Private Sailors and Sailcloth

[Una]

Stay aware of your wares, keep close to your ledger; steer clear of folk who envy your treasure.

Hm. Close? No, it still didn't sound right.

When she was an age closer to innocence, Una thought she might possess some bardic talent. A conviction every person has, at some point in their life. There was a rhyming harlequin she’d seen once in Maçon or Marrault who carried that same confidence but none of the skill, a rag filthy and vampish performer she wasn't sure if she should be thrilled by or afraid of. He howled ballads and limericks, deaf to tone or criticism, desperate to prove himself an artist. Una knew that sort of desperation. She felt it now, trying to turn her father's words into a ditty. Mend mnemonic into music.

But it was fatherly advice, as in, trite. Economical. Watch your goods, stay away from danger.

Stay aware of your wares, keep close to your ledger...

She managed to make her mantra rhyme but it possessed none of the characteristic nuance her da had folded into his original lectures. Delivered while his velvet-covered belly tipped audaciously over a brassy rail and she cowered behind, small and afraid of falling, straining to hear him against engine whir and bitter wind. His word choice would be different, she thought. It was always coloured with a diction that swirled like plummy-scented cigar smoke through his long oily beard.

...steer clear of folk who envy your treasure.

Rogues, instead of folk, she decided. He always called them rogues. Rolled the R.

To this day, she couldn’t bear being closer than an arm’s length from the gunwale, whether at sea level or higher. She still believed she might trip on a loose tie and plummet overboard. Despite acting seasoned, she was completely adrift on deck. She was too sensitive to the propeller’s pulse and hated the chattering headaches it gave her, shaking her skull loose. She had to work hard to find things to appreciate about this aspect of her father’s trade-- well, his once. Hers now.

The weight of a full purse, divided into equal parcels and stuffed into the empty spaces of her pointed brassiere, was one-- two-- of those things. And there was always the stylings of the crew to admire, find her purpose in, distract from her discomforts.

Sailors and their billowing sailcloth.

She loved the simplicity and practicality of their vests made of grey calico, a fabric too thick for a stain to spread quickly. Folds of it gathering sweat from backbones and pits, or at waists where crusty leather belts and braided ropes moored hips to tattered culottes. There was even more to cherish in the variety of precious items interwoven, like scarves and sashes, a faded prairie pattern twisting around a neck.

Or sunny bits of scrap around horns, dark and recurved.

Una knew the pilot by just that, and the swish of his tail as a constant obstacle. She had to watch it carefully after nearly stepping on it for the second time that trip. And it was hard to say that sharing out remuneration from her dealings in Cisne had truly earned his forgiveness for her clumsy mistake, even though she’d tacked on a little extra for him.

Nevertheless, she stepped out into his path, intentionally making a barrier of herself between him and whatever it was he was set to do.

"Param!" She sang, sweet as silk.

"Sorry, sorry, I know that you're busy-- I just, I heard we're making another stop? Do you know where? What town? I thought.. we were express to Whiteport. My crates are empty now so there's nothing I really need to stop for, but I guess others might-"

No longer sweet. Anxious. Losing her nerve. Delicate hands tensely pressed into tiny fists.

"Is it because of the weather? Rain is coming. I feel it in my fins."

 

[Param]

To go and say he envied the lass's treasure. Now, that would be a cut too far. No, but he did sure as there was salt in the sea find himself mired in the dazzle of her each time their eyes did cross.

Them little ways he'd catch her looking. Sure as he had been. What else was a man to do but smile, and go on with whatever it was bid him such fine attention.

Mirin'

That's what he'd call it. Not that he thought about what he would call it. Or who might ever ask. As he pushed on some mop, hung from the side of the gunwales with not but a plank and some ropes, or stood toe tapping behind the ship's wheel. Hair set across by strong wind.
Fine feeling that was. Seeing those pearls find him.

Definitely wasn't thinking about it now when she popped there before his course.

"Like a gem come splash out the clouds," he said with a laugh. Step strode wide, and he twinkle toed about her. Arms full of a crate, loaded in a mess of wrought iron tools, and soft glowing shard stones that rattled and tink betwixt the wood.

He back peddled some. Came to a stop in a happy huff. Settled the weight of the crate there unto his hip, then the edge of the rail, and smiled, all snaggle toothed and tail swished.

