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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 theground, 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.