Lalalala...reviews? =]
NB: If you're wanting some timescale to this, you'll probably pick up the hints in this chapter...but yeah, I'm assuming that Starling was in Cyclonia for quite a few years before she helped the Storm Hawks, seeing as how she got herself all trusted with a high position, or sommat like that. Anyhow!
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Starling had impressed upon Weaver the absolute vitality of knowing as much as she could about everything. Often with the back of her hand. The days of Cyclonia = evil, Atmos = good, and damn the rest, were well gone, suppressed beneath intricate layers of politics. Research was what made a back-story convincing, what allowed her to slip in tiny details that made her lies sound more like the truth than the truth did. So when Weaver was assigned a mission, she had researched it thoroughly.
...That was a new experience, trying to decide her own missions. How did Starling come up with plans? How did she know where the Cyclonians were, and what could be done about them? Weaver had been...lost. Without the firm voice of her Sky Knight, informing her of exactly what they were doing and why, she didn't function. So for three years, she had trained, like Starling was still there. Slowly she had started to hate it. She wasn't achieving anything. It'd be more worth her time if she just went back to Terra Tarlk. Surely they'd have forgotten the...incident, by now.
No. Nuh-huh.
Starling was in Cyclonia. And Weaver wasn't going to crawl back to her tavern, however much she loved the damned place, and pretend like nothing had happened. She'd just have to figure something out.
...The Sky Council...
Heck, she was living on Terra Atmosia. She hadn't even gone nearthe Sky Council. They had been way out of her league. She wasn't a Sky Knight...she wasn't even in a squadron. But Starling had trained her so that she could do something! That had to be enough. And it wasn't like she'd been in quarantine during that Storm Hawks debacle...there probably wasn't a person on Atmosia who'd missed that! They were kids...she had to try.
They'd looked down their long, venerable noses at her. Opened a book. Their words fell as heavily as their tomes. They'd never been exactly welcoming, but since the Aurora crystal was destroyed...
"Well, we will try to find some suitable mission for you, miss...ah, Weaver. But we can't promise, you understand. And, ah, how old are you, my dear?"
"Nineteen," hissed Weaver through clenched teeth. Just because she'd hit fifteen and ceased all skyward growth.
"Ah, not quite old enough then..." The one with the glasses ran silvery eyes down the pages of a book. It was old, a burnished yellow colour, and covered in a neat, scritchy hand.
"Old enough for what?"
"Ah, the Sky Knight Starling left a ledger here for us...very basic, just requested us to ask you if you wished to enrol as a Sky Knight when you were twenty...there were requirements, but quite illegible, practically a scrawl, you understand, so we were forced to discard those."
Weaver stood stock still for a moment. Her mouth was coated with a bitter taste. "Not instructions to enrol me as an Interceptor?"
"No, dear, as a Sky Knight, with your own squadron, and crest, and what not," he said, then trailed off into a mutter, "funny, a lot of very young people turning up to enrol...younger than you..."
"Uh, sir...what about that mission?"
"Ah, right, right. Well there has been a lot of Cyclonian activity around Terra Saharr...nothing too threatening...believed to be some kind of mining activity. All it requires is reconnaissance...perhaps sabotage, if the risk is not high..."
The way the sentences trailed off irritated Weaver. Sentences should finish, with a definite!
"Right you are sir! I'll just go do that then!"
She could almost sense their thoughts as she walk out, stirring the dust, 'how impatient...'
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Everything on this rain-forsaken terra sizzled. The sky, completely bereft of even the wispiest trace of clouds, was an arching blue so bright it hurt to look at. High at its peak, the sun wallowed in a white-golden haze, saturating the terra with pulses of hot, dry light. Weaver could hardly believe there was anything alive between where she crouched and the huge, orange expanse to the edge of the terra; and yet insects thrummed constantly, a sharp, droning buzz. Even the air tasted dusty and warm.
Terra Saharr. It was nothing like Terra Tarlk; the whispering, grassy marshes and cool, shadowed pines seemed somewhat like a fantasy in the fierce, golden glare of the terra. Nothing like the ordered, beautiful city of Terra Atmosia, either. Here the landscape rose and fell and twisted in a frenzy, like a wild creature. A hostile, angry creature. Home to the Atmos' most renowned bazaar, a chaotic affair of tents and absolutely anything imaginable for sale. Home of the Atmos Great Race, and suspected Cyclonian activity... and the Third Degree Burners...who were missing. Far too coincidental.
