bounces around the walls from her stridulation and when the sound has carried, she suddenly stops, legs absorbing the impact as she drops her full weight back to the ground. both stay still, listening intently.

freya glances at talia, gaze asking, hear anything?

Talia Celes

☉

unlike her companions, freya is a bit harder of hearing. turns out more than half a dozen concussions and constant draconic roars can affect the senses. so she can't hear the pitched sound that comes back, faint as it is, but she catches the dragonair's reaction. echo stiffens too, head tilting to mirror the dragonair's own. 

"then mount up, ranger," freya says with a smile. she throws a leg over echo's neck and settles against her shoulders. she unfurls her wings, clambering away from lyra and talia so as not to smack them during take-off, and then nose-dives off the cliff.

"have your dragonair lead us."

echo's wings snap open immediately, ballooning like triangular sails. with a few flaps, she's climbed a good ten feet back up. dragon and rider circle their companions, leveling out only when talia takes the lead.

Talia Celes

☉

echo follows the dragonair almost playfully. it's been a long while since freya's had time to stretch the flygon's wings. a rattling purr sits in her throat as she tucks her right wing suddenly, pitching them into a spiral. freya's arm drops, looping around her neck as gravity threatens to drag her off. 

but then the flygon steadies, still purring despite freya's chiding. 

"can we practice some composure please?" she says through a half-hidden smile. only that falls shortly when talia exclaims she's found something. 

they get closer; echo holds them aloft at a standstill so freya can get a look at the clue. below them is another fissure, but whatever is hidden in its depths isn't visible. meteor falls' natural illumination does not stretch.

freya reaches for another capsule from her necklace and throws it in the air beside them. sypha emerges in a flash of white light, scaled form falling right before instinct kicks in and she rights herself. echo makes a series of clicking noises by way of introduction to the other tamer who's joined them.

"she'll light our way," freya says and then to sypha, points down at the way below. the dragonair's scales glow prismatic as she summons a light screen around herself.

"ready?" she asks. 

Talia Celes

☉

despite the light emanating from sypha, freya still has trouble peering through the darkness. echo does most of the navigating work for her, listening to the pings of sound bouncing around the cave. her red veiled eyes don't offer her much by way of sight here, but these sounds are all she needs to find her way through the twisting and turning cave. 

she startles before the bats hit them, but not quickly enough where freya is ready for them. they swarm them in their panicked hurry to escape the cave; one of them manages to nick the side of her neck. 

lyra manages to clear out a majority of them; the rest screech as they flutter up from where freya and talia had come from. freya presses a hand to her neck. the bleeding has already stopped. 

"we're alright," she calls. 

and then, from below, someone hoarsely cries out, "is someone there?"

Talia Celes

☉

the fissure in which the tamers can view them is thin, far too thin for either dragon to slip through. sypha gives it an attempt, but draws back with a wriggle, snuffing anxiously after her head almost gets stuck. echo steadies herself, spindly claws extended, hind legs tense against the squeezing stone. she digs at the hole in an attempt to shape the earth, but a large chunk of it dislodges and smashes down beside the boy. 

freya pulls back immediately as shouts come from down below. 

"where did you tunnel in from? we can't get to you from here," freya calls down. 

"the tunnel collapsed!"

freya curses and dismounts echo, taking care not to get too close to the fissure, lest she twist her ankle. she waves sypha's tail over and the dragonair provides her with a soft glow, albeit enough to see which pokeballs she's plucking from her necklace. 

"watch out down there!" she calls and tosses a pokeball through. the flightless kommo-o emerges high above the air, but freya's shout of "orion, brace!" forces it to curl into a ball. sleek silver spreads over its scales as it impacts the ground, sending rocks flying and leaving a small crater in the earth. 

it unfurls from its armor, mostly unscathed, and paces anxiously.

"orion, on my signal! those three down there are your charge. protect them." she grunts as she remounts her flygon and looks to talia. "he'll cover them. we need your flygon to open this hole."

Talia Celes

☉

orion's plates glow ephemerally as he hunkers protectively over the band of cave divers. rocks plink harmlessly off those hardened scales, but a formidably sized boulder glances off his side; scales groan and freya can see his muscles tense in pain, but he holds nonetheless. 

and finally, when the way is clear, echo brings them down. she dismounts immediately and is relieved to see talia has some type of healing pokemon on her. while talia checks on the divers, freya goes to her dragon's side. a couple of the scales are cracked; one is shattered, pieces of it sticking out in orion's leathery skin. 

echo scuttles over to the onix and scratches at its sides, but waking it is out of the question. "you'll have to tough it out, o. the salamence are too big to fit down here." orion touches his forehead to her scalp and steps gingerly beside the family. 

"orion can carry him," she says and nods to the man. "if your chansey can spare something, he has a wound on his side." her head turns from talia to the son and the look on his face tells freya he certainly favors the other rescuer. talia has already established herself as the friendly one. 

"if it's yours, you may as well return it to its ball. won't do much good trying to move it." at this, his lip quivers. 

"h-he won't go back in his ball." 

freya grimaces and looks at talia. 

Talia Celes

☉