[Memory] The Waves

[moralhazard]

Evening, Hamis 21, 2716
Breckenridge Refinery, Outskirts of the Rose

Five men, and Uzoji looked between them. He was not grinning, but the expression on his face was pleasant and friendly, and it did not falter when the first - Rowland, Uzoji noted - greeted him with a hostile scowl.

Uzoji kept his gaze on Rowland as the man crossed into the edges of his field. He neither drew it back nor pulsed it, but he knew it flowed smoothly in the air around him, the weight of physical mona mixed with the heat of static. Without looking, he could still see the other two men rise, slowly, one looking as if he might slip away at any moment, as soon as no eyes were on him. Aiden too, reluctant.

Uzoji shifted his gaze then, conscious and deliberate. He looked first to the parse, and then, slowly, at each of the humans, meeting the gaze of those who would look at him. He did not try too hard with the man who looked inclined to flee; let him not feel seen. He turned back to Rowland last, and inclined his head, gently, respectfully.

It would not be hard. Signal Niccolette to Rowland, verbally - they had more than enough ways between them. She could cast under her breath from the walkway above. He did not know what she would choose, did not know how long he would need to stall for, but he knew well that it would be - impactful. Niccolette had a wonderful sense of the dramatic, and wonderful timing.

Best to wait, a moment, a beat or two, because there would be panic; there was always panic. And then his knives and Tom’s, Aremu’s gun and Niccolette’s from above. Conquest, the sort Niccolette loved, bloody and loud and messy, with no regrets and no remorse, joining them all together unafraid in the dark.

It would be better not to make too much noise, but Uzoji did not think there were many others left here in this dark, empty place. Osborne, perhaps; Uzoji did not know the man, but Tom did, and he thought it unlikely he was among them. One of ours, Rowland had called Collingwood. Uzoji wondered how many felt the same. But once he had gone through those who would stand - then what?

It was a fine plan, but Uzoji was not so sure it would get him what he wanted.

“I understand,” Uzoji said, without the faintest trace of mockery, solemn and steady.

“It’s an honorable death, dying for one of yours,” Uzoji said. He found his hands with his pockets, and he grinned, a little crooked, his eyes sliding over the men again. “But you are wrong. It is my business. We have need of some aetherium, bought and paid for. I mean to talk to Collingwood, one way or another, and tonight.”

Uzoji stepped forward now, close enough to touch Rowland, though only just. He looked slightly up at the man. “Perhaps you can send us away,” Uzoji said, gently. Perhaps. “You’ve every right to try. But I think we’re together in this, Rowland, you and I and Collingwood. I think we all want the same thing. I’ll offer that truth to Hulali, here and now.”

The tortoiseshell cat had crept closer. Uzoji smiled, and he knelt, and extended long fingers to the little thing. It trotted over, bell jingling, and Uzoji stroked its head, found a spot to scratch behind its ears, loud purring rumbling into the room.

He looked up at Rowland, one hand on the cat’s head, the other resting lightly on his bent legs. “What do you say?” He asked, curiously.

[Tom Cooke]

Breckenridge Refinery • The Rose

Evening on the 21st of Hamis, 2716

Every move of Uzoji’s, Tom thought. No matter how subtle, no matter how quiet-like. When he put his hands in his pockets – without so much as a soft rustle of fabric – a muscle in Rowland’s jaw flickered and tightened, and the line of his shoulders got that much more rigid. Behind him and to the side, Aiden watched the two of them, his soft blue eyes unblinking. Tom hadn’t felt a flex or a shudder of motion in Uzoji’s field; the galdor’d done nothing to set them off. Everything about him was even, friendly-like.

But Rowland knew, he reckoned. Tom knew, too. The worst part was, none of the natt knew what was perched on the walkway, all the way up in the darkness. If they had been, maybe they wouldn’t’ve been so worried about Uzoji.

(’Course, the exception was the parse. You couldn’t’ve been less tense. Tom took a moment, now and then, to watch him, in all those tense seconds. The languid arc of his shoulders, the dangle of his skinny arms, his hands in his pockets. A crocodile’s sort of grin on his face, eyes half-lidded. The kov had a death wish, maybe, or he was drunk, or he was fair sure of himself. Or he knew it just wouldn’t matter, if things came to blows. Tom thought that was likeliest; he looked like a man who didn’t have much to lose.)

Rowland’s jaw worked as Uzoji spoke. All the galdor’s talk of dying for one of yours, and his steady, even tone, had got to him, no matter how begrudgingly. And something in his eyes sparked at the mention of aetherium.

The cat stretched out its paws, lazy-like, then jingled closer. When Uzoji knelt to pet it, Rowland jerked and took a step back, like he was expecting to be burned. Aiden jumped; a ripple of stress went through all of them, even the kov in the back, especially the one that looked like he wanted to dust. Tom’s dark eyes flicked from man to man, and he didn’t uncross his arms, but he felt himself get ready for it. If the kov in the back made a break for it – if Rowland made a move, with Uzoji crouched, if Aiden –

Uzoji’s fingers brushed through the soft tangles of the tortie’s fur, found some nice scratching-spot behind its ears. Tom swallowed thickly.

“I, uh,” muttered Rowland, throat bobbing.

Aiden shot a look at Uzoji, then stared at Rowland, his eyes even wider. “They’re here to help. Y’see? I told you, he’d send somebody. He ain’t jus’ – I told you he would.”

Rowland looked at him, then looked back down at the galdor that was quietly petting a cat at his feet. He met Uzoji’s eyes.

“Ye fuckin’ mung,” croaked the parse, resting his head back against the wall. He laughed again, a sound like a knife on a whetstone. “Either he’s here to help us, or he’s here to cott us. Ent it worth the risk? What else’re ye goin’ t’ do?”

Rowland frowned. He looked more than unsettled, but Tom could see him force himself to relax, just a little. “Together in this,” he rasped. “Aye. I ain’t – I don’t know how this shit works, but Collie ain’t right. Been a couple weeks, I reckon, since it happened. There was a –”

“Backlash.” The parse pushed himself up off the wall and took a few steps toward Rowland and Uzoji. “Static backlash. Listen, kov, y’ ent gettin’ yer aetherium anytime soon, ye chen? Whole operation’s spitch. Collingwood fucked hisself up fair tsuter, an’ the mona ent doin’ nothin’ for him anymore – an’ that ent sayin’ nothin’ about the burns. He ent in the shape to work.”

Rowland’s frown got deeper. “Most of the other men left after it happened.” He scratched the back of his neck, glancing from Uzoji to Tom and then back down at Uzoji. “Osborne’s up in the office wi’ Collie, but none of us’re – we lost the engineer. It’s jus’ the six of us – me, Aiden, Joff an’ Harley,” he nodded to the two kov in the back, one of whom had retreated even further into the darkness, “an’ –”

“Marlin,” put in the parse, lightly.

Lips set in a thin line, Rowland took a half-step closer, hesitant. “Marlin’s right, sir. Even if Collie got back on his feet, we’d still need an engineer. You ain’t gettin’ that aetherium.” He paused, and his face hardened again. “An’ I don’t care if the King wants rid o’ Collie for it. He’s one o’ us, an’ you got to go through us first.”

“He ain’t done nothin’,” came Aiden’s soft voice.

Purring, the cat pulled back to snuffle at Uzoji’s fingers. Then, as if it’d just figured out how much it was enjoying all this unexpected attention, it pushed its head forcefully back under his hand, back arching, a little burbling meow bubbling up from its throat.

[moralhazard]

Evening, Hamis 21, 2716
Breckenridge Refinery, Outskirts of the Rose

Uzoji had seen the ripple go through the men when he had crouched. Circle, he had practically felt it! But he had held through it, and he was still holding, smiling down at the tortoiseshell cat bumping its head vigorously against his fingers.

Carefully, Uzoji found the spot behind its ears again - traced over, beneath, to scratch at the spot beneath its throat. He could feel the warm rumble of a purr against his fingers. The cat let out a little mrrp, and the galdor, knowing his place, went back to the spot behind its ears.

Static backlash, Uzoji thought, and he did not miss the reference to the burns, studying the parse more than a little curiously. This man, he wondered about. Was he happy here, on the ground?

“I’m Uzoji,” Uzoji said, looking back up Rowland. “This is Tom,” he gestured with his free hand towards Tom, still frowning professionally behind him. “It just so happens I know an excellent engineer - one who should be knocking on that door in a minute or so.”

Uzoji waited a few polite moments, then rose, as smoothly as he had knelt. The cat grumbled a meow, and twined around against his legs, tucking itself between his shins. He did not make the mistake of looking up to check on Aremu and Niccolette, and neither did he try to explain what Niccolette was, or what purpose she should serve.

