“I’m not 'sure it’s my destination’,” said TL, narrowing her eyes at Rhiannon, "but if this is heaven, it really bites—I mean, unless you just think it’s the greatest, but seriously, were you born in a barn or something? What makes you think this ratty little town could be anything good?"

The blotch soon turned into an object of detail. A fabric-covered metal skeleton was soon descending into the town, its wings tilting slightly at times, but it didn't seem prepared to veer off course. The vehicle didn't make a sound, the propellers on its nose and wings mysteriously stiff and unmoving.

Somehow, its wingspan was managing to fit in the fairly wide street as it glided into the town, only about two stories above the ground now and still losing altitude. Whoever was piloting the aircraft must have just realized there would soon be a white, mammoth-sized obstruction blocking the vehicle's path, seeing how it soon dipped even lower to the street. A single cry of warning came from the cockpit, trying to alert the folks who still lingered down below.

The boy's call for attention managed to pull him away from the amazingly entertaining argument his new little friend was providing. Curiosity towards the unidentified flying object soon gave way to caution, and then-

"It's not stopping," He muttered under his breath. In a streak of purple he suddenly leaped out of the flying machine's path, shouting out an order in an unusually authoritative tone. "Everyone, move, now!"

"I may have been," conceded the girl with a thoughtful incline of her head, blithely ignorant of the demon girl's incessant stream of brattiness. For what it was worth, she seemed to genuinely be considering this as a possibility, regardless of its potential for relevance, when the curious flying contraption came barreling straight at them.

Simultaneous to the previously silent third (fifth?) wheel's urgent imperative, Rhiannon merely swept back a couple of steps, as though waiting to cross a busy street; bag clutched tightly in her hand in front of her, parasol swinging from the crook of her arm, and a serene composure fit jarringly with the tumult of the impromptu landing, which blew forcefully by, clear of the girl by precious inches, only barely messing up her hair, as it slid into home. She did have to hold onto her hat, however.

WW had been quietly watching the oncoming craft, and, as it made its final approach, he swept up a pair of gigantic arms to catch it. The imp squeaked and dove for one of his massive boots as it ground across the road. Flagstones underneath his feet shifted at the sudden and drastic weight change. Cleats like rail-road spikes screeched against the ground. Sparks flew off of score lines cut into the ground. Heedless of this, TL leapt at the nearest boot, grabbing onto a large leather strap that had dangled from the inside of his knee, apparently without purpose up to this point.

Swung like a ragdoll from the end of the strap, she nevertheless managed to convert the tremendous lateral energy into upward momentum, and swung up to the back of his colossal pants, ascending the giant by huge, clawing bounds, up what were now revealed to be hand-holds covering the surface of his clothing.

The plane reached the enormous, white-furred ogre and stopped without ceremony. It squeaked, its frame wobbling from the impact, and then it began to drop to earth, right into his arms.

He lifted it up to eye level and squinted into the cockpit.

AHHHHHHHHH, he said.

The imp reached the height of his head, and stared, wide-eyed at the man inside. For the moment, she had finally been silenced.

The pilot leaned back in his seat some as the mammoth being's breath washed over him in one, long syllable, his expression contorting into one of mild disgust. After the last wisps of hot air slipped by, he blinked rapidly behind his goggles. Already slightly jarred from the impact of his ship into the massive creature, the thing's, er, statement seemed to settle the pilot's misfortune.

"Well then...!"

With a light cough and a flick of his hands, he slipped the goggles down, letting them dangle from his neck.

Surprisingly, he didn't direct his attention towards the being who was now holding his aircraft aloft. Instead, he peered over each side of the cockpit in turn, examining the far off ground in interest.

"Hm."

Now he faced his catcher, standing a bit straighter in his seat.

"Thank you for your assistance, uh, sir," he said courteously. Once again he glanced over the edge. "Now, it'd be much appreciated if you set me down. I didn't necessarily wish to land here, but I might as well finish the task instead of continuing to dangle in the air." He coughed again, as though worried of offending the creature. "Not that I don't have faith in your grip, mind you, but I've already... ahem... 'landed' this contraption about three times today and would prefer a proper landing for once."

After a few moments of contemplation, WW shifted his grip with ponderous slowness, gently hefting the thing to balance its weight out. He set it down gently in the street. TL clambered over his shoulder and stared silently down at the contraption.


Then, without warning, she grabbed the long rope of flags that was wrapped around WW’s collar leapt off the giant’s shoulder, down his back. She swung in expanding counter-clockwise circles, descending lower and lower as yard after yard of flags unwound, each one bearing a large, swooping character of some sort that had either been printed or meticulously brushed on with ink. The characters were foreign, each one formed out of immense block shapes with small, wind-swept serifs. She unwound the entire length of the flags on her descend, and hop-jogged to a stop as she touched the ground. She peered at the machine and the pilot inside, wide-eyed.

