The Long Flight Home

== 1. Cold Wind ==
The bite of the frost stung against the tips of her fingers, but keeping her hands in her pockets just wouldn't do. Flying this distance required long stretches of gliding, which meant keeping her arms flat against her sides to reduce drag if she wanted to maintain any semblance of speed. Air at this altitude is cold, yet if she were to fly higher, above the clouds, she wouldn't get enough oxygen. The pressure of her goggles hurt, wearing them tight enough to keep them from sliding off was one thing, but keeping them on for so long was giving her a headache. Below her, for as far as she could view, was water. She had never flown this long before. Short jaunts from tower to tower back at the compound, sure, but she had never even tried endurance flying until now. What had she been thinking.
Oh yeah. 
She hadn't been thinking. Even now it was painful to try to think about. Not to mention, she couldn't start crying again. Her tears would just flood her goggles, and emptying them mid-air was difficult, and not something she wanted to have to do twice. If she had actually planned this journey, she definitely would have taken a northern route. It might have been even cooler that way, but at the very least she wouldn't be flying over an ocean. Meticulously, she flapped her wings, feeling the nip of the air flow along her now rigid and power infused feathers. Normal creatures could have never made such a journey. The limited aerokinetics her heritage blessed her with meant she could fly longer and farther than any creature on this world. Even then, her joints ached and her muscles burned. Sure, she had made a good stretch of the journey stowing away on that trading vessel, but she planned to hide in it for at least three more days of the trip.
When the crew of the ship caught her, she panicked, she didn't even grab her meager supply of food before she leapt from the boat. She must have been stages from the shore of, what was the continent called.. Greedle? It didn't matter. At this point she was doubting she'd even get there. She had been in the air for so long now. So so long. She must have been flying for...
How long had it been? Eight hours? Nine? It must have been roughly noon when she left that rickety boat, and the sun was now nearing the surface of the water. She could feel her eyelids drooping, she didn't want to imagine what would happen if she closed them. To suddenly wake up drowning wasn't high on her list of wants. She'd come to far to turn back now, her destination was probably closer than her departure point, even if she couldn't see anything on the horizon.
The sky was remarkably empty, and so were the seas below her. Most seabirds wouldn't fly out to this distance, it would be too far from land. Luckily, Gründer Secundus wasn't most seabirds. She was powerful, she was beautiful, she was descended from a goddess! She...
"Who the fuck am I kidding. I'm going to fall asleep mid air, crash into the ocean, drown, and die out here."
To say what followed was an awkward silence would be redundant. It had been silent before she spoke, and it would be silent after she spoke. There was no one out here to speak to, and no one out here to hear her. Yet, funnily enough, she didn't feel any more alone than usual. Even the silence wasn't real silence, the wind rushing past her was rather loud in fact.
The air pushed her upwards—must've been a thermal. For being an intrinsic property of warm air, it didn't seem much warmer than the air around her, just slightly less cold. If she could ride this thermal long enough, she'd be able to gain quite a bit of altitude without even having to strain her wings any more than it would take her to maintain a glide. Even then, what would that gain her? A quarter stage, maybe even half a stage of distance? It's not like it would count for much, considering she couldn't see anything out on the horizon.
It suddenly seemed much darker, and the sun was halfway below the waterline at this point. Did a blink lead to a moment of rest? It must've, the ocean seemed uncomfortably close at this point. With a sharp flutter of her wings, Grün quickly tried to gain altitude.
Wait, that wasn't sky above her.
That was the crest of a wave.
Then, with a crash of water, and a scream of terror, everything went dark.
