Private Side Adventure Mettle: Holding On

[Apricity Prim]

Wherein Apricity Prim and Herman Lasachin Get Stuck in the Hold Overnight, With Possible Visits From Temerity Boudreaux Should She Choose To

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Apricity couldn't sleep. It was all too much. She understood the little rat now. The island was a kind of paradise, compared to this. The roar of snoring, the constant sounds of ship-life, the smell - you never think about the smell! - the constant thumping and shuffling of awake crewbeasts...

Her first day aboard she had glutted herself on ship biscuit and other delightful foods - no sarcasm there whatsoever - and had proper ale and unsalted water until she could feel her stomach sloshing around with the roll of the ship, and then she'd passed out for what felt like two whole days. Once she'd regained her energy, it was hard to find that level of comfort again.

The knowledge of what was growing inside her was surely not helping, not one bit.

Apricity wandered the ship, keeping out of the way, just trying to spend energy until she felt exhausted enough for sleep to happen. More than a few heads turned her way, both from half-asleep crewbeasts in their hammocks, and those on duty quietly moving about. It probably had something to do with her mostly see-through nightgown. Giles had bought it for her, for their wedding night. There were strategically placed layers of cotton in just enough right places to keep it from being indecent, but it didn't stop it from being scandalous or something worse and in-between.

She passed by the galley...

"Sudsy... this one isn't clean..."
"What? How do you know, you're blind!"
"Feel it! It's got these little chunks stuck."
"That's how wood's supposed to feel! ...isn't it? Wow, I can't even see them..."
"Maybe we could swap? My paws are feeling weird from drying... Moisturize me!"

...and hurried on past, faster. The ship's crew was a strange one indeed.

Her wandering brought her further down to the belly of the ship. Away from the noise and the smells, towards new, hopefully not as rank smells. Topside was an option as well, save for the rain. It felt as though another storm were brewing, or it was the same storm and they were just sailing into it again...

Some beast leaning against a bulkhead sleepily muttered: "Halt, you..."

"Apricity Prim... passenger... checkink in on my belonkinks... need to get a different nightgown from my trunk."

"Ah... aye, go on then... be quick about it..." A distant bell peeled out above decks. How did they sleep through that, too? "Hurrah, time fer me shift change."

She hurried past the yawn and blast of stale ferret breath.

"Cor," she heard him mutter, "gotta get me one'a them nightgowns..."

The hold seemed to be in a minor state of disarray. Some boxes and bags of things, folded sails, a real mishmash of items - honestly, she couldn't identify most of it. Ship Stuff. It had all been piled up high next to the door in the bulkhead, in several stacks, while things further inside were moved about to make room for the crates. Or so she guessed. Who really knew what was going on with all of it? They probably had somebeast who knew it, but all she needed was her trunk... Some sewing would soothe her, maybe she'd work on a new outfit for when they got to Vulpinsula, since the one she'd originally bought for her arrival had been used for water filtration.

There was a light. Somebeast was down there, still working.

Apricity tripped through the doorway, letting out a feral cuss as pain shot through her foot, managing to catch herself before falling. She whirled and kicked at the offending object, a little wedge that was holding the door open. The ship rolled, and the door swung shut. There was a sudden, awful, terrible noise on the other side of it. It sounded a lot like several stacks of misplaced goods falling over.

She gently pushed on the door. It didn't budge.

She furiously threw her full weight into the door with a roar of effort. It didn't budge.

That was fine.

Everything was fine.

She'd been in worse traps than this.

She suddenly realized she needed to relieve herself. It was not urgent, at least, it didn't feel urgent. Except that, lately, it definitely was rather urgent. The kit inside her chose that moment to kick her bladder out of sheer spite for making it exist.

She took a deep breath.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!"

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman heard somebody come in. He could sniff out it wasn't Griblo, it wasn't Brasseye, it wasn't even oilfur or Tanya or jeshal. It was Apricity Prim, because of course she would find her way here eventually. She just walked around the ship constantly, not to help out, not to explore, not even to be a bother. It was like she wanted, no, needed to make her footpaws move without end. He tried to see that as a positive trait, she wasn't getting in anyone's way and couldn't make a place worse since she was never there long enough.

Well, that clearly wasn't true, since it only took her a split second to do whatever she did to knock over that stack of boxes and crates placed right next to the door. Herman knew that was going to inevitably happen, but didn't say a thing when the crewbeasts were building up that stack. He sighed, he couldn't pretend as if he was undeserving of this fate. He did hope that whoever had the bright idea to place the crates in such a way would also get the appropriate punishment of moving everything back away from the door too, but nothing he could do about that.

