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Chan was the first member of the Spatial and Technical Research for the Advancement of Yelowoud, or STRAY, crew. This was inevitable given that Chan had been the one to propose this mission to the regulatory body of the Judicial Yelowoud Pioneering Enclave.
The STRAY mission had been something Chan had worked towards for seven long years. He had stumbled upon the unique power of Bonds early in life and had immediately dedicated himself to researching this seemingly endless source of energy and creation. This research had led him to conclude that Bonds were not just limited to the planet of Yelowoud, but instead stretched out towards regions unknown. Chan's new goal in life had been to discover what other civilizations might be out there, and to share and expand his homeworld's knowledge of Bonds for the betterment of everyone in the known universe. Hence, STRAY had been born, and quickly stuck with the tagline “Stay with STRAY” (a 100% Chan original work, thank you very much).
The second the Judicial Enclave approved his mission, Chan was quick to take on the mantle of Captain and start assembling his crew. Jisung and Changbin were the second and third members of his crew, respectively. (Though Changbin argued that they had signed up at the same time and so were equally second, Jisung maintained that he had finished signing himself up as the ship's Arcanist before Changbin had finished signing up as the Chief Security Officer, and so Jisung was technically the true second-in-command. Chan absolutely refused to take sides in this matter.) Jisung and Changbin's addition to the STRAY crew was another inevitability: both had been by Chan's side through the last several of those seven years of research, fighting just as hard as the Human to get his mission approved.
From there, Chan was left to find the four others who would aid him in this mission. An odd numbered crew had been decided upon to ensure tie-breakers in decision making, and crew size had been set at seven. This would be large enough to form a diverse team, but small enough to ensure that large stores of rations would not be needed for the planned two-month venture out into space.
There were four additional roles Chan had been hoping to fill: a Biologist, a Medic, a Science Officer, and a Chronicler. (Changbin had requested that at least one of these roles double-up as a Chef, claiming that all three of the original STRAY crew were absolutely hopeless in the kitchen, and he'd really rather not live off dry rations and tack for the full two months.)
Chan found his Medic early on into his search. A freckle-faced Half-Elf by the name of Lee Felix had answered Chan's request for someone skilled in medicine within half a week of Chan posting the notice. Felix had been kind, and warm, and well-versed in the art of healing as a trained Cleric. In fact, Felix had alleviated some of Chan’s near never-ending fatigue as a testament to his abilities before even opening his mouth. Then Felix had opened his mouth, and his voice had been rich and deep and soaked in that familiar accent of the region of Yelowoud from which Chan hailed. Chan had been instantly endeared of Felix, and resolved to bring him on as the crew’s Medic. Felix was also exceptionally skilled in the art of baking, and so Jisung and Changbin had been won over handily. Felix signed on as their fourth member, made a tray of brownies as a thank you for the opportunity, and that was that.
Chan hired his Science Officer soon after. Kim Seungmin had submitted a rather substantial resume despite his age, and so Chan quickly arranged for an interview with the young Human. Though Chan reviewed all potential candidates with Jisung and Changbin before officially offering them the job, Jisung had sat in on this interview. As the Science Officer, Seungmin would be working closely with the Arcanist in their scientific exploration of Bonds, and so cooperation between the two would be important. Seungmin hadn’t even blinked at the presence of the Tiefling, which had instantly bumped him up the list of potential applicants. Then, about halfway through the interview, he had made a rather casual observation about Jisung’s “pointed questions,” letting his eyes dart to the Tiefling’s curling horns before a half-grin broke out on his face. Jisung had been startled into a bout of laughter, and Chan had gotten his fifth crew member.
The sixth member – the Biologist – was hired after Changbin found what he assumed to be a stray cat lurking at the windows outside Chan’s temporary wing of the Judicial Enclave. Changbin and his incredibly soft heart were unable to turn away any small creature appearing tired or injured or hungry, and the ginger-coated cat had appeared to be all three. After much pleading on Changbin’s end (which was actually more like one single “please?” which Chan was incapable of refusing), Chan let the Dwarf open the window into Chan’s office and put out a bit of leftover fish for the cat. The cat had eaten, done a small bit of grooming, then promptly turned into a striking Elf. The Elf introduced himself as Lee Minho and cheerily announced that Chan had passed his hiring interview and would thus be permitted to bring Minho on as his Biologist. Chan had been taken aback, of course, but Minho soon proved himself smart, and resourceful, and also capable of cooking something that wasn’t “Fireball-fried fish” (a Jisung specialty). Minho’s Druidic background gave him better insight into the natural world than most, an added point in his favor. Though, if Chan were being honest with himself, Minho had nabbed the position of Biologist even before the official interview had begun.
