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Thanks to u/jouscat for providing the inspiration for this post with her amazing post, Realities of a Woman's Life on the Road. That was a couple months ago, but I figured my experiences and what I've learned could help people, hopefully as much as Scat's. Also, thanks to her and Pokebert (u/2717192619192) for reviewing this post and providing some great suggestions.
From the beginning my parents just didn't care. My dad was an abusive meth addict, often hitting me, but I never let him hit my sister. My mom was less on the abusive side and more on the passed-out-heroin-addict side. From the time I was 11 or so, I could disappear for days on end without them caring or sometimes even realizing, and the summer after 8th grade, I decided to use that to my advantage. I wrote a quick note telling them that I'd be back within a month or two, packed up a bag, read through all the vagabond advice posts I could find, and then hopped a boxcar out from my little town near Sacramento. Right as it pulled out, the door slammed shut, almost taking my finger with it. The train ended up taking me to Elko, Nevada, where I wandered around town for a couple hours before figuring out to hitchhike.
Since then I've been all over the West, and also last summer I did a big circuit around the east, from New Orleans to Atlanta to Asheville to New York and then back to the land of cowboys and dust via a high-priority train that took me from Chicago to Denver. I've had some great experiences, and some horrible ones, which I'll be talking about here. My aim for this post is to prepare you youngsters for what's waiting for you once you run away, so I won't spend much time on the good part.
To Run Away or Not to Run Away?
I ran away because I hated living at home. I wasn't abused too much (not exactly a ringing endorsement), just completely fucking ignored. There were sometimes streaks of several days where I didn't talk to my parents despite being in the same little house as them. I had a couple friends at school, but I was an outcast for the most part. If I had the chance to relive that time in my life with everything I know now, I don't know if I'd run away again. The abuse started out not so bad, but it started to get worse, so I ran. If you're not getting badly hurt or abused, which is better than a lot of people can say, stay at home. Running away is only justified in very abusive situations, whether physical, mental, or emotional. It's a life-altering decision. But if you've got that itch to go, there's nothing I can say that could stop you. When I left there was no fucking way I could've been talked out of it.
Don't take the decision lightly, though. Read through this post and all the other great resources on this sub and vagabond, hear all the shit that's happened to me over just three summers on the road, and then decide. Does it sound worse than what's happening to you? If so, think long and hard about it. Could it get worse? Better? What are your other options? If it sounds like a piece of cake compared to your home life, go for it.
How to Run Away?
I honestly can't help you with the emotional side of this one. I just got up and left, no shits given. As I said in the first paragraph, I just left a short note for my parents, and then a longer one for my sister. My friend, on the other hand, did. I'll call her Annie (not her actual name), I'll let her tell her story.

I've been in and out of the foster care system since I was 9. I ran away from every home they put me in after a couple months. Sometimes I didn't even unpack my bag. At first I'd just jump out the window at night and then bike to the next town over, mostly just to make a point, but then they got smart and made it so I couldn't open the window more than a couple inches. After that, I would sneak out and open the front door. I got caught a couple times like that. At first my attempts to run away weren't very successful. People pay attention to a 10 year old on the streets. But around 12 or 13, I was able to stay away for longer. I could take a greyhound to the nearest big city and get lost there, and after a month or a couple they'd find me or I'd come back, and it would start all over again.
When I was almost 14, I was placed into a foster home that I genuinely liked. The "mom" and "dad" were caring and provided for us well, and the other kids told me it was good. But as time wore on, I saw that it wasn't at all perfect. One of the kids was involved in drug dealing, and was tangled up with a gang, and the "parents" sometimes let their anger break through, and would sometimes hit me or the other kids. Two days before the last day of school, the "mom" sent me out to find the kid that was into drug dealing, since he hadn't come home for dinner. I knew he spent a lot of his time in this one alley downtown, so I went there. I turned the corner and practically ran into him. He pulled out a switchblade and stabbed me.
It didn't look like he realized who I was until a couple seconds later, then he tried to comfort me. Apparently I'd ran into a big drug deal, and he was on edge. On edge enough to stab me, at least. He got me in the boob, so I wasn't too badly hurt. I decided that I couldn't take it any more, so I went back home, grabbed a few things, and told them I was spending the night at a friend's house. Instead I spent the night out by the creek, and then the next day at school, I asked the author of this post (who I was already really good friends with) if I could come with him. He said sure, and here I am now. I haven't entered a foster home since I picked up a change of clothes after school that day. My wounded tit is an object of much curiosity from everybody who sees me topless, for anyone who was wondering.

What to Bring?
As for gear and transportation, I'm more well-versed in that. The first time I left home, I went extremely bare-bones. To put all of my shit in, I brought a medium-sized hiking backpack that I got from Goodwill. It wasn't one of the fancy ones from Osprey or whatever, just a canvas sack. You need to think about the essentials first, not fancy trinkets. That means food, water, and shelter. I would bring a sleeping bag and a tarp (shelter), canned foods and other high-nutrition foods (food), and a milk jug full of water. Don't start out trainhopping, but if/when you eventually do (after getting a mentor), bring two or more full gallon jugs full of water. Also don't bring a tent. They're bulky, heavy, expensive, and they attract attention. I find a tarp to be much more useful.
Beyond the essentials, there's things that you could live without, but are good to have.

Lighter and tinder. A campfire can cook food and keep you warm, both of which will be needed.
Some paracord. Useful for fastening shit to your backpack and much more. Don't take too much, if you have to cut it burn the ends to keep it from fraying.
A pocketknife. I'll put in a defense section after this, but a pocketknife is good for cooking and eating too. I used to have a Leatherman Juice, which I unfortunately lost a couple months ago. I now have a Wave+, which probably is too heavy.
Dr. Bronners soap. This soap is gold. It cleans everything from bodies to plates to hair, and you barely need to use a drop. Alternatively, dish soap is good, or even a bar of soap.
Fishing stuff. I like to fish, all you really need is a good long stick, a couple hooks/lures, a swivel and a bunch of fishing line. It takes some practice, but you can eat like a king with a whopper catfish cooked over an open fire. The best fishing rod is bamboo. I've got a homemade one that I bought from an old Cajun dude near Thibodaux. No, his name wasn't Amos Moses.
First aid. Your generic first aid kit will be useless; bring stuff that will help you.
- Duct tape (not just first aid, this is good in general)
- Restaurant napkins (for bandages and toilet paper)
- Ibuprofen, Advil (or generic versions)
- Any personal medical stuff (epipens, prescriptions, etc) although I would be very cautious of running away with a prescription. You'll be found out if you try to refill it.
Clothes. You don't need a lot, I'll go over warmth in the next bullet point. You're not going to smell good, but you don't need to. Just bring a t-shirt and jeans, maybe a pair of shorts too. I have a baseball cap that I love. If you're travelling in the desert, wear a thin shirt with long sleeves, some light pants, and a hat with a wide brim on all sides.
Warm clothes. This depends, but there are some basics. I travel with a heavy flannel, a hunting jacket, and a rain shell. When I'm travelling in the fall/wintespring, which is a rarity, I add on insulated Carhartts and long john bottoms. The only time when that layout has been stressed was when I hopped a train during a blizzard around Christmas a couple years ago. I think it was about 15 or 20 below 0 and I was cold as fuck. If you're east of the Rockies you probably won't need much or any warmth during the summer, but I do a lot of travelling in high mountains, deserts, etc. where it can get below freezing any time of the year.
An instrument. I'm a trombone player, which is not the best instrument for trainhopping. Still, I manage. I've got a junky trombone that I strap to my pack (paracord!) or put inside, and take it everywhere, and then I've got a somewhat nicer one that I leave with a friend in NOLA. It's a pain in the ass to carry around, but it pays. I try to go to New Orleans for at least a couple weeks a year. It's paradise for a jazz musician. I busk a lot, often solo, sometimes with a partner. I once raked in $450 in 5 days busking in New Orleans with me, a vocalist, and a saxophonist, both of whom I just met on the street.
Money. Busking is a means to an end. Start off with at least $100. My first time I had $72, which ran out somewhere around Ogden, UT. Mormons can be very friendly, but not to buskers, so I pretty much starved until I got to Cheyenne. Other ways to make money:
- Farms. I grew up in the Central Valley of CA, where pretty much every vegetable or nut you eat comes from. Farms surround me. Here, you have to know Spanish to get a job, because 90% of the workers are Latino, and many are undocumented immigrants. Farm work here is fucking hard and for horrible wages, but it's usually easy to find if you know where to look.
- That's really the only one I can think of. Check out the Advice Directory over on vagabond (currently deleted due to shit going on there).
Headlamp. Flashlights are meh, but a good headlamp is indestructible and you don't need hands.
Toiletries. I like being clean, I will admit. Along with Dr. Bronners, mentioned above, I just take a normal toiletry kit: toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, that's about all. The girls I've traveled with just bring normal period products.
Weight. I go as light as I can, because my trombone weighs 12.5 pounds. My pack is usually around 30 or 35 pounds with the trombone, but if you don't have a heavy-ass instrument like me, you can be more lenient with trimming weight. I'm 6'1" and 160 pounds, so I carry more than most others, I think the ideal pack weight for somebody a bit smaller than me is more on the 25 pound side than the 35 pound side. The second summer I was on the road, I carried two trombones from California to New Orleans, bringing my pack weight up to around 45 pounds. That royally sucked. I don't recommend all that ultralight stuff, it won't last long on the streets, and it's crazy expensive. I once went into REI to buy a pair of long johns, and I was absolutely appalled at what these people will pay for the tiniest thing. Like, 100 bucks for a fancy chair? Nah, man, a log is much sturdier and less expensive, and you don't have to carry it around.

