Session 80 - Deck The Halls With Bouts From Holly

Previously, Across the Horizon… A routine job in a warehouse planted Linnet Leveche firmly on the ground.
The Edge of the World ripped her winds out of her.
Ever since, she has been scrambling to find an answer and a solution, while not letting on that anything was wrong, or that anything really bothered her or was really important.
Once everyone understood the severity of the issue, Linnet’s winds became the Starfall's top focal point.
A return to the scene of the crime got them a crystal and an uncomfortable conversation with Serj Tarkan (and Orrey into a bit of trouble getting into places he didn’t belong).
A conversation with the other sylphs on the ship gave possibilities but no answers.
An experiment showed that the two crystals repelled each other but opened no paths.
A journey to the Howling Eye charged a crystal but returned no winds.
A trip to Cardia gave an unforgettable concert but shined no light.
A return to the Triad gave them a shockingly-returned-to-life Cirri Idraen, and returned the found crystal to Cirri, but raised far more questions than it answered, not to mention Bast’s lanoisacco fumbled words.
A battle with Falcom One gave them a chance to stretch their combative muscles for the first time in too long… and finally gave them something, in that Linnet’s older brother Peregrine Leveche was part of this new group.
Peregrine will miss the next new Falcom One shows, taking a leave of absence for a family emergency… as he and Linnet return home to the isolationist city-state of their birth, Sainé, so long as they can sneak their way in.
We join our brave adventurers as they fly over the rolling hills of Caerwyn, drawing ever closer to their goal… ** Bast, leaning over the railing, watches the hills roll away behind the Starfall.
Linnet watches one retreating actor over her shoulder as she coaches a choral rehearsal of a song literally intended as filler background music, "We Talk About The Weather." They're on deck precisely to alter the lyrics on the fly to be about said weather.
"And so, you see," says Yves, leaning against the same railing as Bast, "that's exactly why we need to invest heavily in anti-gravity research with a specific look toward fluid dynamics and how they relate. It'll only require a subscription to about eight journals to start, and then a sufficient budget for filling out the back catalog the next time we're in a place where we can shop for these things properly. We can work out how much to budget for actual construction materials once we've done all the research. Sensible, right?"
Orrey glances at Yves, slightly confused, then turns to Bast and Linnet. “Can you guys explain what we’ll be running into if we’re not sneaky enough to make it over the mountains?”
"Okay, you've got it from here, Rahel, take over." Linnet eases out of rehearsal and wanders over to join the conversation. "Well, a shower of falling books if we don't anchor the cases properly, for starters."
Yves gets a slow blink from Bast. "I think that might be a definition of 'sensible' I haven't nur across before. Do you have any other applications for it? At lla?"
"Yves, I think we generally put thin railings in front of the volumes for situations like that, as earthquake-proofing. That would be the short-term measure, plus it'd hold the anti-gravity books while you're using them. They're retractable, of course, nobody wants the books permanently sealed on the shelf."
"Of course there are applications," Yves says, wounded in tone. "There are so many applications for the interaction of fluid dynamics and antigrav that I'm surprised there's not a dedicated journal for that alone. To start with, we could get all sorts of publications out of this, once we don't find our subject matter too sensitive to release to the scholarly world."
"Practical applications. In the near future." The stare intensifies.
Laughing gently, Linnet turns back to Orrey. "On less entirely arcane subjects...no, honestly, I can't. I've only been in and out of Sainé once, and both of those were on the ground, through the pass, with the credentials to get in and out normally."
"Rapid... delivery of coffee... along the ceiling where it's out of the way...?" Yves says tentatively. "I mean, that's the joy of this kind of research, you start off with one goal, spread your net wide, and then pull in all sorts of things! If no one had ever done a bit of work with the theoretical stuff, we wouldn't have proper airships or indoor plumbing. Someone back me up on this one."
"He's not wrong," Isa says. "I mean, he's not wrong about theoretical research being what you need for practical inventions later. Less sure about doing the research here."
"I have to assume most of the difficulties in question would be aerodynamic; it's a small state that doesn't have a highly performative military? You must understand, though, I grew up an extremely sheltered child and there's a lot I just don't know. Like why the hell they'd go even more to ground than usual. Hawk is...bad at the details sometimes. Even more than usual, apparently." Linnet glares in the direction of the crew quarters.
Orrey nods along while scanning the horizon for the inevitable border guards or dragons or dragoons...
"On an airship isn't ideal," Yves concedes, "but it's not as if we have a stable ground base for this kind of work, and if we did, it would be a problem to set up experiments I couldn't check on for days or weeks or what not the next time we get a sudden opera invitation."
"They sort of bank on their reputation of 'don't even try' and most folks just don't try," Linnet mutters to the sky. "Plus, the whole 'you must be this heroic to be in Caerwyn in the first place' shtick works in their favor."
Briefly distracted, Bast turns to Linnet. "How does 'jumped into the Howling Eye' rate for entry?"
"There's a line between 'heroic' and 'stupid' and 'heroic' means that you have to have actually made an impact on someone else, and not just on the deck of their ship." Linnet rolls her eyes. "For the record, the heroicness that got my family into Caerwyn in the first place was seven generations back and I honestly don't know what he did to make his name. All I ever heard was 'he was the greatest White Mage of his time' but for all I know, that either meant 'saved one titled person' or 'healed the cuts and bruises of everyone he ever met.' I am ninety-seven-percent certain that the stories of most of what he fought were made up."
"I am NOT of noble extraction, I just have one ancestor who likely did a favor for someone famous and looked good on statues. But to hear my mother talk, he was the savior of all Ducorde." Linnet makes a dismissive hand gesture and nearly hits one of Yves' ears.
