Concavenator:

The sled stood where they had last seen it, its thin mast whipping in the wind, and the furled waxed sails threatening to break their restraint. When Kukri and Giya reached it, the driver and the youth who'd called them were already hoisting two of the heavy pulling ropes on their shoulders.

“Come!” the driver shouted, like the other barely visible under her heavy coat “Get a move and pull your part! We leave here now!”

Over the hissing of the wind, the flapping of the sails, the creaking of the ropes, and the crackle of ice shattering under the hull, there almost seemed to be shouts coming from deeper in the city.

pinkgothic:

The urgency was out of proportion to the time they had cited to Kukri, and she found herself irked by it, but not to the point where she was going to complain. Neither did them forgetting about her injured leg give her pause just yet. She gestured for a moment's pause. “Giya,” she addressed her friend. “Can you help them get the sled moving? It is up to you if you wish to help.” She glanced down at her leg for a moment of regret, then began to clamber onto the sled as a passenger, keeping her irritation to herself.

Concavenator:

The driver briefly glared at Kukri, with an annoyed tilt of her head; Giya dutifully took up one of the harnesses. The girl had surprising strength, and though her boots occasionally slipped on the ground, when she started pulling, the sled started crawling noticeably faster.

By that time, the sled was already out of the gravelly ground that helped keep it in place for the loading, and onto the stretch of compacted snow that lead outside of Yakak'ratu, into the northern gloam. A couple minutes of effort were enough to move it into place.

The driver barked an order, and both she and her helper climbed aboard, followed by Giya a heartbeat later; they rolled up the harnesses, as the vessel slid forward by sheer inertia; and just when more lights seemed to be appearing in the city, they unfurled the sails.

With a powerful jolt that knocked the chests and boxes against each other, the sled caught the wind, and rushed away from Yakak'ratu.

pinkgothic:

Kukri clutched at the sled to avoid getting dislodged by the jostling, but it wasn't her first sled ride and likely wouldn't be her last, either, and so it took very little cognitive effort to manage the shifting forces. The start of such a ride was never particularly pleasant, though, regardless, and she was glad when they were on their way. “Thank you,” she said to Giya as she clambered up, then eyed the other occupants with some suspicion. There was nothing worth stealing on her or Giya, but if there had been, she might have worried that they had put themselves at the mercy of these people. As it were, even with her injury, if they wanted to get physical for a reason other than theft, she felt certain she could make them regret it. But for now, they were their hosts, and they would be compensated for the ride, however poor their manners, or questionable their hasty intent.

Concavenator:

City lights behind, the landscape returned to darkness, save for the bluish glare of the ground. With the standoffish driver standing at the helm, the sled sailed at a very satisfying speed, after many days of painfully slow crawl to the glaciers and back.

Rows of black, soldier-straight Wollemi pines, with tattered festoons hanging from their branches from old festivals, rushed back on either side of the path, which was as perfectly traced and maintained as any railway. Huts built from stone shards and asleep penguin flocks followed in fast pursuit.

Giya was huddled not far from Kukri, taking shelter from the icy airflow behind a chest, resting her head on the hullside, and staring out in silence at the fleeing landscape. The driver's helper sat on a drum with her back to the prow, gnawing at something in a bowl.

pinkgothic:

Kukri was shielding herself from the wind's chill with her jacket, though it did little to protect her face even with her attempts to shove her snout in under a flap of it, given that she still sought to peer out. Giving up on the geometries of it for the time being, she accepted the cold to the degree her body let her, and anchored her attention on Giya. Giya was known to be silent - it was her personality type, as she had proven over and over again - but Kukri felt a worry about it, regardless. “How are your spirits, my friend?” Kukri probed, just loud enough to press the words audibly through the wind.

