Sodor's Engines Writing Challenge #1
Prompt: A group of engines are trapped somewhere for the night, and no help can come until morning. How do these engines pass the time?
Restrictions: Use three or four engines, at least one of which must be one of my characters. Maximum of 5,000 words. Engine characters only. Human characters may be mentioned but must not speak.
Total words: 1,642
Characters used: Soul Catcher (Soul/Jewel), Little Star (Star), Beauregard (Bo), Corss Metel (Corss)
Note: Bo belongs to Saber the F4U Corsair, Soul and Corss belong to me and Little Star is shared between myself and Songbird's Call. Plot also belongs to me. Everything else belongs to their respective owners.
The full moon shed it's silver light onto a lonely shed among the back tracks of Sodor's railway, and onto the rusted tender engine that gazed up at it with half blind blue eyes. Behind the rusted engine, a little tank engine slept peacefully, just as rusted as her sister.
Very little stirred around them, apart from their owners milling around the shed between the two engines and a few owls in the leaf-heavy trees around them, until there was a rapidly approaching rumbling in the distance, shaking everything as a huge engine raced up in the distance, waking the little engine up but making the half blind engine smile warmly and fondly.
"Jewel? Little Star? I'm back!" The huge engine whistled, beginning to back down the little line to their shed.
"You act like we couldn't hear you from ages away." The tank engine grumbled sleepily, making her sister chuckle a little bit.
"Nice to see you too, Star." The huge black and grey engine laughed, towering over the sisters as he approached the shed.
"Bo, slow down." The half blind engine called out to her boyfriend, barely able make out his shape among the darkness. "You're nearly on the poi-"
But her warning came too late. The huge engine had gone too fast over the points, and as the ballast crunched beneath his wheels, his fate was clear to even the blindest.
"Err... oops." Bo looked sheepish from where his front was on the rails, looking back at his tender that was now pushed across both tracks into the shed.
"Well done." The bigger of the sisters sighed, closing her blue eyes in mild frustration as Little Star giggled.
"Aww, come on, Soul. You can't blame him for being excited." Star pipped up, and Soul opened her eyes.
"I suppose not. It's not every day that it becomes one year since we were reunited."
A happy silence settled on the trio again as the two crews began to inspect the damage. Star began to doze again, Soul's eyes returned to the moon but Bo was deep in thought now.
"Jewel?" He gently called.
"Yes?" Soul replied after a moment, her eyes still fixed on the moon.
"You know, I've told you all about me, you've told me all about your jewel and your life before you were found in the valley, but... Well, I'm not scared of you, but other engines are because of that legend. How come I've never heard of it?"
Silence fell again, all eyes were on Soul, but hers were on the little pink jewel between her buffers, watching giving off the very faintest of pink glows.
"Well... What do you want to know about it?" Soul finally asked, dodging the original question.
"Since no one is going anywhere until morning, and I'm not due out until the afternoon anyway..."
"... Fine." Soul sighed, her eyes returning to the moon. "I'll tell you all I know."
Soul was silent for a moment before she started her story.
"As big as the cave was, it wasn't big enough for all seven of us, particularly seen as the littler engines liked to race wildly among the maze of tracks, particularly the twins. We just wanted to get out, particularly onto the mainline, and meet other engines, see how they lived thier lives. So, while the Stiens were away one night, we made a plan. With Corss being the biggest of us, he stood the best chance of being able to break the doors down, and we could easily take those who were blind along with us even though our gold dust stocks hadn't been replenished in a very long time.
However, our opportunity came sooner than expected. The remaining Stiens were exhausted, each one trying to do the work of more than two men, and so they didn't lock the door properly. With the light that shone through the gap, we could watch the clock that ticked quietly by the work bench. When it finally struck midnight, Corss leapt forward, easily breaking the arm of the rusted lock that kept us in, and we raced out into the stormy night, not knowing that it'd be the last we would ever see of that cave.
