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Just when I began to feel a sense of peace and I relaxed into the motion sickness the plane hit a bad batch of turbulence. I looked out of the cockpit. Peaceful skies had given way to a storm. It was a wall of clouds which seemed to roll upwards in a menacing facade. There was a flash of yellow lightning in the pit of the storm. The small plane rumbled along into the towering upwards curl of water vapors.
"That going to be a problem?" I asked Neo. I gazed forward at where blue gave way to grey so dark it was black.
She gave a non-committal shrug and gripped the controls fiercely. Her knuckles turned white on the handles that shook in her hands which belied some stress. It certainly looked intense and the darkness we were suddenly enveloped in was intimidating. Day seemed to turn to night in just a few heartbeats. Once peaceful whisps were thick as soup. The control lurched violently in Neo's hands.
I didn't know much about planes, I didn't know how to fly one like Neo did, but I was sure that bad storms could bring them down. Especially ones dense with lightning like the one we hung delicately inside of.
There was a flash and a small explosion as lighting struck the vessel. A burst of flames flared on the right wing. It cracked and fissured the metal. A not so subtle reminder that the sort of lightning one could bring out with dust was but a pale shadow of the real thing. We called it nature's wrath when we used dust but the real deal was so much more. We liked to believe we had that kind of power in hand, too. But when we were hit by a true thunderbolt, static from heaven, and all the wind of the storm it was a good reminder of how little power we as humans had. Storms are huge, they can be, at least. They have an enormous amount of energy in them. It put the craft into a wobble and Neo had to lean hard to the left on the controls to keep us flying straight. But slowly and steadily we were going down. We hit a patch of turbulent downdraft and plummeted what must have been at least a hundred feet but it was hard to tell in the smog.
"Are we going to crash?!" I asked rather urgently. I didn't hide my concern as we listed to the left in what would have been a lazy drift if we weren't being shaken so violently by the winds. The kind that only a maiden or a mountain of dust could summon. And this was just natural and it wasn't even the entire storm which probably went on in a front for miles and miles around us. We were only in a small part of it after all.
Neo just gave a small nod, still fighting the controls. Her answer was slow and certain for all that it was with her typical silence. It provided a certain gravity to her expression. My inner peace was gone and all the worry and danger of the real world pressed in on me. Surviving a plane crash… as huntsmen it was fairly possible. It was still dangerous though. It might be better to bail out and rely on a landing strategy. I knew Neo had an excellent one with her umbrella. I did too because I could outright fly. We fell lower and lower through the pulse of the storm. Our ship seemed to grow smaller and smaller as we inexorably dropped.
"Let's bail out together. Get us nice and low if you can."
Neo affirmed me with another tiny nod. It was her primary means of communication. But still it seemed somehow drastic in that moment. We finally dipped out of the clouds but not out of the storm. The wind still swept the plane along.
"I'm going to open the doors and we'll jump," I told Neo. My voice was more calm than I felt. It was a few thousand feet and we were hurtling along in what was basically a tin can. It could kill us. We had to hurry.
I stood from my seat and stumbled my way back to the bay and swung the door open. The wind whistled by in a torrent and the vacuum of it nearly sucked me out and made me wobble. I grabbed our packs and I looked down and could see the lines of deep trees and hills but there was no suitable place to attempt to land the ship. We would have to abandon it and leave it where it lay, in Grimm infested wilderness as far as the eye could see.
There was something ominous to the thought of the ship resting there forever like a tomb wherever it crashed surrounded only by dark monsters. No human or faunus being would ever see it again.
Neo stood from the controls after locking the autopilot which wasn't designed for the situation we were in and tried to balance the misshaped plane. It failed and caused us to start to plumet even faster. Neo raced back towards me and jumped, pulling out her umbrella and diving. I leapt from the bay as well like a skydiver, falling belly first.
The wind dragged us back and made the plane rocket off relative to us and it hurtled down into those deep hills. It seemed that the vessel would hit earth before we did. Neo drifted lazily in the breeze and I hovered beside her and together we landed safe amongst the trees at a reasonable snail's pace, at least compared to our ship which we heard crash rather than saw.
