Expedition Introduction Private Family and a Foxkit

[Talinn Ryalor]

(After a Nameday to Remember, keeping the initial opening and such limited to those tagged to keep things moving along speedily, but you can jump in as necessary once it is open, or hang out with Lorcan and Kinza in separate threads since this will be their intro one.)

Alwyn was a bit nervous about his new assignment on the Hide-he had, of course, had some training on ships as was necessary, but had never been on a long-term assignment to one. He had been assigned, at his ardent request, and likely because of his parent’s influence, to the ship that had carried so many of his members of his family before him to watch over his son, Finnian. It had been a terse and tense conversation, and he suspected his mother had already connected the dots, but he had yet to make a formal announcement. There was, of course, still time to do so-the ship was not yet scheduled to go off to its next mission for a week, and he knew his parents were holding some kind of banquet with the rest of his newly-found family, where he planned to introduce them in a way his parents could not reject his son without losing face. That would likely stir them up, but damn them, Finnian was his boy and he was a good one, he was going to be legitimized whether his parents liked that or not.

He stood now, however, at the bottom of the gangplank, attired in his leather armor with his poleaxe and sword, his Guard armor stored safely away on the Hide, waiting for his two cousins to arrive. Heavy armor was indeed useful, but for ship combat where one might expect to be flung overboard, it was something of a death sentence-plus if not stored properly, it would corrode due to the salt in the air without extensive maintenance that was already going to be a pain to do with his weapons. The only reason he brought it was for any potential shore expeditions where they might face truly difficult foes or for something requiring ceremony.
​

I wonder what sort of effects they will bring. I will have to watch closely and ask questions-they seem to know a lot more about ships than I do. At least I familiarized myself with the layout of the ship, so that I can show them all of the features.


He was, he had to admit, still adjusting to the idea that had cousins, but they seemed to be a good sort, and Finny getting to know more of his family would be an excellent thing.

@Lorcan Rainclaw @Kinza Rainclaw @FinnianBrightfur @Gyles F. Stowett​

 

[Kinza Rainclaw]

The time had finally come to do what Kinza had dreamed of for years, becoming part of a proper ship's crew, and not just any ship. The very ship both her parents had captained at some point or another. Naturally that brought plenty of pressure with the experience. She was determined she and Lorcan would make their own paths and impressions regardless of their background. It was exciting to be among so many beasts, the harbour and ship so alive and full of noise compared to the dull peace of her upbringing.

Bag slung over her shoulder — full with her sewing kit, a few clothes, some rags for that time of the month, her small lockbox, and some small bits and bobs of use — she marched up the dock with her brother, cutlass sheathed at her hip.

A grin split her muzzle on spotting Alwyn waiting at the Hide's gangplank.

"Look who it is, Lor. Our posh, pukin' cousin! How's it goin'?"​

((I'm assuming Lorcan is with me but Cal is welcome to get me to edit ;D))

 

[Lorcan Rainclaw]

Lorcan didn’t truly know how he felt. Sure enough he had been keen to flex his own independence and fly from Kutoroka to forge his own destiny, but he had done so by following the enthusiasm of his sibling. He was loathe to admit that he had taken Kinza’s lead, perhaps a little too soon for his own readiness, and akin to her was already prickling with the pressure of matching expectations. He’d been caught out on land before, and he certainly wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Aaah he’d make it just fine. What was there to fear? He was big and capable and his parents had started from far less. They’d be just fine.

The energy of the dockside was difficult to ignore. His own belongings slung across his shoulders with far less care than the two bows strapped to his back or the quiver at his hip, Lorcan followed his sister to the gangplank with a newfound energy as he suppressed anxiety for another time. He’d never been one much for possessions, keeping only a few changes of clothing about his person; mainly he was bringing tools and kits with him, ranging from a few carpentry tools to his sailmaking kit and a couple of medical supplies. He was practical by nature and his belongings reflected much.

Dark eyes roved ceaselessly over the sleek bulk of the Hide, taking note of her scale and style with open appreciation. Hailing from an island nation vessels were a familiar sight to Lorcan, but few of such grandeur had made stop at Kutoroka (he had come to realise with age that this had been likely a deciding factor for his parents decision to make it their home. Oddballs). It would be an exciting challenge to get to work on a ship of this scale and he relished the thought.