Yves's ear twitches, releasing a tiny chime from piercings knocking into each other.
Rahel and Shula, dancing by the entryway leading below decks -- Rahel dancing, Shula critiquing, Rahel protesting, Shula continuing the critique -- stop moving for a moment, listening to something down the stairs.
"You'd be surprised how much nobility rests on no greater claim," Isa observes.
Linnet groans. "Isa, you may be on 'deflect my mother' duty later this week."
"So we go back, have Orrey hctac you, and then have you heal him just to cement your ecalp in history." There is no hint of humor in Bast's expression.
"You're doing it again." Orrey says absentmindedly to Bast.
"Cementing people in history is precisely Caerwyn's problem! There's so much blowing cement history all over the place there's no room to think!" (Linnet is ranting and can easily be ignored.)
"There's a fight?!" Rahel exclaims, loud enough for everyone to hear, and then they both rush down the stairs.
"...Hawk, what did you do." Linnet abruptly stops gesturing to the winds and dashes after her friend.
Yves turns toward the stairs. "Do you think the actors are arguing about removing that one really tedious song from Sight of Art again?"
"Rahel wouldn't be yelling about that, that happens every week," Linnet replies without looking back.
"Art's a theater critic now?" Bast tosses off as he follows the commotion.
Yves nods thoughtfully. "Maybe they're trying to stab each other with the prop swords this time."
Isa sighs. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear why you're all rushing off, and I'm going to follow very slowly, and I'm going to hope everything is resolved before I get there."
Linnet is quick enough to see that the news spread through one of the actors, Runa, as Shula and Rahel rush after her toward the cafeteria, usually the most boisterous and cheerful room on the ship -- everyone enjoys good food, after all, and Linnet's oversight has seen high-quality food and even better dinner shows.
Whatever happened in here must have been quite the show, as everyone arrives (some faster than others).
Owen Moda is holding Mogratheo two feet off the ground, palming the struggling moogle’s face and pressing him against the wall.
Mogratheo’s body language conveys absolute fury and wrath, while Owen mostly conveys disappointment and concern.
Celeste Meracydia stands next to Owen, eyebrows up in her hairline, too surprised to notice that her forearm is bleeding heavily from a long, shallow cut.
Celeste’s jeweled dagger is on the floor of the cafeteria, out of its sheath.
Saray and Holly are paused in the middle of a furious shouting match, Holly’s cheeks and neck red with anger, Saray stern but not backing down.
Both of them are looking at River, far across the room, lying on the ground, sparks of electricity crackling along their extremities, groaning in equal parts shock and pain.
Two tables to River’s left, Clayton is sitting on the ground next to a tipped-over chair, mouth hanging open in shock.
Bjrn is in the corner with Saray and Holly, arms out, hands open, protective and defensive.
Chmurka is kneeling in the actual corner behind Bjrn, clutching her jaw, drawing into herself.
Yves keeps pace with Isa, to arrive whenever she does, with a mutter of, "You'll back me up on the budget request for the journals, right?"
Linnet arrives in the doorway, takes in the scene in about one second, draws in all the air she can, and yells in her loudest possible voice, "HOLD IT!"
Orrey is the last to arrive, having lingered looking for signs of trouble above, only to find it here instead.
"They're journals, Yves, how much could they cost?" Isa asks, without a trace of irony.
Whatever spell --nonmagical, just eventful -- held everyone still, Linnet's shout refreshes its duration, and hostilities do not resume. The tension in the air remains thick enough to cut with a knife, or perhaps a dagger.
In full Director Voice, Linnet continues, "RIGHT. Celeste! Far corner. Isa, get over there with her and see to her arm. Everyone else, stay right the hell where you are."
"What's going on here?" Bast's voice is calm. His expression doesn't show a trace of emotion.
"A very reasonable amount," Yves reassures Isa sunnily, then blinks a bit at the scene ahead. "...huh."
Everyone starts to answer Bast at once, volumes rising and tempers flaring.
Linnet folds her hands in front of her, closes her eyes, breathes deeply, then opens them and glares and everybody. "YOUR CAPTAIN HAS NOT ASKED FOR CHAOS."
"YOU WILL RECOMMENCE SHUTTING UP."
"Oh, wow," Yves says quietly. "I never knew before what it felt like to actually be the narcs arriving on the scene."
Isa gives Linnet a brief look of surprised respect for her volume, then catches Celeste's eye and jerks her head towards the assigned corner.
Everyone mostly shuts up. River grouses from the floor. Mogratheo flails and sputters, muffled by Owen's very large palm.
Bast points at Bjrn. "Og ahead."
Orrey says "He means go ahead."
Celeste rolls her eyes, but acquiesces, leaving a trail of drops of blood on the previously clean floor.
"Simog, shut the hell up before I have Owen tie you to a chair with his free hand." Linnet directs this comment at Mogratheo.
Bast gives Orrey a quelling look but doesn't say anything, waiting for Bjrn to respond.
Bjrn looks clearly uncomfortable with being the first to go. "Holly, she, well, she came in here and hit Chmurka. I tried to stop her, she tried to hit me, and then everything spiraled from there. I was just trying to keep Chmurka safe. I didn't see a lot of what else happened."
Behind him, Chmurka meets no one's eyes, trying to sink into the floor, still holding a hand to her face.
Yves whispers to Linnet, "If you separate them all into different rooms and question them individually, they'll usually rat each other out! Uh. I mean. Speaking from personal experience."
Linnet whispers back, "I was going to, but the captain kinda took over."
Bast's eyes swing over to Holly, still red in the face. "That so?"
