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One moment Loki is trying to kill the snake-monster before it gets any closer to civilization, and then next -
She jabs at its face, but with momentum intended to meet resistance, and there is none. With momentum intended to compensate for a dodge on the part of the creature, but it surges forward. She's engulfed, and then there is no snake, and there is no ground, and she's falling.
She gasps. The air is clean; she doesn't need to heal poison out of herself with each breath. She sees - floating land, of sorts, there, some kind of oddly geology-themed ship maybe. She could, potentially, turn Lævateinn into something with enough surface area to steer herself onto it rather than fall farther and suffer worse from the fall, but she just recently perfected a new...
She's a bird, a swift, and she catches the wind, and her spear is a twig clutched in her feet, and she wings her way to the land.
Rockeye's first glowfic. Loki (a Bell) falls on Nick in Cloudbank.
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purposeful_glory
cloudwanderer
"If you knew more about the ship that could be useful, but any significant problems will set of an alarm in my room and any minor problems you wouldn't know how to deal with, so for now you might as well sleep."
purposeful_glory
"All right." She looks for a good place to put her armor and gets all the clunky bits off, leaving something only slightly laughable as nightclothes under it.
cloudwanderer
There are some empty shelves - her armor could go there.
Sunset is rapidly approaching, and there isn't an obvious way to make artificial light. Nick goes to his room and goes to sleep.
Sunset is rapidly approaching, and there isn't an obvious way to make artificial light. Nick goes to his room and goes to sleep.
purposeful_glory
Loki shelves her armor and flops into the hammock.
She stays up a little, making illusory lights in lieu of a notebook to draw out the shape of her thoughts regarding the planet-transiting snake monster. Presumably Heimdall will have already said something, and maybe she'll be collected as soon as she wanders close enough to somewhere the Bifrost can connect - but it's possible the planet is inaccessible that way; she's never heard of it before - well. She can't get home on her own unless she finishes her teleportation spell, which will certainly take decades. And more than twenty sheets of paper, but if she writes very small and densely she can probably make some progress like that.
Eventually she lets all her illusions wink out and she sleeps.
She stays up a little, making illusory lights in lieu of a notebook to draw out the shape of her thoughts regarding the planet-transiting snake monster. Presumably Heimdall will have already said something, and maybe she'll be collected as soon as she wanders close enough to somewhere the Bifrost can connect - but it's possible the planet is inaccessible that way; she's never heard of it before - well. She can't get home on her own unless she finishes her teleportation spell, which will certainly take decades. And more than twenty sheets of paper, but if she writes very small and densely she can probably make some progress like that.
Eventually she lets all her illusions wink out and she sleeps.
cloudwanderer
The next morning, Nick prepares a simple breakfast, yells into the cargo hold about the availability of food, and starts untying the ropes holding his houseship to the island. If Loki is nearby, he will start pointing out useful objects and what they do, or talking about the operation of an airship more or less at random.
purposeful_glory
Loki gets up, has no change of clothes so eats breakfast in what she's already wearing, and listens attentively to the monologue about the functions of the ship.
cloudwanderer
Nick isn't trained as a teacher, but he obviously knows what he's talking about. Flying an airship seems to be mostly about managing one's weight, speed, and the winds around one's ship, but there is plenty of fine detail to be had. The 'engines' he was talking about yesterday burn things and somehow turn the heat into motion.
At one point he pauses and asks, "How did you end up here anyway? Were you just walking along and, boom, island?"
At one point he pauses and asks, "How did you end up here anyway? Were you just walking along and, boom, island?"
purposeful_glory
"No. I'm not at all sure of the underlying mechanism, but an unfamiliar monster I was fighting somehow managed to drop me in midair on another planet. I'm nearly as confused as you are, I assure you."
cloudwanderer
"Some sort of big predator dropped you here? That sounds... Well, if I accept you appearing out of nowhere, a monster putting you here isn't that much further out there. And you were fighting this monster because it was trying to kill you, I suppose?"
purposeful_glory
"Well, it wasn't after me in particular until I went out to meet it, but I didn't want it loose in a city. I'm not sure if it was a predator. It was aggressive, but herbivores can be that too."
cloudwanderer
"Keeping it away from a city seems reasonable, good job, very noble of you. I don't understand what you mean about predators and herbivores though." The allspeak seems to be using the same word for 'predator' and 'monster,' if loki notices that kind of thing.
"How do you know Anglish, anyway? I don't imagine it's a common language on Asgard."