"Ok, that help was loud enough, I think that the Varangian coastgard heard you and will come here to get us out of here any second now."

That was his immediate priority, making sure Apricity Prim wasn't screaming anymore. Everything else was far more tolerable.

 

[Apricity Prim]

"Oohhh..."

Apricity's ears flattened as she whirled about. She'd almost forgotten she wasn't alone down here. In her mind, her father was scolding her already. There is another animal in your trap, how do you forget that?

"It's you..."

There was no emotion in the statement; she hadn't formed an opinion of the bookish weasel yet. But she recognized him. The valiant rower! The crate-counter. Inventory specialist?

She gestured at the door. And then gestured at it again, with only one claw not curled up, and a slight growl.

"Bloody door, is stuck... I come to find my sewink kit. My trunk is down here, yes?" She turned back to Herman and tilted her head, her one working eye roaming down and up his body, as if trying to guess from his clothes alone what his purpose was. She couldn't, so she added: "Vot is your job here?"

If he was responsible for that crooked stack... That was definitely, significantly going to alter how she dealt with the imminent bladder problems the future held for her.

 

[Herman Lasichin]

"Yes, it's me"

Herman put some emotion in his response. The emotion he was showing was mild annoyance. He quickly placed Apricity's crate and opened it, where the contents was all rearranged by its type. More to be convenient to Herman than to Apricity to whom the stuff belonged.

"I'm the assistent quartermaster. Nothing leaves here without me knowing and saying it's ok."

Herman was brightening up a little. Apricity wasn't screaming anymore. If her behavior continues to improve waiting here won't be as terrible as he would have thought.

"I figure you will find whatever you want in there quicker than I will. But unless you want to keep your paws full while you're waiting I don't see the point"

 

[Apricity Prim]

"It passes time..."

Apricity knelt carefully, leaning over the trunk. Immediately she stiffened, save for her tail which began to thrash wildly. She hissed.

"Who! Who has been goink st'rew my dzinks?! You have no right! A lady's private belonkinks! My smallcloze, my... vhere is my...! Grk!"

Clothes were tossed aside, thrown over her shoulder in disarray. She was frantic, panicking, panting and cussing, on the verge of tears - no, there they were, flowing down her face. She couldn't breathe. Her growls fell to hoarse gulps of air that didn't get to her lungs. The planks beneath her dampened slightly, her body unable to keep in what it was urgently trying to expel to make room for more. She didn't notice.

There, at the bottom of the trunk, the marriage certificate, the paw pressings of her and Giles, safe.

She sank down, draped over the trunk, catching her breath as she wept in relief. The anger turned to embarrassment as she snuffled, catching a whiff of what had happened. She rolled off the trunk and sat, curled up against the side, face in her paws, fluffy tail curled around her legs, unable to glance towards Herman. Ever since that rat had pointed out the obvious back on the island, she'd lost control of the situation, and now she barely had control of her body.

"[Censored by the Ministry of Niceties] my life," she sobbed. "Vot in hellgates am I doink here..."

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman felt very unappreciated at the moment, seeing the order he brought into the crate be undone by this thankless pine marten. Who now also smelled terrible and looked like she was going to return back to screaming. He retreated into a corner between two shelves, where he could mostly smell wood and metal and ignore the other smells.

"Yes, I believe that arrangement and accounting of your belongings should be your responsibility and your responsibility alone."

Herman pointed to the clothes and other things tossed on the floor.

"Plenty here to keep you busy and distract from your predicament I say."

 

[Apricity Prim]

Apricity hiccuped miserably, still hunched over herself as she just let it all out as quietly as she could. She had not expected sympathy, anyway - she did truly not even know what it was. But the tears needed to come out, to be purged from the Lady she would show the rest of the crew. This moment of weakness, this loss of control, was private, and she hated Herman for sharing it with her, likely as much as he hated sharing it as well.

Time passed, until the marten finally quieted and wiped herself clean on one of her less-fancy pieces of clothing, which she also used to mop up her spill. She knelt by the trunk and collected her things, taking time to fold them and put them back in place. Along the way she picked out a piece or two to work on, and dug out the sewing kit. She closed the trunk and sat atop it, and prepared needle, thread, scissors, and measuring string, for the long evening ahead. Once in a while she would squirm uncomfortably, crossing her legs one way, then the other.

Once in a while she would glance up at the weasel, but felt herself at a loss of what to say. He seemed content with the silence.

It was awfully silent, wasn't it? She couldn't hear anybeast working to clear the doorway...

She sighed.

