RoA: Father of Icarus pt3

Blinding whiteness. Wind whips suddenly around her, and Chi swears under her breath as she realizes she's in the middle of a bunch of ice again.

She and Syra very quickly see each other because they happen to have landed close and because their dark fur sticks out dramatically against the plain white flatness. Syra got there first and has already gone active. He walks over to Chi, an.e.ghost carrying his body, and he shouts over the wind to suggest they not fight. Chi readily agrees, indescribably glad not to be fighting a friend, and they begin walking toward the only visible vertical structure.

While they walk, Chi briefly explains the whole deal of being a fire demon, which means snow and ice and cold and this setting in general are terrible for her health. "Let's get this over with quickly, then," Syra suggests, and she smiles.

[SETTING]
I adjusted the "Abandoned Cruiser" setting- A space cruiser, which I'll refer to as a shuttle, has been shut down and been abandoned in a small abandoned port on one of Aleria's outer planets. Only emergency power still runs in the shuttle, which is the only spaceship in the port. There is no heating system working in any part of this setting.

The outer planet is actually a small moon in a state of perpetual winter, and looks rather like the arctic, or a white desert of ice. The port is the only vertical structure within sight of where Syra and Chi land. The main port building which houses the shuttle is surrounded by a very large semicircle wall to prevent the port from being buried in snowdrifts.

Syra and Chi land outside this wall and must climb in through a small gap in part of the wall. Chi notices a huge rune carved into the metal base of a large pillar that is part of the wall. She's vaguely creeped out by that and passes it quickly, pretending not top notice a tingle in the air.

The shuttle is parked inside the bay of the small port, but the bay's door doesn't work properly and is partially open and allows the elements into the bay. The rest of the port is partially open to the outside because of huge cracks in the surface of the planet that have caused part of the port to cave in and split big holes in what used to be the runway.

Upon entering the inside of the semicircle wall, Chi gets a sudden chill. Maybe it's the sight of more abandoned damaged buildings so similar to the previous round, but she immediately dislikes the place.

After a few minutes of walking she decides she definitely heard or felt something.

Chi: There's something here. I feel it. Don't you?
Syra: What do you mean?
[faint whispers, Chi gets another chill and looks around uneasily.]
Chi: I could have sworn-

Now she's sure she feels something, and maybe hears whispers, a voice or two or three echoing in the wind, and a sharp feeling she knows she has felt before. Magics have a distinctive feel, you see?

_{[Hello little girl.]}

Chi: Dragon.
Syra: Chi?

Chi whirls around, wild-eyed and bristling, staring around for signs of movement. She basically starts panicking, and Syra, confused, sees that she's been frightened by something and tries to calm her down.

Chi: It's here, somewhere, where? It's following us.
Syra: I haven't seen or heard anything.
Chi: It's been here, where is it? I know it's here!
Syra: Chi, no one's been here in a long time. You said so yourself.
Chi: But I feel--pieces--
Syra: Spells leave behind residue sometimes, right? Maybe it's just some leftovers from when the port was active.
Chi: Chi hesitates, wild-eyed, fur standing on end. A whisper catches her ear and she shudders.

"Come on," Syra coaxes, starting up the shuttle gangway. "Let's keep looking."

Inside shuttle is much better. It isn't much warmer and looks about twenty years out of date, but the emergency strip lighting along the floor still works, and at least there's no ice or wind. Without much discussion, the two competitors begin searching the shuttle together. Chi calms down a little after half an hour of tromping through unremarkable rooms and halls, but after two hours she still sticks close to Syra and jumps a little sounds he seems not to hear.

_{[Hello little girl. You've seen us before.]}

===========================

Meanwhile, the Race of Aleria staff members are preparing to relocate from the Kierouka to the final checkpoint. Vespera is busily doing paperwork and ignoring news reports on rioting in the capital city. Carlos sticks his head in the door and says, "Former competitor Kysar requests an audience--something about competitor Shalan and a stolen picture." [Remember, Carlos is really speaking Spanish.]