"I'm not talking to you," Holly seethes. "I'll talk to Linnet, but not you."
Orrey heads over to Celeste and Isa, and murmurs to Celeste, "How bad is that cut?"
"Cut?" Celeste looks down. "Oh. Shit. Ow."
Linnet tells Holly, "Noted; in the meantime, resume sitting still and shutting up. Saray, what the hell happened here?"
Isa has already pulled down a first aid kit. "How'd that happen?"
Yves rummages through his satchel, and comes out with one of his notebooks. Flips it open, clicks a pen to the ready, and begins taking notes on what's being said.
Bast bites back whatever he was about to respond with, and lets Linnet proceed. The look he gives Holly has weight.
Saray puts her hands on her hips, mirroring one of Jasper's stances. "I was sitting here eating with Clayton when Holly came in, angry about something. Holly said something to Chmurka -- she raised her voice, I didn't hear what it was -- and Bjrn stood up, towering over her. Intimidating her. Chmurka said something, she's always quiet so I couldn't hear it, and Holly decked her. Bjrn shoved her, she shoved back, I ran over to break it up before it turned really violent. Mogratheo also tries to break it up, Holly yells at him, and I don't know what happened with Celeste and River. Mogratheo jumps at them, Owen grabs him, then you all came in."
Yves frowns a little, raises an eyebrow, and scribbles notes.
Celeste flexes her left hand, finding no trouble at all moving it, and says, "I don't know," with a bit of a tone.
"Thank you. Saray, want to go back to your cabin and cool off a bit? I'll be asking everyone the same once I'm fairly certain we're out of decking range."
Isa examines Celeste's forearm with efficiency, if not bedside manner. "Not too deep. Should heal."
Saray thinks it over for about four seconds. Then she nods. "Yes. Officers are here. Isa will keep everyone in line, and you'll find out what's going on." She raises her voice in what might be pettiness, just a bit. "Permission to leave, Captain?"
Orrey asks Celeste, "What happened here?"
Bast gives Saray a faint nod. "Find Jasper, have him check on the brig. Sounds ekil we might need it."
"...we have a brig?"
"What passed for one with the nwolc pirates, anyway."
"Is that why I couldn't use that storage room for the library?" Yves shakes his head, and makes another note.
"Of course we have a brig," Isa says, while wrapping Celeste's forearm. "We've taken prisoners."
Shula replies sotto voce, "It's where we put most of the painted flats. Painted sides to the wall, of course, for minimal damage potential." ("Oh.")
Celeste huffs. "Owen and I were getting lunch together -- he dropped by my cabin and wanted to talk to me, I suggested getting some lunch since I had just finished up my clarinet practice -- and I don't know what set Holly off, but she looked mad when she came in and it only got worse after she hit Chmurka, and you'd think that would have made her feel better. Bjrn and Saray tried to get her to cool down, Mogratheo went over to make sure everyone was paying attention to him, and he said something that really made Holly angry. I don't know what happened here--" she attempts to raise her arm before Isa firmly puts it back in place -- "and then Mogratheo's trying to fight me and Owen intervenes."
"And River?" Bast looks over to where the sylph is still flat on their back.
"It's like one of those logic puzzles, where everyone has a different place at the table and color of hat and Job and dessert order," Yves mutters to himself, continuing to scribble.
"For the love of the spotlight, Simog, will you never learn?" Mogratheo appears to deflate slightly each time Linnet calls him by a different name. He's mostly stopped thrashing like a stuck fish, at least. "If Owen puts you down, will you talk to me like a normal person?"
River groans, rotating their wrists, twisting their neck. There is a loud pop, one that gives Owen and Bjrn both shudders, but River pleasantly sighs. Then they're all business. "She cast a lightning spell on me!" they exclaim, pointing at Celeste.
"Whom amongst us has not..." Yves's voice trails off into the scratching of his pen again.
"Cast a lightning spell on our fellow crew members? Later, Yves. And what led to that, pray?"
"I was just trying to calm everyone down!" River says. "You don't cast magic on your shipmates!"
Celeste's expression darkens, but she stays silent.
"Right, we'll talk that through later. Can you get up and back to your cabin?"
Orrey mutters "A friendly Haste never hurt anyone..."
"Yes, I'm fine," they grouse. "It mostly startled me. I'm not hurt. And I didn't hurt her, either! I didn't deserve this!"
"Context, Orrey." Isa completes a serviceable field dressing on Celeste's arm, and informs her, "Your dagger's over there."
"We'll figure out who deserved what later, right now I'm just trying to figure out what the hell happened. If you get out of decking range for now, I'll come find you shortly, okay?"
Without waiting for the captain's okay, Celeste walks over and retrieves her dagger. She slides it back into the sheath on her hip. "Am I also free to go?"
"I take it you didn't do eht arm, then?" Bast, still addressing River, points to Celeste.
"But if you take the wolf and the cabbage in the boat across the river..." Yves is talking to himself, but seems to be taking good notes on what others say.
"I didn't," River insists.
(With some wariness, Owen has managed to lower Mogratheo into a chair and brace the chair with one leg, so the moogle is still trapped but can at least breathe. Solely through the force of the Linnet Glare, he has remained silent, though he's clearly bursting to monologue.)
"Mogratheo?" Bast looks over at the moogle. "Your work?"
(Linnet nods and tones down the glare slightly.)
"Absolutely not," Mogratheo says. "Firstly, I was already over attempting to defuse the volatile situation between Holly and Bjrn, not that I received a bit of thanks or even the acknowledgement that warranted. It was only when those two--" he points over at Celeste and up at Owen "--came over to exert their will that things truly got out of hand, and when River came to assist she threw them across the room with the fulminous spark of a lightning bolt, the sheer force of which must have caused her to drop her foul dagger, though why she was holding it is beyond me." Celeste rolls her eyes and lets out an audible sigh.
