"I have no questions, Captain. Thank you."

She looks expectantly at Mr. Ultis.

Lenora says, "Good luck!"

Mr. Ultis shakes her hand. "Come on, let's head back. We're called 'stokers' but we're really more like engineers. Just not called that, cos we don't want to be confused with the guys who design things. Chief engineer is a stoker, really. They get the fancy name because they have to basically be a real engineer to be a chief. Rest of us? Mechanics, really."

"Alright, so what are we mechanic-ing? The engine, I'd assume?"

"Yeah. And various other pieces o' machinery, checking the steam pipes for heating, looking in crawl spaces for any issues, making sure the electro-whatsit works so the headlight will stay on... 'Ere we are."

He opens the hatch into the engine room - the rear section is crowded with machinery, and another stoker is checking a variety of valves and gauges. Someone else is tightening bolts on a panel that looks like it was removed recently. "Sam, Oscar, come get a look at Thorn. New hand."

Sam gives a lopsided sarcastic salute. Oscar waves and says, "Be prepared to be too hot and too cold at the same time!"

"Oh, like Newfoundland!" Falls out of her mouth before she can stop it. She really isn't any good at this "cover" thing. 

"Is Newfoundland in the crawl spaces?"

"We can show you the routine and talk about what to do if something comes up. It probably won't. Captain DeVries doesn't push the engine hard and we stay on top of maintenance."

"Big crew," Sam comments, putting on her hat. "Safer, more eyes looking for problems, more preventative maintenance, more hands at the ready when one punches you in the face."

"Yeah, it could be." She takes the chance to let the comment go. 

"Do crewmembers punch people in the face often around here? And when will I learn the basic maintenance?"

"When problems punch you in the face."

"Today. Oscar, you finish that and then watch the engine telegraph, let me know when cap calls for final prep. Sam, do whatever. Thorn, c'mere. This is the main engine. Here's the firebox, and here's the boiler - pressure gauge is here, this is a release valve that automatically pops if the pressure goes too high so watch your foot there-"

He proceeds on a quick tour of the major features of the engine and the stokers' tools. Sam interjects with a mix of bad sarcasm and useful advice.

She listens carefully and asks for clarification when needed.

Soon the Captain calls for final preparations and they all get in position. The coal is stored in a hopper, and they show her how to feed in an initial load to get a good burn going and use a small patch of phosphorous, paper, and kindling to warm up the engine. Throttle is controlled mostly by restricting the air supply. The fire stays on all the time, low when stopped and high to move, except during long rests in port and major overhauls.

Soon they are underway and the engine room is much louder.

She watches and listens through it all. She's eager enough to ask if she can practice feeding the engine once they get going. 

Sure! You can even solve some problems with the hopper by hitting it really hard, which is very satisfying.

And then she can follow along when they do maintenance checks. They start in the engine room itself. This engine is a 'Britomart' - the fancier version. This panel controls all the heating pipes, these valves lead to emergency maneuvering baffles, this auxilliary pipe goes to the gun mount and this one to the mining array...

This ship has a mining array? She wasn't aware that was an option. 

Oh, sure. Crown & Misery built, no pretentious mechanical cleverness or elegance of design. Just heavy metal and solid engineering. It smashes up Hour-laden rocks and Bronzewood drifts with ease and they can separate out the good stuff from the chaff and make a tidy profit. She can join them in the auxiliary room to do maintenance checks on it.

She follows along gamely.

Lots of preventative maintenance. Pipe inspection in the crawlspace is not very fun - it's not that cramped, but it is indeed uncomfortably warm and uncomfortably cold at the same time depending on how you're positioned.

The stokers relax around her and start taking it easy aside from the occasional check on something or other. Sam and Oscar play cards. Eventually, it's time for lunch. They'll all four play rock-paper-scissors to see who has to stay in the engine room until lunch is done, since someone needs to be present at all times. Unless Thorn volunteers?

Thorn volunteers; she can get acquainted with the shipboard food later.

While they're away at lunch........

........Nothing in particular happens, aside from a single query from the bridge about the fuel usage so far. It's smooth sailing. Mr. Ultis comes back and says the other two are still on break, and they saved her a plate.

She smiles, thanks Mr. Ultis for the message, and goes and gets her plate.

The food is biscuits and gravy, bacon, juice. They gossip about the other shift of stokers, the officers, the captain - He likes laying out the shifts in weird offset and overlapping 'optimal' ways, it's a bit of a pain but not the worst captainly foible. They get back to work and the rest of Thorn's shift passes in much the same way. They have enough people, so they'll keep flying more slowly through the 'night' with just a few people awake. 

Lenora is relaxing in the galley when Thorn's shift as a stoker ends. "How was your first day?"

"Less interesting than I expected. Uncomfortable in places. But I persevered, and I think the crew are starting to warm to me a little. Volunteering to be the one minding the engine over lunch helped a bit, I think."

"Ha! Most jobs are both those things. I know a few people but most of them are new to me, too. C'mere, I suddenly wanna give you a hug."

She comes over and hugs Lenora. "We'll have time to all learn each other over the two weeks. I at least know the rules to one of the card games already, or I think I do."

"It's a lot easier with this many people aboard. If you had to do all the stokers' tasks by yourself it'd be harder, right? Anyway, I'm on duty in an hour - want to play cards or something?"

"It'd definitely be harder. And sure, I'm up for cards."

They play cards! Lenora teaches her another variant of the straight-collecting game. A couple other off-duty crew are in the galley, doing their own things, so Lenora visibly catches herself from asking about or mentioning something several times. Though she's not shy about being affectionate.

And then Lenora is on duty and Thorn is off. She could stay in the galley, go to her cabin, or perhaps something else like watch people work or explore the engine for nooks and crannies.

She's going to go to her cabin and do her singing practice as quietly as possible. 

Nobody yells at her about it, at any rate. Locomotive noises are enough to override some amount of singing.

The next day her assignment is Gunner. It turns out that gunners are also lookouts and do maintenance checks in the inhabited areas of the engine, as opposed to the machinery areas.

And around lunch they arrive again at Port Avon, bucolic and cheery and bright under blue stars. They'll be stopping for a few hours before moving on. Lenora has cargo-handling duty, but Thorn has the time off as long as she's back by 3 PM sharp. Preferably well before.

She'll keep an eye on the time while she talks to the locals, then. What's up with the giant stone formations? How do the plants here grow so large?

The locals seem to regard everything that intrudes on their peaceful suburban style lives as a terrible burden to be shirked as soon as possible. They tell her it was like that when they got here and act like they're natural wonders of some kind, and the flora of the Reach is just naturally huge, of course. Would she like to sample the garden show contest results for a few shillings? Does she happen to have any juicy gossip from the direction of London?

She'll try the garden show contest results, but she doesn't have any gossip from Londonwards. 

They do their best to disguise the weirdness of the Reach's varied plants, describing things that are clearly not squash or pumpkin or tomatoes or melons as squash and pumpkin and tomatoes and melons, and preparing them in ways that don't quite fit their flavors, but it's surprisingly varied and delicious nonetheless.

They're not unfriendly, exactly, but the local culture clearly thinks 'adventure' is adding a bit more sugar than usual to your tea and that sky-sailors are somehow inherently outsiders. Quite a pleasant place, despite that.

She doesn't risk delaying the engine for this piquant place. She'll be back a good half hour before three.

A few crew are having a picnic on the grass by the tiny rail yard, chatting with a local mechanic. The cargo loading seems to be done, Lenora is there too.

"It's peaceful, sure," the mechanic says, "But after a while there's bloody little to do around here. If I didn't have to take care of mum I'd sign up!"

She restrains a charitable impulse towards the poor mechanic. If only all problems were easily solvable with money. 

"From the short tour I've had I rather agree with you. It's downright bucolic."

"I'm half tempted to give a discount on repairs sometimes just to have something to do."

Lenora asks, "I guess trying to make something interesting happen here, like a workshop or shooting range or art club, is a no-go?"

"Not very peaceful-welsh-cabin-like, those things. But enough griping from me. Have fun in the cold sky, you lot."

The mechanic ambles off. The locomotive sets off again soon, with a slightly different set of cargo aboard.

They stop at two more places, Kensingtonville and New Devonshire, the following two days. They're basically just farming towns surrounded by a vague halo of homesteads on the same floating landmass, without even as much character as Port Avon. No bucolic orchards or grand ruins. Just farms and a small, unremarkable town each. They pick up food and lumber and drop off tools, stained glass, clothes, tea. Thorn gets to act as driver under the Captain's supervision for a bit, then as navigator's assistant. She also gets to help replace a section of pipe that one of the other stokers judges a bit too rusty.

Lenora manages to spend some time with Thorn, chats about their experiences flying and what she thinks of this crew, is happy to hear all about how 'proper' singing actually works and what she's practicing, laments that the beds in their cabins aren't really suited for fraternization and they can't really even talk about things that need to be talked about really privately.

After that, the verdancy of their surroundings ramps up, up, up, as they head towards the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve. They'll be flying for three days straight this time - they're out of the region that's relatively well-populated. The lookouts are told not to mind the bees, they only attack if you have Chorister Honey, but keep a close watch for Scrive-Spinsters.

Thorn eagerly follows instruction, soaking up her new roles like a sponge. She has a little skill at DIY repairs already from working on the barricades in the shadowland, and she's able to keep a charted course well enough. Things seem quiet as they pass through the little towns around New Avon; her occasional breaks to speak with Lenore come as a welcome relief with the work. She asks if there's such a thing as a sky-shanty, and if so can Lenora teach her some? She notes carefully what's sold and picked up at each port when she can, and if she's assigned anywhere near an open chart she might peek a little, but on the whole she keeps her head down. Lenora bartered favours to get her this position; she's not going to risk her reputation unnecessarily. 

She is assigned near open charts when she has to keep a steady course! These particular charts show the western approaches of the L&S Nature Reserve.

There aren't really sky-shanties, exactly, but there are sky-songs. Slow, mournsome things that speak of loneliness and determination and dread and being smaller than everything else out here. Some of them contain things that sound like advice or warnings.

The Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve mostly consists of a few thin-looking buildings on a plateau in the endless chittering jungle, and some paths leading to what looks like some kind of research base, to some kind of tour house, or deeper into the greenery. There are a couple other engines here, and some of what seem like tourists wandering around. The place is rather pretty, in an overwhelmingly tropical sort of way. They're staying overnight this time, and setting off again around noon tomorrow.

She practices a few sky-songs on her way in. Better to suit the place and time rather than annoy others with songs that don't fit the mood. 

She treats the reserve with a healthy wariness, preferring not to sit with the jungle at her back. Nonetheless, she takes the time to ask a few tourists what they hope to see here.

Oh, they're mostly here for the flowers and birds. There are very pretty birds here and they might even discover a genuine new species, wouldn't that be something? One well-armed group is hoping to bag something ghastly they can make into a trophy and are rather cocksure as they head down past the research base - others edge away from them.

