[color=thistle][h3]Brida Aiolfi[/h3][/color][hr][sup]Arriving at the Grand Hotel Mohad, Avent City  |  Alone[/sup]

Brida alighted the steps down from the private plane she’d flown from from the Erkens Federation to Avent City, a pensive and rather unsettled frown on her face. As one who prided herself on doing her research thoroughly and maintaining a low profile, she felt like she’d been somehow outsmarted in the game this time around. 

[hr][hider=Earlier that Day]

“Miss Lafoi, I presume?” Brida’s pilot, a Miss Samantha Whiting, asked, her blonde hair, blue eyes, and precise smile the pristine image of the thirty-two-year-old urbanite Brida had ordered a background check on, then checked up herself. Everything seemed to be in order, but Brida had still chosen to take on an alias in case, more out of habit than anything.

“Captain Whiting,” Brida said, nodding an acknowledgement as she continued towards the plane. Small, sleek, but up-to-date with the latest technologies, the light aircraft would serve as a taxi of sorts, delivering Brida to the first location of the Hunter Exams. The copious amount of time she’d devoted to researching the exams allowed Brida to relax now that the ball was rolling. “Everything in order?”

“Yep. We’re good to go,” the Captain said, boarding the plane behind Brida and swinging the door close behind her. “It’s an eight hour flight, so we’ll arrive at Avent City roughly around four in the afternoon.”

“Sounds good, Captain,” Brida said, taking her seat in the plane and pulling out her laptop. 

“The red button above your seat is for emergencies, and the white is for the intercom,” the Captain explained, opening the door to the cockpit. “Refreshments are in the cooler, and I’ll warn you over the intercom if we experience any turbulence.” Brida nodded, not bothering to look up from her screen as the door to the head of the plane clicked closed.

As the plane left the ground, Brida spared a glance out the window, watching as her urban sprawl of a home state disappeared into the distance. All was in order, but she wouldn’t relax completely; off the ground, Brida was vulnerable, and she’d see her ride through to the end. Turning her attention to the screen in front of her, Brida set about continuing her research, keeping one eye on the clock as it counted down to her arrival.

Around six hours into the flight —  just as Brida was about finished combing through past years’ accounts of exam proctors, some clearly spun from a writer’s delusions — the intercom over the cockpit door crackled into life. “Alright, heavy clouds spotted ahead. We might experience some light turbulence, so please take a seat and put on your seatbelt.”

[i]Turbulence?[/i] Brida thought, a frown crossing her face. She’d cross-checked several meteorologist reports yesterday and found no signs of heavy clouds on the day of her flight, and as inaccurate as weather reports might be at times, compiling multiple reports usually served to up the accuracy of the forecast. Still, it wasn’t an unimaginable scenario, so Brida put her laptop away and buckled her seatbelt, tightening the straps so they fit snugly before peering out the window. 

Outside, dense grey clouds had gathered, confirming what the Captain had said. [i]Dense clouds indeed,[/i] Brida thought as a darker cloud mass dispersed against her window. It reminded Brida of a stormcloud — not quite there yet in mass or polarity, but almost. She pressed the white button.

“What are we looking at? Any chance of a thunderstorm?”

“Rain, perhaps, but not thunder. At least I don’t think so.”

A wave of irritation swept through Brida — what did the woman mean by that vague answer? Watching her subordinates try and dodge responsibility grated Brida’s nerves, but she held her tongue. Captain Samantha Whiting may be on her payroll, but the woman was still just a rental. After this plane ride, Brida would cut all ties with the girl and pretend they'd never met.

“I’ll be counting on you then, Captain,” Brida said before releasing her hold on the button. Her eyes maintained their intensity as they gazed out the window, skipping over the dense fog of darkening gray. The plane’s insulation served to cancel out all noise, so Brida saw the first drops of water rather than heard them. 

[i]Definitely rain,[/i] Brida thought, watching as a droplet dribbled its way down the window, leaving a jagged trail of water in its wake that served to escort its later brethren down the translucent surface. [i]It’s a rainstorm.[/i] Brida’s hand went to the white button over her head, but the crackle of the intercom beat her to it.

“So I believe we’re in a rainstorm now. The possibility of thunder is, well, not high, but I wouldn’t be—”

Brida stopped listening, instead looking around her cabin briskly. Catching sight of the emergency parachutes, she grabbed one, strapping it onto her back before knocking on the door to the cockpit. 

“Can I come in?” she asked. Muffled sounds could be heard, but they were undecipherable. 

“Go ahead!” the Captain called, and Brida entered briskly. 

The cockpit was a small, homely little set of two control panels. Clearly a plane for one pilot, the small aircraft seemed to feature a second set of controls merely for status-checking. A small bathroom was to Brida’s right, behind the co-pilot’s seat, the doors closed.

“I didn’t see the point of staying in the back when the most important part of the plane was up here,” Brida explained, sliding into the copilot's seat. The windows in front of her were large and dark from the clouds outside, which were now dense enough to obscure her sight. 

“Oh, yeah,” the Captain said haltingly. Brida decided to temporarily turn on her irritation filter, focusing instead on the woman’s second word, but she was unable to filter out the visual proof to her left: trembling hands and moist lips that seemed freshly chewed.

“You [i]have[/i] navigated storms before, haven’t you?” Brida asked, barely reining in her incredulity. The “Captain” glanced over, her smile tight.

