Chapter 8: If I Could Make Days Last Forever
With their narrow escape from a trio of angels set on rescuing Ashley... thus began Ashley and Skyler's extended travels through the surface. Ashley could not currently go back to 'the office,' if for no other reason that it would endanger Skyler. And Skyler had no intention of ever going back to the pit, if she could avoid it.
With Ashley by her side, that was significantly easier. No more hitchhiking, no more freight hopping, no more boxing herself up and shipping herself. (That one didn't work.) All travel was now effortless, at the mere thought of being somewhere else. So long as they didn't open a portal in view of another angel, there would be no evidence of where they were more than a few minutes later. The invisible remnants dissipated quickly, like an unimpressive aerosol air freshener. Ashley hated those things... her realm seemed to be getting incrementally hotter each passing year ever since those came out.
Then again... it wasn't really her realm anymore. Maybe she could see it again someday. Even the exiled Napoleon did eventually return to France... but Charlie Chaplin never made it back to the United States.
But she and Skyler were not really exiles in that sense. The whole world was open to them. They did what most people dreamed of doing when on vacation:
Absolutely nothing.
Ashley and Skyler made use of a twin set of beach chairs to relax in the sun. Ashley insisted that they keep on some modest sarongs to hide their more exotic elements from the unappreciative crowd. Ashley rested on her back, wings hidden, having no trouble putting her worries out of her mind. The only thing she heard over the ocean's persistent waves... was Skyler shifting on her beach chair, repeatedly changing positions.
Ashley tipped up her sun hat to look at her. "Can't get comfortable?" She asked. "I know it's not a bed, but I thought you'd be able to sleep anywhere."
"I usually sleep with my back against something solid like a cliff face or a wall." Skyler said. "That way, nobody down there can sneak up on me."
"You're perfectly safe now." Ashley assured her. "No need to keep your guard up."
"It's hard to undo years of watching my back..." Skyler shuffled some more. "This is why I'm always moving around. It's completely alien for me to relax."
"It's not exactly normal for me, either." Ashley said. "I used to worry about the work that would await me when I was done. Now... I just hope my friends are doing OK."
"Well, I'm not eager to meet any of them."
Ashley rolled her head to one side, adjusting the position of her sun hat.
"If you hear someone screaming for help... what will you do?" Skyler said.
"I'll assist any way I can without making it obvious." Ashley said. "I certainly won't just sit here and let it happen or let anyone get hurt."
"More of a working vacation, then."
"There's only so much I can do without possibly getting attention from upstairs, so I won't be taking any chances on that."
Ashley closed her eyes again, letting the beautiful sun shine on her pale yet tan-proof skin. She heard Skyler shuffle around a bit, and then heard something drag through the sand. Skyler pushed her beach chair right up against hers, turning them into a beach bed. She reached across her and put her arms around Ashley's torso. She took in a deep breath, released it... and felt the tension leave her.
"There." She said softly. "Now I can relax."
Ashley smiled. "You'll have to turn over to make sure you tan evenly."
Skyler scoffed. "Not unless it gets to 425 degrees and someone's grandmother is basting me."
Even after a few hours of the equator's strongest sunlight, neither Ashley nor Skyler's complexion changed at all. Ashley was still pale... and Skyler was still purple.
--
Ashley took them around the world for every relaxing location they could think of... where they also were unlikely to encounter an angel on the surface. Once the pair tired of searing rays of sun, they spent more times in temperate windswept meadows, tranquil cabins surrounded with snow or even a few exotic location mostly deprived of people. Neither of them had spent much time in a lighthouse, but now they could say that they had. AND they could say that they had fucked a lot in a lighthouse... if anyone asked, for whatever reason.
As the months of their exile wore on, as the summer turned to winter... they even went back to that movie theater for a change of pace. After all, that other science fiction release enjoyed an enormous swell of support that had changed the market, and a new sci-fi film had entered the holiday market. Ashley and Skyler decided to take their second date.
Neither of them had spent enough time on the surface to understand that movies started at certain times... as evenly and timely as a train station. This left them just too late to be let into this showing. They would have to wait the one hundred thirty-five minutes or so before the next one would start.
Ashley subtly whispered to Skyler, "You can't speed up time, can you?"
"No." She said. "Can you fly us at relativistic speeds?"
"I don't think so... that sounds dangerous."
"So what do we do?"
"I guess we'll just have to wait."
Skyler rolled her head back and let out the most annoyed, reluctant groan. She embodied every teenager getting forcefully dragged around the zoo by their parents when all they wanted was to stay inside.
"Stop that!" Ashley hustled them out of the lobby.
Skyler giggled.
--
Ashley and Skyler walked a few blocks to a nice hotel. This was probably the first time either of them had entered a hotel through the front door. Rather than go to the front desk and get a room to discreetly bone in, or looking for the public lavatory to less-discreetly bone in, they sat on the edge of a curved couch that sat around the edges of a huge pillared atrium, the centerpiece of the winter décor being a two-story Christmas tree.
Or what would soon look like a Christmas Tree.
Rather than being a real tree cut down and somehow brought into this atrium, possibly through the large picture window... it was a series of concentric steel rings that got larger as it approached the floor, connected to have a cone-like shape. Two staff members were attaching the fake branches and colorful lights to the rings to complete the illusion.
Ashley and Skyler sat there and watched as the tree slowly grew larger, covering more of the facade that would fool travelers for the rest of the festive month.
"It's all fake." Skyler said. "All for the sake of appearances. Entirely hollow."
"But nice to look at." Ashley said. "Cozy. Warming... though in the era of electric Christmas lights, I believe that may just be an emotional response."
"People do other things with trees. They climb them, they put birdhouses in them..."
"So maybe it's not the best foundation for that sort of thing." Ashley said. "That doesn't mean it can't be nice, that we should just not tear it down? Or replace it with a real tree that we kill?"
"I think the metaphor is getting away from us."
"Yeah..." Ashley said. "But how can you say it's fake when we ourselves are evidence of its existence?"
"Yeah, but the reality is so much worse than I imagined." Skyler said. "Perdition, but no salvation. Gehenna, no Valhalla. Sheol without Zion."