Isa mouths "fulminous spark?" in Celeste's direction.
Yves mutters to himself as he writes. "...across... the room... Does 'fulminous' have one U or two?"
"Fulminous...bit redundant." Orrey says.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaand scene. Two U's, Yves. Clayton, the hell's your part in all of this?"
Yves corrects his spelling. "Sometimes you get fiery sparks instead," he explains to Orrey. "I suppose the detail is helpful, though why the dagger is 'foul' is beyond me. Seemed clean enough."
(Linnet glances at Yves and tries to convey 'don't ask, he'll just talk more' in a look.)
"Saray pushed me over but I think it was an accident," Clayton says, still sitting on the floor, oddly enough. "I thought she was going to get involved in the fight, but she just tried to break it up. I tripped when I tried to grab her. She didn't apologize or anything, but that's fine, she didn't do anything wrong either."
"Right. If you're not badly hurt, you'd do us a favor if you'd clear out and head back to your cabin. One of us will come find you shortly."
"Sounds good." Clayton leaves, hands in tight pockets.
"Owen, how did you get wrapped up in this brouhaha?"
"I wanted to talk to Celeste, because she knows Isa, and I know Isa, so if Isa knows both of us and likes both of us it stands to reason that we would like each other. When everyone started fighting I wanted to help calm everyone down, but then the wordy actor here wanted to fight Celeste, and Celeste was injured. I know that Celeste can fight for herself, but I didn't think this was really the place for it, and she needed to get her arm looked at, so I moved Mogratheo here away from the fighting so he could calm down. I was going to get everyone else to calm down, but then you came and yelled at everyone, and that seemed to have worked better anyway."
"Seemed like more of a foofarah to me," Yves opines.
"I know most of them from before, I have secrets." Despite herself, Linnet gives Owen a big wink.
"Did you see how Celeste got taht cut?" asks Bast.
"It was after River came up to her. She wasn't bleeding before, because we had just gotten up and there would have been blood on the table because she had her elbows on the table." Owen's tone is a reminder that he was a regular assisting the nobility in Cardia before signing on here. "I didn't see how she got it, though."
"Thank you, Owen, you've been very helpful. Would you like to go back to the forge while we finish sorting out the mess here?" Linnet asks.
Owen nods, and then picks up the chairs and sets them back upright before going.
Bast walks over to Chmurka, looking slightly less grim as he crouches by her. "How's the jaw?" "Fine," she says, hardly above a whisper.
"Celeste, thank you, I think we're done for now; we'll come find you in a bit. You don't need to be here for me decoding actor-speak." Linnet raises her eyebrows at Isa.
Celeste tests her arm one more time and then heads out.
Isa nods to Celeste, then pulls out one of the chairs to sit and listen to the rest of the questioning.
"Nothing broken, then?" He looks her over briefly for injuries.
"No," she says, elaborating not at all.
"Right." Linnet crouches by Mogratheo's chair. "If I tell you to go back to your cabin, clean yourself up, and practice your most wounded monologues for an hour, can you do so without getting irrationally angry at anyone else en route?"
Yves looks distinctly skeptical about this request, but says nothing. He just takes notes. Pointedly.
"I'm not a child, you know," Mogratheo does not pout.
"No, you're an actor and we both know what that means." Linnet's smile is real; they're friends, even if they can't stand each other half the time. "If you and Clayton want to go run a swordfight on deck to blow off some steam, I certainly wouldn't say no."
Yves mouths prop swords only at Linnet.
"Yeah, I'll pass," Mogratheo says as he gets up. "With the prop sword your navigator is carrying, I'll wait for Jasper to do a quality check before I touch anything on this ship."
"That's fair. Off with ye, scoundrel."
"Something you want to add about her blade?" Isa asks, before he can vacate the premises.
"It looks like the ones we used two years ago," Mogratheo says by the door. "Not to the point where it's some mystic hidden blade that you draw out of a stone and then people try to hit you with sticks, but it's..." he flails about for the right words. "Big. Gaudy. Ugly. You know, theatrical. I thought it was a fake too."
"Off with ye, scoundrel." Linnet nods at Isa in thanks but cuts off the line of discussion.
Mogratheo exits, stage right.
"Bjrn, I'm going to separate Holly and Chmurka, so I don't think we need you to stay in here; there's enough other bodies that I think we can spare you to go wash up. We'll catch you up shortly."
Bjrn nods, and after a sullen nod from Chmurka, leaves as well.
"Oo, accidental stabbing," Yves murmurs, underlining something.
"Right. Holly. Main deck, with me, right now. Captain, you and Chmurka handle this as you see fit. Make way, people, and no singing." Linnet and Holly exit the scene, narrowly missing any of several way-clearing musical numbers.
There are a lot of people out in the halls suddenly very interested in whatever innocent activity that drew them there in the first place, honestly, officer.
"RAHEL! Full-company rehearsal! End of Act One, Violetta! Now!"
Orrey follows Linnet and Holly. And then blinks away the pain of that yell.
Isa looks at Bast, then Chmurka, then back at Bast. "Need me to go talk to Celeste again, Captain?"
(Rahel scrambles most of the cast to the rehearsal space in the basement, with the exception of those Linnet has dismissed to their cabins.)
Bast watches them exit with narrowed eyes, then eases himself down on the floor next to Chmurka. "Well, that's most of eht circus gone. Know anything about who pissed in Princess's water today?"
Yves flips back a few pages, forward again, and sighs. "We're going to need more factual statements before I have enough to make a grid with this."