“I can’t see how getting rid of Collingwood would help any of us,” Uzoji said, frankly. He looked at Marlin, then back at Rowland. Aiden, Joff and Harley did not escape his notice either, although he didn’t linger on them. “Perhaps we can manage some aetherium, and perhaps we can’t,” Uzoji shrugged. Hulali would have His way in the end; one could only steer so well through His waters. “But I don’t intend to leave Collingwood worse than we‘ve found him. If the Circle is with us, perhaps we can help him.”

There was a knock on the door not more than a few moments later, polite if not exactly tentative. It opened, and Aremu came in a little cautiously, glancing around. He looked at Uzoji, and Uzoji nodded, very slightly. Aremu turned back to the door, pressing it open a little wider, and Niccolette came in after him. She held her skirts up lightly in one hand, the lamplight glinting off her black boots.

“This is Aremu, the engineer I mentioned,” Uzoji said, cheerfully. “And Niccolette, my wife.” He extended his right hand back to her, holding it out, the light glinting off the scars on his palm.

He caught the flicker of light over Niccolette’s face. She did not roll her eyes, although he would have bet coin it was a near thing, but he had long since come to trust her to back him, and he had had no doubt now that she would. It had made them stronger, he thought, this time of weakness; stronger together. She stepped forward instead, and he felt her hand join his, her fingers interlacing between his, and she gave him a little squeeze, but held her field as still as his, resisting even the natural tendency of the mona that swirled around them to mingle. He smiled at her, and Niccolette frowned back at him.

“Oh!” the Bastian glanced down at the little tortoiseshell cat investigating her bootlaces. She held still, and the cat went more aggressively at her shins. Niccolette sighed, and shifted a little more against Uzoji.

Aremu did not approach, keeping his distance from all of them. Uzoji had guessed he would remain at the back, but he had thought Aremu might go towards Tom, at least, and he was a little sorry for it. Instead the imbala stayed almost at the door, out of range still, his dark eyes passing over each of the men in turn, the slightest of frowns creasing his forehead. His coat still covered the gun in his holster and the knife at his belt.

“Would anyone show Aremu and Tom where the engineer is needed?” Uzoji asked, still smiling. “Niccolette and I should like to see Collingwood now, Rowland.” He did not ask.

[Tom Cooke]

Breckenridge Refinery • The Rose

Evening on the 21st of Hamis, 2716

ETom nodded at the men when Uzoji gestured to him, and he was sure to let his posture relax, just a pina manna; he rolled his shoulders, shifted his weight, loosened up his crossed arms. He heard a little mrrp from the cat, and this time – for the first time, mind – he let himself glance down at it, and he let his eyes linger, and he just about smiled. Circle help them all, but he was halfway to thinking he might not have to use his knife tonight.

‘Course, they was all so tense, Tom reckoned, they couldn’t half help the uneasy little jump that went through them at the knock on the door. He didn’t turn to look, but he knew Niccolette for her field as she moved to join Uzoji; he felt the woobly of it join his, bright and strange in a way you couldn’t describe, and he saw the wary eyes of every natt in the room follow her for a few breaths. If my wife, if Uzoji’s friendly-like manner, softened the blow of another golly, you wouldn’t’ve known it from the way all of them tensed.

Only the parse seemed disinterested, his eyes flicking away after a moment – flicking toward the door behind Tom. The sardonic smile on his face didn’t move an inch, but one of his patchy, dark red brows lifted.

Tom cast a look over his shoulder, just long enough to see Aremu lingering at the edge of the light. His face, such as Tom could see it in the soft, low light, was hard to read; he couldn’t make out his dark eyes, though he tried. He wondered at it, how he kept his distance, even now.

Aremu, the engineer Uzoji mentioned. Tom didn’t look at him too long, ’course; it was just a cursory glance, casual-like, with a hint of a nod. He didn’t think he’d like being scrutinized. But as he turned back, he just kept wondering.

After a moment, Rowland nodded. His eyes might've lingered on Uzoji's palm, in passing; they might not've. “Aye, sir. Aiden, lad,” he threw over his shoulder, “get us the other light, will you?” Baby-face jumped into motion soon as Rowland’d said his name, like he already knew what he was wanting. He disappeared into the dark, and Rowland looked at Marlin meaningfully.

“Boemo.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. Nodding at Aremu again, a glitter in his eyes, he gestured to the door and started toward it with his loose, loping gait. “Junta t’ the both of ye,” he tossed out lightly, pulling his worn jacket closer about him. “Fancy a stroll to the reactor?”

Tom allowed himself a snort, raising his brows at Aremu. As Marlin disappeared into the rainy night, Tom lingered – meeting Uzoji’s eye for a long moment, nodding his head once, firm-like.

He didn’t know he liked splitting up, but he reckoned the Ibutatus could handle themselves, in case this Collie business was a trap. He reckoned him and Aremu could take Marlin easy enough, too, but he hadn’t forgot that business from Sweet Waters, that our brother. It didn’t mean much to him, but it meant a hell of a lot to Uzoji, and Tom thought that counted for enough.

Then, he took one last look at the cat, winding itself round Niccolette’s legs. This time, he knew better than to smile. He turned, and moved to follow the parse, and soon enough, the three of them were out into the rainy night.

Tom was damned tired. The wind had picked up, and it was chill and wet; it scattered droplets into their faces and whistled, ghost-like, through the refinery grounds, rattling in the fences and tangling round the tanks and distant smokestacks. It’d plucked a few hairs from his bun, and now they tangled round his face.

Marlin was calling over the wind and rain. “Listen, kov, I ent got my hopes up, ye chen? When Collingwood backlashed, the whole damn thing went to spitch. Ent my qalqa” – again, he shrugged his sinewy shoulders – “but it’s somethin’ t’ do wi’ th’ catalyst, an’ how Collingwood’s got t’ be down there castin’ durin’ that part o’ the process. Ne chen what happened, but the operation went up in flames. Bits an’ pieces everywhere, an’ the smoke fucked Collingwood up fair bad. An’ then Moreau, the engineer, took all his natt an’ dusted, an’ — yer about t' see the rest.”

Distant, thunder rumbled, like the belly of some beast up in the clouds. Tom looked over at Aremu, tried to meet his eye, raising his brows; he wondered how much sense the kov’d made of any of it.

They’d come to a gate. Marlin was jangling some keys out of his coat pocket, his long fingers tangling together in the rain; he was snarling curses under his breath. Over top of his head, Tom could see a sign, brass letters glinting, but he couldn’t make out the word through the rain. Beyond, the bulky shadow of a building squatted, and beyond it, the smokestacks.

Norton Collingwood wondered, sometimes, what his younger self – that young man who, two and a half decades ago, having just graduated from Brunnhold cum laude, had set his eyes on greatness – would have said, if he could see into his future. He didn’t know that the Norton Collingwood then would have had much to say at all; he could hear, quite distinctly, a groan, or the thump of a forehead hitting a desk. Sometimes, he imagined he could hear gasps of horror in his sleep, as if all of his old dreams had been forced to follow him into the present and observe just how far he had strayed from their carefully and lovingly imagined paths.

The office at Breckenridge was once neat and well-organized, if a little greasy and grimy. Now, it was a veritable wreck. A few tallow candles were lit against the pressing shadows, against the rain that lashed the one mirror-dark window over the desk. The desk itself was scattered with papers; some time ago, the inkwell had been knocked over, and a black stain crept from one side to the other, indiscriminate in its victims.

A makeshift cot had been put up in a corner of the office, the one furthest from the window and its drafts. The chair from the desk was pulled up beside it.

“It’s not right, Collie.” Osborne’s voice was a rough mutter; he wouldn’t look Collingwood in the eye. “How long’ll it take? A week? Two? Hell, we can’t —“

Collie. Norton wondered, too, what the self from twenty years ago would think of the name. He didn’t have to wonder, not really; he remembered those first, disastrous years in Hawke’s employ, during the flood, when his fortunes had gone to the banderwolves (or the Queen, more accurately). Before he’d learned anything of the Rose, before he’d known the first letter of loyalty.

He pushed himself up with an effort, but the effort took the air out of his lungs, and he fell to a gurgling wheeze. The big human sat up, concern in his dark eyes. Norton waved an irritated hand and caught his breath. “What would you suggest? We’re running out of time,” he croaked, swabbing the tears out of one eye with a shaky fingertip. “Circle damn, but I’ve got to put my foot down.”

“Whatever you got to do,” cut in Osborne, “whether it’s — we’ll hold through a siege, if we need to. I don’t pretend to understand the first thing about voo or the mona, but whatever you got to do, we’ll make sure –”

“I’m afraid our King isn’t as patient as you lads. John, you were at sea, eh? I’m the captain; it’s mine to go down with the ship. This is my fault.”

“No.” Osborne was shaking his head sharply. “It’s none of us or all.”

“I never thought I’d have occasion to say this, but that tsuter Moreau was smarter than the six of you combined. Now, stop being a fool,” started Norton, stabbing a thin finger at Osborne in the air, but he didn’t get to finish.

