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Walta moves to help with the dishes. "Maybe I'll show you how to tend the greenhouse later? But that might be a waste if you're going to leave sooner or later."

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"I think the captain's planning to kick me off at the next port. I was planning to help in the greenhouse, but if you think you'll lose more time teaching me than I can save you," she shrugs. "It's your call."

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"Yeah. He probably is going to kick you off when we get down to a big city - not at the small farming village we wanna find, I don't think. But if I give you useful skills or knowledge that will probably help!"

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"Yeah, that would help, wouldn't it. I'd be glad to learn."

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"Yep, can't let you out into the wide world without a little help. Wouldn't be neighborly."

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Gosh. She likes this girl.

There's not that many dishes. Between the two of them, they're soon done.

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And then Walta goes to the rope room and shows Lilith how to use the safety harness. It's not that hard. There are plastic buckles and such. "There's a ladder, but better safe than sorry."

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Lilith errs on the side of conscientious and thorough with the safety procedures. (She's tempted to pull the straps a bit tighter than necessary, but decides it's better not to improvise.)

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"You nervous? I'd help you down, but there's not really room on the ladder for two. I'll give out slack slowly from up here?"

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"I think I can handle it. Just, being careful."

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Down they go, nice and easy. The ladder sways, there's a breeze. But she's not in any danger as the slightly snug rope reminds her.

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Nice and easy. She might be a little slower than Walta, but soon enough they're on the ground.

The ground reassuringly declines to sway under her feet.

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From here she can see The Grumpy Whale painted in red flowy cursive script all across the side of the ship. "I wanted to draw a picture too but Nick shot that down."

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She laughs. "That's adorable. Did he name her? ...Do you guys have flying whales here. Is that a thing."

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"Captain Vauners named her, yep! We have things they call whales. They probably have no resemblance to ocean whales."

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"Are they big? That's the main thing I'd expect from anything named after ocean whales."

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"They've been known to get mistaken for islands."

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"That's amazing. Ocean whales... small islands, maybe.

What happens if you try to land on one?"

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"Whalequake. It roars and shakes you off. Maybe tentacles help shoo you away too."

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"That's so cool. And tentacles! Alien tentacle whale!

 

...We were gonna gather floatgrass, right."

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"Yeah. And here's how you do it..."

Hold the special floatgrass bag over a big stand of the stuff. Whack the grass with a stick. Most of the ripe seeds come off just fine, don't let it float away! Simple.

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It takes her a couple of fumbling tries to get the hang of it, but she manages not to spill any of the seeds.

Whack whack.

It's kind of meditative. She could keep doing this for a while. ...or until her bag fills up, that's a thing.

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"And now we send the bag into the hold! It all floats up, we can process it later." She lets hers go into a hole that's been opened on the ship bottom, extending a thread up until it's inside and letting go.

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Lilith follows suit, cautiously.

Is that it, or are there more bags to fill?

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"We keep going until we run out of bags, or grass. It's not that hard work, though, so it's not bad."

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