She sees the light ahead of them before any of her crew, a gathering near the ceiling of the Neath and then an arc downwards into the black waters of the zee. She throws her arm before her eyes, and is still left blinking spots out of her gaze.
"What was that?" a crewmember calls out in alarm.
"I don't know," she replies, "but we're checking it out."
There's murmurs, but her crew do as commanded.
Who wouldn't like the attention of an angel? Kim thinks, looking at the brightness in Lillian's eyes.
Maybe now isn't the best time for fond stares and thoughts, especially not someone who is still mostly a stranger.
"For now, I suppose I'm your handyman? We can decide what we're doing once the pictures are up and centred."
"'Kay! The pictures're this'a way..." And she directs Kim and Lillian in hanging a wide variety of paintings and sketches and other assorted decorations. Lillian manages to coax a couple of stories of the Neath out of her, though their veracity is a little bit dubious.
Kim laughs through her nose at some of the more outlandish ones, but doesn't correct the child. It's amusing to see her so excited to tell stories to new people.
Eventually hangings are hung and tweaked and sufficiently ruled over, to Sophie's great satisfaction.
"Hey, food!" Sophie eventually remembers. "Rena, food!"
"Food would be appreciated, thank you."
Been a while since breakfast, and that had been little more than plain toast. She'd been anxious to get going, to get set up for...
She looks at Lillian, again.
Lillian is going to help the kids set up a proper "feast." Sophie's now switched to teaching her Neath-songs.
It turns out that this particular 'angel' cannot sing. At all. In the slightest.
Kim laughs. "Like alley cats fighting!"
She joins in with the singing, though her voice isn't much better than Lillian's.
Kim is happy to watch, fondly amused, and is impressed by Sophie's tenacity.
Eventually food is scrounged up. It's mostly old dried mushrooms and a bit of crab and some bread of dubious origin and an old mushroom-flavored tea, but Lillian is impressed, having had nothing but fish and hard tack up until now (and not much of that, when the sailors realized she didn't need to eat, as provisions are always precious).
"Are you all kids? Do you have adults looking after you?" Kim asks Sophie and Rena.
"Always been just me. Someone killed the orphanage director and I ran. Unluckily it didn't take."
"You've both done really well to look after yourselves," Kim says gently. "It's not easy living on your own. And you've got such lovely accommodations now."
"I sell mushrooms and stuff! Rena's tryna practice being sneaky, they're not very good yet."
"It's a hard skill to learn! Senna should try to teach you, cats are very sneaky."
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
