Rick opens his eyes. The rain is pouring on his rusted and damaged body. It is dark, somewhere around midnight, and it is storming fiercely. The Furness K2 is barely recognizable: he is laying on his side, his boiler is almost completely gone and he is covered in rust. The old engine frowns confused. 'What woke me up?' he asks himself. Suddenly he realises that there is something warm in his cab. 'Who is there?' he asks. A high pitched yelp is heard. 'H-Hello?!' the voice of a young girl stammers. 'where are you?' Rick chuckles despite the sudden pain in his wheels. 'I am the engine you are finding shelter in right now.' She is silent for a moment. 'Engines don't talk.' She says confused. 'Although grandpa told me about the Magical Quadruplets.' They stay silent for a while. 'Are you one of the Magical Quadruplets?' Rick sighs. 'I am, but I haven't seen my siblings in years.' 'How long have you been here?' the girl asks concerned and the engine can feel a small hand gently rest on his regulator. 'What year is it?' 'It is 2013.' Rick groans. 'I have been here for 83 years then.' he states. He hears a gasp coming from the girl, followed by a gentle pat on his regulator. 'I am sorry. My name is Nore, by the way. It is nice to meet you.' 'The name is Rick, the pleasure is all mine dear.' The two enjoy a comfortable silence for a while, until the engine notices that the girl has fallen asleep against his firebox door. He smiles slightly, remembering the "good old times", and falls asleep himself.
Nore opens her eyes and looks around sleepily. She is resting against the floor of the cab of an old and damaged engine. She slowly gets up and she winces in pain when she puts a bit of her weight on her left leg. She softly puts pressure on her leg with the tip of her fingers. She sighs. 'I guess that my leg broke when I rolled down the hill.' she thinks to herself. She slowly limps out of the cab and looks through the trees at the sky. The morning sun shines warmly onto the little open space between the trees. Droplets of water fall from the leaves, the only remnants of the storm from last night, together with some fallen branches. Nore slowly limps to what seems to be the front of the engine. She had realised that Rick was very damaged, but only now she can see just how damaged the engine actually was taken through the years. He has fallen onto his side, and dozens of twisted metal pipes stick out of the ground. She looks at his boiler, or, where his boiler would have been. 'Poor engine.' Nore mutters to herself. She reaches the twisted remains of the funnel and looks at the front of the smokebox. There, just like in all her grandfather's stories, is a large, dirty grey face, with several lighter dots specked on his face. Nore carefully climbs down towards the face while looking around. She can see a wooden pole that was once a signal, the old and rusted tracks and the remains of a signal box. She notices that Rick toppled over into what was once a ditch. She puts her hand on his cheeks and feels mildly cold metal under her fingers. Under her touch, his face becomes softer and warmer.
Rick opens his eyes with a warm feeling on his cheek. In front of him stands a girl with black hair and blue eyes, about nine or ten years old. Her hand is resting softly on his cheek. 'Morning.' he says and Nore pulls her hand back, seemingly startled. 'G-good morning.' she stammers. Rick smiles at her. 'Did you sleep well?' he asks her. 'Yes, thank you. How did you sleep?' 'As good as I can in this condition.' Nore carefully sits down. It is only then that the old engine notices that her left leg is positioned in a weird angle. 'Are you okay?' he asks, motioning with his eyes to her leg. 'Yeah, this is going to be a problem. I think I broke my leg when I rolled down the hill.' she says with a sigh. 'What were you doing here in the first place?' Rick asks curious. 'I went to take a stroll through the woods and went down a path I hadn't gone down before. The path led me here.' Nore sighs. 'I bet Hanne is freaking out right now. She is my twin sister.' Rick chuckles. 'I understand what you mean. I haven't seen Norm, Melody and Romy in decades, but there doesn't go a day by where I don't worry about them.' Nore puts her hand back on his cheek. 'You must miss them a lot.' Rick closes his dark blue eyes, enjoying the touch. 'Yes , I do.' They sit there for a while, simply enjoying each others company. 'Do you hear that?' Rick asks after about half am hour. 'No, what do you hear?' The engine concentrates on the sounds he is hearing. 'Some people are shouting something.' Suddenly his eyes go wide open. 'They are searching for you, I believe.' he says. 'Really!? Grandma! Grandpa! Hanne!' Nore screams hopefully. Suddenly, a loud whistling sound comes from behind her. She turns around fast, startled, and sees steam coming out of Rick's twisted whistle. 'What?!' she stutters when the sound has stopped. Rick chuckles slightly, before starting to cough. 'I am a magical engine, remember. Having no steam doesn't mean I can't use my whistle, it only means I can't move.' he says when he stops coughing.
'Nore, where are you!?' Hanne yells, tears streaming down her cheeks. There is a bandage covering her left eye. Her grandmother pats her head. 'Don't worry, we will find her.' Suddenly, a loud whistle rips through the air. 'Nore!' Hanne yells as she starts running into the direction the sound came from. 'Hanne, wait!'
Melody groans. 'Will you to stop!' she snaps at Romy and Norm. The two engines finally stop their argument, ashamed. 'You two are so childish some times.' Melody says. Suddenly, a loud whistle rips through the air. A familiar whistle. 'Was that Rick?' Melody asks the other two hopeful. 'It sounded like him' Norm says in a grim tone, imagining the pain whistling must cause his younger brother.