She would like to be in the group of hunters except for all the ways where that's a horrible idea. She doesn't even have a proper rifle. 

She sits for a while birdwatching, then turns in to her cabin and rests. 

The hunting group comes back rather disheveled, and with one man's arm in a splint. The captain loads... Two large somethings into the cargo bay, sealed irregular-shaped crates marked as CONTENTS FOR THE EYES ONLY OF AUTHORIZED WINDWARD COMPANY PURCHASER. They get their first week's pay, which the Captain hands out despite the fact that they're leaving port very soon.

And then they're off to Titania.

Thorn happens to be on lookout duty in the late hours of the dimming evening light when there is... Something locomotive sized but not really locomotive shaped moving around in a cloudbank a few miles ahead and somewhat off to the side.

That's not a good sign. She keeps her glasses focussed on the blob of movement, and calls: 

"Hey, I've got something train-size moving in the cloudbank out the front here, possible Scrive-Spinster!" 

The blob of movement continues to be blobby and moving. It definitely looks sort of like a cloaked figure gliding around, something flapping behind it.

The speaking tube rings back with the Captain's voice, "Bearing? Keep updating me."

She gives the bearing. "Shape like a cloaked figure, can't tell which way it's heading in the cloud."

"We can't see it, are you sure?"

The cloaked figure emerges from the deepest part of the cloud and resolves into what is pretty definitively a scrive-spinster.

"Correction, we see something. Driver, prepare to turn around-" The voice grows muffled as the captain leans away from the speaking tube in the bridge.

"I can see it clear, it's a scrive-spinster! Heading and speed," she rattles off the way the beast is moving as best she can tell in the cloud. 

There is swearing from the other end of the speaking tube. The engine turns around as the Captain calls out battle-stations below her.

But the scrive-spinster has definitely noticed them now and is heading towards them at considerable speed, a slight green glow seeming to almost halo around it. It screams. The turn seems to take forever, a long, long arc across the sky as the wind whips around the spotter's nest's glass and the engine groans slightly under the strain of decelerating and picking up again in the opposite direction. It makes a reaching and throwing motion but nothing immediately seems to happen...

She has enough good sense to brace for impact anyway. She's seen the holes these things can put in engines.

-There! The telltale red glow reveals the strike before it comes. A spear of wood as wide around as a head and as long as a person whizzes past fifty feet off with an echoing sound, thrown off by the wide turn the engine is now coming out of. 

"Thorn, get-! Blast, no time. Try your best to shout out when to dodge, we've got side-jets! If it gets too close we'll be forced to engage."

"Yes, Captain!" She knows the timing now, having seen it once, and she still has eyes on the scrive-spinster. She readies herself and watches for the throwing motion. 

Throw!

This time the telltale light is green, not red.

She hasn't time to consider. "Dodge!"

The locomotive whooshes to the side in a sudden lurch that would have crashed her into the glass if she wasn't braced, but no strike comes.

Wait, there it is. This time there are two spears, moving considerably slower, but they're curving and tracking towards the locomotive's new position.

She sighs. "Tracking spears, speed and bearing -"

The locomotive successfully dodges these once they close, but the scrive-spinster chooses that exact moment to toss another fast-moving red one.

Even if Thorn calls it out in time, the counter-dodge is anemic, and the red spear crashes into the side of the outer plating with an extremely loud noise before tumbling away.

They are pulling ahead of the scrive-spinster slightly, though. The green spears come around for another pass.

She reports on the status of the green spears and watches for another red launch. She'll get a proper dodge in at least once. Hopefully.

Eventually the green spears explode with a booming thunk-thunk.

Red!

"Dodge!" She braces. 

HISS!

A successful dodge!

This pattern continues for minutes that feel like hours as the scrive-spinster slowly falls behind. They take just one more hit, from one of the sneaky tracking green spears.

And then the scrive-spinster shouts in - words that are not words, three shapes, three extremely complex characters of light-but-not-light and simple power steeped in the air, sizzling with anger -

Idiot-insects infesting a place not meant for them! Beings who produce nothing of intellectual value! Unforgivable wasters of paper and ink!

-And then it peels away and turns around, giving up the pursuit. The locomotive keeps going.

... well that suggests rather a lot. She keeps quiet about what she's heard; she'll keep it under her hat until she can find some privacy with Lenora. But the implications - that Scrive-Spinsters hate humans for their lack of academic achievement and importunateness upon the grand stage... That's worth saving for later. Maybe she could even talk one around given access to sufficient time and supplies...

She clears her head and gets back to her watch.

The captain says into the speaking tube, "It looks like we're clear. Good job, Miss Thorn. We're going to keep going a ways and take a side-route. Do you need a relief? That was tense."

"I'm sharp," she calls down the speaking-tube. "Maybe a little jumpy, but I'll finish my shift." 

"Alright, as long as you're still sharp. I presume you'd be happy to help with repairs later, for experience?"

"Very much so, Captain!"

When her watch ends, the crew hanging out in the galley are a bit tense and subdued.

That evening they set down on a wide, flat rock and go out to inspect the damage. The first hit is just a long gouge in the outer plating, without any penetration. They leave it for later, any makeshift repair would be too shoddy to be worth it. The second hit penetrated and then exploded slightly, and they have to replace several lengths of heating pipe, clean the crawl space of wooden shards everywhere and make sure nothing is leaking subtly, then test everything. They drill a couple of holes and bolt an additional piece of metal over the hole.

Lenora finds Thorn as they get back into the air. "You know, probably a good thing I didn't get to shoot back, all things considered."

"Still a team effort either way. I'm glad to see there doesn't seem to be any serious damage, though next time someone should tell me about the seeking spears versus the lancing spears, I wasted a dodge because I didn't know enough... And..." 

She looks over her shoulder. "Can most people understand Scrive-Spinsters?"

"Oh... Yeah. I probably should have mentioned that when we were going into scrive-spinster territory. Uh, cantankeri and chorister bee swarms mostly just repeatedly charge and ram engines. Curators have a sonic wave that's only faintly visible and exploding acid projectiles, and... Yeah, Scrive-spinsters are people. They all are, actually, every other threat I've mentioned, which is kind of horrible, but so it goes. The story goes, Eleutheria's celestial library was sundered long ago, leaving the librarians to thrash and rage and fruitlessly try to recover what they can. They mostly know English, but if you heard something that nobody else did... The Correspondence, maybe?"

"It was oddly phrased in english, so likely. What's the Correspondence, I've heard references but...?"

"The correspondence is 'the language of the heavens'. What Judgements and most of the more... Powerful things out there speak. It's incredibly many symbols, maybe infinitely many, with tiny variations. It doesn't seem to change over time like languages do, it's magic. If you try to write Correspondence, most likely you screw it up you get lots of fire and possibly some more exotic bad effect. If you're fluent you can do magic with it instead. There's a Correspondence-covered obelisk near a circus that's basically indestructible and sort of draws people in to live nearby, makes you feel like you belong there."

"How strange. I wonder if we could get someone fluent in it with enough sim time... But no matter. I shouldn't be standing around talking about this sort of thing."

"I miss talking about this sort of thing. -I'm not in a huge hurry anymore, though, slow and careful is fine. You know, Ka. You'll like Titania, I think."

"I've been looking forwards to Titania basically ever since I learned it existed. I hope I'm not let down by it."

"I don't know how it'll stack up compared to other things you've seen, but it's pretty good."

Two days later, early in the morning, they reach Titania. It is alone, free from floating islands or other obstructions, an orchid of titanic scale - battleships could fit on a single petal. Instead, they're decorated with buildings and parks, delicate-looking spiderwebs of steel and wood and glass inching across in a variety of architectural style. It looks like a city of dollhouses or fairies, juxtaposed against the flower's vastness. Thorn can see an outdoor play of some kind being performed in an ampitheater even as they approach. There is swordfighting and someone in a werewolf costume and a (literally) colorful audience, but of course it's hard to make out much detail even through binoculars.

The building adjacent to the rail-yard stands half-complete, looking as if two different architectural styles started on either end and had a fight in the middle, then left to get a pint to drink before finishing the building. Colorful, glassy, flowing, airy - and regal, imposing, strong, Victorian. Those gathering near the rail yard certainly look like artistic types, in Bohemian fashion and many of them carrying tools of their trade like an instrument or easel.

She loves this colony already and would probably fistfight someone in a bar for it. She drinks in the best look she can get without being remiss in her duties, and hopes fervently that the captain will allow shore leave.

The captain announces a day off as they pull in!

She is ready with a shore bag as fast as she can be. Which is pretty fast, given that she has a habit of keeping everything in her pack.

Lenora is currently on her sleep-shift, but Titania awaits her! A pair of women wearing flowers in their hair have apparently decided to sing a duet about 'something long awaited, about to be fulfilled' - presumably a delivery? A man wearing far too much black asks her if they have much ink aboard, as she steps off.

"I don't know, you'll have to ask the captain," is her reply. And then she's off towards the place where plays were being held as she saw on her way in.

There are lots of gardens. Some murals, mosaics, a poetry recital, someone doing showy cooking on an outdoor grill...

The amphitheater is a prominent sight on Bloom Bower, one petal down and to the left of the central structure. The play is still going on - nobody seems to be demanding tickets.

Currently the werewolf is delivering a deep baritone soliloquy about how people always judge by appearance, but it's just as well because he is beastly and evil. The costume is pretty convincing!

She stays for the play. It feels extravagant, spending her time on a random play that happened to be going on, but she stays and watches and makes ready for the hat to be passed. She'll see how good the play is and let that decide if she puts in a shilling or a sovereign.

The play is pretty highbrow and keeps addressing morality type questions, but the actors are enthusiastic and reasonably skilled and the effects and props are convincing too. The music... Could be better, it doesn't always suit the mood and two of the musicians argue for a bit at one point before the princess throws a high-heel at them.

The princess proves to be an aspiring scholar who wishes to help the peasants with new medicine, sneaking instructions past her jailors - but flawed through vanity and self-importance despite the nobility of her mission. The prince is an almost stereotypically gallant male hero who expects to be rewarded with a hand in marriage. Ultimately, the prince realizes he was an ass all along and gives up the quest as a concession to the princess's autonomy. The werewolf hunting the prince bemoans the curse of reason and morality, but endures hardship to help both the prince and princess escape at the last moment. Meanwhile the evil baron grumbles and decides to find a new tool, but is the victim of manipulation himself and falls from grace... And at the very end of the play, all three of werewolf, prince, and princess bid each other good fortune and part ways as friends, each having grown somewhat but still with unresolved issues.

It's not perfect, but it's whole, and it's the first such performance she's seen in her entire life. She'll grant it a sovereign when the hat is passed. If it's passed. What do they do around here? Or is the play free?

There's a collection bin up by the stage. Plenty of the audience are animatedly discussing the play with each other and the players. They seem to think the mostly-happy ending is a bit pedestrian, but that's the biggest common complaint.

Nothing in Titania so far seems very... Strictly organized.