"Never too busy though, Miss Una," his bright eyes pulled themselves away from her, and flit toward the crew. "Save'n wen Master Cromherr's about," flit up to the aftcastle. "Or Captain Feng," flinched lower as he heard the sharp caw of the Firstmate. "Or Mister Aktan," he looked over, his shoulder. Saw the big corvodii giving it to Pelen, who moved double fast about some ties.

Decided best to look back at Una. His eyes wide and too curious to watch. Twisted into knots as she was.

How it set his heart a fluttering as he sighed. His smile widened the more as he saw her hands ball tight. He let the crate go entire a moment, used his tail to hold it from tipping over the rail, took a step and clutched up her hands, soft like with a gentle cup over knuckles. "Nothin to worry about," he assured with a wink. Let his hands slip and grabbed up the crate again. "Engine one is running a little under power, and," he motioned for her to follow him. "We'll just be touching down in Vinihopi for some maintenance," he would make for the engine room. "You're right about the storm, though," he said over the shoulder as he went down below deck, where the ship's rattles and rumbles sounded and felt all the more in the bones.

 

[Una]

Her eyes reflexively followed his, like trailing a golden lantern through the dark, keeping her from getting lost among the web of halyards and soot-streaked stacktowers, guiding her to every place authority lived and watched back from, in true pilot form.

And true to her form, she always looked, even when she didn’t want to. Even when Captain Feng’s return stare made her gills cinch tight like a drawstring, closing off against evaluation.

She still had to absorb it all. See how the wind moved through the crew. Watch who moved with it, where it pulled their cloth. How the light shone through where shadow didn't fill. Playing as much a part in the design as the body that held it.

So when Param turned and caught her hands in his just for a moment, like it was nothing, Una was a little startled but didn’t pull away -- held under his palms like soft, tropical seafoam. His assurances warmed her from the inside, a scarlet bloom with lace holding its shape, even after he let go and she softly went ah.

“Maintenance -- right! Of course.” She found herself in out-loud agreement, burying her internal disagreement with one tidy act of self-betrayal. She shut out the disciplining rhyme she’d now decided was badly written if it meant red-flagging someone as forgiving as Param.

If he was playing into her pretty pocket, it was working. Her father was surely spinning, beard wrapped in coffin silk. She followed the pilot at his whim, chasing his warmth but rejecting the idea of holding onto him for balance, instead finding her rhythm behind his jaunty tail.

The rush of air from below deck met her in a sudden draft, tugging at the puffed organdie of her sleeves and snapping the ribbons from her wrists into flight. She pressed into the discomfort of the noise and rumble and shake, surprised that she somehow felt safer between narrow bulkheads than she had at any time before now, with someone to show her the engine wouldn’t bite.

Confidence returned as a reward for her moxie. There was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

“You know,” she said, trying her best to punch above the groaning metal but not quite managing to, “I've read about Vinihopi, but I’ve never been.”

She could ask him what was traded at Vinihopi, how stern the dockmaster looked, whether there was anything shiny or dull to tuck back into her crates. Instead, she twisted a tendril around a finger. Those would have been practical questions, reasonable, professional. But they didn’t speak to the thrill of exploring the engine with Param. The excitement and potential of a friendship struck in bad weather.

"Will we dock before the sky turns on us? I can help, if there’s need." Eyes dropped to the crate hugged to his hip. Curious of the contents. "Put things away?"

The longer she looked, the more she couldn’t help noticing the hem of his shirt. A single thread unspooled into a sawtooth tear, begging for a patch or tasteful bit of embroidery. Maybe a wave, or a whale. Either one a long body of blue to complement.

Before she could think better of it, she was up close, holding the fray gently between finger and thumb.

“Or mend this, if you want.”

 

[Param]

Will we dock before the sky turns on us?

"Should make it in time," he said step over easy step. Rattling crate glowing soft at his hip in the near darkness of the bulkhead. Light from the world outside peered through what grate, vent, or porthole allowed the open sky.

I could help if it's needed

"Nah, not a thing for you to worry about, Miss Una! We'll get things picked up and loaded double fast, and set lift come the morning!" He called over the rumble rattle and clicks that worked through the ship's bones. "Assuming the storm ain't too hard on the liftballoons,"

Shardsphere lanterns, pulsed gentle as a calm day's surf. The orange lights leading eyes to the engine room at the end of the way. Therein, the engine's fast spinning-wheel spokes fanned their shroudstone flier core. It's song a whine and a purr that threatened to growl as it sought to harmonize with femurs and ribs. The slightest, murmur there in the rotations.

