[Closed] All of This Turbulence

[Tom Cooke]

Uccello di Hurte • Aloft

Mid-Morning on the 25th of Yaris, 2719

I
t was like a bizarre nightmare. The tension at the table, hanging in the air thick as backlash, the captain going on about snowstorms and last-minute chorus brails; and Tom listened, forced himself to listen, forced himself to drink in each detail in case he needed it. He smiled, and nodded, and laughed — why, I should say you deserved it, sir, after landing her so well on that peak, and then the long trek down to Caroult — and not a man left behind. In the background, the widow and the imbala, looking round him like he knew something. Galatas scraping Niccolette’s plate, like the warmup of a strange, discordant instrument. The ship, grumbling softly.

How often had he said Captain? Captain Giordanetto? Every time he did, he felt like he was putting a fort in the bank, to withdraw sometime later.

In the midst of it, then, Sostratos, egg still all over his shirt. He kept his face smooth, kept himself hidden underneath Anatole as best he could. Nothing wrong. Nothing flooding wrong. He ran his thumb over the handle of his fork; when Aremu stood and followed the engineer, his lips pressed to a thin white line. He tried to drag his attention back to the captain, but the table was silent. He couldn’t help straining to listen over the blood rushing in his ears.

Like a nightmare, he knew what was going to happen. He knew, and he knew Aremu had known, and — he set his fork down, took care it didn’t clatter. His hands weren’t shaking; nothing was shaking.

He felt the red shift crackle through Niccolette’s field.

Tom folded his hands in his lap, careful-blank, studying his cold bacon. He didn’t look up, not when he felt Giordanetto’s field dampening, not when he moved silently to get the door. He saw Niccolette out of the corner of his eye; he didn’t trust himself to look at her. He didn’t trust himself to look at the door, or at Capaldi or Galatas.

At the sound of Aremu’s voice, he shut his eyes and counted breaths. The fuel venting system. What does it mean? he wanted to ask. How bad? What the fuck does any of it mean?

The captain was listening to Aremu, and Tom couldn’t bring himself to be relieved. Another groan echoed through the Uccello; he knew it for pipe-sighs or some such, now — he trusted Aremu, if nobody else — but he couldn’t help but picture the polished wood of the deck creaking, cracking, splitting in two in a shower of splinter and smoke. He felt a sharp pain and realized he was twisting one of his hands in the other. He let go and smoothed over again.

He’d opened his eyes again by the time Giordanetto re-entered. In the corner of his eye, a lean shadow in the doorway — he couldn’t look.

He kept his eyes on the captain, and he tried to find Anatole. It was harder this time, but he let the lines of his face guide him; he found the purse of his lips, felt the subtle crinkle of his eyes with it, felt the line of his back pulling him to a more attentive posture. If there was strain left over, if the incumbent looked pale, it was only natural. This was not a situation a man like him frequently found himself in. Use it, use it, use it, his mind choked at him, almost frantically. Use all of it.

The imbala returned slowly to his solitary perch at the other end of the table. Tom didn’t think he could manage his crumpet; he picked up his fork, but even the act of pushing the remainder of his eggs round on the plate, clinking delicately, made his stomach turn over. His heart still hammered. It didn’t quiet when Giordanetto addressed Aremu, but he managed to look up with mild, with appropriate, interest, at the captain and then the engineer.

He had studied at Thul’Amat. Tom held onto the morsel; he tucked it away somewhere safe. Could he ask now, he wondered, politely enough? What was it like to study at Thul’Amat? Why engineering? Did you always want to fly? Did shit like this ever scare you, did you ever think maybe — or was it worth it? Was it always worth it? (Was it worth it even now, with what you — lost?) He thought of calloused hands skimming gently over his, guiding it through the leather loop of the Eqe Aqawe’s railing.

He was good, when Giordanetto spoke again. He didn’t make a face, not even a flutter of his eyelid or a twitch of his lip. He pushed it so far down he almost didn’t feel it; he told himself he didn’t know why there should be anything wrong with it. Ada’xa Ediwo could’ve gone to Thul’Amat one-handed, for all he knew.

I had two hands, then, sir. The incumbent had forked a bit of egg, raised it up contemplatively, and put it delicately back on the plate.

Where he’d taken a bite, the dollop of preserves on his crumpet was lopsided. A little had finally spilled out onto the plate. He set his fork down, and his hands found each other in his lap again.

But Giordanetto’s voice broke the spell; he looked up at the captain immediately, and didn’t look at Niccolette beside him. The captain’s bright smile settled on him, and he found himself smiling, too. At least one thing’d gone right.

“Please, call me Anatole,” he replied. “To be honest, I hadn’t any plans. All of this, it’s quite new to me. I hardly know what to do with myself, shipside.” His smile widened. “But the propeller-blade, from the Maria,” he went on, “you really did keep it? I should like to see it.” And he meant it; he really did want nothing more than for the captain to occupy himself in this way. He truly wanted to spend his day with the captain never leaving his sight.

He was looking at Giordanetto fair intently. He was thinking how Ava looked when she listened; he was thinking how it always looked like the whole world had melted away, like there was nothing in it but whatever you were saying. And that soft, eager smile. He didn’t have a face much like hers, but he hoped he was beginning to understand the principle.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Mid-Morning, 25th Yaris, 2719
Uccello di Hurte, in the skies over Anaxas

Niccolette found a deep breath, slow and steady; her hands stilled, and she let go of the pale fabric of her skirt, and smoothed them out against her lap. She lifted her gaze up to the table, and found something like a polite smile for her face.

Isidore was grinning. “Of course I kept it!” He said, sounding pleased. “It’s in a display case in the control room. Once we’re finished here -“

Niccolette wandered.

Aremu was eating his eggs, forkful by forkful, sitting alone at the end of the table. He turned the fork to the bacon, then, and pierced it carefully, lifted it and took a bite.

Galatas had finished at the sink; he was murmuring something, quiet, and then he had gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

Capaldi was finishing his tea. He looked up when she turned her gaze to him, and he smiled. Niccolette smiled back, mechanically, and snatched her gaze away, back to the pale milky liquid in the cup on the table before her. The ship had smoothed out, no more jerks or groans, and the liquid rippled steadily, smoothly, from side to side, as they sailed through the currents. Niccolette found herself breathing with it, as if there was some sort of comfort to be found there.

And then Capaldi was rising, and leaving. And Isidore was going too, still chatting with Vauquelin as he brought his plate to the sink. He came back past the table, and set his hand down just next to her. Niccolette looked down at it, the long square fingers, a flicker of a scar on the muscle of the thumb. They twitched against the wood.

“If you need anything, Mrs. Ibutatu,” Isidore was saying, leaning attentively over her, “please don’t hesitate to make it known.”

His breath, Niccolette thought, smelled of eggs.

“Thank you, Captain,” Niccolette looked up at him and smiled. “I shall not.”

He was gone then, and Vauquelin too, trailing him out of the room and down the hall.

Niccolette looked up, then, at Aremu. He had finished the plate; he was standing, and going to carry it to the sink.

“Aremu,” Niccolette whispered.

Aremu set it down, carefully, his fork too. The rest of them were covered in food still - bits of egg - Aremu turned on the water, with his hand, and rinsed his plate clean, and set it off to the side.

Niccolette was shaking, then, and she rose, and she went to him, and she shut the water off.

“Should we be concerned?” She asked, looking at him.