Thorn tosses a sovereign into the collection bin, then approaches the crowd. She talks a little about the play (she likes the werewolf and the princess, the prince and the baron were a little flat), and then she asks:

"It's my first and perhaps only day on Titania. What do I have to see and do?"

"Ooh, visit the tea room, there's daily poetry readings!"

"The Stamen Gallery has a new exhibition, quite thrilling-"

"-Be delighted to show you the musical practice hall-"

"See as much of the gardens as you can, wander and take in the architecture-"

"If you want more visceral experiences find me in a bit-"

"Come see the Propmakers House, we use science for art-"

She is absolutely spoilt for choice, and she needs to come back here. Quite possibly to stay. She supposes she'll take up the offer to go see the musical practice room, she could probably pick up some pointers and trade her Sigilite songs for some good information on the locality. And then the tearoom to make the poetry reading and then Propmaker's House and then the gardens and thank Herself for making this body designed to run on four hours of sleep. There is so much to do.

The musical practice hall is as chaotic as the rest of the place, and is really five halls, all but the largest subdivided further into smaller rooms. About a third of an orchestra with some strange instrument replacements are practicing in the biggest room. Her frenetic guide happily introduces her to an amateur choir group before wandering off to find his harp.

"Hallo! We're mostly newer singers, or those who just dabble in it. I suppose you wish to sing as well?"

"Yes! I'm an amateur as well, fell into it after trying Chorister Honey. I'd love to practice with you all if you don't mind my joining."

"Aaaall are wel~come-" She singsongs with a smile. "We do a lot of hymns, since most people know them already and they're pretty choir-y. Hope that's okay? Come on, introduce yourself," she waves to the small group - five others besides herself and Thorn.

"That's alright. I don't know many hymns but I can pick them up. Hey everyone, I'm Thorn!" 

They like her name! They introduce themselves by their 'usual' art - painter, pianist, poet, novelist, sculptor, -laundry? Oh, he likes being around all the art but isn't much for making it himself, he does service work around the place instead.

And with that, the informal leader hands out books of hymns and they start practicing. The pianist provides the backing tune, and is a poor but enthusiastic singer himself.

She can also provide enthusiasm, and hopefully with her lessons something closer to the right key. It's a fun time at least. 

The group as a whole is pretty good for amateurs and Thorn successfully contributes to it!

It breaks up after a couple of hours. The pianist keeps practicing without any off-key singing this time, and flirts at her if she stays.

She's not in the mood to hang around and be flirted at. She has gardens to see! And the Prophouse, wherever it is. She's probably too late for the poetry reading at the teahouse. And if she stumbles onto the Stamen Gallery she'll consider taking a look.

The gardens are quite pretty, and seem to have devoted gardeners, if a very chaotic design. The Prophouse is a bit hidden away, it seems. The first two people she asks don't know where to find it. A third suggests it's near the center of the flower, with all the other more private things. It turns out there are several poetry readings at the teahouse - it's practically a house for poetry, not tea. She's missed the first but there are more.

She'll listen to a reading while she tries to orient herself. The more private things are closer to the center of the flower; she'll go looking once she finishes her tea and her reading.

The poetry is pretty varied. Some of it's quite good, but there are a lot of amateurs too.

She'll memorize one or two of the best ones and thank their authors. Possibly with money, if there's an opportunity. 

The cafe's culture seems to be against donations. It's a place of quiet and calm and plainspoken word, and the poets leave as quickly as they arrive.

She nods at that. There's sense in it. 

She goes deeper into the flower, seeking the Prophouse.

The buildings here don't exactly explain what they are from the outside. There are greenhouses, and apartments, and closed offices of some kind, and utility buildings of unclear purpose.

But that place that looks a bit like a workshop, with pieces of three different sets visible through the wide door, must be the Prophouse?

She'll try it. 

"Excuse me," she says, rapping gently on a sturdy-looking set. "Is this the Prophouse?"

Voices come from around the side of the sets. "Who's asking? Are you with the collectors?!"

"George! There's no- What is it this week? Yes, this is it! Come on in, just don't break anything! Don't mind George!"

She steps in gingerly past the sets and takes her first look around the prophouse from the inside.

Sets, rigging, tools, paper mache, plasterboard, and paint are scattered around in a chaotic mess. The two voices are working on some kind of giant scrive-spinster puppet.

George declares, "You look like a sailor. The ludos are enemies with the Tacketies, so you're probably safe."

The other man says, "...George, do you wanna go paint the castle set you were working on?"

"No, we've got to finish this. It's almost done."

"Alright. Hello miss. Please don't mind... The mess."

"It looks like a productive mess. The person who reccommended you to me said you used Science to build the latest art?"

"Oh, well, sort of? We have some nice molding techniques and paint, and we receive shipments from the Royal Society sometimes. Soft Amber has a really nice unsettling lifelikeness for it, it's good for monsters and gore. But I personally don't go out of my way to put science in the art, I just make the props the best I can. Sometimes that means using the Benthic's latest frippery, sometimes that means finding a local plant or animal with parts that look right, sometimes that means paint and beaverboard and paper-mache."

"What's soft amber? I've never heard of that before. And beaverboard?"

"Beaverboard is just, like, thin wood that's no good for actual construction. For cases and such. Soft amber is something the Rubbery Men make, and it's apparently got all sorts of scientific uses, but we use it as a flesh substitute. Looks like it, recyclable, and doesn't rot, though it goes soft and melts above about ninety degrees."

"They use it for alchemy and shape-changing!"

"..Huh. I'm not actually sure if I believe that."

"You should. It's true. Come help with this lever, you two, it's stuck. Sabotage?"

"It's not sabotage. Just wear and tear. I'm Sergo, by the way, miss. Lend a hand?"

She goes and lends a hand, since there's no reason for her not to. She has the clear impression that this is rather a "pitch in where you can" kind of community, and she likes it. 

Does she want to play with some soft amber and red dye? They need a lot of 'mangled bits' for a particularly macabre play in the works, she can learn and help at the same time!

She would love to. How does it handle, what does it look like undyed, what does the red dye do to it? There is so much to discover!

It handles like modeling clay or play-doh, especially when warmed by one's hands, but is reasonably firm It looks pale and tan and it really does seem like flesh, though it glistens when warm. It accepts dye eagerly, shading and blending well, and they tell her you can melt it and let the dye separate out to 'clean' it. Here's how you stick these little wig-pieces in! That's how they did the werewolf costume, though getting it to move realistically was a challenge too!

Ooh, clever! She practices putting the little wig-pieces in and shaping the clay-like soft amber. She asks if she can buy a piece of warm amber to keep.

Eh, she can just have a chunk if it's, like, a finger's worth. A fist's worth would be a few shillings.

She'll toss in a few shillings for a fist's worth. Thank you kindly for the sample, and now she's on to explore some more in the single days she has. She's been to the poetry house and to singing and to the plays and to here, now. What else is there to see?

It's well into the afternoon now. There's the gardens, filled with flowers and other plants and public art. The Stamen Gallery has been mentioned several times and sounds like a painting exhibition. And someone promised 'visceral experiences', which normally would probably mean either sex or drugs, but in a colony of artists who knows?

She goes in search of the Stamen Gallery. She can find more visceral things at night when they're best appreciated. 

The Stamen Gallery proves to be at one of the highest points on the flower, with a very high roof, open floor plan, and wide stained glass windows. It seems expensive.

The paintings on exhibit are honestly pretty good, at least in technical quality. There are a variety of styles in play, from realism to impressionism to vague shapes and forms and colors that evoke a scene without actually putting any detail on the canvas. The choice of subjects is... Slanted pretty strongly towards sexual? That seems to be the central theme of the Stamen Gallery. It's mostly pretty tasteful and suggestive, not explicit. Also, lots of flower imagery.

She laughs when she realizes the theme of the subject matter, out loud where everyone can hear her. She covers it, but - she is so amused that everyone here is apparently into sexuality. It's like she's discovered another shared interest in a friend. 

She goes and finds a garden to walk in while she ponders on "visceral experiences."

And who should see her from a higher-up petal and then rush down to meet her, but Lenora?

She turns a corner with a grin, carrying a rose.

"You seem happy! This is for you. Don't worry, I paid for it."

"It's a very alive place, full of light and color. It kind of fits my ethos, in a way. I'm not sure if I'd want to live here but I think it would be a lot of fun. And thank you for the rose." She accepts it gingerly, careful of its thorns. 

"Yeah, Titania is fun to visit but I don't want to live here either. Especially not when the Chorister Bees get riled up." Her expression falls for a moment. "You're welcome. It has thorns, you see... I have something to put it in too, if you'd rather not carry around a flower."

"There must be a rose to every thorn, hm? I see the logic, and I'll take the carrying case. And while Chorister Bee attacks are not exactly my cup of tea either, I could maybe learn to tolerate them. I'm built that way." 

"I get the impression you get used to it, and casualties tend to be low among those who're well armed and who've survived once or twice. Nothing's really safe... Is it easier, uh, other places?"

"It is. There are whole worlds to explore there, I think."

She hands over a little narrow decorative vase with a rubber neck to hold the flower in place.

"Hopefully I'll get to see something like that some day. D'you want some company, or should I let you enjoy it by yourself?"

"Company would be delightful. I seem to have more or less exhausted everything I was reccommended, except for someone who offered a quote "visceral experience" unquote. I am currently seriously considering wether I want to take them up on their offer."

"I mean, my first three guesses are... Some exotic drug like Red Honey or Starshine - don't try Red Honey, it's evil - a whorehouse or some kind of orgy, or some kind of weird and pagan ritual meant to be thrilling and transgressive even to Titanian sensibilities. Or a fighting club, maybe. Four guesses."

"I might be interested in a fighting club, but aside from the question of "what is red honey anyway" I'm entirely satisfied not indulging in the other three options. Despite sex being lovely and all, I'd rather not dive into the deep end this soon."

"Red Honey shows you snatches of someone else's memory with great immersion. Apparently it's heady and visceral and thrilling, being someone else. But it's - incredibly painful for whoever's memory it is, when you do that. If you drop hints about whether it's a fight club, you'll probably get hints back. What'd the guy look like?"

She pulls out her chain and shows her memory crystal. "Same thing but better. Speaking of which, he looked like..."

The suspicious-looking dark-haired trenchcoated guy is nowhere to be found.

After a few minutes of searching Lenora opines that they should forget it and just relax. 

"Hey, maybe I should try to learn woodworking while we're here. That uses a knife, and I like knives, so it ought to be doable right?"

Thorn laughs. "Might as well, there's no reason not to try!" 

"Ooh, who do you think I should ask? Is there a place for sculptors, you think?"

"Well, there's the prophouse where I just came from - they were doing sculpting in warm amber, and I know they use beaverboard in their set dioramas, so it's possible they could teach you something. Or at least know someone on the crafting side who'd be able to teach you."

"If you don't mind going somewhere you've just been that could be interesting. It's mostly whim, I admit."

"I'm the type to indulge my girlfriend's whims! I won't even charge you a kiss. This time."