"Vot of you? It is not soundink like anybeast is comink to free us. How do you prefer to spend time? Vot are beasts from Varangia like?"

She had recognized his accent from her short time in the port town when she'd left, but had barely absorbed any culture before attaching herself to Giles and whisking herself away across the sea. There was an earnestness in her voice, honest inquisitiveness. And a slight pinch of desire - not for his body, but for company. She'd barely yet been invited to dine with the Captain since her recovery.

Not that she didn't desire his body. She glanced at him again, appraising, as she wiggled on her seat. He was a fine jack, well-groomed, and obviously highly intelligent from what she'd seen so far.

Although, to be fair, Apricity felt she could have slept with a half-dead skunk for how starved she was for companionship. Just a cuddle would have been nice.

"Ve might as vell try to make it comfortable for each of us," she added, softly. Like that would ever happen for her...

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman didn't find it hard to distract himself. He could wait in a room like this for hours, alone with his thoughts and be only interrupted by hunger or thurst. At least he thought so, he never tried it. This wasn't quite the perfect experimental environment to test it, due to an uncontrollable outside factor in the pine marten. Well, he did have the dagger, but putting it up against Apricity's neck was going to distract him from what he actually wanted to do, and killing her was going to be a perfect murder... for whoever wanted to solve it. Two beasts alone in a room, one is alive, the other got killed. One didn't need to be inspector Dustin to figure that one out. Not that inspector Dustin was smart, he was more lucky than anything else.

He actually had a different case to worry about. Well, he didn't have to, they couldn't get at him here. Definitely not in this room, almost certainly not while he was on the black ship. But his friends weren't as lucky. From what he heard they were going to spend about a month, maybe less if they take a deal, but then the people's advocate himself got involved and he was looking to "nail their heads to the wall" as the little birdy who told him put it and that he was going to be summoned. Herman preferred to think that was the secondary reason he left. He had nobler motives that had to do with his ideas, and that was what really drove him.

he was glad that Apricity spoke up then to distract him from his thoughts. She didn't pull him far with that last question, but if he answered carefully, he could think about nicer things.

"Talking, playing at cards, writing, tried my paw at singing but I'm not a natural. As for Varangia,"

He paused for a moment.

"They are very dull compared to imperium beasts. Or at least, so are the beasts from my city. The city of great excitement they say"

The weasel chuckled.

"Which part do you come from?"

 

[Apricity Prim]

Apricity paused in her sewing at the mention of singing, then quickly resumed. A shared interest, but not one she felt she was quite ready to explore with another beast. She felt as though her practice had proven results, but she was still embarrassed at hearing her own voice half the time. A proper tutor, that was one of the things she was looking forward to getting.

She shifted her legs again and considered the question.

"Nord," she said. "I suppose." She let it hang in the air for a moment, then thought, thumbscrew it. Some actual honesty would be a nice change. "I saw my first town only two veeks before I left. All dhiz stuff, cloze, Giles bought for me in dzat time. Had odzer sinks on my mind besides name of town. So I could not say."

Her tail swished restlessly. Could it be they had embarked from the same place? Surely not the same time. Herman must have left long ago to make it to the Imperium. But more importantly, apart from her earlier outburst, this was her first time trying to pronounce certain words. She hoped their shared landmass of origin would exonerate her mistakes with the Vulpinsulan language and it would not be commented upon. Distract! Deflect!

"Vot is playink at cards? Card is..." She searched her mind, trying to summon the mental image to go along with the word. "Papers?"

 

[Herman Lasichin]

herman's curiosity was peaked by the vagueness, and then the more bits of information he got made him want more. He had never before thought how mysterious the two passengers were, one having no memories of what happened before and the other not willing to share anything yet being unable to hide anything.

"North? Of Varangland? Of Varangia? Which province?"

Then he decided to take his questioning in a completely different direction. Well, he first had to start from her question, and then circle back to their original discussion.

"have you ever seen a deck of cards? You use them to play games with, you hand a pawful to each player and they put them on the table"

He began looking on the shelves, being certain there was at least one somewhere in there, likely not in a very good condition but it would do.

"I want to know about Giles though. How do you even know him? Why did you go with him? Where did you want to go?"

 

[Apricity Prim]

Apricity stared blankly, head tilted back towards the ceiling. She stopped in her sewing as she thought hard, searching her memory for any mention, anything at all, of where she had come from.

She realized she had no bloody clue. Giles hadn't bothered to ask such questions, nor had any of his entourage - silenced by his guffaws and dismissal. And her parents... had simply never told her. "Maps will only show you how to lose your way," her mother had said. "Learn the land by where your footpaws have been and what your eyes can see."