Boots were thudding up the stairs. Aiden’s gait, Norton recognized, but there were more besides; at least three more, he thought. Frowning, he turned his head to the shut office door. Through the tiny window, he could see a flickering glow, but it was too dust-caked to make out anything beyond light and movement. Then, the doorknob turned, and the door opened a crack, admitting Aiden’s soft, drawn face. He held up one big hand, and Osborne and Norton stared at him. He came through first, lantern in hand, throwing strange, lanky shapes over the tiny room. Then Rowland, his face as puckered and grim as usual. Then —

Osborne stood up abruptly, the feet of the chair screeching against the wood. His heavy boots thudded. He glanced between the newcomers rapidly, his brow stormy, one hand knotted in a fist and the other on something in the shadows at his belt.

Norton Collingwood was a thin wisp of a man, only a little tall for an Anaxi. He had a long, delicate face with a sour twist of a mouth, and thinning, graying mahogany-red hair. He was propped up on the cot, wrapped in a rumpled coat. As Uzoji and Niccolette emerged into the office, he fixed them with his cool gray gaze and raised one hand to Osborne, shaking his head. His other hand lay inert in his lap, covered in gauze.

“Good evening,” Collingwood said softly, lifting his chin. There was a pleasant, if wan, smile on his face. Gingerly, he moved his legs, testing his weight on one foot and then the other; he gestured to Osborne, and the human helped him to his feet, albeit begrudgingly. Having got there, he bent his head and shoulders in a bow, suppressing a cough. “Norton Collingwood at your service, sir and madam. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

On the heels of a jingling, a fuzzy brown shape flooded into the room through the forest of legs, weaving a path straight for Norton.

[moralhazard]

Evening, Hamis 21, 2716
Breckenridge Refinery, Outskirts of the Rose

Aremu had crouched in the dark and he had waited, surrounded by the terrible brightness of Niccolette’s field. He had listened with all he had to the conversation below, his gaze fixed on the circle of light and the seven men illuminated in it, Uzoji’s shaved head gleaming in the center of it all. From above, one could scarcely see a difference in height between the men.

Niccolette had gone tense when Uzoji knelt for the cat, and Aremu had felt her reach for him; he had risen, and taken her hand in the dark, and let her squeeze with all the strength she had, feeling her tremble. She had said nothing, and neither had he, and they never would.

They had gone back out into the spitting rain, and Niccolette had gone down the stairs so quickly she had nearly stumbled; Aremu had caught her by the shoulders, and she had slapped at his hands, shaking. He held her without flinching, and he had felt her go still, slowly, until her breath steadied. She had nodded, then, and he had let her go and stepped past and knocked on the door.

Aremu held back at the door after they had entered, more comfortable there. He told himself it was important to hold the exit; he told himself there was no shame in that. Tom glanced back at him, and Aremu thought he saw his head twitch in a nod. He was not quite sure what to make of it, but he felt suddenly warmer, against the wet chill of the night outside.

He understood Marlin’s look when the dreadlocked man drew close and Aremu did not feel a glamour around him. He nodded back, once, and glanced at Tom. At his snort, Aremu grinned, very faintly, and he carried it with him back into the dark, following behind Marlin, with Tom walking cat-quiet at his back - quieter, in truth, given the jangling of the bell as the tortoiseshell trotted after Niccolette’s heels.

Marlin passed back what had to be second or third hand information about the accident, but it was enough. Aremu frowned. For an aetherium refining operation, it would be steam reforming with a copper-based catalyst, high temperatures to pull raw aetherium from naturally occurring aetherium carbide. It was chemical engineering, not mechanical, and hardly his area of expertise, but machines were machines and plans were plans, and he did not wish to let Uzoji down.

Aremu said nothing; he did not shout to make himself heard over the crack of thunder and the whistle of the wind. He did not think there was much he could say, not yet.

In through the gate, and Marlin let them into the building beyond. Aremu inhaled, softly, at the messy sight behind - a set of heavy pipes had toppled, filling the narrow entrance into the machinery. A devastated plot was smeared over the floor, as if it had blown apart. Behind it he could see a tangle of machinery, distant and poorly lit.

“Hulali floats, and he drowns,” Aremu whispered, not for the first time that night. He shivered.

“Is there light?” Aremu asked Marlin, frowning. He glanced at the pipe, and grimaced. Unhesitating, he stripped off his coat and folded it, setting it behind the door, and then began to strip off his shirt, undoing the buttons and folding it as well, setting it atop the coat.

Aremu turned to Tom, and felt - aware, although not quite self-conscious. He was not sure, but he wondered. “I need to get through,” he said, glancing back at the heavy metal pipe crowding against the floor. “Can you lift it?” His hands held on his belt, and he waited there. It was warmer than it had any right to be in this room, and Aremu would rather lose skin than risk catching clothing on a loose piece of metal.

Before they followed Aiden and Rowland into the dark, before he let go of Niccolette’s hand and turned his focus to the next task, Uzoji turned to Joff and Harley, and practiced his most disarming smile. ”Ah,” he said, delicately. “One of you might like to go set Merlo free. He is unharmed, but perhaps uncomfortable, in the shadow of your gate house.”

Uzoji was not afraid that the these two men and Merlo from the gate would band together and ambush them as they left Collingwood’s office. He thought it much more likely that he would emerge to find no humans at all. Even should the unlikely occur, with Niccolette at his side, he was not in the least afraid.

Tom caught his eye just a moment, before he followed Marlin and Aremu from the room. He nodded, once, firmly, and Uzoji felt a relief he did not bother to put words to. He nodded back, ever so slightly, grateful. Aremu could handle himself, and how; Uzoji could not think of many men more capable. But he was one man, and he would be vulnerable while working, and any harm that came to him would worse than if it had happened to Uzoji himself; he would rather take it on himself, than see Aremu so.

So Uzoji turned and left Tom to go into the rain behind the slight, dark shape of the imbala, and he followed Niccolette up the stairs himself, behind Aiden, and Rowland at the back of them. Uzoji let him have the rear; it would scarcely matter.

They went up the creaking stairs, Aiden’s bobbing light leading the way, past a big dark window that looked down onto the space below, not far into a hallway to a door marked office, a sign with letters burned into it in curling script; the lamplight caught dust motes glittering along the edges of it.

Rowland nudged past them both; Niccolette eased aside in the hallway and let Uzoji lead first into the room, although she was not more than a step behind him.

Uzoji held, polite and waiting and smiling, as Collingwood took the time he needed to rise. Niccolette’s interest sharpened beside him; he could see it in the tension that flickered through her, feel it in the faint sharpening of her field. Uzoji did not smile any wider, but it was hard fought.

“Good evening, sir,” Uzoji bowed. “I am Uzoji Ibutatu.”

“Niccolette Ibutatu,” Niccolette hardly needed him to introduce her to another galdor, and he knew better than to try. She bowed as well, and rose. Her eyes skimmed over Collingwood’s bandaged hand, up to his chest, and held there. Her field sharpened a little more, and her head tilted to the side, very slightly.

Uzoji could feel Collingwood’s field at this distance: messy, faintly unpleasant, but not hopeless. Anyone who served in an airship knew something about casting through backlash, and Uzoji was no exception. If Collingwood could not produce aetherium, it was not solely his lack of monic reconciliation.

“The pleasure is ours,” Uzoji said, smiling. He remembered, now, who had mentioned Collingwood to him. “We have not had the chance to meet previously, but Violetta Ballington speaks highly of you. She is a woman of discerning taste.” Violetta was notorious in high Rose society; although never officially linked to Hawke in any capacity, she nonetheless had her own version of the Vein, and had for the better part of three decades. Anything going on in the Rose, she seemed to know about, and she dispersed gossip among the galdori community with a delicate and deliberate touch. The question of what had become of Mr. Ballington was never discussed.

Niccolette glanced at him, and Uzoji smiled. Niccolette, he knew, was exceptionally fond of Violetta; he thought he felt a softening in her.

“We are in need of some aetherium for a plot my wife is devising. I should be grateful if we can find a way to be of mutual assistance,” Uzoji continued, and caprised Collingwood’s field, a little deeper, letting the static mona of his field reach into the other man’s. He knew he must already be aware of Niccolette’s field bright with living mona; it was a small office.

“Shall we try?” Uzoji asked, and now he held Collingwood’s gaze, still smiling casually. The tortoiseshell was rubbing his head enthusiastically against Collingwood’s shins, purring loudly enough to be audible throughout the room.

[Tom Cooke]

Breckenridge Refinery • The Rose

Evening on the 21st of Hamis, 2716

At first, there wasn’t much light. Tom couldn’t say he was glad to be out of the wet chill; there was a strange feeling in here, a weight – or a lightness – to the air that set his skin to prickling. In the light from the open door, before Marlin pulled it shut behind them, he caught glimpses of heavy, lopsided shapes, jagged edges glinting. The swell, beyond that, of larger shapes – pumps, he thought, squinting through the dusty shadows, pumps and tanks and gods knew what, criss-cross pipes stretched across the path overhead.