Their Chronicler was the last member Chan found. It had been nearing the launch date of the STRAY mission, and Chan had been starting to despair if they would ever find a suitable Chronicler, or if their mission would have to continue as six members each trying their best to collectively document their findings. He was resigning himself to a collage-style record of their travels when a Half-Elf had knocked on the door to Chan's small office and introduced himself as Hwang Hyunjin. He had said that he wasn't sure how much good he would be as a Chronicler, but that he had been journaling for years, and was pretty good at doing quick supplemental sketches. Hyunjin also noted that he could help out in the Medic and Security roles as well, as his calling as a Paladin granted him both considerable strength and healing abilities. Although Hyunjin had been the weakest Chronicler candidate so far, he was the only one of those applicants Chan could picture in his crew. So, Hyunjin was accepted as the seventh and final member of the STRAY mission.
One week later was the launch of the The Levanter, a ship fueled by the power of Bonds and outfitted to take her occupants on a two-month journey through the neighboring planetary systems in search of further information concerning Bonds and the others who might use them. The Levanter had launched to much fanfare, carrying seven STRAY crewmembers and one tenacious stowaway up into the soft evening sky above Yelowoud. A few moments later, eight pairs of eyes watched as an endless darkness began to swallow their home planet whole.
...
The Levanter had been a “by the grace of the gods” option for Jeongin. He had run out of places to hide and faces to wear, and the hunters who stalked his kind had been closing in when he heard of the STRAY mission. The Levanter had been set to launch in a day, and though her crew had already been decided, Jeongin resolved to unofficially join their ranks. He could get into just about any place he wanted; The Levanter, he was sure, would present no challenge. Sure, he could’ve stolen a ship and flown himself somewhere safer, but ships were easy to track, and Jeongin wasn’t a skilled enough Rogue to thoroughly disengage the tracking system. Better to find someone else flying out and catch a ride, unnoticed, until they alighted on some new, hospitable planet. He could then sneak his way offboard and camouflage into whatever society he found himself in. No harm, no foul.
That was before he watched his home planet disappear.
The black thing, that tarry mass of shimmering depths, apparently wasn’t satisfied with consuming the whole of Yelowoud in the time it would take Jeongin to hum his favorite nursery rhyme. The body of this unnamed beast was still moving, swirling closer and closer to the bright ship Jeongin had stolen aboard. The ship's captain was good, but not good enough; the darkness was gaining. Jeongin might be good enough, though. He would have to be.
He lingered in the quiet hull of the ship for a moment longer before steeling himself and heading towards the bridge. As he walked, Jeongin shifted from the wisp of a Gnome he had used to hide into the Human form he was most comfortable in outside of his own near-luminescent skin. Jeongin hoped his go-to Human form would be nonthreatening enough that the actual crew of the ship wouldn’t attack him on sight. With one last deep breath, he raised his arms in a gesture of surrender and stepped into the bridge.
A stout-armed Dwarf was the first to spot him. The Dwarf immediately raised a battle axe and barked out a gruff "Who are you.” His words were equal parts command and question.
“Changbin,” the Human at the helm ground out, desperately steering the ship away from the swirling mass behind them. The others in the room – Jeongin did a quick head count and found there were seven in total – were rooted in place, staring at Jeongin with varying levels of surprise and mistrust before their gazes were drawn back to the black mass gaining ground behind the ship.
“You’re the one who made me security officer, Chan. Let me do my damn job,” the Dwarf – Changbin – said. He did not lower his axe, but he also hadn't charged Jeongin, so maybe the situation could still turn out in his favor.
“Who are you?” Changbin repeated, and the words veered more towards question this time around. Jeongin felt himself relax, just slightly. These were good folk. He could tell.
“I’m Jeongin.”
