@noctiilvcent
When a scream ripped through the city, he felt his feathers instinctively ruffle, stopping in his tracks and glancing back, a rare moment of hesitation. He’d like to say that it was the unexpectedness of it, but the sound - womanly yet bestial - hit some primal nerve even his cool composure couldn’t quite ignore.
Spy noticed it too, giving him a brief side-eye as she shifted her weight uneasily, silence falling between them for several beats as they stared down the empty half-dark corridor, lights occasionally flickering as the metal monolith descended from the sky.
Another few beats of silence, before Spy finally broke it with a notably unsure, “What... was that?”
He wasn’t sure himself, but he had a guess. The answer never came though, turning on his heel to continue the same way he had already been headed.
“Let’s keep moving.”
There was no protest at all from her, falling into swift step behind him. Eventually they came to what he was looking for, a hatch in one of the maintenance rooms in the lower levels. By the look of it, rarely used or opened, which led only to a narrow overhang walkway and a network of thick pipes that hugged the shadowed upper corners and forced Alekt to fold his wings in close.
Neither of them had personally been down here, a vast chamber with spires of proud ice rising up towards the ceiling, and an impossibly tall door at the end.
“Whoa...” Spy breathed under her breath. “Thought this place would be all moving parts and boilers or some such. This doesn’t even begin to look like any sort of Dust power core.”
She noticed Alekt’s concentrated silence as they stopped and crouched on the platform, following his gaze towards two figures below - one, a man dressed in white, the other a small woman dressed in black and holding something in her hand. It looked like... a staff?
“That’s the General,” Spy realized in a whisper, furrowing her brows. When Alekt didn’t immediately move, she glanced at him in question. “Should we--”
“Wait.” He cautioned. Not a moment more, and a black cloud, moving with unnatural purpose, came pouring down the frame of the diagonal elevator that led down into the chamber, the woman-in-black below speaking to it, until it materialized into yet another woman.
Or at least... something that resembled a woman. Tall, skin bright white and ghastly. He hadn’t ever seen her in person, but he was almost certain this was the Grimm witch that Ironwood feared. Salem. The one that the other woman - Cinder Fall, was it? - bowed to and presented the staff and some other item he couldn’t quite identify.
They stayed where they were and waited until Salem and Cinder left, not daring to risk a confrontation right now, before climbing over the platforms, Alekt hooking an arm around Spy’s waist as he got ready to spread his wings.
“Let’s go.”
Its a little bit awkward descending, but before long, both of them land with several quick steps towards the General as momentum carries them forward. There’s not a lot of word about coordination, both already moving to either side to pull Ironwood towards his feet without it needing to be said, an arm slung over either of their shoulders.
He’s sure it’ll be quite the surprise for Ironwood, given both the evacuation and that this area had been off-limits even to them, but he doubted he’d get an earful about where he was or wasn’t allowed to be given the circumstances.
Even if he did, he was sure it’d be even more of a shock to their enemies later that Ironwood was alive, which was a result he was willing to see through.
“Let’s get you out of here, General.”