Tom felt big, suddenly, big and unwieldy. His back ached, and all the scars that crept across it, and the headache that wound up from the nape of his neck; he didn’t fancy ducking his head, but he reckoned he’d be doing a lot of it.

Aremu’s soft voice, then, from the dark. Tom stood fair still. If the parse and the engineer could see anything – there might’ve been windows, somewhere above; there seemed to be faint light trickling in from somewhere, through the mess of walkways and pipes, but it wasn’t enough for Tom – if they could make anything out, Tom couldn’t. He could hear movement, the husk of breath, the soft shuffle of cloth. Hulali floats, and he drowns.

He felt a whisper of air as Marlin moved round him in the cramped space. “Oes,” he grunted. There was a scrape, a clang, a shuffling in pockets. Hsssk, fff, the soft blaze of a match in fumbling-cold fingers. Tom blinked, his eyes adjusting. Marlin was lighting a lantern he must’ve picked up just inside.

A warm swell of lamplight. Smears of soot on the glass cast funny, warped shadows over the walls; the men’s shadows were bristling monsters.

First thing Tom noticed was the glint of inlaid circles on the floor, and he took a brusque step back, ‘cause he was standing right in the middle of it. He grunted under his breath, grimacing down, trying to keep his boots off the lines. But if he’d disrupted anything, he hadn’t been the first. Here, there, scattered round like gold, glittering fragments of inlay, sometimes smashed to a fine dust; he glimpsed the thin shadows of empty grooves. His eyes followed the mostly-intact sweep of a circle, intersecting with another circle that’d been blasted to pieces, intersecting with a line that shot – sometimes in gleaming embroidery, sometimes in empty dark – down the corridor and around.

He grit his teeth against another stream of curses. Wouldn’t do any good, he reckoned.

“Fucked, ent it?” Marlin laughed. Tom looked over at him; a gold tooth glinted in his broad, toothy grin.

But Tom just shrugged his shoulders in his coat. Second thing drew his eye was Aremu’s slim, dark shape just ahead, taking off his shirt. His jacket lay nearby, a vague, dark bundle in the low light; his shirt joined it quick enough.

The warm light glanced across the long, graceful muscles of his back, moving under his dark skin, and he was — Tom thought he looked like he could’ve come from one of those fine paintings rich folk had. Galdor, this kov, through and through, but he looked strong, in that slight, elegant way. Again, he pictured him climbing up the rigging like he’d been born to it. Again, he wondered about so many things. Raising his dark brows and clearing his throat, Tom glanced away fair fast, busied himself elsewhere.

Despite the chills, it was warmer in here; it was damned warm. Tom took off his big, worn coat, folding it over his arm in an oddly delicate gesture, mirroring Aremu’s, before laying it to the side. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he worked his aching shoulders, letting out a long sigh. It was a big, misshapen length of pipe lay across the corridor, the low light catching on its dinged, scuffed sides. Aremu was looking at him expectantly, so he tossed the passive a grin. “Ne problem,” he said lightly.

Leastways, he hoped it’d been convincingly light. He didn’t know for sure, being honest, but he reckoned he didn’t have much of a choice. He gave the tsuter thing another look-over, then ducked a little under a loop of piping and moved round Aremu, oddly – not unpleasantly – conscious of the slight breeze the motion made between them, the closeness of him in the tight space.

He tried to hold onto that feeling as he knelt to get a hold of the piping. Even big as he was, it was an awkward thing to get a grip on; trying to shift it, at first, he knew the weight was all uneven, and he had to shuffle around a pina to wrangle it proper-like. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the tight space behind them, at Marlin lingering by the entrance, his own head bent under a platform just above the door. He looked up, squinting at a jagged edge of broken metal, trying to make out where the godsdamn thing’d fallen from. There wasn’t room to put it anywhere.

“Shit,” he muttered, looking back at Aremu and then Marlin, with his brow furrowed. “You’ll have to go under while I’m holdin’ it up, an’ I’ll have to follow.”

Marlin laughed sharply. “Lissen, I ent goin’ in there. I’d jus’ be in the way, ye chen? Besides, somebody’s got t’ be out here t’ go for help.”

Crouched in awkwardly, Tom tried not to grind his teeth; he felt a pop in his jaw anyway. He looked down, took a deep breath. The light shuddered awkwardly over the walls as Marlin moved to pass the lantern to Aremu; shadows warped the metal contours of the machinery and the piping into strange shapes. Once he’d done, and once the parse’d taken up his post by the door, Tom just shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Aremu again.

Then, he got his arms around the pipe, shifted his weight, and started to lift it aside. It was heavier than he’d thought it’d be, or maybe he was just getting older. For a flutter of a second, he thought, godsdamn, but he wouldn’t be able to do this kind of shit forever. Then, he couldn’t think of much of anything.

He focused on letting his legs take the weight, though he felt like the whole of him was a knot. He heaved; a startled breath snorted through his nose as he felt a sharp pain crackle in his back. Still, he held, and he heaved, and with a grunt of metal — and a growl under his breath — he managed to lift the piping up and out of the way. He wasn’t shaking, not yet, but the muscles in his forearm were corded, and his teeth were grit so tight he thought they might crack.

Quick-like, he jerked his head to motion Aremu through. Another strand of hair fell in his face, tickling his nose. He felt awful like to sneeze.

Collingwood could not stand for long, and he knew this, although he had rather tried – even with mixed success – than not even bothered to meet the two galdori with something resembling civility. It had been weeks since he had seen hide or hair or caprise of galdorkind; there was more than a little relief in the faint stir of the static mona in his field, even frazzled as they were, to meet those in Uzoji’s.

Nevertheless, a faint blush of something like shame ran through his field. Within a second or two, he had smoothed it out without any real difficulty, but it had not been intentional; the brush of well-organized physical and static mona in the Mugrobi galdor’s field had simply nudged the bruise, as it were.

Collingwood smiled at Uzoji and then Niccolette Ibutatu, dipping his head a little feebly at both introductions. He recognized the names faintly, though he could not have put faces to them, if pressed. His eyes lingered – sharp, for a moment, with interest – on Niccolette, though he couldn’t spare the energy to caprise that field of hers properly. It had been longer than weeks since he had felt one like it; he was not sure, in fact, that he had ever felt one quite like it. If he felt anything approaching relief at the presence of living mona in the tiny office, it was somewhat mitigated by the sharp, indectal power of the field. There was interest in his eyes, but also wariness.

But he turned his pleasant smile back on Uzoji with little delay. “Ah, yes,” he started, feigning a look of delighted recognition, “Violetta –” but he had misjudged his strength, and he couldn’t seem to draw in enough air to permit him to stand and speak and muster up pleasantries all at once. He wheezed and felt that wretched, heavy, slushy movement in his chest, and then fell to coughing, and he was grateful that Osborne was still holding onto his arm, because the human dutifully and gently lowered him back onto the cot.

Collingwood sat for a moment, catching his breath and suppressing another volley of coughs. He squinted down at his feet, then smiled. “Biscuit,” he croaked, clearing his throat. He bent to pet the purring cat with his free hand, scratching behind her ears, then along her back, watching her stretch with her rear and her fluffy tail in the air.

When he looked back up at Uzoji and Niccolette, he was somewhat recovered. “I am pleased to hear that Violetta speaks well of me,” he shot back a little dryly, his eyes glittering with mirth. “As for the matter of your plot, Ms. Ibutatu, I am terribly sorry to have stalled things. And I apologize, too, if your welcome to Breckenridge was less than warm; my men are somewhat – on edge.”

Osborne was still standing, and he was still looking at the two galdori mistrustfully.

Collingwood patted the cot next to him with his thin hand, and Biscuit leapt up onto it, winding around behind him and brushing the back of his head with the plume of her tail. “This is John Osborne, Mr. and Mrs. Ibutatu.” He gestured at Osborne; the set of the human’s jaw shifted, and he seemed to loosen a little, though he was still tense.

“Well met, sir, madam,” he grunted, and nodded brusquely.

“To business, then.” Biscuit had woven around to Collingwood’s other side, and she had begun to knead her big paws in a tangle of wool blanket. “I am more than willing to work with you and your wife, Mr. Ibutatu, but I am uncertain as to how much help I can be. I presume that Mr. Rowland and Mr. Wheeler,” and he nodded at Aiden, “have enlightened you as to the nature of our problem.”

Rowland nodded.

“I would ordinarily not hesitate to cast through backlash,” Norton went on weakly, brushing his knuckles over Biscuit’s flank, “but I am somewhat – indisposed, as a result of the accident. I do not know the extent of the damage, but I inhaled a great deal of smoke, enough to render me unconscious for a time. Walking the perimeter of this office, at the moment, is a magister’s labor. Moreau, my engineer, might ordinarily have sufficed for the spellwork, but unfortunately, he has taken his staff and – as Mr. Marlin might put it – dusted.”

