Wings of Honor: Deciding Destiny

Chapter 3: The March

"Hey. Grace."
"Mmmph."
I took a sharp breath as I rolled back onto my stomach, prone. I licked my dry lips. The sun dazzled me for a moment but quickly came back into focus. The smiling face of McManis with his hand at his hip.
"I'm not sure if Marvin ever mentioned this, but you talk in your sleep."
I rubbed the sand and crud out of my eyes. "I do?" I said slowly.
Travers chuckled. "Yeah. Something like: beware dragons. Stalker of dreams. Beware the one who is not what she seems. Really confident stuff."
I frowned, looking down at the sand.
What? What are they talking about? Could I have had a prophecy in my sleep?
"I don't know." McManis stepped up. "Your tone of voice changed. Way deeper, and you sounded like you smoked a pack of cigs. I'm not sure if it was you you."
"McManis. You sound like you smoked a pack of cigarettes!"
He turned to face him. "Of course I do! What do you think we survived off sheer fucking will? Hell no! Caffeine and nicotine is where it's at!"
While McManis and Travers went on, I focused on what I said while I was asleep.
Beware dragons? Stalker of dreams. Well that's definitely Darkstalker. Or maybe people who have those stones that let you communicate to others when they're asleep? What were they called again? I can't remember.
Beware the one who is not what she seems?
A chill went up my spine when I realized who it could possibly refer to.
Could it be referring to me? My powers and influence? But I'm no threat!
However, I quickly reneged on that when I realized what I was doing.
I'm fighting against Goldman and Darkstalker. Even though I haven't killed anyone, I'm sure as hell still an enemy to them. A major threat if I can get Marvin freed, so he can dismantle everything. Or maybe my animus magic? Maybe that possibly?
"Grace."
And that could possibly make Moon-
"Hey! Grace!"
I got splashed by McManis.
Blowing water out of my nose. "What was that for!"
"Sorry. You had Marvin's 'I'm going into a death spiral of self-doubt' and I can't have you doing that."
I took a sharp breath, shaking my mind clear.
"Alright." McManis hooked his thumb behind his rifle sling. "Pack your stuff. We're moving out in five."
I looked up, the sun was still low in the sky.
"Won't we still be fighting heat if we leave now?" I asked.
McManis turned back. "The desert gets cold as hell at night. I'd prefer if we walk still with some warmth and light left. Unless you say otherwise."
I very quickly understood where he was coming from.
I caught a glimpse of his mind. Fighting in the deserts of Tunisia, same as Marvin. Forced to be on firewatch for an outdoor command post in 40-degree weather. There were even bouts of hail rarely. The ice clumps just gathering on the ground.
I shook my head free of his thoughts. McManis frowned at me.
"No. I agree. We'll leave in five minutes."
McManis and Travers looked at each other and nodded.
I went about packing whatever I could into my pouches.