"How do you know Anglish, anyway? I don't imagine it's a common language on Asgard."
purposeful_glory
"It's not. That's something called Allspeak. Which may or may not contain awkward translation glitches - once I went for quite a long time without noticing that it was switching the genders of all gendered words on me - but serves for most purposes. I'm using different terms for 'something that eats other creatures' and 'something that is dangerous to people'. A ladybug eats other creatures; a bilgesnipe is dangerous but only eats plants."
cloudwanderer
"So you have some sort of universal language, and whatever sent you here was 'something that is dangerous to people.' Alright."
That seems to be about enough strangeness for him, at least right now. He consciously decides to go back to explaining the ship. Next up: Ballast and lift! The ship floats partially by being made of the same rock as the floating islands, and partly because of those gas sacs - they're filled with hydrogen, and can float on air much the same way a boat floats on water. They also have a tendency to catch fire, which is why there are no torches or lanterns here.
His preparations for flight are apparently complete. The engines sputter into motion with a loud roar, and he goes to a little room at the front of the ship with good views of the surroundings and lots of strange looking mechanisms, which he starts operating and explaining.
That seems to be about enough strangeness for him, at least right now. He consciously decides to go back to explaining the ship. Next up: Ballast and lift! The ship floats partially by being made of the same rock as the floating islands, and partly because of those gas sacs - they're filled with hydrogen, and can float on air much the same way a boat floats on water. They also have a tendency to catch fire, which is why there are no torches or lanterns here.
His preparations for flight are apparently complete. The engines sputter into motion with a loud roar, and he goes to a little room at the front of the ship with good views of the surroundings and lots of strange looking mechanisms, which he starts operating and explaining.
purposeful_glory
It's all very cunning. Once she has enough information to form questions, Loki asks some.
cloudwanderer
He attempts to answer them! It's fairly clear what each thing does and how to operate them - that thing will drop some water, making the ship lighter. That one speeds up or slows down the engines - but his explanations of how they actually work seem to be assuming a level of education Loki does not have.
purposeful_glory
Well, she's pretty bright, she can follow along for the most part and fill in with clarifying inquiries. "Using water as ballast is clever," she opines. "If everything else is hard to come by."
cloudwanderer
"Water and air are pretty much the only things we have plenty of, yes. It's also conveniently liquid, which makes it easier to handle."
He uses a compass to point the ship south, activates a panel that's supposed to keep it pointed the same direction, and lets the engines settle into a low rumble. They're descending steadily, but not particularly quickly.
"I could just vent some hydrogen and go down that way, but I prefer to have some speed under me. Something this big can't maneuver easily from a dead stop, so if I fell towards something it would be hard to get out of its way. Let's go show you what plants need how much water." He proceeds to the rooftop garden.
He uses a compass to point the ship south, activates a panel that's supposed to keep it pointed the same direction, and lets the engines settle into a low rumble. They're descending steadily, but not particularly quickly.
"I could just vent some hydrogen and go down that way, but I prefer to have some speed under me. Something this big can't maneuver easily from a dead stop, so if I fell towards something it would be hard to get out of its way. Let's go show you what plants need how much water." He proceeds to the rooftop garden.
purposeful_glory
She follows and learns how to water the plants correctly.
cloudwanderer
Watering the plants takes not quite all of the rest of the morning. The ship is fairly small - When she's done, she could easily find Nick near one of the engines if she looks for him.
purposeful_glory
"All done," she tells him. "How else does one occupy one's time here?"
cloudwanderer
"Well, I tinker or read or update my wind charts. You could read my books, I guess, but they're mostly technical and boring. Star charts, engineering manuals, that kind of thing."
purposeful_glory
"Well, they'll do for a few days. Where do you keep them?"
cloudwanderer
"In my workshop. I'll show you." He shows her. She probably recognizes some of the tools and devices in here, but the books are on shelves along one wall. There is a single wooden chair.
"Enjoy. I'll be working on the water tanks."
"Enjoy. I'll be working on the water tanks."
purposeful_glory
"Thank you."
Books are a lovely way to pass the time, especially when she doesn't want to get down to serious work on spell invention with only a little paper to hand and when she may be fetched home by more conventional means at any moment. What are her choices?
Books are a lovely way to pass the time, especially when she doesn't want to get down to serious work on spell invention with only a little paper to hand and when she may be fetched home by more conventional means at any moment. What are her choices?
cloudwanderer
Several books about navigation and handling lighter-than-air objects, a weather almanac, a long row of handwritten volumes consisting of detailed notes, charts, and calculations. A book filled with lists of usual weights and prices for various objects and substances. Books on farming and how one should grow plants. Lots of books that detail how the sort of mechanical devices all over the ship work and the best ways to build or fix them - though again, these seem to assume the reader has some amount of background education.