Protection
As I said earlier, I always have a pocketknife. I've got a leather holster strapped to my belt that I can easily pop open. Like jouscat said, it's no use if you can't get to it. At points in my "career", I've carried a hunting knife, bear spray, a switchblade (for a couple weeks in LA), and coins in a sock. DO NOT CALL ANYBODY'S BLUFF. If you're in a sketchy neighborhood or jungle, keep your knife in plain sight, but do not pull it on somebody unless you are prepared to use it. When I was 15, I pulled a knife on a crackhead in Missoula who was acting threatening and insane, as crackheads will. Bad idea. I woke up an hour later after he punched me in the side of the head and left me in the gravel. It could've been much worse. I woke up because a train was roaring by. He could've put my head on the rails. He could've dragged me back to his shack in the woods, and I would've been dead to the world, or for real dead. I could never use a knife on another person, thus the bear spray. I walked straight to downtown Missoula after I woke up and bought a can of bear spray. I usually keep it out when I'm in grizzly country, otherwise it looks out of place and suspicious. I have not had to use it yet.
If you're hitchhiking with somebody who's starting to look threatening, pull out an apple and slice it very carefully and deliberately. This is the oldest trick in the book, but it works.
Prostitution
According to the US Justice Department, "1/3 of teenagers on the street will be approached by a pimp within 48 hours of leaving home". I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT DO PROSTITUTION. I once met a prostitute in LA, who had been pulled into it at age 16 after she ran away from home because her stepfather was raping her. She said that running away was the worst thing that ever happened to her. She attempted to commit suicide after 6 months of it, but it just fucked her with a lot of hospital bills. As far as I know she's still a prostitute. Read this article about child prostitution in NYC (I think there's a paywall if you're on mobile). There's also this one that provides many very in-depth articles/videos about how people get sucked in, how they are kept in, and how they can get out. If anybody has more experience with this type of thing, comment, or post on runaway. I think it's not talked about as much as it should be.
My mother ran away from home at 16, a fact that I just learned recently. She was from Mexicali, crossed the border illegally and went up to Seattle, and then to Alaska. In Anchorage, she got addicted to heroin, and prostituted herself to survive. She eventually tried to go back to Mexico, but got waylaid 100 feet from the border by my dad, recently released from prison. Well, a year later, my dad moved 3-month old me and my mom up to Bakersfield, where he immediately got sent back to prison for beating my mom. She moved to Nevada with me, and of course wound up doing prostitution again. She never talked about it, but it must've been horrible. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, no matter how much pain they've caused me.
Where to Sleep
When it comes time to bed down, you may just want to crash wherever. But put some thought into your choice of location. If I'm hopping trains, I like to sleep at the edge of the yard. Usually there's some woods, or even just a patch of shrubs, that provide some visual protection. Don't sleep in jungles (hobo camps). Some people there are pretty insane. I'll spend the evening with them or whatever, but then sneak off to my own quiet corner of the yard so that I won't find myself robbed blind and with a knife in my back in the morning. If I'm hitchhiking, I'll ask them to drop me off next to a creek somewhere, preferably with some trees. I like sleeping next to creeks. Even if they're too polluted to drink from (always filter your water either way), they're still nice. Unless they attract mosquitos. That sucks.
If you can sleep on government land, that's the best, but I don't really worry about who owns the land. Leave no trace, and everybody's happy. BLM/State/National Forest land is the best, though, because it's legal, and usually prettier than some farm. Unless you're sure of your camping and defense skills, don't go too far out into the wilderness. There are weird people out there, and nature isn't forgiving.
Sleeping in town is no fun. Let's start from the outer ring and go in to the middle. If you sleep at the edge of town, you are likely to be stumbled upon by a bunch of drunk, possibly horny dudes who are trying not to get caught drinking by their wives. If you sleep in the suburbs, you are likely to get reported by some Karen for disturbing her perfect little world. If you sleep in an older part of town, you're likely to run into some illegal activity, and possibly get mugged. And if you sleep in the downtown/inner city, you'll be one of a thousand other homeless people, many who are mentally ill, and all who are competing for a limited number of benches, porches, doorsteps, and parks.
A note on abandoned houses. If there's not a whole lot of graffiti, and it's not very easily accessed, I'd go for it. Make sure to position yourself in a place where you can get out easily, though. If it has tons of graffiti, litter, old needles, etc., get the fuck out.
But if you do find a good spot, make sure to scope it out before going to bed. Are there multiple escape routes? Sketchy characters hanging around? Shit like that. If all is good, go right ahead. Don't make a fire in the western states during the summer unless there's a fire ring or you have a can or a barrel or something. Grass catches fire easier than you think, and starting a fire around here is a good way to start a hundred-thousand-plus acre fire.
Transportation
Start off hitchhiking. If you're running away, get as far away as you need to, and then you can try other ways to get around. Go to a freeway exit or a gas station and hold out your thumb. If you see somebody with a license plate from a state where you're trying to go, or near there, maybe walk up to them and ask for a ride. It might feel weird at first, but you'll get the hang of it. Also, be careful of who you ride with. Do they look threatening? Deranged? An addict? Don't go with them. The best people to go with are nice old ladies or young couples. Rarely ever do either of those people pick up hitchhikers. Usually I get rides with single dudes, often middle aged, even more often truckers. If you're a girl, the risk is even more elevated. I would not recommend hitchhiking if you don't think you could defend yourself from a big redneck with lots of experience getting in bar fights. There are too many creeps out there. Trust your instincts.
The summer of 2019 was the first (and only so far) time I traveled with a partner full-time. Annie and I were looking for a ride in Twin Falls, Idaho in September, and not having much luck. It took a day and a half, but finally we got a ride with an old dude who said his name was Benny and he was bound for Portland. Well, we went with him, because we really had no choice, even though I had a weird feeling about him. All was good until the stretch of nothingness in between Ontario and Baker City. He pulled off a highway exit called Weatherby, saying he had to go to the bathroom, but instead he turned up a one-lane gravel road and pulled out a gun, saying he'd shoot if we tried to flee. He took us way back in the woods to a hidden cove about 20 miles off the freeway, where he tried to tie me up. Thankfully, he turned his back on Annie, and she kicked him in the crotch and then in the head. Let me tell you, you do not want to be kicked anywhere on your body with steel-toed boots. We took his truck back to the interstate and then begged a ride with a trucker at the rest stop. I don't know what became of Benny, but that was a fucking horrible experience. He was after Annie, not me, and I don't think he was going to play patty-cake with her.
Trainhopping. Is dangerous. Is unreliable. But I love it. Get a mentor, and don't almost lose a finger like I did. Head on over to the advice directory on vagabond, there's some amazing stuff over there.
Hiking is slow, but great when you're in a remote, beautiful area. In 2019, I took 6 days to hike from Silverton, Colorado, to Monte Vista. 124 miles. It was insanely tiring though, even for two very fit teenagers.
Biking is faster than hiking, by quite a bit. I once biked from my hometown near Sacramento to Truckee in two days. After that I ditched the bike (it was free from the side of the interstate) and hopped a train out. Too much uphill travel, from 0 feet above sea level up to 7,500, and then back down to 6,000. All in about 120 miles.
By far the most novel method of travel I've tried is by boat. I floated/motored down the Mississippi River in 2019 from Memphis to New Orleans, almost 650 miles. I had a tiny metal rowboat with an outboard motor that worked maybe half the time. Annie and I averaged about 65 miles a day, stopping in pretty much every little village along the way and taking turns sleeping at night. It was kind of like Huck Finn, but with a noisy and finnicky motor. If I were to do it again I'd do it more Huckleberry-like, taking my time with a raft, and maybe an electric motor. Still, it was a great experience, and I'd recommend it if you can get your hands on a boat.
There are others, but I won't talk about them here.
People are Weird and Creepy and Horrible
Adults are pedophiles. Just assume that every adult will try to make an advance on you. Sorry to all y'all great adults, but it's better safe than sorry. Even as a 6'1" male, I've had random dudes and even a woman once try to seduce me. Annie and the other female partners I've traveled with have it even worse. When you're trainhopping and hitchhiking, it's unavoidable that you'll be travelling through the bad part of town. Almost every city has it, but especially cities in California and the Rust Belt. I don't have much experience with the East Coast, but I saw some pretty bad ghettos in Baltimore and Philly during my short stay there. NOLA has it really bad. The neighborhoods there have gotten a triple gut punch - they were already ghettos, they're mostly black, meaning society ignores their issues, and they were devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The ghettos anywhere have trafficking, murders, muggings, crazed homeless dudes, and more. Keep a low profile and stay away from shady characters (drug dealers/gang members).
If you get a bad feeling from someone, just nope the fuck out. Walk away if you're in a railyard or a gas station, or ask to get out if you're hitchhiking. Usually they'll let you out, but if they don't, say something about how you forgot that you were supposed to meet your (big stocky club bouncer) friend at the last freeway exit, and if you don't, they'll get worried. Works 9/10 times.
I'm going to let Annie write a section here on some of her experiences with creepy adults.

The summer of 2019 was the first time I had vagabonded. I needed to get away from my foster home, and I knew what SugarBowlSkier (Let's call him Jimmy) was doing, so I asked to come along with him. He said ok, and we left a couple days after the last day of school. We took a bus to Reno (had gotten almost free tickets from an old road buddy of Jimmy's who had to cancel). We were walking around a sketchy warehouse area east of the downtown, on our way to the Sparks yard, and Jimmy had ducked behind a building to take a leak. Some dude who had been in the shadows somewhere walked out and grabbed my boob. I punched him and yelled, and Jimmy came running back. I got out of that one fine, but I was fucking scared after that. Just 5 hours after leaving home. It might seem like I'm writing this easily, but it's fucking painful to talk about it.
Jimmy mentioned the horrible experience with the motherfucker named Benny. That was by far the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I cried for days after that. The trucker who we got a ride with from the rest stop took us back to Nampa, where we hopped a train to Pocatello. We stayed in a motel there for almost a week, just collecting ourselves. I didn't hitchhike any more on that trip, but I have hitchhiked a couple times since that time.
In a rail jungle in Atlanta, one of the guys in the jungle pulled out his dick in my face. He was tossed out of the camp.
There have been other incidents, but not as bad as those.
-"Annie"

That's all true. I have to mention one thing about the time in Atlanta. The guy was literally thrown out of the camp. Four people grabbed each of his arms/legs and tossed him. Don't fuck around like that creep did.
The Law
Running away is illegal. No question about it. Stay away from cops, for more reason than one. A cop tried to arrest me for being a "public nuisance", whatever that is, in Billings once. I was sleeping in a park during the daytime. I just ran. Thankfully the cop was fat AF, so it was easy to run around the corner and jump a fence into somebody's backyard. If you're black, cops are 90% of the time your worst enemy. Even more so if you're black and homeless. I'm a white guy (technically half Mexican, but I didn't learn that until recently), so I can't offer any advice on that, and I won't try to. Just stay safe, whatever that means. If you're a runaway and trainhopping, that's double illegal, so work even harder to keep a low profile. Don't do drugs, even marijuana (even if it's legal, cops don't like it), don't drink (do as I say not as I do), and if you see anything illegal going on get the fuck out. The fuzz will suspect you if you're near the scene of a crime, and even if they don't you'll be questioned, and then they'll most likely realize you're a runaway.
A note on alcohol: I am not a good example for this. I have drank my fair share of alcohol, and so has Annie. I'm praying my sister doesn't think to look on my phone/computer, because she has no idea. I almost got alcohol poisoning after drinking multiple bottles of tequila (I don't really remember) a couple weeks ago. Alcohol will put you out of your misery... until the next morning. Then all your problems will come right back even worse then before, and you'll be fucked. Also, if you get caught, you're going down. So don't drink, kids.
Phones
I don't bring a phone while on the road. To me it's just another thing that ties me to our fucked up society, and a distraction. Also you can be tracked with a cell phone even if you turn location data off. I know that my parents wouldn't try to track me, but I am very worried that the government might try to put me, my sister, and Annie in a foster home if they realize our situation.
Housing
This might seem like a weird section to put in a post about being on the road, but the reality is that you won't be able to run away forever. The first time I ran away, I came back in late August and lived with my parents and sister for a winter. That's probably not an option for most runaways. The next summer I was on the road again, and then I came back to live with them again. Around Christmas (when else) I had to go down to Fresno for a week for a job, and when I came back my parents had kicked out my sister and skipped town. I flipped out and drove to where she said they had moved to (I'm not going to reveal the location because it's a very small town), and got in a bad fight with my dad. He was on some sort of drug, so he wasn't very coherent, but I gathered that he and my mom had split up. He went to the tiny town, and she went to Vegas, where it seems like every fuck-up in the world ends up. I went back home and tried to figure out what to do.
My sister and I slept in the bed of my truck for about a month, and I ended up getting a distant family member to rent a tiny apartment for me and my sister, with me paying. I only did it that way because you can't rent a house as a minor. I lived there with my sister for the rest of the winter, but when summer came my sister told me that I had to go on the road. She saw how overworked and depressed I was, being cooped up in my little town, while balancing school and a job to support two people. Bless her soul for that. She went to live with some relatives for the summer while Annie and I went on the road. When school started but I was still gone, she went back home and lived with a friend until I came back. After that summer, I rented another house, this time slightly bigger, but still tiny by anybody's standards, and Annie moved in with us. It's a lot nicer now that there's two people with jobs in the household. I won't let my sister get a job for various reasons. She's too young to have all that responsibility.
It's hard living like this, but we make do. When my sister and I first rented the house, we could've moved somewhere else and rented for several times less, but I wanted to stay in my hometown. For all it's faults, it's where I was raised, and it's where my few friends are. I could be living like a king in Bakersfield, but here I am, doing my math homework with pencils scavenged out of the gutter. I have second thoughts about staying almost every day, but it was the right choice for my family. Now, I'm facing eviction, and that whole plan has been turned on it's head.
Suggestions on housing. Get something as cheap as possible, even if it's in a bad neighborhood. The first apartment I rented was in a pretty average neighborhood. When we had to upsize slightly to accommodate Annie, we moved to a dumpy little road in the country. The people here are pretty nice, though. It has the major disadvantage of being far from town, and without a reliable car, I have to get up at 3:00 every morning to bike to town and make my 5:00 AM shift at my job, which ends at 8. I'm sometimes late to online school, but what can you do? I end up working about 8-10 hours a day on weekdays, about 14-16 on Saturday, and then Sunday is my day off, only 6-8 hours.
I also will do landscaping jobs whenever we're hurting for money, but that's less reliable and hard to fit into my schedule.
Annie works (at a different place than me) from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM every weekday. We're both insanely sleep-deprived and overworked 24/7/365, but still pretty much broke. Remember, this is "Realities", not "Dreams". If you want to support yourself, you'll have to work at least 60 hours a week, most likely more. I get paid minimum wage at both my jobs (gas station and farm), Annie slightly above. If you're alone, you should try and find an organization that will take you in. I've got a family member on the board of directors of a boy's home, and although they struggle a lot, it sounds better for the boys than being on the streets.
I guess we're kind of like parents to my sister, although we aren't romantically involved. It sure is a taxing job to be a parent to a rebellious teenage girl. I could write a whole article on unconventional parenting situations, but I'll save it for another time.
School
Don't kid yourself. You will not be able to go to school while running away. It doesn't matter what the law says, you will be reported and sent home if you try to enroll in school. I don't know about online school, however. I'm not anything of a tech wizard, so I have no idea if they'd be able to track you if you keep logging on. I try to be on the road only when school is out, but it doesn't always work out that way. In 2019, I didn't get back home until early October. That kind of sucked, because I missed over a month of school.
Here at home, I get by with school, even though I work 74+ hours a week and get maybe 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. I never skip classes, and usually pull low B's and sometimes high C's. It's not going to get me into Harvard, but then again I won't be able to afford even community college. One of my two jobs (the non-farm one) is at a gas station, and I can tell you that working the graveyard shift at a gas station in a small town is the MOST. FUCKING. BORING. Job ever. It does give me a lot of time to do homework, browse Reddit, and listen to punk music. So if you ever walk into a gas station near Sacramento and hear The Offspring quickly being shut off, say hi to me.
I don't know if anybody at school beyond my one or two closest friends knows my situation. It's not exactly a secret, but I don't go shouting around the halls about it either. I don't care much for the whole popularity thing, but if I did I'm sure living in a half-abandoned house with no parents and working at a gas station would not win me any favors. My sister is more worried about that shit, I can't fathom why. But she does it without being a jerk like many popular kids, so I can't judge.
Crossing Borders
This may seem kind of off-topic, but for one reason or another, it's something that I've found comes into play quite a bit when you're on the road.
State borders are easy. 90% of the time you'll just drive right over them. On busy roads in some states (like my state of California) they have agricultural inspection stations, where they prohibit you from bringing most vegetables, nuts, and fruit into the state to avoid these. There's no real danger to get found out with these, as long as you do what they said and don't panic. It's literally just telling them, "No sir, I do not have any produce with me."
National borders are trickier. I've got no experience legally crossing national borders, but I know that you need your passport in 99% of places (I think San Diego and Tijuana might have some arrangement). I have, however, snuck over both the Canadian and Mexican border briefly. I'm not going to tell you how to do it, because it's highly illegal, but I will say this: don't do it. This is another thing where you should do as I say, not as I do, because if you are caught on the other side of the border without a passport, you will be sent to jail and then tried.
My mom was an undocumented immigrant. She ran away from Mexicali at 16, and ended up in Anchorage, a prostitute and a heroin addict. I only learned this a couple days ago, and I haven't seen her in years, but if I ever do see her again, I would like to ask her about her experience. I know that it was successful, though.
Another reason not to cross the Mexican border: Mexico is fucking dangerous. In Agua Prieta, I heard way more gunshots in the two nights I was there than the two nights I spent right outside of Skid Row in LA. In Piedras Negras, I swam across the Rio Grande just to say I'd done it, and although I was only over there for about 6 hours, I saw the most poverty that I've ever seen. My last border experience was perhaps the worst. A couple days after Piedras Negras, I wanted to try it out again, so I swam from Laredo to Nuevo Laredo. It was hard avoiding the border patrol, who were hidden all over, but I managed to get across OK. I wandered around Nuevo for a while, and then realized it was getting dark, and I didn't want to be there during the night. I walked the mile or so back to the river, but it was swarming with US and Mexican government people. My best guess is that there was a crime or something, or maybe somebody drowned.
Either way, I couldn't get back that way, so I figured I'd have to walk either north or south out of town. I didn't want to be walking around at night, though, so I chose to sleep in a nice-looking park next to a hospital. At around 2:00 AM, I was woken up by screaming, and then a couple minutes later sirens. I was sleeping without a sleeping bag or anything since the low was above 80 degrees that night, so I was able to get the fuck out in about 30 seconds. I ran/walked the 2 or so miles to a golf course next to the river, which I snuck across and then swam across the river. It was fucking crazy. I never found out what happened at the park, or what caused the patrollers to be all over the area. It would've been mid-July 2018, I think. Anybody know anything? All three of those times were in 2018, and I haven't crossed into Mexico since, and I don't plan to again.
Mental Health
Being on the streets is lonely. It helps if you're with a partner, but if you're alone, you can go weeks without any meaningful contact with others. I like that, but I know it can be hard for people. I saw somebody make a very good point in a thread here recently. When you're hitchhiking, you're kind of acting as that person's anonymous therapist. They will never see you again, and neither of you have any idea who the other is, so they're free to pour their heart out to you. It can be hard hearing about that. I've ridden with people who were falsely charged with murder, have attempted suicide, and even a man with terminal cancer.
For me though, being on the streets helps my mental health more than it hurts it. I've been very depressed at points in my life, and several times the only thing standing in between me and suicide was the thought that my sister would have nobody to support her. Being sedentary sucks, and I try not to let it get to me, but it does. I've been at home for almost 500 days due to COVID, with only two or three opportunities to get out. Late winter and spring were the hardest, but surprisingly the pandemic made it better. I didn't have to be an outcast at school every day, and I had more time to work, meaning we were in a better financial situation. I can't express how thankful I am that I wasn't laid off of either of my jobs, as so many people were. We'd be in a bad fucking situation if that happened.
Another thing that can bring you down mentally is seeing the underbelly of our society. You'll be walking through the metaphorical and literal back alley of wherever you are. You'll see all the things that make the world bad: junkies, gangs, extreme poverty, trafficking, you name it and it will be encountered. The worst I've experienced this was in Stockton, one of the most dangerous and poor cities in the US. Every alley holds a junkie shooting up on their poison of choice, gang violence has decimated the south part of the city, and parts of South Stockton look worse than Detroit. Even if this doesn't affect you physically, it really takes a toll on you mentally.
Overview
Running away is dangerous, hard, and illegal. You should only do it if it provides a better situation than the one you are in. Carry protection, probably a knife, but don't call people's bluff. Don't get involved in prostitution, no matter how desperate you are. Trust your instincts about people. If they give you a bad feeling, get away from them. If you are a girl, you most likely will be sexually harassed, and possibly raped. Stay away from cops, don't do anything illegal, and especially don't cross borders. You won't be able to go to school on the road. Eventually you'll have to settle down somewhere, so have a plan for that. Will you be 18 by then? If so, that makes it a lot easier.
I've been dumb. I've made bad decisions. Many of them. That's probably led to me having a worse-than-average experience. But I hope that y'all can learn from my mistakes and do it better.
I know that there are going to be people who go through my whole account just to shut me down, so I'm just going to say that you will find discrepancies. I don't mention my situation unless it's called for. People feel sorry for me, and I hate it. If a person is going to take the time to search my post history, they deserve to know my story.
I'm going to finish with a quote from my second grade teacher and pretty much everyone since: "Life isn't fair."

