Feyfalken: The Lost Expedition

"Don't encourage him," Dorian said to Trixy, slowly shaking his head. He studied the boat for a moment; it was certainly beginning to look like the better option, compared to riding Vlad.

Riding Vlad? Ugh, that's just all kinds of wrong.

"Get in the boat, captain," Fey said in a seductive tone. "Trixy will keep you warm."

"Stop that," Dorian said. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, kicked an innocent rock, and began to trudge away. "I'll walk, thank you. Do whatever you want, as long as we're all moving. See ya on the other side, folks. And Vlad..." he glanced over his shoulder at the dragon, "save some for the big show."

"Vladimir's a big boy. He can do this allll day," Fey said, batting her icy lashes at the dragon as she stroked his scaly underbelly. "Can't you, Vladdie?"

Dorian sighed. "Don't encourage him."

 

Johnathon hadn't gone to the captain's speech. Instead he had remained in Medical, enjoying the peace and quiet the dead were famous for. And in the Feyfalken's place there was now a lot of that. It seemed to echo throughout the ship with the remaining crew outside, a kind of soft buzzing that accompanied deep silence.

As it was, the medical room looked more like a morgue than a place of healing, covered bodies yet to be removed lining the floor. Accompanied by another doctor and a handful of nurses he attended the those still clinging to life. An old hardness creeping into his mindset as he observed the patents, calculating their odds of survival and whether further treatment was going to be wasted.

He struggled to keep his mind on task as it felt like his very being was cracking, as if it had been a facade all along, and the real Doctor Kane was trying to break free. Looking at the man below him, who's legs ended in two charred stumps and his right arm which looked like it had had a therapeutic massage with a mallet, he could only think of how much easier it would be for the man if he simply slit his throat here and now. All the pain and suffering flowing away in a red smile. That wouldn't be such a bad way to go, he thought. Better than lingering in pain until there was the same result, or surviving to live in a world where you had no purpose or use as a cripple.

With a jolt he pulled his hand away from the multitool on his belt, revulsion churning through his mind as he quickly stepped back wide eyed. Pulling the multitool from his belt an image of it covered in blood flashed before him, and without hesitation he threw it against the wall, making the other people in the room to jump. Before anyone could approach him though he strode from the room his mind twirling and whirling end on end as he fled down the dark, debris filled, corridors of the Feyfalken. It seemed ages past as the rooms and passageways got darker and darker, the small amount of lighting that the Feyfalken had begun with completely deactivated.

When the darkness was complete, and the air seemed to hang in the air in absolute silence. An exhaled breath enough to disturb it, Johnathon slowed. Staggering through an open door to collapse against a wall. And it was there, within the darkness and silence that the memories began bubbling to the surface. A dark landscape rendered alien by destruction. Bodies littered as far as the eye can see, flies and maggots gorging themselves to the symphony of ground rumbling explosions which lit up the distant sky with a red light. Flashing like hellish lighting to the thunder of the guns.

And as the images poured in a sob met the silence that filled the dark rooms and corridors of the Feyfalken, like a pebble on a smooth lake, as a man realised he would never truly be free of the horrors of his past.

 

A deep growl throbbed in his chest when Fey's hand brushed his stomach, then broke off into an odd chuffing sound as he stumbled away from her wiggling fingers. "Tha-aat ticklesss." His voice was deeper than before with a grating quality like boulders sliding down a mountainside. The words broken and heasitant, as if he wasn't able to speak properly. But with a glance at the others he quickly realized that his offer would not be taken, then made what could be assumed to be a shrug.

"Well.... no usssse in wasssting thissss." he rumbled, then with a large step slid on his belly into the dark waters of the lake.

Silence. His body coiled and rippled like a wave as his wings propelled him through the water just as easilly as through the air, and when he touched bottom Vlad gazed up at the underbelly of the fragile ice boats. How small everything looked.

Then he bunched his hind legs, dug his claws into the mud, and launched himself upwards. Faster, faster. The water rushed past his ears and he kept his nostrils shut tight until he burst free like an arrow shot from a bow, wings clapped tightly to his body until he'd cleared the waters to cause as little disturbance as possible. Then, just when he was about to fall, he snapped open his wings and soared skyward.

The tug of the wind in his wings, and from there to his back, sent a thrill through his entire body. He felt like he was falling, but not falling. That he could do anything.

And if he got enough practice, maybe he could even compete against the black fortress.

With a roar of elation, he stooped, the wind screaming past his ears as he shot downward just as he had shot upward not moments before. He cupped is wings around his body and felt the wind pull him into a spiral. Turning, turning, almost out of control. Then he snapped open his wings and shot past not a yard above the group's heads. "I'll keep a lookout. Come fly Fey! Thissss is fun!"

 

“Sorry, dear, but I’m a siren, not a… a… hmm, what’s the air equivalent of a water elemental?” Fey said. “I’m sure you humans have a word for this, right?”

Sylph, Dorian thought, but held his tongue, because he was quite sure Fey already knew the answer to that and was merely fishing for attention. Surely, an ancient water-demon knew what humans called her kind.

“Less talking, more walking,” he said, trying his best to ignore her and the big sky-lizard acrobatically swooping over their heads. He wasn’t sure which annoyed him more. Had the entire world gone mad? Half of his crew was dead; his ship was in ruins; and these two were going to save the day? Ugh.

Well, at least he had a long walk ahead of him; plenty of time to come to grips with this new insane reality. Am I being too stubborn? He thought, staring out at the long expanse of muddy shore ahead of him. Flying or accepting the boat would be much faster, but… he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Too soon, the wounds were still too raw.

Meanwhile, behind him, the group was beginning to split. Some joined Fey in the boats and shoved off with oars of ice, but nearly half began to march along the shore, following their captain’s example. Dorian was not the only one reluctant to embrace this newly magical world.