As the night faded back in, a pair of figures glided through it silently--a broad-winged, grey-feathered bird-shaped creature, and on their back someone dressed in a dark hood, and both of them wearing identical vaguely skull-like white masks. The hooded figure sat up between their partner's wings, holding up the bird construct, which spat orange sparks out of its back.

It lifted gently out of the hooded figure's hands, gliding upwards a short ways. The hooded figure crouched down against their partner's back and said, < All right, all set. >

They descended towards the plaza below, which was lit by the glow of the huge fountain statue at its center, the pink lights clustering on wires that lined the sidewalks, and here and there the light spilling out from a window or doorway. The bird construct traced a circle high above the head of the fountain statue, its path echoing the circle of the fountain, the plaza, the streets that surrounded it. The streets themselves were empty--the only eyes that fell on the construct at this time of night were the eyes of a pair of fish-creature statues that crouched on the eaves of one of the plaza buildings, gazing upward sightlessly.