Vengeance is a Cold Thing [Memory]

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For all of your traveling the open waters of Vita: Austan Ocean, Galkan Ocean, Quiet Sea, Cea di Vesta, and the Tincta Basta.

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Niccolette Ibutatu
Posts: 552
Joined: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:41 pm
Topics: 38
Race: Galdor
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Writer: moralhazard
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Thu Sep 05, 2019 2:44 pm

Late Night, 23rd Achtus 2716
The Eqe Aqawe, over the Tincta Basta
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"Ido not trust him,” Niccolette said, abruptly.

Uzoji groaned, turning to look at her. Niccolette realized he had been asleep only when his eyes took a few moments too long to open, only when he was slow to lift his head off the pillow.

She should have waited, Niccolette thought. She should have let him rest, but it was too late now. “Tsayu,” Niccolette propped herself up on her elbows and peered down at her husband. “I do not trust him.”

Uzoji groaned again, rubbing his face with one hand; Niccolette could see the faint pink scars over his palm, only just visible. “Beloved,” he eased himself back down against the cushion. “Because he is a wick? We’ve discussed this.”

“No,” Niccolette huffed. “Not because he is a wick. Because he is a fool. Because he is worse than a fool – he is a confident fool.”

“It's only been a few days,” Uzoji said. He closed his eyes again. “Just try to get some sleep, my moon and stars. I know it doesn’t feel like anyone will fill Aremu’s waterskin, but – give Tsayu a chance.”

Niccolette pursed her lips, but did not argue further. Uzoji shifted, his head settling into the pillow. His eyes flickered behind closed lids, shifting from side to side, and his breathing smoothed out, steady and even, his chest rising and falling, evenly and deeply, beneath the heavy blanket. Light from the stars outside shone through the closed shutters. For a moment, Niccolette worried the coming dawn would wake him – wondered if she ought to close the shutters entirely, to seal the light out and make sure her husband could sleep.

The ship shifted, turned in the night, and a shaft of moonlight spilled across Uzoji’s face, sharp pale light cutting over his cheek and lips. Niccolette watched, hardly daring to blink; the ship moved again, and the light spilled up, over his forehead, and up along the wall over the bed. Uzoji never moved, never changed the soft, even rhythm of his breath.

Niccolette watched him a long moment, knowing she should not – knowing she should get up, to close the window and left him rest. Then, instead, slowly, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his forehead, a soft faint brush of her lips against his. Uzoji shifted slightly – exhaled a soft sigh of a breath – his eyelids fluttered, long lashes shifting against his cheeks, and he did not wake.

Niccolette eased herself out of the bed, slowly and carefully. She made her way over the shifting floor, feeling the gentle rocking of the currents, and pressed the shutters closed, glancing back over her shoulder at the gentle click. There was no movement from the bed, no shift from her husband. Carefully, shivering a little now, Niccolette made her way back to the bed, and tucked herself back beneath the blankets. She watched Uzoji a few moments more, not daring to touch him with now-cold hands, until her shivering eased.

Slowly, slowly, the Bastian settled back down against her pillow. Her eyes closed as well, and soon she was off, soaring with him on the currents of a dream.


Niccolette woke to a sharp jerk, a feeling like she was flying. She felt her body shift free from the bed, and she screamed aloud.

Hard arms wrapped around her, and Niccolette felt herself pulled close to Uzoji’s chest; they landed hard on the ground in a tangle of blankets, his body beneath hers. He grunted, shuddering.

The ship leveled out; for a moment, the world was silent, too silent; some distant noise she could not name was missing, but Uzoji’s breath was rasping in his chest. She could feel his heart pounding through her.

“What the flooding fuck?” Uzoji grumbled, his voice thick with sleep in her ear.

Niccolette could have cried; she could have wept. “What was that?” She asked instead, pushing her hair sleepily from her face. It was a struggle to get her arm free; the room was all darkness, and they were thoroughly wrapped up in the blankets tumbled free of the bed. Niccolette could see they were on the floor.

