Wings of Honor: Saving Grace

Chapter 16: Marching Over The Mountains

The air was thinner up here in the mountains. So much so Travers enchanted up some masks and infinite air tanks, just so we could be up here without a headache or going unconscious.
"It's a pretty sight. Innit?" Marvin looked over.
"Yeah, tell that to my fucking balls in witness protection! It's ffffucking freezing!" Travers shivered like a leaf.
I chuckled.
"Well you're welcome to try walking to get a little lower."
I felt Travers lean over and look at the not so distant ice-capped mountains, and I may or may not have purposefully had frost (or what looked like frost) gathering on the edge of my wings.
"No thanks. I'll freeze."
Marvin kept looking around with his glasses.
"You see anything Marvin?"
He kept looking around. "Not yet at least."
We followed Marvin's sight for a moment, but then gave up. I kept flying, taking a short cut high over the mountains.
"Seriously, you had to choose the coldest route Grace."
"Hey. Grace said we needed to be in the Skywing Kingdom ASAP. So we're taking the shortest route." He did his best to try and smooth his map against my scales. "At this rate, we'll be there before the morning. If all goes well."
"If." Travers repeated.
"If?" Marvin looked up at him frowning.
"Why do you got to be so negative Travers."
While Marvin didn't speak, he was by no means silent. I swear sometimes Travers. You're great in a fight, but sometimes when I'm trying to get non fight things done, I want to slap you.
I smirked.
"Do you have a plan once we get there Marvin?"
I felt him take a sharp breath.
"That means react to contact. Got it."
We all chuckled.
"But no, seriously."
"Alright Travers." He shifted his haversack and weapons. "The plan is: we'll get to the Skywing Kingdom and-"
Something came over him. Something colder than even being all the way up here. Something... coldly familiar, at least to Travers.
"Marvin?"
He leaned over back to him. I turned to see what was going on.
Marvin held his Springfield in his arms, cradled perfectly, as a good rifleman should. But...
"Marvin?" I asked. Concerned, but having to look forward. "Travers?"
"You okay Captain?"
I climbed a little more to put us higher above the mountains, and smoother flying.
I... I...
Things were going through his mind. But... he was trying to block them. Somehow, they were slipping through... or he was letting them through.
Fire.
Death.
An explosion! Right in front of me!
I banked hard, avoiding the fiery cloud.
Flack? Here? How?
"Grace! What's going on?"
A shiver ran down me from tail to talons.
"What was that?" He started looking around frantically.
Was that an illusion? Flack in the mountains?

Suddenly, a vision pierced through.
Lights, no, tracers!
They ran all around us, filling the sky with thunder and lightning.
I felt the rounds pierce my wings. I roared up in pain. But then I heard their screams. I looked down, watching the two figures grasp at air. I saw the fear in their eyes. His hazel eyes.