Biscuit curled up at his side and began licking the tangled white curls at her belly. Collingwood scratched behind her ears. “It is my intent to be as useful to yourselves and to my King as I can, Mr. and Mrs. Ibutatu, but I fear we are in quite the fix.”

[moralhazard]

Evening, Hamis 21, 2716
Breckenridge Refinery, Outskirts of the Rose

The light from the lantern flickered over the distant shapes beyond – caught on a large chamber, tucked somewhere back behind the heavy pipe that crowded the narrow entryway into the mess of machinery. That, Aremu thought, would be the conversion chamber. If it was cracked –

Better not to think too far ahead, the imbala told himself. He took the knife at his belt and tucked it against the small of his back, letting it dig into his skin, and stood ready at the edge of the pipe, against the spot with the most space already.

“If you find any tools,” he told Marlin back over his shoulder, glancing up at the parse, “wrenches, screwdrivers, tape – anything – bring them here. I don’t know what I’ll need.”

Tom eased past him, the bulk of him filling the narrow space, and Aremu felt the brush of warmth from the other man as if they’d touched, flitting over his skin in the dim. Aremu did not shiver, but it was a near thing, and he watched Tom in the darkness, the lamplight glinting on his hair, a few strands wisping free to float against his face.

You’ll go under it, Tom had said, and I’ll have to follow. Aremu hadn’t expected – he was not sure what he had expected. He had nodded, and had not asked why, although he had wanted to. Tom didn’t flinch away from him, either, and Aremu wondered, but he did not ask then either, and he did not read anything into it. Better not to assume Tom was comfortable; better to hope the man hadn’t thought too deeply about being in an enclosed space with him.

There was no way to tell him, was there? No way to say – I am harmless, in the way you might fear. I will not hurt you, if my diablerie activates; at worst, I should be disoriented, but no harm will –

It was an idle fantasy, Aremu told himself. He did not know what Tom knew; he did not know what he would have to explain. There was not time to sit around and talk, and likely he would be imposing on the other man; likely Tom did not care to know. But – I’ll have to follow, Tom had said, and Aremu did not think he had sounded reluctant.

He had not realized he was looking at Tom, crouched against the pipe, until the man smiled at him, the light catching the silvery scars that bloody years must have carved into his face. Unbidden, Aremu grinned back, and then there was no more time for thought, Tom’s arms bulging with the strain of holding the pipe. He went; he did not hesitate, and he tucked himself beneath the heavy pipe and dug his fingers into the ground and pulled himself along, booted toes digging in to push him flat.

He felt the tug of fabric as much as anything, a sudden jerk against the calf of his pants. Aremu grimaced and forced himself forward through whatever had caught him, and came free with a ripping sound and the feeling of a sharp ache through his skin. Then he was out from under the pipe and pulling himself upright, moving quickly away from the opening to make space. He grimaced, glancing down at the bloody smear of fabric on his left calf, and slowly steadied his weight, taking more and more of it on the leg until he could be sure it was only the skin which had torn.

Aremu turned back to wait for Tom, then – took a step forward, and then another, not close enough to crowd him, but close enough that when Tom emerged he would be there.

And then he thought better of It – thought better of his foolishness – and he turned away and took began to make his way down the corridor of machinery, long and thin, a tangle of pipes and containers on either side. Light trickled in through high windows above, enough for Aremu to trace out the shape of them – here and there, connections were severed, but most of it was intact, not blown apart like the plot.

And there, at the end of it –

Aremu traced his fingers over the conversion chamber, and grinned, relieved. No cracks. He reached all the way around it, wriggled himself around the smooth sides and checked every bit of it that he could touch, running fingers and palms over all the parts he couldn’t see.

“No cracks,” he said, and grinned back at Tom, letting out a shaky breath of laughter and trying not to feel too relieved that the other man had made it through – that the other man was there, with him, in the midst of all this. “Hulali’s tits, we might pull this off,” Aremu pulled back, rubbing his face with his hand, and turned back to survey the equipment on either side of Tom, running his tongue over his teeth as he tried to make sense of the work to come.

Biscuit, Uzoji thought, and he smiled. It must have been even harder for Collingwood to breathe, bent over like that to stroke the cat’s back. He felt Niccolette shift impatiently beside him, and he set his hand gently into the small of her back, and she stilled. She glanced at him, but he did not meet her eyes, his own gaze focused on Collingwood, and she followed his lead and looked forward as well.

Uzoji grinned, broadly, at the dry little edge to Collingwood’s words. Niccolette inclined her head in a light acceptance of his apology, and shrugged her shoulders.

“We understand their caution,” Uzoji said, dismissively. “Well met, Osborne,” he remembered that that what was Tom had called him. He had thought, for a moment, of mentioning Tom Cooke, but he decided against it; he did not quite know the shape of their relationship, and it seemed to him an unnecessary risk to take, just now.

"I am not a man who gives up easily," Uzoji told Collingwood, and he smiled. "We are here - two more of my colleagues have gone to your equipment, including our engineer. Perhaps there is nothing we can do, in the end, but it won't be for lack of trying."

It was Niccolette Uzoji looked at, now, waiting; he could feel it in her stillness that she had something to say. She had no grimoires with her, of course, and she was not a healer, but -

“I have made something of a study of lungs of late,” Niccolette said, with such careful nonchalance that Uzoji felt the words like a blow. “Perhaps there is something I can do. I should like to start with a quantitative cast…” she trailed off, lightly, and raised her eyebrows, waiting for Collingwood to give her permission.

When he did, Niccolette would settle herself, still, and began to cast. Uzoji listened, and he wondered; he had seen her studying more quantitative spells, these last few months. They had not talked about it, that night – what spells she had cast, how well they had worked or not worked – but he wondered why, and he thought perhaps he would ask, in the end. He thought he could handle that knowledge; he thought it would be good for her to know he could handle that knowledge.

Niccolette’s field was not as powerful in quantitative conversation, but it was etheric in the air around them nonetheless. She curled the spell, and waited, and grimaced, faintly. She did not ask for permission a second time, but began to cast again; Uzoji lost track of the specialized vocabulary quickly enough, but it was clear to him that she was trying a different approach, this time, a different set of questions.

This time, Niccolette grinned when it was over, her eyes tracing over Collingwood and settling without hesitation or reticence on his chest. “Yes,” she murmured to herself, thoughtfully. She was silent a moment longer, and Uzoji was aware that they were all looking at her – and aware, too, of the sharpening of her field, the steady sigiling of it, and the faint sensation of heat centered at Niccolette.

“Yes. There is a spell I can try,” The Bastian said, crisply, looking at Collingwood. “You shall need something… some basin,” she shrugged, glancing around. “As if for vomiting. It will not be pleasant. You are ready?”

Uzoji was grinning, slightly; he loved to watch her cast. It was rare that she healed; it was rare that he had the opportunity to sit and observe her, doing nothing himself – no fighting, no screams, no airship wheel in his hand – only his wife, beautiful and terrible all at once. He did not mingle his field with hers in front of Collingwood – not when she was about to cast – but he could feel the living mona becoming ready in the air around her.

When Collingwood was ready, Niccolette began to cast. She spoke each word of monite carefully, slowly and deliberately, with the same flawless precision as usual. Uzoji doubted anyone else would be aware of the tight concentration on her face, and he wondered if she had ever cast this spell before; he wondered if she had even so much as practiced the words. Whatever the truth, she cast without reluctance or hesitation, and hazy energy streamed from her to fill Collingwood’s mouth and nostrils, more and more soaking into him, as if he were breathing it deep into his lungs.

Uzoji, who had been on the receiving end of more than one of Niccolette’s spells, felt a faint sympathy for the collected, polite, controlled galdor. Being healed by Niccolette was rarely a dignified sort of affair; she was as merciless a healer as she was in all her casting, and it very much felt like it. Still, Uzoji thought, cheerfully, one could hardly deny the results.

Rolls

Aremu goes beneath the pipe: SidekickBOTToday at 3:11 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (2) = 2
Quantitative cast 1: SidekickBOTToday at 3:11 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (1) = 1
Quantitative cast 2: SidekickBOTToday at 3:12 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4
Lung clearing spell: SidekickBOTToday at 8:50 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (2) = 2

[Tom Cooke]

Breckenridge Refinery • The Rose

Evening on the 21st of Hamis, 2716

Tom was so busy keeping track of himself, keeping track of the brace of his legs against the floor and the bulk of the pipe and his fingers on it — it was warm, he kept thinking, that prickling, charged kind of warm, and his hands were getting clammy, and they’d start slipping — he barely felt Aremu pass underneath, a soundless shadow, a breath. Someone’d poured liquid fire over him, and his blood was roaring in his ears, and he just about forgot to take a breath.