His real name slipped out before he could help it, and immediately he felt naked, stripped bare before these strangers. His name was the only thing of his that had been stable the past few years, and now these seven others knew it, just like that. Oh well, there was nothing for it now. All Jeongin could do was press on, trying to instill as much earnestness into his next words as he could manage.
“And I can help you.”
“How?” A Human – a different one from the captain, Chan – asked. His eyes were inquisitive, and a pair of round spectacles perched on his nose added to his scholarly look. He seemed suspicious, but not downright hostile, and Jeongin subtly shifted his posture to mirror the Human’s.
“Let me pilot the ship.”
At Jeongin’s words, a burst of protests broke out among most of the others in the ship. Both Humans – the one at the helm and the one watching him with thoughtful eyes – remained quiet, and so Jeongin continued despite the outcry.
“That thing, whatever that is, is gaining! I’m sure you’re an excellent pilot, Chan, but I’m also sure that all the flying you’ve done previously has been largely chartered. All the flying I’ve done previously has been to survive.”
That quieted the group. Their eyes were still glancing back and forth between Jeongin and the monstrous thing working its way towards the ship, but the eyes were sticking less and less on Jeongin as he was catalogued as the lesser of the immediate threats. Jeongin could work with being a lesser threat.
One pair of eyes suddenly darted back to Jeongin and stuck.
“Where did you even come from?” the Tiefling – and wasn't that an interesting choice of a crewmate? – asked, the very tip of his tail twitching nervously.
“I was a stowaway, and I was just going to slip away at the next stop, I promise. But right now you need to let me help you so we can all make it out of this alive.”
Jeongin really hoped he was nailing the honest, trustworthy look he was going for. Maybe if he made his eyes a bit bigger…?
But, no, a quick glance at the bespectacled human, who was still looking at him as if he were under a microscope, told Jeongin that the change would not go unnoticed. He absolutely couldn’t give himself away like that. This rest of the crew seemed fine with a Tiefling among their midst, which was a good sign, but a Changeling? No, Jeongin needed to play it as safe as he could for now.
“Okay,” Chan said, turning slightly to allow Jeongin access to the console. “Okay, Jeongin. Get us out of here alive.”
Most of the others were still looking at him with distrust as he walked towards the helm, but Chan’s eyes were gentle as Jeongin took the controls from him. That overwhelming act of trust was enough to solidify Jeongin’s resolve, and he tightened his grip on the steering console.
“Let’s go you tarry mess of shedskin,” Jeongin whispered, a small smile growing on his face as the ship leapt to life beneath him. In another moment, he was calling out a loud “hold on!” to the rest of the crew as he slammed the steering console down and sent the ship into a nose-dive.
“What are you doing?” a tall Half-Elf screeched, eyes wide and the pointed tips of his ears twitching as he quickly strapped himself into one of the harnesses posted along the wall of the bridge.
“Space is endless,” Jeongin replied, pressing the ship further forward and further down, “so I’m gonna lose us out among the infinities.”
The only full Elf in the room snorted something that sounded like “fake deep,” but his eyes were two smiling crescents as they met Jeongin’s. He strapped himself into the wall as well, and the others followed suit until it was just Jeongin and Chan in the center of the room, the Captain’s hand warm on his side as he kept Jeongin steady. And it was going fine, it was going so much better than Jeongin could have hoped, until…
“It’s following us.” The other Half-Elf – the one with the slightly longer ears and slightly shorter hair and a softer, freckled face – broke the tense silence with that horrifying revelation.
“Why is it following us?” the longer-haired Half-Elf squeaked (and Jeongin should probably learn their names if he was going to be spending any more time with them), whipping his head around to stare out the back window.
It was true; the black, shimmering mass had shifted its course and was now sloping downwards at the same angle as The Levanter.
“It’s leaving no trace,” the bespectacled Human murmured, and Jeongin felt his eyes dart to the dark mass outside the window.
Flatface, Jeongin thought, and he slammed the steering console forward.
“We might not make it,” Changbin said, tone incredibly grim.
Jeongin refused to hear him. They would make it, he would make it, he was so damn close to finally being able to live…!
The air in the ship suddenly grew incredibly still, then incredibly thick, then incredibly wavy. Jiggly, almost. By the looks on the others faces, Jeongin could tell they were also experiencing the same thing.