“I’m not sure. You’re all right?” Uzoji’s hands skimmed down her body, lingering for just a moment.

Niccolette laughed, more reassured than she knew how to put to words. “Yes, yes.” She kissed Uzoji’s cheek – then his lips, just once. “Go, beloved. I shall come when I am decent.”

“Yes,” Uzoji grinned at her, his hand cupping her cheek. Then he was moving; he shifted her deeper into the blankets and rose, moving easily across the shifting floor. He pulled on a pair of pants and shrugged a coat over his bare chest, hardly pausing his steps. In a moment, he was gone, out of the room and halfway down the hallway already.

It was a few moments before Niccolette joined them in the control room, fully dressed in a shirt and trousers, wearing a jacket tailored for her frame. 

“ - bird, probably,” Chibugo said, voice tense. He stood at the heavy wooden wheel that controlled the ship, shifting against the rocking ground. His hands were clenched tight on the spokes, knuckles bulging against his skin. The Mugrobi was sweating despite the cold; the ship lurched, and he strained against it, cursing fluidly in Mugrobi before dropping into steady, even monite, his field etheric as he wove a static spell.

Uzoji stepped away, crossing the room to Niccolette. He was frowning, his whole body taut with tension. “The starboard propeller is gone,” he said, quietly, glancing back over his shoulder.

The other two members of the crew were at the instrument panels, Tsayu fumbling with something and Willie murmuring a low steady stream of monite, his voice echoing beneath Chibugo’s. His eyes were fixed on the horizon as he kept up the quantitative cast. His fingers tangled in his curly mop of red hair, his freckled face a grimace.

Niccolette followed Uzoji’s gaze to the massive glass window that wrapped around the front of the ship, curved and polished clean. The instrument panels in front of it trembled in another gust of waves, and the chimes outside were spinning madly against the glass, tinkling loudly enough to be heard inside. Past it, against the starlit night, Niccolette could see heavy black storm clouds, lightning dancing between them, swallowing up the bottom half of the horizon.

“Fuck,” the Bastian whispered.

“Hulali‘s flooding tits!” Chibugo curled his spell and switched fluidly back to cursing. “I can’t fucking hold it, this godsbedamned wind is -“

It felt as if the bottom flew out of the world. The ship dropped towards the storm, the nose diving sharply; Niccolette screamed, stumbling sideways. Uzoji caught her, one hand wrapping in her coat as the other grabbed the straps of a nearby chair. He yelled a syllable of monite, and Niccolette felt the mona pull her into him, right to his chest.

Niccolette shuddered, Uzoji’s arms wrapped around her.

Chibugo was casting as fast as he could, pumping one of the levers to the side of the wheel, his other hand straining against it. He curled the cast, sagging, ashen-faced with exhaustion. “I can’t level us,” he choked out, shaking. “The current -“

They were still dropping; the world outside seemed to be soaring past. Niccolette felt her ears pop, and she grimaced, shaking her head. Tsayu let out a yelp of pain, doubling over against the instrument panel, one hand clutched to his ear.

Uzoji’s arms were wrapped around her. “Hold on,” he whispered, his lips brushing Niccolette’s temple.

Niccolette squeezed her eyes shut, her breath rasping in her throat, burying her face  in her husband’s neck. She felt him swallow; she felt his field flex around her, felt the weight of the physical mona he called on, felt it etheric and ramscott. She felt his words echo through her -

And the ship shuddered, and jerked sideways, out of the down draft.

Chibugo was all but sobbing, shaking at the wheel. He gasped for breath. “I can’t -“

Uzoji squeezed Niccolette’s arms with his hands and left her against the seat, crossing the room. His hands closed over the spikes of the wheel, and Chibugo let go, stumbling back and dropping into a chair, sitting as if his legs had given out. He groaned, his face still ashen.

Uzoji’s hands held; now it was he who strained at the wheel, pitting his strength against the currents outside.

Willie was casting again - still? Niccolette did not know how he could have kept it up - and he stepped next to Uzoji’s, clasping his shoulder with one hand and using the other to point, sketching a route through the sky. Uzoji shifted the ship, following it, avoiding the dangerous spiking storm now terribly close to them.