She sighed.

"I don't know. Province? Somevhere a day's travel to shore? It is best I can know." She wriggled uncomfortably, embarrassment flushing her skin. She didn't like showing her lack of knowledge of the most basic things...

"I have not seen deck of cards..." Had she? Games on a table? The whirlwind romance at the tavern, what had been going on at the other tables? Those little colourful papers beasts had been holding up to their chests? "Maybe," she added, tail lashing in frustration. "Maybe I have seen, but not playink a game."

What was the last game she'd played? Hide and Seek. It had lasted two months. Sneshko had given up. She'd remained hidden another two months to make sure he wasn't bluffing. But she was pretty sure he didn't want to slit her throat anyway. For one, that went against his belief in the Mission. But he would have cut her somewhere, to show their parents he'd won the game. She felt a sudden... sadness. It was a strange mood, a strange thought. His punishment for losing had been... unkind. She didn't like seeing him like that.

She shook the memory loose and re-crossed her legs the other way. Herman was still scouring the shelves for something.

"Giles," she mused. "I saw him vhen I came to town. Frilly clozes, buyink drinks for everybeast. He bought me drink, I sat by him. He told stories about Imperium, He vos not handsome. But he vos rich. And he vos happy to have my company. Happy to have somebeast to talk to. He liked to talk. Didn't like to listen. So he talk about Amarone, great city in Imperium, and it is vot I decide I vanted. Somevhere safe, nice music, nice clozes. Vhere dzere are pretty beasts and pretty buildinks. I am tired of livink in forest and jungle, alone. Giles vos smelly and old. But he vos different to me. He saved me."

She'd resumed her sewing as she spoke slowly, mindful of her words.

"Vot about you... How are you leavink Varangia-land and beink in Imperium, vorkink on ship?"

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman felt like he wasn't getting anywhere closer to knowing who he was talking to. She was either very clueless and stumbled her way into just the strangest series of events, or she was leaving out a crutial detail. And he was running out of questions to ask. He couldn't exactly ask why she wanted to go to the imperium, she wanted to gawk at Amerone and he couldn't ask her whether she was sure. He could hopefully get some kind of idea while he showed her the cards and spoke of his story.

"Yes, those are cards. You can play some great games with those. As for me, I'm from Raven's hill, it's along the western coast. I studied mathematics, geometry and languages at the university there, worked as a Vulpinsulan interpreter. Similar to you I wanted to come and see what my parents' homeland is like."

Herman finally found the deck, beginning to shuffle it mid-air as he turned to face the pine marten. The smell was getting tolerable now, or at least his nose got used to it. He showed her some of the individual cards before shuffling them back into the deck.

"You said you know no games with these, right? What do you know?"

 

[Apricity Prim]

Apricity stared in rapt fascination, eyes widening, as Herman shuffled the cards. She had never seen anything like it. The closest, maybe, had been her older sister juggling knives. But that had been, at most, five largish objects. This was a whole stack of little papers, and he was ruffling them through the air with just a squeeze of fingers.

She felt her fake eye begin to slip, and quickly shut it, and gazed down at her own paws with her good one. She clenched one, then the other, watching how her borrowed fingers couldn't quite fit into the fist, felt how it ached to bend them. She thought about how the chunk missing from her nose hurt in the cold.

"Vot do I know...? Very little, it seems... I remember, I see cards at a tavern. Beasts gamble? Cards are used for money, yes, dzat is vhy numbers?"

The question he'd asked tugged at her. It wasn't the basic questions of her name, what she was doing on the island, was she feeling alright, are these crates really your belongings, that she'd dealt with earlier. Giles wasn't here to wave things off just because he was smitten with her and preferred boasting about his own life to fill the silence - which she was fine with. She had learned a lot from him. And now the other beast wasn't an amnesiac either. She realized this would be her first proper conversation with someone who had all their faculties that wasn't about her physical or mental health.

"I am... stupid," she said quietly. "I live in forest and forage, I make talk vid trees and bushes and fish. I vos born to have kit for keepink family blood alive, and no von to have kit vid. I vos not born to sink. Tsink. My sister sneak me books and teach me how to speak and read Vulpinsulan. She teach me music, but she too is not know enough to teach me about vorld. Ve all try to learn vot parents don't sink ve should learn... but in forest dhere is only survive. Hunt, fight, eat, escape."

She put her sewing down on the trunk beside her.

"Maybe you teach me vot is card game?"

 

[Herman Lasichin]

"Ah, so your parents are survivalists? They live in the forest preparing for the end of the world or some such?"

