Hawk flew until near sundown, gliding over thick forests punctuated by stretches of dry grassland. The sun passed overhead hot and blazing; it would've been unbearably hot, if the wind weren't rushing over his wings.

The sun tinged the underside of the clouds deep orange when Hawk could finally fly no more. He landed heavilly in a stretch of featureless prairie, wings crumpling, knees buckling under his exhaustion. Teige leapt from his bag, streaming little rivulets of green fire. Hawk dropped forward, eyes closing, but abruptly Teige had gone from a stoat to a more humanoid form made up only of heatless green flame, and Hawk only fell onto his shoulders. The human form was only brief; Teige resolved into a huge black horse, Hawk draped across his back like a dead thing.

The radio droned into the evening. Teige walked doggedly through thicker and thicker grass; the twilight fell soft and deep and purple, the stars peering out above thick, distant, docile clouds.

Teige stopped, hock-deep in itchy summer dry-spell grass. He'd hit a fence, and beyond that fence, an empty, patched-up road.

"Hey sunshine," he said. Hawk started, raised his head groggily against the last of the evening light.

"Hah?"

"What road is this?"