literature

Wild Thyme - 3

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*****
When Myfanwy was three months old, Maeve finally felt confident that the infant was up to traveling, and made preparations to join her husband, Alan.  Alan had left three weeks before with his friend and old bandmate Roy and a small crew of mostly ex-NORAD and Austrian army people, those such as were accustomed to alpine terrain. With them went six sturdy mountain horses, two dogs and enough equipment and supplies for a seasonal camp. Piston Peak was twelve hours away from Ash Mountain by road, but in an "Earth" culture that had never known humans until quite recently, any separation was significant. Indeed, Maeve had debated whether taking herself and the baby away from the relative security of Ash Mountain was a wise move, but a season was a long time for her and Alan to be apart, and she was confident of nursing the baby at least through the next year before weaning off. Their first child, Brennan, was now five and would be staying with friends for the interim, at least until his parents were sure that the camp was a safe place for an active kindergartener.

After the previous season's huge and near-lethal fire, officials at the national park had become concerned about the amount of brush, ladder fuels and dead trees remaining in areas that had escaped the blaze, but still posed a risk. The resident fire teams could deal with all the areas that were vehicle-accessible, but some higher montane zones could not be reached by anyone on wheels, not even the local "deere". Even the helicopters could only hoist so much, and their time and fuel were better spent at other tasks. Finally, the new superintendent obtained the blessing of higher quarters to contract a crew of humans and a few teams of horses to reach the high alpine areas of the park, to take out the deadwood and do a few controlled burns that would also serve as refresher training for the air attack team.

It wasn't the first time that humans had gone a significant distance from "The Mountain" in their six years here, but they would be in close proximity to a lot of vehicles who weren't used to humans, or their animals. Of course, that accustomization process was the other big reason why they were there. That was no small concern to Maeve as she prepared to transfer her and the baby's baggage to the charter plane who had been engaged to take them there, along with a couple of other humans. Those were Dean Haspiell, the Mountain's chief electronics technician,  and Dawn Hurley, one of old Ronald Fairlamb's proteges in horsemastership and tracking. The former was looking for a bit of a change in work and scene, the latter for a chance to apply what she'd learned in a different wilderness environment, though she would be mainly helping with brush-clearing work, and replanting later.

As for Maeve herself, she would be helping out the camp cook, though there would also be the possibility of performing with Alan and Roy at the lodge, said to be the largest all-wood structure on THIS earth, but which she couldn't recall the name of at the moment. It had been a long time since "The King's Shillings" had performed "in public", outside of human community events and a few times in Cortez and last year at that "corn festival" before an audience of mostly airplanes. It wasn't quite like their old pre-blow Renfaire days, but the crowd had been enthusiastic enough. More than one there had told Maeve that she had a voice like Rowena Wingworth, whoever that was. Maeve hadn't inquired. 

Finally, it was time to leave... but after the first group, they weren't going to put anyone else through a long drive in a world with no facilities for humans outside Ash Mountain and the few other self-contained settlements they'd made.

Olivia, the pleasant young King Air woman who was their transport for this trip, finally completed her preflight and did a cautious roll to check the weight distribution of passengers, baggage and fuel load before warming up her engines and taxiing out to the Mountain's private strip. The resident aircraft, mostly magic-using Raven tribeswomen and affiliates, waved them off. Maeve waved back to Kathleen and Shayla through the turboprop's round window. It was a clear, coolish morning with unlimited visibility and a light breeze from the northwest, and Olivia's takeoff was as smooth as silk, though she jested that perhaps she should have a "Baby on Board" sign in one of her windows. Finally, the King Air reached cruising altitude and deftly worked herself into a tailwind. Two hours later, she set down at Piston Peak's own runway.

Little Myfanwy slept all the way through it.  

