Chapter two: Flying high

Trigger warnings for those who need them

No trigger warnings (yet).

I quickly look into the parlour on my way out.
Looks like only Dana’s in at the moment, sitting at the table with a with a ruling pen in her hand and two jars of ink set out in front of her.
She looks so focused.
“Hey.”
She looks up “Hey, you’re up late, I thought you were out already.”
“Yeah I know.” I enter the room “Last night’s storm kept me awake. Where are Xuiyo and Hamala?”
“House hunting.”
“I see. What are you drawing?” I ask stepping up to her and looking over her shoulder. But to me, the mishmash of black and red lines doesn’t quite resemble anything.
“A friend of mine needs me to design a system that can allow her to open the front door from anywhere in her workshop.” and looking at it that way I guess the lines make up a floorplan, and the lines crossing over are the system then? “I see, may I ask why?”
“Ekster is a very shy person and doesn’t like to show herself unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“That’s…” I wanted to say ‘odd’ but end up with “interesting.” instead. “Is Ekster one of the people helping you back in Choumuri?”
“No, It’s Qito and Ramp who take care of the shop back home. Ekster is a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in years because she lives all the way in Madricord. But the post is faster from here so I sent a letter just to hear how she was doing and then we started chatting again.”
“That’s nice, uh, good luck with that then. I’m going out.”
“Where are you headed?”
“To the other side of the parking lot, there’s a ship salesman there. I wanna ask if they rent ships as well.”
“Good idea, good luck.”
“Thanks, and, uh if I manage will you come fly with me?”
“Of course.”
My heart maker a little sommersault “I’ll be right back then.”

The shop is small, with wooden paneling all around and wooden cassettes in the ceiling. The ships outside are set apart with little signs saying ‘for sale, inquire inside’.
There’s a lady behind the front desk who looks to be very bored, until she sees me, then suddenly she’s very chipper. “Good morning.” she commands me with a broad smile.
“Good morning I uh, I want a ship for a bit of time?”
She tilts her head “we have brech dramei tcha, what are you tock?”
“I don’t understand that, do you speak Cygnian?”
The woman shakes her head.
Turns out this easy plan isn’t quite what I expected. “I want to take a ship, pay a fee, then bring the ship back.”
She look confused for a bit, then holds up a finger “Mat here, okay?”
“Yeah sure, thank you.” I almost forgot to add that thank you at the end. I wonder where my manners went.
A man in a white suit with golden accents and a luscious big mustache enters the room a couple minutes after the woman vanished “Good day miss, how can I help you?”
I sigh a sigh of relief to hear my mother tongue “I want to rent a ship, just the blocky green friend-ship, nothing fancy and just for a couple hours.”
“Ten coppers an hour.” He explains and I almost need to catch myself.
“Ten coppers!?”
“Yes, these ships are in demand at the moment because of the certification that’s happening soon on the mainland.”
So because students need them to practice you feel justified in asking a ridiculously high fee? “That’s too much, thank you for your time.” I bow politely and make my way to the door.
“Seven coppers an hour.” face still turned away I sigh a sigh of relief. At least one skill my mother taught me comes in handy nowadays.
“Five.”
“Six.”
“Deal, I’ll be right back.”
I need to tell Dana.

