Hyukjae gave up fiddling at the onboard instrumentation. Donghae looked on in concern, obviously knowing they won't be flying anywhere. It was a tempting thought, to go back through the wormhole but without the timeship, they'll be risking going out of Hyukjae's time.

"Circuit's fried," Hyukjae finally voiced his thoughts, giving Donghae an apologetic smile. Donghae wanted to say it was alright, that he had managed to reach this place without much gear but he took one look at the clearing skies earlier and just knew that they came back at a time when the allnight was starting this north. And without the proper gear, surviving the dark and cold outside would already stretch his capabilities. And with a companion in tow whom he is not sure is acclimated to this environment, he didn't want to necessarily risk both of them. Going back into the wormhole would be the only option if they wanted to live. But he kept mum for now.

"Let's turn in for now," Hyukjae finally decided, noting that bio was at least working, so staying in is not likely to make icicles out of them. He shivered at the view outside the ports - a forbidding landscape of black and white with a hazy layer of blowing cold air. He knew how far north they were, but wondered where he miscalculated the exit so they ended up during the allnight season when he targeted the allday season. An effect of the ion storm? Hopefully the external sensors recorded the event and sent back the info to his time. With added research, the timeslip could be finely calibrated. Thankfully, with environmental and bio working independently from the timeslip and timeship engines, they have a month to figure out how to jumpstart the timeship, before ultimately needing to go back to the wormhole.

"I'll check tomorrow what's wrong with the engines. We can stay in here for a month without worrying about food and shelter, but I need to get the engines working as soon as possible."

Donghae heaved an inaudible sigh of relief. He forgot about the foodmaker, or that ships like these are designed to be living spaces in times like these. He wondered what it would mean to have ships like this to make it possible to travel around Qali. They have skyships, but the cold killed the fire needed to make it float, so it could never go over the mountains that shielded this place.

He followed Hyukjae into the pod after locking down the ship for the time being. Jostling in the storm both tired them out and they were asleep as soon as they hit the beds.

The silver dust of moonlight settled coldly on the night.

A/N: My first attempt at the NaNoWriMo... and I decided to write a 50k worded EunHae fanfiction... yes, I could have made better use of my time and effort, but this is also a tribute of sorts since this story got started from a 30-day world building challenge which I got, wherelse, from NaNoWrimo (see blog post here).

So I finished the NaNoWriMo 2015 with this entry. But it is still pretty much all over the place... the challenge: I need to be rewriting this until February 2016. :)) So putting it out here now and forcing myself to write, rewrite and edit this EunHae adventure.

__________________
© higashinoumi (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1108258), 2015-2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to higashinoumi (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1108258) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.