“What…?” The Tiefling started to say, and then Jeongin’s molecules were ripped apart.
Every single instance of Jeongin – who he was, who he had been, who he might become – were plastered throughout the bridge of The Levanter. He felt his essence multiply into an ache that was all-consuming, a hunger for something more than what he had been able to achieve. He wanted to have been more, and then he wanted to have been less, and then he was both things, all at once, and it was excruciating. It was exhilarating. And then it was over.
Jeongin found himself piloting The Levanter once more, Chan’s grip tight on his side and the other six members of the crew strapped into the various harnesses scattered around the bridge. The air was no longer that thick, wavy texture.
“It’s gone!” the shorter-haired Half-Elf exclaimed, eagerly pointing behind the ship. There was no sign of that undulating, tarry mass. There was, however, a rather lush-looking planet where it had been.
“I don’t recognize that planet,” the bespectacled Human stated.
“Where are we?” the Tiefling wondered.
The Elf gave a wide smile. “I don’t know, but I know how we can find out! Jeongin?” Jeongin whipped his head around to the Elf at his name. “Take us down?”
“Minho,” Changbin growled, “that’s Chan’s call and you know…”
“No, no, I think he’s right.” Chan slowly straightened himself to his full height.
Jeongin was surprised to find that the other was shorter than he. Chan’s presence seemed to fill up the entirety of the room.
“I don’t want to set off into open space with no idea where we are and no idea what the hell just happened. We should land and regroup. Jeongin, may I?”
Wordlessly, Jeongin stepped back from the helm. Chan took the steering console from him and guided The Levanter and her crew towards a destination unknown.
…
The planet they alighted on was lush, and green, and right up Minho’s alley. One would think that, as a High Elf, he’d be more comfortable in cities and similar urban settings. One would think wrong.
Minho had grown up on the fringes of his birth city, sticking more to the thickets and the scraggly trees too thin to provide good wood than to the open-air pavilions and neatly cobblestoned streets of the city center. He had made friends with the little creatures brave enough to approach him, and he had largely ignored the jeers and pointed looks of the other High Elves. He was fully aware of what names they had bestowed upon him: Mud Wretch. Round Ear. Kin of Beasts.
Maybe Minho was petty, but he took that last name to heart and made it his own. He molded it and shaped it into something that fit neatly alongside his idea of himself, and he became Minho, King of Beasts.
He was Minho, King of Beasts, as he stepped from the gangway of The Levanter down onto the springy ground of this new planet. There were little creatures on this planet, too; he could sense them. Maybe they were unfamiliar to Minho now, but he could shrink himself down among them and he could speak with them and he could learn.
He announced as much to his crew. “I can talk to the local fauna, try to get a read on what this planet’s deal is.”
The stowaway – Jeongin, was it? – looked at him in confusion. “You can talk to animals?”
“Pretty much, yeah. I can become one too, wanna see?” Minho quirked his lips into a grin, his smile growing as Jeongin’s eyes widened rather adorably.
“You can change?” Jeongin asked, and there was more to that statement than those surface words, but Minho left it alone for now. They were all entitled to their secrets, weren’t they? And Minho didn’t think Jeongin would willingly endanger the rest of them, so he was content to let sleeping dogs lie for the moment.
Minho had been wary of Jeongin for all of three seconds when the Human had first appeared rather suddenly on the bridge. Then Jeongin had begun to speak, and for all that Minho was typically wary of strangers, something about this other boy was just inherently honest. Yes, Minho knew he was probably carting around some rather hefty baggage if he’d thought his best bet was to sneak aboard a research vessel, but still. Jeongin didn’t register as a threat on Minho’s radar. At least, not a threat to him or the original crew of The Levanter. And Minho would wager that the others were of a similar opinion.
Before disembarking onto this new planet, Chan had made them all sit down and hear Jeongin out. Jeongin had properly introduced himself, and the crew had introduced themselves in turn. It was a bit strange, to have a stranger suddenly among their midst. But, well, their actual crew were stranger to each other in a lot of ways. Minho himself had been the second-to-last member to join the STRAY mission, senior only to Hyunjin. And now they might be the only eight remaining members of Yelowoud.