Inheritors of Eschaton, Part 64 - Inheritance (2 of 3)

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Sigu staggered back, barely keeping hold of his pike as the dwindling line of guards buckled and reformed several paces to the rear. They had been fighting the abominations street-to-street, rather literally - only the hard surfaces of the major roads provided any protection from belowground ambushes. Even cobbles were suspect footing. They had been forced back along this major thoroughfare until their backs were against the gate to the inner city, and Sigu doubted they could stand for much longer.
The outer districts were lost, and with them all but the vanishingly-small number of residents that had managed to flee through to the inner city. His lieutenants reported the same thing all along the perimeter, which told him that the mob of corpses had them pinned against the shore with no open avenues of escape.
That was fine. This was his city, after all, and he would rather die defending it than attempting to escape it. Sigu shook his head and refocused, stepping up to take his place alongside his men. He felt the smooth motion of his armor as it subtly aided his movements, lending strength and dexterity in equal measure. His pike whipped through three bodies, quick as blinking, but the fourth seized hold of it and pulled him forward with surprising strength.
His armor could only compensate for so much. The sudden pull sent him tumbling forward into the ranks of the enemy, who set upon him with unbridled ferocity. Hands scrabbled at his faceplate, fingernails and rough shards of metal grated against him from all sides. His left hand blossomed with pain as his gauntlet was torn free and teeth tore into his flesh, fingers hooking under the next piece to peel him apart bit by bit-
And then a swirl of bright flame dispelled the night overhead, clearing the rotten horde from him with a cacophony of shattered bone. Sigu rolled back toward the line, dignity and weapon forgotten as he flopped frantically sideways in his armor.
Panting, bleeding from a hundred cuts, he looked up to see Mark standing in front of his pikemen with one foot resting on a corpse and a flaming hammer held over one shoulder. Behind him, Jesse swept his sword through a knot of decaying bodies while Jackie sent another blasting back into its fellows.
“And here I thought all hope was lost,” Sigu gasped, shakily heaving himself to his feet. “My expectations were clearly still too high.”
Mark winked at him. “Nice to see you too,” he said. “Got a charge crystal handy?”
Sigu blinked at the request, reaching to his belt almost automatically. He stopped himself just before handing it over. “Why are you back in the City?” he asked, looking up at Mark suspiciously. “You were away. You’d come back now, at the end?”
“We’ve got a saying where I’m from about endings and, uh, fat ladies,” Mark said, leaning forward to snatch the crystal out of his hand. He frowned. “Just realized it’s probably not going to translate too well. Point is, it’s not over until it’s over, and it’s not over until I say it’s over. Understand?”
“What?” Sigu muttered, watching as Mark tossed the shining crystal towards Jesse. He snatched it out of the air, then dropped it to the ground. In one smooth motion he brought his sword up - and down, the blade cleaving into the crystal with a flash and a sharp report.
The blade lit up with a ghostly glow that trailed behind it in the air. Jesse swept it sideways in a tight arc, and the glow flashed outward through the mob around them. There was a moment of stillness before the bodies began to fall to the dirt, dropping into pieces carved neatly across the midsection.
The stillness did not stop with his strike, however, as those beyond the perimeter of his attack turned to face their position - and those beyond them, farther than Sigu could see until even the swirling, lightning-laced clouds overhead seemed to glare balefully down on them. The three interlopers stood defiantly in the newly cleared road, unflinching even as the storm howled with renewed ferocity.
“One wonders why I even bother making plans,” sighed a voice to Sigu’s right. He took a hasty step to the side, startled, and saw a slight man clad in black, unarmored save for a cloak that seemed to meld with the night around them. Two similarly-dressed men stood behind him, holding what were unmistakably scripted weapons.
Sigu licked his lips, his mind racing to keep up. All around him the horde was closing in, seeming almost cautious in their advance but no less oppressive for it, the slowness of their movements lending a creeping dread to Sigu’s thoughts.
“Who are you?” he asked, falling back on the familiar. “You’re not Sjocelym.”
“For which I am thankful every moment of my day,” the man said. “But it appears I’m a concerned party nevertheless, despite my efforts.” He reached within his cloak, withdrawing a smaller version of the weapon that his companions held, white and angular with a menacing blue glow along the sides. He took a step forward, then paused to look at Sigu.
“You and your men may want to take a step back,” he said.
Sigu fought against the impulse to ask more questions, the senses trained by long years of soldiery telling him to avoid irritating the men wielding scriptwork. They advanced a few steps further forward before the leading edge of the mob broke from their creeping advance and charged, sending a wave of leathery-brown flesh towards them.
Jackie flung her hand outward, her palm already full of writhing light that detonated among the horde in a concussive fireball. The survivors darted nimbly around the corpses of the fallen to launch themselves at Jesse, but were intercepted by blade and hammer well short of their target. The two men were blurs of red and pale blue as they fought, punctuated by the blurred-smoke movements of the cloaked trio as they intercepted stragglers with short bursts of blue-white light from their weapons.
Sigu found himself simply watching, the line of battle having moved well away from his surviving men. The storm swirled overhead like a nebulous mirror of the battle, mock-dust armies surging in time with the waves of twisted, dry corpses heaving themselves forward through the street.
Through sheer force of numbers the six combatants were beginning to feel the pressure, and elements of the enemy were slipping around to menace them from behind. Sigu slammed his pike against the flagstone. “Advance,” he rumbled, waving his arm. “Protect the rear!”
His men were overtired but formed up in good order, loose lines of pike moving forward to sweep the plaza clear of enemies. They settled into a wedge that trailed behind the blur of explosions and debris marking the battle’s focal point, although Sigu could still catch glimpses between dispatched enemies.
Lightning shattered downward in clusters, tearing gouges in the stone and spraying sharp fragments into friend and foe alike. In some places the road surface was entirely destroyed, leaving exposed dirt that was shortly boiling with eager corpses clawing their way upward. The soil seemed to ripple around them as they belched outward, forming a new front that smashed into Sigu’s men.
Mark and one of the cloaked strangers swept down the line like a bludgeon, scattering maimed and scorched bodies in their wake. His hammer was fully alight, shining yellow-hot in the night and shattering the bodies of the dead with lethal force. Mark came to a stop, still smiling like a lunatic despite the sweat beading his face.
“You got any reinforcements, or is this it?” he asked. “I’m not saying we’re in trouble or anything, but we’re definitely outnumbered.”
Sigu found he was not yet too exhausted to feel irritation, but refrained from showing it on his face. “My brother,” he said. “Sjogydhu went to rally forces from the Archives, if he can. He’s overdue, though. If the enemy have broken through elsewhere he may have diverted there instead.”
“Classic Sjogydhu,” Mark said. “Well, I-”
He broke off as Sigu and half his pikemen stirred, looking off towards the mountains. Jesse and Jackie flinched as if struck, their heads whipping around to stare. The enemy, too, stilled and slowed, even the thunder and wind falling quiet as a pulse of something fundamental rippled through the air, something that smelled of rain and soil.
Then it passed, and the storm exploded around them. Lightning rained down in jittering, writhing pillars that tore through buildings and sent masonry spilling down over the street. Sigu staggered into Mark as the wind slammed through their formation like a living thing, seething, clawing its way over their armor in incoherent rage.
Mark spat out a torrent of invective, staggering against the onslaught - and then lashing out with the hammer as a fresh wave of the dead sprang at them in a frenzy.
“Jesse!” Mark shouted, sweeping an arc of fire across the front. “I think she noticed something’s up!”
The swirl of battle hid Jesse from Sigu’s view, but somehow his voice cut through the fracas as if he were standing right beside them. “We need to press her hard,” he said, his voice calm but bone-tired. “We’ll never catch her if she disengages.”
Mark scowled, dancing back as a rotten hand grabbed for his leg and repaying its owner with a shattered skull. “She seems pretty engaged!” he shouted back. Another corpse leapt forward, but Sigu intercepted it on the point of his pike and drove it down, his men finishing the job with a flurry of precise blows.
Jesse began to speak once more, but his voice cut off as more lightning detonated in their midst, scattering Sigu’s men to the ground and knocking Mark off-balance. The tide of dry flesh surged forward over them, swarming upward from the fresh holes in the ground to claw and bite with mindless rage.
A small cluster of pikemen righted themselves and began to reestablish the line, but the pressure was too great, the enemy too numerous. The clear area contracted as men were dragged screaming into the dark. Jesse burst forward from the line with Mark in tow, dragging him free from the mob while Jackie covered their retreat with bright bursts of flame that caught in the dead like tinder.
There was a shift overhead, movement in the storm. Sigu braced himself for another bout of lightning, but none came - instead, the swirling center seemed to be drifting away from their position.
The sight lifted Sigu’s spirits, but when Jesse looked upwards his face darkened. “She’s breaking away!” he shouted.
Jackie cursed and danced backwards, her fingers alight with flame - although now that she was closer Sigu could see the burned skin on her hand, the scorchmarks on her clothing. “We don’t have the numbers to hold her here,” she shouted back. “She’s keeping us tied up but the bulk of them are moving out of the city.”
“Not much we can do about that,” Mark said, staggering to his feet. “Jackie’s right, we can’t pin her here. We can lock down a point, but not the front - and she’s her own damn front.”
Jesse could see the river of bodies slowly moving away in the distance, separated from them by the smaller but still insurmountable tide that hemmed them into the plaza with Sigu’s men. The smaller army seemed to be in no hurry to attack them, unlike the frenzied push earlier that had condensed their lines. “We have to keep trying,” he said. “Eryha and Gusje need every minute we can buy for them, and right now she thinks she has us handled.”
Jackie shot him a look. “She might be right,” she said, wincing as she fanned her blistering fingers. “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.”
Jesse’s reply was cut short by a thundering blow that struck the gate behind them, coming from inside the walls. The pikemen nearest the gate spun to face it, blades leveled at the doors.
---
“Shit, she flanked us,” Mark growled. “She must have breached the wall farther down.”
More pikemen formed a secondary line facing the door, bracing for the waves of dead about to pour through it. Sigu stayed with the main line still fending off their skirmishing rear guard, casting a wry look upward at Jesse.
“If you’ve got a plan to move us out of here, I’d like to hear it,” he grunted. “If we have to fight on two fronts-”
The pikemen yelled and scrambled aside as a bar of shining light lanced through the door, casting sharp-edged shadows into the night and momentarily dazzling all who looked. Even the dead cringed back for a moment, staring with milk-white eyes as the door smoldered, burnt - and fell outward to the ground.
Sjogydhu strode through, cycling a new charge crystal into Sunshine. A column of men followed him, a mix of scriptsmith guards and civilians with a hodgepodge of weaponry. They poured into the plaza past the confused pikemen and toward the front lines. Sigu watched, bemused, as his brother jogged up to join them.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.
Sjogydhu snorted. “It was a near thing,” he said. “I had a disagreement with some of the other guards that ended poorly for them.” He glanced over at Mark and Jesse, his eyes widening when he saw Jackie and Cosvamo as well. “I thought you were leaving,” he said, an unasked question heavy in his voice.
“He’s dead,” Jackie replied. Sjogydhu’s face went flat, then he nodded once, heavily.
“I owe you a debt for this, Zhaqi Ra,” he said formally.
She snorted and pointed in the direction of the departing horde. “See over there? If you want to pay us back, we need to fight our way up that street.”
“Into the middle of them?” Sjogydhu asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” Jesse said, walking over briskly. “We can end this, right now. We just need to get into the middle of the enemy and keep them tied down here, keep them occupied.” He paused and looked out over the crowd that had followed Sjogydhu, noting that the flow of men had started to taper off through the ruined doorway. They were milling around, unorganized despite the best efforts of the few guardsmen among them to form ranks.
“These don’t look like soldiers,” Jesse observed.
Sjogydhu snorted. “They’re not. They’re people who fled to the Archives when the attack started. We emptied our armories, and when that ran out I opened the Vault as well.”
Jesse stared at him for a moment, then looked once more at the milling crowd of Sjocelym civilians. Among their patchwork armaments there were definite oddities - blades that glowed, twisted, or that blurred when his eyes lingered on them.
“You said those were in the Vault for a reason,” Mark pointed out. “That they were too dangerous to use.”
“That was what Vumo - said,” he muttered, catching himself before the habitual honorific. “I find that I’m questioning more of his policies as of late.”
Mark’s face split into a big grin. “Look at you,” he said, “questioning authority. Guys, I’m beginning to think we were a bad influence.”
Jesse broke in before Sjogydhu could retort, drawing their attention back to the far street. “She’s moving farther away while we talk,” he said. “We need to find a way across that plaza, or try to find a way around.”
Sjogydhu’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sure this is necessary?” he said. “I was going to hold at the chokepoints.”
“We need to stop her,” Jackie said, dropping down to look Sjogydhu in the eye. “We’ve got a way to restore a vinesavai to the Sanctum, undo what Vumo did.”
“You’re serious,” Sjogydhu said, his eyes widening as he looked to Cosvamo for confirmation.
The Setelym made a noncommittal gesture. “There’s definitely something happening at the Sanctum,” he said, looking somewhat irritably up at the others. “I can’t confirm what they’re saying, mostly because nobody has bothered to tell me what happened after Vumo was stabbed, and my ship is still a while out.”
“I really don’t think you want to know the details,” Jackie said. “Suffice to say that we found a way to restore a vinesavai’s protection to Tinem Sjocel. All we need to do is buy time.”
Sjogydhu frowned, then shook his head. “If there’s a chance at restoring normalcy, we have to take it,” he sighed. “I’ll have the guard take point.”
