It is ironic, really, that what he really needs is time travel. If he’d said so – said ‘by the way, really I just need someone to go to the end of the world’, Kellyn would have been well ahead of the game. Cagney might have been cautious with his powers, careful and concealing, but the part of Kellyn that was Elite’s had flaunted hers, playing in time the way some children played in the water. The end of the world was beyond her normal playscape, of course, but it might have been doable. And between him and her? Probably child’s play.

But space – space is new. One moment they are standing, and she is taking a careful look at the unfamiliar faces around her; the next, there is a name in her head, Gail, and she is flung into another place. She can feel the time change around her, straining; time is not the same in space. And it’s cold – cold and somehow lighter, and she opens hazel eyes wide to look around. They have their instructions – but they are not without fear. Casually she moves her feet but she doesn’t move forward the way she would like; it is not like water, as if there is no resistance at all. One other calls, help me!. Another just, help!. Kellyn glances towards the first mind-voice first, towards the bay boy with the big white socks, but before she can consider moving in his direction another has gone to him to help. They are struggling forward.

And the other boy – he has stepped onto the back of some strange creatures. Actually, she thinks, they look similar to some of the things that live in the depths of the ocean; she has seen them, from a distance, standing dangerously at the edge of the ice. Glancing around she finally decides that only those who know each other have decided to work together; stubbornly, she decides she will succeed on her own.

Space is not empty, as they have found, and Kellyn notices that there are large pieces of debris floating about, seemingly aimlessly. They will give her momentum, if she can push off of them. But they drift too slowly towards her: carefully she grasps at the slippery lines of space-time and tugs, tugs until time shifts around her and the first of many platforms of space-ice-rock taps against her hooves. Scrambling she stands on top of it and then launches off towards the next one, and then from that landing towards the next. It forms a sort of rhythm: leap, land, push off; and if the next rock isn’t quite where she needs it to be, she tugs the threads of time until it drifts into her reach.

The warmth grows, and the dark rises. Not suddenly – but as if the world gets denser, as if the light is being sucked out of it. They coincide, the dark and the warmth, and so it is there that Kellyn aims for. But just before reaching it, she looks back. Turns back, standing on the last rock; she can tell that another leap will end it: the others have vanished into this space and she can feel its tug, feel herself drifting towards the end. But a part of her wants to make sure nobody else needs help. She can’t do much…but she could send some rocks their way….if they ask. She sends a tentative query into the dark, waits, helps if she’s asked.

And then she turns, and jumps, and falls. Falls into warmth and then nothing. And wonders if this is the end. If the dark god of her mother really wanted nothing more than more sacrifices.

They are there, and then suddenly they are not. All thirteen of them of flung away, into space, his words ringing inside their minds. The red girl can feel the urgency in them. Hurry, he said. Gail, he said. And so she does. She hurries to find Gail.

There is a moment of disconnect as she disappears in one place and reappears in another. She does not flail though, does not gasp. Her mind recalculates quickly, as it does when she flies. In this one instance, she may have an advantage, however slight it may be. She is used to the weightlessness of flight, the way the stomach hollows as you drop. This is different, but somehow similar. She adjusts quickly, her body and mind acclimatizing to the false atmosphere with the ease of one used to change.

It is then that she is struck by awe, the beauty of her surroundings hitting her like a sledgehammer. She cannot help but admire vastness and be chilled by the stillness at the same time. But she is recalled to her mission, reminded of the reason she has been flung into this far off expanse. Gail. The word continues to whisper through her mind, a constant reminder of why she is here.

Other voices begin to echo, cries for help in this vast, startling space. When she hears Ramiel’s shout, she goes cold, colder than she already is. The thought that he is in trouble spurs her on, drives her forward. In her own childish way, she loves him. Loves him as she loves her mother and her father. As any sister would love their brother.

She is used to flight, so the odd weightlessness does not disorient her as much as it might another. Her flight aids her, propelling her forward, giving her speed. It is sluggish though, almost as if her ability cannot find proper purchase within the air, as though it cannot behave as it normally might on earth. But she is able to move forward, floating through the still expanse despite the lethargic way her gift performs. Finally, she sees him, perched atop the back of a strange creature. A grin lights her visage, her fascination evident as she watches the captivatingly unique alien. She floats closer, following Ramiel and the creature. For a moment, curiosity nearly overwhelms the persistent echo inside her mind. But that echo wins out in the end. Gail, he says. And she obeys.

She lands, just behind Ramiel, the ambient warmth of the place surrounding her, heating her chilled skin. She stares, golden eyes wide, curiousity, wonder, and a slight hint of trepidation vying for domination within her.