Minho quickly shoved that thought to the side. They hadn’t talked about… that, during their Chan-sanctioned chat. Without a single word on the matter being spoken, they had all collectively agreed to avoid discussion of whatever had happened with the tarry substance and the disappearance of their home planet. Their first priority was figuring out where they were. The next steps would fall into place behind that. And speaking of…
“I can indeed change! Into any reasonably-sized creature of my choosing. I just happen to only choose cats, but it’s fine; beast-tongues are relatively similar among like-species.”
“So, you’re gonna turn into a cat, and then you’re gonna talk to whatever things live on this planet? Shouldn’t we just, like, look for actual people first?” the Tiefling asked (Jisung, Minho reminded himself, his name is Jisung), raising an eyebrow.
“What if the people are hostile?” Hyunjin asked, his ears twitching slightly. Minho thought it was cute, how expressive Hyunjin and Felix were with their ears. Minho had been taught to school his own ears into silence, to never let any aspect of his appearance betray his true intentions. But the two Half-Elves weren’t like him. They were more open, more honest, more… Human.
“How about this?” Chan spoke, and instantly seven pairs of eyes, Minho’s included, turned towards him. “We’ll send a small party out – myself, Minho, Felix, and Hyunjin – to do some scouting. If we find anything that looks hostile, we won’t engage; we’ll circle back here.”
“I’m coming too,” Changbin instantly demanded, and Chan shook his head.
“No, I need you back here on the ship. You and Jisung are most familiar with The Levanter; I need the two of you to work with Seungmin to try to figure out what happened back there with the…”
“Jiggly air?” Seungmin offered, a half-smile on his face.
“Jiggly air,” Chan confirmed, mirroring his smile. “Jeongin, stick with the ship for now, if you don’t mind?”
It was phrased as a question, but Minho heard the order behind it. Surprisingly, Jeongin agreed without fuss. Minho wondered if the other had figured out his best bet at this point was probably to incorporate himself into the crew. Jeongin seemed sharp; he probably had.
“Is that okay with everyone?” Chan posed the question to the group as a whole but, again, there wasn’t much room for argument. No one raised an issue. “Then let’s set out.”
The woods of this planet were much thicker than the thin border forests Minho had grown used to in Yelowoud. Minho absolutely loved it. Where Felix and Hyunjin, and even occasionally Chan, were stumbling over raised roots and jagged-backed rocks, Minho’s steps were sure and steady. There were many little pairs of eyes tracking their movement, and Minho sent all that he could see small greetings in the common tongue of beasts. A few fled, a few chittered greetings back, and the majority stayed silent, watching him and his party.
Those little beasts were the only signs of life Minho and the exploratory party found the entirety of their trek. There was no evidence that there had ever been people on this planet – no dilapidated structures, no signs of roads or sidewalks, not even the remnants of a fire pit. There were, however, plenty of signs of wildlife. The animal burrows and massive nests were much more intricate than those that Minho had seen on Yelowoud, and a strange idea began to form in the back of his mind.
When Chan finally announced that they should probably head back to the group before the sun began settling down into dusk, Minho voiced his idea to the others.
“What if there are no civilizations on this planet?” When the others turned to him with questions evident in their eyes, Minho amended his statement some. “Or, more accurately I guess, what if the civilizations are the fauna? Like, what if the intelligent life on this planet are the animals?”
Hyunjin looked incredulous, Felix looked excited, and Chan looked contemplative.
“One way to find out,” Chan said eventually. “We’ll meet you back at the ship?”
Minho gave him a wild grin in answer before immediately twisting himself down into the small form of a wild cat.
Hyunjin, as Minho had predicted, let out a small shriek before immediately dropping into a squat to peer closer at Minho’s new form. Felix joined him near the ground, cooing slightly at Minho and holding his hand out. Minho let them both carefully run their fingers through his soft coat before he gave them a wink and leapt into the forest.
It didn’t take him long to find a cluster of ocelots who Minho was half-certain had been following their party from about midway into their trek.
“Hello,” Minho purred out a greeting, stopping a respectable distance from where the ocelots had clustered together into a protective group.
One hesitantly stepped forward. “Hello? Were you not just a two-legged creature?”