I jump into the Royal Griffin and check the parlour.
Then the machine room.
Then I knock on her bedroom door since I wouldn’t know where else she could have gone to.
“Don’t come in. I’m changing.
“Why?”
“I tipped over the red ink bottle and it looks like a murder happened.”
“Oh, well, I can rent a ship for six coppers an hour.”
“Well done.”
“So are you almost done?”
“Yes, just a minute.”.
I lean against the opposing wall and scold my brain as the thought of Dana, but without clothes pops into my head.
That’s gross and creepy.
Stop it.
“I’ll fix your table by the way.”
“My table?”
“It has a stain now, I’ll get it out.”
“Oh, that’s fine.”
“No it’s not, I made that table myself and I’d like it to stay pretty.”
“You made the table!?” I mean I know she re-papered the walls and such when father bought the ship off her but I didn’t know made the furniture as well!
“You wanted Cygne-Jigani fushion for the interior.” She explains while opening the door followed by a cloud of fresh-soap smell. She’s still in her chemisette holding a shirtwaist in her hands. My eyes drift off to her muscular brown arms “I wasn’t just gonna find that in a shop somewhere.”
“I could have picked something different if I had known it was this much work.”
“Oh that’s all right. I like a challenge.” She throws on the shirtwaist and pulls a hand through her short, black hair “Speaking off, you said you found a ship.”
“Yes. Up on the North side.”
“Lead the way.”
We enter the shop together.
The man with the mustache is talking to the desk clerk.
I bow in apology “Apologies for the wait.”
The man hands me the keys with a smile and says “It’s okay, time is ticking already.”
Oh great.
“Which one is it?”
“At the back, number 309.”
“All right, let’s go Dana.”
The ship isn’t all that fetching to look at. Instead of a magnificent glass prism the cockpit is a glass box with a steel beam on either side of the steering wheel blocking part of the view.
“Well that’s impractical.” I huff pointing at the beams.”
“It’s a cost-saving measure. Curved glass is very expensive to make.”
“I see.” I sit down on the captain’s chair and begin the startup sequence. The button layout seems similar enough but… “Where are the pulleys?”
“This models uses pedals instead of pulleys, they’re underneath the steering wheel.”
“Why? That’s a horrible place to put them?”
“Because that way you can use your feet to control the balloon system and engine controls and your hands are free for steering.”
“Okay so which is which then?”
“The pedal to the left is the air valve for the balloon to control lift. And the right one is the air intake for the engine to control speed.”
I bend down to look under the console “What about guiding the hot air to warm the ship?”
“This ship cannot do that.”
“So not one for long voyages then?”
“That or only travelling along the tropical belt. Sky pirates will often buy outdated ships like these as entering ships since they won’t need the premium features anyway and secondhand ships are harder to track after the paperwork runs out.”
“Really?” My mind sparks with inspiration at the thought. “Do you think we’ll run into sky pirates one day?”
“I hope not. They’re not a group you want to mess with. Besides they usually don’t target other airships. They’ll enter cargo ships or luxury leisure vessels instead.” Dana explains.
“So no sky battles?”
“No sky battles.”
“Too bad.” I get up again and try to place my feet on the pedals without pushing them down “So this one is the air intake right?”
“Exactly.”
“All right.” I press down gently and sure enough I can hear the air getting drawn in and the heat dial on the console steadily rises.
“Now just drive it out on the landing and you can take off from there.” It’s been a while since Dana and I had a flying lesson together.
It feels nice.
Familiar.
“Okay.” I ramp up the speed but part of me feels disconnected from the ship. The Royal Griffin feels like an extension of me, its systems and quirks ingrained in my fingers but from this ship I feel separate. Like I’m wearing someone else’s coat and it doesn’t fit quite right.
We take off with minor confusion over pedals.
It feels good to be in the air again. To feel the weightlessness and see the city from far up high.
It truly is a grotesque marvel. A wayward collection of bricks, glass, metal and roof tiles sprawling and crawling every which way like a multicoloured lichen.
“Should I just do a circle around the city or…?”
“Whatever you like, this was your idea.”
“Fair enough” I chuckle, then look around a bit forlornly for a while.
I fly towards the water some more concluding that with this narrow a viewing window. I rather get used to the controls in an environment where I can’t accidentally ram into some building or other.
I push the pedals carefully one after the other to try and get a feel for the energy throughput.
It’s too quiet in here.
“So, how is the shop doing back in Choumuri?”
“Qito and Ramp are managing. They survived the winter spike so now they’ll have peace and quiet for a while until the new-year check ups start in late spring.”
“So are you sending letters up and down or-“
“Telephone, the shop has a telephone and so does the post office here.”
“I see.” I don’t want to ask but I feel like I must.
“Did you talk to father?”
“Not since we arrived here.”
“But before that?”
“Alice, I’m the Chattoway family mechanic, I need to at least sign off if I’m not going to be around for who knows how long.”
“Did you tell him I’m with you?”
“I haven’t, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he worked out the connection anyway.”
I don’t like that. I don’t like that one bit-
“Whoa, keep her steady.” Dana reaches over pressing the pedal for me, her shoulder pushing into mine for a moment.
“I’m sorry.” I tell her as I take over the pedal and try my best not to blush.
Dana pulls back “Maybe we should leave this subject for when we’re both on solid ground.”
“Yeah, that’s probably wise.”
We keep on flying in silence.
I don’t want to keep Dana here but I don’t want her to go either.
She still calls Choumuri her home. Which makes sense of course I just.
If only she could stay here with Xuiyo, Hamala and me.
Well, at least she’ll stick around for me to get certified, right?
She’s the one adamant on me doing the exam so I assume she’ll want to be there to see it through.
And then after that when she stops being my teacher and is just ‘Dana’ instead I’ll tell her.
I’ll tell her what she means to me, how I feel.
How I wish she’d stay. Not to teach me, but because she wants to be with me.
But only if she wants to, of course.
“Do you think you can fly one of these for the exam?”
I get pulled from my thoughts and back into the room. “I hate the pedals.” I admit “Oh and these beams, and this chair is digging into my back. But I think I can do it.”
Dana smiles “Good, then let’s land and get back to the Griffin. It’s approaching dinner time.”
“Already?”

