Crash Landing

Airports made him nervous.

Julian held back his shaking anxiety by gripping the handle of his luggage tighter, the weathered plastic beneath it compressed with a clicking scrape. It wasn't the first time he had squeezed it with such force; it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Three connecting flights had brought him to the Korean peninsula, two more flights to go before he'd have the soles of his shoes on the yellowed sands of Casey Key. Florida's gulf side beaches would be astounding this time of year and he needed to get his tan to its proper place on his skin.

His hair had started to adopt the color of charcoal as his age advanced, leaving him with a grizzled look that accented the rest of his features handsomely. Lines of stress, laughter, and intense focus gave his face a web work of vast emotional potential. Currently, furrowed lines showed him to be unnaturally interested at the ground some meters away, trying to will the reality around him to hasten and for the airline to start making fulfilling their "Fast, Friendly, and Effective Service" slogan.

A call of his name made him twitch. The nearby terminal personnel beckoning him to ask if he would be comfortable sitting near an emergency exit. Being a Japanese airline, the crew was all trained to speak in English so as to circumvent in-flight emergencies from developing because of cultural norms. Extra leg room? Hell yes. A brief glance went to the woman behind him as he made his way back to the queue; staring in the protection of the crowd so as to not seem unreasonably creepy.

She was tall, probably American, but obviously not a prior service member like himself from the way her eyes seemed too thoughtful, her hair not holding rows of being forcibly shaped, and her stance of innocent wonder; as if scared something was wrong with her ticket instead of innately knowing why she was called to the kiosk. Her immediate acceptance was met with smiles and frantic nodding from the mostly foreign crew. Their forced politeness lost on the girl who reacted as though she had won some sort of airline lottery. Julian smirked, standing a bit more relaxed while he stole looks of the woman who was cheerfully moving to stand beside him at their new position in line.

"Better than a middle seat, right?" Julian's voice was rubbed and chaffed from years of shouting and making himself be heard. No one smiled like she did unless they quick to make conversation. She looked to be just below middle-aged; a college graduate or someone a few years of their first taste of the real world after twenty years of preparing for it.

A raven's wing of black hair glistened of her head in the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead that stopped just at the top of her spine. She wore only a pale white blouse with the first two buttons undone and a tight fitting black skirt that wrapped about her knees in a firm hug. A blue portfolio in one hand and only a rolled briefcase in the other clued him that she was perhaps traveling for an interview, or gunning for a teaching position at an Asian schoolhouse.

"You have no idea. If I needed to sit next to another snoring, balding, and smelly tourist I was going to lose my mind." A tone of a day's worth of gripes came as a grateful sigh when she realized she could finally talk to someone who spoke English.

Julian made a showing of tapping his nose, gripping his hair, and pretending to sniff at his armpit after each of her mentions. Old habits died hard, and his scent only faintly held the wisp of silver smelling cologne combined with neutral deodorant. "Not sure if I snore. Jab me in the neck with that folder of yours if I do." His finger twitched towards her slim portfolio as the line began to move with the boarding.

"No promises. Just let me sit near the window? I do have to finish some paperwork and I'd rather have the wall to write on." A black painted fingernail tapped idly at her held item.

"Fine, but I get your shoulder to lean on after the third hour. There's only two seats on our side." A flopping of his ticket to the air gestured around them while they walked down the sloped umbilical.

"Deal."

Some time was needed to orient Julian's case in the overhead. Carrying everything you owned in life, literally, on your back was bound to cause some clashing with the foreign sized compartments that were clearly not being designed for American bags.

The black-maned woman had less difficulty, as she seemed to traveled lightly. A quick slide of her briefcase underneath her seat soon left her untying her portfolio and immediately setting to work on seemingly chaotic pages of numbers and statistics.

Julian hated moments like this. Clearly she wasn't above talking; but the speed in which she set herself to her work also told him to keep his distance. Women didn't have spikes or bright colors to show when they were poisonous. No, he'd have to make do with blind stumbling like everyone else.

