Chapter 1: The Crash

The day was dry and hot, like every other day in the desert land she lived in. Many did not survive, but Micka had learned the secrets of the flameless hell. She went out at night, when the sand was still warm, and fetched water for herself and Elja, the small desert fox that she had saved a year ago. The wells she dug, she dug at night. In fact, most of her activity happened at night. She only came once a week, but when she did she was always the first to arrive at the early morning market in the town three miles away, and the first to leave to beat the heat of the sun. She always bought meat, and sometimes a few fruits when she had the money. All of her activity around people was down in a full cloak, with a scarf covering her mouth and goggles sheilding her eyes, prefering those looks to the looks she would receive if not for her normal garb.

The items she sold were always handmade or difficult to attain; pelts and furs from rare desert animals, cactus poisons for doctors, sharp needles, medicines and herbs from rare plants, and even, rarely, strange glass sculptures made from the violent storms that sometimes made it just past the mountains to leave its mark on the blistering land below.

Looking out her window, she shaded her eyes with her hand and searched the bright blue sky around the mountains. There, far off, was the tiniest hint of a violent, thunder-filled cloud that tinted the edge of the sky with a dark, dank blue-gray. Tonight she would head to the foot of the mountains, where she was sure to find glass to sell to middle-class merchants like her father for a fair penny, who would in turn sell it to rich nobles, claiming outrageous adventures filled with wonder and danger all for the sake of the simplest treasure.

She still remembered the first time she'd found one. It sat on her makeshift table, in the center, and glistened when the sun shone in through the window. These glass anomalies had saved her in the desert. If it wasn't for them she would never be able to buy meats and supplies for tanning leather and knives for various tasks. Surviving in the desert was no easy task. Few men ever tried, but she was certainly no man. Many would say this was a disadvantage, as men tended to be tougher, stronger, and better suited to lonely survivals. But to her it didn't matter. She didn't care how strange it was that she would live alone in the desert. This was the life she chose. Well, no. She didn't choose this life, but she would rather live alone for the rest of her life than to never be known as herself to anyone but those who would hate her.

She looked down as Elja rubbed his head against her leg. Reaching down, she petted him behind the ears, glad to be drawn from her thoughts. No matter the loneliness, she did have Elja, and for that she was thankful. Taking a drink from her cantine, she stepped down to the lowest part of her little hut, her bed, and layed down to get a full day's rest before heading to the mountains that night.

~
He wiped the rain from his goggles as squinted to see through the dark clouds. The water droplets pelted him with the force of pebbles from a slingshot and the wind blew with a freezing force that stiffened his soaked clothes. He needed to land, to take shelter somewhere, but he could see nowhere flat to put the flyer down due to the darkness of the storm raging around him. There probably wasn't a place to land in the mountains anyway.

Suddenly the wind blew hard and sent him careening upward where the water droplets no longer bruised him. Now they were shards of ice that cut through his clothing and the wings of his flyer, causing his blood to slowly fall from his frozen, damp chin. He preferred the bruising.
He wiped at his goggles again, this time scraping off ice.

Could it be? No, certainly not. Must be ice on my goggles again. But looking again, he knew that it was true. It was a pass through the mountains, illuminated briefly by the sun, a glowing orange of the sunset. He had to make it there no matter what, or else he'd never see tomorrow. Or her.