Life in Euless began early, and by mid-morning, townie workers already bustled around the small sky docks and different shops nearly hugging the cliff’s edge. Market stalls from recent trades supplied by traveling airships tended to cluster around the docks, trying to get the first good deal. Past the market stalls stood the mechanic shops and parts stores. These stores weren’t very organized and they didn’t offer the newest parts to sell, leaving all of their old metal and old ship pieces to scatter around their allotted space. Necessary parts could be ordered, but there was no telling how long it would take for a merchant ship to deliver the order, and for another one to bring the parts to this remote town.
The airship parts shop closest to the air docks was no different, and had an especially rustic wood-and-metal feel to it. As unimpressive as it looked as a whole, it seemed to attract one customer. Maybe not attracted, per se, but compelled from necessity. A short, thin man stood there looking at the metal pieces. He looked like an engineer, complete with large cargo pants, a thin, long-sleeved black shirt with a tan, cropped jacket over it, laced up working boots, a tool belt with pouches, thick gloves, and orange goggles hanging around his neck. It was Jasper, the engineer from the attacked ship. As he thoroughly scanned the parts of machinery with his drooping eyes- alert eyes that always seemed as if sleep were just a fever dream- an old mechanic-looking man watched him. He wore a white stained tank top and suspenders. Grease streaked his arms and his right cheek, making his irritated face look angrier. Jasper paid him no mind, instead wearing an unimpressed expression that worsened with each metal piece he scanned.
“Where’re your parts for a 13C Albatross Schooner? Hydraulics are busted.” Jasper picked up a small screw and passively inspected it in between his fingers.
“Ain’t got any.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He tossed the screw pack into the tin can it originally rested in.
“Nobody flies no Albatrosses no more. They’re outdated.” The mechanic’s gruff voice remained slow and steady, despite the exasperation. “Got hydraulic parts for Shearwaters and Martins, though.”
“What kind of backwater hellhole doesn’t have Albatross parts,” Jasper half-muttered to himself, still catching the ear of the older man. “Albatross are more dynamic than Martins and have a higher arial speed capacity than Shearwaters.”
“Albatross are the scrap metal of the sky.”
“I have not been more insulted in my entire life,” Jasper responded with a straight face. “You’re lucky you’re the closest airship parts merchant in this god-forsaken mountain crack.” As he finished his sentence, a movement near the sky docks suddenly caught the corner of his eye. Jasper glanced to his left, only expecting to need a snapshot of the movement, but his eyes turned back to lock on the pair of people heading toward the docks. It was the woman from the night before, walking beside Crowe. Her body looked even smaller when compared to Crowe’s hulking figure.
“Oh my god it’s her.” Jasper couldn’t believe that Crowe had found her. Last night, as they moved a relatively stable Gideon to his room below deck, she just up and vanished, leaving the ship before anyone could notice or stop her. But there she was, a phantom materialized.
A rough throat-clearing by the mechanic turned Jasper’s attention back to the situation at hand. “You gonna buy somethin’?” he asked as if he was ready to just walk away. Jasper kept the woman’s image in the back of his mind while he returned his focus to his task.
“Yeah, fine. Show me your Shearwater hydraulic parts. I need pumps, cylinders, and flow control valves.”
As Jasper attempted to fulfill his duty as the ship’s engineer, Valerie did her best to watch over her wounded crewmate. On the ship, first aid duty usually fell onto Gideon, since no one else wanted to do it, but now that responsibility fell onto Valerie. She had more of an athlete’s knowledge of injuries- how to wrap up ankles or tape fingers- so she felt unqualified to actually be of help, but she was determined to make sure he was comfortable.
Valerie walked into his matchbox cabin carrying a small tray. Gideon’s living quarters were immaculate, or usually so, but at the moment, the space was in disarray with stained rags, extra pillows and blankets, and piled rolls of bandages. The constricted room just had enough space for a narrow desk with a wooden chair tucked underneath, a short chest of drawers, and a bed. Gideon lay there in his bed, neatly tucked in and without a shirt. The rest of the crew decided to remove it completely while moving him last night. The blood-soaked square bandage remained taped to his chest, and above it, the aspiration needle still perforated from between his ribs. No one was sure what to do with it, so they left it. Valerie’s face grimaced every time she spotted it.
