"I can't take you home," deathskythe said, shifting purely to internal speakers, scooping up the ashes and the embers carefully. Cradling them, really, getting awkwardly to it's knees. "On the first jump anyway,"
A roar of jets and the pressure of acceleration. One moment, in a canyon with trees the next the world was falling away below them.
Ah, the plural them. "I am glad to have a piolet again," it said, in a serious tone. "I won't let anything happen in the jump. I've worked out the math this time. I've had time to make it right, once we locate your proper dimension we'll even get there in due time,"
Blue sky that didn't fade. Farther up.
The sky was like a great, translucent bubble around the world below. The machine had to shift to hold the remains against it's breastplate, trying not to let them fall or scatter yet. Stars. Needed to be able to see stars.
"You said goodbye, do you think they really know you're leaving?"
Into the dark all at once. From bright day to the utter black of nothing until it's pilots eyes could adapt and pick out the brillent points of light and the rich, shimmering landscape of someone elses universe.
Deathscythe kept going. Faster now, compensators'd keep Duo from passing out.