Flying Away Again

It had been two days since the Heat left the city of Daut. Two days since Lucas Fairchild has repaid his debt. Three since he had discovered his abilities to talk to ghosts. While the first few nights had been a bit rough with all of the chatter and a certain sense of dread with moving ships, he had gotten used to both in time.

What he had not gotten used to was how useless the two women on board were. Sure, Lavinia was one of those fancy sort of ladies, but he had always assumed they had to learn how to cook for themselves as well. And Ana? Ana was a disaster in the kitchen, as she was aptly showing now.

"No, no no! The meat is still clear. Are you fucking trying to kill someone? This is raw! Put it back!" Luke roared, pointing at the fish fillet in the pan.

Juliana's face scrunched together, fighting the urge to cry with the verbal beating she was getting. She didn't really see why she should cook more than canned meat, and Luke's constant criticism was really starting to get to her.

Alistair watched the proceedings with some mild amusement, though was much more relieved that Luke setting the cooking right than anything. He was quite on par with Mrs. Henderson, though Alistair had no idea where his brother had learned. No matter, at least the last few days had meant an improvement in his diet over the days subjected to Ana's cooking.

"Perhaps a tad more genteel, Luke. We do wish her not to break down, I assume?"

Luke paused in his rage and moved around the kitchen's island to get a better look at her face. The kid did look like she was about ready to cry, and while that was the point of his teaching methods, making her crack down completely wasn't going to help much. With a frustrated sign, he grumbled, "Probably should be a bit more gentle. Dinner should be done soon enough if you want to go grab Lavinia and Dmitri."

He was much more used to teaching men how to cook. Most women he knew already knew the skill. No Phian family would let their daughters go out on their own without at least a basic idea of what counted as cooked or not. Perhaps Central City was just less civilized.

Ana herself glanced from her sizzling cod, giving Alistair a grateful nod in the process. While the two didn't see eye to eye all the time, or even a greater majority of the time, she couldn't help but feel like he wasn't half the criminal Syme had made him out to be.

"I don't," Alistair grumbled. "The less time I spend with the pair of them, the better."

Dmitri looked at the map again, out of boredom more than anything else. They were pretty much set on course, he thought, and he was just making sure they stayed that way. It didn't help that Dmitri felt a little tired, being up and about during the day. He'd tried to get used to the "normal" sleeping schedule the last couple of days, but after hundreds of years, doing so was pretty difficult. The smell of food did keep his mind off the sleepiness, though. The smell didn't keep his mind off sleep enough, however, as he let out a long yawn.

Lavinia had made sure everyone else was down in the kitchen out of earshot before she made her way up to the cockpit. The door clicked shut behind her and she smiled. Today she was dressed down a bit in a less bustled skirt and a shirt, no jacket. Her hair was even mostly down, though she had tied back a bit at the sides to keep it out of her face.

"No pink bonnet today, 'Mitri'?" she asked.

Dmitri turned around to see Lavinia standing in the cockpit, smiling slightly when she spoke. "I'm surprised you're wearing that tent, 'Livvy'." He brought an arm up to his torso to bow, standing up as he asked, "It's been quite a while. How have you been?"

She sighed. "Well enough, though this whole Syme business has shaken me up. Years we spent trying to work him into the fold only to have him die at a critical moment in the midst of doing valuable research for us." She flopped into one of the chairs. "Then again, with how critically you and Chiswick failed in persuading him, his death may be a blessing in disguise. He was ready to expose the entire affair even if it sullied his own family name."

Dmitri spoke in an almost mocking tone. "Such an awful event." When Lavinia spoke about his and Chiswick's failing, Dmitri frowned, crossing his arms as he leaned on the steering wheel, enough years of practice allowing him to keep it straight as he did so. "And I suppose you've come to chastise me about that, too? I can tell you that you won't be the first, and probably not the last."

Lavinia glared. "No. I merely wish to inform you that further failings on your part will reflect badly on me and may wind up with you on an examiner's table." She looked out the Cockpit window, noticing that it was getting foggier by the second. "Now tell me about the Fairchilds. All you know. Our superiors are interested in them."

Dmitri sighed as he thought. "The... younger Fairchild, I think, was the one who pretended to be Syme. He's a pompous prick who thinks the majority of the population is beneath him. He practices aquamancy, though he was either extremely tired every time he's used it around me, or he's fairly bad at it. He talks far too much for my liking, and always tries to talk his way out of a situation and lies constantly. He gambles, though I'm not sure how much."