Herman sat down at the table, looking at the deck as if expecting it to join the conversation. So many games to play with it, which one should he settle on?

"I wanted to do something like that myself with a group of friends, but we didn't have a clue on how to do it. I knew nothing about the forests, my friends knew a little more but they were scared and thought they would inevitably get lost or something. And we don't think the world is going to end so we weren't that inspired to try it out. I mean, so many people said that the world is going to end and they were wrong, so the world will probably go on forever"

Herman took the top part of the deck, placed it besides the other one, and then dealt three cards to Apricity and him one by one.

"Do you know how to add numbers? At least to 99?"

 

[Apricity Prim]

A sense of relief washed over Apricity - at least mentally. So there was a word for it, and enough beasts thought like this that it wasn't something radical to be embarrassed by...

"Yes," she said. "Somesink like dzat. Survivink lists."

Not for the first time, she considered her life on the island. How much easier it had been, so much that she had become bored with living. Conserving what little vegetation there was that produced food, growing tired of the same crabs and fish. The only interesting part had been experimenting with ways to try and filter salt out of the water, which had never been an issue with the lakes and rivers of Varangia. Maybe in some ways, she could think of it has her final test. And surviving that, she was now finally on her way...

Except, again, going in the wrong direction. But they would turn back after, and then she could begin living for the first time.

Putting these thoughts aside, she picked up the three cards Herman had placed before her, and studied them with interest.

"I can count," she said. "Not dzat stupid," she added quietly, then, louder, with a little hint of nervousness: "Don't have to knowink multiply, just addink?"

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman once defended homeschooling in his debate and rhetorics class. He got top marks there, because nobody else cared for it and just wanted to pass it quickly and easily by answering theoretical questions. He liked it as well, mostly because he was allowed to pick his own sides to defend which made it so satisfying when he beat somebeast who didn't care one bit about anything and they ended up looking stupid.

He thought, as many beasts in his generation did, that education was necessary for every kit, and that it was up to their parents who knew them best whether they could invest in private tutors, enroll them in state schools, or teach them themselves. he argued hard against the notion that homeschooled kits would grow up knowing nothing but the stupid things their parents believed in.

"Damn they were right", Herman muttered to himself, Apricity's question about multiplication clearly shook his convictions, "if liberty isn't good in this case, is it a good at all?"

He cleared his throat and focused on his own cards.

"Well, in the ordinary game there is multiplication, but we'll play a simpler version where there isn't. basically, you play one card, say the total it makes, and draw a new one. So if you play an 8 now that would be 8. Then I do the same, like I play 7 and it's 15, and so on. Just keep in mind that an ace, the one cards, they can be either one or eleven, a ten can either add or subtract ten as you choose, a nine has no effect, and the face cards always add ten."

herman decided to pause, looking to see if Apricity could follow him. He was only half way through with the rules, and he was already losing confidence in the beast across from him. "Good thing I'm not teaching her naughty kits", he muttered to himself.

 

[Apricity Prim]

Eight, seven... fifteen... Easy enough. One or eleven? Why would anybeast choose one? Larger numbers were better, right? But then why would there be subtraction at all - was it some kind of trick? It had to be. There was always a trick with games. Like "Build the snap-jaw trap out of the parts in front of you with this blindfold on". A simple enough game, except for where some of the parts weren't for the trap, and for every minute that passed, her father would re-arrange all the parts still unused, all while screaming himself hoarse in her ear to simulate a badger attack...

Or the trick where she had to dismantle a snap-jaw trap that had been set off on her footpaw while blindfolded and stuck inside a barrel, while bucket after bucket of freezing cold water was dumped on her head. The trick was that if she didn't do it, she'd drown. And the prize for winning was to do it again before her barrel went over the waterfall.

Fun times.

Sometimes, Apricity wondered if she was loved. It was a silly thing, a fleeting childish folly, to consider. Of course not.

Herman's muttering was entertaining, at least, if a little confusing. In the silence of the hold, to the trained ears of a predator raised to act like prey, his words were clear enough to not be private.

"Just von kit," she said with a huff and hope. "And I make it behave... So vhy does nine do nozsink? Ve count to ninety-nine, nine is good, yes? But bad here?" She paused a moment, staring at her three cards. Gears tumbled in her head. Putting the pieces together with the parts in front of her...

"I see. Each put down von card, for each to see, is called play. Is about strategy, first to get to ninety-nine is winner? So sometimes eleven good... but go over ninety-nine, is lose? Or cannot? Vot happens if cannot make play card, if cards are say, ninety-two, but only have eights, also lose?"