Not surprisingly, Yegor refused them the plane on hearing there was a small army closing in for them. Even with the assurance that the lot of them were most likely wanted alive rather than dead, being the 'priceless human science experiments' they were, he couldn't risk getting shot down. Not only would his family's livelihood fall with him, but also a very important lifeline for the rest of the village, especially since winter was in full swing. (Oh, and yes, he didn't much like the idea of possibly dying.)Not to mention a snowstorm was forecasted that night, as despite the darkness outside, it was mid afternoon.
Before they could face the possibility of heading out into the cold on foot, though, Yegor insisted he could find them a van. At their baffled looks, he explained that his neighbor was selling a monster of a van with snow treds, four wheel drive, and room for twelve passengers. The money they had offered for plane fuel could pay for that, as well as for the extra gas containers necessary to get them to the next fill up station.
"The snow should cover your tracks," said Yegor with a mixture of excitement and guilt. "And there should be room for supplies too."
"And we got this," said Ray, lifting up the yellow GPS.
Forcing himself not to think that Tala had had that GPS when he died, Kai got to work with Yegor gathering up the supplies. Though his teammates insisted on braving the cold to pick up the van and cargo, even forcing him back into the fire with a few choice glares and shoves.
"Be a good captain and charge up before we have to go," Tyson said.
And just to add shame atop insult, Ayah lost patience and knocked him out, proving she didn't trust him to do as he was told.
When he woke up, he was once more on his ash bed and the last of the goods were being loaded up. Before he could start grumbling about needing to take a bath again, Izolda Leskov rushed over with a bucket of hot water, a rag, and a smile that broke through the stern lines of her face and gave him hints of the girl who had won the bear-like Yegor's heart.
The first time Kai saw the 'van,' it was through his teammates heads as they shuttled him to the car closed in about him in an attempt to block out the cold—or stop his escape, as he couldn't help thinking. From what he could see it was white, probably older than him, and twice as tall as any van had a right to be. Then he was all but shoved inside by Tyson and Ray and lost any sight of it all in a face full of maroon, carpet-like seat coverings that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.
He jerked up with a snarl. "Do you guys mind—"
"Shove over, Kai!" Tyson flopped onto his legs.
"Close the doors, guys! It's freezing!" Said a chattering Max from the front.
Kai jerked upright. "Why is Max driving?"
"Because I'm the only one with a license, let alone been behind a wheel before," said a tense Max.
"But you're arm—"
"Then you drive," grumped Tyson, who had already squirmed past Kai's feathers to the back.
It didn't take too much urging to get Max into the back. His face had flushed up again and Kai could almost smell the exhaustion from him.
"You got medicine for your arm?" he asked as he helped Max stand.
"Yep. Pentacillin and painkillers and...and that orange stuff."
"Penicillin, Max," Ray said before slamming the side door close.
"Make sure he lays down," said Kai. "And get Eiden up here, Ayah. We'll need his eyes."
There was some ineligible chittering, and much awkward shuffling of tall, bony, winged mass and a disgruntled Eiden was beside him up front in the passenger seat.
"Man, this thing stinks," said Tyson. "No wonder the guy couldn't sell it. You'd probably get lung cancer just by being in it."
Someone handed up the GPS, though Eiden had to take it as Kai was facing the problem of where to put his enormous wings. Unlike the scrawny Eiden, whose feathers seemed to be made of something thinner than paper that folded up rather compactly, Kai's were all fluff and brawn. It didn't help that he was shaking so much from the cold that odd bits of him kept hitting knobs and such.
"Guys, he can't fit."
"We're all gonna die. No, Max, lay down, we'd just die faster with you at the wheel."
"I can't believe we're going to die because Kai's too fluffy."
"I like that he's fluffy..."
Kai growled. "Will you all shut up? Where's the freaking lights on this thing."
To his surprise, it was Eiden who leaned across him and flicked the knob near his knee. Curtains of snow blazed in the light. Kai gave him a nod of thanks before figuring he'd have to just be okay with a wing shoved between the seat and drafty door and the other half spilled into Eiden's face, looked to the GPS (which Ray had thankfully reprogrammed a destination in to already), and eased them out into the snowy, white out conditions.
It was a good thing they had the GPS, as the road vanished only blocks away from the town. It soon became less of finding a road and more of finding a flat enough plain to drive on. What the old van lacked in soundproofing it made up in a well-tuned, healthy roar of engine and a heft heater which quickly warmed the ruby interior of the van to tolerable, even cozy conditions. As they drove on, growing increasingly more deaf, Kai managed to get his wing out of Eiden's face, but it did nothing for the hearty cramps building up in them and his back from all the odd angles.