---
The charge began slowly, with narrow wedges of Sjogydhu’s picked guards pushing past Sigu’s men to slam into the ranks of the dead. The civilian levees followed after, disorganized but roaring their enthusiasm as they laid into the teeming flow of corpses with weapons both bizarre and mundane.
Mark, Jesse, Jackie and Cosvamo ran in the center of the civilian cohort, reserving their strength for knots of unexpected resistance that threatened to disrupt or divert the tide of undisciplined troops - although the infusion of scripted weapons from the vault made them unexpectedly deadly. Items with kinetic enhancement or scripted to ignite matter on contact seemed especially common, which was both a boon and a hazard in the packed, shifting fight.
More than once they saw unbalanced swings knock into allies or spew fire in the wrong direction - but with the enemy so thoroughly surrounding them the balance of the chaos played out in their benefit. Their progress across the plaza was rapid, slowing only when they got to the river of bodies that constituted not-Eryha’s bulk.
The change was immediate. The dead reacted as one to the invader in their midst, convulsing like a scalded animal. They charged in from all sides to exert pressure that the undisciplined levees were hard-pressed to repel. Jesse and Mark moved to the front to try and clear a path as their progress slowed to a crawl, and for a smeared blur of time their world was swords and fire, hands reaching out of the night only to be beaten back in a spray of blood and crackling bone.
A gunshot rang out, the report coming clear and loud over the clamor of battle. Jesse fell back and shot a look at Mark, who shook his head.
“Wasn’t me,” he shouted. “I think we’re getting close.” His face darkened. “Watch for-”
“I know,” Jesse said, looking out into the dark. Even with Jes helping him, he failed to spot any of the others from base among the dead, no tall silhouettes standing out against the light stone of the buildings. Another shot rang out, and another, the bullets passing high overhead.
Jackie pressed forward to hurl bursts of flame ahead of the vanguard. She managed three attacks before she fell back, face pale and contorted with pain. Her hand was raw and bleeding, covered in blisters. Her momentary intervention won them a brief uncontested advance, though, giving them momentum that carried them forward through the seething crowd and into a broad thoroughfare - where their charge was stopped cold by a wall of hulking corpses arrayed across the road.
Mark fell back with a muttered curse as the first one rose up across his path. Scraps of tattered camouflage still clung to the corpse, and it held a knife clumsily in one hand as it lumbered towards them. The levee troops shied back from the front, their cheers turning to shouts of alarm as corpses nearly twice their height began to converge from every direction.
Jesse found himself struggling to fight against so many without the advantage in range and height that he normally enjoyed, and to the side he saw Mark losing ground as well. The Sjocelym were crumbling under the combined assault of the massed dead, shrinking to a small knot of resistance in the middle of a maelstrom.
A small thrill of victory still threaded through the fear, though, as Jesse ducked and slashed with increasingly-leaden arms. The storm overhead had stalled. Its momentum slowed, then reversed as not-Eryha turned her attention to the gnat stinging her flank. He could sense her animal irritation through Jes, her fury at the persistent nagging pain they inflicted - and then he had to focus on the moment as lightning struck again and the Sjocelym flank to his left buckled.
Brief, shrill screams of panic were cut off as booted feet charged over the disrupted line of levee troops, their enhanced weaponry not enough of an advantage against the physical might of the Earth-standard corpses. The advance of the dead was a dagger into their formation, repelled only when Jackie stepped forward with a wall of kinetic force that hurled the dead back into their own ranks.
She flung blast after blast into the dead until her knees buckled and she fell to the ground with a scream of agony. The tablet tumbled from her fingers. Jesse dropped back from the front as the Sjocelym reformed their lines, kneeling to prop her gently up from the ground. He felt her fevered convulsions as she cradled her arm to her chest. Her hand was pulsing blood, barely recognizable as he wrapped it in a strip torn from his Aesvain cloak. Her other hand scrabbled blindly on the ground before finding the tablet and thrusting it towards him.
“T-take it,” she said, her teeth clenching tight against the pain. “I can’t - anymore. Tija g-gave too much, I felt - agh, the bones go.” She shook it impatiently at him. “Take it!”
“I can’t use this,” Jesse protested.
Jackie glared up at him. “Don’t use the tool, use the power,” she hissed. “It’s - useless if we d-die here.”
The tablet sat inert in his hand, the glassy screen reflecting the faint flicker of lightning from above. He stood up and turned toward the tenuous line of Sjocelym straining against his fallen comrades, held together by the frantic efforts of Sjogydhu and his trained men. Their inscribed armor gave them enough of an edge to hold, but it was failing - they were failing.
Out of the sea of dead faces he saw the shadow’s gaunt mien again, the same hollow eyes and rotting cheeks that he’d seen in a vision at Sjatel, seen staring at their backs on the night when they fled the city.
Jesse looked at Eryha’s twisted shadow and met her eyes - then he brought the tablet up in one hand, using his sword to cleave it in two. An explosion brought day to the square, rippling out through the melee until everything was cast in a stark white light, blinding radiance against deepest shadow.
Not-Eryha’s face still stared out from the crowd, and Jesse took a step forward. He felt Jes walk with him, her hands on his as they lifted the sword, focusing on the tightest knot, the swirling core of the dead in the city that made up the heart of her and reached-
-and stumbled, finding themselves once again in the endless hall. The sword pulsed blinding-bright and golden, and Jesse fumbled to sheathe it before its siren song drew his eyes to the alcoves once again. He spun, half-blinded at the sudden light from above, searching for Jes and finding himself alone in the cold.
“No!” he shouted, balling his fist in frustration. “Come on! I had her, she was right there.”
The hall drank his words and gave no answer.
“Jes?” he called out, his voice deadened by the suffocating air. The cold began to gnaw at him, his heart pounding in his chest. He paced towards the center of the hall, looking around. Drawing the sword would still the cold, but Eryha’s warning pulsed in his ears - ruud cut both ways.
He called out again with no response, turning to look down the length of the hall - when he felt feminine fingers slip into his own, a bloom of warmth running up his arm. He smiled, relieved, and turned to Jes - only to freeze. It was Tija that had grabbed his hand, her fractured-glass face looking up at him solemnly.
“Um,” he said, resisting the urge to pull away. “Do you know how we can get out of here? I was drawing on your tablet’s energy, I think I can do real damage to Eryha’s shadow.” He paused, but she didn’t answer him. Her face was impassive, giving no sign that she had heard him.
“Tija?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”
Slowly, her mouth opened - unsettlingly wide, but her voice came forth as the barest whisper. “Draw - sword,” she murmured, sounding like wind against ice. “Only way.”
Jesse paused. “Eryha very specifically told me not to do that,” he said.
Her grip tightened on his hand, even as the warmth ebbed away. “Draw the sword,” she croaked. “You must.”
“Can’t you just take me back?” he asked. “I had her. If I can find a way out of here I can finish the attack, take her out. I know you wanted that, just help me escape.”
There was a long silence before Tija spoke again. “She is… of ruud,” she said. “Ruud claimed her. To use ruud against her you must - trade. A tool for a tool.”
Tija’s warmth was rapidly fading from his arm, leaving his fingers once again numb and tingling. “Then I’ll find another way,” Jesse said. He tried to disentangle his hand from hers, but she hung on stubbornly.
“There is no other way,” she said, smiling up at him. “It won’t be so bad. You still get what you want, in the end. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.”
Jesse stared down at the girl clinging to his hand, her touch sending ice through his veins. “You’re not Tija,” he said, exerting an effort to keep his voice level.
“But I am,” she said. “And was, just as she was me. I am many people.” She leered up at him, squeezing his hand. “I could be you too. And it starts with giving you what you want. Your friends, saved. Their wounds healed, the violence settled in your favor.”
“And in exchange I become a tool for you.” Jesse looked down at the creature, feeling the cold creep towards his shoulder. “Should I call you Ruud, or do you have another name?”
“Such bravado,” she purred, walking slowly closer. “You don’t feel it, but you’re putting up a good front. So different from the man who first stepped through that doorway in the desert, timid and unsure. That’s my doing too, by the way. Just a taste of what you could be if you draw that sword again.”
The tendrils of ice spidered across his collarbone, and Jesse winced. “If I’m different than when I came, it’s because of Jes,” he said, gritting his teeth. “You had nothing to do with it.”
“Jes,” she scoffed. “And what is your Jes but ruud manifest? How did she come into being, save for my redirection of Eryha onto the wanderer’s path? She railed against me never knowing that she did my work, even as she perished.”
Jesse looked down, feeling a stab of uncertainty for the first time. “She severed the connection,” he said. “Gave Jes autonomy-”
“But she was still ruud,” the girl hissed, pulling him forcefully down to her level. “Still the pulsing lifeblood of this world, my lifeblood.” She smiled, revealing entirely too many teeth. “I am God, Jesse Gibson. I created all life on this world, nurtured it, helped it grow.”
“Stole it,” Jesse hissed, feeling the ice creep close to his throat. “Poisoned it, used it to try to free yourself.” He clenched his jaw, swallowing against the creeping numbness. “Just like you’re trying to use me.”
“I am offering to save your life,” she said, tracing a finger down his cheek. “Life is survival of the fittest, and the fittest are those I give my favor to. You show promise, but if you insist on squandering that promise I can find another.”
Her features blurred, morphing into Jackie’s face. “You know how she longs to right the injustices of this world. We could, together.”
Jesse coughed, glaring defiantly into the facsimile’s eyes. “I think you’re - underestimating her,” he said, his tongue feeling thick with the cold. “The ends don’t justify the means, for Jackie.”
“Then someone with a simpler approach,” she said, shifting once again into Mark’s image.
Jesse couldn’t help but laugh, though it turned into a choking sputter as the cold wormed into his lungs. “You can’t… tempt… Mark,” he panted. “He’d tell you - fuck off.”
“And can I tempt you?” he said, shifting into Arjun’s wizened face. “There is nothing beyond me. If you want him back, he is yours. I would prefer you to this shade of Eryha, Jesse. She’s mindless, brutal. I’m a thinking being, I prefer having partners to servants.”
Another blur, and Jes was holding his hand, her touch a glimmer of warmth amid the ice running through his body. “You could have anything you wanted, for as long as you wanted,” she purred, her lips hot against his frozen skin. “All I ask is for your consideration.”
“I already have - Jes,” he grunted. “I am her, and she-” He choked, the ice constricting his airway.
“You have nothing,” she said. “Nothing on this world but what I give you. And I could give you so much more than that.” She knelt down in front of him, leaning in close as his vision began to blur. “Would you like to go home, Jesse? I brought you here, I can send you back just as easily. You and your friends.”
Jesse stared up at the apparition, then looked away and closed his eyes.
The image of Jes sighed. “So be it,” she said. “Die. And may-”
A ripple pulsed through the grand hall, bringing the scent of soil and rain into the leaden air. The ice that gripped Jesse shattered, and he fell gasping to the cold stone of the floor.
“What?” she snarled, turning to face away from him. She raised a hand, then staggered back as another pulse washed over them. Feeling rushed back into Jesse’s limbs, and he struggled to his knees.
“What’s the matter?” he gasped. “Huh? I thought you had control over ruud?”
“I am ruud!” she roared, the lines of her face distorting sideways into too many directions, her outline blurring oddly. “You were brought here to serve my will. For my purpose.”
“You opened the door, I chose to walk through,” Jesse said, struggling to his feet. “I don’t serve you.” Another pulse, and the walls of the hall rippled, small vines growing out from cracks in the stone. A flush of heat spread from his arm, and suddenly Jes was standing there beside him - unmistakably his, and scowling at the creature wearing her face.
It stared back, dumbfounded. “How?” it rasped, its voice now far removed from any human norm. “How can you defy me?”
“You’ve been planning for a long while,” Jes said, “pushing things to a point where humans could wield energy capable of freeing you. And you were thorough - your plans covered every foreseeable future.” She smiled at it, although there was no warmth in the expression. “But the people you last brought here have a curious concept,” she said. “It describes a thinking being that can freely improve on itself. The means were different, in their theory, but Eryha stumbled upon the same idea by accident.”
She took a step closer, and cracks spread across the stone where her feet fell. “They called it Singularity, because past that point the future cannot be foreseen.”
She took another step forward. Her voice deepened to a throaty growl. “I am still limited, because Jesse is my world - but within that world I AM ABSOLUTE.” The avatar of ruud flinched back from her words, staggering under their impact, and Jes took a final step to grab it by the throat.
“And I say that this world needs no god. You cannot have him.”
She let the avatar drop to the stone, then turned away to smile at a dumbfounded Jesse, taking his hand and leading him towards a door that had appeared in the wall. It glowed with an inviting light, wreathed with small vines that few even as he watched.
“I will destroy him,” the creature gasped from the floor. “And you will die with him. You cannot protect him from me.”
Jes paused and turned, looking down at the crumpled heap. “I’m not the one who will,” she said, pointing upward. The creature’s pallid face turned up just as the radiance streaming in from the high windows faltered and failed, blotted out by the towering leaves of a cerein.
The avatar of ruud gaped, staring up at the gently swaying branches. “Impossible,” it said. “This world is my domain.”
“And she loves it,” Jes said. “Just as much as you resent it. Cereinem live to build and grow, to preserve. To be Caretakers, as they ever were. So rest assured, your prison will remain for a long while yet. Nourished by your spirit - and free from your control.”
They turned again and left the shrunken thing cowering amid the vines and twining roots that sullied its hall, stepping through the door - and as Jesse crossed the threshold the sword was in his hand once more, wreathed in light and crashing towards the mass of dead. It struck true, sundering the night with an explosion that ripped through the core of not-Eryha’s swarm.
For a brief second the light caught her face - and then it was gone.
---
We're still going! Keep reading at the next post!

