"You don't deserve to be here," crackled the wireless.

Intan stuck her tongue out, though she knew the other girl couldn't see her. Kikue Sunagawa of Azalea had been heckling her all morning, as if intent to prove herself the better pilot. Thanks to her, they'd gotten separated from their fellow Dragons.

Not that Intan minded much. Weeks now had passed since the king's surprising announcement. This was the first chance she'd had to fly since the incident with the rogue Dolls, and she was determined to make the most of it, especially now that she was away from the watchful gaze of the instructors. She shifted her controls, guiding her Doll into a fancy flip in the air. Unlike the Doll from the junkyard, these Dolls were the newest training models. Intan exulted in the freedom of her Doll's movement, though she had to confess that she had felt more comfortable in the older model.

But she did not like to think too much about that earlier excursion.

"You don't even pilot properly! I have never seen anyone handle a Doll with such -- such disrespect!"

Intan was tempted to switch off the wireless. But despite the fair skies at the moment, dark clouds had been gathering all morning, and for safety reasons, they were forbidden to cut communications under any circumstances. Then again, no one else was in range at the moment, and what could a few minutes hurt?

"Hey! Are you even listening?"

In response, Intan flipped again, this time slamming her Doll's foot into the back of her fellow first year's Doll.

The wireless spouted a stream of incoherent and rather unladylike curses. Intan grinned and decided to keep it on after all.

Then danced away as the other girl unleashed a barrage of paintballs.

They missed due to a surge of wind and splattered onto the forest below. Intan laughed.

"Ooh, now you're asking for it!"

Intan waved cheerfully. Away she zipped, the other Doll hot on her heels.

* * *

Intan supposed it had all started at the secret meeting after the king's announcement. Miss Singh, Headmistress Liow, and the Brigadier General had gathered the Nine Dragons and informed them privately that they were to take part in the king's ceremony as extra security.

"Pity. I suppose that means we won't get to be candidates for His Majesty's attendants," Rusli had said, half joking.

The Brigadier General had looked him coolly in the eye. "No, Cadet," she said. "Your duties lie elsewhere."

"How will the candidates be chosen, anyway?" asked Tuyet from Hibiscus.

"Who knows?" said the general. "By lottery, perhaps. Or perhaps he will receive another vision from the gods."

"Now, now, Irina," purred Miss Singh. "I'm sure the king has his reasons."

But the general said nothing more of the matter, and a few days later Intan heard whispering among some of the other students regarding the uproar that had ensued at court after the king made his intentions known to the wider public.

From that point on, their training intensified, though they were still not allowed to touch their Dolls. By the time summer break rolled around almost three months later, Intan was looking forward to a month of lazing around and staving off the heat in the cool depths of the lake while everyone else was gone.

Then Rusli had told her about the annual Nine Dragons training camp. Intan might have despaired, but when she found out that they would be flying their Dolls at last, over to a smaller, deserted island off the northwestern coast of the kingdom, she'd brightened up straightaway.

Hadil, whom Intan saw only at meals or in passing now that their garbage duty stint was over, had been gloomier. "I wish we could just stay in the dorms," she'd said, shoveling curry into her mouth.

"You don't like going back home?"

Hadil fidgeted. "Maybe I'll just find a place to stay in the capital instead..."

"If you do, say hi to the lions at the plaza for me!"

The other girl didn't seem to hear. "But after everyone pooled their money together just to get train tickets for me..."

In the end, Hadil boarded one of the two Academy airships to the capital, train tickets in hand. Most of the other students followed suit, though a few of the richer students were shuttled off in smaller, private transports. Intan and her fellow Dragons boarded the same airship and pretended to disembark at the capital with everyone else. They'd even stayed the night at the magistrate's office. Before dawn broke the next morning, they slipped away and boarded another transport, this time a battered old Hummingbird that belonged to the medic division.