Because hell, he thought, perish the thought that I should actually be comfortable for once on this damn trip from a bad TV show. No, got to be in some sort of pain all the time. After all, what kind of adventure would it be if the hero wasn't suffering.
"Hey guys, we should totally write a book after all this."
"Tyson, if we get out of all this, we'll be in a different world. They may not even have commercial publishing."
"So? Aliens still like a good story, yeah? Wait, are they aliens? Hey, Ayah, what are we? I mean, name wise."
"Uh, the humans called us all different kinds of things. But my father said we lost our real name when our ancestors chose to stay behind with the humans."
"...Well there went that idea. What do you think we should be, Ray?"
"Huh?"
"Come on. Name us."
"Don't look at me. Max was always the one with the names."
"Max is out cold. Yo! Kai! We need a name."
"Use the one your mother gave you," Kai ended up having to nearly shout back, having not realized they had been doing the same to be heard above the noisy van.
"Of course. Party pooper, per usual. How about just 'the Beasts?' You know, because we're sort of combined with our bit beasts and we're not really human anymore? I could be, like, the Beast of Storm. Ooooo."
Ray snorted. "Sounds like an RPG. Do we get special medallions for awakening all the Beasts?"
"Nah. You get more warriors to your team. You have to gather them all before you can beat the boss at the end. What do you think: turn base or real time?"
"With all those characters, it would have to be turn base."
"Not if I was the main character. You lot could be, like, the upgrades to my weapons. I could be like—"
Ray's loud spluttering raspberry broke him off.
"I am not going to be your lightning bullets, Tyson."
"Not like that! This is fantasy based. You're just gonna pop up like a big spirit tiger, do your lighting striky action move, and then wisp away before the writhing, blackened bodies of our enemies."
"Can I be the main character?" asked Ayah, who was the only one who didn't sound like she was shouting.
Kai found himself forgetting the aches and cramps and anxiety as he listened to his teammates talk themselves asleep. It was a familiar background noise he had missed, back when they joked and talked when all was safe and it was alright for Kai to quietly take up a corner and not be hassled.
At some odd hour of the morning, a few miles before they'd have to stop to fill up on gas, Eiden's hand shot out to Kai's chest. Instantly, Kai stopped the van. Tyson's snores only hiccupped before continuing on as before.
Eiden jumped over and slapped off the headlights, plunging them into darkness.
"Human fly," he said. "Quiet van."
Kai turned the key. The engine rumbled to a stop. The ensuing quiet was deafening after so long of noise.
After a minute, he heard a shuffling through Tyson's snores, then Ayah's soft voice in those words only her brother seemed to understand. He spoke back to her equally as quiet.
"A surveillance plane is heading our way," said Ayah. "We should stay here for at least a half hour to make sure he is out of range."
A sudden burst of cold and wind rushed over Kai as Eiden opened the door. He swore and leapt across the passenger seat to close it, but his cramped up wing inbetween the seats twinged at a bad angle, stopping him with a closed mouth shout of pain. By then, Eiden was already out and had closed the door.
"What is he doing?" he asked between clenched teeth.
"Setting up an invisibility barrier," she said. "We did the same thing back in the valley. Dad learned from grandpa about avoiding alerting aircraft and the such."
"Huh." That should prove useful in the future. "Will it work at night?"
"Especially at night."
A few minutes later and Eiden returned, chattering and puffing with cold. He said a quick word to Ayah, then start jabbing buttons at buttons on the console—though that was just Kai's guess. It was so dark he couldn't really see anything. After a few words from Ayah, the clicking stopped and her brother settled back in to shiver.
After a time, Eiden glanced out the windows, gave the okay, and they were once more off, the sleeping ones no more the wiser. When it came time to fuel up, even Eiden had fallen asleep, and Kai just had to hope that whatever barrier he'd put up worked while he slept. Rather than wake up anyone, he stoked the fire within him as hot as it would go and eased out into the freezing night. A break in the clouds had come above them, giving them a momentary lapse in snow. Kai glanced up, not meaning to spend a moment longer, but stopped at the brilliant array of stars poking through, bedded in a colorful cloud of space dust. Only out here in the cold, far from any light, had he been able to see the universe so close.
But despite the beauty, he couldn't help but wonder.
Where are the northern lights?
No colorful ribbons danced across the sky. Just stars, framed by storm clouds. Tala had wondered the same thing, though Kai had shrugged it off as the northern lights didn't occur every night and were unpredictable at best. Even now, Kai wondered why the question returned to him even when he thought he had an answer.
Again pushing it to the side, eager to get rid of the ache in his chest at the thought of Tala, Kai went back to unstrapping gas jugs off the back of the van.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading. Really. It really...helps me now to know that I'm not writing into space. Thank you.