“No,” Aremu said, quietly. “Caught soon enough, it is harmless.”

Niccolette nodded, then. Her hand was shaking against the faucet; it jerked, and a stream of water splashed free. She caught her breath with a hitch, and closed the tap.

“It’s all right,” Aremu said.

“It is not!” Niccolette kept her voice low, but she knew it for a hiss; she heard the tears bubbling beneath the surface, and she knew he could not have missed them. She took a deep breath, and took his hand in hers, her lip trembling. “It is not all right - Aremu -“

He squeezed her hand, gently, and smiled at her. Niccolette wondered how much it must have hurt, but she smiled too, tears trickling from the corner of her eyes, as if the pressure had squeezed them loose. She looked down, at her two pale hands wrapped around his, his long callused fingers - his right arm at his side, wrist tucked against the edge of his pocket.

Niccolette looked back up at his face instead, and the smile came more easily, and the tears slowed to a stop. He was smiling too, and she thought perhaps it did not look so painful.

“I should meditate,” Niccolette drew in an aching breath and cleared her throat. She squeezed his hand one last time, and let go.

Aremu nodded.

“Keep out of sight?” Niccolette asked, softly.

Aremu nodded again, and he followed her out in to the hallway. Niccolette shook her head when he made as if to escort her, and she watched him instead - stood, and watched, until his long lean shape had vanished into his door. Only then did she turn and go to her room, and shut the door gently behind herself.

Isidore Giordanetto knew Anatole’s sort well. They were soft, easy men, for whom a ride on the Uccello di Hurte represented the pinnacle of excitement. Anatole fought his battles, such as they were, in legislative halls, and their dangers were at most metaphysical. They longed, such men, for the simpler, rougher joys of man vs nature - so long as they could experience it secondhand.

Isidore rather wished Niccolette had shown a bit more interest. He supposed - she had not been widowed so long, really. And yet, it seemed she had already had time to become a bit wild. Some women needed taming; Isidore had known his fair share, and he thought of one or two with a pleased smile, easy to tuck into the stories Anatole lapped up.

Yes, Isidore thought, and he felt a pleasurable thrill of anticipation run through him. Niccolette Ibutatu would remember the rightful place of a woman soon enough. He was pleased that she was as lovely as her reputation alleged; it would have been rather a disappointment to find her plain, although Isidore supposed he could have grit his teeth and born it.

“Exactly right, Anatole,” Isidore beamed as the man repeated back the name of another instrument, like a well-trained parrot. “You’re sure you wouldn’t like a turn flying the ship?” He grinned, broadly, eyes crinkling at the edges. The man couldn’t cast, naturally, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hold the wheel. One never quite got over the nasty, sharp scrape of his field, but it did fade into the distance over time, like an itch beneath a bandage. Nothing you could do, and so it was best to put it away.

The control room was bright in the mid-afternoon sun; the window that wrapped around the front of the ship was, of course, polished to perfection. Isidore preferred his windows all but invisible; if one could see the glass, he thought, it was a marker of inferior quality or inferior housekeeping, or both. He had never abided, while serving Bastia or himself, sloppy worksmanship nor sloppy care.

The morning had passed remarkably quickly. Lunch had been a light affair – Isidore was never hungry in the middle of the day – of cold cuts and bread, laid out in the kitchen. Sostratos, wet behind the ears idiot that he was, seemed to have fixed the ship properly, and rightly enough had kept himself out of sight in the engine room. There was, Isidore thought, little sense in disciplining him mid-voyage; he would wait until they had finished the run to the Islands. He always felt that the time of anticipation heightened the ultimate effect of it.

Capaldi had come to find him shortly afterwards, and reported that there was a strange disturbance of the mona in the hallway – a heat, which seemed to be emanating from Niccolette’s room. Rather intense, he had said, a frown on his small, chubby face, but a much more interested light in his eyes. Isidore had thanked and dismissed him, smiled at Anatole, and gone back to the story he’d been telling of a near skirmish on the border with Gior, fortuitously avoided by his own quick thinking and the sudden appearance of a midland tiger.

“Incredible beasts,” Isidore had said, smiling. “Stunningly beautiful – more than capable of tearing a man’s head off with one swipe. This one walked straight up to me, and stopped. I looked into its eyes, and I said – well, Isidore, it’s been a good run, but it’s your time to return to the cycle. I thought of my mother, naturally, as any man would. But I’ll be damned if the beast didn’t turn and walk off! Disappeared into the snowy rocks, and if not for the footsteps and the silence it left behind, one would never have known it was there.”

They’d moved on, since, naturally. Anatole had been curious about the console, the instruments. Isidore had gone so far as to let the man hold the heavy ebony wheel of the ship, though not without paying careful attention. It had jerked beneath his hands, but fortunately Isidore had been there to catch it.

“Best if you take a rest before dinner,” Isidore promised, smiling, checking the sun, seeing the statesman to the door. Yes, he thought; it was a pleasant time to fly, with the world spread out before him, beneath him, as it should be. “I’ll see you in the drawing room at twenty three o’clock, my friend? Yes? Excellent.”

Excellent, Isidore thought, smiling at the small Anaxi, the gray curls amidst the red lit up by the bright sunlight, thinking of the night to come. Excellent indeed.

[Tom Cooke]

Uccello di Hurte • Aloft

Evening on the 25th of Yaris, 2719

H
e’d thought about it. It’d lay heaviest on his mind when his hands were on the wheel, smooth as marble underneath his fingertips, warmed by the afternoon sun. The windows, seemed to him, were no windows at all; he’d been skittish of going near them. They let in so much light it seemed solid, the air swimming with it like the mona in the circle of a ward, and it — and the endless expanse outside, the sea of clouds, which he could only occasionally bring himself to look at, and then only glimpsed from the corner of his eye — made him feel dizzy, made his head feel lighter and lighter.

He’d looked at the Bastian’s tanned, calloused hand. He hadn’t noticed that morning the silvery little scar that crept across the muscle between thumb and forefinger; he hadn’t paid attention to the blunt, square fingers with their short-trimmed nails. His eyes, and his placid smile, had traveled up the captain’s long arm, up to his face.

For a space, three, then two hands on the wheel, underneath the warm tutting of the captain’s voice. The captain’s firm grip, and the incumbent’s fingertips lingering. For all he was sick of hearing it, Tom thought Giordanetto had a fine enough voice. Not so startlingly deep as Anatole’s, not as high as his used to be. His face was tanned deeply as his hand, and took it well, and Tom skimmed it idly for scars; his dark eyes lined at the edges when he smiled. Dark hair, though short, and the dark shadow of stubble never quite banished by a razor. Tom’s fingertips had lingered, just a space, on the wheel.

He’d thought of Isidore’s tiger, and he’d let go. He’d tittered and fussed over his mistake, evidently quite embarrassed. Leave piloting, he’d said lightly, to a pilot.

Out in the hall, he thought he could still feel the sun’s ghost, lingering like a film against his skin. He was sweating. It was cool and dark and close; a few paces and he took a moment for himself, shut-eyed, listening to the breath rise and fall in his lungs.

His face felt like it was made of clay, muscles all strained and stiff. He thought he was still smiling. The thought scared him. He put his face in his hands, breathed; forced the muscles to relax, twitching. He pressed his fingertips to his eyelids, because he could feel something building, and he wasn’t ready. He stood very still until the tide went back, and his breath evened out again.

