All was silent except for the distant boom of thunder.
And Kowalski realized what he had overlooked.
The sky was pitch black; he couldn't see a foot in front of him. "Skipper?"
Rain was the sky's response to Kowalski's cry. It was coming down hard.
The raindrops were fat and heavy, propelled forward by the wind. A wave crashed into the yacht and rocked it violently. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flipper pull the hatch to the underside of the boat shut.
"No! Open the hatch!"
He tried to scream louder, and he could have sworn that something was pushing against the hatch, trying to get it open. Sadly, the wind was too strong for just two penguins to push open a human-sized trapdoor.
He groped for a hold- he needed to brace himself against something- and he felt the wind whistling past his streamlined body. His flippers slid against the boat and he yelled again, this time recieving a mouthful of seawater as another wave attacked their boat, flipping it sideways.
Darkness. An odd quiet. The absence of all light, of all sound, of all calm. It was best compared to a vaccum- devoid of air and any sort of movement. It was the type of place that caused one to abandon all logic and reason, to resort to inclination and make rash descisions.
It was how he imagined space would feel, without the confines of a space suit.
Kowalski squeezed his eyes shut and writhed in the water, trying to get to the surface.
As his lungs burned, he thrashed more desperately.
Instinct got the better of him and he sucked in a beakful of water.
He flailed his flippers in a desperate attempt to swim, to get air, to survive. But the churning waters ensured that he would never make it.
There was a pressure building in his lower back. Then, it spread to his chest, and he felt as if he was being crushed.
Then everything was a quite pleasant shade of purple.
The abrupt change made him feel oddly relaxed. He had not imagined for a second that this was how drowning would feel.
Could penguins even drown? He laughed, and then realized he could breathe. There was air.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but his two-faced desires assume a manifestation before him. He wasn't even sure what they were supposed to be. He wasn't even sure how he had survived. He was a penguin, thus his instinct would always be to swim, he guessed.
He laughed again, in the face of his desire. Then the purple was gone and he was in space. Except all the stars were gone.
"Can you remind me again why the sky is blue?" Private asked him.
"There's a theory that each individual on this earth sees colors differently. So the sky may be the blue you call blue, but my blue may be a whole different blue. It may even be your green."
"That doesn't make any sense, K'walski," he said, in that accusatory tone that sounded almost exactly like Skipper's.
"Well, maybe if we all switched eyes for a day, you'd know what I mean," he grumbled abashedly.
"That's not what I meant. I mean, does it depend on your eye color?"
"There's no real proof yet," he muttered quickly. "But it may be that our optical nerves and maybe even our nerve cells in general are genetially varied. We haven't had a chance to study all manifestations of DNA just yet." .
"So... It's like being colorblind?" Private asked.
"Almost." He smiled as Private waddled off, his tiny attention span just consumed by a butterfly that had landed on the fencing of their habitat.
"Almost like being colorblind," he mused to himself later that day. "That's an odd way of looking at it."
"But there's no denying the fact that it makes sense."
The more he pondered over the idea- the hypothesis it had become- the more he realized overwhelmingly that Private, with the innocence of a child, had proposed a solution unlike one he had ever thought of.
It made sense. He chuckled.
Private had only been at the zoo for six months, and he was already theorizing on scientific subjects Kowalski hadn't grasped until after years of education. He couldn't help but feel a spark of anger towards his newly adopted younger brother.
He had all this talent. This- this curiosity, a natural inclination towards science. He had a frank way of thinking and the ability to grasp new ideas quite quickly.
Kowalski was even a bit jealous of Private- he was almost a scientific prodigy. And yet he knew that the penguin was destined to be something else.
Private didn't seem content with fighting at the time. Obviously, he despised Rico's almost maniacal love of explosions, and he seemed, at most, indifferent towards science and Kowalski's inventions, at times sharing their leader's contempt for them.
Kowalski's guess at first had been at first that Private wasn't destined for military life- he was barely a chick when he had been given to them by Central- and he had been afraid of even the prospect of violence or pain. But that slowly changed. Private grew more independent, and after the first attack of Skipper's archenemy, Dr. Blowhole, Private asked to learn how to fight.
He'd liked to believe that his commanding officer was a kind person and wouldn't force his team into anything they didn't fully agree with. Even so, at that point three years ago, Skipper's patience with Private was wearing thin. He had been more a hindrance than a help, and Skipper seemed about ready to discharge him and focus on his missions.
When Private volunteered to fight, Kowalski knew exactly what Private was destined to be.
"He was supposed to carry us," he managed between sobs. His throat hurt and his chest still burned from his near-death experience. "He was supposed to be the angel that came down to Hell for us. And he'd escort us to heaven."
"What's wrong, man? You've gone stark raving mad," said Skipper, in an ironically calm tone. The yacht, sopping wet as it was, had served as a sort of sickbed for Kowalski after he had fallen into the sea during the storm. He was sporting what seemed like a fever and was suffering from delusions.
It was now the morning after the storm, and everything was eerily calm. "You made the right choice, soldier," said Skipper. He looked down at the eyes that were open, staring past him and into another world.
"Rico," he called, glancing away from Kowalski's empty stare. "Can you watch him for a sec?"
Skipper got a grunt of approval as he headed above deck. The sun was just starting to rise, and Skipper stared at its beauty. He vaguely recalled Kowalski saying something about never looking directly into the sun, and he almost yelped in fear, quickly averting his gaze.
Then, he almost whooped with glee.
"Yes! The sun is rising that way, so that is East!" He swiveled around quickly, caught up in his discovery. "So that way's West. The North is that way, and the South..." he laughed again, in utter disbelief of his luck.
"We're one step closer to finding him! You made the right choice, Kowalski!"
He felt the overwhelming need to prove that he had been right all along, so he did, even though his lieutenant wasn't with him. "I told ya so!"
Skipper hadn't felt this free since he was a cadet, back in Central HQ.
I'm pretty sure I promised an action scene or something in the last chapter's author's note, but I wrote so much this week that I had to split the chapter I had planned in two. So you'll get to see Private kick some butt next chapter, maybe!
I want to take a moment to mention how much these reviews mean to me. Never once have I felt like I'm talking (or rather, writing) to a wall in this beautiful fandom. It's all thanks to the readers who care enough to click on this story, to read it, to offer a comment or a piece of critiscism, or even follow/favorite my story. I'm pretty sure this's been my fastest update between two chapters, and this is all thanks to the motiviation you guys give to me!
And also, as a response to Smile-I'mTheEndOfAllThatYouSee's earlier review: I like to think of the brothers as Adelie penguins.
Everything you guys do really means the whole world to me. So, on behalf of the countless hours I have spent on this story, have a good rest of the day, mates! (Is that, like, my catchphrase now?)