Concavenator:

“I am well,” she said, though her muzzle remained resting on the railing, with frost glistening around her nostrils. After a short while, she added: “Do not like the people of the sled, though. I think they do bad things. You have your writings hidden?” She pronounced the last sentence almost as a whisper, as if fearing to draw attention to the notes that had cost them such effort and danger.

pinkgothic:

Kukri, who shared Giya's general sentiment, was certainly keeping an eye on her belongings where she wasn't directly holding them. That did not count as 'hidden', but it counted as 'accounted for'. She wasn't sure why anyone would be interested in the notes of a philosopher, though - the measurements would be practically meaningless to someone not familiar with the science behind the research - and it fueled her confusion. “Why would they want them?” she asked, hushed about it.

Concavenator:

“Don’t know. Maybe they take it and then sell back it to us for much money. Or maybe they take it and destroy it because they think it is lying against ‘Au’a. Or maybe they sell it to other philosophers who wish to learn things before you. Or maybe…” She trailed off, as if there were other possibilities that were not fit to be mentioned. Her toes were twitching under the cloak, perhaps waiting for a chance to spring to her feet, but she was not looking back at the driver and her helper, not once.

pinkgothic:

Kukri could imagine them getting stripped of belongings in a pinch, of course, but there was no need to steal the notes and then demand their money if they could just roughhouse the both of them. Giya was in decently good shape, but with the injury of her leg, Kukri would not be able to fight very well to defend herself, and their hosts would know that.

Lying against 'Au'a she could not imagine as a cause - a bunch of cryptic numbers and notations could barely parse as a lie to anyone, anyway. If she had already analysed the numbers and written a thesis, it might be a different matter, but in their raw form they were not any more exciting than an accountant's minimalist transaction history: Meaningless without context.

Stealing her notes to give them to another philosopher, though, she could imagine. But again, that would require some knowledge of what it was they held - it almost outright presupposed they had been sent for her.

Either way, she took Giya's paranoia to heart enough to increase her vigilance. There was not very much that needed tracking. The bigger question was what she might do if a fight did occur; to that, she had no good answer.

Concavenator:

Giya did not object to that, at least. Perhaps her real concerns were more abstract and not so easily put into words; and out of grasp for now, much like her home.

The sled operators did not talk much, and when they did it was mostly in a trade cant that neither Kukri or Giya could follow well. After an hour or so, they exchanged places, the first driver sitting down for a meal, and the other taking up place at the helm, with a broad-brimmed hat that shielded her eyes from the headwind.

The off-duty driver spent some time laboriously tearing apart a roasted auk and drinking from a wineskin embroidered with Takrakaya patterns. For a while she seemed to ignore her passengers altogether, but after a particularly deep swig, though without turning away from the cargo, she asked: “Far from home?”

pinkgothic:

“Certainly further than I might like,” Kukri admitted, making conversation. “But sometimes the circumstances demand such things. I assume the same is true for you especially, given that you take the time to maintain and run a sled.” She said it with kindness, but wasn't sure to which degree the wind was letting that subtlety through.

Concavenator:

The driver chuckled dryly. “You could say that. Always on the wind, back and forth and back. And you're here all alone, hm? Or is that a friend of yours? She looks sick. Not good if you run into trouble. But I have here some podocarp wine that will set your innards alright if you let it.” She took another sip. Under the coats it was hard to see the exact tilt of her head, though it seemed to be a friendly one.

pinkgothic:

Giya had struck Kukri as remarkably resilient, but perhaps the observation was true, regardless - just because Giya's immune system was treating her well did not mean she was not perhaps ill. It was easy to be poor and ill, and Giya had certainly been poor… remained poor, technically, no matter how much they were both working on changing that.

“She's tougher than she looks,” Kukri said, gently, even though it was technically a lie - Giya looked every bit as tough as she was. “But I thank you for the kind offer.” Of course, maybe she shouldn't be accepting or declining things on behalf of another, but Giya had made it quite clear she didn't trust these people, and so Kukri felt her gate-keeping was valid.