What the hell had he been thinking? He hadn’t, he told himself. It was an idle fancy; he’d never’ve done it, not with everything at stake.

He tried to remember what he’d planned to do after the captain tired of him, and he found his head strangely empty — empty, and full, so full and buzzing it was empty. The time’d drain slow from now to dinner, and though they hadn’t heard any laoso groans in long enough to feel halfway-safe, the look on Aremu’s face as he cast his eyes about the walls lingered at the bottom of his gut. He wondered if the imbala had explained it to Niccolette, after he and the captain had left the kitchen; he wondered if it was nothing or if, even now, something was terribly wrong, and there was nothing to be done for it.

Be a man, Tom Cooke. His fist tightened against the wall. Aremu didn’t need the toffin’s questions, his concerns, his porven filling up his space like a swarm of wasps. Thank you, he wanted to say, for holding your ground, for — I know what it meant — but he didn’t want to say it in Anatole’s voice; he was so sick of hearing that voice, and he could think of nothing that it wouldn’t give a patronizing shape.

What’d come would come. So be it.

Sighing, he loosened his collar. He didn’t feel too sick, not anymore, though he’d eaten little at lunch; he reckoned he’d be hungry enough by dinner. So long as he didn’t think of the captain and the frigid heart he’d melted in Qrieth that winter. Gioran women, he’d said, as if to a man who knew very little, really, about women; and he was right, in a way — Tom was grinding his teeth, a familiar new anxiety scraping at his nerves, and he forced himself to move.

Creaking down the hall, he was at least thankful he’d got used to the constant swell and ebb of movement underneath his feet.

Halfway down, he felt a fair different sort of heat wash over him. He lingered in it, despite the sweat beading on his brow; he smiled wanly, remembering Capaldi, and how he’d known even then what it was. Fluttering his eyes shut briefly, he could picture her, the circle of candles, the shadow of a hand.

She had the right idea, he reckoned, feeling his way farther down the hall. His door wasn’t far. There were so many things swimming in his head, to say nothing of his heart: he needed focus. No casting, he thought, not up here, but — he trusted his hand well enough to draw the lines; he’d light the little phosphor light, like…

Inside, it wasn’t bright as it’d been this morning. Tired, Tom settled himself on the edge of the bed, took off his shoes. A few hours, at least. Hands on his knees, he shut his eyes; strange shapes in stranger colors danced against the dark, faces, silhouettes, light. He didn’t try to look at any of them too closely. Instead, he pulled his legs up into the bed with him, and, opening his eyes, searched round for his books.

He didn’t know how he was going to find focus, but he felt he desperately needed to. He had nothing else to lean on, and he felt — without knowing why — that he would need it.

The light was golden-amber now, steadily darkening.

He was hungrier than he’d expected; he held onto that feeling, like he could make everything normal and plain by looking forward to the yats, if nothing else. In the quiet half-hour before he’d dressed, he’d got out his razor and shaving-soap and given his face another once-over, closer and cleaner this time. He’d mostly done it to prove he could: his hand was steadier than it’d been in a week, and while the porven around him was still a porven, there was something comforting about the brush of clairvoyant mona against his ley lines, something he hadn’t noticed in awhile.

Now he’d dressed himself proper, dark jacket and silk necktie and stiff collar; he’d prepared himself, so the sight of him in the mirror was not so hard. He wondered how Niccolette and Aremu had prepared. He wondered what landscape dinner would become, the captain, the captain’s crew, the widow and the politician and the imbala. He let himself feel the dread, without having an answer for it.

With one last deep breath, and just a few minutes to twenty three o’clock, he shut the door behind him and took a step out into the hall. He glanced up, blinked — found himself a few feet from Niccolette Ibutatu, whose door’d just shut behind her.

He glanced up and down the hall. “Mrs. Ibutatu,” he said, with a cursory bow. He'd have to smile soon, but he couldn't bring himself to, not yet. He started, hesitantly, up the hall, and paused when he drew even with her. “Would it be mutiny if we killed him before the second course?” he asked softly, fair seriously.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Mid-Morning, 25th Yaris, 2719
Uccello di Hurte, in the skies over Anaxas

Niccolette had washed her face, first, took off the gown and bundled her hair up into a pile atop her head. She had intended to sit and meditate, but she found that stillness escaped her; she could not seem to stop shaking, and it was harder to control the tears, away from Aremu. Eventually, she had yielded to them, and she had twisted to the bed, buried her face in the blankets, and she had wept, yet again. She had done her best to keep it silent, because she could hear the occasional creak of boots in the hallway outside, because while she knew better than to keep from weeping, she also knew better than to be heard.

In time, the tears had wound themselves down, but stillness still eluded her. She went to her chest, and fetched out candles – not the long, thin sort that she favored for down on the ground, but the short, squat ones she had had made to meditate shipside.

They had burned, of course. They had all burned. She had imagined it – sometimes – in her weaker moments, she had thought of the candles. She had wondered – if they had been simply gone, if they had been blasted to pieces instantly, or if they had burned down, slowly, as the ship began to come apart. Sometimes the thought crept inside of her, and settled into the hollowed out wreckage left behind, and would not leave; sometimes all she could do was to burn it out, in a pathetic sort of irony that she appreciated, but could not have said she enjoyed.

And then –

She had come back from Thul Ka to the Rose, and when she had worked up the courage to return to the house – not right away, of course. They had been delivered, some time ago, and brought inside, and set away. Niccolette could not remember what she had been looking for, when she found them – she could not –

Now, carefully, the widow took ten squat candles from the chest, and arranged them around herself on the floor, with a little pot of wax, and another of oil. She murmured a spell to heat the wax, and painted it, carefully, between the candles, long thin lines; she dipped her thumb into the oil, and traced in on the grooves at the center of those lines. She set it all aside, and knelt in the middle, and began to breathe, slowly and steadily, finding the rhythm of it. When she was ready, she whispered the monite, tucked the words between the inhales and exhales.

Flame, then – spilling slowly out from her with her breath. It caught the candles first, and then poured between them, flickering along the oil. Niccolette began to chant, then, soft and easy, her eyes flickering closed. She could feel the candlelight spilling over her skin, against the soft white cotton of her slip, prickling at the skin of her arms and her bare neck; she could even feel the reflection of it up, against her face. She lost herself in it, in the heat and the light and the monite, and opened herself to the world beyond; the borders fell away, burnt to a crisp, and Niccolette stepped out from all that weighed her down, and simply was.

In time, the changing of the light opened her eyes. She murmured the last words that she needed, and the candles flickered out; the oil had already burned itself off. Heat lingered in the room still, warm and pleasant, and she was damp with sweat. Niccolette cleaned the candles from the floor, and the wax too; the wood underneath was unmarked, but for heat that lingered in the traces she had made. She was pleased; she hoped it would last, that the next person to come aboard Giordanetto’s ship would step on the floor, would feel a warm spot, and would not know why.

Niccolette packed up the candles, and stripped off her shift. She swept the sweat from her skin, over and over. There were cleaning powders, to be rubbed into her scalp, but with her hair raised she didn’t need to wash it, only to brush it out, carefully, once she was clean. She rose, then, and dressed.

It was the twenty third hour when Niccolette stepped out into the hallway. Her field was brighter and sharper than usual, as it always was after meditation – strong and vibrant and clean in the air around her, utterly indectal. She felt Vauquelin’s against the edges of it, and glanced left to him, over one shoulder.