Voices drifted up on the sandpaper breeze. They carried far in this type of terrain, and echoed eerily off the twisted stones that loomed over the craggy land. It looked like the ground stretched on flatly to the horizon...but there was no one between Weaver and the blue sky to have spoken. Unless...The girl flattened herself to the ground and clambered through the dirt, spreading her fingers out in front of her. The soil was gritty and bone dry, littered with larger rocks and...ah, yes. The edge of a precipice, hidden because the crimson soil here blended with the crimson soil on the other side of the crater.
The edge dropped away sharply. Terraces had been cut into the parched ground, and dark, gaping holes marked the entrances to mine shafts. Lean-to tents provided shelter and a canvass shaded a score of Talon marked skimmers. Carts on rails stood dormant, sparkling with shards of crystals. It would have seemed deserted, were it not for the sounds of shouting from the lean-tos.
"Huh, somebody's not happy. Well, shortest way down it is!"
Weaver sidled her legs over the edge, took a breath and- plunged down, limbs pulled in tightly and eyes squeezed shut. Her brain rattled in her skull and she could feel herself being jolted and spun down the slope. Then she opened her eyes giddily. And giggled. Too easy. Now she just had to –whoa, wait for the world to stop lurching- and then hide behind that cart.
Weaver ran her fingers over the crystal in her belt pouch. Sharp angles, pale blue in colour, a Geyser Crystal. It came with a guarantee and a wide smile from a short, wide crystal merchant that it would produce one big bang. Not refined, of course, but that didn't exactly matter if she was just...destroying stuff. And no, she wasn't going to tell him what she was destroying.
Weaver grinned, flashed the crystal a lightning wink, and tossed it into the cart. Clambering to her feet with a groan, she glanced at the cart, and settled on a lever. With another grin she yanked it- and was rewarded with an ear-splitting screeeeeeeeaaaaaarrchchchch thunk rumble. The cart rocked for a moment, then shuddered down the rails, disappearing into the maw of one of the mineshafts. She had about five minutes before the crystal destabilized. She slipped her hand into her belt pouch, fishing for a tiny stone. Weaver held the little frost crystal between her thumb and pointer. Light flashed off the sides, half obscuring the running figures she could see through the pale crystal.
Oh. Darn.
Weaver flicked the crystal back into the pouch and turned as nonchalantly on her heel as possible. Her heart beat against the inside of her ribcage. How stupid, not to realise that the screech would alert the Talons. Act normal, breathe, think of something to say! It was only a matter of time before-
"Hey, you! STOP!"
Weaver could imagine the Cyclonian with his crystal spear and one hand out in front. It could go two ways from here; she could run, try and clamber up the cliff face and to her skimmer before they caught up, or she could turn and...lie.
"Hey mate." The drawl was thick on her tongue as she turned. The Talon, a skinny bloke in all the regalia, had levelled his crystal spear with her head. "Just checkin' out your crystal mine...pretty impressive, you Cyclonian fellas." She had about three minutes before that crystal went ka-boom.
"This is restricted territory!" The Talon seemed fazed by her easy stance. Normally people acted scared, or fought, or well, ran away.
"Oh is it? Sorry mate, I'll just be on my way then," Weaver turned so rapidly that her words dragged in the air. The Talon's momentary confusion gave her that tiny gap she needed to frantically search the cliff for an escape route. There, straight ahead, a tiny path barely wider than her foot cut a zigzag in the rock.
She was running, head down and feet pounding frantically. The ground here was soft dust that slipped under each step. They hadn't started firing yet but that was probably down to shock.
"Huh"- something solid slammed across her neck, forcing the air out of her lungs. She stumbled, then an iron grip shackled her wrist and threw her against the cliff face. There was, unmistakably, the cold feeling of metal at her throat. She wasn't keen to open her eyes.
"Well well. A Sky Knight," a rough voice, edged with sharp venom. The grip on her wrist tightened, crushing the bones together. Weaver gasped and opened her eyes.
A red glare, brimming with loathing on the surface. But the deeper thoughts simmering behind the eyes were hidden.
"Not a Sky Knight," she whispered, feeling the blade tickle her skin. Two minutes...
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Wah wah wah waaaaaah!
So anyhow, if'n you didn't pick it up, she went and asked the Sky Council for a mission just after the Storm Hawks destroyed the Aurora Stone :3
Hopes you like it so far!