Episode 01

Wings Above, Alien World Below

Chapter Two

Quebec, Canada

06:54 – Eastern Daylight Time

Summer, Mid 2005 - The Next Morning

Zari awoke while the child still slept. While he took the bed, she used one of the sleeping bags she had acquired from the camp where his parents had met their fates.

After getting up, she made her way over to the fireplace and moved the old rusty frame that held the tray she cooked food in front of it where it began to slowly cook the meat. She glanced over at the cooking stand she had retrieved last night. She would probably swap the old tray and stand for that, but she would do that later. Right now she would work with what she had become accustomed to.

She manipulated the meat with the long rusty tongues, making sure that both sides were equally cooked. Having meat for breakfast lunch and dinner was getting old, but she so far hadn't tested much of the local flora in fear that it was poisoned. Still, so far only one type of white berry had made her feel sick. She was hoping that soon she would have enough tried and tested berries, fruits, mushrooms and other things so that she could start to vary her diet a little more.

As the meat started to turn brown, she heard sniffles and quiet sobbing. The child was crying again. She couldn't blame him, she had cried more than a few times since being left here on this alien world. She had been quite lonely and she had yearned for some company. Only she wished it hadn't come at the expense of someone else's parents.

She pulled the frame away from the fire just far enough that it would keep warm, but not burn, before she made her way over to the bed and climbed onto it. She hugged the child tightly from behind, hoping she was able to comfort him, at least a little bit.

They both lay there for quite some time. Eventually, the sobbing stopped and he wiped his eyes.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked him, again hoping she was speaking in a legible language.

He shook his head. "No," he said in a small, almost inaudible voice.

"I lost my parents too," she told him, closing her eyes. She didn't want to really think about them being dead, it was too painful. But she had to be strong for him. "I miss them."

The kid turned around in her arms and hugged her right back. A wan smile crossed her face. She hadn't realised just how much she needed a friend until now.

She couldn't help herself. The emotions she felt were so overwhelming that she began to cry. She missed her family so much. But at the very least, both she and the human could miss their family together.

"What's your name?" she asked him, trying to wipe away her tears.

"Danny," he muttered between his own sobs.

"My name is Zari," she told him. "And I'm going to do everything I can to keep you safe."

Evening

Autumn, Late 2005

Zari landed by the cabin with her kill, a dead boar firmly in her grasp. She went inside, finding Danny, the young human child, sat by the window. As what was always his reaction, he looked at the dead animal with an almost disgusted look. At least he didn't complain about it anymore.

Zari hung it up on the rack near the fireplace. She would cook it tomorrow. Right now she just wanted to sit and rest. With the cooling of the weather, she knew that her second winter on this world was well on its way. This would mean food sources would become more scarce, which was a problem as this time she had a second mouth she would need to feed.

The only good thing was that this time, she had some proper shelter that would protect her, well both of them from the worst of the weather.

Still, it would no doubt be cold.

Another good thing was the large pot she had found while looking through cupboards and locked chests. Putting it over the fire with water, she could make a broth or stew that she could keep on heat and fill up throughout the winter. This should mean they had a steady supply of food, but as with all plans, she knew she couldn't get her hopes up too high.

Speaking of food, Danny tended to be a little picky. She often had to coax or even force him to eat sometimes. He was definitely getting better, but sometimes it could be a chore.

The Thanagarian sat down next to him and looked out of the window. "What are you looking at?" she asked him.

"Nothing," he muttered.

She looked at him and noticed the look in his eyes. He was thinking about his parents. He did it often and it tore her up inside as she knew exactly what he was going through. She knew that she at least had been older, more mature, but he was only nine Earth years old.

She rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I miss my parents too," she said.

"It's not fair," he said, his eyes unmoving from the window.

"No. But we have to push on. They would want you to be happy, not sad."

He hugged himself, wrapping his arms around his chest. "I just wanna go home."

"I don't know where that is, or how to get there," she explained again as she had done several times to him prior.

