Do you believe in destiny?
It's the first thing you hear when your senses come too, among the sounds of wind whipping past you, slapping against the metal of your body as you stay in a steady free fall toward the earth. She is the first thing you see. Against the stars and the clouds and black of the night, her body, tiny and frail and hapless and smiling is the first thing you ever even noticed. Her voice was the first thing you really heard. She has to scream just to hear her own thoughts through the roar of the falling air but it is still the first thing that you hear.
She's grinning, and her voice is the only thing you can hear.
"Not even a little." You respond. She can probably make out what you're saying, or she's mocking how small your voice sounds. You realize only now that she is holding on to the small metal parts of your face, her grip almost slipping once—then twice. Her grip is the only thing keeping her with you as the high speeds crash against the thin frame her body. You can see small bubbles of water breaking loose from her eyes as you both continue to fall, and she blinks rapidly, knocking them loose. She almost loses her grip entirely. You, without really considering it, put a hand behind her, and she pulls herself in just a little closer, and you hardly notice her touching your hand with her own.
"Me neither." She continues to grin with every bit of sincerity she has, yet somehow it still seems condescending. You're not even wanting to be offended at this point, and somehow you aren't. You're not quite feeling yourself right then and there. She's looking rather pathetic, her hair flying all over the place in a mess of black and pink slapping her face. Sometimes strands would fly into her mouth, and she'd spending some time trying to spit it out, as if she were not miles above the earth and rapidly approaching it, a giant metal man tumbling with her.
You do not say anything more. You do not do anything more. She has stopped holding onto you entirely, fussing with her hair. You curl your fingers in a little.
The moon stares without judgment, lighting the pink of her skin and the gold in her eyes.
You recognize for the first time who this girl is.
You twist her in at the realization, and you can almost hear her squeak through the sounds of gears shifting and metal grinding against metal. You feel your wings extend and stretch. The screams of the wind calm as your engine begins to warm up, and you can finally hear the sounds of human breathing somewhere inside of you, though it be harsh and heavy.
You can see as she looks around inside the interior, staring out the window, sitting in the passengers' seat and clinging to whatever her fingers found first. You hardly even notice that you're already shooting off into the distance, the screams of your engine trailing behind you. Her breathing evens, but not by much, as she pushes forward to look ahead. You hadn't said a word. You feel as though you should.
"Hey," The buttons and levers and little bits of electricity stuck inside the cockpit of your vehicle light up in unison to your voice. You can feel her jump against your interior but you only see her eyes widen and look up, as if she honestly believed that you would be looking down at her. You aren't sure what you're doing at this point. You aren't even really sure what had even lead up to this. "I've got you."
Her focus stays upward, though her gaze is wavering, almost searching. You can almost feel it, you can almost feel the warmth and the light of her stare, as ridiculous as you know that thought is. She doesn't say a word. But you feel as though she had. And all she does is smile, and settle against you—inside you, really. Sitting against the hard metal and leaning her cheek into the glass, looking out the window and to the world beneath, shooting past as a stream of lights and colors.
You watch her watching as the earth and the sky become nothing but stars shooting past, and you watch her as she closes her eyes, her fingers curling against your body, searching for something to hold.
You watch her fall asleep. And you watch nothing else.