****
At the Air Attack station, a helicopter froze momentarily, and lifted his nose. He was a male of late middling years, his lines a combination of quite respectable Bell and Agusta parentage with perhaps a touch of Lynx somewhere in the family woodpile. His livery was red and white with sharp, angular black accents, and his eyes were the pale blue of freshwater ice. There was speculation that the name he had now was not the one he'd been born with, just a stage moniker he'd taken on for an earlier, much more public career. But no one had been bold enough to risk inquiring, and that was just fine with Blade Ranger. He hadn't spoken with his other relatives that much anyway, and last he heard, his older sister still hadn't gotten over him leaving to pursue a - horrors! - acting career instead of going to college and succeeding his father in the family firm. Blade might have had one or two regrets about these decades of estrangement, but leaving that whole suffocating, stuck-up social scene wasn't one of them.

He glanced about. Dipper was still puttering about her little garden; on the scale of scenting ability, she was somewhere between "mediocre" and "don't bother". Windlifter was starting to pay attention. Cabbie was already looking down the access road, and the smokejumpers tended to follow his tells. Blade allowed himself to indulge in a slight smirk as he watched them gather beside the great Fairchild in hopes of catching a glimpse of the new arrivals. The humans' small camp was located above the switchback about a quarter mile beyond the edge of the Steerman Cliffs - close enough to be within range of aircraft senses, but just far off enough that the smokejumpers' occasional nocturnal antics wouldn't keep their new neighbors awake at night. That was NOT the way to start a good relationship.

From the dark recesses of the repair bay, Maru finally emerged. In the tower, Patch noted the behavior of the aircraft and looked expectantly up the road. The superintendant was heard, at least by the aircraft's hearing, before he was seen. In previous years, the prospect of dealing with the man in charge had been anything but pleasant, so the change in management in the aftermath of the previous year's debacle had been quite welcome.
There was a glint of movement through the trees at the bend of the road leading up from the valley, then Jammer finally came into view, with a younger van tailing the old guide bus. Blade engaged his distance vision, and his sight leaped from color to shades of grey as he sought to make out the nitty-gritty details of the van's passengers. Two - no, three human heads. One man, twentysomething, bearded, a bit darker-complected than his companions. Two women, both quite fair-skinned, one very young. The back passenger windows were down, and the scents became stronger. There was a fourth, but out of view. This initially puzzled Blade, until he remembered what he'd overheard of the humans' chatter on his last visit to that camp. Someone's - was it Alan's wife - coming in? And they had a baby. A baby girl. Three months old, they'd said. All right, it all made sense now.

Dipper finally picked her head up, and hurried out to see the procession. At this distance even she couldn't miss the olfactory nuances, and the bright yellow scooper lifted herself on her undercarriage, striving to see. "Oooh, that must be the baby we heard about!" She edged closer to the shoulder of the road.

Blade snapped his attention back to his team. "Not so close!" the air boss warned. The water bomber's face showed a ripple of "slightly miffed", but she obeyed promptly. When the first group of humans and animals arrived a month ago, he'd had his metaphorical hands full keeping over-curious Dipper and over-curious smokejumpers from crowding the poor souls,  spooking their horses or running over their dogs, until things settled into a "new normal". But a tiny babe in arms was about to get them all going again.

For an underscore, the base PA system was now playing ... a lullabye.

The first time had caught Blade and the other elders a bit by surprise, but they didn't hesitate to get the situation under control now. "We'll pay them a call later, WHEN they're squared away and ready to deal with us." he announced. "In the meantime, good little boys and girls still have their chores to do." With a sharp half-turn of his rotors, the air attack chief began to shepherd the more distracted smokejumpers back from the edge like a giant red border collie.

****
Myfanwy opened her eyes, cooing and gurgling. The music from the air attack base was subsiding as the van drove farther, following the old ranger who was now superintendent. Maeve looked over and smiled at her infant daughter. "Now you wake up. You must know that Daddy's near."

