Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Four (section)

===Metaphorical Skydiving===


Nearly forty minutes later, Jake was sitting on the lip of the ramp of a Thunderhawk and dangling his legs over an ocean nine miles deep.  A pair of the Legion’s Blood Claws sat beside him on benches, keeping careful watch on their guests.  Freya’s hood was down, and her cloak was unfastened save at the neck.  The rushing air coming into the hold of the ship billowed the cloak like wings around her.

She was standing, unsupported and barefoot, next to him on the ramp.  The others gripped the hydraulic tubes that lowered and lifted the ramp and stared out at the sight.  All five were tethered to the gunship’s interior.

“I could live to be a hundred years old and never see anything like that,” Jake said in astonishment.

“Blue…as far as the eye can see,” Venus whispered.

“Farther.  We’re ninety kilometers out from shore,” one of the Claws said.

Jake slowly put his hand to his head, staring out at the water.  “It’s beautiful, all right,” he murmured.

A massive red tentacle whipped out of the water, splashing down several hundred meters away.  The non-Fenrisian passengers stared and gasped.  “The hell was that?” Alex asked.

“A Kraken looking for ships to devour,” one of the Claws said.  “Don’t worry, it’s just a juvenile, it can’t reach us here.”

“That thing is a juvenile?” Jake demanded.  “It’s the size of the ship we rode here!”

“Sure is.  The biggest ones that ever existed are over five klicks long,” the Claw said.

Alex stared.  “Are you shitting me?”

“Would I do that, Lord Carlin?” the Claw said drily.  “It’s real.”

“All the water does on my planet is melt you, yours actually eats you,” Venus observed.  The headsets each passenger wore crackled with Freya’s hearty chuckle.

The gunship wheeled around over the ocean to give its passengers a better view.  Freya subconsciously shifted her balance, letting the motions shift right through her.  Jake’s knuckles were white on the lip of the gunship.  “Freya, have you seen this before?” he asked.

“Sure have.  Every time I come home.  If Dad were here, he’d put down at the edge of the water and fish for a while.”  Freya smiled at him.  “Crazy old fart loves the water.  The worst part of living on Terra, for him, is the fact that there’s no water left.”

“Really?  He never talks about it,” Jake said.

“You’ve met Father Russ, Lord Seager?” one of the Claws asked.

“Sure, he’s come to several parties I’ve attended,” Jake said.  “I wouldn’t say we’re, you know, close, or anything, but we’ve spoken.”

“What did you think of him?” the second Claw asked.

“Funny question to ask in front of his daughter,” Jake said coolly.

The second Claw cocked his head.  “What do you mean?”

Freya reached over and squeezed Jake’s shoulder.  “Don’t answer, Jake,” she said.

“Wasn’t going to.  Nothing bad to say, though, you understand,” he said with a wink.

Freya winked back before turning to face the Claw.  “Terrans don’t like to talk about people behind their backs, Brother, certainly not in front of their relatives.  They think it’s dishonorable and rude,” Freya explained in Juvjk.

“Oh, I see.”  The warrior shrugged in contrition.  “Sorry.”

“No harm done.”  Freya turned back to the others, noting that Alex and Remilia were both peering into the water, trying to see the Kraken in its endless depths.

“Do you guys want to set down out there?” Freya asked, gesturing at the shoreline as it came into view.

“Can we do that?” Remilia asked.

“Sure,” Freya said.

“Not here, Sister Freya,” the first Claw said.  “There’s a hell of a battle going on at the shoreline.  The tribes of the Walking Waves are protecting their fishing grounds from the advancing Krennir,” he added, as if anybody but him knew who that was.

“Ah.  Farther up the coastline, then?” Freya asked.

“That, we can do.”  The gunship angled away from the waters and headed south, gaining some altitude as it did.  Jake scooted back up the ramp and sat back down on the bench.

“Your world is beautiful, Freya,” he said.

“Thanks, Jake.  It really is.  There’s a few small cleared areas of the mountains outside the Fang.  If there aren’t any units out on training runs out there, I should show you,” she said.

“I’d like that.”  Jake turned to grin at Remilia.  “Home, sweet home for you, eh?”

She shook her head.  “No, it’s a hell of a lot colder on Inwit.  Being in real snow, though…I’ve missed that.”

The water below suddenly shifted to brown rocks and earth as they passed over the shore.  Freya slid her socks and boots back on and unclipped her harness.  She jumped the last meter down to the rocky shoreline and landed with her head near the ground.  While the others climbed down more sedately, she took a deep breath of the heady, saline air.  She closed her eyes and let the memories of her last time here flood back.

Fishing with her father on the coastline.  Riding the pauldron of his armor as he ran over the Koromi ice field.  Sitting on the bed in the Royal suite in the Fang and letting her mother teach her how to make Fenrisian braids in her hair.  Listening to Bjorn tell outrageous stories about the Crusade, calling him out on them, and having the entire room back him up.

Freya smiled contentedly as the others walked up behind her.  She straightened up and rubbed a tear out of her eye.  Being home, she decided, felt very, very good.

Alex walked straight over to the waterline and made his way down the rocks.  The saltwater lapped at his arctic camo boots as he reached the edge.  “Freya, anything going to eat me if I stick my hand in the water?” he called up to her.

“Yes.  Let me see first,” she said, shaking the memories away and walking up to the rocks.  She peered down into the water with her hyper-enhanced senses and saw nothing.  “Go ahead.”

Alex stuck his fingers in the frigid water as a wave crashed.  He watched, mesmerized, as the ripples of the Kraken’s distant passing splashed against the rocks below him.  “Absolutely incredible.”

“Isn’t it?”  Freya jumped down the rocks and dropped neatly into position beside him.  “I used to go out to a little island in the ocean west of here and fish with Dad.  The water’s so shallow there that there’s no Krakens or anything, it’s just grazer fish and small sharks.”  She stared into the water, watching tiny fish swirl about under the wavetops.  “I loved it.  It was the most relaxed I ever saw him.”

Alex dried his hands on his thermo pants.  “Do you fish too?”

“No, Dad said I wouldn’t enjoy it until I enjoyed being slow.  I had no idea what he meant.  I tried it a few times and I think I understand what he meant, though,” she joked.

She glanced over at him.  The shimmering reflection of the sun off the water in her canine eyes was captivating.  Alex started to understand the extent to which she was truly in her element.  “I love it.  I should take you guys out there if we get a chance.”

“I’m sure we will, it’s only been a day,” Alex said.

Freya slid her cloak back from the water’s edge and discreetly squeezed Alex’s hand.  “I have so much to show you,” she said quietly.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Alex replied.  She nipped his ear and rose.

“We can sit here and picnic if you guys want, we brought some food,” Freya said, gesturing to the gunship.  The aircraft was settling down on the rocky ground behind them.  The two Claws had vanished.

“That would be awesome,” Jake said.  He and Venus were still standing at the top of the rocks, pitching little pebbles into the waves.  Remilia had clambered up to the lowest bough of a tree on the rocks’ edge, and was staring out over the water with her hand over her eyes.

“How wide is this ocean?” Remilia asked.

“About twenty thousand kilometers across at the equator,” Freya said.  She gathered her legs beneath her and leaped back up to the top of the rocky shore as Alex scrambled up behind her.  “It’s called the World Ocean or Grand Seas in Gothic.”

Remilia leaped back down from the branch and rubbed her hands clean.  “What did you pack?”

“Just some basic rations and salted meat, nothing fancy,” Freya said, walking back into the hold.