He straightened, the wheel starting to hurt his back. With a hum, he continued, "I know very little about the elder Fairchild, actually. He's always hanging around Alistair, and seems to love his little iron pipe. The first time I saw him, he was much less..." Dmitri paused as he thought of a good word to use. "Groomed. Looked like he waltzed right off the street." He thought some more, wondering if there was anything he learned about either of them at the Zalt house. "As for magical ability, as we've seen, he appears to be an ectomancer..." He fell silent at this point, wondering if Ivanna was still hanging around, and if he could get Luke to talk to her for him.

--

Ivanna had spent the whole time watching Dmitri navigate, having not been in a cockpit before. She looked out the windows with an almost childish glee, watching clouds and such fly by. She had giggled at Dmitri when he spoke to himself as he had adjusted the ship's course. She yawned with Dmitri out of pure habit. All in all, she had enjoyed herself very much. When Lavinia walked in, and the two began talking, Ivanna wondered who she was, and how she knew Dmitri. Not because she was jealous, but because she wondered how the two knew each other. She listened to their conversation, curious as to what they were talking about. When Dmitri talked about Lucas' ectomancy, Ivanna was reminded that she wanted to apologize to him, and wondered if he was free at the moment.

"And that is all you know?" Lavinia asked. "Why did you confuse the younger for Syme? Do you have a sense of how the two might be connected?"

Dmitri crossed one arm over his chest, the other propped on it as he placed a hand on his chin in thought. "As far as I know, the two were both on this ship. How they met and how they both wound up here, I don't know."

As the ship flew threw the air, the sky began to darken. Not from the beginnings of the moon's eclipse of the sun, but from the slow gathering of grey clouds in front of the ship. The wind blew fiercely and shook the ship, howling through the cracks in the windows. Lightning cracked in front of the navigation window.

Luke glanced to the window. While he could not remember being on a ship, part of his mind was beginning to worry. Ana herself was a bit more worried when seeing the storm clouds. She reached over to turn off the stove, setting the fish on the unused burner. "We should probably get ready. Buckle up and wait it out," She said, still staring out the window at the approaching storm.

First, Dmitri noticed the room getting darker. Then, as he turned to see what was going on, he grunted as the ship rocked, and fought to keep his balance, slapping his hands down anywhere they would hold him up. Just as he steadied himself, a bolt of lightning flashed in front of the navigating window, feeling to Dmitri like it had seared his eye. He stepped back from the steering wheel, out of instinct. He groped around for something to keep him upright as he recovered from this blindness, calling out, "Lavinia! Take the wheel!"

Lavinia steadied herself quickly and grabbed the wheel, using her power to help hold it steady. "We have to shield ourselves from the lightning! I'm sure there must be some repellent on board!"

-

"Are you daft, girl?" Alistair snapped, running to the window to look out. "We've go' a balloon full of 'ydrogen floating over our 'eads! We can' jus' wai' i' out with lightning out there! We 'ave to turn 'round unless you've a lightning repelling alloy on 'and!" He had gone pale. The knuckles of his hands were white as he balled them into fists. He knew the dangers of lightning storms perhaps better than anyone else on board, with the possible exception of Luke. A sudden storm could be the most deadly thing imaginable to someone in a hydrogen-filled air ship.

Dmitri still couldn't see, but he left the room anyway to try and seek out Juliana. After groping around for the door for a while. Feeling his way down the hall to where he thought he remembered everyone being, he reached the stairs. He gingerly went down the stairs, making sure there was a step underneath each foot. After a while, though, she ship was buffeted by wind again, causing Dmitri to fall down the remainder of the stairs. Cursing as he reached the bottom, he tried sitting up, very disoriented. He could see very vague shapes, in the form of fuzzy colors, which wasn't helping anything. Groaning, he stood up, trying again to go where everyone was. He reached them at the very end of what sounded like Alistair chewing someone out, probably Juliana. "Captain," he called out, a sense of urgency, but also a tone of gentleness, as opposed to Alistair, "Do you have any lightning repellant?"

Juliana took a step back from the angry Alistair. torn between shrinking against the yelling and the adrenaline pumping through her veins. "We 'ave some in the cabinet down the 'all, but it's the manual kind. Someone's got to go out there and apply it by 'and," She said, trying to glance out into the hall. "We can either risk trying to fly through it or 'ave someone risk their own skin to apply it."