The baby responded with smiles and more babbles. Dawn and Dean turned back in their seats and looked on tolerantly. Myfanwy was a bundle of blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked cuteness; Jammer and the new van, Darren, had been fascinated by the tiny human who was as yet too early in development to lift her own head, yet already commanding attention. Vehicle babies were also adorable, but much more precocial at birth. They had to be ready to keep up with their parents by what would be toddling age for a human, and much of what would take a human months or years to learn in terms of "driving skill" or flying, or whatever was already hardwired instinct and reflex in the children of motor persuasion.  A tiny being who was so dependent was a novelty to this Earth's natives.

Dawn turned her head back to the front as she heard a high-pitched whinny. Soon they were passing the area that had been converted into paddocks for the horses, fenced with capped T-posts and hot tape. A small, solidly built gelding followed along the fenceline at a brisk tolt, calling out again. Wild bay, upright mane, minimal sabino markings, mealy nose and flanks, gulastra plume... "There's Elvis!" He was an offspring of the horses that the Nomad followers of Elena of Amber had gifted to Ash Mountain upon their arrival. The other equines were Norikers and Haflingers, brought by the Austrians who had also followed Elena on her "hellride" to this continuum. That mode of travel and why it was best to do it by horse... well, no one here had really delved into the mechanics - or quantum mechanics - of Amberite transportation; people had learned to content themselves with the fact that it just... happened.

Elvis stopped at the pasture gate as the two vehicles pulled into the "dooryard" of Camp Eightball, an assemblage of trailers and utility tents grouped into a rough cul-de-sac around a mess tent and water station. The camp's full human complement, at present, was fifteen souls, but ten of them were away at work. A dually pickup woman was parked beside the horse trailer; she took notice of the incoming vehicles and honked twice. The five humans and two dogs present assembled before the mess tent, and one of them was a tall, stout viking of a man with flaming auburn hair and beard. That was Alan.
"There's my wench and squally brat!" he called out. "Lemme give you a kiss, woman!"

"That's my big fuzzy bear!" Maeve embraced her husband while Dawn unbuckled the baby seat and carried the infant over. Dean was already hauling gear out, including his massive collection of DVD's and bootlegs ripped from the films and other media in archival storage at Ash Mountain. He was assisted by Jurgen, a one-time Austrian army corporal who jibbed him about the inhabitants of the neighboring firefighters' station who might like to get their steely clutches on his media stash, because their "arschkecher of a chief" didn't let them download excessive amounts of movies or music and they'd seen their own store of movies ten times over.  

The two canines, Bess and Shasta, wriggled in joy around the later arrivals. They were, respectively, a black Kelpie and a Husky/Malinois mix. With both being females, Jammer and Darren didn't have to worry about a dog cocking its leg over one of their tires. It was close to lunch time, and the two vehicle men stayed for coffee (one of the things that their race and humans could share) while Maeve, Dean and Shasta got their belongings put away. It wouldn't be until later that they received a text, from friends in parts quite a ways westward of the park.

*****

CFB Edmonton was thousands of miles and a national border away from Piston Peak, but the latter suddenly loomed large in the mind of one young helicopter captain in the Canadian forces. CPT Leigh Parsons had just marked her thirty-first year, but was already a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict and several other overseas tours. She had hopes that this posting at Edmonton would enable her to stay in Canada for a while, catch up with her family, and enjoy at least a few nights of uninterrupted sleep. Others recently returned from abroad were eager to get back into Canadian nightlife, the social scene and "real food", but if truth be told, Leigh's idea of a fun evening was curling up with her books and a warm drink in her hangar - alone. On duty, she HAD to deal with people. It was part of her job. But socializing afterwards... just drained her.

Which is why she was dreading the last weekend of May.

Leigh's superior, Major Siglavy, had been set to attend an international conference for SAR aircraft, in the States. That was, until he had an accident during a training exercise in the second weekend of the month. The recovery process would leave the Chinook grounded until June at the soonest, but they had to send SOMEONE to that conference to keep the slot open for next time. They were in need of a volunteer who wasn't too urgently required elsewhere.