It was only Kinza’s comment which drew his attention to Alwyn at the gangplank. Lorcan snorted in amusement, eyeing his cousin’s weaponry for a moment as they approached. “Well isn’ that perfect timing.” He nudged Kinza, voice lowered for a moment as he snickered. “Wonder if he’ll be heavin’ over the railin’s next.” Raising a paw to Alwyn he grinned. “Hoi, Alwyn, been a while. Feelin' better'n last time or got yourself in trouble since?”

 

[Gyles Stowett]

"Close your hangin' guard, lad. Closer to the centerline, Finn! See, leaves y'open in your middle when 'tis way out there, don't it. A beast half canny will take you up on your offer whilst you're open like that, feint toward your hanger on the right like they mean to cut you," and he stepped in obliquely, threw a wide extended overhead cut toward the vertically hanging blade on the right, pulled the cut at the last moment so the tip of his training sword missed the foxkit's blade and fell into a short, retracted Terza, and immediately thrust with a lunge into extended Prima just firm enough to poke Finn square in the chest and send him onto his tail.

Gyles gave him a paw of support. Though imperceptible, he had to catch his breath, too. "You're gettin' better, by the Fur. That was a devil of a recovery. Clever thing you did there when you saw the game was bloomin' well up; almost blocked it." He waited just long enough for a hopeful smile to appear on the young protegé's face before putting on a grim sort of no-nonsense expression. "But we don't want to just block, do we? Are we a faintin' flower, eh? Or are we sailors born an' bred, sir? We want to block and attack! Know where we're goin' to strike before we've even parried! Focus too much on the parry, you won't focus on bringin' the fight to your enemy! If you never bring the fight to your enemy, you'll never beat the rapscallion, will you? Your blocks will get weaker, your openings wider, an' sure as summer tempests, the bugger's blade will find its way in."

Crestfallen Finny was a hard sight to bear for Captain Stowett. He is improving, faster than I thought. A fierce fighter one day.

He waggled the foxkit's ears. "Tcha! Chin up, boyoh. You'll be a bold an' perilous bounder yet." Gyles swigged from his flask, and as he lowered it, his eyes fell on the three foxes deep in conversation at the portside gangway over Finnian's shoulder and down on the main deck. He turned his attention back to the young one and raised the wooden trainer into a hanging guard, just like his pupil's a moment before.

"Try me this time, young rip. See that we've learned somethin'!" Then, they'd have visitors.

@FinnianBrightfur

 

[FinnianBrightfur]

It was an odd thing, being on the Hide when the vast majority of the crew weren't around. It felt eerie, like all the life had been sucked out of her. Finn didn't like it. Stranger still, people acted just a mite differently when they weren't officially on duty. The captains were busy so frequently, and a spontaneous duel with swords -- at least when Talinn was captain, was a rarity. Even a glum mood couldn't keep Finn down when swords were offered to him.

The captain had done his best to teach him various guards -- but Finn was struggling to see the mechanics at first. It just felt so much more natural to leave his sword a touch open, as if it naturally fit there. (Not to mention, the fatigue of holding the sword so high!) He tried to bring the sword centerline as instructed. As Gyles swung overhead, Finn took the bait, and stepped into his guard to put his weight behind the sword -- but by the time he realized Gyles had only feinted, it was too late to correct. Finn brought his sword down in a last ditch attempt, but Gyles sword tip was already inside, and dug straight into his ribs near his breastbone.

Finn stumbled backwards from the blow, and landed on his tail with a gentle oof. It'd all happened so quickly -- and Finn considered that a real sword fight would feel much the same. One moment, you were on your feet, and the next, you were bleeding from some abysmal wound, wondering what happened.

As Gyles glanced over to the small gathering by Alwyn, Finn's ears flitted. Were these the beasts Alwyn was talking about? They looked like quite a pair. Heavens... and here he was taking a beating. Taking the captain's paw, Finn pulled himself up onto his feet, and rolled his shoulders to work out the bruised muscle. Time to put on a good show.

Raising his wooden sword, Finn readied the third guard that Gyles had used against him a moment ago. He leapt forward a half step, bapping playfully at Gyles to test for an opening -- and there it was. The foxkit's footwork was sloppy, and telegraphed his move well in advance -- but the components were all there. Finn raised his sword for the overhead cut, swung down, and stopped at the last second. The kit drew his sword back to his hip, and lunged forward with... just enough force to timidly poke Gyles. (Finn couldn't bear to injure his trainer!)

