Apriltober 2022 02 Arctic

a/n: Team Elma starts the daring exploration of whatever is north of Cauldros. Lin is disgruntled.

Short.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.

"Okay, got that team? 16 hours to fuel refill, 20 hours to turn back. Repeat." Three voices dutifully repeated the instructions. "Lin, stick with Doug's skell..."

"Yeah, I know, I know. I've got the extra fuel he needs because you wouldn't let me pilot that sweet, sweet Ares instead of him."

A rumble over the comms, presumably from Doug, and Elma's response, "We've been over this. You're our best tank, not just on the ground. So, ready?"

Another chorus of agreement, if a little subdued from Lin. The fact, all of them were tense. They were about to cross the invisible line north of Cauldros that marked the furthest skells had explored on the planet. To fly farther from the shore meant that a normal skell couldn't return without running out of fuel. Their skells had been adapted for extreme long flight; Lin's skell was loaded with extra reserves for the hotter-firing skells.

"I bet they don't trust me with the new Ares," Lin grumbled to her co-pilot.

Tatsu kept his counsel to himself. He wasn't much use in the skell, and he didn't want to aggravate the pilot. To be honest, he wasn't much use on the ground, but he was a good companion.

A split second later, best intentions forgotten, he said, "Elma want Team Tatsu have best chance to get home."

"No way," Lin said as grimly as her 13-year-old frame could manage. "I am NOT leaving them behind and running if things go bad. We stick together."

"Running away acceptable strategy," Tatsu offered.

"Only if you do it as a team. Besides, we won't need to run." Lin adjusted the altitude level by an imperceptible amount, nodded with satisfaction, and continued the discussion. "We're going to see if this planet has anything besides warm, wet, dry, dusty, and really really hot."

"What so big deal about cold? Tatsu sat in refrigerator once because told to, would not recommend."

"Do not sit in the fridge again, Tatsu! We had to throw out all that food that got ruined."

"Tatsu suffered terrible."

"That too. Not even I was ever that mean about pranks, although I won't say I wouldn't have tried it if I had thought about it first."

"Linly so mean!"

"Don't distract me," she said, eyes fixed on the skell in front of her. "We're too big to draft," she said mostly to herself, "but maybe I can help cut the turbulence..." Another adjustment, just to the edge of the wake of Doug's skell.

"Nice one," grunted Doug over the comms.

"You're welcome," she said smugly. "See, Tatsu, together we're better than alone."

"Will Team Tatsu find Cold Land?"

"That's just it: we don't know. We're still not sure how sunlight and nighttime work on this planet. If it's like Earth, then sure, go far enough north and it'll get colder. Or south. But here? No idea."

"Tatsu have no idea either. Nopon only know water and more water that holds us all. Even best sailors have no icy stories."

"Nopon tend to sink in anything deeper than their waists, Tatsu." Lin kindly did not mention that waists were strictly theoretical for Nopon.

"Lack of buoyancy not prevent exploration."

"And lack of knowing what we'll find isn't going to stop us, right?"

"Tatsu agree!"

a/n: Concept art for X has a northern continent, and other fans have done brilliant work developing all the mysteries there, mmm so good.

Next up: Trial. (My prompt list is from Writers Write, by Mia Botha. All my gratitude. That said, drop me a dare or a prompt, pretty please, and see what happens.)