Rick groans from the pain. 'Are you alright?! You shouldn't have done that if it causes you so much pain!' Nore starts to panic. 'H-hey, calm down, little one. I've had worse.' Rick does his best to calm the girl down, ignoring the pain all over his body. 'Nore!' A girl, almost identical to Nore, runs towards them and she embraces the girl. 'Where were you!? You have no idea how worried I was!' The two girls start to cry, holding each other tighter. An old man and woman emerge from the bushes and they embrace the girls the moment they see them. Rick feels a pinch of jealousy watching this emotional family reunion. 'It has been so long Edward and Edith. Will we ever return to working conditions?' he mutters to himself. Nore seems to have heard it, because she lets go of her family and turns to the old engine. 'Of course you will. I'll make sure it will happen!' she says confidently. She hops towards his face and puts her cheek onto his cheek. He gives a content sigh, memories running back into the front of his mind from the back of his smokebox, making him tear up. Nore looks him in the eyes. 'When you are in running condition again, will you promise me I can become your driver?' Rick chuckles. 'Of course.' he says. Hanne steps forward, putting up a brave face in spite of being clearly scared. 'If Nore will become your driver, can I become your fireman? We twins should stay together.' Rick smiles sweetly. 'Of course you can. I promise you, if I return to working order, you two will become my crew.' Nore shakes her head. 'Not if, when.'
Several years have passed since then. Hanne and Nore met Norm, Melody and Romy shortly after Nore's leg was healed. The twins followed many leads the engines gave them to get into contact with the Obbeeys Railway, the railway the four engines came from, but they didn't have much luck. What was worse was that, despite his stubborn attitude and him telling them that he was fine, Rick's health was getting worse with every day that passed. Nore eventually became so desperate she sent a letter to queen Elisabeth. And to their surprise, on Christmas eve 2017, her majesty herself stood in front of their door.
'Y-your majesty!?' Nore exclaims shocked. The queen motions for her to quiet down. 'There is no need for formalities dear. You told me about those four engines in your letter. Can you bring me to them?'
Rick shivers. The cold wind blows softly against his face. Fortunately, Hanne and Nore build some kind of roof over him so he is almost completely clear of snow. 'Good evening Rick.' Hanne's voice comes from somewhere behind him. 'Good evening to you to Hanne. What are you doing here at this time?' He hears, to his surprise, five pairs of feet walking through the snow coming towards him. 'Someone came to see you.' Nore says. An elderly woman walks into his view. 'Good evening Rick. I am queen Elisabeth II, it is a pleasure to meet you.' Rick is silent for a moment, processing this information. 'The pleasure is all mine, your majesty.' The old woman smiles. 'I've met your siblings already. I will get a team together to load the four of you onto flatbeds so we can send you back to Freayltys.' Tears appear in the corners of Rick's eyes. 'Thank you! You can't imagine how much this means to me!'
It is the 31th of December 2017. A special train turns of the mainline in the In-Furness region and enters a rundown and abandoned branchline. 'Do you know why we are here?' Théodore Galopin, a middle-aged guard asks his superior, Abby Fearghus, a young woman from Irish origin. 'The queen send us here to pick up four steam engines. She said that this is a very important job, so we can't mess up.'
Half an hour later the train begins to slow down. 'Why are we stopping?' Théodore asks. 'I don't know.' Abby stands up. 'I'll go check it out, you guys stay here.' she orders.
Hanne and Nore smile at each other when they see a young woman climb out of the work coach of the train. 'Good morning, you must be Abby Fearghus. I am Nore Hill and this is my twin sister Hanne.' Abby shakes Nore's extended hand. 'It's is nice to meet you. If I may ask, where are the engines?' Hanne points to the dried up ditch beside the tracks. Abby gasps when she sees the big, grey face that takes up the place where the smokebox door should have been. Rick smiles weakly at her. 'H-how did the engine get there?' she stammers, shocked. 'He got hit by a bomb in 1943. It fell right on his boiler too, the poor engine. Somehow, the tracks didn't get damaged from the explosion.' Hanne explains. 'Are the other engines in better shape or…?' 'They are in a way better state.' Nore sighs. 'Can you prepare your crew to work with these non-faceless engines?' Abby nods.
'Alright guys, this is going to be an unusual job. We have three engines further down the line who are upright on the rails. The fourth engine is heavily damaged and partly buried. We need to be extra careful, because these engines are alive, somehow.' The workmen start to mumble among themselves. 'Théodore, you and your team are going to dig this engine out, the rest comes with me to load the other three engines onto the flatbeds.'
A couple of hours later Abby returns to the place Rick is located with the works train. Melody, Norm and Romy are loaded on top of the flatbeds. They look horrified when they see their brother in his state. The workmen have freed Rick almost completely. Pipes emerge from the place his boiler once sat and they shoot into all directions. His cab is dented, his firebox has a huge hole in it and his wheels are twisted. Théodore secures the last chain they have put around the engine. 'Do you think we can load him onto the flatbed?' Abby asks him. 'He is structurally in surprising good condition.' Théodore sighs. 'He was barely conscious most of the time and I don't think that is a good sign.' Abby nods. 'Alright men, it is time to get this engine onto a flatbed.' The workmen put the chains onto the hook of the crane and get ready to raise the engine into the air. The crane starts to pull and after a couple of seconds the chains are pulled straight. Rick slowly gets lifted off of the ground. Suddenly, without a warning, Rick's eyes fly open and he starts to scream a bone chilling scream.
Hanne and Nore turn pale when they hear Rick screaming. 'It will be alright dears. He will be alright.' their grandmother reassures them. Tears start to flow over their cheeks. 'We don't like seeing him in pain!' the twins say in unison.
Three years later….