He continues that the guards couldn't get her to leave them alone about it, that Kysar seemed to think she, Vespera, would be particularly concerned. Vespera pauses, then: "Just another one of our criminals stirring up trouble, sounds like."
"That's what I thought, ma'am, but I thought I should check."
"Thank you, Carlos. Make sure she doesn't get into any trouble, will you?"
"Yes ma'am."

Carlos withdraws and shuts the door. Vespera goes back to her laptop and answers a video call from Nah'yair. The Speaker is doing damage control at Draral, a location which was supposed to be checkpoint three but was damaged in some kind of bizarre destructive sabotage which the media has dubbed an exotic form of terrorism. In the video conference, Nah'yair questions the practicality of the unusual checkpoint locations, all of which have something to do with the Twins' careers. Vespera waves her away and ends the call with mundane encouragements for Nah'yair to finish up quickly.

After a moment of thought, Vespera pulls up a blank email.

'I gave you this chance. Are you watching?'

Send.

Chirp!
New mail received.

'Funny Ves.
We're watching everything.'

======================

Four hours since their arrival have brought the rising of the sun on this planet, turning the ice a searing white. Chi flinches and then huffs uneasily for the third time in as many minutes when the energy ghost fizzes faintly a short distance away. After going twice through every room, locker, and hallway inside the shuttle, Syradeus finally suggested that the pair of them start looking outside again.

Chi had agreed, reluctantly, and the feline and demoness now climbed in careful steps around the outside of the ruined port.

The e.ghost fizzes again and Chi growls at herself for jumping again. The ice wasn't the problem. Well, not the main one. She had avoided stepping directly on the ice until recently, exploring the inside of the port where drifts were easily avoided. The frigid wind and snow underfoot stung and burned now, yes, but what really bothered her was the incessant feeling of being watched.

Outside felt exposed, too visible, and she hates how her heart races even as she stands still. She hates it. Syra is right, there's nothing out here for miles, nothing and no one. [Whispers. Chills race down her spine.] No, nothing. She has no right or reason to be acting like this.

The energy ghost tromps through a snow drift and stops beside her, wincing as he readjusts his body and surveys the land nearby. See, look how calm he is? There's nothing. [Whispers, an echo of laughter?] Chi flattens her ears against her head and pretends the sounds aren't there. He's right, there couldn't possibly be dragons here. There's no one there, Chi.

"Lovely weather, hm?" Syra says. She gives him a wry smile. The e.ghost doesn't get out of breath, apparently, but from the careful way he moves, she suspects his body's injuries have begun to ache. She indicates the intact port with a jerk of her head. "Nothing back there that I saw. You?" "Nothing by the signal antennas. Unless they expect us to climb them." "No way."

They stood quietly again, sizing up the jagged cracks lined with ice which broke half the docks split the runway in thirds. "Perhaps up?" Syradeus suggests, looking appraisingly at the slanting roof over the broken sections. "That would be suitably inconvenient, wouldn't it?" Chi agreed. So they started climbing the precarious ledges and ladder fragments onto the roof.

Syra warned her to be careful on the ice, and it's a testament to her uneasiness that she doesn't tease him back. Another laugh echo ripples in the wind and she whines, wishing with all her might the round was over, or that she could attach herself to Syra and maybe absorb some of his calmness by osmosis.

He's looking for the portal though, like a diligent competitor, and she tells herself to suck it up. She climbs out farther along the port roof's edge, balancing carefully, with a hand on cold icy metal even though it scalds her skin. Better burnt skin than lost balance, because the crevasse yawns below. The roof is bent like the edge of a can someone stepped on. She walks at an angle, leaning away from a fall.

