Dragons are arrogant creatures. Kal, being arrogant himself absolutely detested the idea of wearing a parachute while flying. Comparable to humans and wearing seatbelts whilst driving, there had been long, difficult arguments in the government about whether dragons should be mandated to wear the lifesaving devices or not a few years after their invention. Eventually, draconic arrogance won out over reason. Kal, as much as he hated the idea of wearing the humiliating device, knew it better to be prepared than caught helpless. Thus, with the sun blazing outside, Kal opened the door of his cabin, waddling out as if a toddler, each step having the quiet shift of cloth behind him.

With the air screaming around him, the soft *pop* was inaudible to anyone but Kal, along with the sudden shot of pain from his right wing. He opened his mouth to scream, but it was all but inaudible just as the pop, air filling his mouth. As the delicate wing membrane was suddenly shoved up and aft, the sudden change in lift began flipping him over towards his right. After a split second for the training to kick he looked down, grasped the D handle, and pushed it hard in his fist, as if trying to punch the offending metal. The fabric, carefully tucked away behind it’s layers of hard cloth was forced out by the hidden spring pressure. As it flew out it's lines began twisting, the bag and unfurling chute near stationary compared to his spinning form.
Shit.

A few hours earlier…
It was a pleasant day to fly, with hardly any clouds in the sky...of course that meant it’d be bumpy, but Kal didn't mind. As he slowly glided effortlessly on thermals, he climbed and climbed...wanting to make sure he had plenty of altitude and was out of said turbulence before he started his experiments. As he reached around 7000 feet above the ground, he dipped a wing and moved out of the thermal, feeling the immediate drop from the loss of warm lift. He began dipping his wings left and right, slowly banking more and more, wanting to pace himself today. Soon, he was diving then climbing, going inverted in his play, before he smirked, looking around at the air around him. Then, without any warning, he folded his wings shut near instantly, shifting his legs full out and pulling his arms to his side, his neck frills folding. He dropped like a rock, reaching terminal velocity in but a few seconds before pushing his legs against the screaming air harder, dropping his head earthward to gain further speed. He carefully opened his wings to the screaming air, focused on the maneuver before seeing a bird blazing at him. Knowing it would dive to gain speed he opened his wings out of near instinct...with instant consequences. His wings became caught by the faster, screaming, furious wind, tugging hard at both before he felt his left wing snap backwards at an unnatural angle. He tried to scream in pain but aerodynamics were no longer on his side, suddenly banking him hard and excessively sharp, his other wing trying to keep aloft...but suddenly finding itself pulling him closer and closer to perpendicular with the ground. His head fell first, straight into the wind as the wing kept lifting, starting to spiral him around. Kal, listening to his training he hadn't practiced in some time, reached down and grabbed the handle, pulling it hard before the metal cord slapped against his side.

Shit.
The lines started to twist immediately, going turn after turn after turn. Luckily, while Kal may have forgotten to try and recover the spin first, his parachute could easily fly, even if it was not yet controllable. With the precision of a well packed emergency chute, it opened easily and unfolded itself above him, no tears, no line overs, no high speed failures....all he had to do was kick out the lines. Folding his wing a bit too late with the other fluttering uselessly and painfully behind him in the wind, Kal reached up, grabbed the risers, pulled, and started bicycling as he began to untwist...

Art by  GoldenDruid I'm incredibly happy wit how this came out. Parachutes aren't exactly the easiest things to describe to someone, and GD got it pretty close to what I wanted! She even made some alterations that I didn't describe at first, and had some ideas that I never would've thought of, all I can say is I'll be looking at her again if I need anything complex : )