Speed and power bled.

Each paddle of the wheel's spokes buzzed as they brought raw shroud to glowing spool. Twist and turned it through channels and tubing, coiled and shaped like the valves and arteries of a great heart. Set a spine of brass and copper to churn and piston with the clockwork cranks, out through the tail of the ship, where open sky and prop blades beat the wind and churned steady.

The air smelled different as they grew closer too. Bent and changed by the Narcisca's beating heart.

Param always smelled fresh green coconut husk. Its grassy sweetness that came when you peeled the fibers back. Crack the shell, and splash the water about your fingers. He could swear he even felt his own skin, prickle and raise, as if it too wanted to be thrown in.

What had Cromherr said about it?

A matter of the self's perception, and the floating world just beyond it.​

Was always something about the way the old Shroudmaster said it. A longing that pulled at the chords of his voice. Drew you in to a feeling, it did.

Tail swishing with the thought.

Or mend this, if you want.

His ears twitched. A gentle tug at the hem of his shirt. "Oh?" he turned about, momentum did the rest. A bump against him with a jingle and chimes. Sure smile there on his lips as his tail wrapped happy about her.

The thrum of the engine wicks and whacks and thump-a-thump-thumps above the steady whirr that buzzes through the floor.

Cheeks tinted just a touch of rouge as he looks across the soft mantle and curls that filled his head with thoughts of seaspray and glittering brine. A pout that shone tender and nacre. "I'd want that," Easy as. Words too heavy to keep behind his lips.

A rough pop of the engine. A rough shake of the metal that rumbles through the pipes. The song slows. Just a touch. Strains. Param's eyes go wide, and he turns to the engine. Tail bolted up his spine as he double stepped.

"Where are those shroud stones!" came a shout over the rattle and dissonance.

"Right here!" a breath and a nod of apology toward Una. "Sorry," hop skip and away with tail whipped. "Right here, Techseer Volke!" He said, and set the crate down fast.

"Param!" the old Tech turned to spy the young man through his eye shields. Nose pointed up, near to the ceiling. Scoot from his squat behind the bulk of the engine's base toward the crate. Dug through, and found the right stone. "Did you go and get lost?" he shift back behind the machine. Fiddled with something long and delicate, Jammed it into a hole and wiggled around. "Don't stare boy, you'll make it shy,"

"Oh," Param blinked, turned away with a little laugh. Shook his head and looked up for Miss Una.

 

[Una]

Una had half a mind to back away, give the experts their space, as was polite, the same courtesy she would have wanted if she were set to a task. She could wait for Param outside, or tell him she’d catch up with him at port. Her offer of needle and thread could wait for a calmer moment.

But her reason felt thin in this enclosed space, with its interplay of amber shroudlight and shadow, machine whir and magical candor. Feelings hung free and brazen from the moment before -- the collision course, brushing of arms, brief embrace of tail.

So she stayed put, tilted playfully into the affair and returned Param’s look with something bold that wasn’t quite a smile. More of a knowing smirk, kitten fanged and unbothered by the techseer's jab or the wrist-twist shove of crystal into socket. Not quite as innocent as the ribbons and bows made her seem.

"Well, I'm not one to judge technique." She teased.

Meant it for Param's ears alone, but came out louder than intended, not quite lost to the yawping turbine. Felt the flush rise around her gills as she heard her own voice, too aware of her unneeded presence. She dropped her gaze, unwilling to meet whatever look might be waiting under the techseer's visor.

"Oh -- I'm terribly sorry. Didn't mean to intrude, Mister Volke." She corrected herself, bouncing back a few paces. Her hands balled into familiar little fists. She cleared her throat, blaming a cough on the astringent stink of whatever was being done to the stones, sharp as the hot tannins in the dye vats of her workshop. Maybe, in time, that smell would carry the same strange sweetness of green coconut for her too.

"I'm afraid I pestered your pilot into giving me a tour when he had proper work to do." Not quite a lie, easier to sell with a tidy curtsy. Head-fins stiff, lips set in a pout that passed for poise. All grace and order. "Thank you for keeping us, and the ship, all in one piece."

