Chapter 13
Saturday, July 29 4:28am
"I have located Return." Shadow stated flatly.
"How could he do that when it's still dark out? Oh well, it doesn't matter, as long as he knows where Return is!"
The excitement of finally locating Return pushed everything else out of her mind. "Everyone! Follow me please." she told the Cards, then she put her helmet back on and tried to fasten the chinstrap exactly on the strip that wasn't burned. But after several tries it seemed impossible to keep it off her blisters. "Actually I don't even need this stupid helmet anymore. In just a little while I'll have Return and I will be going back in time, leaving all this here anyway. Including my poor blistered chin." So she pulled the helmet off and took off without it.
It was impossible to look into the blast of wind, but she didn't need to as she could follow Shadow with her Magic sense. But as the minutes went by, she began to wonder if dumping her helmet was a good idea. "I remember reading how you can lose a lot of your body heat if your head isn't covered in the cold... But we should get to Return soon. It can't be all that far. None of the other cards were. I hope I didn't make a mistake by leaving the helmet behind."
Her braids had quickly come loose from where she had pinned them, and then the wind blast had torn off the ties on the ends. Once the ends were loose the braids didn't last long and soon her loose hair flapped in the wind like a flag, pulling her head back rather hard. "It doesn't matter. We should be landing soon." She assured herself.
But after nearly an hour of flying she was getting impatient, so pulled up close to Shadow and yelled. "How much further is Return?!"
"I don't understand." Shadow replied with no expression.
Tomoyo took a deep breath and tried again. "How long before we get to where Return is?"
"How long what?"
"Time! How long a time until we get to where Return is?" There was a slight delay before Shadow replied to this.
"I am not Time. I am Shadow."
Tomoyo wanted to scream in frustration at the stupidity of Shadow, but she knew it would do no good and might confuse the Card. After a few more questions she decided that Shadow had no concept of either time or distance. All he knew was direction and movement.
So on and on they went, through another hour and then another. "We seem to be going Northeast, but without a proper compass I can't tell any closer than that. Well at least my chin doesn't hurt as much in this cold." After she had been flying for three hours, her excitement was waining and the fact that she hadn't had any sleep in more than twenty-four hours was catching up with her. She felt totally exhausted. So she found a quiet place away from houses and had Shadow hide them in shadows beneath the trees. She told Time to wake her after four hours and closed her eyes. She was asleep in seconds.
When she opened her eyes Time was standing next to her. "It will be four hours in forty seven seconds. You woke early." To her surprise and relief, aside from being really hungry she felt rather good. But then as she thought about food her thoughts began to bounce around in her head. "I could use the cards to steal some...after all, none of this is going to have happened as soon as I use Return...but I hate the thought of stealing...but I do have a credit card...so maybe I could just buy some...but that would take time...Eriol hadn't said that I had to use the Return card by a certain time...but I'm scared that something will go wrong if I waste any time...he had told me to use my time wisely."
"Okay, everyone! I need you all to hide in your card form for a little while so I can stop somewhere and get some food. You can come out of your card form afterwards." There was some hesitation but with some threats from Fiery, they all went to card form and stacked themselves so she could put them in a pocket. "Well, at least my chin feels better..." She thought as she took off again.
At the next town on their way, she found a business district and looked for a good place to land. Seeing a dark alley just off a likely looking street, she dropped very fast down into it to avoid being seen, but when she used her wings to stop her decent they made a terrible roaring and to add to the mess, the backwash from them knocked over garbage cans and sent them rolling around. "Well so much for stealth!" She thought angrily as she put her wings away.
"Now everyone is going to be looking to see what caused all the noise." Sure enough in the next minute or so many of the back doors of the businesses opened and people looked out. She just glared at them and kept walking towards the street she had picked out.
There was a group of young men standing near one wall at the end of the alley, and when they saw her they laughed a bit and blocked her way. "I'm carrying enough power to destroy a city and these idiots think they can play games with me?! Not going to happen!"
"Fiery!" she called and in an instant the flaming sprite was out in front of her.
"You want me to burn them?" The flaming sprite asked as he materialized a white hot fireball. But of course this wasn't necessary as the men let out some terrified cries and ran as fast as they could out into the busy street; knocking several people over who had been in the way.
Out on the street she was looking for a restaurant or even a grocery store, when she walked downwind of a street stand that was selling some kind of food. The aroma blowing across the street stopped her cold."Oooh, that smells so good! But I don't suppose he takes credit cards. I should just go on and... But it smells SO good!"
Then she thought about the men in the alley and came up with a plan. If she hadn't been so tired and hungry she would never have considered it but... She simply went back into the alley, took off and went up high before coming back down fast, braking perhaps twenty feet up with an impressive roar, and then descended slow enough for the people to get out of the way. She was an impressive sight alright, with her beautiful face and very long windblown hair, not to mention her roaring wings. After landing she noticed that some of the people were kneeling and apparently praying to her. The vendor bowed respectfully but didn't back away. The way he kept glancing at his food cart made her smile. He obviously wasn't going to leave it for anything. She didn't try to use her very limited Chinese, but just pointed at the food and then held out her hand. In a second, his eyes suddenly got big and then he smiled just a bit, and with his hands shaking only a little, he filled a cardboard container with the rice mixture and handed it over with some chop sticks. She took it, nodded slightly to him, then flew up and out of town.
Little did she know of the excitement she left behind. The story that spread through the town was that a goddess had heard about how good Yung How's food was and wanted to try it herself. So she had flown down from heaven to get some. And enough people believed it for him to become instantly famous and quickly sell all the food he could make.
She stopped at a quiet place outside of town and told the sprites that they could come out of card form if they wanted to. Oddly enough a few of them stayed as cards, which she put back in her pocket and zipped. As soon as she had eaten they continued on their way again, following Shadow.
As she flew along in the cold blast she had an idea. "Fiery! Fly in front of me, please." It didn't work as well as she had hoped but she could feel some warmer air directly behind Fiery. She just had to be careful to not get too close.