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Valk was up on the plane's left wing unscrewing the top panel as Topaz balanced on a snapped tree trying to scrape as much sand out of the engine as she could with one arm, while using the other to keep her balance.

Valk popped the panel off and set it down on the wing, only to have it slide down and land on the tree Topaz was balancing on. The trunk rolled slightly, dumping Topaz onto the forest floor. She muttered something under her breath that Valk couldn't hear.

Looking inside the engine, Valk discovered that he knew nothing about airplanes other than that they could fly, and Taint's airplane was very dangerous. Valk sat down on the wing and pulled out his journal, and wrote down a few notes about the day's events.

Topaz stood up and brushed herself off before getting back up on the log, which shook again before she hopped off and decided to jam a few rocks underneath it to keep it steady. She found one, but it was a bit too heavy for her to move. "Valk, come help me move this thing." she said.

"Huh?" he asked, looking up from his journal and closing it quickly.

"I need this rock to keep that tree steady, so I can clean all the sand out."

"I, uh." Valk stuck the jornal back in his pack. "Why? It's not like we're going to get this thing out of here."

"Okay, look. Ive been forced to live on this damn plane for a month now, and during that month ive collected a LOT of things in my little curtained off section of the bunk that I don't want to leave behind. So we're doing one of two things. Getting this plane off the ground, or dying in an explosion of Bigsby's absurd madness." She began digging around the rock to loosen it up.

"What kind of things?"

"My photography stuff, plant samples, some gemstones, and a few other things."

"I think you can carry that."

"Shut up". Topaz managed to roll the rock out of the hole and towards the tree.

"Ive never even seen your camera."

Topaz planted the rock underneath the tree and hopped back on, after some minor shaking she decided it was safe to stand on again. She began scooping handfuls of sand out of the engine again. Valk stood back up and pretended he knew what the chain he just pulled out of the engine did.

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- Aquas <- 2:05:40 am, friday, november 3rd, 2006 pst