She wore a gown of a deep, rich blue silk, with a raised, almost masculine collar that covered her neck, and extended just a little outwards. The dress beneath was flawlessly tailored, with panels on the full skirt that gave the impression of dress pants. Her hair was pinned up above the collar, in a twist against the back of her head, and she wore no jewelry but for a sapphire necklace that emerged from the front of the dress, and draped from a single line of glittering gold to rest against her front. Her eyes were rimmed lightly with kohl, and her lips painted a startlingly red – blood red, as Niccolette thought of it.

She bowed lightly to Vauquelin, and waited, politely, as he approached. Her face was set, and still, serious and expressionless behind the make-up, and her chin raised – as it had to be, with the collar she had chosen. She had drawn herself up every one of her inches, and she wore them as gracefully as she did the dress.

Niccolette had not expected him to speak, not really. Oh, of course – he would make, she had imagined, some comment about the dress, or the evening, or the journey, or the weather. But Vauquelin looked at her, not smiling, face flawlessly shaved, and asked –

Niccolette blinked at him, once – and then again – a shudder rippled through her, and she did not know if she would laugh or cry. It rose up in her chest, sharp, and her breath caught – and the Bad Brother giggled. Her face smoothed out, and she smiled at Vauquelin – really smiled, as if she had absorbed the light of all those candles, and reflected it back out now.

“Unfortunately, it is the very definition,” Niccolette hesitated, and then leaned forward and brushed her lips over his cheek, soft; there was a warmth to her skin, even still, radiating gently out from her. “I should enjoy seeing you punch him,” She said, very softly, and grinned. “I do not he think he knows much of pain.”

Niccolette took Vauquelin’s arm, when he offered it, without hesitation; she curled her hand into the crook of his elbow, rather than rest it more politely, more formally, on the flat of his forearm. She lifted her chin again, touched the fingers of her free hand delicately to her hair, and proceeded down the hallway with him.

Vauquelin opened the door to Isidore’s study, and Niccolette stepped in before him.

There was a large window there too – of course, Niccolette thought, amused, there would be no chance of covering this one up; it would spill light for miles, like a beacon. They were flying east, towards the Islands, but the window faced southwest, and sunset spilled through, pink and red setting the world alight.

Isidore and Capaldi were the only members of the crew in the room, both wearing pressed dark jackets, silk cravats, and Isidore in a starched waistcoat beneath, a rich dark crimson, patterned with gold. The captain rose at the sight of her, his eyes widening, and a pleased smile curving his lips.

Fool, Niccolette thought, idly. She stepped in far enough to allow Vauquelin to follow behind her, and bowed lightly.

“Good evening,” Niccolette said, coolly, her gaze flitting from Isidore to Capaldi. No sign of the laughter was left; she was as smooth as she had been before, but she felt a little lighter – felt, as she had once before, on a long, terrible night, grateful that Vauquelin was there with her.

“Good evening,” Capaldi said, and he bowed as well.

“Good evening, Mrs. Ibutatu, Anatole,” Isidore paused, and he smiled. “May I call you Niccolette? It is such a lovely name.”

Niccolette studied him, and she smiled then. “It is your choice, I suppose.” She turned, and went to the window, pink and gold spilling over her, and smiled at the sight.

Isidore hesitated, a moment, frowning slightly, but he seemed to push through it. He turned to Vauquelin, and smiled. “Anatole – welcome to my sanctum sanctorum,” he swept one arm wide. It was a small room, dominated by the large window, but otherwise apportioned much like any man’s study might be – a small table, with a globe of Vita secured to it, a set of four chairs, another side table with a glittering glass decanter, better secured than if it was on the ground, but otherwise indistinguishable.

“Would either of you care for a drink before we sit for the meal?” Isidore asked, smiling. “It seems too lovely a sunset to waste.” He had turned back to Niccolette now, and was studying her silhouette against the window.

[Tom Cooke]

Uccello di Hurte • Aloft

Evening on the 25th of Yaris, 2719

I
t was very Bastian, and it made him feel rather like somebody’s uncle. A Bad Brother’s uncle, leastways. He stiffened, but by the time she drew away, he was smiling a confused sort of smile. With all his tangled memories, it was – maybe – one of the strangest things he’d ever felt, and it had no slim competition for that honor.

But how worthwhile it’d feel, to bust his knuckles on the captain’s macha face. They both knew how that’d end up, but he was damned grateful to her for saying so. Niccolette’s field was vivid-fresh and strong, like a promise of violence; the place where she’d pecked him on the cheek was still warm. He let out a messy, fraying sort of snort, and he had to look away, ’cause he thought if he met her eye or said a single word, the tears’d all come up. He already felt the lump welling in his throat. He managed to smooth it over, though he still couldn’t quite look her in the eye; he offered her his arm instead.

It’d been a risk, he thought, worth taking. It was easier to keep his spine a straight line, to fit that placid smile to his face again, knowing she remembered – knowing somebody knew. He held open the door to the captain’s study and followed the other Bad Brother into what seemed a flood of amber-pink light.

There was something familiar about it, he realized with a jolt, even though he wasn’t the big natt with crossed arms anymore. He held onto that, tucked it away someplace safe.

Another big window, like a hole in the side of the ship, giving out on a sunset at the strangest angle Tom’d ever seen. He watched out it, for a moment, barely able to draw in breath. They must’ve been on the west side of the Uccello, his mind told him, as if trying to give him things to think about that weren’t – going east, the clouds slipping out from underneath them like a rug –

He blinked and forced the air back into his lungs, smile flickering and regaining its strength. He glanced away, around at the study. He tried not to notice how everything was secured in place; his eyes bounced away from the decanter, glittering in the setting sunlight. Instead, he found himself looking at the two well-dressed men sitting round the heavy table, one of whom’d just got to his feet.

Sanctum flooding sanctorum. “Evening, Isidore. Mr. Capaldi.” He smiled back at the captain, and then his second, clasping his hands behind his back near the door. He watched the captain watch Niccolette with a funny kind of light in his eyes.

His eyebrow didn’t so much as twitch when Giordanetto used her first name, nor when she replied. Niccolette was moving toward the window in a swathe of blue, her chin up, the sapphire glinting on her chest like a blue coal; he glanced over her, then looked back at the captain. It wasn’t hard, leastways, to keep the mirth in his eyes – it was like kindling for a fire; it didn’t matter why he was smiling – when he met the captain’s eyes again.

There was a slight pause. No, fuck you, Tom thought. I’m hungry.

He brightened. “A fine idea,” he replied. He took another easy step into the room, smiling again at Capaldi, finally letting himself linger on the decanter.

He’d a handful of good reasons to say no, to say he’d rather sit and rest his aching hip – up here, all flooding day, he’d felt like he’d taken a beating from some tsuter – but he didn’t think it’d matter; he didn’t think the captain’d take a refusal from her. There wasn’t any point, either way, in delaying the inevitable. He wondered what it was. He hadn’t a single doubt Giordanetto’d be telling him soon enough, at length. Probably some whisky aged to perfection deep in Qrieth. And if he didn’t, he’d make sure to ask him, the moment he took a sip; he’d…

The captain’s eyes were back on Niccolette, by the window. Lifting his chin, he started toward the window, bracing himself for the sight. Just like the sea, he told himself, and that wasn’t fair comforting. Hell, maybe he needed a drink. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt a damn thing. He wouldn’t drink too much, and he’d get himself back under wraps on the Isles.