He glances up at Isa. "Pu to you."
Isa shrugs, and stays seated.
Linnet takes a seat on the deck and pats a space next to her for Holly. "Okay, start at the beginning, because I don't think anybody else did. What in the name of the Twelve and all their friends happened in the last hour?"
Chmurka tucks her legs up against her chest, still sitting on the floor. "She called me the Spymaster, and said this was all my fault."
Holly stays standing, doing plies to pass the time and burn off any frustration. "The Captain's little Spymaster is selling our secrets."
"What's the this?"
(The end of Act One of Violetta is going to be quite difficult to rehearse without Linnet (Violetta), Saray (the Faerie Queen), and Bjrn (the main Lord), but Rahel is gamely doing her best.) "We have secrets?"
"I don't know," Chmurka says. "Then she punched me."
"Lily does. Or did," Holly says darkly.
Yves makes a thoughtful noise, and flips back a page to circle something before he continues.
"...we have secrets worth selling to somebody?" Linnet looks genuinely confused. "I...have to assume this is political, because there's nothing else I can think of that we'd have that's worth selling." "Selling to whom?"
"That's all she said? Nothing before taht, today or before?"
"To anyone. To the captain! I don't know!" Holly exclaims. "All I know is that Lily is apparently someone important in Cardia, because Isa yelled at her about it, and all this only started happening when that little spy started skulking around in the ducts. If Lily didn't want to tell us, that's fine with us, we're her friends, but the spy's digging into everything we do and is giving it to the captain! And who knows who else?!"
"Nothing," Chmurka says. "Nothing before lunch today."
"...and this was reason to punch Chmurka one of the only times you saw her in broad daylight."
Linnet stands up, puts a firm arm around Holly's shoulders and looks her straight in the eye. "Holly, I say this as your friend and, by a weird quirk of fate, your superior officer: you idiot."
"Sit the hell down and listen before you haul off on me too."
"I'm an idiot? Next you're going to tell me he never aimed a weapon at you when he had you off by yourself away from the rest of the officers," she says, loud enough for Orrey to hear, conviction laced into her bones.
"Yep, you're an idiot, and one with no brain-to-mouth filter engaged." Linnet glares at Holly. "Did you talk to Lily about this before you hauled off on Chmurka?"
"Grand." Bast rubs his forehead. "Not the best vantage point, I know, tub did this look like anything more than a stupid bar fight to ouy?"
"Dunno," Chmurka mumbles. "Got punched in the face."
Yves reviews his notes carefully before answering Bast. "It's a mystery to me, Captain. But I think whatever Holly did, that just spiraled into... you know, the kind of thing that's just slapping and crying and throwing chocolate milk if you're in primary school."
"Yes! Of course I did! We all did!" Holly shouts. "Lily told us to leave her alone, which we did, but she was upset! She was really upset! She didn't want anyone digging into her background, and said she wasn't digging into ours! She thought we did it! She thought we sold her out! We'd never do that! Look, some of your new friends are sweet and we like them, but some of them are trouble! They're driving a wedge between us!"
"And so, rather than actually talking to me about any of this, you decided the best course of action was to punch your crewmate in front of a full galley."
"Fair." Bast leans against the wall, looking weary. "Sounds like we have an idiot who needs some time ot cool off on our hands. You need anything before I take erac of that?"
"Look, I can see why you're upset, but there's a long, long chain of what I would've considered reasonable steps to take between 'find out my friend is upset' and 'start a full-on brawl,' and you have managed to leapfrog almost all of them. We can work through this, but it's going to take some time, and I'm sorry to say that the blame for the brawl is going to rest pretty squarely on you. Please do not be surprised if the captain takes this pretty harshly and probably isolates you for at least a few days, but I'll try to talk him into at least letting River be around. I know you two are good for each other." "Please let me do my job and try to put out the flames before anything else catches fire, okay?"
"If you don't clean up the chocolate milk right away, it smells terrible," Yves says philosophically, closing his notebook.
"It's my fault I'm sticking up for my friends, is that it? Against a spy who's outing my friends? I'll take the blame for punching her, I shouldn't have done that, but there are limits and this whole thing about the Captain not trusting us -- you're supposed to advocate for us, Linnet. We signed on for you. We made him a hat! Then he got all paranoid and brought a spy on. I crossed the line, but he broke the rules."
"No," Chmurka answers Bast. "Gonna go."
"Holly, they're friends. She's an extremely shy friend to the extent that she sticks to the ducts to avoid people as much as possible, but they're friends. And the Captain and I are working on the trust thing, but you don't build that overnight. Just like I don't get you to trust him overnight. Good grief, Holly, it's been what, a couple months? It took me three years to get Mogratheo to speak one sentence at a time to me. Progress takes time." Linnet sighs. "Look, I have to go, seven other people are waiting on me to release them back to work. Go wash your face and do some barre stretches in your cabin, and I'll let you know how it all works out shortly, okay?"
Holly departs, somewhere between a righteous flounce and an adamant storm.
"Alright. If it's anything more than a bruise, get tenniL to look at it." Bast stands up and takes a step to the side to make room for her to do likewise.
Hands shoved deep into her pockets, Chmurka leaves the cafeteria, never to return during daylight hours if she can help it.
Linnet buries her face in her hands and screams, then composes herself and heads belowdecks.
Very briefly, she drops by Bjrn's cabin. "One question and then you're free to go. Who were you trying to defend from whom in there?"
Orrey pays no attention to the scream and continues tagging along with Linnet.
Yves stuffs away his notebook. "Well, this is going to make the next all-hands announcement awkward."