"Are you fucking insane?!" Alistair snapped, "We'll be killed because you bloo'y well couldn' bother thinking a'ead!" The adrenaline was pumping through his veins. The idea of death by electrocution did not appeal to him, but neither did death by explosion or falling. "Fuck!" There might be another option, if he had the strength... but that could also kill him. He ran out the door, shoving past Dmitri as he tried to head up the stairs. Would he have the strength to hold out?

Dmitri pursed his lips. Climbing out on top of a flying ship during a lightning storm was not the smartest, or safest, of idea. But if it wasn't done, the ship was definitely in danger. And even if he wanted to, Dmitri was reluctant to offer to apply the repellant. Not only was he still mostly blind, if it began raining while he was out there, then Dmitri faced a possibly fatal problem aside from lightning. While not quite as dangerous as a solid mass of water, rain still affected Dmitri the same way, much to his chagrin.

As Alistair pushed past him, Dmitri tried grabbing something once again to keep himself steady, still a little disoriented from his stumble down the stairs. Looking toward the general direction of Luke and Juliana, he asked, "Where is he going?"

"Mr. Fairchild, wa-" Juliana called out while moving to try and grab Alistair's jacket before he could leave. She was too late however and stopped in the doorway, her brain trying to figure out alternatives. "I don't know where 'e's going. Stay 'ere! You're in charge while I'm gone," She growled to Dmitri. And with that she disappeared out the door, running across the cargo hold of the ship to reach the lightning repellant.

Luke meanwhile tried to stabilize himself on a counter. Fear was gripping every ounce of his brain, forcing itself into his very bones. He could feel memories of children screaming and men barking orders. No, not memories, visions. His spectral family was panicking, crying and running around the ship. Part of his mind could hear the engine exploding behind them. No, not in actuality, there was no heat, but he could have sworn... He tried to keep his grip on the counter, sweat pouring off his face.

Dmitri had been about to say something to Juliana when he noticed movement in the corner of his eye. He looked over to him, feeling like something wasn't really quite right with Lucas. He slowly made his way over to him, his sore rear reminding him he didn't want to fall again. When he got to a conversational distance, he asked, "Are you okay? I can't honestly tell, but you don't look too good."

Alistair burst out onto the top deck in the open air as the wind picked up and the rain began pouring down. The door flew back, wide open, knocked aside by a gust. He managed to hold on to the door frame to keep from getting blown off the deck. Lightning cracked nearby, and he couldn't stop his heart pounding with fear. Nevertheless he knew what he had to do. His strength had returned a bit over the last few days... enough, he was sure, that he could hold against the might of the pelting storm and the crackles of lightning.

Concentrating, he managed to gather the water around him, pushing it out, out... forming a thin shield against the elements... As the rain pelted, it joined with the water he had gathered, making it bigger, bigger, until, after a minute, he had managed to gather enough water to hold a water shield around the entire ship several feet off. Lightning struck it and crackled along it, but did not arc through. The air inside the field felt clammy, but otherwise still. Alistair breathed and shakily moved to the center of the upper deck, sitting there where he might best keep an eye on his water barrier.

Juliana dragged the repellant machine out of the cabinet. It was the same size and shape as a large backpack, though the pouch portion was replaced by two cylinders. A large hose ran off the back, leading to a nozzle meant to spray as far as possible. Gritting her teeth the captain threw the device on her back and headed up the stairs, aiming to go down the hall to the rear door and ladder.

She paused in her attempts to get up, trying to place the reason for a water barrier around the ship. Slowly she made her way up the ladder, glancing around to find the source. All she could see was Alistair, just sitting there in the middle of the deck. "Are you crazy? Get back down! You get struck up 'ere you're done for!" She shouted at him.

Luke shook his head to Dmitri's question, only vaguely aware he was there. "I 'ear them screaming," He said, trying to grasp his breath. He could physically feel the heat, but in his mind flames burned.

Dmitri's expression became concerned, but not because he thought Lucas was crazy. "'Them'? Who are you talking about?" He guessed that the voices Luke heard were more ghosts, since he could tell that Ivanna was here. Whether they were on the ship itself, though, or lingered around the area, if they can do that, Dmitri didn't know.

--

Ivanna had gasped when the storm hit. She had been so into listening to Dmitri and Lavinia talk, she didn't notice the storm until the lightning bolt. She immediately began worrying about Dmitri when he seemed to be disabled by the bolt, and became even more worried when he fell down the stairs. When the Fairchild family had started panicking, she felt panicked herself, and clung onto Dmitri, wondering what was going to happen.