I am going somewhere because I feel like it is necessary.
This plane, this time-- it might be Syca, urging me with her special sight, because three hours into the nine hour flight, the plane starts shaking uncontrollably, buffeted by violent streams of wind and lightning.
I leap from my seat, despite the warnings of the stewardess over the intercom, and make my way to the cockpit, phasing through the locked door. "So, what's the problem?" I ask the pilots amiably, leaning over their chairs. This time, to avoid shock, I have taken the form of the stewardess.
"I've no idea how to fix this, Allie! This storm just appeared out of nowhere! The instruments are all going haywire..." cries the man on the right, younger and obviously the junior pilot. His counterpart, giving him a sidelong look, replies,
"We may not know what started it, but we still have a chance." He turns his head slightly in my direction, while maintaining surveillance of the hectically blinking lights and instrument panels around him. "How's the Device coming along?"
"Uh...I'll go check," I reply, and sneak backwards out of the door-- only to bump into the real stewardess on her way to the cockpit. She stares at me, I stare at me, from the nice blue uniform all the way down to the ludicrously pink high heels... crap. I forgot to change back.
She doesn't scream, however. With quick and sensible thinking, she grabs my collar and shoves me into the bathroom, shoving the door shut behind her, before any of the passengers can see the strange sight. Her eyes appraise me coldly, the pupils narrowing in distrust. Her arm is quite strong, and I feel like she could snap my neck easily if she took notion.
"How did you get on this plane? Who-- what are you?" she growls. Quickly, I shift into my normal shape.
"I'm just a passenger, but-- I thought maybe I could find out what was going on and help...and I was just going to talk to you, the older pilot said something about a Device they might need soon..."
She relinquishes her hold in shock, leaning back against the mirror in the cramped space. "Did he really say that? How on earth could it be time already....and how do I know I can trust you? You could be the Cause."
"I assure you, I'm not wittingly the cause of anything bad," I plead, but she does not let me out.
"They never are." she replies sternly.
"I could help you land the plane!" I say earnestly. "I can fly on my own, if you let me out of here I can direct the plane to a safer course."
"Hmm...not so sure I believe that. Can you give me some sign of trust?"
"Um...yes!" I take out a piece of my soul and hand it to her, wrapped in my scarf. "Hold onto this. If I don't come back, you can flush it down the toilet."
She steps aside, and I squeeze past and out of the loo, feeling terribly light with only a tiny particle of my soul missing... Whew. The lengths a hero goes to to get a commission these days...
Still, it enables me to fly faster and actually keep ahead of the plane, sending signals back about how the storm is changing up ahead, where there are breaks that can be used to navigate clearly and regain bearings...
Then, suddenly, the clouds disappear completely.
I fall out of the storm into a strange yellow sky. Below stretches deep blue sand-- NO!! I'm upside down, or the world is... I yell in the radio that they have to pull down hard, bank toward the ground as hard as possible, because things are not the way they seem and they are about to crash....
And as I land on the hot sand and pull off my goggles to watch the skies, the plane emerges out of the line of the horizon, stretching and growing and lifting itself into the night sky.
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