Willie curled the spell, and exhaled, long and slow. “Clocking fuck,” he said.

Uzoji snorted. “What, this storm?” He grinned, tightening his grasp on the wheel. Niccolette thought, watching him, that the clouds would do well to beware.

“Willie, I need you to cast,” Uzoji said; the redhead was already chanting, opening another quantitative spell. “Tsayu, get outside - we need to know how bad the damage is. I’ll need to you – ”

“Outside?” The wick straightened up, lowering his hand with a wince. “I can’t ‘ave flooding heard you right - outside in this fuckin’ storm? I ent dyin’ today!”

“Strap in,” Uzoji said, coldly. “We’ll keep the ship from dropping again. We need to get the flooding fuck away from this storm, and that means -“

“Ne, ne, ne,” Tsayu shook his head, winced again. “Ne floodin’ way.”

Uzoji gritted his teeth. “It’s not your call,” he said.

“Yaka, iora,” Tsayu said, “but I ent goin’.”

The ship shuddered again, and Uzoji cursed, violently. He turned to Willie as the Anaxi finished his cast, and the two conversed in quick low voices; Willie’s hand reached out and traced something against the night sky. Uzoji nodded, fixing his eyes on it, then turned back to Willie. Niccolette did not pull her gaze from Tsayu, her lips pressed tightly together. She did not listen to what her husband said, but she heard the force of command in his voice.

“You got it, Captain,” Willie hurried from the room, his small pale face set and tight.

“Wait for my signal,” Uzoji called. He turned back to Tsayu, his face hardening. “To the engine, then,” he snapped. “The last godsbedamned thing we need is overheating.”

Tsayu left, the door banging noisily shut behind him. For a moment, the command center was silent, but for the banging of the chimes against the window, the soft creaking of the ship around them, Chibugo’s faint wheezing breath already easing into sleep.

“Adrenaline?” Niccolette asked, quietly.

“Yes,” Uzoji sagged against the wheel, as if his grip there was the only thing keeping him standing. He swallowed, hard, and held fast the wheel with one pink-scarred hand, his other reaching to adjust the levers.

Niccolette watched him for a long moment. She held back the urge to touch his forehead with her lips; she did not press her ear to his chest. She kept from whispering a quantitative spell, kept from asking the mona to reveal his truth to her.

Uzoji did not need her concern, Niccolette knew. He did not need the fear that beat too-quick in her chest. He needed her strength; more than that, he needed her not to doubt his. And so, with a deep breath, Niccolette began to cast, slow, deliberate monite filling the air.

Many healing spells were a balancing act, within the body itself and between the body and the healer. There was only so far one could push the body in healing without risking weakening it; there was only so much a healer could put into a spell without risking themselves. There were recorded cases of an injured person being healed fully, from near death to the peak of health, but such spells were dangerous beyond words. They needed plots; they needed deliberate time and care, careful slow wording. They needed a strong caster, who did not mind being unable to cast further. Even so, such injuries would not heal as well as those in a body which had been left to improve itself slowly over months – many months, sometimes. And yet, at times such slowness was impossible.

And so - a balancing act. In Niccolette’s classes at Brunnhold, adrenaline spells had been used to teach the concept. A conversationalist could give themselves a sudden, huge burst of strength and energy, but to do it quickly, one had to borrow from the body’s future. It meant a time of collapse - perhaps immediately, perhaps further down the line. Casting on oneself only heightened the dilemma; it ruled out many of the stronger options, especially for beginning conversationalists, as those spells might sufficiently fatigue you to frustrate whatever the adrenaline was needed for.

Niccolette was no beginning conversationalist, and today she did not cast on herself. She had flown enough to know better than to exhaust herself fully; there was no crisis aboard an airship that could not swiftly be followed by another. But the spell she wove for Uzoji was subtle and soft, as delicate as the Bastian could manage, and powerful too, using the fullness of her strength. Niccolette reached into herself, took her energy and her will, and bore down on the mona, somewhere between asking and demanding. They took that strength, hammered it to raw energy, and fed it into her husband.