"I'm Julian." He offered, leaning as if to whisper her a secret whilst looking ahead. The motions were clever, and weren't lost on the woman who caught on that they were somehow schoolkids talking during class.

"I'm Mira. Are you going to pass me a note asking if I like you?" There wasn't any room to answer as she continued. "I need to get this done, straight A's are important. Tell me how big your jockstrap is after I finish this, okay?" A lean brought her back to a normal posture and away she went as her pen worked furiously on the papers.

Julian could only shrug. Whatever. At least she seemed willing to chat, eventually. He dug around in his jacket pocket until he found his cap. Turning it, he laid it over his face and leaned back as the safety brief began and the plane started to taxi.

-----

"Do we really have to kill them all?" Tallat asked with a whiny voice. The angel's body was young, curvy, and ripe with all the energies of someone newly created.

"Yes. It's willed." Atara's voice was filled with duty and concentration while she played upon the threads of Chance and Fate to begin the events that would lead to the plane's crash; A technician's faulty inspection tool, a pilot unfamiliar with the route, a cargo door that wouldn't allow proper pressurization, and an engine with a weak blade that would not be able to handle the aerobatic stress once the emergency descent started.

"Can't we save at least some of them? Isn't that our job?" She asked with more whining. Reluctant hands plucked at her own strings but it was obvious she was milking out the time. One cheeky hand had already put two of them at an emergency exit and another was working to make the air stream cause the airplane's skin to dissolve on the side opposite of them.

Atara's gaze hadn't noticed these changes yet. Instead, she was still working on the fluxing chord that would lead the co-pilot to not take over once he realized the situation couldn't be handled by the main pilot. "Tallat, stop complaining and look at what you're doing."

The other angel puffed her cheeks in a childlike way and went back to making minute changes.

-----

It was hell on earth.

Julian was on his side, half covered by a snowy blizzard, and staring at the cracking wreckage of the airliner before him. The life mask he had worn was sheared away leaving only an elastic band flailing around his ear like a miniature flag.

There was screaming in the distance. Was that screaming? The wind was howling and the screeching sound rose to a fevered pitch before another booming explosion silenced it. A turbine had finally eaten enough snow and shrapnel to destroy itself under its own power; the shockwave caused Julian's body to be flung another foot deeper into the ravine that had saved him from the subsequent decimation.

"-et up!" A woman's hand was grabbing for him through the sleet and white haze. "Get up!" Her voice came again, her grip landing around his wrist. A shucking sound of frozen cloth being removed from ice grinded on his ears while he was made to stand. Mira was hugging him around his chest and he found himself squinting from the cold that buffeted his eyes.

Instinct finally kicked in. "Come on!" The shout was barely heard over the whipping sound around them. Another explosion, this one further away, sent a zinging piece of metal across his cheek that made him flinch and hug Mira protectively. It had been years since his last taste of conflict, his body reacting to put himself between the woman and any potential hazards.

Dark shapes before him could have been people, but they soon turned into crackled jags of mountainous terrain and cave inlets near the carnage of the plane crash. Julian's strength let him naturally move quickly through the knee-high snow but the girl who had clutched upon him was struggling, leaving him to nearly carry her until they were huddled inside the shallow cave. Once more the wind gusted and it whitewashed the landscape outside to make it appear as an endlessly blank void. There was some lesser explosions and the occasional crackle of an electrically powered item fizzling out; but from the confines where they sat there was no indication that there was a burning wreckage a short distance away.

"We're going to die!" Mira wailed. She still only had on her white, long sleeved, blouse. The black skirt around her hips was ripped heavily from where it had caught on rocks or metal. Brown slippers adorned her feet where she had changed them out from her short heels some minutes after takeoff. Julian was not much better off with a heavy jacket, simple shirt, and baggy jeans. The only useful thing he wore was a pair of rugged work boots that were comfortable on long flights.

"Stay here." He shoved her down to accent his point and trudged back into the harm of the blizzard. It was easier now that he didn't have a frightened girl latched to him and he was soon looking for the things they'd need. A couple of food carts had flipped over so he stuffed his pockets with as much packaged food as he could carry; luggage was everywhere which allowed him to snatch the largest bag he could lug without ill effect. A support brace for a wing held a blaze that would be manageable enough to heat the little alcove, so he tore it off with a resolute twist to brandish overhead.

