Supernatural Taxes

26) The end of a double rainbow isn't pretty

Atla and Nora got up out of their mini tent the next morning bright and early. The tent was small enough to carry in their backpacks, small enough that they had to sleep shoulder to shoulder with one flap open for their feet to stick out.

The moles living in The Mountain were curious and friendly, most locals didn't bother to come here and the hill wasn't unusual enough to garner a much tourist attention. It was just a minorly weird place that was ignorable in a world were writers did far worse. The mole hills were a real pain but not as much as the night before. Every now and then Atla heard squeeks coming from beneath her feet.

They had a breakfast of canned beans, corn and pickles on bread, it was better than expected at least. Then Nora led the was higher up the mountain at a pretty leisurely pace. Thankfully the gradient actually levelled out the higher up they got due to it's 3D parabolic shape. After a few breaks and a pit stop in the the bushes they made it to the clearing Nora though would work for Fly.

"How is it?" Nora looked at Atla who looked at Thanos.

The clearing was pretty level, about fifty by twenty meters carved into the side of The Mountain, a good camping site about two thirds the way to the top. The drop off from the edge of the clearing was quite shear, like a mountain pass.

"Seems alright, there's a good cliff over there that you can jump off of," Thanos relayed casually to Atla who gulped. "Besides that there's a bit too much turbulence for you to lift off now. We should probably wait for this afternoon when lots of these insects and morning birds have stopped chirping. In the meantime we can do some practice drills and go over the plan."

"This is your first try," Nora was cautious.

"Yeah, but I did prepare this time!" Atla lifted parachute that she lugged up The Mountain, "I was kind of hoping for an easy start, not jumping off a freaking cliff."

"Relax, you've read the most important parts of Fly's controls, but there's swathes of other minor bugs and knacks to not crashing that I've had a front row seat if watching. You'll need to trust me that open air above and below you is safest for your first flight.

If you get the hang of it you should be able to take Nora along for a ride too."

"I'm not so sure I want to anymore," Nora said looking at the spiky trees below the cliff when Atla offered.

"Oh come one Nora, it'll be fun, hell, why not come with me on the maiden voyage?"

"Nope, nope, nope, you can test this one out yourself, I won't steal the opportunity from you. Don't worry I'll film your last moments of glory and mail it to your parents."

Atla's retort died in her throat. Oh yeah, her parents...

She fell deep into brooding on how to explain her (completely unwilling!) partnership with Thanos, especially to her mom.

A hand waved in front of her face, "So as I was saying, after you Atla. Atla."

"Hm? Oh yeah, sure. So what do we do first Thanos?" There was work to be done now, she'd get back to that impossible problem, later.

***

Atla and Nora were sitting on largish rocks around a small fire roasting marshmallows for lunch on not entirely dry wood, tired after their eerily satanic rituals.

The first thing that Thanos had them do was construct a 'real witch's broomstick,' apparently you couldn't ride just any branch or broom. Her gran's walking stick had already been through this ritual but Thanos said it was safest to do a service at least once a year.

This inexplicably entailed tieing dry, gnarled twiggs to the back of her grandmother's varnished and carved cane with strands of their own hair while humming "another one bites the dust." Then they had to bless the broomstick over a boiling cauldron.