Where was Aremu? It was twenty three o’clock; they weren’t early. He gave the room just one more sweep with his eyes, as if he expected to see the imbala lingering in the shadows. The rest of the crew weren’t there, oes, but the three of them were guests. Still, he had an unpleasant feeling he knew the answer.

He felt his field brush the captain’s, then Capaldi’s, static and physical, as he wove round the table; neither of them caprised him, though neither withdrew. He felt Niccolette’s, then, as he drew even with her, and forced himself to look out over the sea of clouds. His throat tightened and his mouth went dry. Thick, cottony clouds underneath; little wisps overhead, dark streams against darkening blue. The sun split the horizon with a bloodred line.

He cast a look over his shoulder at the captain, over near the decanter. “Hard to believe one sees this every night, aboard an aeroship.” He laughed softly, looking back out; he snuck a glance at Niccolette’s profile. “It's all quite – well, looking around, a man might think himself in a gentleman's study Uptown, and then, he looks out of the window and sees this. Remarkable.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Just after Sunset, 25th Yaris, 2719
Uccello di Hurte, in the skies over Anaxas

Niccolette stood and watched the sunset.

Behind her, Isidore was chuckling. “Just the intended effect,” he said, pleased. He went to the table with the decanter, and Niccolette heard the soft glug of liquid. He was there, then, bowing lightly, the liquid swaying delicately back and forth in the glass.

Niccolette’s gaze lowered to the pale yellow liquid in the glass. She took it, slowly, careful not to brush Isidore’s fingers with her own. He was smiling at her, and Niccolette did not trouble to avoid his eyes, but met them, and raised her eyebrows lightly.

“Gin?” She asked, turning back to the window.

“Yes,” Isidore chuckled – as if, Niccolette thought irritably, she was some sort of pet performing a trick. He was handing Vauquelin a glass as well, and then back – not to the decanter, she noticed, but another bottle he must have gotten from beneath. Two more glasses; Capaldi was there, taking his; and Isidore raised his.

“A toast,” he said, smiling. “To the sunset.” He cleared his throat, then, taking a broader stance, and swept his gaze over Niccolette to the window just beyond. She felt it drift back to her, and struggled not to roll her eyes. He cleared his throat, raised the glass, and began to speak.

“The sky is cast in Vita’s forge
With pourings of molten sun.
Clouds rise like steam from the furnace gorge
As liquid colors start to run.

Bright yellow light is liquefied
And spills from the bubbling pot.
It illuminates the countryside
In places where the shadows are not.

The blazing orange of the burning sky
Is rimmed around with a golden band,
Like an ingot just poured and set nearby
It slowly cools over the darkening land.

The fire then dies and the furnace cools
And all the day’s labors are now complete.
At rest are Hurte’s celestial tools
And the glowing embers at Her Feet.”

Capaldi applauded, gently, one hand against the other, as if setting instructions. Niccolette did not, eyebrows lifting again.

“It illuminates the countryside,” The Bastian repeated, delicately, “in places where the shadows are not.” She pressed her lips together, cleared her throat, and took a sip of the gin, and titled her head delicately to the side. “An Archevne poem, is it not?”

Isidore grinned, broadly. “Ah, you’ve found me out.” He bowed lightly. “Lovely, don’t you think?” He turned to Vauquelin, smiling. “There are members of the Archevne who seclude themselves for a lifetime,” he said, “dedicated purely to the pursuit of beauty. They write poetry and song, in the traditional forms, to both create and praise it at the same time.”

“A lifetime of seclusion,” Niccolette said, slowly. She smiled. “And this how he spent it.”

“He?” Isidore asked, raising his eyebrows. “You know the poet?”

“I do not, but I do not think I am wrong,” Niccolette took another small sip of gin. As if without thinking of it, she set the glass gently down, and drifted away, turning back to the window.

Isidore grinned. “A woman of many talents,” he said, to her back. “No, you are not – Megas Archev Theoros Ricardo. A master of the form, truly.”

Niccolette made a faint noise of agreement.

“Have you read much in the way of Bastian poetry?” Isidore turned to Vauquelin, smiling. “There’s quite a divide, nationally, between the older forms favored by the Archevne, and the newer forms of the sort written in Tiv. I can scarcely recognize the stuff, myself; a poem should rhyme, in my opinion, if it’s to have any dignity whatsoever.”

Niccolette left Vauquelin to his response; she let herself go for a moment, just a moment, thinking of Uzoji – thinking of pez Hirtka, and knowing something of what Vauquelin might feel, however he answered.

The ship swayed, gently, in the breeze, and Isidore was closer than she’d realized, abruptly, his field caprising hers. He caught her glass as it slid, lightly, and lifted it back up. “Careful, Niccolette,” he said, smiling. He set his glass down, and took her hand, and pressed the glass lightly back into it.

Niccolette pulsed her field, gently, and the sharp, bright wash of living mona shut down, like a wall between them, even with Isidore’s hand still lingering on hers. She pulled her hand back, delicately, with the glass. “You are paying attention,” she said, and smiled.

“Well,” Isidore said, taking a step back. “A captain must," he recovered, and he smiled once more.

There was a little flutter of conversation then; Vauquelin was good quite, Niccolette thought idly, at finding the spaces and filling them in. She would have thought him as idle as the chatter but that she already knew better. It made sense, though; it fit well with the puzzle of the man.

“Shall we?” Isidore was saying; the sunset was fading on the horizon, and darkness was creeping up; only at the horizon was there the faintest hint of light remaining, and the brightest stars were already visible off to the east, just visible at the corner of the window.

There were two doors leading off from the study; Isidore went to one, and opened it, and revealed an elegant dining room; only small windows, here, but the same elegant wood paneling, and a heavy, sturdy looking table, with finely carved edges and detailing on the legs. There were four chairs set about it, four places set at the table.

Isidore was already pulling out a chair for her. Niccolette sat, and crossed her legs at her ankle, and studied the wine glasses and surprisingly delicate china. She wondered how often it broke; she wondered how many sets he had replaced. She wondered at the sort of man who thought it worthwhile to replace the delicate china, again and again – not a chip to be found. Niccolette studied it, and then looked back up at Isidore as he sat across from her, and found it in herself to smile.

[Tom Cooke]

Uccello di Hurte • Aloft

Evening on the 25th of Yaris, 2719

T
here was a moment, like he’d got caught on something, where he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He blinked; the smile clung to his face like a sure-footed vine, but he was frozen. Capaldi was clapping. Hesitantly, he followed suit, the soft, wrist-to-palm sort of clapping you do when you’re concerned about spilling your gin.

Why’d they been clapping? Was it Giordanetto’s poem? He glanced at Niccolette briefly, watched her take a sip; he took one himself, rolling it round in his mouth. An Archevne poem, she said, and he was grinning, and Tom tried to follow. They’d been clapping ‘cause he’d committed a few verses to memory? Wo chet.

If he smiled a little brighter at the soft, measured words that came from somewhere near his elbow, he didn’t risk a glance at the Bad Brother. But he didn’t see any harm in letting the mirth quirk his lip a little, deepen the lines round his eyes; he tried to look at Giordanetto like they were sharing a joke.