She's looking for anything unusual that might be a teleporter when she realizes that there are patterns in the metal on the siding of the ledge, what used to be a smooth curve of wall right under the roof edge when the port stood properly intact. She stands up straight, distracted, and stares. There's another odd mark. A former marker for each dock? No...runes. She turns on the ledge, a coldness not from the weather filling her stomach. Runes, carved in giant loops, all around the port. The giant posts surrounded the port in an even bigger circle, and she could see in her mind's eye that, like the one she first found, every one of them must have its own rune.

A giant magician's circle. They stood in the middle of it. The wind laughed; the wind howled. Chi and Syradeus, the only two living creatures for miles, stood bolt upright and looked right at each other as they felt it.

[Sharp, like static in your head. Dizzy. Black. Acidic dragon laughter that says: We're watching everything.]

You know that feeling where you turn to look and you see, and time goes fuzzy, so you can't tell if you knew something happened and went to look or if you realized what was happening as you turned?

He couldn't have said how she fell, but when Syradeus turned, she was already falling. What had just happened? He stood on the ledge, looking down and shouting her name, but he couldn't see her, could hear no reply. Spires of ice curved up at him out of the blue maw like the teeth of a giant laughing beast. How did she fall? She was standing right here!

Did you realize, father of Icarus? Did your mistake reveal itself in the echoes of that child's cries?

She tried to tell you.

He wasn't sure what he did then. A fire demon, who lets a fire demon walk around by herself in the snow? He was back in the port, looking for something, anything that might be useful. Wrenching open a rusted out door, ignoring the glow of light in the corner in favor of heavy tanks partially filled with something, something marked Flammable. The whispers skittered up and down his spine, whispers he hadn't heard or hadn't let himself hear, and she had tried to tell him and he hadn't believed her.

Fire demon, in a pit of ice. He didn't remember putting his body down, but he picked it back up only after throwing tanks off the edge of the roof into the pit and an old communicator set from somewhere, stripped wires sparking feebly. Orange bubbles of flame burst when the sparks caught the tanks somewhere below. A stray thought said it was irrational to hope this would help anything for long.

She trusted you. This is your fault.

Until he went inactive he hadn't realized how cold he had gotten. The metal floor felt like it was freezing under his paws, and how did they get teleporter technology to work properly when it got this cold? (How long could she survive in this cold?) And they didn't need to go outside at all. The portal had been in here the whole time.

Flash.

=======================

Syradeus tumbles off the teleporter, shivering and breathless and shedding snowflakes. Several people wait just before the line of teleporters in wherever this is, the new checkpoint. He makes straight for them, the ones he recognizes.

Syra: Chi's in trouble, she-
[Vespera smoothly interrupts him.]
Vespera: Well done. I see you have some ambition after all.
Syra: What? I didn't-
V: Congratulations.

Vespera starts walking off, dictating some notes to Carlos. Syradeus starts in disbelief and shouts after her, "Wait! You have to help her! She-" Nah'yair is between him and the governor, down close to his face, speaking in an undertone. "Watch yourself, Shalan. She'll be fetched in due time." "I-" "Hush. Don't forget your warning."

[Syra looks upset. How unusual, he always looks calm. Anyway.] He realizes this is the new checkpoint, a portion of an extraterrestrial space port. He worries for a bit, very unhappy that he can't seem to motivate the authorities to send an immediate rescue team, and gets himself carted off to the med ward to have his injuries checked and to wait. While he's waiting and being scolded to not move around any more, he asks one of the nurses if they can tell him about another competitor in the med ward.

Nurse: I'm sorry, sir, they won't bring in survivors for a while yet.
Syra: I know. I was looking for Tyger.
Nurse: Hmm.. [Checks list on computer.] Ah. I'm sorry, sir, I'm afraid that's not possible.
Syra: Has her condition worsened? She was stable before.
Nurse: I am not permitted to release that information.
Syra: May I see her later?
Nurse: I think not. She is no longer a competitor and will no longer be in our wards. (turns away)
Syra: Excuse me. They told us competitors would be allowed to stay to the end of the contest, and her medical treatment was incomplete.
Nurse: I have told you everything I know, sir. She is no longer under our care-
Syra: Did she go home, then?
Nurse: We are not permitted to discuss the departure of previous competitors. I'm sorry, sir. Excuse me.

