Rustia’s thighs revved faster and faster like a combustion engine, slamming and pulling up the pedals of her unicycle like they were natural extensions of her feet. Her and Mingey peeled through the thick forestry of Herder Woods along a trail that they themselves had carved through routine exertion.
Mingey scurried along Rustia’s head, back and shoulders like a slender homunculus. She wrapped her legs around Rustia’s neck, hanging down the posterior of the unicycle. Hanging down, she fingered at a cat’s cradle of string which was attached to a weighted system of gears. It was a small contraption that Rustia had designed to augment the power of her physicality with some mechanical advantage.
“Grade!” Rustia commanded. Mingey, extensively trained in the call and response of operating the unicycle, unloosed a dense weight pack. The counterweight gave Rustia a strong vertical off which to hurtle them up the steep grade of a nameless mountain.
Rustia growled like a bear, sweating excitedly as she drove their winged ascent. Presently, she reached the precipice. Their stomachs dropped as they went over the bumpy top and back down the edge again.
“Eeeeeeeiiuyyiiii!” Mingey thrilled.
“Spin down!” Rustia barked and Mingey promptly switched out the weights for the pedal lock. The unicycle’s gear fixed. The wheel spun faster and faster, nearly out of control. Rustia stuck her legs out like balancing antennae. Mingey bobbed and dipped to keep them straightened out.
They screeched down the mountain face, mounting speed like a runaway train. The treading on the wheel started to smoke. They approached the deep ravine at the bottom of the mountain. Faster and faster. Closer and closer Just upon it now! Mingey screamed in terror and covered her eyes as they shot out over the edge.
“Pull!” Rustia roared. Mingey pulled out Marrionetta’s parasol. It was expensive and delicate, covered with white lace and accented with big red roses crafted from silk. They had stolen it from her room when they had noticed her door was broken in.
The parasol popped open. They caught in an abrupt wind tunnel of reverse thrust. After a turbulent ride through negative space, they sailed through the air, laughing and shrieking in delight.
“You see that, Minge!” Rustia gloated, clutching the unicycle tightly in her legs, “I told you it’d work!”
x9dread 