He seemed to remember — he tried to think, for a fleeting moment — a kov as’d taken the piss out of the Archevne in some big, long poem, split up into pieces; Anatole had a copy in his study. Should’ve interested Tom, being as it was about some kind of soul outside the Cycle, or something like that, but he’d been frustrated with all the names and references he didn’t know. He hadn’t read shit from Tiv, neither, being honest. But he didn’t think his ignorance would count against him, here.

He laughed. “Oh, quite,” he hummed. “I suppose it’s rather passé of me, but really, with some of these Tivian poets — it’s as if one’s simply written whatever one pleased, chopped it up into verse, and called it a poem…”

He spoke ill of what he thought the captain might find distasteful; he spoke well where he thought the captain’s tastes must’ve lain. Once or twice he made a blunder, but it could be woven in: you had to take care to disagree sometimes, leastways, so it didn’t look intentional. So you looked like an old fool with tepid, but unshakable, opinions, but a good old fool who was pleased to disagree.

The gin wasn’t half-bad. He’d had one or two sips, swirling it in the glass. He’d thought it’d come as a relief, but it didn’t; it wasn’t that he didn’t want it — he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted it ‘til it’d hit his tongue — but he found himself interrogating the flavor, searching underneath it for anything else. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Niccolette set her glass down on the window-sill.

Only once did the rhythm break up. Tom felt the floor tilt a hair’s breadth more underneath his soles. The physical field swam past him, tangled with the living mona in Niccolette’s. One of the captain’s deft hands snatched her glass back off the sill and pressed it into her hand.

Anatole’s smile didn’t falter. “But really, Isidore,” he put in, casting about to pick up a thread, any thread, that’d been dropped, “you met Ioannidis himself in Caroult? I haven’t seen him in a production since ‘94; there was never a Cynophron like him, but nobody has seen him since…”

If there was anything Anatole could do, Tom thought, it was be dull with opera. The duller the better, he was thinking. The back of his neck was crawling; he was fair alert, trying not to grip the glass too tight, trying to keep his sudden awareness out of his face. Mung, he thought dully. The captain and Capaldi were drinking; he tried to think if he’d seen him pour the glasses, but he’d had his back turned. He regretted not tearing off the bandage once and for all, on the sling up. Where do we stand?

Sometime in the last minute, he’d started describing a Bastian production of The Lady of Sielan he’d seen in Florne with Diana six years ago. There’d been no such, but he didn’t think Giordanetto’d know, and he knew at least that the titular Lady’s paramour was a charming aeroship captain.

He was still chattering about the baritone’s skill when he realized the light’d faded, and the great glass window was becoming more and more a dark mirror. He was relieved when the captain finally opened the door to the dining room.

Tom hadn’t been perfectly honest when he’d said you could almost forget Giordanetto’s study was aboard an airship; with that big window set in the middle of everything, shedding light and cloud and sky, it was more an uneasy contrast than a forgetting. This room, though! For a moment, he couldn’t’ve brought himself to be aware of the captain, or Capaldi, or the other Bad Brother – he ran his fingertips over the rosette at one of the table’s edges, his eyes flicking from glass to glass, plate to plate, the fixtures casting soft phosphor light over the rich wood paneling.

It was a heavy table, but none of the settings were fixed down. If the Uccello gave another jerk, they’d go quicker than the plates at breakfast, and they’d shatter like glass, he reckoned. A shower of porcelain and glass and wine. The thought shuddered through his bones, and he forced himself to look up. Oes, with the little windows, showing nothing now but black, you could almost forget –

And forget he did. Giordanetto was pulling his chair nearby, across from Niccolette, and the captain’s second beside her; feeling strangely hemmed-in, Tom took a seat across from him. His hand didn’t shake on the back of the chair.

He set his jaw, checked his posture, and smiled at the captain. “Really, one would forget one was shipside.” He glanced over at Niccolette with a twitch of his lip. “One hears of dining on boiled fish and hardtack. Sea chanties and Low Tide,” he hummed, and laughed softly.

He could see Capaldi smirk in the corner of his eye; he smoothed his face over, but Tom imagined he could see that faint cruel gleam in his eyes. He thought of the interested look he’d had, telling the captain about the runoff from Niccolette’s meditation. He didn’t think he’d heard him say more than a word the whole evening.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Just after Sunset, 25th Yaris, 2719
Uccello di Hurte, in the skies over Anaxas

Isidore’s eyes never moved from her, Niccolette noticed. He smiled as Vauquelin spoke, and he turned his head slightly, but he was still watching her.

“I’ve had my days of hardtack,” Isidore laughed, and finally turned to Vauquelin beside him. “But I am my own master, these days, and at that point it becomes a question of priorities.”

“The air may be a wild place,” Isidore said, and Niccolette felt his gaze sweep back to her. “But that is all the more reason to behave as civilized men,” a pause, and another smile, “and women.”

A gust of air rocked the ship, and the china on the before them tinkled, softly.

The door swung open, and a slender galdor far too old for his dasher’s field came in carrying a heavy tray. His long dark hair pulled back in a loose tail at the back of his neck, and he looked slightly smudged with heat and flour, as if he had not tried quite hard enough to clean himself off. He set the tray down, and bowed. “Good evening to you all,” he said, politely.

“This,” Isidore said, smiling, “is civilization! Fernando, you are most welcome. Anatole, Niccolette, Fernando is our chef, and most skilled.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Fernando smiled. “May I...?”

The first course was a rich-smelling broth, ladeled carefully into the bowls on the table; Vauquelin first, then Niccolette, Fernando making his way around the table carefully to preserve protocol and then Isidore and Capaldi last. He set the tray aside.

“Wine, sir? I should recommend red for the evening,” Fernando said.

“Excellent,” Isidore nodded.

Fernando opened a locked cabinet on the wall, and fetched out a carefully stored bottle. He eased the cork out, and poured a little bit into Isidore’s glass, standing back for him to try it.

Isidore took a sip, and made a face, setting the glass down. “It has turned,” he said.

Fernando shook his head. “I’ll fetch a new glass,” he said, and took the glass, the wine bottle and the tray, leaving the room.

Isidore settled his hands into his lap, the aroma of the soup wafting up and filling the air. “A shame,” he said. “But these things happen, with the turbulence. One grows accustomed to doing what one must.”

Niccolette glanced down at the soup, the careful portion ladeled so that with the gentle rocking of the ship, not even a drop sloshed over the side. She settled her hands in her lap, running her fingers over her wedding ring, again and again.

She felt Capaldi looking at her; a prickle of something went down her spine. Niccolette stilled her hands, and smiled, politely.

“I quite liked Lady of Sielan as a girl,” Niccolette said into the brief silence, and turned to Vauquelin with a smile. She did not dare look at Capaldi.

“Do you think Bostouros simply forgot to name her?” Niccolette asked, smiling still. “All those hours of verse, and not once does her maid, her mother, or even her Captain offer her a name.”

“She is the every woman,” Isidore said with a patient smile. “Think of her as a blank space into which the audience can pour themselves. To name her would spoil the effect.”

“Would it?” Niccolette looked back at him, and smiled. “After all, all those women in the audience do have names.”

The door opened again, and Fernando returned. He set a new glass down before Isidore, and went to the wine cabinet with a spare in his hands.

The next bottle he poured a taste of into the spare, and he offered it to Isidore with a smile.