I could imagine the metal chassis warped and bent and trees splintered from the momentum of it all but it was out of sight. And it would probably remain that way. We had no reason to scout out the wreckage. Everything we needed was with us.
We had packed rations and we'd left nothing behind, both of us traveled light with the bare essentials. I heaved the packs on my shoulder and looked around at the pine trees and breathed in the wild air. The storm loomed over our heads and it was windy on the ground and threatening to rain on us.
That would be miserable depending on how hard the rain fell.
And now we were deep in the Grimm lands and who knows how far from civilization. It took me back to camping out in the woods with a little woman in a red cloak with bright eyes. It was a fond memory and I cherished it before letting it pass me by. Trying to grip it would have just made me sad. And I had other things to worry about. Like being stranded with no town or city for miles on end. We were leagues from Vale in Sanus. That was much more pressing than pleasant memories.
"I suppose if we keep heading south we'll be bound to run into some place. Let's be off and camp by sunset," I decided aloud. Neo agreed and we set off.
We marched off together in the tall wood, constantly vigilant for the attack of a wayward Grimm but none ever came. And soon we were exhausted by the act of remaining wary and by hiking. I had forgotten how tiring simply walking all day could be and my legs were stiff from sitting in the craft for part of the day. Luckily it wasn't long until nightfall and we set up camp by the side of a small river which had willow bushes growing from the shores of the trickling water. It was untamed wilderness. The sort of place that had never seen man before and may never see him again. Unknown to the pressing presence of people. Grimm had dominated the vast majority of every continent since time immemorial. This place was no exception.
It was a little reminder that the Grimm could crush us. Could being the operative word therein. We would go down fighting but they could destroy us all. Only time and space held them back, and luck, I suppose. There had been other kingdoms in the past. Attempts to expand and rise before just like Mountain Glenn. Mankind remained small, perhaps it was doomed to remain that way forever. Even Mother's defeat wouldn't change that pressure. We remained a minor footnote on the planet dominated by dark monsters. If my Mother could truly control all the Grimm all the time why not dismantle every kingdom in a day? It became obvious that she could not. She was not all powerful or all seeing. She could not be with every Grimm though I was sure she had some control over some of them. Perhaps only the oldest and most intelligent among them. And perhaps she had to have a certain proximity to them or she would lose her dominion over them just as she had once lost it over me after I had killed Ren and Nora.
Our camp was peaceful and we encountered no danger though we kept watch and I cooked. I still wasn't the best at it but Neo didn't seem to mind my chef skills. She ate happily and hungrily without complaint, though how she would have complained I was not sure. But I was certain she would have made it known somehow at any rate.
I cut a path down to the bank of the small river with my titanic blade and I drank from the fresh clear cold water. It ran quickly and grugled over smooth, worn rocks and stones. It had a certain reprieve to it that while I couldn't place I was glad to have.
We would follow this river tomorrow. It had our best chance of finding a society where it would eventually meet other rivers or the distant sea. Either way it increased our odds of encountering a settlement of some sort or another which I hoped would be soon and would lack bandits. Further the river would have cut a path through the mountains and hills. It should be all downhill if we followed the path of the stream. That would make our trail blazing easier.
I smoked on my pipe in the chill moments and allowed the marijuana to fill me with pleasant vertigo. I inhaled and the leaves and crystals burnt to ashes as the flame spread in time with my breath. The ceramic grew hot with embers on its far end but the rush of it gave me a rich heady feeling that made me feel lighter and allowed me to ignore Mother's pressing whispers. The sounds of them were drowned out by the tranquil ambience of the river moving along.
It hadn't, in the end, decided to rain on us and the storm that sent us hurtling down moved on over our heads to find new victims or to dissipate into nothingness when it would eventually reach the northern sea. Or else, before that, a bank of mountains would trounce the weather. The cloudy day kept the day temperate and the evening warm as though under a blanket so I had no cause for complaint in that regard.
I felt a crisp ease as I sat on a rock and rested. All seemed right in the world. Sure, we had encountered a hiccup but that was to be expected where I was concerned and frankly it couldn't be any other way. The real mystery of how far we were from any other people remained but it wasn't as pressing as it could well have been. We had our bearings and a direction. We were two dangerous and powerful hunters and we were on our toes with a keen sense of danger and I had an even more keen sense of Grimm being partially one myself.
