In Huck's Hands

Chapter 14: Uugachaka

As our battered aircraft taxied toward the makeshift airfield, the cabin was loaded with our speechlessness. I glimpsed Yana's tall slender frame striding across the 'tarmac' that used to be mainstreet flanked by crimson royal guards. Her usual hallow stare was replaced with determination as her long ebony hair sashayed with her gate, I hadn't before seen shadow her mixed Svetlo-Buri attributes.

Before the plane fully even cruised to a termination, Aiko had already pried open the suffocating cockpit door. she flashed her perfect teeth in a half-second sneer as she moved to storm away. My hand burst out to catch her brown athletic wrist--I felt remorse immediately as expressions fled my jaws before thought bordered my psyche.

"Do not create a scene--" she spitefully jolted free of my grip, luckily the regiment accompanying Yana had not noticed this....altercation. "Treacherous serpent" she spat back, shoving roughly past me onto the make-shift street airfield. I lurched out after her, temper ascending to new heights.

How dare she question MY frankness when it was her damned secrets before that-- "King Vasca! Thank Doutros, you're lungs exude sand!" Yana moved swiftly toward me, relief washing over her face mixed with annoyance. My newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commerce, once sidelined daughter of Vadim now worked her decorum magic.

Her contrite smile faltered as she glanced between Aiko's curled lip and my own burning unchanging stare. "I must speak with you both urgently..." Yana attempted to speak before Aiko's strong voice stabbed at her light sentence. "Speak then, Yana..." Aiko growled, not even pivoting fully to acknowledge Yana as she was passed a rifle and then saluted by an ever-present regal sentry.

I shook my fist violently before a shooting pang provoked me to see stars while yapping like a mad sand wolf. "You will exhibit respect when addressed by another of your status...Minister of internal affairs" Aiko whirled on me, eyes blazing, as Yana tried to interject. "Please listen, events of grave importance--" Aiko's face retracted as she squinted her eyes, nearly frothing with seething rage at the new political chain she found herself.

Yana waved the royal guards back with a flicker of irritation, they stepped a few paces away as we began making the short walk to the bunker. "That is quite enough! As per I actually am doing my DUTY, I must inform you--" Aiko turned her eyes towards her. "...try my patience half-kin, Inform yourself straight to gehenna!" She turned her blistering glare back on me. "Unlike his highness, I do not have the time to dance around subjects spit it out or speak nothing."

With immense restraint, I avoided backhanding her brash mouth--a common courtesy among the Vascan high court I wished to phase out my blood yet it called to me like the nerve endings in my shoulder wound. "Walk with me, NOW..." I waited for no reaction, trekking furiously toward the masked bunker opening. I discerned rather than saw Aiko storm after me, the air simmering between us evermore...I could still smell the wafting of ash stinging my nose as the midday winds began to pick up.

Yana clicked after us in her customary Svetlo wooden heels, nonetheless attempting to insert. "There is sensitive news regarding--" My brain pulsed from my lack of real respite and days expended baking in the sun. I moved my dreadlocks from my face as sweat dripped from them to the cracked city avenue.

"Not now!" I spat without diverting. Whatever drivel Aygu and her had contrived while I was missing was no concern to me. I stretched angrily to grasp the steel rung embedded in the dusty metal floor inlet before me. With a harsh twist, a meter-wide section pivoted inward with a grinding of gears. Without hesitating I plunged into the dim passage now yawning before us, each climb hold bringing me closer to actual safety...I needed this more than anything.

I skated one hand along the frigid concrete as I half-slid down the angled inclined ladder. The scintillating emerald glow of the Buritian mold colonies guided my descent before the glare of LED lights welcomed me to the first checkpoint. I stood waiting for the soldier on the other side to unlock the large chrome blast doors. Aiko disembarked lightly behind me, still silently bristling from our tense airplane oral altercation.