They'd been taken back to the lake then, to the base at the east end, and assigned to individual training Dolls. Intan's mood dampened only when the pixie-elegant first year from Azalea gave her a cold glare before they stepped into their cockpits, though their interactions had been previously limited to mutual disregard. But even that did not keep her down for long. Glaring was, after all, a step up from outright ignoring.

Intan hadn't realized just how much she'd missed flying until the Doll whirred to life at her touch and the seven of them, accompanied by two instructors, rose glimmering into the morning light.

* * *

Intan's stomach rumbled. It was getting close to high noon, if the position of the sun in the sky was any indication, and she had been too excited to eat much at breakfast earlier. Now she was beginning to wonder if the instructors had even noticed their absence. (She was pretty sure they'd have noticed the two Dolls in the back "accidentally" colliding soon after they passed the first deserted island.) Perhaps they had their hands full with the other Dragons. If they were anything like Kikue Sunagawa, Intan wouldn't be surprised. But she could not say for certain. Even after three months of sharing the same lectures and extra training sessions, Intan wasn't sure she could even remember her fellow Dragons' faces. (Except of course for Rusli and Tuyet, who were nice.) At least she could mostly identify her own classmates' faces successfully, though she still tended to mix up their names.

She'd certainly be able to add Kikue to the list of people she knew now, though.

"I am a Sunagawa! I refuse to believe I was outscored on the entrance exams by a buffoon like you!"

The other girl had been jabbering on about some such nonsense for some time now. Despite her initial amusement, Intan was beginning to tire of it. She reached out to turn off the wireless.

Just then, a huge gust of wind threw her Doll off course, tossing her into a canopy of trees.

Kikue's ensuing laughter broke off with a shriek as her Doll too was caught in the gust.

Intan looked up at the swiftly darkening sky and realized they had been so distracted by their games that the storm clouds had crept upon them unnoticed. She shook off fronds and broken branches and urged her Doll skywards, toward the fading pinpoints of sunlight in the distance. Even the sturdiest Doll could not survive getting caught in a typhoon. And this one was bearing down on them, fast.

As rain began to batter the Doll's body, Kikue's voice crackled again over the wireless. "Something's wrong."

"What? What's wrong?" said Intan, glad now that she hadn't turned it off after all.

"My Doll will not respond to me." The panic underlying the other girl's haughty formality grew more apparent with every word. "This was not supposed to happen!"

"Hold on. I'll come and get you." Intan tried to turn back, but the wind made it difficult to maneuver.

"Blow, winds, blow," she sang. "Still, winds, still. Though you uproot our homes, though you flood our fields, still we ask safe passage through your domains..."

Kikue swore again. Intan was surprised the girl knew such colorful language.

"Blow, winds blow. Still, winds, still. Calm thy anger, o great dragon lords --" Intan managed to grab onto a swaying tree trunk, and reached out her Doll's free arm to clasp the other Doll's arm. She tugged hard, dragging the other Doll behind her.

"You're too heavy," Intan said at last. "I don't think we can get airborne. Even if we could, we won't be able to outrun it."

"Then what do you suggest? Just sit here and sing stupid songs while we wait for the storm to blow us all the way to the mainland?"

"We need to find the eye."

"We'll be wrecked before we reach it!"

"Calm thy anger, o great dragon lords," Intan sang again with a slight smile, and bent her Doll down into a crouch.

"You're insane!"

One step. Another. Intan could hear the storm roaring in her ears, furious at these strange metal trespassers. The rain poured down in slanted sheets of gray. Intan studied their constantly fluctuating directions.

"I swear, if I die with you here in a place like this --"

"There!" Intan urged her Doll forward with a burst of power. As the winds tossed them back and forth, threatening to rip them from limb to limb, and Kikue screamed and cussed her lungs out, Intan decided it was a good thing she hadn't eaten breakfast. Her stomach would otherwise be protesting quite strongly at the moment. She hummed another few lines of the typhoon song. Then she stepped down on the pedal, adding a second burst of power, hoping it would be enough to break through the wall of rain.