Outside, sights and sounds were souring. Pewter clouds, distended and low, lording over leagues of sky. The storm’s hastened approach felt deliberate, as if it had no patience for preamble. Rain was close. Winds closer. Una felt it, shuddered at the atmospheric change. Didn't need to glance out the porthole to know they were cutting their arrival close. Looked to Param for reassurance, one hand twisting the hem of her blouse.

"The merchants' quarters, I think. That's where I should be." A pirouette on her heel, but she turned back before taking even two steps, hope flickering in her eyes. "Param, you wouldn't be going that way, would you? I mean, if you have business to finish here, I can certainly manage on my own."

 

[Param]

Well, I'm not one to judge technique... oh-- I'm terribly sorry...

Techseer Volke barked a laugh. "See, boy, that's how the real learnin's done!" his odd angled stare shift back to the work. Hands all ratchet and twist about the tools. "Get your hands dirty! Don't just," he made some tilt and whirl with his chin. "Stare about!"

Param laughed. Nod. "Noted 'n sorted, Mister Volke," his eyes turned back to the work. Minded the tools, and the how and whens of the way the old man turned and tweaked em. The sounds that shift, just right in the pump and pipes of the big shroud engine.

Sound of a cough caught in Param's ears. Wet, fleshy, and frayed against the iron and copper groans of the 'Cisca's rhythms. Had his eyes turn back to Miss Una. Still a ways away, and by her lonesome.

Tugged at him that did. Brows creased with a touch of concern. But there was that pout again, and the curtsy! Had him all smiles. Be still his heart.

Volke, eyes on his prize, just motioned from behind the construction. "Yes, yes, you are most welcome, girl," hand back to the work. "Though the ship does most the safekeeping," A tweak and poke. "I just," The machinery rattled, soft against itself. "Try and keep the cantankerous beast happy," Set the long tool down, shift his visored stare unto Param. "Since you are in my way, boy, get me the stoneheaded pipe snake," he pointed a direction.

Just a brief moment's lag from the pilot-turned-tech-seer's-assisstant. "Oh, right," eyes looked about. Snapped to the tool proper. A stiff braided cable of silver and copper, twined about a sharp-headed shroudstone. Handed it over.

"At a lad," Volke fed the thing, all ease, into one of the open arteries. Plumbed it.

Param was all big eyed and breathless wonder as he watched the work. "How'n you make it look so easy?"

"Cuz I ain't fighting the damned thing, boy," his head all craned back as he peered. Smiled beneath bristle of grey whiskers. "Working with it, rather,"

The merchants's quarters, i think. That's where I should be... You wouldn't be going that way, would you?

Param was already up and dusting himself. "Can be," he said bright.

Volke made a sound. Whether bothered or relieved, who could say. He just kept working.

Quick steps saw him come across the way. "Engine not agreeing with ya?" he said soft with assurance. "Not the first one to be twisted by it," he tread easy at her side.

 

[Una]

Bulkheads chanted at them in their rattle-tattle way as she slipped back the way they had come, matching her pace politely to Param’s. He really claimed the escort role with such ease, a casual grace and charity of time that continued to captivate her. Care so openly on display it was practically theatrical, and she envied it. Dared to imitate it. Like trying to sing along to a beautiful ballad.

"I don’t disagree with the engine," she said with a laugh, then frowned, disturbed by the thought of any living thing twisted up in its machinations. Her browbone knotted, scrunching the gentle arc of her nose. “I believe it best not to quarrel with things I don’t yet understand. Though Mister Volke strikes me as the sort who could make a student of anyone, if he cared to.”

"And you, Param, seem to be a fine student!" she added, eager to compliment and forget the visual. They passed through a cross-corridor, and ahead she saw the companion stairs to open air. She realized she was growing accustomed to the smell of creosote and copper below. It was almost pleasant now, but she didn't quite like the idea of it clinging to her clothes long term.

"Think being a techseer might be your true calling?"

 

[Param]

Lips spread the wider to hear her speak on it. Stride sure as the ship they sailed on. If a little smoother for his nimbleness.

I believe it best not to quarrel with things, I don't yet understand...

"Find it best not to, aye," he said all easy as they moved. laughed some in the pause of it. "He cares to, in his way," he tacked on. "Mister Volke, I means,"

And you, Param, seem to be a fine student!

A brush of the nose with pad of his thumb, and a happy snap of tail. Crooked tip flagging at the end of each little whip.