Danny just sat there and continued to stare. Knowing she wouldn't get anything out of him for the rest of the night, she decided to sit there with him. It was the only comfort she could really offer.

Morning

Winter, Early 2006

Winter had come and while it was still very cold, the cabin protected them both from the wet and the wind. It didn't stop Danny from complaining though.

The two of them spent most of their time sat by the fire, the constant smell of the stew had almost become invisible to them as it simmered away from the heat.

That morning was a particularly cold day. Snow was falling from the sky and Danny kept asking about some mystical figure known as "Santa". She wasn't sure who this person was, but by the sounds of it, he was some kind of divine being which was worshipped at this time of year in exchange for gifts.

To Zari this sounded a little backwards. Usually, gods wanted both worship and gifts, not worship in exchange for them and by the way he was speaking it sounded like this magical devine being would be coming soon to give him a present.

Of course, unless this person was real; which Zari suspected he wasn't, Danny would be very disappointed, or perhaps even upset if he didn't get anything. The problem was she didn't have the means to get him some gift nor did she even know what day it was on. December twenty-fifth meant nothing to her and she didn't know if they had already gone past that date or not, though she suspected they had.

Zari had ultimately decided not to bring it up or talk about it. She hoped he would forget about it, though she had this feeling that he wouldn't. It was unfortunate, but there was nothing she could really do about it.

The Thanagarian stood up and looked into the pot. Which Danny said looked like a witch's cauldron. The water level, which was constantly falling because of the steam, was starting to get a little low for her liking.

She grabbed another large pot and the towel off of the mantelpiece and headed outside into the freezing cold and down to the river. With the towel firmly over the top of the pot, she dipped it into the ice cold river, the towel acting as a filter. She then heaved the heavy pot back to the cabin, where she removed the towel then topped up the cauldron.

She then sat back down, the pot still half full of river water, which she would use to top up the stew again in a few hours.

Finding this cabin had been the best thing to happen to her, to both of them really. It offered protection from the hostile weather outside. It was lucky that she was able to bring Danny straight here after he had lost his parents. She doubted he would have been able to handle living outside in the turgid cold He complained enough as it was and they had a roof over their heads.

Despite the complaints, the two of them were doing very well, at least in her opinion. They always had food and water and they had a place to sleep that was out of the elements.

"I'm bored."

The sudden declaration from Danny took Zari by surprise. He turned away from the window where he was sat beside and looked at her.

"I know it's boring in here, but it's too cold to go outside," Zari told him. "So we're going to have to remain in here for the time being."

He began to kick his feet. "But I'm bored."

"Sorry, there's nothing I can do about that," she told him. "We don't have proper clothing for the cold. It's best that we only go outside when we absolutely have to."

Danny hunched over in the chair and rested his chin in his hands. He looked absolutely miserable.

Zari sat there for a few minutes in silence, simply waiting out the day. There wasn't much else they could do and the truth was that she was bored as well. To be stuck in here most of the day with nothing to entertain them was mind-numbing.

Danny suddenly spoke again, "I wanna play a game."

She looked to him. "What game would you like to play?" she asked, somewhat intrigued as to how human children passed the time.

He shrugged. "I dunno."

She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. She was going to ask what he used to play at home but decided against it. She didn't like reminding him of his parents and what he had lost. It was something she herself didn't like to be reminded of.

Back home, before the war had come to her colony world, life had been simple. She and her mother had been farmers. They had supported the war effort with supplies of food, while her father had been away fighting in it. She didn't want to think about what he might have experienced, or his eventual demise.

Not wanting to think about it anymore she put all her focus back into Danny's suggestion. "What games do you know?"

"I dunno, I-spy."

That was an odd name for a children's game Zari thought. "What is that about?"

"You don't know I-spy?" he asked in shock.

"I'm from another planet," she reminded him. "Is I-spy a game that two people can play?"

"Yeah, and it's real simple. You see something that you can see and you give the first letter."

She wasn't sure at all how that was a game, or even if she really understood what it was he had just said.