He ignored the bodies, his career in the military had taught him to always ignore the bodies.

Biting cold was settling in. The trek back to the alcove was slower, but he was soon shaking himself off at the entrance. Chattering teeth heralded beginnings of hypothermia and he could already see the Mira huddled up in the typical fetal position. Warmth. They needed warmth. He leaned the flaming brace upon the stone and finally got the luggage bag open. Fur coats spilled forth, wind breakers, jeans, and ladies boots. Perfect. He flung a fox-pelt cloak over the shivering teenager while he took a tiger-striped one for himself. The rest of the luggage bag was made of cloth and it was quick to burn to create a small bonfire. Once warm enough to trek again, he was soon back with slabs of airplane skin and more luggage to be used as kindling; sealing off the entrance to the cave and leaving only a small air hole for the smoke to have a way of escape.

"Are you hurt?" He seemed to talk in a rather direct and slightly robotic way. "Put your hands on your body, then your arms and legs." Julian knew how easily a panicked mind could ignore a broken rib or a kneecap that wasn't correctly seated over the joint. He did the same to himself and felt along every bone he could. The only injury either of them seemed to have was the quick slice of his cheek as the shrapnel had barely missed his head.

"I, uh, I think I'm okay." Mira fought a shivering stutter as the cave was still rather cold.

"Yeah, I am too. We need to get out of these clothes." He was already stripping off his jacket from underneath his scavenged one. The warmth of fire was welcome, but wet clothing on bare skin would take longer to dry in their hovel. "Strip down. Now." That voice left no room for argument. "I'll head back out again for more once I've warmed enough." His chin gestured at the open luggage, then to the makeshift doorway.

Even in a situation like this he still showed some understanding of her instant shyness towards such an act. He was already in his briefs and using the zippered door of the luggage bag as a lean-to near the fire; creating a space to hang his shirt and socks. "Hurry, please, before frostbite sets in?" He cast his voice over his shoulder to hasten her as she seemed to not want to get herself mucked on dirt or scuff anything. "Don't leave anything wet on you." He said once more. Survivalist technique was to keep as many layers on you as possible, but survivalist technique was used when there wasn't an immediate source of warmth like the bonfire they had going for them.

"Okay. Okay!" Her tone was irritated but he heard her motions take a greater urgency. She was soon sitting beside the fire with her fur coat tied about her frame. Each article of clothing she wore was spaced about the lean-to in the same way Julian had laid his own.

"Get comfy. It'll be a while before I can go back out."

-----

"You tortured them." Atara spoke softly while she loomed over the pane that dominated the Overlook. Shock dripped from her voice as she saw that the other angel had twisted her station.

"I brought them together, very different." Tallat quickly answered. Her bare breasts were tightly shifting upon the bubble as she continued to tweak the lines of Chance and Fate. Her body was smaller than Atara's, but what the new angel lacked in height she made up for with curvaceous width.

"At the cost of a generation of pain. The man should have died seconds after being found, and the woman some minutes later." Atara shoved the younger angel out of the way so she could swirl the image to visualize what she meant.

Every dead passenger on board the airliner was represented as a dot; each of those dots were connected to others that represented their family, friends, and acquaintances. Blackness soon enveloped most of the bubble. "Look at the void you just made." That display showed the effects of their actions in real time, as well as what the future would hold to some extent.

Atara bit at her pristine lip, blinked her golden eyes, and finally spoke. "Not worth it, Tallat. There's too much tampering here and He will notice soon enough."

The younger angel shrugged, swiping the bubble back to hitch herself to the squiggling metronomes of entwined Chance and Fate. Shrugging was a gesture that was well known amongst those above. The humans had adopted it to mean "whatever" but to the angels it meant that they all acted according to His design. There was an infallibility about them that couldn't be denied by even the strongest critic of their actions.