 

[Alwyn Ryalor]

Alwyn could rigorously control most aspects of his emotions at the end of the day-after all, he, like many unfortunate younger Guardsbeasts-in-training, had once been assigned to stand in front of the Ministry of War and act as stone-faced as possible while doing so. That was not particularly easy, given the influx of tourists and locals wanting to see if the rumors of the Stoatorian Guard being unable to be fazed were true. He had suffered more than a few...indignities...to retain that image, up to and including be posed on by a particularly irritating rat family who even brought out their own personal painter over the course of three days to capture the moment perfectly. But he usually did it. He could not, however, control some of the inadvertent biological things, and his ears became quite a bit redder from the embarrassment even as his expression remained in control.

“Ahem…” he cleared his throat from an imaginary blockage as he raised his paw to greet both of them. “Thank you for the concern, cousins, I am indeed over my illness, and, thankfully, I do not have as much of a problem with seasickness. Were you able to find everything that you needed?”

He did want to banter back and forth with them one day, but, he did not have any good ammunition yet to do so-the escape from the Fogey barracks could be used against him in ribbing just as easily as it could be used against Lorcan, and he had nothing on Kinza. Hopefully he would be able to find something he could tease one or both about on their voyage-until then, he had to simply accept his defeat in as proper a manner as possible.

@Kinza Rainclaw @Lorcan Rainclaw

 

[Kinza Rainclaw]

Desisting on the ribbing now, Kinza nodded and let her gaze take in the sheer size of the Hide, the beauty of her sails and the thrill of movement upon deck that she could glimpse from the dock. She was keen to get a look at the engine, too, whenever she got the chance and wasn't in the way of the official engineers.

"Aye, I'm sorted anyways. This is going ter be a shock ter the system though, I reckon, all these rules and decorum and sh- stuff. Don't know how our folks managed it. You'll have ter fill us in on all the do's and don'ts so this one doesn't get lobbed in jail again." She thumbed in her brother's direction.​

 

[Lorcan Rainclaw]

Though she had a fair point, Lorcan was of no mind to be so humble and acknowledge such: he snorted at once. “I can behave just fine. He was in in jail, too!” Overconfidence had ever been his companion and it remained to be seen whether he would manage to obey the chain of command without incident. Long as nobody acts stupid it’ll be fine.

Kinza had a fair point, though. “Dunno how da an’ ma of all beasts behaved themselves in a place like this let alone gave orders in it. Very different from how we was raised, eh, Kinz? Well, they was bossy enough I just can’t picture it all formal.” Re-shouldering his equipment the todd squinted up at the Hide’s immense beauty and watched as the breeze ruffled canvas and his own fur alike. It would be good to get out on the ocean and see what this floating community would be like. Perhaps, at last, there would feel a place for him to fit. Kutoroka had always felt tame.

“Still, suppose some do’s and don’ts won’t hurt. What d’you say, Cous’? Show us some of the basics an’ maybe where we can put our gear down.”

 

[Talinn Ryalor]

He gave a nod to both of them as they asked their questions, answering them as he turned and gestured for them to walk up the gangplank.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dearest cousins, I was never in any prison and neither was Lorcan if you were to hypothetically check the official Fogey logbook at a certain station today. You two have quite the imaginations, don’t you?” He smiled wryly at the both of them as he did so. He had never give them his real name, and while Lorcan had, he had called in some favors from the a Fogey in the area he had assisted and trained with over the years to look into the matter discreetly. They did not even have to do anything, though, because it seemed their jailors had simply preferred to rip that entire page out of their records and burn it rather than admit that they had let three unarmed prisoners escape-with all their belongings and Fogey uniforms as well.

On a more serious note about halfway up the gangplank, he continued.

“Aye, I’ll teach you what you need to know about decorum and the rules, it is not too complicated, at least not at your ranks yet. Respect your officers, respect your crewmates, don’t speak out of turn, salute when you need to, do the best you can at your job. You’ll get a feel for it pretty quickly.”

Nearing the top, he could not help but comment on the question about their parents.

“Back in our parent’s day, from what I can tell, things were a lot less formal, but with the Winter War and the Civil War, the standards got upped. But each ship has their own ‘culture’ you might say, some are a little more formal, some more relaxed. I play it on the safe side, growing up with my father and mother who are…”

He almost said pain-in-the-tail sticklers about respect, especially his father, but knew better than to ever voice that publicly.

“...very insistent about such.”

As they reached the top of the plank and took their first steps aboard, he wondered what-and more importantly who-they would run into today.

@Kinza Rainclaw @Lorcan Rainclaw