"I'll go first," he said. "I-spy with my little eye something beginning with W."

Zari glanced around. "Wood?" she asked.

He nodded. "That's right."

"So the aim of the game is to guess something simple and obvious?"

"No," he said shaking his head in an animated manner.

"So you made it something obvious for my benefit, so I would know how the game worked?"

He nodded in an equally animated manner.

"I believe I understand the game. In that case, I suppose it's my turn?"

"Yeah."

She looked around the room, wondering what object she could use in the guessing game. There wasn't really that much in here. The bed was too obvious, so was window, floor, roof and tree, which she could see plenty of out of the window, as well as a lot of snow.

She supposed it was something she could actually see, so atoms, protons and electrons were out of the question. She then wondered if these humans knew about such things? Or what level their education was at?

After a moment, she decided she had her word. "I-spy with my big eye-"

"No, nono," Danny interrupted, objecting to something that she was currently unaware of. "It's little eye, not big."

"But I don't have little eyes," she pointed out.

"It doesn't matter, it's the rules of the game."

"That I have to say little eye?"

"Yes."

"Do spies on this planet all have small shifty eyes or something?"

"No," he said. "It's just the rules of the game!"

"Okay, okay," she said, a small wry smile spreading across her face. She was rather enjoying herself. "I-spy with the little of my big eye."

"Nonono," he objected again. "It's I-spy with my little eye."

She grinned. She was definitely having fun. "Okay, I-spy with my little eye, something beginning with F."

Danny began to look around the room to see if he could find anything beginning with F.

"Fire," he said.

Zari shook her head. "No, it's not fire."

"Floor?"

"No, it's not floor either."

"Frame?"

"Nope."

He continued to look around. After a few minutes of guessing and failing, a deep frown began to cross his face as he grew more and more frustrated. In truth she wasn't sure what she had chosen was actually allowed or not. She would find out if he guessed it, or by the way he was going if he didn't.

Eventually, he gave up. "I dunno what it is," he said.

"You want me to tell you?"

He shrugged.

"Okay, I'll tell you. I was thinking of feather.

He looked around the room, then out of the window. He then looked back at her. "It has to be something you can see."

She spread her wings slightly. "Feather," she repeated.

"That's cheating!" he shouted.

"Is it?" she asked. "You want me to try again?"

He folded his arms in a huff. "No, I hate this game."

"Don't be like that," she said, hoping he wasn't going to start moping. "I didn't know it was cheating. I thought it could be anything I could see."

"You can't see your wings."

"Of course I can," she said, moving them to cover the front of her body. "I can definitely see them."

"Still cheating."

"Fine, let's play another game instead," she said.

"Like what?"

"I have no idea," she admitted. "Any other Earth games we can play without going outside?"

"They're all boring."

"There must be something."

"What about Fangrian games?" Danny asked her. "Don't you have games?"

"It's Thanagarian, and no, all our games revolve around physical activities."

"All of them?"

"Well there is 'Guess the Hero' but I don't think that will be a very good game since I don't know your planet's heroes and you don't know any Thanagarian heroes."

"I wanna hear about your heroes," Danny demanded.

"You want to hear about the heroes of my people?"

He nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay, let me think." Zari had been put on the spot and now she had to think of an interesting tale of one of their heroes that wasn't too graphic for him.

She decided to pick one that she had liked as a child. "Centuries ago," she began, "before our people had first ventured out to the stars there was this great warrior known as Dregnar. He lived in the northern provinces, which was at war with a terrible empire from the south. This empire sought to control and dominate the entire world at the command of a powerful dictator."

"Was he mean?" Danny asked her.

"Of course. He was cruel and he didn't just want to take over the world, but he also wanted to subjugate the Thanagarian people and control them as though he were a god."

"Sounds evil."

"He was," Zari confirmed. "This dictator also had a very beautiful daughter called Levilen, who aspired to be a great warrior. The dictator; not caring for his daughter's honour, had her fast-tracked through training and had his generals lie about her prowess on the battlefield. Instead of being allowed to fight, she was coddled and hidden away."

