#but you can FREEZE the monster hawkbat

[askshivanulegacy]

Design Flaws

The snowy hawkbats should have been Cipher Thirteen’s first clue that this was a bad idea.

They were cute. Just like his own little hawkbat form, except white and fuzzy (not to imply that his hawkbat form was cute). 

Covered in a downy layer of fur, like the finest of winter fashion, they clung along the walls of the ice canyons as if they were granite slug-infested ferrocrete and not … frigid and forbidding wastelands (he wondered what they ate). They didn’t have the echolocation horn that he did, or the bioluminescent, environment-sensing fronds, but they did have the tiniest little, fur-covered triangular ears, which he, of course, did not.

Adorable.

With shorter, broader wings, and claws more like miniature icepicks than something reasonable, they nestled together in overlapping layers, covering the exposed, pale skin along the lower third of their wings in fuzzy warmth. Every so often the bottom layer of snow bats would take flight, maybe locating some kind of nourishment, before flitting sporadically back to take their place at the top of the column, tucking in and making the whole colony readjust as they chased the rising line of the falling sun. Neat.

Thirteen turned from the window and went to locate Watcher Five.

* * * * *

The fact that even tauntauns refused to traverse the landscape at dusk should have been Thirteen’s second clue.

“The sun’ll be down in an hour,” the animal keepers told them. “Tauntauns won’t do it. They won’t. Lookit ‘em. They know. It’s a five-hour trip anyway by mount. Did you try the speeder bay?”

Yes, they tried the speeder bay. All were down due to climate-related mechanical issues. That’s why they were here.

Five and Thirteen were forced to abruptly step aside as a tauntaun retreated, with loud complaints, into its not-all-that-warm, yet somehow preferable, stall in the ice cave.

Time for plan, uh. C.

* * * * *

They had, of course, what the tauntauns didn’t, which was thermal clothing embedded with thermal heat packs, specifically made for this planet, for this weather.

Well, Thirteen didn’t, not anymore, not for Plan C. But that was fine. He had thick skin and he’d flown in the cold before. Five packed a duffel with extra winter clothing and gear, while the monstrous, dragon-sized hawkbat looked on, and they were ready to go.

Intel, and Intel’s finest, don’t wait for daybreak.

Thirteen launched them into the fading dusk, and the winter air wrapped around his wings in a cold embrace. The low clouds on the horizon were tinged pink.

Delightful.

Three hours by air to the next installation, max. It would be easy.

* * * * *

Nobody told Thirteen that massive wings capable of resisting blaster bolts can still lose heat like a sieve. And so can large, unfurred ears, like the ears he has to accommodate the echolocation that he’s trying so hard to use right now in the face of the blisteringly cold wind and the downright blistering, driving snow.

The snow stings his eyes and sharp gusts batter them about in the dark. Thirteen does his best to smooth the journey for Watcher Five, and he thinks he succeeds, but he can feel the air yanking and shoving his wings, and it’s an effort to keep them even. His muscles tremble.

How long has it been?

Well, they’ll be there soon enough. If Thirteen is cold, then Five certainly is. He just needs to persevere a little longer.

Tiny icicles form on his eye ridges, and across the rim of his ears and inside them, from the steamy plumes of his hot breath. Not for the first time, he shakes his head to dislodge them, snapping his beak in futile annoyance and grimacing at the burning of his chafed skin. They interfere with his hearing - with what he can see in the sound. Far below, he perceives the slopes and edges of the landscape.

No base, yet.

A little further. 

His wings are stiff from the cold, and he pumps them regularly to keep speed and keep blood flowing. This is fine. He’s flown in the cold before. Not like this, but … still cold.

The wind howls and makes the icicles sing, and he shakes his head again. Five beats on the base of his neck. 

It’s fine. He screams into the wind to tell him so.

It bites back into his lungs.

It’s … painful the way the delicate fronds at the back of his head seem to transmit the frigid air straight into his skull. Had he ever had the problem before? He can’t remember. Maybe he should speak to Five about … a hat. A hawkbat hat. For a giant hawkbat.

The idea makes him chuckle. Oh, but this snow is annoying. It makes his eyes water. Five has goggles, doesn’t he? Thirteen needs those too. For now, maybe he’ll just close his eyes. He doesn’t need them, anyway, can’t see anything even with all the extra spectrums his eyes have access to. Premium design choice, and for what?

No, he can hear the landscape just fine.

The ache of his body fades into the wailing monotony of the wind.

An hour later - or is it minutes later? - he tries to open his eyes and realizes they have frozen shut.

Well, that’s … dastardly. And unfair.

A good shake does nothing for them, neither does a second, longer and more vigorous shake. He could beat the ice free, perhaps, with a wing, or a claw, maybe. But that’s not really conducive for flying or for passengers, is it?

Damn it, Five.

Well, he still has his ears. They’ll be there soon. Won’t they? He’s sure they will. How long has it been?

Five is still there. Isn’t he? He should be. He’d be an idiot if he let himself fall after all this time. Well, he’s wrapped up in enough thermals that they’d cushion the landing and he’d still melt a crater into the ice like a superheated meteor. It’s fine.

He thinks he feels Five patting his neck again. He thinks he hears Five saying something, which his giant ears would definitely pick up, even with the wind. Yes, it’s fine.

It’s fine. 

His wings are heavy. He beats them. He thinks he does. He listens, hard, for their destination to appear. He doesn’t hear anything.

The clouds muffle everything. Should he go lower? 

No, he can hear through clouds. He can hear through that annoying ringing, he can hear past the heaviness of his breath.

He can. He was made for this.

He was.

Except, he wasn’t.

He thinks of flying with a giant winged wolf, soaring among mountain peaks, under a clear, starry sky. She has the aurora wrapped like a shawl in her mane and her tail - the sparkling banner of a comet. He hears her, in the wind. Howling.

Howling.

She was made for this.

Gradually, his head and wings droop. 

The flight comes to an abrupt end.

Thankfully, he doesn’t notice when he plows, headfirst, into the icy slope.