And it wasn’t yet time to breathe, not even when he knew Aremu’d come and gone; he knew if he even let himself think about dropping it, his muscles would all turn to jelly, and he had one more thing to do. Still unthinking, unblinking, he shifted his weight, shifted his grip. Eased himself under, around. Floaters washed the lantern light black like a swarm of bugs; he saw nothing.

For a moment, he’d thought he wouldn’t fit, but he got through. The heavy groan of metal and the jarring thunk of it against the floor told him he’d laid the pipe down, though he didn’t know when or how he’d done it. He knew it felt tsuter when the weight came off him, like he was a spring that’d broken. He just stood there, the blood draining out of his head, and massaged his shoulder and worked his muscles gingerly. They felt bruised; he’d pulled one in his lower back. But, he thought clearly, he’d kept his promise.

He could see, and the first thing he noticed, again, was a vein of gold at his feet, a line thin as a thread coming out from under the fallen pipes. Sagging against the bulk of a machine, he traced it as it split into two, then many, blooming out and around the machinery, a snaking web of a plot – blooming and breaking, blasted like outside. Damned hot in here, he thought, pressing the heel of his palm to his sweaty brow. The hairs on the backs of his arms were standing on end.

He remembered, then; chills still crawling their way up his spine, he followed the broken gold lines up the narrow corridor, up toward the slim, dark shape edging its way round a big tank at the end of it.

But Uzoji’s engineer – our brother – was turning back, and there was a grin spread across his face. Tom managed a lopsided grin in return; he didn’t move from his place. “I don’t know shit about how any of it works,” he shot back in a low, easy tone, “but I reckon that’s good news, hey?” No cracks in the – whatever that was, he thought. Nothing’d blow up, then, would it?

Still smiling reflexively, he looked up and about him, easy-like, studying the shapes of ridges and vents and switches in the half-light. Aremu was still in the corner of his eye. He was coming back up the hall, and Tom didn’t move any as he got closer.

Neck prickling, Tom shuffled a boot; he was standing on top of the plot, the brass still intact in its groove. Seemed like he couldn’t put the soles of his boots anywhere he wasn’t stepping on a line.

Tom jumped, then, ‘cause he heard a voice pipe up from someplace he couldn’t see. He heard it again, then, and realized it was the parse’s. Maybe a pina too quick, grateful for the distraction, he ducked his head and maneuvered himself awkwardly back up the corridor, toward the fallen pipe. There was a little dark space above it, and Tom addressed the space: “What’s that, kov?”

“Found somethin’,” cut Marlin’s thin, reedy voice through the warm air. “Ne chen, but it looks like it might’ve broke off somethin’. Some kind o’ handle.”

Silence. “You want to pass it over?”

A scrape, then a clattering of feet, then a grunt. Then, in just a handful of seconds, the faint light from above – the warm lanternlight from below – was glinting on an arc of metal in the space above the pipe, clenched in long, knobbly fingers and the thin crook of a wrist. “Mujo ma,” called Tom absently, taking it and turning away.

Looked like most of a tiny wheel, with just a fragment gone from the bottom and one of the spokes. Tom turned it over in his hands, finding the space, right in the middle, where it’d fit into something. Frowning, he sucked at his crooked eye-tooth, then looked back up the corridor.

Aremu was just a step closer, studying the machines that Tom’d just been near. It struck him, again – struck his swimming head, still frazzled from the clench of picking up that pipe – the rainy light swimming down through the dust motes, the strange geometric tangles of pipes above, just limning his shoulders. Tom wanted to come closer, to – he didn't know. He felt a tug.

Blinking, he glanced down, and noticed for the first time that Aremu’s pants must’ve snared on something. He thought he could see a dark glisten at his calf, like blood.

Cautious-like, sidling round the bulge of some kind of vat and drawing up his big shoulders, he followed the glittering line of the plot to Aremu’s side. Again, he studied Aremu’s profile, then held out the knob. “Marlin found some kind of – looks like it might’ve broke off somethin’,” he fumbled, then – paused, his dark eyes fixed on the passive’s face, his dark brow drawn. They flicked down to his bloodied leg, then back up. “What d’you need me to do?” he asked more softly, and there was concern in his voice; he said it like you’d say, Are you all right?

Not a man who gives up easily.

No, Norton supposed; the sort of man who comes, himself, to check on the production of the aetherium he needs – whom Norton can picture talking down an angry Rowland, a stubborn Merlo – who enters another Brother’s sprawling territory, uninvited and unannounced, without a clue what to expect – this is not, indeed, a man who gives up easily. The thought of it did not diminish the smile on his face as he regarded the Ibutatus, one brow quirked a little, his eyes glittering, glittering, as he ran a hand absently over Biscuit’s flank.

And then, he thought: why? A plot, he thought, with a brief glance toward Ms. Ibutatu. A plot for what? He was merely the supplier; distribution not his business, and the names of the hands his aetherium fell into – and their designs – were seldom ever known to him. But this only made the matter more curious.

Ibutatu, he thought. He knew the name, but he didn’t know how he knew it. Our engineer, he’d said. A crew, then. A plot for – an aeroship?

“Well!” Collington’s hand drifted away from the cat; he gestured. “I can hardly thank you enough, although I can only hope that your engineer can make sense of the –” His soft voice faltered; he could feel it, moving in his lungs, and he wheezed, and stifled another cough against his fist. “The mess,” he went on, rasping, “Moreau has left for them.”

Osborne didn’t seem wont to sit again, though he’d backed up, just a little. Collingwood was grateful for that. He didn’t think he had the energy to talk Osborne down again; when Ms. Ibutatu spoke again – of her study of lungs – with all of them feeling the glow of the living mona in her field, not at all the field of a healer, he knew that he would need Osborne to do exactly as he was told, and to stay out of the way.

When she trailed off, he simply waved his hand. This, he imagined, was the easy part. Though he was unfamiliar with the quantitative conversation, he could follow the Monite; he sat still on the bed as the mona stirred in the air around them, and he felt the tug. Then, Ms. Ibutatu was grinning, and looking at his chest.

Collingwood simply smiled back. He had thought he might have to smooth things over – this Niccolette, with her clipped manner and her Bastian accent, could not have been ingratiating herself to his men – but he was pleased to find Osborne already in motion. There was, of course, a metal bowl within reach, tucked under the desk, though he had not had need of it in nearly a week.

Ah, well.

Osborne handed him the bowl. He held it in his lap, shutting his eyes and rallying himself. He nodded, and the Bastian began to cast again, and this time, the stirring of the mona was stronger. The words took a shape he vaguely recognized; he knew, he thought grimly, what she was asking of the mona. Then he felt the tug of it, the weight in the air, rasping against his ley lines where the backlash had made them tender. Then he felt it in his throat, and then in his chest, tickling, then fire – then he could not think or feel much of anything.

It was as if he were being compelled to sneeze out the entirety of his lungs. He was already raw from all the coughing he had done over the last two weeks. With an awful, gagging, snorting noise, he bent over the bowl and hawked up phlegm, and more phlegm, and more phlegm. He squeezed his burning eyes shut, feeling a few tears trail down his cheeks.

At first, it was thick and very dark, like smoke or dried blood, Norton thought; by the last, it had cleared to a strange, watery sort of grey, though it was still clouded.

Finally, he found he could breathe without coughing. He felt that his throat had been scraped bare. His good hand trembling on the rim of the bowl, he raised his head up and opened his eyes, squinting, flinching. His first sight, glimpsed through tears, was of John Osborne, staring at him with something like terror. He turned. Rowland and Aiden were both somewhat further from the galdor couple than they had been.

Collingwood swabbed more tears out of his eyes, until he could see clearly, and then drew in a shuddering, pained breath. It was easier; he could still feel movement, wetness, but it was easier. Trying not to look at the mess in the bowl in his lap, he forced a smile back onto his face and met Ms. Ibutatu’s eye. “My thanks, madame,” he tried, but it came out somewhere between a croak and a whisper.

[moralhazard]

Evening, Hamis 21, 2716
Breckenridge Refinery, Outskirts of the Rose

Tom looked drained, Aremu thought, and he wondered. “Very good,” he said, instead of asking, and grinned a little wider.

The conversion chamber was the most important part, but there were all the rest of the bits of machinery to look to as well. Aremu traced the paths in and out of the chamber with his gaze, following them along the lines of the hallway. He didn’t fully understand the chemistry of the process, and he certainly didn’t understand the magical aspects of it – this was no airship – but he could trace the rough pattern of the machinery, and he could see where most of it was meant to connect.

Oddly, Aremu thought, it looked a bit like – it was hard to describe. It was as if someone had stripped away the edge bits, as if a child having a tantrum had come in and ripped off what they could reach of the machinery. There was, so far as he could tell, very little in the way of deeper damage. He suspected it was sacrilegious, to compare the mona to a child throwing a tantrum, but that was, in all honesty, how it looked: more messy than bad, superficial damage, at least for the majority of it.