Of course, Atara could never question Him personally, but that didn't stop her from having the occasional thought to what end the scenes below them could lead to. Both should be dead. Their souls had been plucked from the jaws of peace by an overzealous angel.

Atara wondered just how long those two had before He demanded that debt be paid?

-----

Mira gave a sigh of relief as Julian finally stood and began to don his clothes once more; adding some more layers with what was left of the bag's contents. They had both been mostly quiet; Mira's need to speak constantly had dulled to an unbelieving stare at the crackling fire while she continued to think this was all some bad dream.

She felt her nipples painfully prickle at the coldness the cave held, despite the warmth of the fire so near to her. A tighter crossing of her hands made her breasts press more firmly on her forearms while she sought to increase her body's warmth underneath the coat. Thankfully, her bare legs were comfortable as she sat cross-ways by the crackling flame.

This was punishment. She was sure of it. Years of teaching students at a local college had fueled her with a constant source of infidelity. While not religious, she secretly felt that guilt that her betrayal would somehow come back around in a form of karma. To this extreme, though? It was one hell of a punishment. She wouldn't have resorted to the younger breed of men if her own husband had helped make her life worthwhile! No sooner had they married that he soon took to drinking, overeating, and failing his promotional windows at his work.

She was left as the breadwinner, and obvious pants-wearer, in their household. Their sex life dried to nonexistence, and the final straw was when he was found to be impotent. Only the looming idea that he would leap from a building if she left him is what kept her in his bed but not in her heart.

"Do you think anyone else is alive?" She finally asked while his hands worked to tug his shirt over his head. He hadn't been fully naked like she was, but the dull flickering of shadows across him reminded her of some tribal caveman about to hunt.

"No." Was all he said. She wasn't very insightful as to what his tone meant but it didn't take a layman to realize that he said it so as to not get her hopes up. "And it'll be dark soon. We'll be sleeping with each other for warmth, prepare yourself. I cannot wake constantly to stoke the fire and it's an easier way to stay warm."

Again, she couldn't help but be reminded of some masculine image of a man protecting what was most sacred to him. Even in this circumstance she half expected him to point at her and tell her to stay; as if she had anywhere else to go or the skills to survive. At no time did he seem to be perturbed by the fact that they had just survived a plane crash; nor did he seem to have a frantic mindset on what to do next.

He simply acted.

A grunt, a shifting of metal, a burst of cold air, and he was gone again to the howling whiteness where he didn't return until some hour later. Three bags of luggage, more foodstuffs, and a shredded mechanism that was dripping with oils were all brought with him. A thankful exhale broke her lips as she stood to help drop the items safely and to begin ripping open the luggage.

Proper clothes spilled forth, though they were all mostly caked in icy snow. They must have been close to the burning engines and refrozen after the fires died. It was usable material but it would take time to thaw. Meanwhile, Julian had already started stripping his clothing again and donning his furry coat.

"It's getting late. I didn't see any other survivors. There's still another food cart that I saw but I already had my hands full." He spoke as though giving her a post-battle report. "I need to re-dry but it'll be too dark to see by then. This is what we have for tonight."

It finally struck her that no rescue could possibly happen with the blizzard outside. That, and darkness would make the site even more difficult to spot. Like it or not, she was stuck there with this man. Some canned tuna and melted snow made up their brief meal. Julian had let the dripping oil of a circular device catch in the pocket of a windbreaker and he cast the entire thing in the fire. A blooming plume made the blaze expand for a moment and a heatwave permeated out of it to make the temperature rise noticeably.

"That won't last long, enjoy it."

Mira nodded, moving closer to him as she did so. "Have...you done this before?" She needed to know, to finally understand.

"Yes. A few years ago. Frostbite and gangrene are what I'm concerned about. Come here?" He cast open his coat to try to bring her inside it as well. She complied, overlapping their coats to put them in the same pocket together as he quickly moved his hand between her knees. "You've been in here for a while." He said quickly as she jumped from that intimate touch. His fingers were close to icicles in her plusher skin. "I'm sorry." The words came quickly. "But I only used one hand out there just for this reason. Don't want to risk losing fingers on both, better to just risk one."