*
The wind was all screams and clawing fingers, tearing her hair and howling in her ears. As they soared through the swirling, soggy gray, the air grew brittle and Hana leaned close, arms wrapped tight around Kaiah’s neck. Her clothes became soaked, hair clinging to her face as her stomach plummeted toward her knees, her missing eye burning like fire.
Ascending.
She could see Yukiko and Buruu off to her right, the sky-ship Kurea behind them. The vessel was a merchantman, four great propellers cutting through the chill air, its inflatable painted with an enormous dragon spitting fire across the canvas. Yoshi was somewhere aboard it—he’d flat-out refused to climb onto the thunder tiger’s back. Hana’s mind drifted to her childhood; the brief sky-ship journey she and her family had taken after her father had won his farm. She’d been awestruck, her stomach a storm of butterflies, the only time in her life she’d ever flown. Yoshi had spent the entire trip in their cabin, trying not to hurl.
The air grew sharp as razors, white plumes rolling from her lips. Hana clung to Kaiah’s neck with aching hands, teeth chattering in her skull. And just when she thought they must turn back, that they’d never break through the cloud, the sky turned red and the gray fell away into a sea of rolling iron beneath them, stretching wide as forever. Iishi crags pierced the cloud cover, snow-clad and shimmering. Greedy winds snatched the blasphemy from her mouth, and all the world beneath the clouds was forgotten, submerged beneath the ocean of Shima sky.
For that one dazzling moment, everything she could see was perfect.
Gods above. It’s beautiful.
– IT IS HOME. –
You can almost forget it all up here. All the hurt and the pain and the shit down there.
– WHY YOU WANT TO FORGET? –
… Sometimes it’s easier than dealing with it, I suppose.
Kaiah growled.
– DO NOT UNDERSTAND. YUKIKO ASKS ME TO LEARN MONKEY-CHILD WAY AND I CANNOT SEE. SILLY THINGS. LITTLE THINGS MADE SO BIG. FOOLISH. – Our way is real simple, Kaiah.
– OH YES? –
We’re ugly. We’re selfish and greedy and shortsighted, fucking each other over for a drop of fuel or a difference of opinion. That’s pretty much the breadth of it.
Kaiah glanced across the red skies toward Buruu, and Hana sensed pure hostility, a low rumbling growl in her new friend’s chest.
– HUMANS NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN BETRAY, MONKEY-CHILD. – You’re talking about Buruu? What did he do?
– KINSLAYER. MURDERER. DISGUSTS ME. – Kinslayer?
– DO NOT TRUST HIM, GIRL. NOT FOR A MOMENT. – Why not?
– WILL BE REPAID IN BLOOD. –
Then why are you here? Why are you helping?
– REASONS NOT MINE TO TELL. –
The pair swooped back down through the cloud, fingers of jagged fringe kissing Hana’s cheeks. She thought of Akihito charging in and saving her from death in the yakuza warehouse. Those big arms around her shoulder, brute strength wrapped in impossible gentleness, keeping all the hurt at bay. The air grew just a little warmer at the memory.
Not all people are evil, I suppose. Some are just stupid.
– SOME ARE GREATER. YOUR YUKIKO SEES TRUTH. WILL BE REMEMBERED. – My people always forget, Kaiah. All the most important things.
– DO NOT MEAN MONKEY-CHILDREN. I MEAN BLUE SKY AND CLEAN RAIN. THUNDER’S SONG. THEY WILL SING HER NAME LONG AFTER ALL ELSE IS DUST. – The beast glanced over her shoulder, eyes as deep as the fall at their feet.
– WHO WILL SING FOR YOU? –
Who says anyone should? I’m no one.
– NOT WISH TO LEAVE A MARK ON THIS PLACE? NOT WISH TO BE SUNG OF AS THEY SING OF KITSUNE NO AKIRA? TORA TAKEHIKO? – Those are the names of stormdancers. I’m not a hero. I don’t close hellgates or slay sea dragons. I rob drunkards and sleep in hovels and speak to rats. Sometimes I have fleas.
– NOT DREAM OF BEING SOMETHING GREATER? – The wind thrummed with propeller song, whispering the plain and simple truth.
Everybody does …
She felt the heat inside the arashitora envelop her, fill her with a burning pride. Somehow she knew the beast was smiling at her. She found herself smiling back.
– THAT IS THE BEGINNING. –
Amusement enveloped the beast, bright and wicked like a child born to mischief. And before Hana could blink, Kaiah pressed wings to flanks and they dropped from the skies. Hana’s stomach rose into her throat, screaming for all she was worth as they plunged straight toward the forest below.
Pull up!
– USED TO PLAY THIS GAME WITH MY CUBS. – We’re going to die!
– BREATHE. –
We’re falling too fast!
– NOT FALLING. FLYING. –
The arashitora spread her wings, Hana’s insides crashing downward as they leveled out and swooped into the air again. The pain of her missing eye forgotten, blood pounding, body shaking; tremors borne not of terror but exhilaration. The world flying by beneath them, hundreds of tiny life-sparks in the forest below, the beating of her heart, entwined with the beast’s.