He came a little closer to Tom, slowly, because the man was standing in front of a cooling tube, and he thought it was a relief to both of them when Marlin’s voice came distant from the pipe, and Tom could go off to talk to him. Aremu stopped in front of the chamber, frowning lightly, and reached out to run his fingers on the bolt that held the pipe in place. Cracked, he thought, and wrapped his hand around the pipe and gave it a tug, firmly. It didn’t yield. Aremu inhaled, and pulled again, harder, with his full strength. It didn’t yield.

He let go, and wiped his hand idly on his pants. Hard to tell, but he thought it’d hold. It’d need to be replaced, but not tonight.

Tom’s voice startled him, and Aremu turned, sharply; he hadn’t expected him so close. His gaze flickered down to the knob, then back up to Tom’s face. Up, he thought, and up. They had not stood so close together, tonight – he had scarcely realized just how… tall, Tom was. His features were as human at this distance as any, but – Aremu was much more aware of the bulk of him than he had been.

“Thank you,” Aremu took the knob, frowning lightly at the little handwheel. His fingers had just brushed Tom's palm, just the edges of them, callused fingertips against callused skin. He felt Tom’s gaze drop, and his dropped with it, down to the bloody tear on his leg. Tom asked what he could do, and Aremu was abruptly conscious of a softness in his voice, a gentleness he hadn’t expected. Abruptly conscious, too, of how much it –

Aremu eased back, one step, and then another, until he was far enough that – if he’d been a galdor – Tom wouldn’t’ve been able to feel his field. He turned away, back to the machinery, and frowned at a loose connection. He really did need a wrench, he thought.

Aremu shrugged, lifting one hand to rub his bare head, the other still holding the handwheel, not quite sure what to say. He didn’t know – Tom’d said himself he didn’t know much about this. Aremu glanced around, and back at the human, and wanted, so badly, to say –

“It follows a line,” Aremu said, abruptly. He pointed, slowly, to the place where it started, on one side of the pipes Tom had lifted. “There,” he traced along the path the pipes should have followed, down past them, back to the chamber at the end of the little machinery pathway, and back out the other side, to where the last of the pipes vanished into the wall, and lowered his hand, feeling oddly foolish.

“To start,” Aremu said, slowly, glancing down at the floor. Here and there, he saw a few more bits and pieces – as if they’d blown off the machines under some pressure, scattered with the same force the plot had. “See if you can find anything else like this.” He set the handwheel down on a low tank. “We’ll leave them here.”

Aremu went himself to a little box he’d seen, and crouched down, opening it. He grinned in triumph, tracing his fingers over a wrench and screwdriver, and took them both, carrying the wrench in his hand and holding the screwdriver between his teeth. He went back to where he’d showed Tom, where the line began, and crouched, and started to work, clenching the wrench tight around a loosened bolt and beginning to push, tightening it back into place.

Niccolette curled the spell, and Uzoji had felt that the mona were a little sluggish in the air around her, slow and hesitant to respond. He wondered what, exactly, she had been doing in the ship – if she had been casting already tonight. She’d failed one spell already that evening, outside, and her first quantitative spell had been an utter disaster; he wondered.

Niccolette finger-combed her hair back from her face, and watched Collingwood, expressionless, as he coughed up what seemed like the better part of his lungs into the bowl, tears rolling down his cheeks. Uzoji winced, sympathetically, but held, coughing only once in sympathy.

Collingwood opened his eyes, and did his best to breathe, looking more than a little uncomfortable, and claimed his dignity once more.

“I think it best to do the spell again,” Niccolette said, nonchalantly, looking at Collingwood. “When you are ready, of course,” she shrugged.

When Collingwood gave his consent, Niccolette would begin to cast again. Uzoji felt the mona swirl in the air around her – swirl, and begin to heat, and then gutter out like a candle’s fickle flame. She curled the spell, but it was obvious to him – likely to Collingwood as well – that the spell would not work, long before she had finished it. Nothing happened.

“Beloved,” Uzoji began, very gently, his gaze lingering on the trickle of blood seeping slowly from one of Niccolette’s nostrils.

“Shut up!” Niccolette snapped. “Not one godsdamned word – “ she turned and pushed past Rowland and Aiden both – it was not hard, Uzoji noted, as neither seemed terribly interested in staying in her path – and fled the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

Uzoji held there briefly, and bowed politely to Collingwood. “Give us a moment, please,” he said with an easy smile, and followed Niccolette out into the hallway. Perhaps, he thought, it was for the best; no one in the room looked in the least easy. Niccolette’s field must be rather difficult for a human to bear, he supposed, particularly when etheric. Normally he wasn’t quite so concerned about whether they found it comfortable; the humans who tended to join airship crews were, generally, more comfortable than the average around heavy-casting galdori.

Uzoji went out into the hallway, and followed Niccolette down it, slowly. She had gone back – not out to the floor, but the other way, down to the end of the hallway where a small, dusty window let in a little bit of light, the rain splattering steadily against it. Her hands were knotted in her dress, and she was shaking, and he could see tears trickling down her cheeks in the faint light.

“My shores and tide,” Uzoji whispered. “Why are you crying?” He reached for her, gently, and held not quite touching her, to see if she would twist away. She did not – she turned into him, instead, and grabbed hold, and he felt her shaking against his chest, her head tucked down and her face pressed into the place where his shoulder met his neck, beneath the collar of his jacket.

Uzoji held her close, and stroked her back gently with his hand, and Niccolette cried against him.

“I am fine, beloved,” Uzoji whispered. “I am fine.”

Niccolette sobbed, breathless, but her hands tightened further in his shirt, and he understood. He did not speak again, but he let her cry it out, pressing a soft kiss to her dark hair.

Niccolette sniffled, shaking, and pulled away, slowly, looking at him. She tried to smile, and failed, but the upset had smoothed from her field, and he thought the irritation of it against his skin was less. She grimaced, and wiped at the smear of blood she’d left behind on his shirt.

Uzoji grinned, and twitched his jacket to cover it, and pressed his lips to hers, without the faintest indication that he could taste the nosebleed.

“I’ll wear it with pride,” he promised.

Niccolette laughed, wetly, and her shoulders trembled. He offered her a handkerchief, and she took it, sniffled, and wiped clear her nose – patted her eyes dry, and leaned against him with a little sigh.

“Well,” Uzoji said, softly.

Niccolette sighed. “What is there to say?” She pushed her hair back up and out of her face.

“More than you’d like to, I think,” Uzoji said, tangling his fingers in hers. He lifted their hands to his lips, and kissed her knuckles, softly.

Niccolette’s eyes lingered on his hand. She took it – in both of hers, and turned it over, tracing her fingers over the scarring in the light. “I came so close to losing you,” she whispered. “I did not know it would be so hard, coming to do this again,” she was shaking slightly, trembling like the fragile thing she wasn’t.

Uzoji nodded, slowly. “Can you do it?” He asked, and did not pull his hand away. He was not ashamed of the scarring, and he flexed his fingers, lightly, not making any attempt to hide it.

“Can I – ” Niccolette’s head snapped up, and her eyes flared in the dim, and then she caught herself, and she scowled, and let go of his hand to shove at him lightly. “Of course I can,” she snapped.

Uzoji grinned. “It’s all right if it’s hard, beloved. There’s no need to push yourself. I’d rather have you healthy than all the aetherium in the world,” he stroked her cheek, gently.

Niccolette nuzzled a little into his hand, and sighed. “I do not think we are leaving at dawn,” she told him.

“I know,” Uzoji kissed her cheek, her forehead – her lips, softly, once more, until she sighed a little, and curled closer against him. He grinned. “Any better?”

Niccolette made a little humph sort of noise, but she was grinning too. “I shall go to torture Collingwood again,” she said, almost cheerfully. “I think perhaps I have one more spell in me.”

Uzoji let her back into the office, and followed behind.

Niccolette glanced around, once, and then back at Collingwood, and she lifted her chin with the full strength of her considerable dignity, for all the world as if her upper lip were not smeared with blood, and her eyes no more red-rimmed than they had been before. “One last try,” she said, and Uzoji knew it as her form of an apology. There was nothing yielding or hesitant in her tone, though, and she fixed her gaze firmly on Collingwood, as if daring him to argue.

Niccolette held on grimly through the spell, her monite as careful and deliberate as ever. This time – her field seemed to trembled – but the spell caught, and it held, and energy streamed from her into Collingwood once more. If the air went steaming hot around them – if blood began to stream from Niccolette’s nose again – she curled the spell without issue, and she grinned, and pressed another of Uzoji’s handkerchiefs to her nose.

Uzoji could not imagine her more beautiful.

