Prologue

The high skies rose above the lush green island completely covered in washes of gray, cumulus clouds. The grassy fields, which usually glowed radiantly when basked in the sunlight, were dulled out. Every ray of sunshine was completely covered in fog, and temperatures dropped even lower.

Ever since Brightbill ventured out on his first migration, his adopted parents stayed behind after completing their task of training him to fly. While their little runt was out south leading the remainder of the migration in a warmer climate, both the robot and fox went their separate ways.

Roz reached the top of the tallest mountain while Fink planned to move underground for the winter during hibernation season. Roz took a seat at the edge of the cliff while the blue, cylinder-shaped signal rose above her, and it laid stationary.

All she had to do was say the command, and it would glow a beaming signal that would lead her back to her place of origin. To her, she would finally discover where she was originally built from. Even so, she still sat there in silence. It was difficult to see her in the distance from the large fog, and her large beam would've heightened her visibility.

Soon, a sense of uncertainty simmered through her cognitive thought process. Was she making a mistake? Would being discovered become one of her tasks? Could there be a chance she would never see her friends ever again if she went forward with this plan? All these seeds of doubt were planted throughout her contemplative thoughts, and she eventually raised a finger, pushing her transmitter back into her head.

After that, her vision flashed through some of the most replayed memories starting from Fink's first encounter plus all the other wild encounters she made with the wildlife. A slow progression of Brightbill's monthly growth played out like a timelapse before ending with the recording where they last saw each other. Her lens zoomed into his saddened expression as he turned his head for the last time and flew away with the other geese.

The montage ended, and her view flashed back to the cold, distant space in front of her. She had finally made her decision. "I must return to shelter."

Meanwhile, Fink settled in their humble abode. It consisted of a wooden den that could retain heat a lot better than any other home could, built by hand, paw, and beak. He laid on his back with his large fluffy tail tucked between his legs as he smacked his lips and kicked his legs in the air before his tail unraveled.

Shortly after, a strong, cool breeze flew past their home with part of it seeping in through the front entrance, extinguishing the remaining flames from the dying embers. The red fox immediately began shivering and tossed and turned, rubbing his soft, cream-colored underbelly against his grass-covered bed.

Fink let out a small moan of discomfort and then he…

"Hello! Bonjour–" Roz loudly barged into the dome with a celebratory voice.

Fink yipped with fear and rolled off his bed, landing on his back with a soft thud.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb your little nap," she assured him apologetically, sinking her neck in.

Fink got up to his feet and mumbled with his eyes half-closed, "Yeah, well, that was quite an abrupt entrance."

"Yes, that is…my bad," she responded hesitantly like she was trying to search for other words in the middle of her sentence.

He arched his back and stretched it out, grunting until he felt a faint crack in his spine. The fox let out a loud yawn and shook off the soiled dust from his bright coat of fur while Roz ignited a single burning flame from her index finger. After that, he peeked outside the entrance only to discover dark cloudy skies from above.

"Say, what time of day is it?" he looked back at Roz, who stood beside the now-lit fire.

"I am not sure. Let me check." the robot answered with uncertainty and raised a metal finger. "Scanning for weather patterns."

Her metal gears beeped and booped with a bright glow. From her point of view, her thermal scans displayed a red circle high in the sky surrounded by highlighted shades of dark blue. "It is currently noon time. There's also a 91% chance of heavy snowfall incoming."

"Well, that's a relief," Fink rolled his eyes, his comment reeking with irony.

"You are…glad that this island may freeze over?" Roz questioned his contrasting response.

"Uh, no, I was just being sarcastic," he corrected her with a shrug.

"Sarcastic?" her eyelids clicked with intrigue.

"You know, like, uh, saying the opposite of how you feel but with humor?" he tried to explain with a twist of his wrist.

"So, telling a lie?" she hypothesized while Fink licked his paw.

All of a sudden, Fink froze and slowly lowered his head before giving her the side-eye with uneasiness. He hesitantly admitted, "Yes."

"I do not understand the need for this humorous tone, but that is your choice to make," Roz reassured him with a pat on his back.

"That's good to know," he muttered while looking down on the ground with a sly smile.

"That was not sarcasm, was it?" she leaned in closer.

"Pfft! What? Of course not," Fink sat on his haunches and laughed it off, waving his paws off dismissively. "How could you say that?"

Roz simply shrugged it off with a cheeky expression shining solely from her bright, metallic eyes. Once he turned around and looked up at all of the family portraits still hanging on the bark-filled walls, his ears folded back and sighed deeply. "I keep forgetting that Brightbill isn't with us."

"Yes, he is free to travel wherever he wants to. That is now part of his programming," Roz stated, satisfied with the path her son took.

Fink, on the other hand, wasn't fully content with Brighbill's absence. That single egg was the catalyst that changed him from craving geese to taking care of one. But, there was only one sentence he could utter as he became lost in his thoughts. "Now what?"

A long silence filled the cold air as Roz took some time to process and generate a response from her rewired programming. "Maybe, we need to find a new task. You said you wanted to 'hang out and do stuff', right?"

"Yeah, something like that," he mumbled with his head down.

The hollow lens in her eyes glowed a glistening cyan light, projecting three pictographs of a hatchling on a stone wall. "Perhaps we could do a new task that will keep the memories of our adopted gosling alive."

He stared at the bright display and shook his head in disbelief. A brief chuckle wheezed out from his foxy muzzle as he uttered, "What? Swim, eat, and fly?"

"These are all the phases that Brightbill achieved." Roz declared. "Unless you would rather try not to get killed? You are welcome to roam about this island and find out."

Fink was speechless. He swayed his head from side to side, inhaling a sharp breath through his gritted teeth. "Ummmm…"

"That was sarcasm, by the way. My current programming prevents you from running into danger." she pointed out.

Fink exhaled a huge sigh of relief and meditated on her new plan. "Mmm, can't get any better than that. Buuuut, I would like to make one exception." He raised his front paws in the air and held them together like he was silently begging. "Why don't we eat before we swim? I'm staaaarving."

"Negative. It is recommended to go swimming before eating."

"And why is that?" the cynical fox whined, a low growl escaping his throat.

Her metal eyelids blinked once more with a brief hesitation in her response. "I…am not sure. I can't seem to find that in my database."

"Oh, so, you know about all these protocols but nothing about…" Fink mockingly spoke under his breath.

"I can still hear you," her eyes narrowed with a bright glare.

"Alright, alright, I get it. It's your plan, so it's your rules, okay?" Fink said in defeat and crossed his front paws together.

Roz jolted her head back and stared blankly at the wall. "Right."

"Oh, and one more thing." he trotted right around the campfire. "The first two I get, but how are we supposed to fly? We don't have wings or feathers, you know."

Roz took a moment to think about it and clasped her hands together. "I'll…improvise." Then, she recited her usual motto. "A Rozzum always completes its task."

"Yeah, sounds like a great plan," Fink fussed and sighed once again. "Alright, let's get this over with before the storm gets worse."

"Ok, ready when you are," Roz said with enthusiasm.

He climbed onto Roz's shoulder as she exited their home, and they were now on their way, ready to complete their first task.