"So she didn't fight?"

"Eventually, but not until the great battle of the 'Great Divide'. This battle played out on the southern shore of a northern province known as Xedemor. The great warrior Dregnar was at this battle and he slayed many of the evil empire's soldiers.

"Eventually during a rather intense fight," she continued, "Dregnar found himself clashing swords with Levilen. He found her beauty captivating and found it difficult to slay her, despite the fact that he was many times more skilled than she was."

Zari smiled wistfully. This had been one of her favourite stories growing up, one she asked her mother to tell her time and time again. She was glad she was being given the chance to pass it on.

"What happened?" Danny asked her.

"Dregnar was able to defeat her, but was unable to kill her. Instead he tied her up and took her prisoner. This decision was wise beyond what he knew, as he had no idea that she was the daughter of the evil dictator."

"Why do you call him the dictator. Doesn't he have a name?"

Zari shook her head. "His name was forever stricken from history. Punishment for his misdeeds. Anyway, back to the story. On their journey back, Dregnar tried to speak to her. She spat in his face, so they gagged her, ending discourse for the time being.

"Dregnar who had been told about life in the empire and how terrible it was, decided to show her around one of the farming villages that fed the troops who defended the land.

Luckily for Dregnar, Levilen had seen the state of the farms in her father's empire. They were little more than slaves, forced into hard labour that almost killed them on a daily basis. Up there in the northern provinces, they were treated with respect as they were responsible for the health of the great army.

"Levilen, as with many others of the empire had been told that it was the northern province that was evil, that sought to take over the whole world. As he showed her the sheer difference between the terrible south and the north. Only the evil generals and those with power knew the truth in the south. But the poor were expendable as they fought to bring them more wealth and riches from across the seas."

"Did she become good?"

"Not right away. It took time. However, her conversion to goodness took a hit when it was discovered who she was. The rulers of the northern provinces realised that she was a powerful asset, however, they used it poorly at first, threatening her life if the evil dictator didn't withdraw and cease his attacks.

"Fortunately, Dregnar was very influential due to his status and he convinced them that she would be a far greater asset as an ally. This was only cemented when it was proven that the evil dictator cared far more for his own power and wealth than the safety of his own daughter.

"As it was Dregnar who had pleaded for Levilen, they put her under his care. He then trained her to be a true warrior, one that was not coddled and had fake victories trumped up, but was fierce and had true victories over her opponents. Though now her opponents were her former countymen, the people from the south.

"Knowing how they were being lied to and deceived, Levilen did not waste time. She killed them quickly as to not draw out their pain.

"After a time, she realised some of them might even be saved, but only a few. She pleaded with Dregnar who was hesitant at first, but eventually agreed that when there were only a few of them left on the battlefield, they would take them prisoner. They did this as it would be too risky to try and take too many."

"Did they become good?"

"Some were convinced, but others were not."

"What happened to those that didn't?"

Zari hesitated to answer. "They were put in prison," she lied. "As they were a danger."

In truth, they were executed, but from the knowledge that she had gained from the Absorbascon, while not much, was enough for her to know that human children seemed far more sensitive than Thanagarian children.

"What happened next?"

"Eventually, the northern provinces were able to attack the great southern city itself. It was a long battle where many fell, but eventually, the grand palace was taken."

"What happened to the evil dictator?"

"He was punished."

"How was he punished?"

"He was sent far away, never to be seen again, along with his generals and the evil nobles."

"Where were they sent?"

"No one knows where they ended up. Perhaps with Icthultu itself."

"Who's that?"

"Nobody of importance."

"What happened to the heroes?"

Dregnar and Levilen were wed and became the rulers of the southern empire, turning it into a province of the great alliance."

"Did they live happily-ever-after?"

"Yes," she said. "You could say they did."

Danny smiled. "I liked that story. Do you have more?"

"I have lots more," she told him.

She began to tell another story and Danny sat there in silence and listened.

Updated January 2018