Valerie placed the tray on top of the desk and grabbed the chair tucked underneath, dragging it to the side of his bed. She had just come from the ship's kitchen and brought with her two bowls of quickly heated oatmeal and a couple glasses of water, just in case he were to wake up. Thankfully, there were no major medical incidents after the drunk doctor left. Gideon would occasionally give a pain-induced grunt or an uncomfortable exhale, but otherwise remained relatively stable. Valerie picked up one of the bowls and started eating her breakfast while keeping watch over the first mate. The spoon tinked slowly and rhythmically, and as her thoughts wandered to the crew’s plans for repair and take off, Gideon’s thoughts materialized from his unconsciousness.
His eyes opened heavily to his hazy cabin. He blinked, wondering with slow thoughts why his vision blurred the colors and edges of the room into a fuzzy, unfocused picture. He quickly realized that he felt nothing on his face, and tried to ignore the concern that gnawed at him. He just wished he didn’t break another pair of glasses. He looked over to the left and squinted his eyes, recognizing the figure of the Paradise's only female crew member as she zoned out and gazed at the floor.
“Valerie?” he choked out in a raspy voice, just louder than a whisper. His crew mate’s head lifted and her eyes widened at the unexpected sound. She quickly swallowed the lump of oatmeal in her throat and set the bowl to the side.
“Gideon!” she softly exclaimed. “You’re awake! How are you feeling?” His face hardened with a newly realized feeling of pain throughout his torso.
“My chest hurts.”
“Well you did get shot, so…”
“Ugh,” he grunted as he tried to change his position, but quickly stopped. “I remember.... there was a sniper in the crow’s nest.”
“Yeah, looks like he tried to shoot his shot,” she looked at him, trying to suppress a smile. He glared at her, unimpressed. “Sorry.” He ignored her poor joke, and grimaced as a wave of pain throbbed in his torso.
“I never imagined that it would hurt this…” he trailed off as his eyes adjusted to a small glint that caught his vision- a needle that stuck straight up from his chest. Gideon screamed suddenly and profusely, hazy eyes widening in fear at the foreign object half inside him.
“Hey! Relax! Don’t freak out!” Valerie’s worried cries didn’t help calm him, but an intense jab from his ribs reminded him to keep still. He recoiled from the sharp sensation, clenching his teeth and letting out a worried ‘hnnnnnnn!’ with shallow breaths. Valerie gently grabbed onto his shoulders and held him down to prevent him from moving.
“There’s a needle sticking out of my chest, how am I not supposed to freak out?!”
“Because it’s supposed to be there!”
“Which one of you thought it was a good idea to impale me with a syringe needle!”
“It wasn’t us, it was some drunk doctor--” she cut herself off, just now realizing how badly this sounded out of context. Even with context, it still sounded pretty bad, but it’s not like they had any other choice.
“A what?!” Gideon’s face turned a hot red amidst the feelings of disbelief, rage, and pain. “You let an intoxicated person operate on me?!”
“It was Crowe’s idea!” The first mate’s face dropped into a snarl.
“Of fucking course it was!”
Although fully knowing that nothing could be done to calm Gideon and his type A personality from freaking out, Valerie did her best to reassure him. She desperately hoped that someone would soon come to her rescue and save her from her raging patient. Where is Crowe? She pleaded internally.
Crowe, enjoying the cool morning breeze that flowed from beyond the cliffside, calmly strode across the creaky wooden airship docks. The docks protruded precariously from the deathly steep rock face, held up by metal beams drilled diagonally into the hard rock of the mountain. It was stable enough, if not with some unsteadiness, but the noticeable swaying failed to reach Joan’s attention as she quickly rushed her smaller steps beside him. Her arms crossed as she walked, and her mind filled with worries about the sailor she supposedly operated on.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Crowe’s voice snapped her back to reality.
“Huh?” He motioned his head to the great ship to their right.
“This is my airship.” Crowe kept walking, but Joan lingered. The hull of the ship was smooth with wooden and metal panels, all except for a noticeable hole off the starboard quarter, somewhat revealing the dark inside of the ship. Her eyes scanned upward and to the direction of the bow, taking in the bright saffron glow of the sails. Some were tied back to their respective masts, but the sweeping diamond-shaped canopy sail remained taut with wind. Her gaze dropped to the very front of the ship, where a beautifully and magnificently carved albatross looked like it might leap and take flight. Lastly, her eyes stopped at the hull once more, where the name of the ship curved in blue lettering: Bird of Paradise. Joan turned her attention back to Crowe, walking in front of her. He turned around and walked backwards, arms raised and extended.
“Welcome to Paradise.”
(continued in Take Me to Him II)
Comments (0)
See all