Isidore took a sip, and nodded. “You’ll enjoy this,” he told Niccolette, and smiled. He extended his hands, and Fernando set the bottle into them. He turned it, carefully, and held it out to Niccolette.

She glanced down at the label, at the name Villamarzana diagonally across the front in script. Niccolette looked at it for another long moment, and slowly lifted her gaze back to Isidore.

“It is a shame the other bottle had gone off,” Isidore was saying. “They make an excellent Nassalan,” he handed the bottle back to Fernando, who went to Vauquelin and began to pour. “A Villamarzana wine,” Isidore explained to Vauquelin, smiling. “It is your parents’ vineyard, isn’t it, Niccolette?”

“Indeed,” Niccolette said, and she kept her hands still in her lap. “I am surprised you have discovered them. They do not do much in the way of commercial production.”

“I was fortunate enough to meet your father some time ago,” Capaldi said. “He made us a gift of a few bottles.”

Fernando poured each of them a glass; Isidore raised a glass in a toast that Niccolette heard not a word of, not over the rushing in her ears. She smiled, mechanically, and took a sip of the wine, and set the glass back down.

The broth was no longer steaming hot; Niccolette picked her spoon up with the others, and managed a taste or two before setting it back down.

“- should eat, Niccolette,” Isidore was saying, smiling.

Niccolette raised her eyebrows at him.

“A delicate appetite is a woman’s jewel,” Isidore grinned. “But one can take it too far, surely. I should not want you fainting.”

“There is little chance of that,” Niccolette said, and did not pick the spoon back up.

Fernando was back before long; he cleared the soup bowls away, and set down small plates before each of them, with little clusters of olives, squares of bread, some topped with smears of anchovy paste and others with a thick, green sauce, and thin slices of cheese and cured meats.

“As if we were in Florne!” Isidore turned to Vauquelin and grinned. “You must tell me what you thought of Bastian food. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

[Tom Cooke]

Uccello di Hurte • Aloft

Evening on the 25th of Yaris, 2719

H
e caught Niccolette’s smile, and it wasn’t hard to smile back, though he didn’t let his eyes linger long on hers. He’d never seen the Lady, ’course, and he didn’t know the first thing about the Bostouros kov as wrote it. Still, there was something fair pleasing about the thought of Niccolette Ibutatu as a little lass, listening through each warbling verse for the hint of a name. Combing some nursemaid or mother or best friend’s aria underneath the clinking of sorbet spoons, waiting to hear it on Cynophron’s wily tongue, at the height of the suspense and romance.

Fernando’d come back in, his dasher mingling lukewarm with the four fields round the table. It couldn’t seem to help pulling away from the porven; he’d only met Tom’s eye once, the first time, though Tom thought he was at least trying to look like he wasn’t avoiding it. As he set the spare glass in front of Giordanetto, his sleeve slipped up, and Tom noticed the red, dark-smudged shape of an oven burn.

When had she first noticed the nameless Lady? Tom couldn’t help but wonder. The first time, rightaway, dragged to some tsuter-boring opera by some stuffy toffin family he couldn’t picture? But she said she’d liked it. For the first time, he tried to make sense of the life she must’ve had before Hawke. He could almost picture it: the little girl with a name, trying to fit the space left by the nameless woman. He wondered, for the first time, where Uzoji came in.

Tom was relieved another bottle wouldn’t go to waste, though there was something he didn’t like in the captain’s smile as he gestured for Fernando to give him the bottle. He watched the exchange intently, careful-blank, a growing dread gnawing at him. He raised an eyebrow at the captain, trying not to watch the dark red gurgle out into his glass in the corner of his eye.

Your parents’ vineyard, he said. Your father. Tom’s glance flicked to Niccolette.

Something twitched in the smile on his face, but he blinked it away and toasted with Giordanetto. Lighter than Nassalan, he thought, unbidden, and felt a little twist of distaste. Not light enough for Palomer. Middle-of-the-road, but with a twist of something spicy, something that should’ve mixed well with the heady aroma of the soup.

Tom managed to take a few spoonfuls of the soup. He managed to compliment the wine, though he couldn’t look Niccolette in the eye. The conversation wove on, though the captain was never far from the subject of the widow. Fernando came back soon enough to clear away the soup and bring in the second course; Giordanetto spoke again, then, to Tom.

Food’s food, Tom thought, glancing over the benny tableau with a feeling akin to helplessness. It’ll either keep you alive or kill you. “Excellent,” he replied, delicately selecting a square of bread smeared with something fishy. He paused; he felt oddly strained. Niccolette hadn’t said anything in awhile, seemed to him – she wasn’t eating, and he tried to think if he’d seen her take the first bite – and he felt the silence thick as that godsdamn soup.

“One wearies of Anaxi fare.” Does one? He tried to rack his brain; he tried to think what to say about the endless Anaxi dinners, the roasts, the soups – it was stock in a bowl, maybe with some chunks of yats in it if you were lucky – how could you tell a good one from a bad one? – he could name the spices, sometimes, if he thought about it, but he didn’t know which ones were in or out; he didn’t know which ones went where, or which ones went together. He knew to differentiate them, but he couldn’t’ve told you how.

Niccolette’d barely sipped her soup; he hadn’t had half of his. He hadn’t been done with it, when Fernando’d swept it away and replaced it with all this nanabo shit. Where’d it go? Who ate it? Nobody?

The pause stretched, but then sat on the plate in front of him, like a cat that can’t decide whether it wants to stand or lay down. The pause was too long, he knew. He felt like the wine in his mouth’d turned to vinegar, and he discovered, for what must’ve been the first time, that all he wanted was a glass of water.

He blinked. “In – ah – we stayed in Tessalon, for – a few weeks,” he offered, trying to find the thread where it wove in and round, trying to find the name of the knit. He smiled pleasantly at an olive; he looked at Giordanetto, but Giordanetto wasn’t looking at him. “In a room overlooking the Golfo. I had never had quite such a variety of seafood, and have not since, not even the Rose,” he went on, voice strengthening. “I recall a dinner we had once in…”

Anatole found the thread where Tom couldn’t. Quick enough, there was laughter again, the laughter, leastways, of two men, and Tom couldn’t always keep track of who was talking and who was laughing. Fernando came back to sweep the second course out from under him, and he’d eaten less of it than he’d eaten of the soup.

The soft little dumplings Fernando'd brought with him, all dressed with spinach and tomatoes and dusted with a heavy, sweet cheese Tom’d never had before, he found more to his liking. There was a heaviness, a starchy richness, he wasn’t used to Uptown. It was fair filling – almost like some of the stews Mama Azzarà’d brought Meggie when she was sick.

He found himself brightening. He complimented it, once, carefully, not knowing what it was called, and Capaldi spoke for what Tom thought was the first time. He was saying something about his father’s old cook, who made gnocchetti with a lemon goat cheese sauce like he’d never had since, and how he’d been distraught when he’d been sent word old Andreas’d passed.

Maybe it was the pleasant buzz, the way all the lights glowed softer, the way it was easier to grab onto conversations and hold them, but it seemed like dinner was slipping out from under him. How much wine had he had? Someone’d poured him another glass; the taste in his mouth wasn’t quite so cloying.

Maybe it was the buzz wasn’t so pleasant anymore, when Fernando came back a-rattle. Something had soured. That the next course was more delicate should’ve been a relief – Tom was full; he didn’t often eat like this – but something about the tiny portions of meat, drizzled and garnished just so, itched at the back of his skull.