Although I was grounded and my wings still stung, I still could serve as a pack mule. Although, we didn't have nearly enough supplies to weigh me down. I barely felt everything loaded up in the pouches.
McManis opted to forgo his big backpack. Instead, slinging his Bren with four mags total in his new webbing pouches, one mag on the gun. He also had a utility sling with six mags, but he left that with me also. Admittedly, it was an additional 13 pounds. He dropped his grenades, keeping his revolver and two pouches, two moon clips each of three shots. All the rest of his equipment, G41, and the B.A.R. Were stuffed into one of my pouches.
Travers walked for about 100 yards before he also followed suit. Only rocking his scoped M1 at low ready, and only his service belt. The rest of his equipment was stowed safely in another one of my pouches.
They were both ready for contact and stayed five steps behind each-other. Far enough away that a grenade or mortar wouldn't take them both out. (Not that Travers was under any threat to begin with.) I stayed a good ways back, camouflaged as well. Invisible from the sides, and sky. Although my black scales would help me blend in, the tan sand still silhouetted me from the sky. I opted to just remain camouflaged.
Wait a minute. DREAMVISITORS, DAMMIT!
I stomped the sand.
"Woah!"
I saw both McManis and Travers hit the dirt.
"Earthquake!"
"It's me! It was me." I quickly shouted.
I saw both of them turn back to look at me, still prone on the ground with their weapons.
"Everything alright Grace?" McManis called.
"Yeah." I quickly responded. "Just... remembered something stupid. We're fine."
McManis took a heavy sigh. "Any contacts?"
I took a look around. "None that I can see or hear."
And with that, they both got up.
"Alright. Keep your distance. Let's keep moving."
We all fell in behind McManis.
But we didn't get too far before the conversations started back up again.
"You know McManis," Travers began. "With everything that we've been doing. I know we're time travelers and all. I wonder if we've already influenced the future in some way and we don't even know."
McManis looked over his shoulder. "I guess, depending on how the future works. If everything has its own unique timeline. Or if they loop back on each other and be seamless. Because the past has already happened, and if it were to be changed, then there will be consequences for those actions." Then he frowned, trying to wrap his head around this himself. "I guess then it just depends on whether or not you have free will in the past. Because if you can still change things, change your situation, change the future, then you get those branching-out timelines.
"But if you can't, and maybe someone with an outside perspective could see you're making the same decisions, same exact actions over and over again through that little section of time, then you don't have free will, you can't influence the future, and the time progresses linearly, no matter what."
He slowed for a minute, turning around to look back at us. Travers was trying so hard to understand.
Admittedly, he wasn't too far off from describing everything I see in The Either. Just, tons of timelines crisscrossing amongst each other. A humongous web, thankfully all pointing forward somehow.
Wait a minute. If time travel is the way McManis says it is, and what it looks like, could I theoretically look forward and possibly see Marvin's arrival? The plane?
"Wait a minute. Then... by that logic." Travers turned to face me. "If Grace can see the future, and we traveled back in time, could she see our arrival?"
"Possibly." McManis rallied on him. "Although it'd be at least a year away. Even if time progressed linearly, that's still a helluva lot of time to see forward." Then McManus looked over his shoulder at me. "But I'm not a seer. I can't say for sure." But someone here sure can.
I took the hint.
"It's very difficult, but there are two ways I can see into the future. Technically three."
McManus and Travers both turned and walked backward.
"One is a sort of brute force method. You slowly look at every possible timeline, emanating from the present. And you sort of slowly collect information that way for whatever section of time you're looking through."
"But separate timelines?" McManus asked.
"Yeah." I nodded. "It's more obvious in the second method. You go into this... time dimension? I call it The Either."
"Either." Both McManus and Travers mumbled.
"It's almost like floating in space. Or when you're deep underwater. Actually, probably more like underwater, because you can just float, but you can also move? It gets pretty confusing so I'll just say that there are like these strings. Timelines. Twisting between each-other, but also branching off, combining back on themselves."
"Like a giant spider web," McManus said, visualizing something not too far off.
"But like it's all pointing in one direction." I clarified, watching him correct his mental model nearly exactly the way I see it. "If I had to sum it up, I would say using the brute force method needs a lot of focus, and it's liable to make you have a meltdown if you search too many timelines at once and can't remain really focused the entire time. But it's a really good way to find a lot of possibilities over the near future.
"The Either is way more stable and less mentally taxing on me, but I'm limited in the fact I can only look at snapshots of timelines, one at a time. And all the timelines can get confusing real fast, so you can get lost real easy if you don't keep track. But I can still use my mindreading and kind of see where they're at in better detail. Local recon."
"So Brute force is like ASDIC Sonar. Sweeping, but it gets fuzzy the further you get, and as you widen your search, the effort scales exponentially. But your Either is more searching through vines. It's hit or miss along specific vines, but you can sort of navigate?"
"Yeah. You could think of it like that." I nodded. "But there's... there's this one timeline. One string." I took a moment, shivering from talons to tail. "It's impossible to miss. And whenever I look in it, no matter where... there's just..." I trailed off.
McManus and Travers stopped. McManus walked up to me.
"There's what?" He inquired.
I fought back tears, but they still streamed down my face. I looked directly at him.
"There's just emptiness. Just... nothing there. No people, no dragons, no land, nothing." I sniffed. I knew McManus and Travers were listening intently. "And... whenever I'm in there... it feels... it feels like everything's coming down on me. Trying to crush me, snuff me out-I..." I choked. "I.. don't like it. It doesn't... feel right."
I felt a hand on my flank. I didn't notice I sat up, curling my tail around me and pulling my wings in close.
"What does it feel like?" Travers asked.
I closed my eyes. Visualizing the inky blackness, feeling the intense pressure all over, even pushing the air out of my lungs just thinking about it. The intense cold. No stimulation. It felt like I was being slowly absorbed into that realm. That if I stayed there, I would be dissolved and fade into that emptiness. That place of total entropy, of nothingness, of emptiness.
"It feels..." I opened my eyes, feeling the air rush in. Feeling the warm embrace. McManus's hand. Their minds. The crumbling sand under my talons. My physical body. The weight of my lungs. The earth under me. "I can't even describe total nothingness."
McManus nodded slowly. He didn't have to visualize it. He knew enough that he would never know how it feels. As humans, as people defined by their senses; absolute deprivation was impossible. Feeling wise: unavoidable. Even feeling nothing is still feeling something: yourself.
But in The Either, you aren't your physical body. I can't explain it, but you're a ghost? You are still defined, you still have features you can make out, but all your senses are left behind. You can only feel people in the timelines through empathy. The only sounds are your own mind, or minds that you are reading.
I can't. I just can't.
I hung my head, letting a few tears run down my face.
I felt McManus run his hand up my hind leg, up to where he could reach. He avoided my wings, avoiding the cuts. He couldn't comfort me any way better.
"What was the third way?" Travers mumbled.
Before I could answer, McManus put his hand up to quiet me.
"There are two types of people, Travers."
The two met each-other.
"People who can extrapolate from incomplete data..."
A long moment of silence ensued.
Travers looked around.
"And what?" He nodded, brandishing his hand. "What is the second kind?"
McManus sighed, facepalming. Apparently, Travers joins those who can't.
I laughed through the tears. Rubbing them with my hands, getting a little dust in my eyes.
"We aren't going to get very far standing. I want to get to The Scorpion Den by Sunrise tomorrow."
McManus raided his eyebrows. "That's a tall order on foot."
"So let's just keep moving then."
I ended up taking point, even though I shifted back to being camouflaged.