RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-Three - Sanity Check

  The work of getting the Beaver fixed and ready for flight was tough, but not impossibly so. We found two intact helium sacs at the first cry airship, and o the sed. They were siderably smaller than the sacs the Beaver Cleaver had by default, but Amaryllis and Awen did a bit of math together and figured that they’d be enough, if just barely.

  The better news was the intact helium tank aboard one of the ships. It was a big brass der that took two to lift, but we managed, especially as some of the townsfolk from Mistrust didn’t seem to mind giving us a hand.

  Initially, they weren’t super open to helping us, but they were quite neighbourly after we proved we didn’t io cause any trouble.

  Amaryllis seemed fairly pleased with her iations. We were going to lose a lot of the produce we had. As it turned out, Mistrust cked some very basic things, and the mayors were both ied iing all of the potatoes and turnips and onions we had in our pantry, even those that had started to sprout buds.

  The town would soon have more vegetables to eat, which seemed to excite them a lot. When I asked Mayor Marques about it, he said that they had a few local crops for their gardens, but not many. Mostly carrots and some local pnts they’d discovered were edible.

  By the time noon rolled around, we had all the new balloons mounted within the ing tarp of the Beaver Cleaver’s inal balloon. With one of the burst sacs repaired and refilled, the Beaver was slowly gaining bae of its buoyancy.

  It would be a bit of a rough flight though, with us relying on ravity geor to reduce our weight. Awen was in the engine room monit the maery while some of our other meically-ined teammates scurried over the ship and patched things up. It wouldn’t do for a bad bit of sewing to open up a tear.

  “Your crew is quite petent,” Mayor Fallfront said as she came to stao me.

  I grinned and nodded. “We have some of the very best,” I said. “Maybe not the most experienced, but they’re all people I’d sider friends, and that’s important, I think.”

  “Hmm. Where will you be flyi? Not somewhere too distant, I imagine?”

  “Sylphfree,” I said. “It’s not too far now, and we’re te to arrive already. I think we’ll make it though.”

  The mayor hummed again, then looked at me critically. “You might want to be careful. Sylphfree is a beautiful nation, with some excellent people. Smart, talented people, but they value certain virtues more than others. Propriety is greater than kindness in the eyes of many a sylph.”

  “Oh,” I said. That wasn’t great. She didn’t seem to want to expin much more than that, though, and soouro the other mayor. The town was anizing things so that their best gardeners would get some samples from our pantry. Amaryllis had also traded away a bunch of other foodstuffs, things they couldn’t get here. Flour and grains and such. I think they were hoping to find some seeds they could pnt too.

  We ended up meeting mostly outside. I spped together some sandwiches with what we had left--we really would o restock soon--and hahem out to everyone in the crew.

  By the time the sun was clearly starting to dip, we were just about done fixing up the Beaver as best we could.

  The detour to the Lonely Isnd had cost us about a day, I figured. Maybe a tiny bit less since we had flown as fast as we could after the Grey Wall, as opposed to just taking our time.

  Still, it was my failing as a captain that was leading us to be eveo our appoi. I didn’t regret the fun we had, or the great adventures helping people that needed helping, but it was still my fault that we’d be te.

  As we were pag things up and pig up the tools that had gotten scattered around, I noticed a familiar cry h closer. “Moonie!”

  “Hello,” Moonie said. “I wao greet you o time before you took off again.”

  I grinned and bounced over to the cry to give it a quick, tight hug. “It’s nice of you to e say bye. Did you make any new friends?”

  “We are... uain if we have made friends, but we have certainly met new and iing cry. This pce is better than I had imagined or hoped for. There are still many things to do, and the cry who are here are very different from the cry I know, and even more different from each other.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said. “You get to meet not just new people, but strange new people.”

  “I have!” Moonie spun around, and while I wasn’t an expert at reading cry body nguage, I figured that was a good sign they were happy.

  We chatted, just for a little bit, but it was obvious that Moonie was excited to return to their new friends, and I had a lot of work ahead of me too.

  It was hard, being all responsible and stuff.

  Once everyone was back aboard the Beaver and the sails were tucked in, I turo Clive behind the wheel and nodded. “Alright, bring him up.”

  The engine rumbled to life and I felt the ship shifting a moment before we started to rise. The crew cheered. Well, mostly it was just me, but teically I art of the crew too.

  It was slow, no faster than I could walk, but we were moving upwards, the ground dropping below and the cry towers sliding past. The wind picked up a little, a us to rog, but with Clive at the helm, we mao stay right in the middle until we cleared the tops of the towers.

  “Clive, full speed ahead! We have some catg up to do!”

  “Aye, aye, captain!”