"Ha. You'll probably get one sooner or later anyway~"

At the prophouse, 'George' is gone and a few other people have joined Sergo. They are trying to figure out what kind of effects they can do for a mad scientist's weapons. Transformations by clever outfits with pull-tabs? Sudden frost and snow using some chemical melange? Multicolored beams with suspended dust and stained-glass spotlights?

One of them will show Lenora the basics of whittling with a chunk of scrap pine lying around for a couple of her shillings, but proper woodwork is really not the kind of thing you learn in a day. She has fun listening.

She has such a hard time not suggesting things from the range of exotic weaponry she knows, as it doesn't have much bearing on the problem and in any case doesn't exist on this world. And these people probably would take the idea of a tasp too far. 

She sits and watches and plays with her amber and tries not to dwell too much on how attractive her girlfriend looks with a knife in hand whittling. She fails.

Lenora does a little flourish with the blade and winks at one point, then looks a bit sheepish when her tutor gently chides her.

Eventually she wants to go get dinner. And hold Thorn's hand on the way.

She would definitely like that. She is on a date on Titania with her hot girlfriend and everything is right with the world. 

Her hot girlfriend keeps flirting with her... And has found a room. And has slept in until almost noon due to the shift schedule.

Wandering the gardens after midnight with Thorn, by gaslight and starlight, is fun. They're almost ethereal and unreal this way. After that she goes back to the rented room to sleep for real - and after a lovely if slightly shorter than ideal sleep, back to the locomotive for their journey to continue.

The gardens at night are wonderful, as are other things that happen to be in them. 

The next morning, Thorn thinks: That day was better than anything in my memories. 

She laughs to herself, and makes sure she's on the engine in good time. It's a shame to leave it all behind, but maybe next time.

The engine's crew have accepted her into their routines, more or less. Chat in the engine room today is about Magdalene's - do they really have fancy treatments for sky-madness? This guy went in once and it all seemed like utter farce, just people pretending to be someone important to the 'patient'. It was pretty and relaxing, though.

Boy do these people ever need memory crystals.

"If it helps, then it helps," she says. "I think it's fine to get a little solace from escapism every now and then."

She keeps to the routine.

On the way to Magdalene's, they encounter a Dreadnought and two Tackety scouts fighting. The fight is somewhere between the slow dance of naval combat and the frenetic pace of duelists. The captain judges it... Safe-ish to just go right past them and hope none of the three decide to get distracted.

A couple hours later, though, one of the Tackety scouts is gaining on them. The captain sends for Thorn.

"You say you're a good shot with that pistol, and Lenora says it too. Think you can snipe a headlight at a few hundred yards? We're being followed, and I think that'd be sufficient discouragement."

"Might take me a bit of ammo, but I think I could land a shot. Is there a convenient place I can stand to shoot, or will I have to get kitted up and go outside?"

"You'll have to lean out, or stand on the boot plate just behind the deflector if the wind is a problem. We'll keep the train as steady as possible and you'll have two lines tied to you either way. It's up to you if you want goggles or a thermal suit."

"I need a proper shooting posture for maximum accuracy. I'll take the bootplate and freeze, the suit could make me clumsy and I'd rather get it right the first time. Same argument against goggles."

Captain DeVries nods seriously.

They kit her up with two redundant safety lines, both solid and thick rope with thorough knots around her waist, tied down to two different points on the engine. They go into a long, shallow left turn, displacing the steam at the rear of the engine just enough to see the Tackety pursuer about five hundred yards away - approaching accurate cannon range and slowly closing.

Five hundred yards. 

She takes a deep breath of the icy air. 

She loads with enchanted ammunition. 

She takes her shooting posture, and keys in the runes on her arms for maximum accuracy. 

She flips off the safety. 

She exhales. 

She fires. 

The shot shatters the headlamp of the oncoming train.

In the Tackety engine, annoyance and anticipation turns to shock as a single shot with a pistol, at that range, smashes their headlight and makes a sound like it hit a lot harder than any pistol should hit. Some kind of special ammo. No need to fight that. Scowling and her blood suddenly running cold, the captain calls off her chase.

The Tackety engine continues unchanged for a few seconds, then with a hiss of steam out the side, begins a shuddering turn, falling away from the trader engine. When she comes back inside, people are whooping and loudly congratulate her, and tell her that 'impossible shot' is most definitely going to be a sky-story shared around bars. Even the dour captain claps a bit and lets the excited chatter roll on for a time, before calming things down and getting most of the crew back to work.

She laughs, raises a fist in the air; then she gets back to work. She's seen people killed by premature celebrations before, and being a good shot mostly makes her better at killing things, which she hates. Though it's good to show Lenora exactly what she's capable of. 

Lenora is among the cheerers!

Magdalene's seems to be one enormous structure of arched steel and stained glass, dotted with balconies and alcoves. More muted, somehow, than Titania - these are designed to give the mind space and relax, not to intrigue and interest. A mock village in a wide courtyard rests before it, where skyfarers stroll and drink and relax. Captain DeVries declares that their stopover will be brief - 2 hours. He has a package to deliver, and that's all.

Thorn says near the train, but she's very interested to talk to the passersby if they'll listen. What's Magdalene's like? What are the fees? What are the goals of treatment? 

And quietly, in the back of her mind: Is this another place where memory crystal could be transformative?

She can talk to an off-duty attendant as well as some of the patients. It's designed as a calm, relaxing place. The fees are varied and eclectic, but money will usually do if you don't have the weirder stuff they want. Sometimes someone doesn't want to leave. The goals of treatment are to reduce the terror of the sky and rid the mind of nightmares and the subtle insanity too much starlight can cause. The mood in the locomotive has been getting a bit more tense as time passes, right? If you encounter enough horrible, terrifying, stressful things it wears on you and makes the influence of starlight worse. They have ways of warding off all that, mostly by simulating social situations in careful detail, though they're not entirely sure why they work.

She nods. That makes sense. If it's something about live performance, then perhaps memory crystals wouldn't work. If only the science was further advanced... But she has an engine to catch.

The two day journey to Port Prosper is uneventful.

Except, the night before they're slated to arrive, Thorn has a... Vivid nightmare, of the monstrous limbs unexpressive face of a scrive-spinster peeling open the engine and letting the cold and light in, and then peeling her open while speaking-but-not-speaking about 'a new variant in the species'.

She wakes up in a cold sweat, then takes a deep breath and steadies herself. It was only a nightmare. She's had those before, with shadowlings and worse. 

...it's not like she's been pushed beyond her limits, though. She ought not to be this vulnerable. 

The starlight gets into you. 

She goes back through her halfhearted journalling and swears to herself that she didn't take the risk seriously enough. It's hard to track, but there's something more here. Her necklace is no help; there's far too much memory to sort through quickly without the help of the Thousand Stars. 

Maybe she can still find it, if she thinks on it hard enough.

It's subtle, but... Perhaps she's gotten a bit too quick to notice annoying, negative things about her crewmates. How nosy that one stoker is. How infuriating the navigator's tendency to tap on the walls as a nervous tick is. And, she probably always wants to fly around at least a little bit, but has the wistfulness been that strong? She could just... Hop out the hatch. She'd be fine, she could get back in later. Maybe without even being seen.

... she has problems. Irritability, claustrophobia, nightmares. She's degrading. Losing integrity. The thought of that scares her more than all the rest of it which is probably mostly harmless. She thinks. She feels her crystal beneath her shirt, and scowls. 

Well, all she can do is try to stave off the degradation until she can tease it out with backmerges or similar. She takes to journalling much more seriously, now.

Once she notices, making a conscious effort to notice and resist the mental changes, they seem to weaken. Staying busy helps. Conversation helps. 

"You okay?" Lenora asks in the galley at dinner. (She's been getting a little more tense and twitchy, too.) "You seem troubled today."

"Had a bad dream. Got me to pay attention to my starlight exposure, and I'm drifting. Not much I can do about it except to try and stave it off; it's only another week or so to go, anyway."

"Oh, yeah. Noticed some things? I mean, it's near impossible to avoid it entirely. But it's not fun. I bet Titania helped, pleasant things help keep it at bay. This is why sailors take breaks, though."

"Irritability, claustrophobia. I'll be glad to get back to New Winchester."

"Me too, me too. After long enough I get all ready to fight something, somebody, anybody. And worry about... Stuff." Headshake. "We can relax back at New Winchester. Not too long now. And you're learning a lot, right?"

Port Prosper comes into view the next day. It's a sizable place, if smaller than New Winchester, split by a giant canyon, and even more densely industrial than the other city. The Captain announces his intent to leave the next morning.

"Yeah. Maybe things I didn't want to learn, but not everything can be sweetness and light, can it?" 

She goes and explores Port Prosper. What's on sale? Are there transit tables to London from here? Can she and Lenora get an inn room for the night, for a chance to unwind? 

The city seems to be suffering from a rather stark wealth divide, a poor east end and a rich west end. The urban decay is somehow even more severe here than the abandoned areas of New Winchester. There are signs of trouble on the street, too - People who seem like cutters and move like they have concealed guns surreptitiously guarding alleyways, a slightly excessive police presence in the 'nice' parts of town, sour and resentful expressions on the working class making their way to and from the factories and workshops. Homeless people trying to stay out of the way, and even an urchin-gang of teens and children that have taken over one of the abandoned alleyways and built scrap fortifications, standing guard with slings and runny noses and sheet metal and rubber 'uniforms'.

Lots of things are on sale, if in less staggering variety and bulk than in New Winchester. The output of the factories is all marked for shipment onward and not actually sold here, though. There's a transit office with rates and schedules for passenger and small package transit in Albion - even the nearest Albion destination, the Brabazon Workworld, runs 20 Sovereigns. A ticket to London from here is 32 Sovereigns. Good accommodations and a tighter scheduler are pricier. There are definitely inns around! Actually good ones if you're willing to pay premium rates!

She carries herself with the quiet assurance of a proper blood who knows it, and keeps a sharp eye out for pickpockets and worse. She notes down the travel prices and schedule, and then she investigates exactly how premium these rates on inns go. She is willing to put a decent amount of coin into having some alone time with Lenora and a decent-sized bed.

No trouble troubles her, though the streets continue to give off an air of being about to boil over in places.

They go all the way up to "literally rent a mansion for a night". Some of the mansion-owners are a bit strapped for cash, apparently. More reasonably, a room at one of the really fancy hotels in the nice part of town can be had for about six Sovereign, and there's a spread of cheap and in-between options too.

... she thinks she should ask, before blowing six sovereign on a single night. It might be taken as an imposition, getting something that fancy. 

She goes looking for Lenora.

Depending on where she looks, Lenora might be hard to find.

(She went off with a scarred fellow along the south-eastern edge of the bluff, acting like old buddies, their crewmates report.)

Ah. Drat. 

Well, she'll see if Lenora comes back anytime soon. For now she'll ask after... a library. That's where public charts might be stored, yes? 

There's a public library!