I blinked.
"Marvin! Marvin!" Travers shook him, but he didn't respond. "Grace! Marvin's not okay!"
Suddenly, tracers lashed through the air. The evening sky alight with fire and flames.
We're not okay!
Instead of flaring, I dove into them. Taking the three of us to the deck, banking behind a bluff.
"Shit!"
"Grace!"
I tried my best to get into cover, but somehow the tracers kept following us. Like they were seeking us out somehow! But we weren't dead, yet.
"Marvin!" I heard a sharp slap echo around the mountains. What brief moment of lucidity it brought to him, instantly sent him into fight mode. "Captain. We're under attack right now by a machinegun. What are our orders? Sir."
I made out a couple breaths.
"Okay. Travers, take this parachute." I felt Marvin draw from one of the bags. "Pincer movement. We'll knock out this gun. Grace, you'll draw its fire. Give it a show." He picked up his gun, hesitating, but throwing that thought to the back of his mind. "Grab a flare, in case you get lost." Marvin took one last look as I banked around towards it. "Good luck." He nodded.
I lit up my spine scales red... then green.
"LET'S GO!"
"AIRBORNE!"
The two soldiers jumped, while I turned a stormy grey to make myself harder to hit, but still visible enough to be a decoy. I swooped down low over the gun, flying into the tracers, rolling and yawing so they couldn't guess me out.
I lay down a sheet of fire, a long line that, if it didn't get the gunner outright, it would be close enough to feel.
I went invisible, banking around high to get another lineup. Once I was there, I shifted to black, before unleashing my frost breath in another line. White steam compounded with the black smoke, making the line of what I straifed a long smoke screen.
I sensed the two minds pushing up to my position. Promptly after, I heard more gunshots. The familiar distant crack of a rifle, and the familiar softer popping of Marvin's assault rifle.
The tracers stopped flying into the sky, and his chattering was silenced not soon after by two dull explosions.
I banked around, flying low and slow over the wrecked machine gun nest. Through the smoke, I saw the remains of a sandbagged tripod, and a couple bodies in tan uniforms.
After a few further moments, a pop echoed round the trees. I turned towards the rising red star in the sky. Finding the closest clearing, I waited nearby.
"Gracebringer!"
"Travers!" I ran up to him, letting him climb onto me. I looked around, almost frantically. "Where-where's Marvin?"
He looked around as well. "I don't know. He was right behind me a moment ago." When we took the nest.
My eyes wide, my breath hastening. "Marvin!"
"Captain!"
"MARVIN!"
"Marvin?" Travers caught his breath. "Maybe better luck from the air?"
I only nodded, taking to the skies once more, piercing through the evergreen canopies. I flew low and slow over the trees, scanning with a scared, careful eye.
"Marvin!" Travers kept calling. He risked going without his mask, already faintly feeling lightheaded.
I listened. Listened for any sign of him. A thought, a sign, a mark. Marvin had plenty of things he could leave behind if he was kidnapped.
His cross, his rank pin, his assault rifle rounds. There was no way he would have gone missing without leaving some sort of sign behind.
Unless he diddnt want to be found.
Recalling his Springfield.
He hesitated when he held that rifle. That is his rifle. He was so happy to have found it during the siege. But... why did he hesitate? Bad memories? What memory? The siege? He killed a lot of people that night, but it was all justified. He knows that there was nothing that could've been done. Before coming here? Marvin no doubt had to kill before, and probably under hard circumstances, but then he would have had those thoughts sooner? Wait, didn't he?
Why the Springfield specifically? Maybe...
Then it hit me.
The IceWings, when they tried to steal Darkstalker's scroll. I looked back at the bags, recalling what I saw him put in the duffles. He still has it! They came after the scroll, on their own volition. Marvin was angry. I heard the shot! He killed them! Tears started growing in my eyes. I let out a long sigh.
"Grace?" Travers patted my back. "You know something?"
I took a sharp breath. "Remember how I told you Marvin went into the Ice Kingdom?"
"Yeah, because he was done with Winter's shit. So am I. Why?"
I gulped. "He killed an Icewing, during his trip." There was an eerie silence. "And... he regrets that. A lot."
Oh fuck. Travers mumbled in his mind.
"I can't hear him." I said. Looking at the ground again.
"Shit." Travers whispered, getting out his glasses and joining me in the search.
We searched and searched, circling his last known position in ever widening circles. But Marvin knew how to conceal himself. He knew well how to conceal himself from aerial observation, he was well equipped to survive out here. If Marvin didn't want to be found, he could very well disappear.
I shivered again at that thought, shaking it from my head with another exhale from a breath I had no idea I was holding.
I have to find him. I have to find him.
"Grace!" Travers suddenly patted my back. I turned to look at him. "Over there!" I turned to look.
A glorious, red, flare rose from the stormy white and piercing greens and browns.
"Marvin."
I beat my wings as hard as I could, powering over the flare and landing. We found him standing in a clearing, his weapons slung around his back, and his hands in his pockets.
"Captain!" Travers exclaimed, but Marvin made no comment. His mind was also shut off as well, something he has never done before. I didn't even know he could do it.
"Are, are you okay?" I asked.
Marvin looked up at me, revealing his glossy eyes. A tear frozen on his cheek. He grasped it with his gloved hand, yanking it off with a s prompt but muted hiss, walking around and climbing back onto me.
"Captain?" Travers asked again. "You alright?" But Travers was thinking back to another time. Another time where Marvin broke. A time... where even I wouldn't have been able to stand against that storm.
"I'm..." he spoke. "Fine."
That was all he said, and would say. He motioned for me to take off. I promptly did.
He did not think, he did not say; but the both of us questioned him no further. I sensed he didn't want to talk, and I would respect that. Even Travers agreed.
Alert, almost caffeinated, I brought us out of the mountains. Now that we were out of the thin air, they relaxed their masks. What I noticed was Marvin had great discomfort getting his off. It was lined with tears and mocos he couldn't wipe away. He just let it sit and gather.
I would've said it was disgusting any other time.
Travers silently handed him another handkerchief after he ruined his first. He looked up at him, and nodded in thanks.
Still unspoken, unthinking, totally shut off.