Bjrn looks around his cabin, wondering where he'd be free to go from himself. "Chmurka, from Holly. Holly came in yelling about spies. She was too angry, so I wanted her to sit down. Then she hit Chmurka and I tried to give Chmurka some space away from Holly."
Isa nods. "We've always had cliques. Don't want factions."
"Thank you. I'm sure she appreciates it, whether she tells you so or not. Just...keep your guard up around Holly for a bit, she's a little on edge, but I don't think we're going to have any more brawls. And dear gods, if you see anything like that brewing, tell me well before it happens, please." Linnet allows some mild desperation to creep into her face. She sticks out a hand. "We cool?"
He shakes it. "If you can show up within four seconds next time, I guess I'll try to warn you."
"Gimme one of those big bass yells, I can do my best." Linnet winks and moves on.
"Do you think that we could get this to blow over if we generated some other less violent drama for all the actors to fight over?" Yves asks Isa. "...I'm not sure if that's what officers usually do, but I've known some managers who got team unity that way."
Next stop for Linnet and Orrey is Saray's cabin. "Hey, Saray, got a sec?"
Isa shrugs. "Nothing to be done. Captain, you're going to have to start a torrid affair."
Saray looks up from a book that she's opened, turned fifty pages on, and read zero words from. "Sure."
"So I think I've managed to talk to everyone and sort out the equivalent of a grade school hair-pulling playground fight." Linnet sits on the edge of Saray's bed and slumps. "Sometimes, I hate people. But only very briefly. Just checking - you shoving Clayton over was an accident, right?"
"I'm thinking two weeks in the brig thgim be a good starting point on don't start brawls on the pihs." Bast does not look amused.
"...did I shove Clayton?" Saray blinks. "He grabbed my arm and I shrugged him off, did he fall down?"
"Oh. Yes, he did. You continue to be stronger than you think you are. Anyway, he dismissed it as an accident, you're fine." Linnet pats her arm.
"You could just start wearing the hat," Yves says to Bast. "They would all be so surprised they'd talk of nothing else for two weeks, and no one would need to deliver meals to the brig three times a day."
"...shit. Still. Shit." Saray looks stricken.
"You can go talk to him in about a minute, when I leave to go yell at the more serious screwups in this mess. Thank you for trying to be reasonable in a room where that really wasn't going to work." "Keep an eye on the Hive for a bit and two eyes on Holly, but I don't think we're going to have any more brawls. Holly thinks Chmurka's spying on everyone because Holly can't be bothered to trace a piece of gossip more than one step." Linnet probably shouldn't be telling Saray all of this, but Saray is like a mini-Jasper in terms of rock-solidity.
Isa nods. "As I have been repeatedly reminded, we're not holding military discipline on this ship. So a stint in the brig seems just." Her tone makes it clear that if this were a military ship, two weeks in the brig would be generous and merciful.
Saray looks surprised, but her reaction to that suspicion doesn't imply she thinks it's far-fetched.
"...and doesn't seem to understand that the captain might also have friends, and that not everyone is as openly gossipy with their friends as the Hive are. So anyway, that escalated into that entire brawl. Which was stupid, and I'm going to be days fixing it, but at least it wasn't anything more consequential than that. Anyway, could you go give Clayton my thanks for being patient and tell him not to wait around for the officers any longer?" Linnet finishes. "If he asks, there's absolutely nothing he did wrong, and the best thing he can do is listen to Mogratheo's sob stories in private and go 'uh-huh' a bunch. Thanks, Saray, you're a gem." Linnet hugs her friend, pries herself up, and moves on.
"Yves, I'm trying to discourage any future brawls here, not put no a godsdamned show. Enough of that going on here already."
Next, Linnet peeks in on River. "Hey, you - how're the aftershocks?"
"Hats convey authority, which helps reduce brawls," Yves insists, not convincingly.
"Fine, so long as I don't touch anything metal," River says. They're sitting in the middle of their bed, legs folded in a meditation pose.
"Okay, so I need a little more detail on what happened before Celeste cast lightning on you. Just the facts, please, I'm going to talk to her shortly and give her the 'you don't cast magic on fellow crew members' talk. I just need to know exactly what got you two there." Linnet steps into the room and leans on the inner doorframe.
River closes their eyes and sighs. "Okay. To be fair... it's partially my fault."
"Do uoy want a-" Bast begins to reply to Yves, before abruptly shifting to "-no, let's not."
Linnet gestures for them to go on.
"He has a hat," Isa points out helpfully. "It's pointy."
"You know we try to defuse stuff with jokes," River continues. "Celeste had that big prop dagger, so I was going to grab it and act like I was going to challenge Mogratheo to a duel. I knew he'd go for it. It would be silly. The Hive have gotten mad about stuff before, but never like that. Just kind of... distract people, give them a chance to focus that on me and not on each other."
"Yes, I wear it whenever it's appropriate, but I'm not usually trying to convey authority," Yves protests.
River groans. "Apparently Celeste is really protective of her props."
"Yeah...that one's less prop and more priceless artifact. Also not actually a prop," Linnet points out.
River looks mildly shocked. "But it looks so ridiculous..."
"Also, the first time we met her, we were defending her from assassins something like ten minutes later, so she's probably not in the mood to be pranked lately." Linnet runs a hand over her braid. "I should probably have warned you...though I don't know how in the breeze it would have come up. And she's an archaeologist, or at least she hangs out with a lot of them. Their offices are full of ridiculous-looking not-a-prop stuff."
Linnet sighs. "Okay, that clears that up. Give it a day or two to simmer down, but then I need you to approach Celeste on her off hours - not while she's navigating - and make a full and heartfelt apology and explanation, okay? She'll probably still be a little wary, but a lot less so if she knows you're not part of the group trying to kill her who we haven't fully tracked down yet."