“Ah there you are, you missed tea.” Xuiyo explains as we enter the parlour together.
“I’m sorry, I had to try and fly a 405 base model.”
“How did it go?” Hamala asks.
“Acceptable, how’s the house hunt?”
At this Hamala’s face widens into a grin “We’re having a viewing tomorrow. A grocers went out of business and the owner of the building is looking for something food-related to take its place.”
“All right! Congratulations.”
“It’s just a viewing, we won’t know if we get the place until after the bid has been offered and accepted.”
“How much are they asking for?”
“The minimum bid is a hundred copper per month. but if we want to have a chance of getting it we should probably bid one hundred and fifty. I uh, I wanted to know if I could maybe borrow some of the money from you if the bid gets accepted?”
I smile comfortingly. “Of course you can. Speaking of food, what’s for dinner?”
“Haifa.”
“Is that the spicy one?”
“That’s the spicy one.”
“Oh dear.”
“You’re gonna be okay. You liked the fafa soup I made last week.”
“The way I remember it I almost died.”
“I’ll make some coconut sauce to go with it.”
“Much obliged.”

Around two hours later, having survived dinner, I sit down with a book in the parlour sofa and get ready to wind down for the day.
My search for a new series of detective novels continues as I have already read all my Delarouge’s and the next one could take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple years to appear.
The first series I tried managed a good plot but the characters were horribly written and there was this awkward tarnish of racism spread all over the narrative.
Then the second one seemed promising at first. But in the second book she introduced a singular gay character in the final chapter just to be used as a bargaining chip and have her sleep with a guy in jail posing as a prepubescent girl. A chill goes up my spine thinking back on it.
I dropped the series then and there.
So now we’re up to number three. The first book of which I’ve already read roughly halfway through and haven’t put down yet so that’s a good sign.
I think I like the presentation of the world and characters a lot but the lack of chapters makes it difficult for me to index the information.
The story just sort of wanders every which way and I’ve taken to filling out a separate notebook with the details because I’m missing the nearly blank pages at the end of each chapter to put down my notes.
But it has a murder in a university greenhouse and the librarian is hiding something inside the botany section where the students rarely go. Which makes me think she was either protecting one of the victim’s projects or that she wanted something from the victim, couldn’t get it and then killed him to get to it anyway.
The real question is how the headmaster factors into it, because she doesn’t have an alibi.
Maybe she witnessed the whole thing but keeps quiet so the papers don’t find out? Which would be about as irresponsible as it sounds… On the other hand she did seem genuinely surprised to hear that someone died.
I tap the back of my pen to my lip. Make a couple notes in my notebook.
Then turn the page.