Minho smiled to himself at their classification of humanoid classes. “I was indeed. But I thought it would be more comfortable to converse like this, no?”
The ocelot let out a low grumble which Minho interpreted as laughter. “It is indeed! Tell us, what brings such strange creatures as you to our lands?”
“Well, actually, we were hoping you might be able to help us out on that front…”
Minho gave the ocelots as accurate a recounting of the events leading up to his crew landing on this planet as he could. In turn, they told him of the ruling classes of animals who governed this land, how there had never been a two-legged creature on the planet prior to his crew, and how they didn’t know where this planet was located within the cosmos. Minho asked if the ocelots would be willing to help him and the rest of the two-leggers survive, and they agreed with ease, and offered to ask some of the other family groups to help as well. Minho accepted their offering, bid them farewell for the moment, and began to make his way back towards the ship.
It was easier to navigate the forests in his feline form, and he arrived at The Levanter just as Chan, Hyunjin, and Felix were stepping into the small clearing they’d landed in. Minho shifted back to his human form easily and offered them a greeting.
“What’d you find out?” Hyunjin asked.
“Let’s head inside, and I’ll tell everyone?”
The others agreed, and soon enough they were gathered again in that familiar circle of eight. Minho recounted his encounter with the ocelots and what little information he had learned.
“So this planet is animal-life only?” Seungmin asked, brows furrowed.
“Apparently,” Minho answered. “It’s wonderful.”
Before anyone else could speak, a high-pitched whistle filled the air. Minho instantly covered his sensitive ears, wincing as the sound reach a crescendo. Seungmin had already darted to the windows of the ship and was pointing eagerly at something overhead.
There was a brilliant white light arcing overhead, trailing small shimmers that disappeared into the darkening sky. Even though there were likely many miles separating Minho from that light, he still felt its warmth radiating down into his core. As he watched, the light fell towards the planet, landing somewhere out in the woods, many miles away. Once it was gone from sight, the whistling noise stopped.
“What was that?” Hyunjin asked. He’d already opened one of the journals he constantly carried on him in his role as Chronicler and was sketching a small drawing of the light falling over the forest.
“I don’t know,” Minho replied, grinning out towards the woods, “but I intend to find out tomorrow!”
…
Changbin was starting to get rather tired of this animal-filled, tree-covered planet. Well, the animals were pretty chill, actually, and had been really helpful with literally everything asked of them, but the trees. The trees could rot in the furthest reaches of The Chasm for all he cared.
Changbin had grown up in cave systems and rock kingdoms and vast subterrestrial spaces. There had been stalactites and stalagmites and not a tree in sight, and that had been just fine by him. He was more comfortable among rocks, anyhow; they were sturdier, unchanging, stable. Trees lost their leaves every winter, or else had those prickly needle things that had poked every inch of exposed skin when Changbin was unfortunate enough to be caught in dense forest growth. That last state had occurred frequently in recent times.
The crew of The Levanter (plus Jeongin, who was more a crew member than not at this point) had been stranded on this flora-and-fauna-rich planet for nigh on a full year now. And Changbin really did mean stranded.
After their group had located the whistling light, Chan had suggested they try to bring it to a planet with more advanced technology to study it, and to figure out a way to get in contact with Yelowoud (if such a thing were even possible, though everyone tended to avoid that question). The crew had agreed.
They had bid their animal acquaintances a somewhat tearful goodbye and headed for the stars. The Levanter made it hundred or so miles into the atmosphere before the air started to grow thick and wavy and wiggly. They were forced to turn around and land back on the surface of the forested planet.
During that brief trip, Jisung had noticed the whistling light seemed to interact oddly with the changing air. Ever since that realization, he and Seungmin had spent days knocking their brains together in an attempt to figure out how the whistling light might be used to escape. They had also been rather set on figuring out just what the whistling light might be. As fate would have it, Changbin had been the one to blunder into the answer to that second question.
The members of the STRAY mission had been a couple months into their stay on the forested planet. Changbin had been coming back from a foraging journey laden with freshly-picked berries and freshly-dug roots.