They hurtled on for a few moments longer, helped along by the buffeting winds. Soon enough Intan glimpsed a patch of blue through the clouds. "See?" said Intan, grinning. "We'll be fine!"

Spoken too soon, perhaps. As Intan tried to steer her Doll to the right, she realized that the controls had stopped responding to her as well.

"What are you doing!" crackled Kikue.

The winds swept them away again, sending them spinning into the worst of the storm. Intan jabbed desperately at the controls. Surely her Doll's head had not been hit? And yet these were the newest models, with full backup systems in place.

Another gust of wind, and her hold on Kikue's Doll came loose. Intan's own head jerked back, slamming against the back of her seat.

The roar of the storm faded steadily into the distance as darkness overcame her.

* * *

Blow, winds, blow. Still, winds, still.

From beyond the shadow echoes a voice.

"Get in."

A woman's hoarse monotone.

Ahead, the faint hiss-crackle of dancing flame. Above, the darkness curving high. Outside, the howling storm drowns out the distant echo of gunfire.

Are you a ghost?

The woman leans forward in response, firelight illuminating the lower half of her pale, gaunt face. Her blue lips move, but make no sound.

Drip.

Hiss.

Drip.

"Come here."

One step. Another, across the slippery rock. The woman shoves forward a ragged blanket. Dark stains scatter across the damp wool. It is warm. Safe.

A blinding light shines from the entrance of the cave. The woman tenses, grabs her blade. Her sleeves are the blue-gray of a winter morning.

"Run!"

Branches whip past, snagging at hair and clothes. Faster, faster. Mud and rock. The ground whirls close, rolling past the sky.

A glint of metal against the horizon.

And everything shatters in a shower of glittering stars.

* * *

Intan bolted upright.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized that she was in what seemed to be a cave of some sort. She looked down, checking for injuries. Her robes were drenched and torn, and her skin was covered in scratches, but when she flexed her arm experimentally, nothing seemed broken.

She sneezed.

"Oh, wonderful. You're awake."

Kikue's voice. Intan tried to locate her.

"You don't sound too happy about it," she remarked, amused.

"Happy? Our Dolls are wrecked and we're trapped here in a stupid cave who-knows-where, and you expect me to be happy?" Her voice rose a pitch. "And you! You're the one who got us in this mess in the first place, and that's all you have to say about it? I can't believe you. I --"

Intan sighed, and decided not to point out that if Kikue hadn't deliberately crashed into her earlier, they wouldn't have gotten separated from the others to begin with. Instead, as she reached up and squeezed the water out of her hair, she said cheerfully, "Come on, isn't it exciting? It's like a real adventure!"

Kikue spluttered. "Why -- you --"

"Do you have a light?"

"Obviously not, or I would have left you behind a long time ago --"

"I wasn't out that long, was I?" said Intan, not really expecting an answer. She rummaged through her pockets for a while before finally closing her numb fingers around her lighter. A quick inspection confirmed that it had thankfully remained relatively dry, but she took it apart by touch anyway to blow out any excess water. After a few tries, she managed to get a spark going. She looked around. They were indeed in the upper levels of a sea cave -- Kikue's Doll lay collapsed at the entrance of the cavern, blocking their only immediately visible way out, leaving only a dark passage leading further in to the cave.

Intan thought of her earlier dream. How many years ago now had it been?

"How'd we end up in here anyway?"

Kikue, looking rather like a drowned kitten, said huffily, "We would have died  -- if we stayed out there any longer -- so when my Doll started responding again, I -- but then it -- the stupid thing --"

Intan tilted her head, piecing together a basic outline of the rest of the story. "I see. You must have saved me, then. Thank you!"

The other girl muttered something about having no other choice, but Intan grinned. "Hmm, wonder if there's anything dry enough around here to use as a torch..."

"I highly doubt it," Kikue declared with a sniff, but Intan could hear the underlying relief in her words.