It's kind of small, single story with a couple dozen shelves, and suffers from aggressive censoring. The closest thing to charts are the reference maps in history books which seem probably accurate but are not very detailed, and stylized maps in tourist guidebooks that describe 'interesting sights' in the Reach and Albion.

Not detailed, but a start. The censoring only adds to her concerns. The Workworlds are real, at least; she needs to see if they're as bad as they say, but if they are...

She drums her fingers on the back of a Ministry-censored volume. 

... if they are, then the OTC could become very tangledly involved. She'd be made an Agent, most likely. And given full permission and mandate to eliminate the trade in sapient life. 

And that... on the scale of worlds? A paradigm shift would be necessary. Something radical. Something scary, even for her. 

She puts the book away, and hopes she's wrong. 

Between the maps in the books and fliers and the snatches of Captain DeVries' chart she's been able to see, she has a basic understanding of Reach Geography. Finally. 

She reads one of the histories for background, regardless of how censored it may be. She looks in particular for any references to the workworlds. What are they making? What are they for?

They provide an alternative to the poor and criminal with no other place to go, performing industrial labor at accelerated speed to pay off their debts to society and become productive citizens once again! Each workworld is a fully self-contained, planned industrial city of fifty to a hundred thousand. Many of the Workworlders have positions in their own maintenance and take great pride in supporting their fellows! They produce a wide variety of industrial chemicals, consumer goods, useful materials, and other such things. Anything that is usefully industrialized and needs a lot of manpower and machinery. The Horozon Workworld specializes in fine cloth goods like this colorful rug or these fine coats!

So now she's heard both sides, then. 

She's not going to get the real story from such a book. But it's enough to triply-confirm the worldworlds exist, doubly-confirm they use accelerated time, and doubly-confirm that prisoners and debtors are sent there. 

... The people here don't have Ka, which makes this terrible. The accelerated time means that the prisoners sentenced to the workworlds live like mayflies. A life sentence carried out in how many years external? Who knows?

People, being put to use. 

She rubs her forehead. She doesn't know yet. She strongly suspects, but...

She puts the books back into the shelves. 

What to do next. 

She goes out into the markets, and looks for comfort food. Something sweet.

The candy stores and patisseries of Port Prosper are open to her.

In the line, a man comes up and has a low conversation to the patron in front of her.

"Uh, my apologies sir, but..."

"Chrissake, do I have to do everything, Tomkins? What is it?"

"Could you confirm the name for me. There are two that it could be, and I don't want to try the wrong one."

"How many with the same name can there be?"

"There's a 'Cheery Clockwork' as well."

"It's not that one. 'As Clockwork' is the one."

"Uh, got it, sir. I'll go get the boys sorted."

"See that you do. And please, don't interrupt my lunch again unless something's on fire. So hard to find good help these days..."

... she may only have been aboard As Clockwork for a week or so, but she still recognizes the name of her engine when it's spoken aloud. It sounds like they're planning something - she's not sure what. Something that takes "the boys", and that you wouldn't want to try the wrong one for. Something like seizing the engine? 

She pays for her patisserie and leaves at a brisk pace, the officers' "I want to move quickly but not panic the troops" hustle. She ought to tell her Captain about this just in case it matters. Because if it matters it could be terrible. 

Captain DeVries is haggling over some of his cargo down by the railyard. He seals the deal with the buyer and walks back towards the engine, waving at Thorn.

"Is something the matter?"

"Overhead the name of the engine in what seemed to be an official context. I thought you ought to know in case it was something untoward. Quoting the conversation for you,"

And she does. It wasn't a long conversation. 

"I... See. I see, I see. Troubling. Where was this overheard?"

"In line at the patisserie store where I was. Both seemed official-looking men." She gives descriptions. 

"I don't recognize that, but it sounds like the Windward Company. They're powerful in this town. Not sure why they'd have an interest in my engine particularly. Not interested in finding out. Probably don't have a choice. Was this in the nice part of town? It was a patisserie not a dime deli, I know, but it was in the west end?"

"It was, I had been looking at the local library."

"Walk with me, please. We're finding Gene. Just thinking out loud... I see two options. Either prepare for some kind of pretext seizure from the Windward Company, or leave before they get here. I see risks with both of those options. Possible legal battle, possible literal battle - possibly leaving crew behind, losing the rest of my business and the chance at leave. At this time of night I'm not sure where everyone even is. I don't keep close track, we're not a military outfit."

She walks with him. "Gathering crew can only help us, no matter which route we take. But I don't know where anyone is. I might be able to roust some from the local inns, but there's no guarantee of being able to get everyone. I know Lenora has business ashore somewhere. If I may ask, sir, how many crew are currently accounted for? Are we even able to depart?"

"Eight. Me, you, Gene - he's aboard - and," he names a few more. "They like to sleep aboard and not have to pay for inn rooms. We could leave and probably make it back to New Winchester, but that's undesirable for several reasons. Leaving people behind not the least of them. I know which inns five more are at. We're low on stores, too. Again, we'd likely be fine, but closer to the line than I'm comfortable with. I'm expecting a delivery in the morning and most places that would sell coal to me are closed now. They picked the moment well, if that was their goal, at least."

Thorn nods. She tries to take a step back; as Captain DeVries has just reminded her, she's no blood here. So instead she'll be a good tool to the proper blood. 

"If you need emergency funds I'm carrying a fifty-sovereign piece. I'm also good in a brawl if it comes to that. I'm ready to receive your orders as soon as you compose them, and I can relay complex orders verbatim."

"I'm not a commander I'm a captain. I'm not cut out for this shit. I don't even know if I'm getting alarmed over nothing, all I have is - your report. That said- You don't know this business, but you seem to know your business."

Deep breath.

"Go get Sam from cabin four, then both of you go to these five places, in order," He gives five addresses. And the names he expects to be found at each. "Tell any crew you find to get back to the engine, leave is cancelled immediately, urgently, there'll be a bonus. If any of them want a codeword, 'Kelvin Alabaster Four'. Use your discretion for short sidetracks. Then come back here."

"Yes, sir." She flushes a bit. Oops. 

She goes.

Several of the crew know of places other crew probably are. Other inns, bars, a casino, a Definitely-Not-A-Brothel. One of the crew has an idea where Lenora is. He has connections with, uh, some people with questionably legal lines of work and they mentioned something offhand that he thinks might be her - 'an old woojack is visiting the rat bin tonight'. He doesn't know what 'woojack' means and only knows the 'rat bin' is in the far East End, the abandoned bits, but since Lenora left with a suspicious character maybe it's her?

She'll start with the other crew and move on to Lenora once she's checked everything reasonable. She can't go running off after the first halfbaked information she hears, and if one of the crew knew something, maybe she can find someone else who knows something.

Everyone is pretty annoyed at the interruption, and the guy at the casino insists on staying long enough to cash out, but the promise of a bonus helps. Nobody else has more recent information on Lenora, and three other crewmembers remain unaccounted for.

On the path back to the railyard, a few members of that urchin gang she saw earlier earlier block her path for a moment. "None may pass!"

She halts. 

"I'm lookin' for a friend of mine and I'm in a tearing hurry. She's a cutter name of Lenora. Heard she might be in the rat bin tonight. Might've been called a "woojack" but I don't know local cant. I'm willin' to pay good coin to anyone who can give me good knowledge on her whereabouts."

"Woojack's a cutter but not your cutter, if you know what I mean. But we gots a previous business tonight. Who's your boss? If you answer right and know the password I don't have to poke you wif my broom."

She has no chance of getting this right and using "cutter" in a foreign cant might've sold her but now it leaves her trying to backderive. 

"I'm from far and away in the Birdcage, my boss is Thousand-Stars Evangeline and I ain't got a password. Do I gotta hightail it now?"

"I gotta scream real loud if you try to go past us anyway."

She tries to poke Thorn with her broom.

She backs off. Not worth the risk.

Back to the engine without Lenora. 

Thorn will encounter more guard-urchins on the next route to the railyard she attempts.

What on earth? Now she can't get back without causing an uproar. 

There is just a chance that these urchins here are Devries' urchins. He did say "if someone asks you for a password..." 

She tries it.

They let her pass. "What kinda fancy color's 'Alabaster' anyway," one mutters.

... Well then!!

She heads back to her original urchin and tries again. This time with with the name of Captain DeVries on her lips.

They glare suspiciously but let her pass.

"Rat Den's hard to find," broom-kid comments, making a coin-rubbing motion with her hand.

She passes a shilling. "And a sovereign if Lenora is there."

She starts marching off. The other kids complain about shirking guard duty. She pokes them with her broom and says they're all getting fed today. They stop complaining.

Broom kid is a fast runner, but so is Thorn. The Rat Den is apparently three rusty old locomotives with additional platforms and passages and added-on bits that basically turn them into one large structure. Easy to mistake for a junk pile from a distance.

She passes the urchin a sovereign. "Even if she's not here, you were a good guide. I'll have another sovereign for you if you're still here when I find Lenora." 

And she marches into the Rat Den. 

The Rat Den is apparently a combination bar, private club, and contraband market.

A short-haired cutter stops her just inside the door with a blade extended across her path, stepping out of an alcove that would make an excellent ambush position. 

"Never seen you here before, luv. What's your racket, and what's your hob here today?"

She doesn't know the cant and it's driving her insane. 

Best guess as to racket, something like organization or business-in-general. Best guess as to hob, business now. Probably from hobbyhorse. 

"My racket's the good ship As Clockwork. I'm looking for a woojack name of Lenora. It's urgent."

She casually pushes up her sleeves to show her tattoos. 

"What're you calling her a woojack for? You're from the same bloody ship. And are those tats supposed to be a crewmark or somethin'? Whatever. No snitching or you'll need stitching. Don't start fights here, don't steal shit, and keep any feuds away. Basically, don't be stupid and you can come in. Deal?"

"Still learning cant, but I know the rules well enough. Deal."

The guard steps back and puts the big intimidating knife back in its sheath opposite the hidden pistol and lets her pass.

She goes into the Rat Den, and starts looking for two things - the bloods and Lenora. 

There's only one obvious blood here - A mountain of a man with his own, especially large, table who is the center of attention for at least a dozen other people. A corner of the Rat Den seems reserved for Rattus Faber - one of them could be a blood and it'd be hard to tell.

Lenora is in one of the lounges, peering over a chart with a scarred fellow. Her eyes widen in shock when she looks up to see Thorn. She says something to the scarred fellow - he replies - she waves Thorn over.

She comes over to the table. "Lenora. Captain needs us back at the engine, sent me to come find you. Much obliged to your friend, but I'm afraid it's urgent."

"'Shut up and run' urgent, or 'as soon as you can' urgent? 'Cause he has charts." She points a thumb at her friend.

"Stovepipes might be trying something on the As Clockwork. DeVries is offering a bonus. It seems fairly damn urgent, but show me the charts and I can slap down payment quickly if they're good."

"Oooh, got yourself into trouble with the Stovepipes again, have you, Nora? Didja steal something?"

"No! I don't think this is my fault. They have no way of knowing I'm even aboard and I doubt they even remember me!"