Syra is of course quite frustrated with all these non-answers, and then notices a pair of security guards. He remembers Tyger's concerns about the security guards and gets an unpleasant feeling that he was wrong to dismiss something else that worried a friend.

He sits and thinks about unhappy guilty things like that, and relatively shortly Chi is retrieved and put in the medical ward. Once Syra finds out he goes looking for her, and ends up with an angry canine shouting in his face: Blue got there first.

Syra: I wasn't trying to hurt her. I never meant that to happen.
Blue: I don't even care! She tried to warn you. She wasn't right in the head! If you were really as nice as you want everyone to think, you would have paid more attention to her when she was vulnerable!
Syra: I made a mistake. I was only trying to help.
Blue: You're always so nice, aren't you? Please. Do you really expect everyone to believe you're competing in an international fighting competition with a big bucks prize all just to be helpful? You keep winning, but each time you make sure to pull some noble stunt so that you look good. Excellent ruse, mister popular scientist.
Syra: You're saying I help people to make myself look good?
Blue: That's exactly what I'm saying. Those other competitors have just as good a reason to win as you do, but you do something nice so they don't even begrudge you beating them. Don't think you can fool me! I heard what happened to Tyger and I saw what you did to her. [indicates Chi's room.]
Syra: That was not my fault! If you've already decided my actions are deceptive, then of course everything I do will look bad to you.
Blue: Okay, fine, you really think you're helpful? Let me teach you a lesson, kitty-cat: You're smart, and whatever, but at some point everyone's smartness runs out. You can't help everyone, and when you're out of your league, it hurts them more when you try. Now get out.

=========================

He did mean to save them both, this father of Icarus. But somehow he got so caught up in making the wings that he forgot to consider the ways of the only other person was trying to save. His own son. Was he not watching all that time. He could have known. He should have known.

She's right. I knew.

Syra has been herded back to his place in the medical ward and sits, hours later, brooding over Tyger, Noel, Chi, and Blue.
Looking good had nothing to do with it…but Chi… Blue is right. I should have paid more attention to Chi's warning. (You didn't mean to hurt her. Chi seemed hysterical, you didn't know she had actually noticed something real-) But that's not true.
I did notice.
I just didn't take it seriously.
Chi recognized something and I ignored her fears. I should have known better.

At some point it doesn't matter if I didn't mean harm.
I've done a very bad thing.

==========================

Well done, father of Icarus. No average man in your place could intentionally do something so terrible as what you have done by accident.

==========================

Chi wakes up, shaky and miserable from a concussion and excessive contact with ice, but otherwise alright. Blitz and Blue are draped all over her bed, and she groggily asks them if Syra is alive. Blue answers yes and snaps indignantly about him but Chi shooshes her.

Blitz: Why are you asking?
[whisper memory]
Chi, to Blue: Remember that conversation we had before the round?
Blue: What about it? Oh! Chi, I was trying to tell you--the Twins were on Ursion for sure. They caused the destruction at Prahm, and they're experimenting all over the place--

[Blue continues rambling, while Chi is half listening, half-thinking: magic. She knows she felt magic, and remembers Syra saying there's nothing. And then she remembers what seemed like forever ago, Noel mentioning the strange feeling, a feeling in the Kierouka she had noticed too...]

Chi: Noel Alexander.
Blue: -what?
Chi: Blue, just stay with me please? Blitz, I need you to find him for me.
Blitz: But he frowny faced. >:c
Chi:  Please, Blitz. Tell him it's about the dragons.

[End with image of Blitz in some main hallway speaking to a suspicious but attentive Noel.]