Pen shifts, her mind slowly returns to wakefulness as she feels a deep ache throbbing throughout her body, which has finally begun to heal, even if only a little. Her eyes open slowly, staring at the many buzzing lights that are shining out just before her face. If she had had any dreams during her sleep, they're gone now, vanished into nothingness.

She stretches out as far as she can, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Everything in her aches. But nothing hurts as deeply as it had done the night before. She feels warm. Safe. She doesn’t quite know what to do with this odd combination of sensations inside of herself.

“Sleep well?” asks the stranger, perhaps having heard her rousing.

Pen rubs her eyes, having grown used to his voice now. “Yeah, I think so,” she says meekly, looking up at the bauble that is still covered up. She thinks for a moment. “I want to get out.”

“Uhh… sure, but it’s still cold,” he replies, as she feels the suit kneeling downward.

“Yeah, but I need to… you know?” she says, a foot kicking against the console ever so slightly.

“No?” asks the man, somewhat puzzled.

“Just stay here!” snaps Pen, opening the hatch and climbing out. The cold air strikes her bare body. A large hand reaches up from the front and bends back over his shoulder, holding out the now dry dress and jacket, pinched between two large fingers. “Thanks,” she mumbles, grabbing them. They’re apparently still inside of the cavern. Tango really had stayed here while she slept. She smiles. Maybe he meant what he said? Slipping on her clothes that can only be defined as being ‘better than nothing,’ she jumps out and quickly runs inside of the decrepit building that Tango is sitting outside of.

“We should get going,” says Tango. “The storm stopped two hours ago, it could come back any minute.”

Pen doesn’t respond, having vanished around the corner. A minute later, she runs back, running past the bot in a full sprint, towards the pool of still-steaming water. “Cold! Cold! Cold!” she yelps out between breaths, as he watches her run to the edge. For a moment he’s afraid she’s going to jump in again. They don’t have that kind of time. But then she stops at the edge and simply dips her face into the water, sipping a large quantity of the hot water, before setting her hands in it, scrubbing them and then just as quickly washing her face in the stream. This all happened within a few seconds at best, before the girl was already sprinting back at full speed towards the giant, before desperately clambering back inside.

“H-h-how long was I asleep?” she stutters, shivering as she closes the hatch tightly behind herself.

“All day really. I’d say… eleven hours?”

Pen reaches up and grabs the silver sachet off of the bauble. “Good morning,” she says meekly, unsure if it’s the right thing to say.

“Good morning,” replies Tango firmly, getting up. “Shall we?”

“How come you didn’t leave when the storm stopped?” she asks, sitting back down in the pilot’s seat.

The pistons hiss into motion as they begin walking with a quick tempo down and out of the cave, back towards the cylindrical tunnel.

“Because I was waiting for you,” says the man, matter of factly. Pen averts her gaze, mumbling something beneath her breath that escapes her pink cheeks.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

As they reach the tunnel, Tango turns to the left and proceeds to walk straight down and through it, towards the north. Towards ‘the city’. Pen looks down at the box at her feet and opens it up again. There are still a few of the silver sachets left. Her stomach rumbles.

“I wouldn’t,” quips Tango. “They’re no good without water, trust me,”

“Ah…” moans Pen, somewhat upset. If she had been able to sell the crystal, then she could have bought a flask to carry water in. Then again, she wouldn’t have needed one if she did sell it, because she wouldn't be here right now. She closes the box again and leans back, wondering if she should ask Tango to turn around, so that she could get more hit water. Lifting her arm, she presses the yellow button and the window appears before herself. The morning sun has long since risen and projects bounding streams of radiant light over the glistening mountainscape.

“Wow…” whispers Pen as she leans forward to look out through the window. The weather is perfect.

Tango looks around, it doesn’t look like there is a risk of an avalanche. Okay. This is his chance. He needs her to get some hours in. Looking around he scans for it, for anything of interest. There! A collection of huts in the distance, down the mountain, but still within sight, for him at least.

The projection jumps to the window. “Look, there’s a small village,” says Tango, trying to sell a tone of excitement to get her interested. “Should we stop by?” he asks.

Pen leans back, looking away from this new sight, her arms crossed. “No. I want to go to the city.”