The 'friend' laughs. "Well, better figure out what has them so riled up. Anyway, 'ere they are. For Lenora, fifty Sovs, but it counts as your favor..." He waggles his finger at her.

"I don't see myself needing your favors very often so I'm glad to cash it in... Except, interfering with the Stovepipes, maybe?"

"Nu-uh. No can do. Open defiance like that? They'd bring the hammer down on my crew. Best I could do was arrange for something to be robbed if they're otherwise distracted."

"Figured." Lenora shuffles paper. "Okay, charts. They're really detailed on the parts they cover, Thorn, here-"

The charts have filled in a solid thirty or forty percent of the estimated area of the Reach, a fair bit better than the other set of charts. There's lots of detail around Port Prosper, New Winchester, Port Avon, a place called Polmear & Plenty's Inconceivable Circus, and Titania. Magdalene's, the L&S Nature Reserve, Carillon, Lustrum, Hybras, the Adipodean Gardens, Braley Rock (!Cantankeri Territory!) and Old Tom's well all have moderate detail, and there are a variety of out-of-the-way and little-used routes from place to place described.

She flips through and looks. She makes a judgment call. 

She pulls out her fifty-sovereign coin. "Here, and good luck to you."

Lenora quickly - carefully - packs up the charts into a case. "Bloody stovepipes... The Tacketies shot at us too... Both of them are escalating. That's not great."

"No, it's not. And sometime you've got to teach me proper cant for around here. I called you a woojack and I still don't know what that meant. Urchin seemed to understand "cutter" alright, but..." 

She starts heading for the exit. "God, I hardly know the cant anymore either. I think they're making it up as they go along. 'Woojack' is, like, a friend. Or an expression that someone's probably acting in good faith? Someone you respect and like, but without any implication of authority or close relations. And cutter means more or less the same thing here, or it's recognizable anyway. Berk's a laggart, or just a lag, blood's an eye or a sharp."

"Thank you kindly, now I can use the proper terms." She follows, getting a sovereign ready to make good on her promise. "I've rousted all the crew but three, so it's possible the Captain will just decide to up and leave. But it's a bad spot. We're low on supply and fuel. We'll have to see how the Captain calls it."

"...Mm. I almost feel like we're panicking over nothing, but I'm not about to go capture and question a Windward Company goon. The papers in New Winchester are going to hear about this - except we haven't got any proof... I've got a small, red, pearly, way to extend fuel a bit if it comes to that. I got it from, uh, somewhere really strange, you know what I'm talking about? It wouldn't be very suspicious, I think. Weird, but there's lots of weird stuff around."

"I know the item. It's better than some options but still not ideal. It's possible we are panicking over nothing, here's the relevant bit of conversation I overheard." She quotes the bit about "As Clockwork" and "rounding up the boys". "Heard that in a patisserie shop in the swanky side of town." 

"Yeah, no, that definitely sounds like a goon squad is going to head to the engine thinking it's mostly empty. Let's speed up. Think you can go faster than me carrying this case?"

She extends a hand. "Let's try it and find out." 

She hands over the case and they run. It's kind of exhilarating despite the situation. The urchins stand aside for Thorn, having let her pass once before.

She can carry the case pretty fast, actually! She keeps up with Lenora at least.

Back at the As Clockwork, people are milling around tensely but there doesn't seem to be an active emergency. They're still not sure where the 3 unaccounted-for crew are - one might be visiting family, but they don't have an address and there's rather a lot of city to check.

Thorn looks around. "I'll stay on guard duty. Lenora, you should probably take a watch of the crew and sleep so we've a fresh set of hands for the dawn when attack is most likely to come. Get DeVries' approval, obviously." 

"Sensible. People forget to sleep in crises."

Ten minutes later she comes back out to find Thorn.

"Do you know what happened to those boxes we got at Leadbeater and Stainrod's Nature Reserve? The ones that had the big 'Windward Company eyes only' labels on? 'Cause they're not in storage anymore. And I can't help but think that's... Relevant."

"I have no idea what happened to them, and them being absent does seem relevant. Presumably Captain DeVries already knows."

"I think those boxes are why the Windward Company is poking their noses here. I think they didn't end up with the Windward Company."

"That would suggest a legal challenge if those boxes were legal cargo, and a more direct challenge if they weren't. It could let us sort more accurately. Which is important, because I don't know how to rabbit-punch a legal challenge."

"And I don't want to - question the captain, you can't have random people doing that and DeVries always seemed like a sensible and cautious guy, but..." Awkward shrug.

"I would say that suggests to me that leaving quickly is a better option than hanging around. If we stay and a legal battle comes, we're in a world of trouble. If we stay and a physical battle comes, we'll probably have an even fight on our hands, and I hate even fights. The option where nothing happens in the morning seems a lot less likely with those crates missing." 

She hums. "I would see about more supplies and fuel as best we can and then depart. Buy supplies from the city grocers, even, they only need to keep a day or three if we use them first. The Captain would know more about coal."

"Yeah, he actually bought coal off another captain at above-market rates and sent out a food-buying party, but that's not quite what I'm saying. If Captain DeVries brought this trouble on himself and is - trying to keep it secret or something... I don't like this. I feel out of the loop and it is uncomfortably reminiscent."

"Ah."

She frowns. "The question is, what do you want to do about it? I don't think we want to start a crisis in the middle of another crisis."

"...Maybe I'm just being a bitch and- I sort of decided DeVries was trustworthy, he's always had good reasons for things before, but trust is- Scary- And I'm a mess now. I'm second guessing things. Even second-guessing you. I don't know enough about the oh tee- Um. And I - am not great at dealing with that? I feel horrible for having doubts at the first sign of suspicious stuff and now if you are deceiving me somehow you know it wasn't good enough and- It's such a bitchy thing to say that to your face and I'd like to be loyal to someone if they're a good person but I can't- Loyalty's what made me a Windward Company goon and it feels unsafe, but doubting people makes me feel guilty, so- I don't even know. I - sorry, I'll shut up now."

"... may I hug you?"

"A hug would be- S'fine."

She doesn't hug her. 

"If you want my advice, go rest. We can sort this all out later when we have privacy and we're not in the middle of a crisis."

That... Kind of hurts? A hug was implied there.

"-'M being stupid, I know. Sorry. I don't think I could sleep. Calm down maybe. Yeah, I'll do that."

She nods and turns around and goes back into the engine.

She sighs, and goes back to watching for trouble. Hopefully Lenora gets her head sorted out again.

They find two of the missing crew and the gossip spreads at the speed of light - they're a couple and both went to the same girl at the same brothel at the same time and they wanted to keep it quiet. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, you know, but it's extremely gossip worthy. And then one of the urchin lookout teams is making a huge racket, shouting and carrying on but not actually stopping a squad of about a dozen men in vaguely police-like uniforms and shotguns. Captain DeVries decides - the last guy was visiting family? He'll be fine. They're just going to leave.

The engine is already warm, and it's taken hot in less than a minute. They're moving quickly. The station signalmaster sends profanities at them via flags and lantern flashes, and apologies and a halfhearted explanation are signaled back. Port Prosper could turn the port guns on the As Clockwork. Two full shifts are tense and standing ready for battle stations... But it's the middle of the night, and anyone with authority to order that is likely asleep. Soon they're away, and DeVries tells people to go back to sleep.

Thorn goes to her cabin and sits up and doesn't sleep. 

She trusted Lenora's recommendation - well, she trusted DeVries. She did. And she got used, even if she was just a temporary crewmember. He used her. 

She hates that feeling. 

She sits down and she journals and she tries to pick out the star madness, but the anger doesn't go away. It's all her own. 

She goes to sleep, and hopes for a swift end to the journey.

The next day, DeVries calls an all-hands meeting. He explains how a delivery for the Windward Company was... Diverted to Titania, and says he did it because the package, a special sort of stimulant-fruit from the Nature Reserve, had a rare but extremely dangerous side-effect of causing bones to turn to ash over the course of a few weeks. Which was lethal, obviously.

He says he discovered that the Windward Company knew that and was covering it up to make a profit on the fruit. He couldn't stand for that. He dumped most of it and gave the rest to someone on Titania who he trusts to analyze and prove the danger, and hoped to be to Port Prosper (per his published schedule) and gone before the Windward Company noticed, but that didn't work out. Last night's trouble was the Windward Company trying to get their boxes of back, or at least take their revenge.

Because nobody signed up for this, everyone gets a bonus. Paid immediately, here and now. Fifteen Sovereigns each. His officers and a few others including Thorn ('for invaluable coordination assistance') get forty. (Lenora looks kind of angry despite the cash infusion.)

It's kind of a staggering sum, all added up. They're heading directly back to New Winchester, and he's letting everyone out of his service if they so wish once they arrive, another week's pay in advance. He doesn't have firm plans for what he's going to do next yet. He calmly asks if anyone has questions for him.

Thorn has no questions. She's not sure she believes it, but that's between Captain DeVries and his crew. She'll do the rest of her tour of duty back to New Winchester, and not snap back, but she doesn't want to see DeVries again.

Several others including Lenora have a lot of questions about this weird fruit, and how the Windward Company knew about it, and why didn't he tell them something like this was going on- (He thought one of them might have been an informant, apparently.)

Morale is a lot lower now and short, snappish arguments about the captain keep popping up and then suddenly ending. Nothing dangerous interrupts the journey home except for a few hours of strong gusts rattling the windows, easily weathered.

Lenora finds Thorn when their off-shifts next overlap.

"Hey. We should talk."

"We should. Are you... alright?"

"I think so. I just... Hate feeling manipulated. It's scary."

"I feel used, too. I don't like it. Feels like another reason why I should have my own engine. I don't want to have to... wonder, like this."

"After this I've got to be co-owner if we go in on an engine together. You can be the captain, I'm better at supporting people - if I trust them... If you don't want a straight equal split since you have most of the money, I want at least - a veto's worth."

"That's fair. I think I was always headed for something like co-owners, assuming we can get away without having to sell shares of the engine for, like, a navigator. And I mean... I'd listen to you if you had a strong opinion even without a veto to back you up, but it's fine if you want it."

"It's just..." Sigh. "It sounds awful to say it, but I don't know you well enough to really really trust you yet. I'm slowly getting that way, but..." Shrug. "And if that's annoying or hurtful or whatever, that's fair."

"No, that's just accurate. The connection between us might be deep, but it's also pretty narrow right now. Getting the breadth of it will take time."

"...Yeah. That sounds about right. sorry for freaking out the other day. I think I would have been useful if it had come to violence still, but it's not a good look." She lets out a long sigh. "Deep but narrow, huh? I want to learn more about your, ah, bosses? And if you want some stories from me all you gotta do is ask."

"We can talk about my bosses where there are less prying ears. As for your end... I think you've told me enough for me to... get a sense of you. And I care about you a lot. I might ask just as a friendly thing, but I don't need to learn more to trust you. Call it an instinct thing. You just... seem reliable."