The air heated slowly around Niccolette, hazy energy seeping out of her to fill the full extent of her field. As she built the spell, block upon block of monite, the energy streamed from her to sink into Uzoji’s. It coated the entirety of him, and seeping slowly into his skin. He let out a pained grunt at the first touch of it, hands tightening on the wheel - and then, slowly, he relaxed. Even more slowly, he straightened up, breathing deep, his shoulders pulling back, his chest expanding. Color returned to his cheeks.

Niccolette was still casting when Uzoji began his own spell. The Bastian tempered hers, easing it in beneath and around his, their etheric fields flexing together. She kept her eyes fixed solidly on Uzoji’s back, not daring to listen to the words he spoke. 

Niccolette curled her spell, and held the upkeep of it, lips pressed taut together. Uzoji’s hands turned the wheel; he reached for the levers, smooth and gentle and steady, with all his usual easy grace. He reached up, and pulled at a long cord that ran along the ceiling, giving it a hard yank. Still Niccolette held, tucking trembling hands in against her chest. Uzoji’s voice filled the air, strong and steady, and Niccolette felt the airship lift and veer to the side, fighting the storm winds to sail off into the dark sky.

Uzoji curled his spell.

Niccolette shuddered and released her upkeep, breathing hard. She fumbled for the chair and sank into it, taking a few slow, deep breaths.

“Beloved?” Uzoji asked, his voice still strong - but soft, too, gentle and warm. Niccolette felt his field reach back for her, flexing out.

“I am well,” Niccolette promised, her smile echoing in her voice, meeting his strength with her vibrancy. “And you? The spell should last for some time.”

“Never better,” Uzoji laughed, fierce and joyful. “We have the current Willie spotted; we can ride this past the storm without needing the propellers further.”

Niccolette watched the dark sky before them; she did not look at the lightning dancing at the edges of the glass, but fixed her gaze on the distant stars, Benea’s soft light. “I shall check on Chibugo,” she announced, and found the strength to rise. And then, Niccolette thought, grimly. And then.


The hum of the Eqe Aqawe’s engine was loud through the shut door. Niccolette did not hesitate, rapping twice with her knuckles, then turning the heavy handle and stepping into the small room. She wore only her shirt and pants, her jacket left behind in the bedroom she shared with her husband.

“How is your ear?” Niccolette asked Tsayu, a soft look that might have been mistaken for concern on her face.

Tsayu rose from where he had been crouching on the ground, wiping something from his hands onto an old rag. “Ep’ama?” He asked.

“Your ear,” Niccolette switched easily to Mugrobi, tugging gently at her right earlobe with two fingers.

“Oh,” Tsayu grimaced. “Sorry, can’t hear too floodin’ well. Uh, hurts like fuckin’ hell.”

Niccolette nodded. “Your eardrum has burst,” she said, eyes lingering on the soft trail of clear fluid that had dried against the Mugrobi’s neck.  

“My - eardrum?” Tsayu reached up to his ear, fumbling at it.

Niccolette nodded again. “Not uncommon on an airship,” she shrugged.

“There’s a floodin’ drum in there?” Tsayu was still staring at her.

“Close enough,” Niccolette smiled again, switching back to Estuan. “It shall take... two months to heal, perhaps?” The living conversationalist shrugged again. “For some weeks, it may be difficult for you to hear.” She cocked her head gently to the side, staring him still.

“Weeks?” Tsayu groaned. “Fuck.”

“Of course, I can heal it,” Niccolette arched a delicate eyebrow.

“Ea!” Tsayu brightened. “Oh, Hulali’s tits, yes. Now?”

“Why not,” Niccolette nodded. She folded her hands in front of herself, focused her gaze on Tsayu, and began to chant, softly. It was a spell she had copied into her ship’s grimoire, and Niccolette had spent a few moments carefully reviewing it, making sure the words were familiar.

