Memories Of Ice

The Red Rose was making its final approach toward the city of Disceath, and would arrive in a couple of hours. Lotte was in the engine room, which was located at the bottom of the ship, she was fixing a small problem in the injectors.

Roisin climbed down into the engine room from a ladder located in a room beside the kitchen. The engine room was small and narrow, with silver pipes leading to the Irrilium Core, which was the fuel which powered the Airships. The core was a huge round ball which glowed blue. Roisin gazed into the core.

"Oh hello there, Roisin" Lotte smiled, as she noticed Roisin.

"Hi" Roisin smiled.

"How are you holding up today?" Lotte asked, as she continued fixing the injectors.

"I'm doing okay, I guess" Roisin said, as she leaned against the ladder.

"You just have to take one day at a time, things will get better" Lotte smiled.

"It helps being surrounded by friends, I don't know what I'd have done without them" Roisin nodded.

"Yep, they'll always be there for you, as will I" Lotte said. "I wish I could have been there for you at Pyre, both you and Dex" Lotte sighed. Roisin walked over to Lotte and hugged her.

"Don't beat yourself up about it, you couldn't have known about Skylar's plans" Roisin said as she hugged Lotte tight.

"I know, it's just, I feel like I let you and Atlas down" She smiled slightly.

Roisin and Lotte talked for a couple of hours while making repairs to the engines. That afternoon, The Wild Rose approached Disceath, the gleaming ice towers rose up to the sky. It flew past Glacial Academy which sat in the centre of 'The Great Glacier', a frozen crescent bay.

Small airships whizzed around the grand spires of ice, in which businesses and homes were located. Large bridge tunnels connected the different spires at various heights and at the ground sat a small city, with skyscrapers that were only a tenth as high as the towering ice spires.

In the largest spire, a large airship bay opened near the top, ready for The Wild Rose to dock.

"Requesting permission to land" Anya said over the comms.

"Pyre Airship, you have permission to dock, please approach the landing bay in C Spire, thank you" The comms officer in Disceath said.

The Red Rose made the approach to the bay and landed. Inside the bay was a man in a blue military dress uniform, he had white hair and rugged features. The door of The Red Rose opened and Ashe ran out first toward the man and hugged him.

"Hi Dad!" She cheered. The others walked out of the airship slowly and looked around the grand room, the walls and roof were all made of ice. Roisin shivered.

"Gods, its cold here" She said, rubbing her hands together for warmth.

"Better get used to it, its always cold here" The man laughed. "I'm General Summers, Ashe's dad" He introduced himself.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Roisin" Roisin smiled.

"Ashe has told me all about you and your friends... though she never mentioned Lotte" General Summers raised his eyebrow at Lotte.

"Oh, I sorta hitched a ride here with them" Lotte shrugged.

"Hmm, is that right" General Summers laughed. "It's good to see you again either way" He nodded.

"Dad! We wanna make this ship our own, can we use the facilities here?" Ashe asked, making a pleading face.

"Hmm" General Summers pondered. "It belongs to Crystech, no?" He asked.

"Crystech also kidnapped Ros and performed illegal experiments on her, so I'd say it would be the least they owe us" Ariel shrugged.

"Hmm, okay, I'll cordon off Airship Dock 3 in E Spire, you can work on it there, and make it look a bit less... Crystech" General Summers winked.

"Cheers General Summers" Roisin smiled.

"Hmm" He said, looking at Anya.

"You... are you?" He began.

"A droid, yes" Anya nodded.

"Interesting" He pondered and looked at Ashe. "I send you off to Academy and you come back with a famed Airship engineer, a Droid friend and a stole airship" General Summers chuckled. "Your brother will be jealous" He smiled.

"Well, he's still gotta finish Academy so..." Ashe shrugged.

"Indeed, anyway, I'll send word to Airship Dock 3, in E Spire, if you all would live to relocate to there, will you be requiring any accommodation?" General Summers asked.

"We've decided to make the airship home" Ashe smiled.

"Hmm, my daughter, the freelance airship pirate" General Summers roared with laughter.

"That's me!" Ashe laughed.

"I will meet you all over in E Spire shortly, I just have some business to attend to first!" General Summers smiled, as he turned and left.

"Your Dad seems cool, Ashe" Wes smiled.

"You should have seen him when he was younger, he used to do races in his fighter ship" Ashe smiled. "He won almost every race" She nodded.

"I was his mechanic back in those days" Lotte smiled and posed.

"Small world" Ariel chuckled.

"Small world, but it still took us a week to get here" Anya shrugged.

The group carried on talking as the boarded the airship and made their way to E Spire, ready to make The Wild Rose their own.