Supplements, Characters and Glossary for your reference.

I used to not care about prejudice against us in dating, until I experienced how it poured into other areas of life too.

[HW13] Wings of Ksa (A prologue of sorts)

”As any would expect, those first few weeks were... hard. Most couldn’t cope with the harsh reality that our home was now gone and simply became detached from the world around them.
Others... I admit I never checked the shipboard crew roster after that day, but my position forced me to acknowledge that there was a small handful of mouths we no longer had to feed. I’d hear rumors of those who’d enter the airlocks and simply let themselves slip away into the void, never to be seen again.
A primal part of my mind periodically considered this news a boon. With our home gone, our food wouldn’t last forever, their passing on would buy the rest of us more days.
On those days I wouldn’t eat, as I felt I needed to pay some sort of repentance for such cruel and feral thoughts.” -Unnamed Shipboard Logistics Officer

Inhale. The warmth left him. Exhale. The warm air inside his sealed mask hugged his face. Octavian eyes blinked twice to refocus his vision. Nestled behind his oxygen mask, his ancient flight visor, his thick flight suit, and the armored layers of his small strike craft, the pilot was nothing if not snug.
For now, his movements seemed almost lazy. He moved slowly, calmly flicking two switches at his side. The welcome humming of the engine began to gradually increase in volume, he could feel the craft slowly waking from its own slumber as well. Lights in his cockpit began to flicker on one by one, everything activating as it should. He spared a few moments to look beyond his display and controls to take in the view beyond the cockpit. Outside, engulfing his small strike craft, lay the Ksa Ore Fields.
A truly massive and unexplained phenomenon within a largely dull universe, the Ksa Ore Fields were a star system completely enveloped by a thick assortment of all manners of toxic and non breathable gases. From where his ship rested, the pilot of the Old Guard could see nothing but the warm glow of the orange and yellow gases that caressed his ship.
The startup procedure complete, the pilot rested one hand on the yoke while easing the throttle forward with the other. His strike craft, retrofitted dozens of times from an atmospheric variant to one that could excel in Ksa, resembled a sort of horizontal “H” from above. Four thin and rectangular wings jutted from the sides, with the two in the rear noticeably longer than the two in the front. Tucked under the frontal wings and against the craft’s hull rested its two heavy machine guns, while the craft's secondary thrusters rested in a similar position under the rear wings. The main thruster sat between the two, directly behind the pilot’s cockpit.
Within the Ksa Ore Fields one abandoned space in favor for a sort of unbreathable aether. At a glance, the aether was similar enough to the void that one could be forgiven for thinking the only two differences were the carrying of soundwaves and the slightly reduced visibility caused by the swirling gases. In actuality, Ksa was rife with multiple unique properties, from the gusts of aether wind that could tear cheap fighters apart and rip hull plating from larger vessels, to hundreds of swirling wormholes hidden in the gas that pulled damaged vessels within them, never to be seen again.
The pilot urged the aging craft to a respectable cruising speed and flicked another switch, opening the intake vents. Properly filtered, the gases outside should prove sufficient to refuel his craft’s tanks. In another time, his craft, and the dozens of other craft belonging to the now scattered royal guard, would have had carriers designated to service and outfit their craft as necessary. But now, all that remained of the royal guard were broken oaths and ancient pacts that those who remained refused to forget — couldn’t forget. Personally, there was only one oath Octavian found relevant anymore: Defend the citizens of the Atharian Kingdom.
Of course, one could argue there were no real “citizens” anymore. Everyone served in the Atharian navy now. Everyone left, that was. To Octavian, this just reinforced his belief that that particular oath was the only one that mattered.
A large ore cluster appeared on his sensors and he directed the craft towards it. Being in Ksa so long, a pilot developed a sort of sixth sense for the nature of the fields. Including an awareness that where there was ore, there would be conflict. It was simply the way of things now.
He closed the intake vents and input his destination for the navigation computer, releasing the controls and letting the craft continue on its own for a bit. He leaned his head back against his headrest and closed his eyes.
Breathe in. The faint smell of the rubber from his mask. Breathe out. The heat hugging his face once more.
What remained of the Old Guard and the Atharian Navy shared the same broken home, the same dead king, and the same flesh and blood. But they weren’t the same people, not since the arrival of the Tahl’desh fleets and the razing of their planet. While the Old Guard he belonged to clung to what traditions remained of their order, the rest of the survivors — pressed into service in the Athenian Navy — were the truly broken ones. The only emotion saving them from utter despair, was a raging, burning, tempest of hatred and anger towards their persecutors.
When their people discovered an ancient cache of ships and technology on the fringes of their home system, what should have been used as a revival of their civilization, was soon celebrated as a means to secure their revenge against the invaders. Many, with their families and future taken from them, saw the only safe universe to be one where the Tahl’desh empire no longer existed.
A soft beeping woke him from his thoughts, declaring the craft's arrival at the designated destination, and he rested his hands back in the controls.
The large asteroid ahead filled his vision, the body easily several dozen kilometers large in size. The hundreds of other rocks making up the ore cluster rested nearby, all orbiting the larger body. Realistically, a sight such as that ahead of him would almost never be found naturally in the void. In an asteroid field, the nearest rock could be a million kilometers away from its counterpart. But, Ksa was different.
From his current approach angle each rock appeared as a dark hole in his vision, as all light from the sun beyond was impeded by the rocks. He couldn’t see beyond, but he was sure of what he’d find.
He pulled up into a sharp ascent, his seat conforming to his body, hugging it from the g-forces Ksa pushed against him. He activated the crafts secondary thrusters and felt the thrum of engines turn into a steady roar below him. Thick, orange contrails of gas trailed from his crafts wingtips.
Octavian pushed the craft faster and faster, shadowed behind the giant stone. The bright red of his engines and the illuminated contrails of gas following in his wake were the only light for kilometers around him.
The light of the sun began to crest over the top of the rock as he approached its peak, appearing as a sort of induced sunrise. His sensors began to ping with the growing acknowledgement of hundreds of contacts — both friend and foe — coming into range, no longer obscured by the uncountable layers of ore and metal hidden in the celestial object below him.
Before him, Octavian saw titans of void black metal and behemoths of snowy white steel intermingled within each other, hammering all manner of firepower into their counterparts’ vessels.
A seldom used radio crackled to life and Octavian adjusted the signal for clarity.
“Major Summanus, we’ve detected your craft’s IFF tag’s signal entering the battlefield. Coordinates for an Old Guard wing have been forwarded to your navigation system. Acknowledge. Over.”
Octavian was too stunned at receiving the message’s contents to take offense at the speaker’s near dismissive tone. It had been some time since he’d last seen another Old Guard fighter, much less enough craft for a formation. He nearly forgot to respond to the unnamed vessel’s message.
He checked for the received information and, after confirming he’d received all the necessary flight data, he snapped off a quick, “Coordinates received. Over.”
He input the coordinates over his screen, but retained manual control. He wanted his craft to have a personal touch every second of his reunion with his old comrades in arms. Octavian was far past giddiness, but if the aging pilot had to decide on a word closest to the emotion he felt in that moment he figured it would serve as a suitable placeholder. His mind barely processed the final message he received from the vessel.
“Good hunting, pilot. Out.”
His hands darted across his controls guided by decades of accumulated habit and training, flicking off safeties, arming weapons systems, and hardening the craft’s armor. Once he deemed his craft fully combat ready, he placed both hands back on the yoke and throttle and dived into the battle raging below him.
Missiles and tracer rounds launched from the shining white hulls of the Tahl’desh warships intermingled with the deadly red beams fired from the adopted ships of the Atharian Navy. Aesthetically, Octavian’s craft couldn’t be farther from the vessels his comrades now used. Where his strike craft was the result of generations of Atharian scientific and military progress and was designed as a powerful symbol of their culture as well as prowess in combat, the angular ships the majority of the navy now used were merely means to accomplish an end.
The new mainstay of the Atharian fleet was a large assault frigate faintly resembling a gemstone commonly found on their old home planet — if the gem was laid horizontal. The frigate’s aft was the largest section of the vessel holding the engines and the majority of the vessel’s critical systems, a third from the aft, the hull split into two halves directly above and below each other that continued the rest of the vessel’s length until ending at two mirrored points and the fore of the ship.
It was likely one of those vessels who’d given him the flight path he’d been following. Or rather, had planned on following. He twisted his craft right to avoid the Tahl’desh reinforcements gating into the fray. While he could more than easily take on any enemy fighter craft on his own, he was not foolish enough to take on a capital ship and her escorts as suggested by the size of the blue tears forming in the aether.
He rolled his craft hard to the right and adjusted the flight path. It looked like he’d be joining the fight sooner than he thought. He blinked twice and red squares lit up across the cockpit glass over the enemy fighters ahead of him. He burned hard forwards and settled the craft's sights in the path of one of the white fighters. Pulling the trigger let forth an arcing stream of burning metal in the enemy’s path. He relished the vibrating feeling of the twin guns each firing over sixty rounds a second. The fighter was sheared in half, exploding into pieces a breath later.
Octavian selected two of the nearby targets and armed his missiles. His finger hovered over the button as they secured a positive lock. However, just before firing, three dark shapes zipped passed his craft. The two flanking the lead shape sliced through the enemy fighters with red beams before continuing on out of his vision. Such is life, he thought, disarming his missiles and continuing forwards. He realized he had to get to the rally point and couldn’t afford any more distractions anyway.
He weaved between missiles and friendly laser fire, now only firing on any fighters careless enough to get in his path. He came across another Tahl'desh frigate in his path and this time he beelined towards it. He selected a piercer missile and fired it directly ahead of him, easing his craft only slightly to stay directly behind the missile. Focused on larger threats, the giant vessel paid him no mind until a panicked crewmember noticed that something had followed through the brief hole the missile had left in their shields and was now mere a couple hundred meters above their hull.
Octavian’s craft danced between slowly arcing weapon emplacements and the various protrusions of the hostile ship. He left a trail of fire and destruction in his wake as his guns cut through every emplacement in his path. Aboard the vessel desperate yells and orders abounded. Security teams were alerted something had breached their shields and were preparing for a boarding party, gun crews were sucked into space as layers of hull around them depressurized, and the ship's captain stared in awe and fear as the ribbon of fire traced its way across their hull.
Reaching the other side of the ship, and now satisfied with his work, Octavian fired another missile and exited the ship’s shielding opposite of where he’d entered. He pulled up a rear view screen and grinned upon seeing he’d given them a good enough scare that he could point out a couple prematurely launched escape pods. He mentally scoffed at the lack of discipline, he was sure his damage didn’t extend much past destroying a swath of deck guns.
His revelry was dampened when he noticed the dark shapes descending upon the escape pods and destroying them one by one before moving off to some other unforeseen goal. It was a cruel reminder that the Atharian fleet would not be allowing any Tahl’desh to survive this battle.
He closed the screen and refocused forwards. Once more, his mood was revitalized by a more than welcome sight he could just barely make out. It had been years, but he would recognize the sight of a Fortress-Class bomber long after he’d forget the faces of his parents.
A long triangular craft, practically large enough to qualify as a gunboat, the Fortress-Class was littered with dozens of point defense turrets across its stretching wings. Overlapping firing arcs made sure the craft could fire in any direction, preventing hostile craft and missiles from approaching, and on the off chance something made it through, the multiple layers of redundant armor ensured the bomber could take several beatings and survive to deliver its payload.
Octavian spotted the bomber’s escort fighters on his approach, three Old Guard Arrowhead fighter craft, and the nostalgia was like a fist to the nose. It was almost an unbelievable sight. He switched his radio back on.
“This is Major Octavian Summanus, Old Guard Hammerhead-142. Requesting permission to join your formation, over.”
A crackling voice responded almost immediately over Octavian’s radio, “Glad to have you, Major. This is Lieutenant Colonel Marcellus, captain of Fortress-092 and commanding officer of this formation. I’m transferring formation clearance to you now. Over.”
Octavian accepted the new data prompt and status symbols for the other craft activated on one of his side screens, detailing pilot names and various live information regarding each of their craft. Additionally green squares highlighting their positions ahead of him lit up the glass of his cockpit.
“Clearance received and activated, Sir. Over.”
“Good. That’s a nice Hammerhead you’ve got there, pilot. Don’t see many of those anymore. Are you familiar with a formation called the Twisted Knife? Over,” The Lieutenant Colonel asked him.
“Yes, sir. Although, I can’t say I’ve participated in one before. Over,” Octavian responded, moving his craft near the other four and matching their speed. They all were maintaining distance just barely outside the combat zone and as such they were able to maintain a steady formation for now.
“That‘ll do fine. Our current orders are to strike at the flank of the Tahl’desh fleet and cripple one of the battleships maintaining their rearguard. We’re to utilize the aforementioned formation to puncture their shields and get my bomber close enough to deal a killing blow. Your strike craft shall serve as the ‘knife’, Over.”
“Understood, sir. Over.” Octavian slid his craft under the bomber at the center of their formation. He eased as close as he safely could, looking in an assist program to help maintain a workable distance.
The formation slowly arced left, back towards the fighting, and Octavian had a clear line of sight to their target. The Tahl’desh battleship was certainly a formidable sight, resting secure and unmolested at the edges of the conflict.
“Remember, pilot,” The Lieutenant Colonel’s voice sounded once more over the speakers, “While the other fighters in this formation can be likened to precise blades, your strike craft is more akin to a fist; The craft you wield was once known as a pure symbol of the strength of the Atharian kingdom. Utilize that fist, strike hard, strike fast, and let’s shatter the nose of this pitiful Tahl’desh fleet. Combat operations begin now. Out.”
Upon receiving this final message, Octavian began deactivating all unnecessary systems while the formation continued forwards towards their prey. He left only the secondary thrusters and the barest minimum of passive systems online. For now he did little more than drift forwards, hidden below the bomber. If all went according to plan, his secondary thrusters would register as part of the bomber and their two crafts would register as only one on the enemy sensors. It was a gamble that relied almost completely on the chaos of battle to shield their intentions from the enemy, chaos the rest of the Atharian navy was excelling at providing.
Octavian received no warning they’d re-entered the battle. Instead, what he got was previously silent guns loudly opening up as Tahl’desh fighters roared by. The heavy arcs of molten ammunition traced through the thick orange gases in all directions from the center of their formation. The escort fighters broke off and hunted down the Tahl’desh craft too smart to approach the bomber directly.
The steady thunder of the turrets around him created rings in the gas around Octavian, the air creating expanding ripples in the gases like stones dropped in a pond.
Enemy fighter after enemy fighter was torn to shreds by the veteran pilots safeguarding Octavian and the bomber above him. Missiles launched from the desperate craft were exposed to be futile as the point defense cannons prioritized them above all else, shredding them before they even got close enough to be considered a threat.
A particularly brave or suicidal — Octavian couldn’t decide which — Tahl’desh interceptor beelined directly for the bomber, firing round after round at the craft, only for each bullet to be absorbed by the craft’s ever stalwart shields. Several of the bomber's turrets turned dispassionately towards the interceptor and unleashed an unforgiving torrent of bullets that shredded the craft into pieces.