Despite the abundance and variety of animals on the planet, every single animal had evolved to be vegetarian; even the traditional carnivores. Chan had instructed his crew to adhere to the planet’s standards of living. Plus, the fact that the animals were all sentient to the level of those in Changbin’s crew made it a bit taboo to have a carnivorous diet. This forced vegetarianism was another absolutely terrible fact about living on this planet.
Changbin had been carting back his bags of berries and roots and wishing for the umpteenth time that he could eat a damn steak when light glinting off The Levanter’s engine had caught his eye.
The Levanter was the brainchild of Chan and Jisung and him, and also a bunch of other geniuses who had somehow figured out a way to harness the power of Bonds into a form of jet fuel that would allow extraplanetary travel. In other words, The Levanter didn’t have a typical engine. Instead, it had a Bond engine: a giant ring of white material with a core that glowed bright white when the ship was working. That core also, if Changbin was remembering correctly, let out a fairly distinctive whistling sound.
As soon as he put two and two together, Changbin had been abandoning his berry baskets and flinging open the door into the ship, shouting for Chan, for Jisung, for anyone as he went.
“The engine’s the light!” he proclaimed to the first person he saw, who had happened to be Hyunjin, lounging on one of the couches in the main room and scribbling who knows what into one of his many journals. Hyunjin had looked at him with eyebrows raised, pen still hovering above the open page.
“Or, the light’s the engine,” Changbin amended. Hyunjin’s eyebrows remained elevated.
“What’s this about a light?” Seungmin had popped his head into the main room from the back storage area that he and Jisung had converted into a mad scientist’s den. Or, Changbin and Minho called it their mad scientist’s den; Jisung and Seungmin called it their research room. Semantics.
“The whistling light is the same as the engine!” Changbin repeated.
That was the best way he knew how to put it. Luckily, it had seemed to be description enough for Seungmin, who had let out the loudest whoop Changbin had ever heard from the Human before crossing the floor in four quick strides to give Changbin a crushing hug.
“You beautiful, beautiful Dwarf! You diamond brain, you cavern carver, you forge lighter! You cracked it!” Seungmin was happier than Changbin had ever heard him, and the praises spilling from his lips caused Changbin’s heart to swell with warmth and pride.
“What’s cracked what?” Jeongin asked, sounding sleepy as he meandered his way into the main room.
“Changbin’s cracked the whistling light!” Seungmin exclaimed, before shouting, “Jisung! Han Jisung, get your horned head in here right now!”
“Hmm wha…?” Jisung wandered into the room from the same entrance Jeongin had taken, and Changbin would put money on the presumption that they had been napping together.
“The whistling light! It’s made of condensed Bond energy!” Seungmin said, and Jisung perked right up at that.
“Of course! That’s why the signature was so familiar!”
“Right? And that should mean that if we were to probe it with concentrated Mana instead of…” Seungmin and Jisung’s voices trailed off as the two of them retreated into their mad scientist’s den.
“Well,” Hyunjin said, returning to his journals with his lips quirked. “That should keep the two of them busy for a while.”
That episode had occurred just about ten months ago. Now, The Levanter and her crew were approaching a full year spent on this planet, and Changbin was getting antsy. His state was exacerbated by the fact that Jisung and Seungmin kept telling the rest of them that they were “close.” Close to what, they wouldn’t specify, but Changbin really hoped it was a way past whatever barrier had been keeping them bound to this planet.
He had been coming back from yet another foraging run with Chan when things went to hell.
The forest had been quieter than usual, none of the typical birdsong or squirrel chatter. There was a sense of foreboding, the unsettling feeling that something terrible was about to happen. And the air had been almost… jiggly.
Changbin had locked eyes with Chan, and no words needed to be spoken before the two of them were flinging their foraging baskets to the side and taking off at a dead sprint towards The Levanter. They had been a couple hundred yards away from the ship when the sky went dark with that same mass of shimmering tar which had consumed Yelowoud.
“It followed us!” Chan had shouted as the first dark drops of tar had fallen from the sky.
As Changbin watched with a growing sense of horror, those masses of shadows condensed into creatures, some humanoid, some beastly; all set on making it to the ship before him.
“I’ll keep them away; you get the others out of here!” Changbin barked out, pulling his great axe from his back and charging at a monstrous shade which had been headed towards the Bond engine, the ship’s one and only source of power.
“I’m not leaving you!” Chan yelled, and Changbin grit his teeth.
