Author’s Note: Not much to say here besides this being the plot of the second book. I suppose I’ll just send them on a little adventure somewhere new where they can’t drift.

---

Smoke rose from beneath the hood of the truck. I immediately pulled over and instinctively popped the hood. I dove out of the cabin, slamming my door behind me. Sylus balked awake beside me and fumbled his way out the passenger door.

“W-what happened?!” He stammered.

“Something’s wrong with Blue.” I gazed into an alien network of mechanisms that now resided beneath the hood of my mother’s truck. Once upon a time, I at least knew where the engine was. Now?

“Something… is wrong?” He made his way to my side.

“What even am I looking at?”

Smoke rose from an nondescript area among the network of metal and wires.

“Voidtech.” Sylus grumbled. “That’s how Casotr and I fixed her. The smoke is strange though. Perhaps you should ask her what’s wrong.”

“Ask her?”

He shrugged. “She has a soul, just like you and I. Something must be bothering her.”

“Ah, r-right.” I cleared my throat. “Hey, Blue, is… are you okay?”

Violet sigils blinked over the alien tech.

“I’m not very good at Qalian.” I replied with a sigh as I turned to Sylus.

“Take your patch off.”

“And lose my mind?!”

“You’ll understand her better.”

“And I might throw up into the engine compartment. Can’t you just tell me what she said?”

“I didn’t see the sigils. They were for you.”

“Oh, of course.” I sighed. “Blue, come on, show Sylus. He understands Qalian.”

“And so do you, if you take your eyepatch off. Here.” He moved behind me and put a hand on my back. “I’ll keep you grounded.”

I took a deep, shaky breath before reaching up to patch that covered my voidal eye. Leather with a piece of Sylus’ shirt stitched into it. Violet fabric glistened with irises as I lifted it off my face.

The world plunged into darkness. Colorful lines shimmered giving me a vague idea of where things were. I could still make out Blue’s machinery to some degree, but it looked more like a poem I couldn’t decipher than a nest of wires.

My stomach churned.

“B-Blue?” I choked.

The sigils reappeared as brilliant lights in the dark. I understood them in an instant.

I immediately lowered the patch and ducked to the side to throw up.

“It’ll get easier.” Sylus cooed as he rubbed my back. “What did she say?”

I dry heaved before standing back upright. “She’s thirsty.”

“Thirsty?”

“‘Long has it rained and I long to be quenched.’ were her words.”

“How very Qalian.” He chuckled.

We looked up and down the desert road.

“Can’t we just drift home and get some water then drift back?” I suggested.

“If we do that, we’ll have enemy Archon eyes on us in a heartbeat. No drifting.”

“Well that’s unfortunate.”

He sighed. “Do you have a map in the truck?”

“I think Ma kept one, but I don’t know how much ground it covers.”

“Let’s find out, then.”

As we got back into the cabin, I pointed to the glove compartment in front of Sylus. He popped it open and rummaged through the fistfuls of napkins and receipts until he found a map of our country, DeCaln.

“Sondreh, where even are we?” He muttered as his eyes darted across the page.

I leaned over and nothing made any sense to me either.

“Well,” I pointed to the west coast, “find Ortzuna and work east. We know we’re on route, what, route… uh… four?”

Sylus cocked a brow. He traced his finger down the coastline until he found Ortzuna. From there, he traced it vaguely eastward until he found a small town we’d passed through.

“There.” He jabbed the map. “We must be here. Which means…” He traced his finger a bit further east. “Hmm.” He tried going a bit north. Finally, Southeast seemed to have the answer. “If we take a detour, we can get to a carwash.”

“How much of a detour?”

“It’s the closest option in every direction unless we want to backtrack.”

“I’d rather not. Alright.” I turned the key in Blue’s ignition. “Think you can make it a bit further, old girl?”

I let her idle for a bit and no more smoke wafted from under the hood.

“Alright, then.” I shifted her into drive. “Let’s get going.”

Pulling back onto the road, she drove as smooth as ever.

“You’re going to have to tell me where to go.” I said to Sylus.

“Of course.” He murmured as he continued studying the map.

“Would hate to get lost in the desert.”

“Mhmm.”

“And die.”

“No one will die, Jeron.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just tell me when to turn.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

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Author’s Note: I suppose this could have been longer and more in line with the prompt, but I wasn’t feeling well so I cut it off here. Managed to jam in some light foreshadowing in the end so it wasn’t entirely pointless. Like one of the prompts before, it was stop here or write another dozen pages. I may revisit this in the future.