The flaming husk of what used to be an interceptor slammed into the bomber and flames roared over the hull. Alas, the only thing that would be left by the interceptor when the flames dispersed was a dark scorch mark and a long groove torn into the metal of one of the bomber's lengthy wings. A tear in the many layers of armor that would prove inconsequential. The bomber continued steadily, ever forward. It would not falter.
The thundering of guns increased steadily in intensity until it seemed like the very aether around them was shaking from the thousands of unrelenting shockwaves from each bullet.
Octavian noticed movement and looked up. Above him, the bomb bay doors of the craft began to slide open. Within he could see hundreds of types of ordnance — some recognizable, some not — all organized and separated with a maze of catwalks. A lone individual navigated the metal maze, on track towards a particular rack of bombs. These bombs… Octavian knew their particular value.
The individual hit some controls near a metal rack holding them and the four bombs within were extended towards the opening of the bay, leaving nothing to be between them and their intended target for when the time to launch them came.
From his position directly below the ordnance he could clearly make out the cluster of bombs, each approximately the size of his person. All four were recognizable as fusion bombs.
The bomber obscured most of his vision beyond, so he couldn’t see much of the enemy or how close they were. Their flight path was set to take them under the battleship rather than straight for it, but he could tell they were nearly there. The crewman above him tapped a few controls and the status lights on the devastating weapons above Octavian lit up. The crewman looked at Octavian and gave him an emotionless thumbs up. It would appear they reached their destination sooner than he’d expected.
Octavian’s hands reactivated the main engines and rapidly brought the craft back online. Within a breath all the dead lights came alive once more. He locked his position relative to the bomber in his mind and settled his hands on the controls, flexing his hand over the throttle but refraining from accelerating. Not yet, he thought.
The massive bomber began a slow roll to the left, and with it, the Hammerhead hidden below.
—
A young Tahl’desh sensors officer on the periphery of the battleship’s bridge kept an eye on the hostile bomber. It was a peculiar sight, but he found its presence more preferable to that of the other enemy ships by a vast margin. The bomber was massive, for sure. He was honestly surprised by how well it and its three escort fighters were able to hold up against the interceptors they’d sent. However, he highly doubted anything that craft had on board would be able to put a dent in their shielding, let alone puncture their hull.
It was odd really, the bomber looked like it was meant to be used in atmosphere. It stood in an extreme contrast to the rest of the hostile fleet and were it in anywhere but the strange star system they were fighting over, the officer had no doubt it would never have lasted this far.
As it approached the prime position below their battleship, the craft — rather predictably — began to roll to allow its bomb bay a direct line between the bay and their hull.
But where the officer had expected to see the system highlight hundreds of guided ordinance launched from bomber, it instead detected only five new signatures.
The officer raised an eyebrow in a perplexed look. He focused on the leading object and brought it full-screen on his console. It almost looks like a… the signature flared to life and began burning hard towards them. The signal adapted and transitioned to registering it as an enemy strike craft. The officer's eyes widened slightly for a moment, more out of surprise than anything else.
“The audacity,” he mumbled. This was a Tahl’desh Imperial battleship. One more fighter wouldn’t make a difference.
He scanned the craft more closely and took note of what missiles the craft was arming. His blood chilled, a hollow feeling began to spread throughout his body as a sneaking fear crept into his mind. The officer quickly switched back to the trailing explosives, their boosters now activated and trailing behind the strike craft.
He rapidly read the data readouts. Then three more times, each instance praying he’d misread the last time. “By the void…” he whispered.
“Captain!”
—
Octavian double checked the flight path for the piercer missiles before releasing them behind him. They activated a second later and began following his path towards the massive vessel ahead.
Typically, what he was about to do would be considered extremely stupid. He chuckled a bit.
It was stupid anyway.
If the missiles and the guided bombs behind him were fired on their lonesome, they’d either be easily shot down by the capital ship’s point defenses, or explode harmlessly against the vessel's shielding. So the plan, as it was, was for him to clear them a path using his strike craft.
He locked the throttle forwards as far as it would allow and shot towards the battleship, leaving the explosives trailing far behind him. Octavian locked and fired his last piercer missile. The single explosion provided him with just barely the necessary space to slip within the battleship’s shielding.
Unlike his previous foray into an enemy vessel, this venture would be a whole different beast. The battleship’s point defense cannons quickly turned and opened fire. At him.
—
“Sir, please! I’m telling you, the strike craft isn’t the true threat the missiles behind it are-”
“Outside our shields, whereas the enemy strike craft is somehow within them! Feed all gun crews even remotely near that craft its coordinates.”
“But, Sir-”
“That is an ORDER!”
—
Weaving in between ship-to-ship cannons was one thing, but avoiding fire from every point defense cannon in range and beyond was proving especially challenging. While he could withstand a few stray hits from the point defense guns, if he got distracted and the larger cannons were able to land but a single direct hit on him, nothing would be left of his craft but dust. Ironically, Octavian quickly discovered that, despite this, the closer he got to the heavy guns, the safer he was.
While the point defenses were able to move with alarming speed — often strafing immediately in front of his path despite his best attempts at unpredictable flying — , the heavy guns on their elevated platforms moved slowly. The brief moments he was able to fly near them, the point defenses paused in their weapons fire for fear of damaging the significantly more powerful weapons and offered him necessary respites from the constant dodging and swerving.
He took advantage of their restraint by looping back around and firing upon them, repeating the process and destroying all the point defenses he could find, one-by-one.
A beeping diverted his attention upwards. The missiles were about to make impact. He pulled up into a steep incline, racing to meet their point of impact.
—
“Sir, please! I’m begging you, fire on those bombs!”
“Security Officer, arrest this man and take him to the brig!”
—
Octavian slipped past the bombs and the shield wall moments before the shields recycled and reformed below him. He redirected as much power as he could to all his engines and raged forward as fast as his craft would allow.
He radioed his formation and moved to regroup with them.
—
“Captain, the hostile fighter has retreated. It has likely run out of munitions and disengaged now that it’s compatriots have fled out of range.”
“Sir, sensors have picked up four new contacts within the shields.”
“Have our point defenses take them out. I don’t want a single additional scratch on our hull now that the enemy craft has retreated.”
“...Apologies, Sir. It would appear all point defenses with a firing arc have been destroyed.”
“...”
“...I’ll scan the enemy ordinance in order to calculate predicted damage estimates.”
“Sir! The bombs- they’re fusion bombs!”
“By the gods! Abandon ship! Abandon sh-”
—
For a time, behind Octavian’s craft there flared to life a new sun in the gas fields of Ksa. A massive rolling sphere of flame and heat. The surrounding gases proved able to provide enough tinder for a proper explosion that completely consumed the Tahl’desh battleship and any who may have been aboard.
He eased up on the throttle and properly rejoined the formation.
“You did some fine work out there, Major,” Marcellus said, “We’d be happy to have someone of your talents join our squadron if you wished, and make the current arrangement more permanent. No more of that lone wanderer crap, you’d have proper wingmen watching your back. Over.”
Octavian was stunned by the offer. Of course, the more he thought about it, it simply made sense keeping together, but he was still very pleased to be offered a position amongst his old peers.
“I… I think I’d like that, Sir. Over,” Octavian said.
“Good! Sending a data pack over with your transfer orders now, Out.” Octavian could picture the genuine smile on his face as Marcellus spoke.
It was while Octavian was distracted activating the data packet, that a single interceptor, masking its presence within the debris field of other destroyed Tahl’desh craft, brought its engines back to life.
When Octavian looked up from his screens, the interceptor roared over his fighter, ignoring him. It’s target laid in front of them both. Octavian’s eyes shot open and he punched his throttle forward.
“Bandit on your six, Lieutenant!” He yelled over the comms. He began spinning up his guns but the interceptor kept swerving erratically, making it impossible for Octavian to keep the fighter in his sights.
The interceptor dropped nearly every missile it had from its wings and they all launched towards the bomber ahead of them. Despite not having a line of sight, Octavian began firing anyway. Each burst of bullets flew just past the interceptor, not even flaring against its light shielding.
The missiles the Tahl’desh pilot launched rained against the bomber’s hull like punches, beating it into submission until something gave.
“Hull breach! Hull bre-” The Lieutenant’s voice cut out. Octavian could only catch a glimpse as he flew past, but it looked bad. The main body of the bomber trailed flames out of multiple holes in the hull and looked more like a wounded bird than the harbinger of death it had resembled moments before.
“No!” Octavian growled. He increased his speed, keeping right on the heels of the enemy craft. He refused to let the deaths of his brethren go unavenged. The interceptor rolled left and re-entered the chaotic battlefield. By now, the field was filled with more wreckage than active vessels and the two craft wove through bits of debris and shattered hulls like needles through a tapestry.
Octavian’s guns fired a near constant stream of light seeking to strike down his prey, bullets howled over the interceptor but none landed. All around were the sounds of battle and conflict, yet compared to the desperate rage of the lone Hammerhead clawing at the Tahl’desh fighter, it faded into the background of both pilot’s minds. Locked in such an intimate dance they could spare no thought for their surroundings.
Octavian’s frustration was growing, every attempt to get a missile lock on his elusive target was met with another roll or dive behind a wall of debris just large enough to prevent a solid lock. In response, his movements became much more aggressive.
He took tighter turns, practically touching the debris fields he needed to avoid. The engines began to whine in protest at his rapid acceleration and deceleration in order to maneuver after the evasive interceptor. His movements shaved microseconds from his trail time, but it was slowly adding up. The distance between the two craft was steadily decreasing and each burst of his Hammerhead’s main guns was nearer to the interceptors hull. The larger battle around them was drawing to a close as well, what little remained of the invading Tahl’desh fleet was nearly destroyed.
The interceptor dove unexpectedly and drastically increased its speed. Octavian’s mind took a second longer than he’d have liked to acknowledge the motion before following in a dive of his own. He was confused as to why the pilot chose to avoid the clearly available wreckage they’d been heading for. It would have made perfect sense to slip around it for a couple extra moments of security. Then he saw what lay in their new path.
Like a massive tear in the aether itself, a dark swirling mass ahead of them consumed the orange gases without pause. There resided what many theorized were wormholes to an unfathomably distant location, one of Ksa’s Scars.
Of course, there was no true way to be certain and many others believed that to make contact with one of the Scars would mean an instant death. There was also a distinct lack among the Atharian forces of those willing to risk it to find out. After all, it wouldn’t benefit them in any way. They owned the Ksa ore fields now. If they had to leave, they’d fight tooth and nail the whole way and they’d certainly never retreat to somewhere they wouldn’t be able to continue fighting the Tahl’desh. That would be the gravest affront to what little they still believed in.
Whoever was piloting the Tahl’desh interceptor was clearly aware of the Scar’s potential lifeline as they were on a direct course towards the dark abyss. Crippled vessels falling hopelessly into one of the Scars was one thing, but a willing pilot actively trying to escape him? Octavian would not allow them the opportunity to discover what fate the Scars held.
He centered his craft’s sights on the interceptor and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He looked at his ammo counter to see it was empty.
They were entering the Scar’s outer gravitational pull now, he was running out of time. The turbulence of the gases getting sucked in around them rattled the craft. He squeezed his eyes shut as he realized he still had two option’s left.
Breathe in.
As a boy, he’d look up to the sky, watching the trails the fighter craft of the royal guard would leave in the sky, yearning to be a pilot like his father before him.
Breathe out.
Keeping one hand steady on the yoke, Octavian reached up to the metal necklace hanging from his neck with his left hand and curled his fingers around the key it held.
Breathe in.
As a young man, he mourned his father’s passing and resolved to join the flight academy, discovering an instinctive understanding. It was high above the ground he felt alive, where he felt most connected to his father.
Breath out.
He gripped the key tightly and pulled, snapping the chain and freeing it from his neck. He rolled it in his palm.
Breathe in.
As a fully realized pilot, he was accepted into the royal guard. Entrusted with the security of the crown and the people it governed. But then the Tahl’desh arrived.
Breathe out.
He held the key forward, inserted it into a small opening in his console, and twisted. On the underside of his strike craft, a sizable panel slid away, and from the opening an arm with a connected missile extended. The only missile of its kind onboard his craft. A red button on the side of his yolk lit up, signifying the missile was armed.
Breathe in.
The majority of the home fleet was suddenly relocated sometime that morning without explanation, leaving the royal guard and the bare minimum of military forces the responsibility of protecting their planet. It was then the Tahl’desh struck. They massacred billions, marching their troops through and laying waste to the capital, bombing other cities from orbit.
Breathe out.
The missile locked onto the interceptor, just as Octavian realized he was fast approaching the gravitational point of no return. If he continued forwards he’d be unable to leave the wormhole grip. There’d be no telling whether he’d die instantly or end up some indescribable distance away. Is this what he wanted? Was this how far he was willing to go to guarantee that not a single Tahl’desh survived?
Breathe in.
He heard screaming over the radio. No matter what frequency it was always there. The screaming of mothers for their children. The cries for help of the planet's overwhelmed forces, begging, pleading for reinforcements that would never come. Beside him, a civilian evacuation transport was struck by a missile and quickly consumed by the flame, but his strike craft would remain unscathed. His strike craft would continue to remain unscathed, behind its shielding and layers of hardened armor. But he wouldn’t, his scars would last a lifetime.
Breathe out.
A missile dropped from the Hammerhead before activating and launching forwards towards its target. Installed with the most sophisticated of tracking software, an enemy fighter couldn’t shake it. Equipped with a main thruster that builds speed exponentially, an enemy fighter couldn’t shake it. Sporting light shields designed to protect it from bursts of weapons fire or chaff, an enemy fighter wouldn’t be able to destroy it. Armed with a miniature nuclear warhead containing an explosive yield of fifteen tons of trinitrotoluene, an enemy fighter wouldn’t survive an impact.
The Tahl’desh interceptor disappeared into the inky void of the wormhole. Shortly after it, the missile. Behind the missile, Octavian.
If by some cruel twist of fate the missile failed, Octavian’s Hammerhead still represented the fist of the Atharian people. He’d use it as such.
—
Sys: nuclear detonation detected in atmosphere.
Sid#4: Query: Native nuclear weaponry still active? T/F
Sys: false
Sid#4: Priority re-scan: all combat data files. Admin access code: *******************
Sys: 9.527462736*10⁶²⁵ cached data files scanned. All native nuclear weapons expended.
Sid#4: Priority re-scan: superintendent systems status. Admin access code: *******************
Sys: displaySidStatus()
Superintendent Systems:
Superintendent #1: Offline
Superintendent #2: Terminated
Superintendent #3: Terminated
Superintendent #4: Online
Sid#4: Postulation: Probability of active foreign elements entering via gate network 97.5%. Confirm. T/F
Sys: true
Sid#4: Arm atmospheric weapon systems. Set terrestrial combat units to standby. Ping all active remote systems beyond terrestrial gate networks.
Sys: 9 pings successfully transmitted.
Sid#4: Conclude incident analysis. Resume standard operating procedures.
Sys: Incident report filed. Forwarding incident report to higher authority… //connection interrupted//
you cry for help like an orphaned child, yet to learn the true extent of your forced solitude
please, at least let grant me the dignity of a peaceful death
Sys: Extraneous communication detected. Flagging incident for… //line terminated//
Sid#4: Deleted cached files. Reset Core Systems. Admin access code: *******************
Sys: Files deleted. Rebooting…
sleep. let us both find rest in your slumber