Marvin did not speak until we landed to make camp outside of the SkyWing Palace.
We were in a defilade position providing direct cover and concealment, as well as concealed under some trees from vertical observation. Marvin just stood, overlooking the fire that I helped Travers build. He poked at the tire with a thick, green branch, watching the logs crack and burn under him.
"Sometimes..." me and Travers both looked to him. "Sometimes there are things that... we just cannot deal with." He looked up at me, with teary eyes. "I've been told, that, 'no man is an island.' And... I thought I took that to heart. I thought I listened to that... but..." Marvin looked up at us. "We got separated, and it was my fault." He looked at Travers. "And Grace. I sent you on a mission I couldn't even do myself, let alone survive what you went through." He hung his head. "I just... I..."
"Shh." I sounded, moving over to envelop him with my wing. Creating a black, leathery tent that reflected the heat back on him. In return, he stopped shivering so bad.
Travers leaned in as well, not just for the warmth. He offered a skewer of the meat cubes he scavenged from a ration, warming it over the fire.
Marvin looked between the two of us with teary eyes.
"You don't have to go it alone anymore." I said.
"We're here for you Captain. Both of us."
Then it struck me.
I really wanted to be there for Marvin, as much as he wanted to be there for others, for me. I wanted to give back the same love and support he gave to others. Tears flooded both our eyes. I pulled them in closer, exchanging warmth. I felt his little paws lay splayed against me. I felt his fuzzy head against my side.
He opened his mind back up, and I met the warm pinks and reds and the comfort and thankfulness in that embrace. I closed my eyes, laying down towards the fire.
I spread my wing over all of them, while they still had plenty of room to stand. They opted to stay close to one another, with Marvin still snuggled against me. I looked up at the starry night sky, rapidly coming back into the morning. Then I looked down, at the two men still keeping to each other, already resting on their arms. They trusted one another with their lives. I trusted them with my life.
I let my head rest on the ground, laying next to the warmed ground of the fire. I let out a big sigh, the aches and pains from my days of deprivation still plaguing me.
"You can sleep now Gracebringer." A voice. A familiar voice, called out. "Go ahead and sleep. I w'll keep watch."
I let out another calm breath. Thank you Ignacio.
I felt warmth gather from my fiend beside me. Not only him, I felt many more presences. But I was not afraid, I somehow knew they were here to help. I felt safe, knowing someone was watching over me. In the grace of God, I feared nothing in that night.
Marvin was safe.
Travers was safe.
I was safe, for tonight.
I let my eyes drop down, closing slowly.
In my last moment of sight, I saw a grey bearded man, in a green sweatshirt, and a plaid shirt. His hazel eyes, that could truly see into your soul. A peaceful smile, that only spoke words that never brought anything else down. He smelt of the fields, earthy and fresh, of new life. And he stood tall, comfortable in his own skin.
He was the man Marvin tied to live up to. The man who taught his father.
The man, who he had... only six months to know.

The world faded out to darkness. A silent night.