"Aww! Glad to hear it, 'course. But that's how I meant it. Friendly stories, to widen the channel. If you need a way to trust me, I expect you'll ask or find one. We need to go on a date when we get back. Not that Titania wasn't really fun."

"We should absolutely go on a date once we get back. Storytime can be part of it. And meeting more of the family, so to speak. But frankly? There's a lot of the Reach I haven't seen, and having you as a guide is lovely."

"Huh, there's probably folks in New Winchester I should introduce you to. I'll think about it."

Hesitation.

"...Hug?"

"Definitely hug." 

She hugs her.

Hug!!!

"Well, back to work for me. Have a nice sleep, you."

The return to New Winchester is uneventful. They even pass Dreadnoughts, which make everyone tense for a while, worried they'll suddenly demand to prepare to be boarded. But nothing happens.

"I," she tells Thorn, as they're deboarding the As Clockwork for the last time, "Want to go get fresh bacon, then collapse into my apartment bed with you."

"Sounds like an excellent plan and one I fully endorse. Let's go get bacon."

Bacon is got. Also, eggs. And a bit of ice for the icebox. Her apartment is still there - "I paid the next month anyway since I would've lost two weeks' rent."

She drops her stuff from the locomotive just inside the door, puts the eggs and bacon up, and says, "Correction. Shower, food, then bed. Any objections?" The locomotive didn't have a proper shower, so the last shower they've had was on Titania.

"Absolutely zero objections."

She shuts the bathroom door out of habit, then hesitates, then comes back and opens it again with a sort of shy/embarrassed smirk in Thorn's direction, and has her shower.

Well that's interesting. 

As lovely as it would be to watch her girlfriend shower, she thinks she'd rather hurry the process along by starting the bacon cooking.

Lenora showers fairly quickly, makes a happy noise about her warmsoft towels, wraps her hair up and puts her underwear back on plus a loose clean shirt.

"Your turn. I think I remember how you like your eggs, I'll fix 'em."

"Thanks much." 

She goes and showers. She puts clothes back on afterwards. There is still a meal to be had.

Lenora also has some canned beans and crackers that were left in the cabinets. Her table is a bit small but does have two chairs.

She's quiet, just sort of silently vegging out or smiling at Thorn for most of the meal. 

"...City noise is different from engine noise, but sometimes I just want to go somewhere way out of the way where it's just silent. I'd get antsy again quick enough, but someplace like Port Avon sounds nice sometimes. You ever get like that?"

"Not really. I like a bit of noise in the background; it helps me sleep. When things are silent, truly silent, my hackles go up. That means something's disturbed the wildlife, or something like that." 

She hums. "As for a place like Port Avon... I suspect I'd go stir-crazy fast in a place like that. I'm built for adventure."

"Built for adventure is a good shape to be. I'd go stir-crazy eventually, too. It's nice to have a break sometimes, that's all. A weeklong vacation, not a month or year's stay."

"Yeah, I could see a weeklong vacation to unwind and not have to deal with anything weird or unexpected. Like..." She thinks better of bringing up Captain DeVries. "Like the scrive-spinster. I was fairly rattled after that. It was exciting in the moment, but the fact we could've been torn apart..." She runs a hand through her hair. "Maybe not good dinner table conversation."

Lenora munches bacon.

"It's fine. I'm... Sort of over it? Danger is all over the sky. Starlight makes me emotional and fighty but I bounce back from stuff pretty well. Just coming home has done most of it already, it's safe here. The Spatchcock you were looking at will be less nice than the Clockwork. It was a Pelignore-class. Better plating, more space inside, smoother, better heating, flush toilets and a proper galley. Just to warn you in advance. If you want a drilling rig to go after Hour-rocks or Bronze driftwood, one can be got secondhand for three hundred, maybe. It'd be profitable if we manage to use it at least three times."

Thorn munches eggs.

"Being safe matters, yeah. I can deal with reduced amenities but didn't even consider getting a mining rig. Where do you usually find Hours and Bronzewood?"

"You can find Hours all over, except right near Port Prosper or New Winchester. Most commonly near Lustrum and other non-verdant bits of the Reach. Bronzewood is most common near the Nature Reserve, Magdalene's, and Titania, and Traitor's Wood - that whole north-eastern area."

"Sounds like a drilling rig might be a wise long-term investment, if there's that much to use it on out in the sky. Is there anything else you can think of like that? Good job on the charts by the way, they're beautiful."

"It's mostly Hours and Bronzewood, I think. At least for mining rigs. It's most useful in the Reach. There's - assaying devices, to get a good look at things from a distance, that can be used for salvage. Less directly useful, I think. And butchery devices, to scoop up pardoner-eels, or Cantankeri insides, though that's awful and ghastly. You can find Hour-geodes in Albion too. It's handy to have favors to call in, right? I did kind of get lucky, though."

"I plan to stay in the Reach for some time building up funds," she says. "I don't want to venture to Elutheria without flush toilets if I can avoid it. And yes, I'm very lucky to have happened across you."

"See, I consider myself lucky to have a chance to buy from OTC. I've noticed what Mercury Reaches does for me by now - I want a Ka sooner rather than later, after some reflection. I'm not in desperate need of it at all yet, but it can't hurt and it might make me a little more spry, right? It's a lot of pain to get it just through pain, though. Even spread out. And you don't really want to suffer while you're sailing, seems like it'd make the starlight worse. But also, I've been thinking, that thing that does mental influence resistance - that might help against low-level star-madness after all. I dismissed it before because something that can screw with your head directly can probably ignore most protections about it, but isn't star-madness just relatively subtle head-screwing?"

"It's best practice to spend a few ka just to keep yourself in fighting shape, yeah. I can mint you one from this body's lifespan, actually - the OTC builds things to really last, I'm good for a millenium. So here, take this." She makes a pulling motion above her heart, and a glittering pink heart-shaped crystal appears in her hand; she offers it wordlessly.

"If there's a way to insulate against star madness in the catalog - and I don't doubt there is, it just might be out of our price range - then I want it. And my budget is bigger than yours. Let me have a look at my mental catalog here... the Rod of Freedom? That would probably work, the only trouble is you'd have to carry the rod all day long. I bet that could be worked into a tattoo though, something along the spine near the nape of the neck... We'll need to get it done in the demiplane, of course."

She looks a bit taken aback as she accepts the crystal. "So how do I...? Yeah, the rod of freedom. I'm just guessing, it could do nothing to help. But... Seems likely, my intuition is saying? Also, ooh, magical tattoos."

"Just snap it in half, it's designed for that. Once it's snapped it'll vanish, that's how you know it worked. And yeah, I think it's worth trying as well. I notice you're a bit surprised at "last the millenium" - do you want to know the full list of how this body differs from "normal"?"

She snaps it. "I just thought it was touching that you'd give away some life to me. That's heroic ballad stuff. But also, very yes."

"I have a lot of life to give away. You have eighty years, give or take on most worlds. Eighty versus a thousand, the answer is easy. It helps that I love you, but..."

She coughs. "Alright, the list. It should be noted that this is a lot less than the OTC can actually do, it's just they want something that works in most worlds, which includes "looks like a human." To start with I'm just made of better materials. My bones are stronger and lighter than human ones, more like a bird's. My muscle is more densely packed than human muscle. I can see in black and white by starlight almost as well as in the daytime - you can spot the eyeshine if you're looking closely in the dark, it's something that I take precautions to conceal. I can control the length my hair will grow to, and its color, though that starts from the roots and takes time to change. I get finer sensory detail from most things - not range or volume, but more fidelity in what's there. Which I understand is a present from Greater Me and mostly for fun, though it's occasionally useful for tasks like lockpicking where very fine attention to detail is needed. I only need half as much food, water, air and sleep as a normal human, though I can choose to do more than my limit." 

She touches her tattoos. "These give me a basic selection of spells, literally binding them to my skeletal structure so they're part of me and not the universe. The spells I have are Rite of Recall, Overland Flight, Make Whole, Levitate, and Prestidigitation. Rite of Recall is a lengthy ritual whereby I can vanish from where I am and reappear at any location I've been; it takes about an hour of preparations, it's a very crippled version of the greater Teleport. You take compromises when you're trying to fit everything into a human-sized package. Overland Flight is how I can fly; it's fast, close to engine speed I think, and controlled by thought. Make Whole lets me mend almost any broken device within a certain size limit. Levitate lets me pick up an engine and move it ten feet to the left if I need to; it's for clearing obstructions and making carrying heavy things easier, primarily. Prestidigitation is my proof-of-magic spell, it lets me make dancing sparks and ghostly flames and a host of other tiny effects. Good for starting a fire if you've lost your flint and steel."

She runs a hand through her hair. "I think that about covers it, though then there's the pendant and that's a whole other kettle of fish."

Lenora blushes a bit at the mention of love. As Thorn continues she 'hmm's thoughtfully.

"That's seriously impressive. I'm not sure what else to say besides that... When you do that to your hair it makes me want to do it too, by the way."

She smiles. "You're welcome to come over here and do it if you want to."

"Since you're inviting me... Done eating anyway."

She stands behind Thorn and gently runs her hands through her hair.

"Still a bit damp or I'd ask if you want me to braid it... Say. What is love, to you? I don't know if I want to use that word, but... I definitely like you a lot. Words are hard."

"... Love is that little fluttery feeling I get in my chest whenever I'm around you, and wanting to kiss you, and... other stuff, besides. Love is wanting you to have lovely and wonderful things. Love is the thing that sent me hunting a "woojack" without any clue as to what it meant or where I was going, only that it was into the worst part of town. Love is wanting more of you, and more for you. For me it's a very... generous emotion. And... it just kind of slipped out, honestly, but I do love you."

She tilts her head. "My... family... would say that for us as a whole, we tend to think of love in terms of what we're willing to sacrifice for another. I can't begin to calculate that for you. It's too early, and too ineffable. But... I want to explore the stars with you. So... Half a train? I love you half a train much?" She giggles. "It doesn't make sense. Maybe it will once we get out among the stars. I don't know."

"I don't really know what love... Is. If I had to put it into words I'd say it's something like that, yeah. I just... Hmmm."

She hugs Thorn from behind.

"I like you a lot, we fit well together, I wanna make you smile, I want to see what you do next, we're going to have great adventures together - that's probably love, right? But, I guess I'm a little concerned that you're pretty new. I don't know how your memories really work, but you mentioned you don't know 'and more', so... It's almost like, you're my newest love, but I'm your first love? But I don't think that's actually true? I'm not gonna be able to explain why it feels... Ish."

"It's probably best to call this my first love, yeah. Maybe with some scattered dating on my end, I'm not innocent, but... I don't know what I'm doing here. I trust you, though. You're worth caring about. And the rest... will fall how it will fall, you know? We don't have to have things all neatly sorted out just yet. It has only been a few weeks. Maybe after a month or two we'll be able to tell where this is going."

"That's nice to hear. I don't think... It's not going to be perfect forever right? I'll annoy or hurt you with something or vice versa and we'll have to deal with it. But it'd be worth dealing with and figuring out. So. We have tomorrow. And the next day, and the one after that..."