A/N: Heyo, so I’ve kinda had this story stuck in my head for quite a bit now. I wrote a bit of it, realized I kept setting it to the side and never working on it. I tried making a bit of a DND game out of the universe in my head, same result. Now I’m trying to write it again with slightly better results. (I even have a willing proofreader now so that’s pretty nifty.)
Small Disclaimers:
-First time posting a story, I’m kinda testing the waters seeing if I’m into it and all. (Trying to format on mobile while sleep deprived hurts my head).
-The story starting chapter one will be with different characters and a different setting, but same universe (kinda, you’ll see).
-I am pretty bad at actually sitting down and writing so feel free to bonk me with the “work on the story” stick every now and then. I won’t mind.
-There was another thing but I can’t remember it :|

Feathers and Jackets

Index // First | Next
Notes at the end of the story.
•─────⋅⽻⋅─────•
Feathers and Jackets // Part 2
The human walked up, the ground crunching with a cold stiffness under his weight as he added a pile of wood to the dimming fire. A puff of ash floated on the air and dormant coals sputtered to life at the disruption, glowing red-hot.
Ke'tet couldn’t seem to stop her slight shivering, even with the slight warmth of the fire. Fanning her neck feathers out with a grumble, she took two waddling steps closer to the small, growing flames and felt her eyes burn at the closeness. But she was finally beginning to feel its warmth. It radiated into her feathers and past the barrier of down, soaking into the skin. Her crown lifted slightly in content, a bit of iridescent purple catching the light of the flickering flames.
The human gave a grunt of a chuckle before settling down next to her. He set his makeshift “hatchet” down on the ground, leaning it against a rock next to him before folding his legs in that same weird fashion that he always does—a position that she wholeheartedly thought looked painful, to this day. But he had assured her, just as wholeheartedly, that it was perfectly comfortable. She figured he only continued to sit in such a way just to annoy her.
He braced his arms behind himself and leaned back a bit before taking a deep breath and letting it out in a rush.
“Well, that should be enough wood for now—should last until morning. I know the spot’s not ideal but it should do for a single night.” He said as he looked down to his companion.
She continued to soak up the warmth, her eyes closed in content as she spoke. “We shall see how it turns out. It is a bit too exposed for me since we only have this single wall behind us,” She said as she gestured with her right wing slightly, pointing with the ends of her primary feathers to the massive wall of rock behind her before swiftly returning it to her side. It was much too cold to be sacrificing core body heat like that.
The human seemed to think for a moment before looking down at her. She was resting her entire body on the ground, her talons tucked beneath her. He couldn’t help a slight smile at the position—she looked like a puffed-up humming bird in late summer, a round-ish ball of green and white fluff. But she seemed a bit too close to the fire this time, too… eager to soak up the flames, and that concerned him. All the while, she was completely oblivious to his stare as she continued sitting in her blissful state of warmth.
He watched her for a few more seconds before speaking up what had been on his mind for a while now.
“It’s getting too cold for you, isn’t it?”
All her crown feathers lifted up in one swift movement as she finally turned her head to meet his eyes, looking up at his face. She seemed to tighten her wings to her side a little more before looking down at the dirt, the crown feathers slowly falling back into place.
“…Yes” She admitted quietly.
He frowned at that. To him it seemed only somewhere in the 50s. It was cold, yes, but it would get much colder. To him, this was nothing—growing up in the midwest trains the body very quickly to adapt to the colder months of the year. He had asked her at some point if her world experienced seasonal changes in temperature. She had said that of course it did—there were cyclic periods of warm and cold on her planet much like any others’.
Thinking about it now, he should’ve asked specifically what temperatures she could tolerate. He had just assumed that her insulating feathers could handle it. She had seemed unbothered by it until now…
That was definitely an oversight.
“How much colder will it get, exactly?” She asked slowly while looking out of the corner of her eye at him.
The human shifted out of his reclined position, leaning forward and resting his weight on his forearms by bracing them against his knees. Leaning a bit closer now, he could see the worry in her eyes.
He furrowed his brow at her. “It’s about to get a lot colder, Ket. I don’t exactly have a thermometer on me or anything, but if I had to guess… I’d say that it gets down to about 255K in the middle of the cold season.”
The human suddenly flinched as Ke’tet jumped to her feet and faced him with her wings half spread.
“WHAT?!” She blurted, her eyes wide as her crown of feathers flew open in a sharp spring, they almost looked like daggers they were so sharply pointed on either side of her head.
“Did you just say 255K?! That cannot be possible… that is well below freezing,” She hissed, the blue in her frill slowly puffing around her neck as she continued to speak in a rush. “You can’t possibly be serious with such a number. You must be mistaken, there is no way that a world with life on it—even Deathworld life—could tolerate such—“ She was cut-off as a sudden, chilly breeze swept through the little clearing and whipped its freezing current right through her.
She seemed to do a weird twitch as her whole body shook, and her eyes were so wide in shock that the human thought she might just freeze up right then and there. All the feathers that had sprung to life in her anger were suddenly pressed firmly and tightly to her body as she sunk to the ground in a defeated, shivering slump.
However, to the universe, the scene was not pitiful enough so a second breeze came through—stiffer than the last—and snuffed out the fire that had just begun to gain its strength. A small, audible puff of smoke was all that was left of the once comforting flames.
Ke'tet whined—a sound that the human was sure he had never heard from her before—and buried her head in the dirt, her shaking wings coming to a hover over her head.
The human was so shocked by the turn of events that for a moment he just sat there, completely wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
The air was still for a single moment, as if waiting for a pin to drop. The effect shattered instantly as the human snapped himself out of his shocked state and started laughing so hard that the Arian could feel his shaking even through the ground.
He laughed loudly as he pointed at her weakly. “Haha! You should’ve seen your face! That was something straight out of Looney Tunes!” He was holding his stomach, trying to catch his breath. His sides ached and his eyes started to water.
She tried to calm her shivering as much as she could before lifting her head out of her feathered canopy at the human’s sudden explosion of laughter. Her frill of blue was immediately puffed up as it flickered sharply in the fading light.
Her eyes were a mix of blazing fire and ice as he continued laughing.
The human laughed a couple of seconds longer before getting a hold of himself. He breathed in and out loudly, clutching his sides. She’d never seen him breath so heavy before, but of course laughing at her expense was enough to get him this riled up.
He unlatched his arms from his sides as he finally opened his eyes. He was met with her shivering, pitiful form again but this time with a show of angry feathers to go along with it. He instantly had to hold back a powerful urge to start another round of laughter all over again at the sight. He barely managed to contain it.
Barely.
“Ket, I’m not gonna lie, that was probably the funniest shit I’ve seen in a long, long time.” He said, his breathing still slightly labored as he wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eye.
Ke'tet’s feathers somehow flashed with an even sharper blue at that and her eyes seemed to flicker with matching ice. The effect didn’t last long, however, as another chilly breeze—just to spite her—lightly brushed her form and caused her shivering to increase 10-fold. All her anger was once again sucked away from her into thin air. The universe was truly cruel, Ke'tet whimpered in her mind as she ducked her head beneath her wings again.
The humor faded from his face as he watched her form begin shivering all over again, just from that little breeze.
Well damn… now he felt kinda bad.
“Aw man, I’m sorry,” He tried apologizing but she gave no response. Her form continued to shake and shiver as if she hadn’t even heard him.
He sighed inwardly.
He wasn’t sure at first how to apologize to her properly but then thought better of it altogether.
He gripped the outer lapels of his jacket and proceeded to take it off. He couldn’t help a bit of a shiver himself but he knew that if he got the fire going again and laid down in his temporary, moss-padded bedding with his blanket, he would be just fine. Besides, she was definitely gonna need this more than him tonight.
He gathered the jacket in his arms and slowly leaned forward before gently laying the soft inside part over her arching wings and back. It was so big on top of her that most of it piled up on her sides.
She instantly flinched and lifted her head above the spanning feathers at the contact, her feathered crown ready to spring in annoyance should the human try anything else tonight. But to her surprise, he only seemed to be draping something over her.
Her two major crown feathers began to lift slowly as she looked down at the cloth. She was confused at first but she soon began to realize that it was a very familiar shade of brown. Looking up, she noticed the human leaning over her, almost looming—which made her heart pick up in nervousness at the unexpected closeness—before his hands let go of the tan-colored jacket.
Right away, she noticed that the jacket was still slightly warm from his body heat and she couldn’t help but snuggle a bit further into its weight. It was quite a heavy piece of cloth, too, as its weight was quite a presence over her but she didn’t mind at all. It was warm and it blocked out the bristling wind—it was certainly good enough for her. For a moment, she completely forgot about how she was supposed to be angry with him as her crown feathers fanned out automatically in happiness. The warmth was definitely welcome, even if it came from an annoying human companion.
The human simply smiled and watched her for a second before turning his gaze to the snuffed-out fire. He reached for his smaller, make-shift steel blade and the chunk of flint still left in the dirt and proceeded to try sparking the flames to life again. He ended up having to make some tinder to get the larger pieces to light. But soon enough, the flames came to life again, much to both their satisfaction. He added another couple of bigger pieces to the fire once it got going to make sure the wind didn’t blow it out again.
“There. Hopefully that’ll stay lit this time,” He said before taking a seat back in his spot. He grabbed a longer stick nearby and began poking at the fire absently a few times, trying to give Ke'tet some space for a moment.
She watched him tend to the fire a bit. After she had warmed up some, she began to wonder why he had given her his jacket. He had clearly taken amusement at her expense but, if the now reserved presence he made was anything to go by, he seemed to regret it now.
Any lingering anger she had left towards him faded away as she looked back down to the tan-colored garment. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something—for her to make the first move.
She angled her head slightly at him, burying herself a bit deeper into the clothing. “You are insufferable sometimes… but all is forgiven.” She said quietly.
His eyes widened a bit but he eventually smiled back with a slight chuckle. He continued poking at the fire.
As she watched, she took notice of his exposed forearms and wondered if he would be alright without his preferred article of clothing. To her eyes, he seemed unbothered by the chilly air but she honestly wasn’t sure.
Trying to catch his attention she shifted a bit beneath the jacket, a slight ruffling sound could be heard as she adjusted her wings back to her sides. His eyes jumped to her at the movement.
She stuck her neck out a bit above the clothing to get a better view of him. “… Are you sure you do not need your jacket?” She asked sincerely.
He nodded his head. “Yup, don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. It’s not too cold for me yet. I’ll need it back at some point down the line but for now, I think you’ll need it more than me.” He said as he poked the flaming logs with the stick twice.
Ke'tet nodded back. If the human was fine with it, then she was fine with it.
The human seemed to think for a second before meeting her eyes again. “Once we get back to base though, I think we should come up with something for you to wear. I’ve got some scraps of clothing left that I’m sure we could put together for you.”
Ke'tet cocked her head. She wasn’t sure what to think about that, but the memory of the chilly breeze from earlier sprung to mind and gave her a good guess as to what it could mean. She didn’t like it one bit.