“But it’s right there,” he argues.

“No. I don’t like villages,” she says plainly, closing her eyes. That's no good, he needed her to cooperate if this was going to work. What should he do? What should he do…? Ah. He knows.

“Please?” asks the man’s voice coming from the bauble. Pen twitches, as if electrified, her grip around herself tightening, as her eyes open up to cautiously look at the glass above herself.

“Huh?” she asks, not sure if she had heard him right.

“I would like to go to the village. Please,” repeats Tango.

Nobody had ever used the word 'please' with her before. Pen fidgets. It had made her feel… good that he had said it. If he says 'please' to her, that means she has the upper hand here, right? Otherwise he wouldn't be using the word. Her fingers tap against her arm as she thinks about it. She doesn’t want to go to the village. Villages are no good. But if he's showing an opening of weakness, then this is her chance to get back on top. She has to take it. This is about survival, after all. Everything always is.

“Fine,” says Pen, falling back against the seat and waving a hand at the bauble, giving it her lazy blessing.

“Great!” says Tango. “One thing though -" She opens her eyes cautiously, as something hisses between herself and the window. Two tiny hatches on the front console, by the rest of the buttons, lift up as two strange looking sticks pop out. “You’re gonna have to get us downhill.”

“Huh? Are you dumb?” she blinks, not sure what she’s looking at here. “What do you mean? I can’t carry you! You’re way too heavy!” barks Pen up at the bauble.

“Yeah, no, I don’t expect you to carry me. But you can move me,” says the man. “Look, grab those, one with each hand. Pen does as he instructs, wincing, once she realizes that she didn’t even think to question his instructions. “Pull one.” There is a several second long delay, but then she does and they lurch to the side. Pen yelps, thinking they’re about to fall over and off of the cliff-face. But they stop a second later. Huh?

She pulls the other one and they lurch to the other side. Her eyes grow wide. Was this… is she controlling him? Directly? She still hasn’t blinked once, as she pulls both now and they begin to heave forward. Wait... forward…?

She looks up at the window as they slide over the edge of the cliff, leaving the cylindrical tunnel and coming into a short free-fall towards the steep, snow-laden mountain below. Pen screams, yanking on the controls. Tango lands upright on his feet and they begin to slide down the mountain-side.

“WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!” shouts Pen in breathless succession as they begin to pick up speed, sliding down the long incline.

“No can do. Try not to hit any trees, okay?” says Tango, rather emotionlessly.

“What?!” is all that Pen manages to shout, as her strained eyes focus on the screen. Everything is so fast, it’s almost all just a big blur for her. Trees and rocks make themselves seen just before them and she yanks on the controls, sending them leftward and around a particularly large outcrop, just barely missing it with a violent jank.

Tango mutes the audio input to stop himself from hearing the sound of her single, constant, non-ending scream of terror, as they slide down the mountain. This is nothing. This incline is basically ‘baby’s first ski-lesson’. He supposes people these days just aren’t used to going fast, in any sense of the word.

They lurch to the right as she yanks the sticks to the right, dodging a giant pine that grows out of the rock-face. They pick up a little speed, heading towards a small drop again, but he had already scanned this entire route from up above. He wasn’t built for this, but his balancing systems could sustain a slide at this degree pretty easily by themselves. This is an excellent way to get her used to the sensations of movement and to using the controls. He unmutes the audio, to see if she is still screaming.

“-IAAAAA-!“

He mutes it again. She’s getting worked up about this, huh? Oh well, she’ll be fine. Though he is impressed with her lung capacity. A small ramping outcrop comes and they leave the ground for a moment in a very, very meager jump. So far so good. He looks at the video feed, expecting to see her still shouting.

She’s leaned back, her eyes closed, her arms limp and not on the console.

Oh.

He takes over again, a little too late however and one of his large metal feet clips a rock, sending them hurtling down forward, crashing into a mound of snow, as they tumble the rest of the way down the slope. He can’t stop this roll now, there’s too much momentum. Pen’s unconscious body flies around the cabin, bumping into the walls and ceiling, hitting her head and legs as she crumples around like a rag-doll, before they finally come to a stop, smashing into a gigantic wall of fallen snow.

The lights go out.