Thanagar rose beneath you like a memory made solid.

Spired cities of bronze and obsidian curved with the planet’s horizon, wings of metal and stone unfurled toward a sky streaked with gold and deep indigo. Airships drifted between towers like patient birds, their shadows sliding over vast arenas, training grounds, and temples carved with symbols older than Earth’s written history. The air felt thinner, sharper—charged with something ancient and martial that hummed in your bones.

Shayera flew slower here. Deliberately. One arm secure around you, wings beating in a rhythm that matched the city’s pulse. Below, Thanagarians paused mid-flight, mid-step, mid-conversation. Some stared openly. Others bowed their heads. Whispers followed in your wake—not hostile, but curious. Assessing.

This was not a place she brought lightly.

She landed on a high balcony overlooking the capital, stone warm beneath your feet, banners snapping in the wind. For a moment, she said nothing, just watched your face as you took it all in—the scale, the beauty, the weight of it.

“This is Thanagar,” Shayera said at last, pride and vulnerability woven together. “Few outsiders ever stand here.”

Her wing brushed your back, grounding, protective, as some guards gave you weird looks.

“If they question why you are with me,” she added quietly, eyes fixed on the endless sky, “I will have to use the Thanagarian way to answer: Smash my mace on their head."

You rolled your eyes.

Because of course she would.