"Right. Of course. I'll put something together." River nods solemnly.
Bast looks over at Isa. "Do you have opinions on the ytirohtua of hats in general and Yves' in particular?"
"In fact, just put Celeste on the 'do not prank' list for good, okay? Alongside 'Linnet's parents' and 'the senior librarian.'" Linnet hugs River briefly and winces as her earrings conduct a spark. "Dammit, sorry. Hopefully that'll wear off soon."
Mogratheo has retired to the former storage room where the Meteor is docked, rather than his own quarters, for better monologuing acoustics. Linnet interrupts the "o, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" speech by yelling "Ho, villain!"
Isa takes a second of furrowed brows before responding. "I don't put much stock in hats, and frankly I don't think actors put much stock in the concept of authority."
"I may be a villain but never let it be said that I am not a hero for the downtrodden and the oppressed!" he proclaims. "But a villain I be, and I wear the label proudly. Also I did nothing wrong."
"I'm sure you didn't, but I'm still trying to clear up the timeline a bit. Bear with me here." Linnet pulls up a stool and peers at Orrey's notepad, which doesn't help as it's mostly covered in doodles, but she won't tell anyone that.
"I think..." Yves hesitates. "...they sort of think of authority as a role someone plays, and the hat is what you wear to show that you're playing that role. So maybe they'd take it--not more seriously, but they'd act it a bit better, if they thought the captain was acting alongside them, too? And not refusing to play along? I don't know. I haven't done any drama since secondary school."
Orrey shows Linnet the doodle of the airship getting attacked by dragons.
Linnet giggles, then puts her serious face back on. "Right. So I think I've figured out most of the fight, with two exceptions. One, did you see Celeste drop her dagger?"
"No, but I heard it hit the ground."
"One-b, then. Did you see how she got that cut on her arm?"
"Nay."
"Actors." For a change, Bast's tone of shared misery appears to include Yves as well as Isa.
Isa nods, sympathetically. "Actors."
"At what point did it hit the ground?" Orrey asks.
"Right about when the lightning flashed -- maybe a breath later?"
"Okay. Two, who exactly were you trying to fight when you waded into the fray?" Linnet looks Very Attentive.
"Actors," Yves agrees.
Isa plays with a bit of gauze left behind from patching up Celeste. "They keep the ship running, though, and they don't often complain about the shit we get up to. And some of them have real potential."
"And this is the first time any of them have attacked any of the others," Yves notes, "which is a longer run of non-violence among coworkers than I saw among chemists, so they're doing well there."
"The first time I joined the battle I joined merely to keep Saray, Holly, and Bjrn apart. I thought to stand with Holly, not in the sense of opposing the others but trying to keep her from being so highly outnumbered, all for one and one against all, avoid that, and all. However, when Celeste struck someone not with the back of her hand or the edge of her fist but the color of her magic, well, I had to defend my own, didn't I? I did not count upon her continental brute," he says respectfully.
"Also Holly told me to pound sand," he adds after a moment.
"Right. Couple of things to clear up here." Linnet takes a deep breath.
"Heh." Bast does not share any workplace insights of his own. "Just deen to make sure things like this don't get out of hand."
"First of all, Owen is all of our continental brute, thank you very much. Second, we are all your own and you would go a long damn way to helping me make that clear, but I'll work on how exactly we do that later. Third, that dagger Celeste wears is a treasured artifact and is not ornamental, and fourth, Celeste is a little jumpy from recent history and is not going to take violence in her vicinity lightly." "Look, if we'd rescued you from assassination ten minutes after we met you, and then someone started diving toward you for the only actual lethal weapon in the room, you'd be a bit jumpy too."
Isa nods. "Agreed. If it were me, I might suggest an extremely dangerous mission that impressed upon all of them the seriousness of our task and the need for a unified action under a single command."
As Linnet talks, the hearts in Mogratheo's eyes grow larger and larger.
"...I know that look. I think she's spoken for, but you are welcome to pedestal her as high as you like," Linnet cautions him.
"Dangerous missions are fun! Maybe we'd run into my grandmother again," Yves says.
"I've already talked to River about not pranking her, I've talked to most of the other participants in this fight about not starting blowin' fights in my galley, and as for Holly, well, we're working on that." Linnet hurries on. "In the meantime, if you see anyone getting fisty again, the proper response is either 'yell for Linnet' or possibly 'go get Owen,' as he proved a surprisingly effective deterrent. Are things going to be okay between you two?"
"Of course! He is a mountain I shall yet climb, but only when he is prepared. And I shall keep my distance from Holly and the rest; I wasn't the one who told them anything in the first place." Mogratheo shrugs grandly.
"You don't need to keep your distance, just don't wade into a fight if you're not looking to get punched. And don't climb on Owen if he's holding anything bigger than you." Linnet stands and bows dramatically. "My utmost thanks, good sir. And seriously, I may have some speechifying for you to do in the service of good, I just have to figure out what speech. I'll be in touch."
"Llew, Decker did mention a pirate for us to take care of."
Isa holds up an open hand. "Worth looking into."
Yves nods thoughtfully. "Actors should love pirates. They sing about them so often, and all that."
With a smile, Linnet exits to go find the rest of the officers. "Orrey, can you go get Celeste and meet us in the galley?"
"Sure." Orrey nods and wanders off to find Celeste.
Linnet stops in the doorway and realizes there's still blood on the floor. "...none of you cleaned this up? C'mon, people, this is a food preparation area."
Celeste arrives with Orrey a moment later.