"S'all a sailor can do, is try," he added, some rose to his cheeks as the smell of storm on the winds cut down the companion stairs with a howl that shook the floorboards. Whole ship rattled some. And he kept on, steady as they went. "Techseer?" he seemed to try the word on. Laughed. "If it gets me on a ship, I don't see why I wouldn't have a go at it," bit of song in the how he said it. "Engine come calling and all, yet," he eased with it. "Can only stay so close to a thing for so long, 'for the rest of the ship comes singin its song," he pat the wooden walls of the corridor.

He never did think too much on what his calling was. Just kept answers those things that called.

"You ain't half bad a student yerself though Miss Una," he said with a wink and a nod. "Words a bit different, but you said right about the same thing as Mister Volke, In not fighting the damn thing of it all, and workin with instead," he nod. Easy in how sure he was of it.

 

[Una]

The sailor's wisdom was easily digested, with no unnecessary gristle to gnaw through, just pleasant proverbial fare about transience and ship song that settled on the stomach warm and full like Kharsagian cider. "Not settling is a virtue lost on many," she replied, aiming to match his brand of pragmatism. "Like tying yourself to only one dock, I suppose?"

She wrinkled her nose at that -- not towards Param, but at hearing her father’s words escape from her own mouth like a heavy exhale of cigar smoke. She felt the sudden inexplicable need to pivot, make the metaphor her own.

"Or... mistaking the first stitch for the final hem." Yep, that was it. Una gave a satisfied nod at that, and her gauzy fins and tidy tendrils fanned outward like a fluid halo. Curving and curling, the best companion of motion she could offer to his swishing tail, and at the compliment, the wink, the surety.

The winsome two crested the final stair and emerged on deck, and her grin stretched wide, sharp-edged and shark-like. Despite their position far above it, she felt very grounded after their walk, their conversation, and the companionship. She turned to Param, primed to part if such was the timing, but lingered, threading her words through several thoughts and wants: one to tell him the Narcisca was so lucky to have him, the other a reiteration of her bold invite to the merchant quarters whenever he might be free.

But like courting counter winds, neither came out the dominant.

The ship shuddered under a sudden gust that screamed against the propellers and boiled the balloons. It tilted everything off balance as though the entire vessel were a precarious tower of blocks. And with it went Una, flying several lengths from the pilot before she could even blink, limbs flailing, fancy clothes fluttering, mouth open but too stunned to scream -- until she landed, thankfully intact, on the deck with a smack.

Dizziness spun everything around her; figures dashed past like rapids in a river. She scrambled to her feet, arms reaching for anything solid to hold onto, and a meagre squeak left her lips. "Ooooh… help?"

 

[Param]

"Like tying yourself to only one dock, I suppose?"
A smirk cut at the corner of his lips as they went on striding. Eyes flit to her to catch the little wriggle of her nose. The pout of her lips.

"Or..." My, they did make such pretty shapes, didn't they? "Mistaking the first stitch for the final hem." The dazzle and shimmer of her had him laugh. All warm air rising.

"Aye," he said the word all balmy storm breeze. "No telling what happy fortune might find its way to ya, just the next dip of needle through the weave,"

Out unto the deck they stepped. A fellow feeling brewing about between the cage of his bones. Beneath the canvas of his skin. His mouth opened to let out an utterance~ choked off by a swell of wind that slammed against the Narcisca's frame.

The whole wooden world that carried them shift. His toes gripped down, and his knees bent as he pushed his weight down through his bones to stay attached to the deck. But that was all he could do as he watched Miss Una pop into the air and flap about.

Smacked hard against the deck when the ship righted itself. The deck was streaming with sky sailors fast at work. Calls to burn the balloons high. Full heat to lift. Life lines secured.

Param was fast to Una's side. Hands about her limbs to help her up. Body braced bodily against her. For, support, of course. Pulled her along without worry of propriety.

"You're alright," he assured. "We'll check just how alright you are whence we're safe in the merchant quarters." hands already tying the life line about her.

"Airman Param!" cut the clear voice of Captain Feng. "At the helm, Pilot!"

Clicked his teeth. All wince of the face. Grabbed up a sailor, and gave him the words. Merchant Quarter. Marquee Client. The other airman snapped to it, and Param passed Una on, with a sure wink and smile.

"I'll see you later," sure as the thief followed the sovereign. Hurried off. Hollering adjustments to the techrunners, and ballasters as he made his way to the captain's side at the helm.