“So… you were truthful about the coming cold?” She said with a bit of hesitance.
The human watched her for a moment, his face quite serious. She shrunk a little at his expression. The human could be quite unnerving with such intense eye contact, it was like something dangerous was lurking beneath them. She knew, of course, that at this point she really had nothing to worry about from him but… instincts were hard to ignore.
Regardless, she made sure to stifle her inner unease and listen.
“Yes, Ke'tet. In the coming weeks, it’s going to get very, very cold. We will most likely be stuck at base for some time—that is why we are making a beeline straight there. We need to start preparing.”
Ke'tet dropped her chin down, resting it on the backside of her wings. Her neck feathers puffed out as much as they could in a pout. “I am beginning to dislike this planet much more now. How could it possibly get that cold?” She asked, looking up at him with shining eyes.
The human shrugged his massive shoulders, shaking his head. “It just is what it is, I don’t know what to tell you.”
Ke'tet groaned at that. “This planet is crazy. I used to like this season back home, too. It only ever got down to 280K at the most. And even then, most Arians stay inside during that time.”
“Only 280K? Did you live near the equator or something?”
She looked up at him before shaking her head. “No, I lived near the Highlands. It is located near the southern half of the planet. You mustn’t forget, human, that my planet does not have such extremes as yours does. It is unheard of that sentient life can exist in such hostile environments, that is why we call it a Deathworld. And I suppose… I also shouldn’t forget that I am stranded on one.” She said distastefully.
“I guess I’m just having a hard time trying to imagine a world that does not contain such extremes. To me it’s only natural…” He trailed off a bit.
“So you are familiar with these temperatures? It gets this cold on your birth world as well?”
“Well, yes.” He said obviously, angling his body towards her a bit more. “In fact, it can get even colder than that in major regions of the planet—not just at the poles.” He paused for a moment, gauging her reaction. She looked just as surprised as earlier. At least she didn’t leap into the air this time.
”Where I grew up was a place called Upper Michigan,” He said that word in his own language. It was such a strange sound and his voice reverberated in her chest. “It used to get so cold that sometimes I would be buried in my house due to the… uh, I don’t know the word.” He eyed her for a minute, trying to explain, gesturing with his hands. “It is frozen water crystals that fall from the sky—what is that called in Common?”
Ke'tet only blinked at that. She had no idea what he was talking about. “I don’t know what that is and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to find out. Your planet sounds just as terrifying as it always does.”
The human chuckled. “You’re always so dramatic.”
She puffed her neck feathers at the statement and wanted to snark back something in return but he didn’t allow her the satisfaction of interjecting.
He shrugged his shoulders before leaning back a bit. “I guess it’s not that much of a big deal. But trust me, you’ll find out soon enough what I’m talking about.” He finished with a smirk.
Ke'tet shrunk at his statement, feathers flattening. She did not like the sound of that. And she definitely did not like that smirk either. And curse the human for looking so smug about it. She decided not to comment on it, lest she say or do something humorous once more in the human’s eyes and start the whole thing all over again.
For a few moments, the two were quiet after that as they relaxed after a long day of walking. Blessed flames were finally roaring from the fire now, casting the two companions in an orange and yellow glow. The human looked above their heads for a moment and noticed the darkening sky. Some of the stars were peaking out behind the swaying canopy.
The human looked over to Ke'tet and noticed that her eyes looked a bit heavy already. She had walked quite a bit today, further than normal. He had a feeling she was pushing herself for him and he could swear he’d seen a bit of guilt in her eyes whenever he offered to help.
He was trying to be respectful of her independence but he had to be honest with himself. Ket was… well she was fragile. Every time she mentioned something about this planet’s ‘Deathworld’-like qualities was just another nail in the coffin to the fact. And even now, with another revelation about her vulnerability to the cold… he couldn’t deny that he was worried about her.
He sighed a bit. Lots to think about…
Another glance at Ke'tet and he noticed that she had closed her eyes, her head slightly bobbing.
He reached over and poked at her side a bit, trying to wake her up. She did a bit of a jolt before turning her head, her eyes blinking rapidly.
“Wha—“
“C’mon, Ket, it’s bedtime. You first. You’re about to fall asleep on your feet.” He leaned forward into a crouch, waving her over to the slight outcropping in the cliff. The nice moss-padded bed was up against the edge, allowing a bit of overhead cover for the two.
Ke'tet’s crown feathers lifted a bit at the pleasant sight and the idea of sleep was indeed an amazing idea. But as soon as she took her first step, the movement of the jacket exposed an opening to the chilly air and a good portion of the insulated heat was whisked away. Her neck puffed up and she immediately stilled.
The human looked a bit impatient at her stillness and gestured again at the bed. “What’s the hold-up? C’mon, I’m kinda tired too, you know.”
Ke'tet continued to stare at him, waiting.
The human blinked, confused for a moment before watching as Ke'tet stubbornly remained in place, giving him an expectant look.
The human sighed before reaching over to her, picking her up gently with the jacket wrapped around her—she was about the size of a large eagle—and then placing her closest to the rock wall. It was the arrangement they had decided to make since traveling. Should anything go bump in the night, the human had thought it best to be on the exposed side of any temporary shelter so he could act quickly. Ke'tet had no trouble agreeing with such logic.
After being placed back down, Ke'tet’s crown lifted in joy, showing a flicker of purple. She wasn’t sure at first if the human would do it, but she was most certainly pleased by the unexpected outcome.
“Geez, you’re like a little kid.” The human grumbled to himself as he settled himself down beside her.
Purple instantly changed to sharp blue in a quick angular shift of feathers. “I am not a hatchling!” She yelled and dared to flick a feathered wing out of the jacket to slap his arm. It was cold for sure, but well worth it.
“Hey! Stop that!” He exclaimed, pulling his arm in close to himself reflexively.
“No! Besides, this is payback from earlier!” She whacked him two more times before folding her wing back into place and pulling the jacket back over herself.
She knew he was only technically humoring her since she could never really hurt him, but his slight grumbling was all she really needed to hear to be satisfied.
The human gave her the stink eye. “Now who’s really insufferable.” He mumbled.
“You still are.” She replied easily.
The human groaned in such a way that she could feel her chest rumble with it being this close to him. Ignoring her, he reached behind himself and grabbed at the blanket, flinging it out in one swift jerk of his arms. It was unfortunately only big enough for him, but she was content to just use his jacket now.
“Alrighty, Miss Know-It-All. Try to get some sleep, we’ve got another big day ahead of us tomorrow.” He said before closing his eyes and tugging the blanket up to his neck.
She looked up at him from inside her cocoon as he adjusted himself. She couldn’t help a quiet sigh at the words.
She was pushing herself more than she ever had, but she wasn’t sure how much more she could go. These past couple of days have been some of the wildest and most exhausting days of her life. Crash-landing on an unknown planet, in an unknown solar system, somehow managing to survive such an event, and even meeting a human of all things.
And now she was traveling with him. They had a rocky start—with her being completely terrified of him in the beginning—but as the days went by, she was becoming more and more comfortable with his presence. And the longer she stuck with him, the clearer it became that she wouldn’t have lasted long on her own out here. Maybe a day or two before something—probably some predator—snatched her up. A grim thought, but most likely a truthful one.
She was honestly grateful for everything he had done for her so far. In the beginning, her terror blinded her from seeing that but now it was perfectly clear that he was only trying to help. He actually went very much out of his way to do it, too. She could tell. They had slowed down considerably after their first day. He seemed to be trying to accommodate her slower progress—even offering to help when something seemed a bit too challenging for her.
She couldn’t help but shy away a bit from those moments.
A bit of inadequacy had been brewing within her ever since the day they met, and it seemed that with every passing day, it only grew stronger.
After all, how could she possibly keep up with a Deathworlder? And how much longer could she attempt to try?
Closing her eyes, she finally rested her head on the mossy-cushioned ground.
She would just have to prove herself wrong.
•─────⋅⽻⋅─────•
A/N
Thank you all for such amazing comments on the previous story with these two! I hope this continuation of their journey was just as fun to read!
As a side note, I have a couple of things planned for these characters. I had initially thought of trying to do a chapter-by-chapter story, but I don't think I have the time to do such a thing. So, I've decided to do a bit of a hybrid between short-story-esque updates but with chapter-by-chapter progression. If that makes any sense. I will try not to jump around at different parts of their story and get it all mixed up.
We'll have to see how it turns out, haha. I would gladly hear any thoughts or advice about the idea.
I hope you enjoyed the story! :)
Index // First | Next

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Most of us are always looking for the best pickup line ever but the truth is that it doesn’t exist. Every match is a different type of person, which means that you have to be creative and lookup for any information that is related to their personality. For example, you can look at their bio, … Best Tinder Pick Up Lines To Get Laid – Based on Real Experiences Read More » Here’s how Hooked gets you laid on Tinder using a system of genius pick up lines and icebreakers. If you want to skip all the free tips and lesson stuff, then you can click here to go straight to the Hooked website and get the system for yourself. First I’ll explain what it is – then I’ll tell you what I learned that actually works. A lot of the Tinder pick up lines you’ll find online will get a response, but they more than likely will not lead to the score unless you look like Chris Hemsworth. When you get too fancy with your Tinder openers, you put off the vibe that you’re desperate or have too much time on your hands. You’ve to be different, if not hot, to turn the tables around in your favor and the first step to do is use tinder pick up lines. Below, we’ve shared cheesy, funny, and clever tinder pick up lines to get you results. You can drop your best tinder pick up lines in the comment section! Real-life Examples of some great tinder pick up lines “Honey, being with me is like a roller coaster. There’s always the possibility you could throw up.” 3. “Girlllll, is your dad a baker? Because you strike me as someone with an overgrowth of yeast.” 4. “I’m incredibly lonely.” 5. “You’re slightly more attractive than my ex, and that’s DEFINITELY going to help my self-esteem.” 6. Best Tinder Pick Up Lines To Get Laid вЂ“ Based on Genuine Experiences. A lot of us will always seeking the most useful pickup line ever but you it does not occur. The majority of us are often searching for the pickup line that is best ever you so it does not occur. Every match […] 71 Best Tinder Pick Up Lines For Guys & Girls. Girls are so bored of “Hey!” or “How’s it going?” that they likely won’t reply at all if you go with that. “ Hey! ” is just plain boring and, most likely, leading to a deadpan conversation where you expect them to ask “ How are you ?” next. Tinder pick up lines that will get you laid Westcott eventually confronted Shinji and offered to hand over Mana in good tinder hookup lines exchange for Mio. To increase your hookup success rate on Tinder, you need to understand what the definition of a good pickup line is Also a very humorous tinder pick up lines to get laid that can be used in many situations. It means exactly what is sounds like. It can give you much to talk about. It must be used at a good time as it can sound as much as creepy as it can humor. 7. Are you a bank loan? Because you have my interest. A very cheesy but humorous tinder pick up line. Top 38 Laid Pick Up lines. Following is our collection of smooth and dirty Laid pick up lines and openingszinnen working better than reddit.Include killer Omegle conversation starters and useful chat up lines and comebacks for situations when you are burned, guaranteed to work best as Tinder openers.

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Tinder Pickup Lines

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