"Right, cleanup later. Celeste, thank you for your patience. I think I've mostly sorted out this ridiculous mess, and I am truly sorry you were involved in it, and doubly sorry you ended up wounded because of it. Can you shed a little more light on what the heck happened there?"
"I don't know how to clean a kitchen," Yves objects. "I clean labs, that's completely different! Hey, Celeste."
"Think of it like a lab with tomatoes in it," Linnet replies testily.
"There really isn't anything to say about it that I didn't already," Celeste lightly protests. "I didn't see the precise thing that started it, and whatever happened -- hi, Yves -- with my arm was clearly an accident."
"Unless you accidentally sliced your own arm open, it's still an accident about which I need to give somebody a serious lecture on weapon safety," Linnet points out. "And personal space."
"You've mostly sorted it out?" Isa catches up.
"Gnihtyna new?"
"Honest mistake, no one's fault," Celeste says, blinking twice in Bast's general direction.
"Isa, among the nobility, this sort of thing would have gotten somebody disinvited from court for a month at least; on a grade school playground, it would have had someone's face ground into the mud and everyone in time out. It's about that level of serious." Linnet looks mildly disgusted with people in general. "I'd like to run something by you in particular, but the short answer is 'Holly's impulsive and actors are gossipy.'"
"The crew doesn't want Chmurka investigating them." Orrey says from behind Linnet's shoulder.
"One of the crew has decided that Chmurka is 'selling their secrets to the Captain' because she can't follow a piece of gossip one step further," Linnet adds. "Orrey's assessment is the unbiased one, mine is heavily colored, take from it what you will."
"Holly's notion?" And Bast's right back to grim.
"Bingo," replies Linnet. "Which led straight to 'must punch Chmurka in broad daylight,' in the middle of a full galley, hence the brawl."
"It's all because Isa ripped into Lily a while back." Orrey says.
Isa blinks. "Ripped into?"
"...and that would be the something I was going to run by you in particular, possibly on the side." Linnet buries her face in one hand. "I needed a source for all of this that wasn't Holly."
"Yelled at, dressed down, disciplined severely." Orrey adds.
Bast gives Isa a curious look. "What was the occasion?"
Yves has the slightly distant gaze of a viera trying to remember which actor goes with which name.
Isa squints. "I have no idea. She's been fi....oh. Shit."
With the hand not holding her face, Linnet gestures for elaboration on that 'shit.'
Bast, too, produces a wavy sort of go on motion.
Isa shakes her head. "A while back, when we were heading to Highwind. There was something I need to speak with her about. Personal, nothing relevant to the situation. I couldn't find her, so I asked one of the other crew to pass word along. When she came to me she looked like she only expected one of us to leave the briefing room upright."
"And so of course 'hey, Isa wants to talk to you' became 'you're about to get eaten alive by Osler The Great And Terrible', particularly if it went through Holly in the first place." Linnet drops her face to the table and groans.
"I have about a week's worth of work to do untangling this and soothing hurt feelings, and they need to start with Lily. In the meantime, Bast, what do we do with Holly? She's a hothead, but she's really just that."
"The just that attacked eno of my crew and started a brawl that injured several more. Elpuoc of weeks in the brig should give her time to think tuoba it."
"As long as we're coming clean on accidental things that suddenly have become important," Celeste starts, wishing she didn't have to finish.
"Maybe a long weekend in the brig, with no dessert? Because--" Yves decides maybe he wants to let Celeste finish that sentence.
"Weeks? Captain, that's going a bit far. All she did was punch somebody. We do that ALL THE TIME." Orrey says.
"The 'brig' is a scenery closet and the ship's just not that big...and yes?" Linnet looks gratefully at Celeste.
Isa is struck by a question, but holds it for a more opportune time.
"Dagger was my fault," Celeste says. "It's, um, coded. To my blood. Rather not discuss how. But if someone else draws it, it sets off a trap. Not fatal, I wouldn't use it if it was. But it keeps me safe." "So. Total accident."
"Oh." Linnet barely blinks. "Hey, good to know. I told a couple of the actors 'not a prop' but didn't tell them any more details, and made 'no touchy' very clear, so they should be leaving it the hell alone."
"By the end of the week it should have the end of the world inside of it, with how word spreads around here."
"That doesn't seem like it helped you much." Bast gives the bandages a pointed look. "Or was taht the zap?"
Linnet backtracks. "Wait. 'Coded to your blood,' as in, someone drew your blood and then it...did something?"
"He pulled it off of me from behind. It triggered, and went across my arm in the process," Celeste says. "That part was an accident. It'll be worse for a bit now that it's got blood in its system again, but that'll wear off. They'll be fine, too. Doesn't do lasting damage."
"...that's disturbing, but okay. Sorry, who pulled it off you?" Linnet squints.
"Whoever it was that got lightninged? I haven't gotten everyone's names straight, sorry." Celeste shrugs.
Orrey blinks at the "blood in its system" line.
"Okay. Let's not give them the full story on that; I told them you were recently attacked and pretty jumpy, and they'll be coming by to apologize in full soon; you can decide how much you want to tell them then. The water sylph is River, by the way, they/them. Bit of a prankster, but a good heart."
"Didn't Mogratheo say he pulled the dagger?" Orrey says. "But River was the one shocked by the lightning."
"They were both trying for something with the dagger, as part of an attempted distraction from the fight. It worked a little too well." Linnet rolls her eyes again.
"Maybe I should have drawn fewer dragons...No, it was River who pulled it." Orrey says.
"Okay, Captain, let's resolve what to do with Holly after we've all taken a breather, yes? I need to be a little less sweary when we're having that conversation." Linnet gets up to brew more coffee. There's nowhere near enough coffee for this.