----Her whole body ached. It felt as if she was a rubber band, stretched just near to its breaking point, and held there for an uncomfortably long amount of time. She was lying on a small bed in a rather spartan room. She could feel the weight and warmth of a heavy blanket, along with the comfort of a pillow below her head. The hospitality of her surroundings was sharply contrasted by the ache of her wings, which were uncomfortably positioned beneath her due to how she was lying on her back. Beside the bed was a dresser with a plate of bread and fish set upon it, along with a paper coffee cup set in a cupholder. The room seemed to slowly rock like a ship, adrift upon a calm sea. Daylight filtered into the room through a round window by a door set in the wall past the dresser.
Grün began to sit up from the bed, intending to stretch her wings, and re-adjust from unpleasantly lying on her back, until she noticed her bag -along with her clothes- set upon a table by the corner of the room. She slowly reached for the coffee cup, and hesitantly took a sip.
"Lukewarm... Whoever left this here must have left it a while ago."
Grün's mind seemed to race with questions. What happened? Where was she? Was she saved, and if so, by who? She could vaguely remember falling asleep mid flight at least once, and...
"That wave, fuck, -I could have died."
A sharp knocking upon the door cut off Grün's rambling thoughts, and a rather venerable voice called to her.
"Miss, you decent? I'm plenty sorry to wake you, but the sun's been up for a couple of hours now, and I need to know you're not dead."
"J-Just a second!"
Quickly getting her clothes on, she unsteadily walked to the door, and took in the appearance of whomever had called her.
The man seem to be in at least his late fifties, with light greenish grey receding hair, and a cleanly shaven face. While he wasn't heavily wrinkled, it seemed to be only because the man was slightly overweight. There was a mechanical brace supporting the man's left leg, along with a cloth sling holding up his left arm. She could see what seemed to be definite signs of age in his pale purple eyes, but there was also very clear signs of intelligence shining behind them. The man stuck out his right hand, offering her a handshake.
"I'm Erich, I fished you outta the drink along with my normal catch of well, fish. Sorry 'bout having to strip you, but you seemed like you were suffering enough, and I didn't want you to have to deal with getting sick due to spending too long in cold and soaked clothes. I ran em' through the laundry while you slept."
She hesitated for a moment, then reciprocated the handshake.
"Gründer, you can call me Grün."
"Good to meet you Miss Grün. What's someone like you doing well, floating in the middle of the sea. We're roughly six stages from the nearest major port, and over two from land in general. Did you fly all the way out here?"
"I flew most of the way, I've been on my way to Steckenberg, from my home in Mavus."
"Damn, all the way from Mavus? You're pretty far from home for someone your age. You're telling me you've flown across almost the whole of the Sea of Gaia just on those wings of yours?"
Grün cautiously tugged at her collar, "I haven't flown the entire way, I've gotten a ride or two on the few boats that I've spotted along the way."
"Y'know I don't think I've ever heard of somebody hitchhiking by boat before, but your issues are your own, and I won't pry."
Erich leaned back from the doorway and looked out to his right. He thought to himself for a moment, then turned back to Grün.
"We've got a few more days out here before we turn back to Vestri and sell our catch, if your willing to give myself and the crew a hand hauling up nets, I'd be plenty willing to take you with us."
"Consider it a deal, where do you need me?"
"Woah there, that's some wonderful work ethic, but I can't expect you to get anything done on an empty stomach. Eat that breakfast I made you, and give yourself at least an hour, then I'll meet you by the bow."
The man nodded to her and smiled, then walked off towards where he had been looking prior. Grün turned back to the plate of food that had been set out for her, and slowly took a forkful of fish. It was buttery and flaky, and it was very good. While the fish wasn't very hot, it seemed to help her feel warmer.
"Hmm... Pretty far from home indeed. "
----"Miss Grün, turn that winch over there, fairly certain if this last catch is large enough this'll be the last trawl of this trip."
"Aye Captain."
It had only been two days since she had awoken, but apparently the little fishing trawler had experienced quite a good bit of luck after pulling Grün out from the water. Erich had mentioned it had something to do with the force of the storm that took place the night she had crashed pushing underwater currents in the direction of the boat. Apparently these currents that came with the storm were rife with fish, or something. Grün didn't entirely understand the Mariner's colloquialisms and idioms, or even that much nautical terminology in general.