Once we got out onto the mainline, we were so keen to explore that all the plans we had made were quickly forgotten, and we all went off in our separate directions, the twins going together, the other tender engines going together and I stayed with Corss and Little Star. We rocketed down the mainline, each of us on separate rails next to each other, racing carelessly through stations and signals. We didn't care that the rain was thundering against us, we didn't care that we couldn't see the moon through the clouds or anything through the mist, we were enjoying ourselves too much.
The three of us came to a stop on a bend down the line from a signal box and a small station, resting a moment though we were giddy with excitement.
"Soul! Look out!" Corss suddenly called, and there ahead was a big engine rocketing down the line towards us, right on my track. I whistled as hard as I could, beginning to puff backwards to escape. Someone must have heard me, because the oncoming train was switched onto the fourth line, but, he was going too fast, and he came off, flat on his side by the rocky track side. In our naivety, we all went over to see if he was okay, but all the big green engine didn't want us there. We fled before anyone else saw us, but, I still remember his cries of terror, weak though they were. I'm pretty sure he died that night.
When we finally met up as a group again, the others had similar experiences, the twins spooking two little tank engines and the others ended up startling a tram engine. This time we stayed together, taking up two lines rather than three, and we puffed around until morning. It was only as the sun rose that we finally encountered another engine, shunting some trucks around in a high up yard in his own little world. However, we had never seen a diesel before, and it was Little Star whose curiosity got the better of her, puffing up alongside the diesel as he went to pick up a single truck.
"Hello?" The tank engine quietly greeted. As quiet as it was, it was just when the diesel was about to reverse with the truck, startling him, jumping forward, pushing the truck through the buffers and over the edge, and being coupled to the truck, the diesel went over with it. And none of us could do anything to stop it. I did all I could to comfort Little Star, as did Corss, but all of us were in shock. During the day, we found a place to rest, in a clearing in the middle of some dense forest, and we went out again that night, which was then the first of November. This happened for a few days, until one night, Corss came back, eyes wide and deep in thought. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me. "I found that diesel again, the one that fell down the cliff, his name is Hector." He started talking slowly, but he spoke faster as he continued. "He was with this group of engines, like he had been found, and he was talking about us. Bad things."
"What bad things?" Little Star pipped up.
"That we're all horrible engines. That if an engine sees one of us, they'll have an accident... or worse."
Even though my mind was now filled with the cries of the big green engine again, i wordlessly prompted him to continue.
"I don't know, he must have heard about the other engines. He called us "The Halloween Engines"."
I guess it must have spread quite quickly, because things changed very rapidly for us."
"Hector... I know that name, but I don't know where from..." Bo's burrow furrowed as he tried to think, but the sisters were quiet.
"He hangs around with the other diesels at the Dieselworks." Soul simply stated, remembering the encounter.
"I see. What happened to the rest of your siblings?"
"Hector and his little crew hunted us down. The twins, the others, then Corss hid Little Star to keep her safe, before defending our little shed from them, the not the one I was found in though it isn't far away."
"I saw Corss as a ghost... but why not the others?" Little Star asked, her eyelids starting to droop.
"I don't know. I guess we just haven't encountered them yet." Soul replied, watching as the various crew members threw some tarpaulin over Bo, giving him some shelter as the moon started to sink in it's arc shaped path in the sky above them.
Little Star soon fell asleep, leaving Soul and Bo to talk for a little bit.
"She sure misses Corss, huh?" Bo mused.
"Yes. I do too. He was the closest she would ever have to a father figure." Soul distantly replied.
"Even me?"
"Even you, Bo. It's like your first love, you never forget them. They leave their own mark that can't be erased."
Probably having somewhat offended him, Soul let Bo go to sleep, watching the moon shine in the sky, her mind too active with memories to sleep. She hated lying to Little Star about the rest of her siblings, but the truth would have to wait for another day.