“Once, when I was a co-pilot,” she admitted. Brida nodded slowly, a trace of nervousness leaking into her system as well. Samantha Whiting’s records as a pilot were pristine, but so were many a new pilot’s. What made the woman stand out from Brida’s other considerations was the fact that Samantha was native to Avent City; Brida had hoped to speak casually with the woman, but it seemed like that wouldn’t be happening. 

In front of the cockpit, the clouds lit up with what seemed like the first bolt of lightning. Samantha Whiting flinched, blinking rapidly, and Brida decided that she’d had enough.

“Here — let me take the wheel,” Brida said, rising from her seat. Samantha looked over, a mixture of shock and disbelief painted over her features.

“What are you — are you insane?”

“Quite sane, actually,” Brida said, a firm hand helping the woman up before she took the pilot’s seat. “I’ve flown a few planes before, and while I’m nowhere near as experienced as you, at least I’m not afraid of lightning.”

“How—”

“I don’t know how you became a pilot, or even why you still are a pilot, but you shouldn't be,” Brida said, flipping a switch to her left and guiding the plane above the rougher winds. “Planes these days are insulated anyway, so all I have to do is hold the wheel and avoid the major storm cells. Feel free to take a nap and perhaps rethink your life choices.”

“But what—”

“You’ve never flown through a storm alone, yet you’re touting yourself as a private pilot. You’re afraid of lightning, but you somehow decided to pursue a career in captaining small aircrafts,” Brida said, glancing to her left. “Tell me, how exactly did you continuing living such a mess? The warning signs must have been pretty clear. Did you develop this fear recently? And did you not realize that you had?”

“I—I,” Samantha stopped, sighing. Brida didn’t bother glancing at the other woman, figuring that she’d given more than her two cents.

[i]She needed it though,[/i] Brida thought, inhaling and exhaling slowly as she continued steering the plane up. [i]She’s absolutely insane if she continues flying planes when she’s afraid of storms.[/i]

[/hider][hr]
The plane ride was a ridiculous joke — in more ways than one. Although Brida’s life hadn’t been on the line since she took over the wheel, it nearly had. She’d been stuck with an incompetent pilot and was pushed into doing the job she’d paid someone else to do. In face, she had been completely ready to throttle her inexperienced, lightning-phobic good-for-nothing excuse of a captain the moment she touched the ground when the storm blinked out of existence and the real joke was revealed.

Her “Captain” was, in fact, an employee of the Hunter Association and the designated proctor of Brida’s pre-exam. “Samantha Whiting,” or, rather, Rory Margaretson, was a sixty-something-year-old retired hunter who was able to “conjure illusions,” and had decided to test Brida by magicking up a thunderstorm and feigning uselessness to see what her passenger would do. Her illusions lacked tangibility and sound, which explained why Brida heard neither thunderclap nor raindrop during her plane ride. The real captain had been hiding in the bathroom in the cockpit, waiting in case Rory ran into some trouble basic pilot skills couldn’t solve — which wasn’t likely, considering that it’d been the perfect day for flying: sunny skies, without a single cloud in sight.

“Sure I expected my examinee to get angry and perhaps come to the cockpit to either encourage me to face my fears or give me a proper lecture, but take over the steering wheel and fly themselves out of danger?” the red-haired woman asked, laughing heartily as she shed her disguise and bared her wrinkles. “Brida Aiolfi, you almost gave me a heart attack, and that would [i]not[/i] have been good. Even the real captain was impressed with how calm you were able to be!”

Brida had taken all of the new information in silently, mind blank. What was she to feel — relief? Gratitude? Outrage? Her captain — despite all her background checks, her planning, and her procedures that were meant to [i]keep her safe[/i] — had turned out to be a long-time employee of the Hunter Association masquerading as a woman who didn’t even exist. This glaring fact had somehow managed to escape Brida, and that meant that she only had herself to blame for being hoodwinked into the elaborate joke of a plane ride that the older lady spent the rest of the flight laughing over as Brida flew on, silent. Earlier, she’d thanked the heavens that she’d been taught how to fly planes in case of emergencies; now, she was too busy feeling like a fool to care. 

“Take it — you earned it,” Rory said, handing Brida a glossy white card emblazoned with two X’s and a red diamond where they intersected — the Hunter Association’s symbol. “That, my dear, is a VIP access card. I only get one, and you only get one, but I know this is the right decision,” Rory said, a broad grin on her face. “Brida Aiolfi, you’ll go far in this exam. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you pass it,” the lady said, guffawing. “Just drop the robot act, and you’ll do fine.”

Slapping Brida’s suitcase into her arms, Rory smacked the girl’s back and said her goodbyes, laughing as she reentered the plane and drove it off the runway and into the skies. Brida gazed at the disappearing speck blankly, acceptance finally settling in.

“Miss Aiolfi?” a voice asked. Looking over, Brida took in a young man dressed in a crisp black-and-white suit, a pin of the Hunter Association logo on his breast. “Your pre-exam proctor informed us of your results. I’m here to escort you to the exam site. This way, please.”

Brida sized the man up tiredly. If hunters could conjure up faces and storms, what was the point of asking for verification? What did she hope to see that could shake her doubt at this point?

“Lead the way,” she said, sighing. She’d had a long flight, and all she wanted was a place to set her luggage down and relax.

[hr]