Eventually, after some scrabbling, they managed to gather a decent pile of driftwood that was only mildly damp from deeper inside the cave. Intan had lost her knife, but Kikue had, despite all her complaining, managed to salvage her emergency supply pack from the wreckage of her Doll. Under Intan's instruction, she whittled away the wettest bits, and several burnt fingers later, they finally had a semblance of a torch in hand, assembled from bundled together pieces of half-dried wood.

They shared a glance, and ventured into the dark passageway together.

For some time there was nothing but the sound of their footsteps and their breathing and water dripping from the ceiling and the occasional hiss of flame. As they walked on, Intan listened for the ebb and flow of the waves behind them. The storm outside seemed to have abated, though perhaps by now they were too deeply ensconced in the cavern to hear it.

About twenty minutes passed before they reached their first juncture.

"It's Ghost Day," Kikue said abruptly. "That's why the spirits are uneasy."

Intan, who had lost track of the days, simply shrugged. "Left or right?"

"I've always hated this month."

"Let's try left!"

Kikue eyed her suspiciously, but did not protest.

Another twenty minutes or so later, they emerged into another large chamber. Kikue gasped.

"Look!"

Scattered across the floor were the skeletal remains of what had clearly once been a Doll. Two broken red pillars served as a marker for its grave.

"Did -- one of the others --"

"I don't think so," said Intan. "This looks like it's been around for a long time."

And it did. Lichens carpeted the Doll's body, which leaned against the cavern wall, legs immersed in the water, like a giant guardian in the shadows. Half of its face had been crushed by rock; its remaining eyes stared balefully into the darkness. It looked like no model Intan had ever seen. One of the earlier, experimental prototypes, perhaps. Victim to some other, long ago storm.

"What is this place?" whispered Kikue.

But Intan had no answer for the other girl. Instead, she brought her palms together, offering a prayer. After a moment, Kikue lowered her head and mimicked her in silence.

* * *

They retraced their steps in silence, and this time took the path leading right. As it turned out, there was another, smaller entrance not far off from the juncture. Kikue and Intan dove down and squirmed through the hole and into broad daylight and clear skies above. Intan scrambled up the little cliff. Kikue's Doll lay on the opposite end of the stretch of land they were on, while her own Doll had crashed by some tall, rounded rocks a little distance away. The sun's position now indicated mid-afternoon, and it seemed they had not landed too far from their original destination.

"Now what?" said Kikue, scrambling up after her.

Their signal flares had been damaged in the crash. Intan shrugged. "Wait, I guess?"

Almost immediately, the buzzing whir of a medic transport drew close.

"... Or not."

This time Intan was not at all surprised to see who leaped out from the transport.

"You again," said an out-of-uniform Eguzki Kaneshiro, sounding more resigned than irritated.

Intan beamed at him. "Hello again! Nice timing!"

Eguzki opened his mouth as if to respond, then seemed to think better of it. "Just get on."

Kikue, who seemed to think it beneath her to even acknowledge him, climbed on with a toss of her head. (The effect was somewhat ruined due to the tangled state of her hair.)

"Did the instructors send you?" asked Intan, for no reason other than it seemed like a good idea to keep some conversation going. And she was, admittedly, curious as to why he was still around despite the summer vacation.

Eguzki glared at her. "What part of 'just get on' did you not understand?"

She hopped aboard, laughing. The H-bird dipped down with her weight, and both Kikue and Eguzki swore. (Perhaps they would get along better than Intan had assumed!) Kikue, however, seemed to recall herself then, and clammed up again immediately.

"Where are you taking us?" Intan asked next.

"Back to camp."

"What about our Dolls?"

"Someone else will be over to pick them up."

"I hope they weren't hurt too badly!"

"Then maybe," he said through gritted teeth, "next time the two of you will remember to follow orders instead of goofing around like a pair of hairy rot-brained monkeys."

"I am not a monkey, and I am certainly not --" said Kikue, but she was unable to finish whatever she had been about to say when the crash of distant thunder interrupted her, and for a moment Intan thought the storm had somehow returned.

Then she saw the smoke ballooning on the horizon.

In the direction of the main island.