The next day found them in the greenest and barest of flatlands--free even of any subtropical scrub, the land rolled away in all directions covered in short, tough grass. The clouds roiled threateningly overhead, the wind blowing away the murmur of the radio as Hawk and Teige climbed a hill.

"What's Earth like?" Hawk asked offhand, the wind flinging the white hair out of his face. Teige threw him a surprised glance.

"Earth? Er, it's a lot like this, actually." He had to shout above the gusts puffing over the hilltop, and Hawk bent into them, holding his wings tightly to his side. Below them the highway wound towards the horizon, cars like beetles scurrying in both directions.

"In fact," Teige continued huffily, "This place may as well be some hellish version of Earth where the old demon-hunting days have come back. Only with guns this time," he amended. He paused, surveyed the devastatingly dark horizon, and then said, "Oh wait. That's exactly what this is."

A particularly strong gust rushed past them then, taking the air from testy and humid to something palpably cooler.

"The only difference," Teige said, "is back there, all us goblins are still hiding in our human suits--"

He was cut off just then by a gigantic crack of thunder, sticking close onto a blinding fork of lightning that went squirreling away across the air behind them. Immediately it began to pour a cold rain down on them, as they took off down the hill, thinking that there were probably safer places to be in a rainstorm.

It was still raining when night fell, but not much, and the full moon was visible blazing behind the dark clouds. They'd found shelter beneath a bridge that spanned a shallow river, and lit a fire.

"In't hiding easier?"