Rolls

Lung clearing spell, Attempt 1: SidekickBOTToday at 2:51 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (1) = 1
Extent (1-3 Backlash, 4-6 Failure): SidekickBOTToday at 2:51 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4
Lung clearing spell, Attempt 2: SidekickBOTToday at 3:06 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (2) = 2

[Tom Cooke]

Breckenridge Refinery • The Rose

Evening on the 21st of Hamis, 2716

Tom felt Aremu’s fingertips brush his palm as he took the rusty little valve. The light brushed the passive’s hand into focus, for just a moment, and Tom noticed the line of an old scar standing out against his dark skin; he noticed the dark shape of a scuff, maybe, a burn. Something in his chest tightened.

He reckoned he hadn’t expected him to send for gauze, or anything of that sort; he wasn’t surprised by Aremu’s response, not even when he stepped away, putting a few feet between them. Better that way, he reckoned.

When he glanced back at him, he couldn’t be sure of anything; he told himself it was because there wasn’t anything – because he couldn’t read his face in the half dark, because there wasn’t anything to read. Better that way, not wondering.

So he just shifted and crossed his arms, crowded in by piping and by the blasted jutting shapes of this or that machine, this or that vat or switch or sharp edge. He hunched up his shoulders and kept his head down, ’cause if he forgot, he was liable to bang his head on something, and he reckoned now wasn’t the time to knock himself out. His muscles were getting fair cramped, and he’d broke out into a sweat a long time ago.

He was pleased enough when Aremu’s soft voice gave him a job to do. He spared the back of the scrap’s head a glance, only just – he didn’t know how he took it, being looked at. With his eyes, he followed Aremu’s long finger to the end of the corridor, to the pipes that emerged from the rubble. He followed them, too, traced them down the passage, past the passive and toward the big metal vat at the end, past even it. He nodded, brow furrowing, then followed Aremu’s gesture to the bits and pieces scattered round the blasted floor, nestled among glittering scraps of inlay.

It was another awkward, shuffling dance, sidling round him as he took his tools and took his place at the start of the line he’d indicated. Tom was increasingly aware of his bulk in the tight squeeze, big-and-ugly-even-for-a-natt, and how Aremu’d looked up at him and moved away from him, and he thought –

His head was a mess of thoughts. They’d drained down into a kind of muddy mire. The tightness in his chest hadn’t let up; he felt it, looking back over his shoulder at Aremu, weaving easy-like through the machinery – least, that was how it looked to Tom – crouching with his tools and finding his focus. Grunting irritatedly, he kicked himself into a focus of his own: he forced himself to scan the scattered debris in the gloom, to concentrate through the aching in his shoulders.

He moved awkwardly down the line, crouching now and then to pick something up in his big hands, something small and rusty and broken, usually. He handled them all careful-like, or tried to. He left another handwheel on the tank, this one more intact; he hadn’t looked to see where Aremu was, or what he was working on.

He couldn’t avoid stepping on the plot, now, and if the fear of that burnt lightness in the air was still with him, he was beyond attending it. He knew what he should’ve been afraid of at the end of the hall, but he found he was afraid for all the wrong reasons.

Best to do the spell again. When you are ready, Collingwood thought, and shut his eyes, and drew the breath back into his aching lungs.

He supposed that one could never really be ready; that, or one was always ready for this sort of thing. Certainly it was better than the alternative – Uzoji and Niccolette Ibutatu having come for his head, suspecting him of betraying Hawke, carving a bloody path through his stubborn men before he could make them see sense. No. This was, if no more untoward surprises lurked around the corner, a shockingly favorable development. He would cough up his phlegm, and he would be quite grateful for it.

As she began to cast again, he ran his thumb over the rim of the bowl, its pad digging into the metal until the nail blanched. They all felt her field go etheric; he sat still, scarce daring to breathe in or out for fear that the spell would catch him in the middle of it.

The spell never came. Before he could catch himself, a little wince spasmed across Collingwood’s pale face. He doubted that any of his men could feel it, but he had; he had felt the mona flicker back down into complacency even before Mrs. Ibutatu had curled the spell. When he was sure that nothing would happen, he opened his eyes, meeting Osborne’s eye – catching a strange look from the human – before looking again toward Niccolette. If the dribble of blood at her nose surprised him, he was careful, this time, not to show it.

She was frustrated enough without his surprise. One of Collingwood’s eyebrows twitched, watching Uzoji move to placate her with little success. She turned on her heel and blazed out to the hall, and Aiden, the poor, big lad, flinched as if burned, even though he stood nowhere near her. “Of course,” murmured Collingwood, inclining his head to Uzoji.

Then, the five of them were alone. With a sigh, Collingwood set the filthy bowl aside on the bed.

Oblivious Biscuit was putting a tentative paw in Norton’s lap, rustling the gauze around his injured hand. He winced, but he let her climb up on his knees, scratching the fluff at her throat.

“Collie,” growled Osborne. He spared the bowl a glance, wrinkling his nose, then pulled up the chair by the bed again.

Collingwood hadn’t planned to say anything at all, in truth, until any of his men did. He gave Osborne a wan echo of his smile, raising his brows.

“Don’t you tell me you didn’t feel it.”

“Of course I felt it, John,” he replied. There was something playful in his tone; it was coupled with a firmness that brooked no argument.

Osborne’s jaw set.

Rowland shuffled. He’d been standing in one spot, sour-faced, since the galdori had left. “She was bleedin’ from her nose,” he put in after a pause. “An’ that first time, it took her two tries. I felt it. I did.”

The chair creaked as John Osborne straightened his back and squared his shoulders. There was something of the military man there, Norton thought, something of those elusive years in Mugroba he never spoke about; he rather warmed to see it. Of course, Osborne’s face had all the warmth of a tomb, but Collie knew concern in this man when he saw it. “With all due respect,” he went on, “sir,” and the word was like a blunt weapon, “what I felt before she finished casting – it was like enough to…”

Biscuit was growing disinterested; she hopped down from the bed, and Collingwood shifted. “It wasn’t backlash, John. Wasn’t even close.” His eyes lingered on each man in turn. “If you listen to me once, tonight, all of you, listen to me now. Out there is a practitioner of the living conversation” – he pronounced the words slowly – “of no small skill and experience, and regardless of what you see or what you think, you will permit her to cast on me.”

“Sir –”

“What would you suggest we do instead, Mr. Osborne? Mr. Rowland?”

Neither man spoke.

“Even if she were to backlash, we have no choice. You have no choice. But I believe that, Circle willing, with the aid of Mr. and Mrs. Ibutatu, we will get through tonight int–” It caught up with him, then, and he stumbled over the word and gurgled another cough. The spell must have stirred it all up, but not enough; he felt his eyes well up with tears, and he took in a breath. “Intact,” he rasped. “Which is more than any of us expected.”

None of them had time to reply, and Collingwood was sorry for it. The door opened, taking everyone’s attention with it. First came Niccolette, her upper lip still smeared with blood and her eyes looking a little red. Then Uzoji, behind her. Collingwood was polite enough not to linger on the stain at his shirt, but Aiden, Circle bless him, couldn’t seem to look away for a few seconds at least; there was a faintly dazed look on his youthful face.

Osborne stayed seated this time, looking grim but, Collingwood noted with relief, far from combative.

One last try. Collingwood said nothing. He lifted his chin, put the bowl back in his lap, and met Niccolette Ibutatu’s eye with as pleasant a smile as he could muster. As she began to cast again, Biscuit wandered over, still half in a stretch, tail flicking and swaying. The etheric flare of her field gave Biscuit pause, but not for long; soon, with the air full of Monite, she was winding herself around Niccolette’s legs, attempting to put as many long, mottled-brown hairs on her skirt as she could.

Norton didn’t have the privilege of observing this for long. Again, he felt the mona compel him to breathe, felt them fill up his lungs like breath – and then he felt the fire, and he was bent over the bowl, gagging out phlegm. His eyes blurred with more tears. Smoky-dark, at first; clouded with grey; then, almost – not quite, but almost – clear. Blood was coming out with it, and he hoped it was from his throat.

When it left him, his whole body ached. The muscles in his back were strained to screaming. For a moment, he clung to the bowl with his good hand, and he couldn’t look anywhere but the shadowy lump of his reflection in the metal, above the – slush.

A few shuddering breaths, and he was looking up at Mrs. Ibutatu again. There was hardly any point in wiping up the tears; more would come, and his face was blotchy and slick. Something dark glistened at his lips, and he wiped it away with mixed success. He couldn’t quite manage a smile for the other galdori, this time.

“My thanks again, Mrs. Ibutatu.” He was barely capable of a whisper. “If you wish me to cast, I may need – some time. I should not like to come to the mona until I am – somewhat less…”

The word rattled in his throat, and he spat up more into the bowl, shuddering. Osborne had been watching him, a look of deep concern in his eyes. He darted a glance at Niccolette, grinning – it would have been difficult to tell what his look meant, though it was grim – and then kept watching Collingwood, his brow knit.