  We deployed the Beaver’s sails, spun up the propeller at the back, and shot forwards over forests and rivers and hilly ndscapes. We were heading north, to the leg of our adventure, and hopefully to Sylphfree where, if everything worked out, we’d be able to stop a war.

  I stood on the foredeck, eyes peeled and ears straight despite the wind battering them down every so often. I was expeg someoo e up and talk. The excitement had died down a little and there wasn’t all that terribly much to do on the Beaver when we were just sailing peacefully along. I wasn’t expeg the friend to e up to me to be Joe.

  I hadn’t been spending all that much time with the Scallywags.

  That robably a bit weird. We were on the same ship, and we had breakfast, lund supper together everyday. But still, all three of them teo hang out together as their own little clique aboard the ship, the same way Steve and Gordon and Clive teo hang out together. There were plenty of times where we’d all mix together, and I retty sure that everyone sidered everyone else a friend.

  “Hey, Joe,” I said.

  “Hey, Broc,” Joe said. He moved to the rails and leaned down, elbows against the wooden surface. “That was exg.”

  “Yeah. That fight with the rocket pnes was kinda fun, but scary, then the airships. I’m gd no one was hurt,” I said.

  “It might have been a hing. The Beaver’s a tough ship, but he still took a beating.”

  I ged a bit. “I guess so. I really wish things had gone easier. ime, I’m sure we’ll do better.”

  “So there will be a ime?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Definitely. Joe, I’m not the sort of bun to not do what I to help people out. Sometimes, that meaing into a bit of trouble. Other times, that means flying halfway across the world to try and stop a war. And sometimes it’s risking hide and hare to some Evil roots. I want to be a good person, and that means ag on what I think is right.”

  Joe chuckled, his head bowing. “Yeah, I think I see that. At least you’re not all talk.”

  “Is it too much?” I asked while gesturing vaguely around us. “The adventures and the other crazy things we get us to?”

  “It’s a lot, yeah, but I think I ha for now. I still think the Scallywags and I will be heading out one day, but maybe... maybe we’ll do something simir? I don’t know. It feels wrong to do things when they’re not things that’ll pay you well. But it feels right to do things to help folk. I guess we might o find some middle ground?”

  “You could join the Exploration Guild,” I said. Which reminded me: we hadn’t done much guild-reted stuff in a while. Did they still owe us for that flower thing way back when? “They’d give you an excuse to move around a lot, meet new people, explore new dungeons.”

  Joe ughed. “I don’t know if I’m made for that kind of adventure. Just being on the Beaver is a lot for us already, I think. I ’t imagine doing what you and your friends do.”

  “I don’t think we do anything that weird, do we?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You don’t realize how wild you are, all four of you.”

  Four of us? I suppose he was ting Bastion in our party. Which robably fair. He retty close, and he had e on all the scarier adveely. “We’re just people trying to do our best,” I said. “Even if that sometimes means doing things that are scary.”

  “You’re all insane,” Joe replied with the certainty of someohat khey were right. “But it’s not a bad sort of insane.”

  I pouted at him. I wasn’t nuts.

  Joe chuckled as he stood up and stretched his back. “Well, I’m getting back to work. Someone anize our tools and such, and it sure won’t be Oda who does it. Keep us safe, captain.”

  “Have fun,” I said. “And don’t work too hard. Take regur breaks!” I called out.

  I felt like a bit of a hypocrite there. Breaks were for people who wanted to slow down.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. It didn’t feel like a good time to start making noise. Maybe I could take a few hours to just... train things.

  A final gnce around showed that things were pretty calm, all said and done, so I headed to the rear of the Beaver and down a level.

  I found Awen’s room empty; the girl was likely in the engine room again, or tinkering on her cool turret thing. Amaryllis’ room wasy. My bird friend was on her bed, face buried in some pillows and the rest of her id out ft.

  “Uh,” I said.

  “I’m sleeping,” she said.

  “Are you sleeping... well?”

  “Yes, Broccoli, I’m sleeping well,” Amaryllis said into her pillows.

  “Do you need anything?”

  “I just spent a few hours iating after a very stressful m. Not everyone is as capable as you at dealing with chaos.”

  She sighed and pushed herself up to stare at me from the er of her eyes.

  “I desperately need a nap.”

  “Okay then,” I said. “Uh, nap well.”

  I stood around in the corridor of the ship for a moment, then sighed. Maybe I did have a problem. I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. If I could at least train, maybe, or help someoh something.

  I thumped a foot on the ground and stomped off to find something to do. I might, maybe, have a wee, tiny sliver of insanity in me, sure. But that was something I could bother with ter. Right then and there, I needed a distra.

  I’d find someone who needed a friend, or my name wasn’t Broccoli Bunch.

  ***

  RavensDagger

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