Sleep eluded me but what else was new? I struggled with resting because in my sleep my Mother would send me fresh horrors and temptations each and every night. It made me dread sleep even though it was something I had to do so when I laid down nightly my heart raced in my chest in trepidation and anxiety. It was a subconscious reaction to that which plagued me.
Still it was something I had to do. People died without sleep, but that somehow made it seem like all the more a trap to me and one that I couldn't help but spring on myself time and time again.
When I eventually dozed off in my bedroll I was met with a thousand Grimm faced rats which ate me alive until all that was left was cleanly picked apart white bones. I felt the pain of them gnawing on my flesh and tearing their way inside of me even through the distance dreams usually have to the sleeper. It was raw and forceful. I could feel my Mother's growing hatefulness and frustration through it all. It gave me a quiet victory when I didn't scream, even in the throes of a nightmare. Sometimes in dreams like that, it is a relief and even a delight to shriek wildly but I remained silent all through my torment.
My Mother, through all her torture, couldn't break my spirit down and mold it into what she wanted me to be. I stayed fast to the hopes of slaying her and that gave me a certain freedom she couldn't touch even as I was torn to pieces and the small animals crawled their way into my intestines and ate at my eyes and face.
I relished the pain that came with it and the fresh horror. The whip cracked and I demanded more, letting her frustration mount until she gave up and I rested quietly and peacefully. My rebellion was too complete and entrenched for her to dismember it with something as crude and simple as pain. Not anymore. She would have to do better than that and I was beginning to doubt that she could do better than that.
There was nothing more she could threaten me with. I was at the height of human suffering and I had seen the peak of the mountain. It made me untouchable. Sometimes when someone is tortured there comes a point where they will do or say anything to make the pain stop. This was the opposite of that. I knew that the pain would come, but since it must come, I was ready for it. And I no longer cared. There was a certain zen apathy with which I took to my nightmares. I let unseen powers hurl me over the roofs of strange dead cities where the bottomless mist yawned. There was nothing more to entreat to me.
I rebelled, therefore I was.
I woke up peacefully and easily. Sleep paralysis ruled my body but eventually I found I was able to move again and work out the stiffness of my limbs. I reminded myself that my eyes were in place and that my flesh still remained.
I sat up in humble victory.
Then I stood about the campsite and smoked some more. The simple headiness after just waking up filled my lungs and the space behind my eyes. The bugs that crawled over my flesh died numb deaths and I stayed strong.
I cooked breakfast. The smell of which I think woke Neo up from her own restful slumber. She'd been curled up in a tight ball within her bag, hair reeling long over her back as she slept. She mutely yawned and rubbed at her eyes and I handed her breakfast at which time she gave me a simple hug.
She was a good friend. She reminded me enough of myself that it pushed me to become better and to go even further and push her to become better. What more could a friend be for? She also helped me get revenge on Cinder, even though that didn't really make me happy. But true happiness was hard to find, especially as I suffered so.
I still managed to find it in the subtle things. You would think it would be in the big things like friendship or love. Those things helped but they didn't make someone happy. It was in the smaller little pleasures. Sitting on a rock and smoking from a pipe. Handing little Neo breakfast. Waking up from a restful sleep to fresh morning air with the sun on your face. Those things were what made you happy. And I was able to find those things even while I suffered like no man before me. And hopefully like no man after. I didn't wish what I had on anybody else, even as I found little pleasures in it. Hopefully, I would put a stop to Mother.
We packed up our camp and set off along the river and followed it's bending bed through the deep slumbering hills. The sound and smell of it was with us the whole while and I was as high as a kite as we walked. My skin felt pleasant and my head felt blitzed.
We cut quickly through a pack of Beowulfs that were no match for us. Slaying monsters was always not just a joy but a privilege.
I said nothing and therefore we walked in silence together. I walked slowly and lumberingly so that Neo wouldn't be left behind on her short legs.
It was right and it was peaceful. And Mother could never ever ruin this for me.
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-WG