He’d had hingle more since he’d died than before. Before, he remembered – when he was a lad, diving after a threadbare house-hingle, trying to get Clark to understand how important it was, how it didn’t matter if it was nanabo ’cause shit at Greene’s was bad and there wasn’t going to be anything else for awhile – he thought ruefully of Niccolette’s gnocchi, mostly untouched, and of Mama Azzarà’s stew, and wondered, and wondered, and wondered…

Tom hadn’t heard Anatole’s voice in awhile. He hadn’t eaten much of his hingle by the time it, too, went the way of the hatchers. He took another drink. His hands were shaking slightly. He forced it down, thinking of Giordanetto and the lingering taste of the Villamarzana wine.

Was the smile on his face? There was a space, a silence that followed Fernando’s footsteps, his rattling, the dark flour-stained tangle of a tail at the nape of his neck. Tom blinked, felt Anatole’s smile still on his face, a twitching, curling thing at his lips; he couldn’t find the mirth for his eyes, but he slipped back in again, turning to Giordanetto.

“You have business in the Isles often enough, surely?” he asked idly, emptily; he wouldn’t’ve dared, otherwise, but it only reinforced the veneer of ignorance. “What do you think? I have never been to them, much less anywhere in Mugroba; I shall be spending the next political season in Thul Ka, so I suppose I must acquaint myself with the cuisine. I’ve heard it can be somewhat of a – shock, for a palate from the Sister Kingdoms.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Night, 25th Yaris, 2719
Uccello di Hurte, in the skies over the Tincta Basta

The dinner, Niccolette thought, was much like the poem. All according to the rules, course by course. She felt the room tightening around her, slowly; there was little trace of the southern light left outside, the slow ticking of the minutes draining it from the room.

There was a glass of dark red wine sitting before her – no, she would not pretend she did not know it. It was the 2707 Terenadetto; it had, Niccolette thought, with a sense of weight, aged well, but she still knew it; she had stolen a bottle from the cellar in Florne and brought it to meet with her cousin Gia, one night in the summer of 2711. Still, the jostling of an airship did not suit delicate wines well; it had not been kind to the spicier notes, bringing them out a little too strongly.

Mechanically, Niccolette reached for the glass again, and took another sip. Her hand trembled for a moment on the stem; she breathed through it, and slowly lowered her hand back to her lap. Soup first, then antipasti, and then a primero course – gnochetti, a traditional choice – and then a segundo course, hingle. A traditional structure; the oddest meal, Niccolette thought, she had ever eaten aboard an airship. They could have been at a ball in Florne, from the food.

She had never liked hingle; she could not touch it. The bites of gnocchi she had managed sat heavy in her stomach, and Niccolette watched as Fernando whisked away the full plate, and lifted her gaze back up. Her gaze wandered back to Vauquelin, and she took another sip of the wine, and tried to remember that girl and the troubles which had seemed so weighty; she tried to remember being nineteen, but it seemed a lifetime ago.

“Lovely place,” Isidore said, pleasantly. “The Mugrobi are a warm people – friendly, accommodating,” he grinned, a brief flash of it. “Honest, if you can force them to be direct,” he chuckled, and Capaldi laughed as well, some joke shared between them.

“The food, though,” Isidore shook his head. “Makes me think fondly of hardtack. Hard to appreciate any delicate flavors, when your mouth’s burning – but, they seem to like it, especially the island folk. Niccolette, you must have suffered terribly.”

Niccolette looked up at him, slowly, and lifted her chin delicately above her collar. “From the food in the islands, you mean?” She asked, meeting Isidore’s gaze across the table. Something hot burned in her chest – flickered out through her veins, filling her.

Isidore grinned. “Come – you were raised in Florne, weren’t you? It must have been quite an ordeal, all those years.”

Niccolette pressed her lips together, and thought of sobbing into chilies in the Eqe Aqawe; though of cooking erg gram, bit by bit, forcing the cook to measure so that she could understand how the recipes worked, teaching herself meal after meal to do it the way Uzoji liked – the way she had come to like – she thought of cooking for Aremu in the Rose, not a month ago, the first time she had since – since –

“All those years,” Niccolette said, slowly, as if puzzling out what he might mean. Her hands tightened on the napkin in her lap, and not a flicker of anything showed on her face or in her field.

Isidore wasn’t smiling now, but he was looking at her. “Yes,” he said, casually. The ship rocked beneath them; silverware tinkled against delicate china. “All those years your husband was alive.”

Niccolette had wondered if he would say it. She had rather hoped he would. She smiled, slowly and evenly; her chest was too hot for the faintest hint of tears, as if the fury there had burnt them dry. She turned to Vauquelin, hands still settled in her lap; she let the napkin go, and smoothed it gently against her dress. “My cook there is Mugrobi, of course,” she said, smiling. “You shall have an excellent introduction to Islands cuisine. I am sure,” she glanced back at Isidore, and smiled a little wider, “you shall find it very much to your liking.”

Nothing showed in her field; not the faintest trace. It was as crisp and bright as it had been after she meditated, politely dampened in the air around her, the living mona sharp and vibrant.

Isidore turned, looking at Anatole as well. “You’re all right, Anatole?” He asked into the silence that fell. His eyes traced over the politician’s face. “You must be weary; air travel can be terribly draining.”

Fernando was there again, with a small plate of fruit and cheese for each of them, cut and delicately arranged on the plate. Conversation stumbled and faded through it; Isidore was looking at her, more and more, Niccolette thought. There was a smile on his face. She looked evenly back at him, speared a slice of cheese with her fork, and ate it with small, neat bites.

Dessert, then, last; panna cotta, sweetened cream molded into small cakes with many rounded sides, topped with a sweet fruit sauce. Niccolette did not bother to attempt it; she did not even look down at it. Isidore ate his, cheerfully; much, Niccolette thought, as he had recited his poem earlier. This was dessert, it ended the meal; a man ate dessert at the end of the meal. She watched him, eyes sharp and focused, and she wondered.

And then they were rising, moving out into the study once more. In the dark, the window was invisible against the flickering landscape of stars beyond; they must, Niccolette thought idly, be over the sea by now, though she could make out nothing of the waves.

“You look exhausted, my friend,” Isidore was saying, his hand resting comfortably on Anatole’s shoulder, thumb settled on the shorter man’s collar. “Mr. Capaldi, would you escort Anatole back to his room?” The ship rocked, gently. “It seems to be a rough patch of air, although nothing to worry about, I’m sure – but I should not want you to fall,” Isidore smiled. He accompanied them both to the door.

Niccolette knew she could have gone. It would not have been terribly hard to force her way out. She held, instead, by the window, and turned to look out, and pretended she did not hear the heavy click of the lock at the door. Good, she thought; good. She was sick of hiding, thoroughly sick of it.

“A toast,” She felt the brush of Isidore’s field against her, and he was handing her another glass, pale, delicate grappa. Niccolette turned, and took it, and raised her eyebrows.

“To your husband,” Isidore was standing close, still; he was smiling again. He lifted the glass, and drank.

Niccolette lifted hers as well, and took a sip. “I did not think you knew him,” she said, lowering the glass. The ship rocked again, and the liquid in the glass jumped; Niccolette could see the table settings shift through the door, and heard the distant clink of china and silver.

“By reputation only,” Isidore said, and set his empty glass aside.