“You,” she demanded, the imperiousness in her tone belied by the amazement in her expression, “where did you come from?"

The aircraft appeared a bit worn. Its underside was covered in streaks of dirt and some long scratches, as if it'd landed in a field or two. This was strange, seeing how there was a set of landing gear folded up into its underbelly, apparently unused. Fortunately for the pilot, the impact with the giant hadn't done much harm to his machine (the center propeller seemed slightly bent out of place, though).

Upon being settled onto the ground, the pilot promptly hopped down from the cockpit, running a hand through his brown, windswept hair as he examined his vehicle. He looked to be the age of around fifteen or sixteen, his outfit mostly consisting of leather, a white scarf dangling from his neck along with his goggles.

"Hm?" He turned to the girl now approaching him.

What strange folk in this town... he thought upon seeing the appearance of the person. First a giant and now a horned woman.

The boy smiled, however, motioning his hand off towards the horizon from where he and his craft had appeared.

"Ah, some dozen miles or so that way," he explained, turning his face to stare at the blue sky behind him. "Otherwise, I'm not completely sure of exactly where I'm from... or who I am, for that matter! It appears I'm under a sort of memory loss at the moment."

It was obvious the boy pilot was not aware that the same fate had befallen the others now around him.

“No” the girl insisted, “the sky—how’d you come from all the way up there?"

It took the pilot a moment, his eyes giving a slow blink in light confusion at her comment. After a moment of pondering, mostly on how to approach her question, he threw another glance to the vast sea of blue above before looking back to the girl.

"Well... I flew, of course," he answered with a grin. "I don't see how I could have in any other way."

She drew back and stared at him, leery.

“Whhaaat?” she said, “with... with this thing?”

She looked at That Thing.

“Is this thing supposed to fly? You have a machine that flies?"

A flicker of amusement appeared in the pilot's eyes.

"Of course it flies! You saw me swoop right on down, didn't you?"

He was smiling now, walking over and patting the hull of the craft. "Although, its been a bit faulty for some odd reason these last couple of days. However, when it does decide to work, I soar like any other bird!"

The boy was filled with a sort of glee now. With every liftoff he'd managed before his mind went blank, he felt a sort of buzz. A thrill, for that matter. Even now he was eager to return to the sky, but that was impossible until the aircraft decided to start functioning properly once more.

"Fascinating, isn't it? How some common metal and fabric can achieve flight? I think I made the right choice in whatever I was pursuing in life!"

She stared at it in wonder.

Her jaw slackened a little, and her eyes unfocused as she appeared to wrestle with the concept. Her face was a blank slate while she processed, only the faintest flickers of thought darting back and forth behind her eyes. Then she returned to the world. She made eye contact with the young pilot; her expression hardened.

“Huh,” she snorted.

“I guess I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said.

“'Sounds like a Lost Kid story.”

"Then perhaps I'll just have to show you!" replied the pilot as if accepting a challenge, although his tone was good-natured.

He paused, considered, then turned back to his machine.

"That is, if I can get this blasted thing running..."

The pilot proceeded to open a hatch near the front of the craft, peering inside. A wheel-like device laid within, covered in a pattern of foreign-looking runes. Removing one glove, he began to prod, poke, and fiddle with the wheel like a confused engineer, fingers tracing the symbols that circled all the way around the device. All the while, he muttered unintelligible observations to himself.

Winn would later have a lot to write about.

I'm really not sure what to make of any of it. My acquaintances have each been introduced in order of increasing weirdness. First, a witch selling potions, then a savage, uncivilized bird-lady. Next, some kind of docile giant with a snappy little imp girlfriend, being followed around by a—I don't even know—shadow-warrior guy? And now...

Tha heck is with this pilot guy, anyway? I can't tell if this pretentious enthusiasm is a put-on to try to impress others, or if he's that blithely unaware. Why does it rub me the wrong way so very badly? For that matter, is it bad I'm judging everyone around me like this now? I wonder if this is a characteristic of my old self or something new I'm developing because everything around me is so weird.

Maybe it's not that bad of an idea to try to gauge the people I encounter and figure out who can be trusted, though. For example, even though the horned girl is obnoxious, she seems to say everything in earnest, right? I mean, she can't possibly have any kind of mental filter with an attitude like that.

He didn't realize it, but in his internal contemplation of all these things (some of which he even had begun to scribble then and there, without watching his own writing, surely resulting in a fantastic downward slant across the paper), he had been standing very silent for quite a while. When he eventually "came to" from this, he glanced to Rhiannon and snapped his notebook shut.

"Maybe we should... move on," he suggested, a little on the down-low. "For now."