She unhugs and moves to wash her plate. "The call of the bed is increasingly loud. Don't think I can resist anymore."

"Yeah. We'll still be there, even with the problems. I'll definitely come with you to bed. It's nice to sleep holding you."

And so they sleep. Just sleep.

...Maybe one kiss. But then sleep.

Thorn probably wakes up first, as usual.

She stays snuggled up and waits for Lenora to wake. It is so good to have her girlfriend like this again.

Lenora wakes up with a startle about when the sun is rising and starts trying to sit up, flails a bit, then catches herself and flops back down.

"-Bleh. Safe. Sorry."

Thorn snuggles in. "Nightmares? You tried to say the starlight didn't have a real effect on you, but..."

"Didn't feel like one. Felt more like a regular bad dream... I've been thinking about my past. But if it was, that's what recuperation is for."

Sigh. Snuggle. "I want to get that freedom tattoo. Starlight is terrible. But, I'm holding my weight, right? It's like four hundred..."

"Ah. Well, either way it makes me want to pet you, so..." She gently strokes Lenora's back. "Don't worry too much about the cost; the charts alone are worth enough to cover it."

"Yay. If you say so... Should copy 'em. Safekeeping."

"Definitely. Even though my memory's good, I never got a really good look at them, just flipped through. I'd love to see them properly."

"And I should exercise. 'Cept I want to keep snuggling and maybe go back to sleep instead."

"Hmm. I've been thinking I should get out my beacon again. Not just for the tattoos, but so that you can 'meet the family' as well, and I do have, like, a standard report to make. So how about I do the standard report while you exercise, and I'll pop my head in once we've got some of the family to talk to?" 

"Fiiiine. We really should start the day, I guess. We can snuggle more later."

Kiss.

Then she gets up and starts getting dressed. "What, are you going to set up the beacon in my bathroom or something?"

"No reason not to, it's a reasonably private space and that's the main criteria. No risk of room service coming in to a glowing portal and everyone having to do some serious explaining."

"Heh. Sure. I'll just be out here exercising, then. It took a while to find a routine I can do without a gym."

She gets out her beacon, sets it in the bathroom, and boots it up. It spucks down its stabilizer pads, and the portal forms almost instantly. 

She steps through.

Eva looks up from her desk. "Ah, Thorn! How are things going?" 

"I have a headful of experience and charts. Swap me stones." 

There's a brief flicker around her necklace. "There, done. And you have had fun, I see. Titania seems like it kind of suits you."

"Yeah, I've been noticing an artistic lean in my personality. And there's also some local mental influence there - starlight here is infectious, it gets under your skin. I've been considering taking Rod of Freedom's effect as a nape tattoo for the both of us."

"Yeah, I got that conversation too. You wanted to introduce her to some of the family? I can raise Hannah on short notice."

"Hannah would work, though I only remember her fuzzily. It'd give her some idea of our range. Do you think you could raise a Clematis as well?" 

"We'll see if that works out or not, there's fewer to call on. But I'll grab Hannah now."

And a girl wearing a black fur coat lined with dozens of tiny pockets appears from thin air. She has an apple in one hand and a knife in the other, and is carefully peeling the skin off the apple and stuffing it in one of her coat pockets. 

"Hey," she says. "So I'm here to say hi to the girlfriend, huh? Suppose there's worse things I could do with my time. Might get a sneak peek of an unscouted world, so there's that." 

"Be nice, Hannah." 

"What do you mean "be nice", I'm always nice."

"I'll take her. Let me just go ask Lenora if it's okay to bring a stranger into her apartment."

"Kay kay."

Thorn steps back out through the portal. 

"Lenora," she calls, "Is it alright if I bring my sister into the apartment?"

From where she is doing push-ups comes, "Sure! I thought that was part of the point!"

She calls through the portal: "Hannah! You can come in!"

And Hannah steps out of the bathroom, walks over to the bed, and sits down, still holding the apple and the knife. She smiles. "Hi, I'm Hannah. Let me just stow this..." 

She takes the apple and puts it in one of her coat pockets, leaving her coat just as flat as before. The knife goes in a different pocket. 

"There." She claps her hands. "Pleased ta meetcha, Thorn's told me all about you. I'm a former Thorn, or... I'm one thing you can get out of a Thorn after a few hundred years of living." 

She finishes push-ups and stands up.

"Nice coat. What's so different about you, then?"

"First off I'm in magical research and development, not world-scouting. Doctor of Metaptropi, which means I'm an expert at the magitech of dimensionality. I enchanted the coat myself. And..."

She pulls the apple out again, this time coated in cinnamon sugar, and with a twist of her wrist the apple expands to twice the size. 

"... I can do little tricks like that all day long. Personality-wise... I'm a little reckless. Kind of obsessive about stuff I like. Have trouble focussing on stuff I don't like. I'm the kind of girl you come to to plan surprise parties. Hedonistic streak a mile wide. I would've gone for the "visceral" option on Titania pretty much immediately. Your Thorn's more hesitant, she hasn't learned exactly how badass she is yet. Some other lines of us might disagree that that's something she should learn. Personally..." She shrugs. "It's always fun to watch a Thorn bounce off stuff, honestly. And while I'm rooting for another in my line, I'm going to do my best to help her develop however she wants to. 'Cause listening strongly to her wants is how she ends up like me." She winks.

"Can I get something like that? Could come in useful. Or maybe I should just stick to stuff from the catalog. Well, hesitant means you last longer. I'd like her to last longer. I was going to go out in some kind of blaze of glory eventually before, but with Ka I have a reason to be careful forever. It's great."

"A backpack enchanted like this coat is pretty standard and ought to be in the full catalog. I can make you an actual coat like this but custom work like that won't be cheap. As for the recklessness thing, we're going to be around forever either way. The crystals catch us, they're a custom-tailored immortality; the first of us threw herself into the sun - not your kind of sun, but similarly ridiculously-lethal - just to make sure her solution worked even in the harshest conditions she could imagine. Well, and a few other reasons like "stopping fighting over who was the most original before it started" and "just wanted to see what it was like", that kind of thing. But yeah, we got her crystal back from the heart of the sun and one of the Clematises is giving her therapy for the latent suicidal urges and she's doing fine. Sisters don't let sisters die." 

"If anything here could break into your crystal and fuck with it, it would be a Judgement. They're basically gods. Also, I'm still not super clear on how earning OTC works except by hurting yourself. Helping out with the contact is worth stuff, I suppose?"

"Yeah, I'm in no hurry to fuck with a Judgment. As for making money, helping out with the contract is probably the best way for you, you'll be credited a major chunk for securing those maps for us. You can sell things to the OTC - we'd be especially interested in Hours, they're elemental, we can't do a synthesis for them - and we'll pay fair prices. You can take on more contract work, and there are contractors who'll pay you to learn useful magic so long as you swear a binding oath that you'll use that magic to make them something - you could be commissioned to make Heward's Handy Haversacks, or something like that. Essentially serving as cheap magical labour - that's what's up with the hurting yourself, by the way, you're providing the sacrifice for a magic that would normally leave its user in incredible pain, but we parcel the pain out over many people and it becomes bearable. Same principle. You get the scutwork because you're from a disadvantaged world, but it lets you get stuff from our worlds for reasonable prices."

"Nnnnot a big fan of binding oaths. Hours are pretty easy to get, honestly? Might not be that way forever, since we are mining them. Eventually we'll run out, like Old Earth did with coal mines sometimes. They're just too useful not to dig up. Maybe someone will figure out how to make more, but they might be a Judgementy thing."

"Yeah, but for now you're sitting on an unrefined Chron mine. Those are scarce; magic that can do time control is rare in the wider world. So milk it while you can."

"We should go to Lustrum when we get an engine, Thorn!" She shouts. "If Hours are worth much OTC at all that's our money problem solved for a while and lots of bonuses!"

Thorn comes back through the portal. "Yeah, sounds like a good idea."

"What took you so long?"

"She was fetching me." 

Clematis is wearing a snuggly sweater and a long dress. She curtseys to Lenora. 

"Clematis. I'm a healer, what a Thorn becomes if she listens to her generous impulses. If Hannah is Thorn's sister, I'm more like her mom. Pleased to meet you."

"Hello. You're making me want to start making recipes. Twenty percent impulse, forty percent charity, ten percent spite, and thirty percent adventure..."

"We do that for fun sometimes, just call up a new us to enjoy. You could call it masturbatory; I'm like "and since when is that a problem?""

"Because there are people who don't have all the time in the world. And even we have to work to live."

"Yes, mom."

"And Thorn is making herself useful by exploring the High Wilderness, so she's perfectly alright?"

"Essentially yes. She and others like her earn us the OTC it takes to keep all of this up and running - the personal immortality is OTC's health plan for fulltime employees, but that doesn't cover all of us much less all the forking and merging we do. I do healing and sponsored charity work, Hannah does commission work with her specialities when she can be bothered, Thorns do scouting."

"You know, seems like someone could probably live a decent life just making Takarash once in a while, if buying food and stuff is pretty cheap in OTC. I did the math and a ka is something like twelve hundred, and one Takarash hurts about like stepping on a loose nail, split over five years that's stepping on a loose nail less than once a day for eternal youth. It seems... Nice that there's more options, even if you do still have to do something. People could use that."

"Yeah, the basics are easy, it's the logistics that are a nightmare. Now that you're contacted you can look forwards to developing a post-scarcity society within the next few centuries: people like me get commissioned to help with that in cases where it's really needed. Your world is not one of those cases. Not sure whether that's fortunate or unfortunate."

"Unfortunate that the worst cases are really, really bad. Fortunate that we're not suffering as much as we could here. I think we're going to do something about the Workworlds once we're a bit more used to working together."

"I'd get involved with that if you start taking it seriously. OTC pays for anti-slavery charity work quite well."

"It needs doing. Just... Maybe not quite yet. I'm not used to what OTC does, and honestly, I... Don't quite trust it."

"I don't trust it either, but it's paying my lunch ticket so..."

"Personally I would describe the OTC as generally benign. It actually cares about the flourishing of sentient life, in its own weird way, and in general it doesn't make things worse. Which is pretty good for a self-interested company."

"Meanwhile you can hardly trust the Windward Company not to cut its own purse or hamstrings while scrabbling for more cash. And they have a military. Which I deserted. That's my experience with companies."

"Yeah, I can definitely see why you'd be hesitant." Thorn says, settling in on the bed.

"It sure would be nice if the OTC happened to be shaped in such a way that everything it touches is made good, but the world isn't really shaped like that in my experience. I'll believe it when I see it."

"Yeah, it's not all sweetness and light. The OTC is still a corporation, and even when it has beneficient impulses they're mostly for PR. It's just that the OTC's PR budget is way too large."

"Mm. Where do you two live?"

"I've got a personal demiplane apartment. Built the demiplane myself."

"I live close to my work usually, getting apartments near the frontlines if I can. Often I can't and I'm forced to camp."

"-Your own pocket of space. That as expensive as it sounds?"