Air-Goats
Air-Goats are the grazing beasts of the Sky Isles. On the Isles a thing falls because it believes it should, and the Air-Goats have never believed it. They step off an island’s edge and walk across the open air to the next, as surely as a mountain goat takes a ledge.
Appearance
An Air-Goat stands no higher than a large dog. Its coat is long, fine, and cloud-white, lifting and streaming in every wind, with a grey saddle along the back and dark, almost black legs. Both sexes carry short horns that curl back once. The hooves are small and pale and leave no mark in the air, though watchers swear they see the air dimple for a moment under each step. The eyes are wide and amber, with the bar-shaped pupil of all goats. Herds keep up a thin, bleating chatter and smell of wet wool and the high-altitude flowers they eat.
Habitat and Range
They graze the wind-swept grass of the island tops and browse the stunted trees whose roots hang into the void. Herds of a dozen to forty move from island to island as the grass gives out, and are thickest wherever several isles drift close together.
Behaviour and Temperament
They are calm, curious, and impossible to hurry. A herd crosses the air in single file behind an old nanny, never looking down. They show no fear of people; they nose at packs and eat whatever cloth is left loose. When an island drifts away from its neighbours, the herd simply walks after it.
Abilities
The Air-Goat does on purpose what travellers on the Isles must learn with effort: it holds its weight by intention. It does not fly and cannot climb above the level it starts from without footing; it walks out level, or down a long slope of air, and then up the next cliff. A goat that is startled badly enough in mid-crossing may doubt, and then it falls like any other beast.
Life Cycle
Kids are dropped on the island tops in spring and cross the air at their mother’s flank within days. Those that hesitate at the edge are left behind and do not live. An Air-Goat lives about as long as a goat of the Material Plane.
Uses and Dangers
They are harmless, and they are the best guides on the Isles: a traveller who follows a herd follows a line the herd knows will hold. Their wool, gathered from thorn and bark, is light and warm. The danger is to the follower. A traveller who walks out behind the goats on the strength of their certainty rather than their own has nothing to stand on when the goats are gone.
Lore and Belief
Visitors bring home the saying that "an Air-Goat has never heard of falling", and some carry a hank of its wool as a charm against doubt. Whether the wool helps is not known; those who swear by it are the ones who came back. The Sky-Walkers are said to count the herds as good omens for an island’s drift.