The Turnip Princess

[KaiserMelech Mikhail]

[i]In the skies over Germany[/i]
Mikhail had just left the ball held in St. Petersburg, and it was the disaster he knew it would be. He took a seat with a huff, and began stripping off the sash and medals that he had affixed to it. His jacket was thrown on the seat next to him, along with his tie. Rolling up his sleeves, Mikhail made his true feelings of the night known. "I simply don't understand why I keep schlepping to these things anyway," he lamented, reclined in his cushy seat, "I stand in the corner, and only make long sweeping movements between the punch bowl and the bathroom. I'm swearing off these parties forever! Let uncle go and do the usual shuffle." The trip was made worse by the fact that it would take over a day to get home. A huge streak of bad weather stopped any travel to the Northeast, and the unstable conditions of the GNR made air travel hazardous at best, so the only way to go was Southwest. The plan was all laid out, they would refuel in Munich, then Tel Aviv, then Karachi, then Shanghai, then home. At least it would be a scenic trip. The stop in Munich was uneventful, and the plane was back in the air after a few hours. The view became a little more pleasant as the plane climbed over the snow-capped peaks of the alps and approached the Mediterranean Sea soon after. However, it would never make it there. In the front of the plane, the pilots were scrambling over flashing red lights and plummeting gauges.

"The Russians lied," the pilot yelled, "they told me the checked the systems!" The alarms kept going off as the oil pressure in the left engine was reading zero, and the temperature was skyrocketing. Before they could begin emergency procedures, the plane lurched to the left. The left engine had literally melted together, and only the right one was providing thrust. There was no getting out of this now. Desperately flicking controls on the panels all around them, the pilots did everything possible to keep the plane from going into a complete nosedive. They extended all flaps, they went to full right rudder and aileron, they powered down the right engine to even out the thrust, but none of this helped in the end. Slowly the right side of the plane began to lift up and before they knew it, the plane was perpendicular to the ground. Everyone was grabbing onto whatever they could to avoid falling out of their seats. The end came quickly then. Like a wheel, the plane rolled until it was pointing straight down. This was too much stress, and the tailfin broke away and tumbled to the earth.

The death fall began and the plane rapidly picked up speed. 150 knots. 200 knots. 300 knots. 400 knots. 500 knots. There were 4 miles to fall, but they whizzed by in seconds. Pulling on the controls, there was enough airspeed that the nose began to rise. However, the success didn't last, as the lack of lateral controls made the left wing dig into the ground like a plow, ripping it off and sending the plane tumbling. Rolling onto the nose for the first time, a tree branch broke through the windshield and entered the co-pilot's chest. It was an instantaneous death. Continuing the tumble, the stewardess was flung against the ceiling of the cabin, snapping her neck. Again, it was an instantaneous death. The second time around, a control panel broke free and entered the pilot's thoracic cavity, collapsing his lungs and causing him to experience the full terror of the crash before he died. Mikhail's seat then broke free of its bolts, slamming him against the walls. He screamed out in pain as he was thrown off, following the motion of the cabin. There were three broken ribs for him as a start. Then, among all the commotion, the sounds of shrieking metal were heard as the cabin began to tear itself apart. One of the pieces of aluminum came down on Mikhail's head quite hard. There was a concussion, and a swift trip into unconsciousness. The rest of the crash was an unknown experience, but in what might be considered luck, Mikhail was ejected from the burning wreckage. There he lay, broken and bloodied, on a turnip farm in the middle of Slovenia. However, the crash had certainly not gone unnoticed.

Edited February 20, 2011 by KaiserMelech Mikhail

[Sarah Tintagyl]

It was like watching a star from the sky and for Terezija Klasinc that's exactly what she saw. As the sun dipped beyond the hills around the Adriatic the eleven year old girl stared out from her window on the small turnip farm that her family had owned for eons. She had her arms and elbows resting on the ledge with her head outside breathing in the warm summer air and took a deep breath, smiling as she watched the few wisps of cloud drift across the sky. Then, turning around she grabbed a small stuffed rabbit and held it close to her chest, turning its eyes out towards the indigo sky and in the distance the falling star began to cross through the stars.

"Ah you see Grigor, Papa says that if you wish upon a star that your dreams will come true. So make a wish and don't tell me what you were thinking? Okay."

Terezija looked back up to the sky and crossed her hands and closed her eyes, she had one thought, what would it take for her to one day see the world, to be like the adventurers that she read in her storybooks and who they talked about on television. She wanted to be like the beautiful Duchess of Austria and be with the handsome Triumvir of Germany or the heroic Tsar of Russia, to know someone as smart as the Chinese Chairman or as wise as the Athenian Empress and they, whoever they were, would take her around the world. Not to say that the little Terezija didn't like life on the farmstead of her parents, but she never grew up like the girls back in the cities and when her parents would take her to the capital or to the larger towns from their own hamlet, the little girls with their sunglasses and backpacks made her oh so jealous.

But as she thought and thought about the world beyond the fields and the sea far away, the little girl could begin to feel her bed rumbling underneath her knees. Opening her eyes Terezija gasped and leaned out the window in awe as the star she had been wishing on had grown large and was coming straight towards the fields. Her bedroom door thundered open as her father Andrej bounded into the room and took his daughter in his hands, nestling her head into his shoulders.

"Papa! What's going on!" She screamed as the entire house began to shake and rumble, her toys and knick-knacks falling of the shelves and her bed. It felt like the end of the world.

"Nothing, just close your eyes Terezija, everything is going to be just fine."

Then there was a rumble that the little girl had never felt in her life and it really did feel as though the world was ending...afterward came silence.

Slowly Andrej released his tight grip on his daughters head and put her back down on the ground. She watched him walk over to the window and cover his mouth in horror as Terezija's mother, Anya walked into the room with the same pale features of the father. They stared at each other for a long time, speaking too softly for Terezija to hear them before nodded and turning to her with sad and strict eyes. Then Anya walked over and picked her up and settled her gently into her bed, placing Grigor the Rabbit into her arms.

"We want you to stay here right now Tera, your papa and I have to go outside..."

"I know mama. The plane crashed. Do you think people lived?" The young girl said with glistening hazel eyes.

"We're going to go find out. Just stay here." Her mother said before kissing Terezija on the cheek and returning with Andrej as they walked out of the farmhouse and onto the fields near the plane crash. Of course Terezija had no intention of staying put and the burning flames of the wreckage were far too bright for her to even begin to think of sleep. So when her parents were out scouring the field and her father was cursing to the heavens that so much of the turnip crop was ruined, Terezija took Grigor in her hands and dropped from her bedroom window that was only a few feet off the ground. To shield her fall, she dropped a few pillows into the dirt first but they did little to alleviate the pain after she hit. Her legs smarted for a moment, but the young girl was a scrapper and dusted her bare legs off and straightened her nightgown as she headed out amongst the turnips.

Staying away from the crash itself Terezija looked at a distance as her parents searched the area and she figured that soon the entire area would be covered with people concerned about the crash. But as she gripped Grigor tightly, the girl heard a weak groan in front of her. Jumping back in fear for a moment Terezija looked at the ground in front of her and heard the groan again, it was very much human and very much alive, so she figured at least it wasn't a monster and if it was...well it wasn't probably in the shape to hurt her. Creeping closer she uncovered a body, an older man with kind face and a body which had been mangled in the crash, though not to the point where it looked like he could die. Kneeling on the ground next to the body, Terezija looked over onto his face and poked him lightly, then suddenly his eyes opened and though she jumped in surprise, the fact that he made no sudden movements either made kept her from screaming.

"Are...are you okay?" Were the first words that would let Mikhail know he was alive.