"Does your healing spell happen to repair muscle fatigue as well? I'm a fair bit stronger than I was yesterday, as if I've been practicing fighting for weeks."
"It will not repair all the symptoms of exhaustion. You will need enough food to support the exercise you're doing and so on. But it will repair any injury, and I suppose that could lead to very noticeable effects on a Midgardian."
"Yes, it is very noticeable. Now that I'm done embarrassing myself, we should do some maintenance. It's never a good idea to go very long without maintenance. You've been on this ship twice now, you know how to check the gas cells and water tanks and so on, yes?"
"Excellent, thanks. I'll have a look the engines and controls while you do, they're much more... Picky. Custom-built."
The central room with all the gas cells smells faintly of rotten eggs.
He runs for the cargo bay, intent on thread and patches of goldbeater's skin.
The cells are opaque. She puts a bright blue illusion light in each, looking for where it shines out.
Nick comes back with his thread. With the bright blue light making the leak obvious, he carefully lays down the glue-soaked patch, trying not to open up any more holes. A bone needle pushes thread through to hold it in place, and the material is flexible enough to seal up again over the needle-holes.
"Good catch. I could barely smell it from that side of the room. Now we get to be even more careful about sparks and check over each and every every cell thoroughly, what fun."
"Delight. Perhaps my next spell project will be the transmutation of matter."
They check the cells thoroughly. No further leaks are evident. With a few windows open, the smell slowly dissipates over the next few hours.
After lunch and some further chores, Nick would like to continue learning to fight.
Well, then, he gets a review of all the ways to fall, and then he can learn to retain his grip on someone he's trying to keep hold of. Loki doesn't break any of his fingers - she doesn't rely on mere superior strength to break his incorrect grips at all. If he does it wrong a little twist of her arm will free her wrist.
He manages to learn the grips fairly quickly, though using leverage correctly escapes him for a while. Gripping things and climbing around is an essential part of living on an airship - a few new ways to do it to a person and not a rope are quickly learned when he leans on the old patterns.
Well, if he's got that down, it's time to start playing with footwork.
He remembers how to fall, right? Because she's going to trip him.
He falls. A lot. Correctly, for the most part. He's usually good at dealing with his feet being in uncomfortable places, but not when it comes in the form of a sharp pull on his leg or a sudden unexpected obstacle. He's also hopeless at trying to trip Loki in return.
She can do this way longer than he can, too.
After that's done, "When did I get so thirsty?"
"Yes, probably. You may have noticed by now, but I have a tendency to focus on one or two things, sometimes to my detriment. How do you think I'm doing at fighting, by the way?"
"Not at all badly for your first few days, but we're still in the maneuvering stages. I haven't seen you throw a punch."
"I was wondering about when you planned for me to start hitting things. You're the expert here, so I didn't want to ask."
"Moving without hitting things is more useful than hitting things without moving, so this is the accustomed order, but we can start on that next time."
For now, though, it is clearly time for dinner. And then some more chores. And then bed.