SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-nine ━ daring to dream

• • •

The freighter heading for the docks with no crew left on board to slow it down for the proper docking maneuvers proved to be the perfect distraction Connor and Mia needed to pull their boat ashore unnoticed. A first step taken on land was made just a little outside of town, on a cold beach frequented only by a flock of gulls, positively alarmed by their disturbance through the yet to be lifted fog.

Though throughout their hike back into the town, they were both aware the hardest part — finding Rory in a whole country was like searching for a needle in a haystack, as far as Mia was concerned — was yet to come, it took Connor no longer than a couple of minutes of walking around that small settlement to notice a single poster was plasted on quite literally every light pole and available wall.

'Charter Flights off our Regional Leisure Aerodrome — Cheap. Fast. Non-stop. Now to all your European Destinations.'

It wasn't an undisputed lead, but it was the best they could get without lingering too long in that placr already on the edge from the macabre discoveries on board the Euryalus, and without asking uncomfortable questions about a strange traveler that might have come through there well over a month ago, something that otherwise was bound to bring far too much attention on themselves anyway.

They rented a car and settled down for a drive which promised to be only a couple of hours long. Straight off the bat, their drive begun with an unwavering quietness neither really wanted to break right away, not while it was still fresh on their minds that their counterfeit digital currency used to rent that very vehicle counted them for yet another crime to add to their profiles, another crime neither would hold the other accountable for if it ever came down to it.

Five minutes have elapsed before Mia leant forward to get a good look through the windshield at the grayed sky that had been sifting snow consistently a little more visibly now than it did during their short walk in town. Connor's newfound fear of cold couldn't stand a chance against the warmth it brought him to discover even after all these years, Mia still looked up at snowflakes as she did when she was but a child. The wonder in her eyes hadn't change a single bit, and that alone was more reassuring to Connor than any attempt to word out for him that the precarious times may test them, but they will not change what defines them too.

"He was right about the storm," she pointed out the thickening curtain of snowflakes falling down over their car and, most importantly, over the road which, now that they were outside of town and quite visibly the only car heading out of the lively coastal tundra area, into the icy horizon, had very little chance against the indomitable determination of snow to cover the asphalt uniformly, or at the very least until the limits of the road became indistinguishable from the hills to their left and the valleys to their right.

At least we are inside, Mia leant back in her seat, keeping to herself the relief that at least this car's heating system was working well enough so they would not feel a single chill from the building blizzard outside until they've it reached their destination.

We are almost done now, she reminded herself again, though with each second elapsed since last that reminder passed her mind, she grew more distant to that worrisome truth that soon enough, they'll find out just where their choices have led them — whether they will be judged for their law breaking, their crimes, or their worst actions will be forgiven. The end will come all the same, whether she was ready for it or not. Whatever happens now, it was good while it lasted, Mia sought her comfort in that simple acknowledgment. It was good to feel alive again.