Where Chan was an optimist, Changbin was a realist, and there was only one viable path forward.
“You leave me, or you doom all of us to those things. You have to go; you have to keep them safe. Alright, Chan? Keep them safe.”
Changbin refused to say goodbye. If he said it, Chan would dig his heels in even further, and then all of them would be overtaken by the shadow creatures that just kept coming. So instead, Changbin gave Chan the largest grin he could manage as he continued to swing his axe through shadow after shadow.
“Stay with STRAY,” Changbin said, studiously ignoring the tears glinting in the corners of Chan’s eyes and those that threatened to fall from his own.
“Stay with STRAY,” Chan echoed, before finally turning and sprinting to the ship where the others had just made it to the gangway and were starting to head down towards the fight.
“Everyone inside!” Chan yelled in what years ago Changbin and Jisung had dubbed his ‘leader-voice.’
“What about Changbin?” he heard someone yell, maybe Hyunjin.
He couldn’t be sure; the shadows were coming in greater and greater numbers, and it was taking every ounce of concentration he had to keep them away from the Bond engine.
Changbin did hear it when Jisung yelled out his name, the other’s voice breaking on the second syllable and sounding so utterly devastated that Changbin nearly let himself stop. But, no, he had to keep fighting. At least until the others managed to get up into the air, to safety. That was his job, wasn’t it? Chief Security Officer. And he would damn well do his job right.
As the Bond engine whistled to life, Changbin felt claws tear a chunk out of his left forearm. He was forced to drop his hold on his battle axe. Instead, he yanked the hatchet from his belt and swung widely with his one good arm.
Keep the monsters away from the engine. Keep them safe. Keep them safe.
Changbin repeated those three small words over and over and over, tearing his focus away from the slashes littering his arms and legs and torso and focusing instead on beating back wave after wave of shadow creatures.
Keep them safe. The Bond engine was fully whirring now, The Levanter starting to rise gently off the ground.
Keep them safe. Changbin thought he heard what sounded like anguished screams of his name. Changbin ignored the sounds, instead throwing his entire weight against a shadow that had been reaching up to latch onto the engine.
Keep them safe. The ship was steadily rising, gaining yards with every passing second, and the shadow creatures were wailing in anguish as The Levanter rose above the treetops. They were gone. They were safe.
Changbin felt his body collapsing with an odd sense of detachment. It was if he was looking down from some untouchable vantage as the shades swarmed his body, covering him fully and tearing him apart piece by piece. Then the scene started to fade around the edges.
The last thing Changbin saw was the brilliant white flash of The Levanter as she passed through the darkening atmosphere of the forested planet and continued off into the wideness of space, safe and free.
With the barest hint of a smile on his face, Changbin closed his eyes, and let himself go.
There was nothing; Changbin was nothing. Then, he wasn’t.
Changbin opened his eyes, and he was on the bridge of The Levanter, strapped into one of the harnesses lining the walls. He flexed his left arm and found it was whole; there was no missing chunk from where the shadow creature had gouged him.
Slowly, he raised his eyes, and found that the other seven were there. They were strapped into harnesses of their own, with the exception of Jeongin and Chan, where were standing at the central steering console. Changbin unbuckled himself, stepping forward uncertainly. He was half-expecting everything around him to vanish; for this to be some final, pre-death dream sequence.
The ship remained solid under his feet, and then Chan was fixing him with one of his dimpled grins, and Jisung was flinging himself across the room and into Changbin’s arms, and Hyunjin was crying openly, and Jeongin was trying to hide tears, and Felix was latching onto his side, and Seungmin was reaching out to hold onto the bottom of his shirt, and Minho was laughing with hiccups catching in the back of his throat.
Changbin was here; Changbin was alive. And he couldn’t quite bring himself to care at the moment how that had actually happened.
“A planet!” Jeongin exclaimed, drawing everyone’s attention to the blue-grey world quickly coming into focus.
Chan’s smile was near-blinding, and his voice was filled with enough relief to make Changbin’s heart swell. “Jeongin and I are gonna bring her down, and then we’re gonna have mandatory crew couch time, and then maybe we can talk after that. Sound good to everybody?”
Changbin thought it sounded absolutely perfect.