So it was one CPT Parsons who was "voluntold". The next few days became a frantic round of orientation and catching-up, so she could show her face in front of a hundred other 'craft without being too obviously "the last-minute substitution." By day, she obediently prepared. By night, she retreated to her hangar and vented her worries to family members online. Her parents, now in PEI, had been retired from Canada's coast guard for some years and knew all about the government's penchant for last-minute hassles. The now-ageing Sea King couple had brought Leigh up from infancy, though she was no genetic offspring of theirs. She was neat and sleek, they were comparative behemoths. Their eyes were brown and grey-green respectively, hers a pale arctic blue. They were merry and outgoing, she was described by the extended family and neighbors as..."quiet"... "deep-thinking", which was to say, "loner." That her conformation screamed "adopted" to the world did little to bring her out of her shell during her childhood years.

As far as her birth parentage was concerned, Leigh knew only that her bio-mother had given her up for adoption in Nova Scotia, in Glace Bay. Her adoptive parents suspected that she had come from elsewhere, as they had met her once at the office of the lawyer handling the adoption and she didn't have a local accent. Leigh's original birth certificate listed the father as "unknown." "She was quite beautiful, though." her adoptive mother had told her, once she was old enough to know. "Looked like an Agusta, but we didn't pry too much. Poor kid was absolutely heartbroken, but was obviously in the middle of a mess she didn't see any other way to get out of. She had deep dark eyes, not like yours, dear. Those must've come from your natural father, whoever he was. Whether he knew, we have no idea."

Leigh had studied herself in the mirror countless times. There was hardly a square inch of herself she hadn't gone over. Even after thirty-one years, everything she was still gave life to questions. But at the end of the day, Leigh's internal affairs were something to be put in a box and packed away for the duration.

After all, CPT Parsons had her duty to attend to... and a journey ahead.
A tale of helicopters, humans and complicated relationships in the Carsverse. OC's in the beginning, going to canon places later. 

All canon characters and material belong to Disney, all OC's are mine. 

Previous Chapters: 

Wild Thyme - 1We are each described as "a set of parts flying in loose formation, looking for a place to crash."
We are, collectively and individually, open provocations to the laws of physics, and the elements, and once in a while, they get their own back on us, in ways that are (more often than not) spectacular and fatal.
We cannot afford the luxuries of denial, or lack of knowledge.
We aren't valued for our talents in music, but our blades still sing "the song of our people."
We are... helicopters

The cruise ship reported engine trouble at 1830 hours, started taking on water two hours after that, and by morning had developed a 15-degree list to port while adrift in 30-foot seas off the California coast. Coast guard vessels and helicopters were dispatched, but the helos would get there first, surveying the scene and reporting back on the general conditions and the state of the ship and passengers. Then, once the rescue vessels arrived, they would do the hard work of evacuating passengers an
    Wild Thyme - 2When the pitty set the blueberry shake before her, Juno happily pounced on it. Bree smiled decorously to the waitress as she received her frozen mocha. Right now, she just wanted anything with a bit of caffiene in it. She was also pondering who might be in on the selection process for this conference, along with their spouses and underlings and immediate family members that they knew of. NOT that Bree was really panting to go there, but it would be a bit of a change from the usual routine, if they could swing it. But at present, it was just an interesting social/professional networking problem to be hacked and worked through.
If her general theory held out, a good show of pleasantries to Rear Admiral Breakwater's wife, who was here while her spouse was on an Arctic tour, might prove fruitful, as the yacht woman was in good with Admiral Haynes, a high-ranking woman who did not have any direct input into selection, but one of the committee was in her chain of command. Bree's close and co
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aviannic's avatar
Loving these stories! I'd never given much though to an aircraft's sense of smell but I'm finding it particularly intriguing now. A keen sense of smell would seem like a very likely survival trait, although I'd imagine this would make refueling a somewhat uncomfortable process. :)