Niccolette knew, with how close she stood, that Tsayu would be easily able to feel her etheric field, sigiled, heat slowly wafting from her into the engine room. There were other trade-offs in healing, as well, of course. Niccolette had never been terribly good at healing gently, but she had learned. There were ways to ask the mona, phrases to weave in, which would keep the healing from hurting. Without them, it hurt as badly as the injury - sometimes worse. In most of her casts, these days, Niccolette was careful to temper them, to ease in some reduction of the discomfort.

Today, she did not bother. Energy hovered in the air around her, and streamed with deceptive gentleness into Tsayu’s ear.

The Mugrobi screamed.

Niccolette was well past being distracted by such things. She kept up the cool, even cast, harsh monite filling the air of the small room. 

Tsayu dropped to his knees, sobbing, one hand clutching his ear. The energy streaming from Niccolette did not stop; it eased through his fingers, winding around them and sliding along the edges of his palm, finding his ear still.

Niccolette curled the spell. She watched Tsayu for a moment, curiously.

The Mugrobi lowered his hand, shaking, his fingers digging into the floor of the ship. He sobbed again, his eyes squeezing shut.

Niccolette took a step closer, then another. She knelt, extended her hand close to Tsayu’s right ear, and snapped her fingers once.

Tsayu flinched, red-rimmed eyes opening, his gaze fixing on her.

Niccolette smiled again. “There,” she said, softly. “All better.” She reached forward, and tugged gently on Tsayu’s earlobe.

“Do you know,” Niccolette said, casually, bringing her hands back to her legs, resting them on one knee. She did not move, still crouched before the wick, “living conversation is thought of as healing. In fact, it is almost easier to do the opposite. Do you understand?”

“Under - understand?” Tsayu shuddered.

“Anything I can fix, I can also break,” Niccolette’s gaze lingered on his ear for a long moment.

Tsayu flinched, covering it once more.

Niccolette laughed. “That would not help.” She rose, easily, and took a step back, looking down at the wick, and took a deep breath, pulsing her field gently. 

Tsayu flinched again.

Niccolette grinned down at him, then turned and left the engine room, the door clicking softly shut behind her.


Niccolette was asleep in bed, the shutters of the window keeping out the harsh light of day, but the door shutting woke her. She rolled over, sleepily, squinting at Uzoji.

“I’m flooding tired,” The Mugrobi sighed, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his head. He shrugged off his coat, hanging it on the wall.

Niccolette sat up, pushing her long hair from her face, and patted the bed next to her. “I shall rub your shoulders,” she promised.

Uzoji laughed. He undid the buttons on his pants, easing them off his hips, and settled onto the bed.

Niccolette found the hard knots of muscle in his back, and began to massage, applying gentle, even pressure.

“Oh, that’s - Thank you, beloved.” Uzoji sighed, tilting his head back. 

There was silence between them again, for a long moment, before the captain of the Eqe Aqawe opened his eyes once more. “Tsayu says he shall leave at the next port.”

“Oh?” Niccolette asked. She dug her thumbs in, pressing firmly for a long moment.

Uzoji groaned, chuckled, and continued. “It looked as if he had been crying. You wouldn’t know anything about that, my moon and stars, would you?”

“Mmm... nothing worth saying.” Niccolette massaged a little deeper, feeling another knot yield beneath her fingers. She kissed the back of Uzoji’s neck, and drew her hands back. “You should sleep, darling.”

Uzoji laughed. He rubbed his face with his hands again, easing to the side, and lay down slowly. Niccolette curled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her, kissing her forehead. “Hulali has blessed me,” he said, drowsily, his eyes already easing shut. “I love you.”

Niccolette smiled, curling closer into him, twisting her face to kiss his skin, softly, her hand settling on his torso. She could hear the steady beat of his heart in her ear; she could feel the gentle, even rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek. “I love you too,” Niccolette whispered. Uzoji’s arm tightened around her, and Niccolette slept once more, her husband’s deep chuckle echoing through her in her last moments of awareness.

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