The captain, Erich Lududan, spent most of his time on the boat shadowing her, and walking her through how to do the different jobs that he gave her. As he explained to her the intricacies of working on a fishing trawler, Captain Lududan had a habit of going on long tangents telling personal stories of different experiences he had while out on the sea. At one moment he'd be instructing her on how to de-scale a Grey Clef Sea Trout, next he'd be telling some story about his first encounter with a particularly vicious trout when he was a third her age. Funnily enough, his rambling wasn't that annoying, in fact- it was rather comforting. Something about his detached monologues seemed to feel relaxing. His storytelling had a way of helping Grün center herself, there was something calming about listening to his aged voice go on and on about, who-knows-what. 
Erich had apparently been carrying on the family buisness ever since his father passed, and while at first he was planning on passing ownership of the ship down to his daughter, she had instead chosen to move all the way to the northern-most tip of Oktov to work in some up-and-coming city that was just under construction. Not exactly ready to hand the ship over to someone outside the family, Mr. Lududan had decided to get back to work, there was no point in rushing his retirement when the brace on his leg meant that he could still walk.
The work itself that Erich had her doing wasn't too difficult, mostly just manual labor. 'Turn that crank,' 'haul those bags,' 'go help the chef peel the potatoes,' it was all simple stuff. The twelve man crew didn't even bother her much, and with the men already sleeping in shifts, there was an empty bed free for her to use. It wasn't as nice as the captain's quarters that she had first woken up in, but it was better than the secluded corner in-between cargo crates on that trading vessel she had first stowed away on. 
"Birdie, get your head out of the clouds, the winch is slipping! You'll drop the net!" 
"Aye Captain!" 
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Grün went back to the task at hand. The stretched net full of fish seemed absurdly oversized in comparison to the dinky little trawler she was on, and the winch she was turning required considerable strength to even lift the trawl a dib. Thankfully, the net itself was hoisted at two points, and there was another crewmate operating a winch that was positioned on the opposite end of the net like the drawstrings of a sweater to help her bring the net of fish up and out of the water. 
As Grün helped lift the net up and over the boat, the crew began to turn the two cranes the hoists were attached to and maneuver the net over the hatch which the fish would be dumped into. With the net moved into place, the crew slid open the large wooden doors placed into the deck of the boat. Two deckhands undid the bottom of the net, and the catch fell down through the hatch. Erich walked down the stairs from the raised bow, peered down into the hold full of fish, then gave a rather satisfied harumph, 
"Yep, I'd say that that'll do it. It's about time we head for home." 
The crew looked to each other, then gave out a cheer. Grün leaned back against the winch, arms aching from hoisting up the catch. As she watched the crew close up the hatch and slowly make their way of the deck of the ship and sighed to herself, 
"That's one more step in the right direction." 
"Mighty fine job you've done there Miss, I figure it's about time we talk about payment." 
Grün suddenly straightened up, and she gave the captain an uneasy look, 
"Payment? Hasn't the work I've done payed for my trip to shore?" 
Erich gave her a confused look, then broke out into laughter. 
"Your work's done much more than pay for your trip to Vestri! Hell, the luck you've brought the ship just by being here has done that, I haven't gotten a catch this easily in twenty years. Two and a half day's work might not be much to get paid for, but honest work is honest work all the same." The captain doffed his hat and then gave her a fatherly smile, "When we pull into port, you're getting paid for all the time you've spent on this ship." 
"Really?" 
"Sure. Luck's important when you're at sea. Now lets get something to eat, a hard day's work needs a hearty meal! Learned that one from my father, he was a fisherman too, owned this boat before he passed it on to me." 
As the two began slowly walking back to the galley, Grün let herself get carried away in listening to Mr. Lududan begin another story. 
Category:Stories