Private Barracks/Imperial Condos Surfing Couches

[Nuori Anais Brudenell]

Nuori Brudenell's transition into a Bully Harbor ruffian was not without its struggles, some of whom the various Imperium guides she once pored over had prepared her for- and some they didn't.
For example, they'd failed to mention that new Imperial Naval safety regulations forbade habitation by crew aboard a Naval ship undergoing intensive repairs, and the ship she'd been assigned to and living aboard since Bugs, Wedding Crashers II, was currently getting the whole of her nose rebuilt after the most recent of a long series of freak incidents that earned her and her predecessor, the ill-fated Wedding Crashers, their names.
The guides also ommitted how difficult it would be to appeal the Office of Naval Affairs for land accomodations. The Imperial Sailor's Guidebook boasted often of the cozy accomodations provided for sailors on shore leave, the monthly rent taken direct from their wages even when the apartment wasn't in use, but never mentioned the hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing bureacracy necessary to set it up.
50 gilders missing from her paycheck every month, but no apartment to sleep in until her appointment with her representative on Naval Affairs in three weeks!
"All booked up 'til then," the office desk lady had said with frigid pleasantry. It was maddening!
Bluddfang had taken to sleeping "on the rope" over at Partridge's, where for a quarter of a gilder one could slump over a taut rope tied end to end in a shed, and when she didn't feel like doing that, curled up on one of the few surviving park benches on the waterfront or slumped in a corner of the Bilge, a mug of the cheapest clasped in her paw.
That was one thing that'd improved since her arrival some months ago... her guts had adjusted to the Bilge swill with repetition, and she could keep it down long enough now to actually get good and properly drunk on a few gilders.
But the rope at Partridge's was starting to smart, and the late night bartenders at the Bilge had begun to grow weary of stepping over or sweeping around her, and after being woken up one too many times on the waterfront by a wino looking for a fight or a thief rifling through her belongings, Nuori- or Bluddfang W. Bluddpaw as she'd taken to calling herself to evade the foxes that sought her family's demise and embrace a saltier, crustier nature- was tired and thinking she'd very much like to accept Aiken's offer of a place to rest now.
And with his being injured in the Opera bombing, she was feeling terribly guilty she hadn't been spending more time with him anyway... and also quite a bit shaken.
She'd never lost a loved one before, and she needed her brother. He was all the family she had right now, all the family she could see at least, and talk to in person, and hold. And all the lost time since he'd left that she wanted them to make up for...
Yep, it's decided, the young stoat thought, dressed in the same stained and sweaty shirt, patchy breeches and scuffed sea boots she hadn't taken off for longer than twenty minutes since arriving in Bully, standing from the park bench to stretch her aching body and throw her bag over her shoulder... she was going to Aiken's.
So off she strode, tipping the floppy hat she'd won in a poker game to the row of early morning junk fishers lined along the harbor's edge, from the harbor all her merry way to the Imperial Condos, dodging morning traffic and sleepy-eyed Fogeys.
She came up to Aiken's door, and knocked loudly, dropping her weight to one hip and tilting her hat rakishly to produce a roguish effect to match the smile on her face, where a freshly-healed scar on her cheek and a missing tooth marked her as a true Bilge regular already, and an honest to none up and coming real Bully Harborian to boot.
"Surfin' couches." Nuori said to herself, and barked a laugh. A fellow barfly and idle sailor had taught her that concept. A good couch bested the standard Naval bunk any day, he'd said.
She was very eager to see if such could be said of Aiken's couch.

 

[Aiken Brudenell]

Months had passed since the explosion, since death had last almost taken him.

Well, there was always danger in the harbor. He was more aware of that now. From the ruins of the Opera House to the Pyrostoat Memorial Hospital, he’d not even come awake. Awash in liquid, muddy dreaming, he’d not come to his senses again until two days after the blast.

Days of being bedridden, his bandaged back healing from all the wounds it had taken, all the debris ripped from his burned, flayed hide in his merciful unconsciousness. The pain had kept him somewhere between half-awake and half-asleep.

Weeks, and he’d been barely able to walk, though the importance of such activity had been stressed to him repeatedly. Weak and frustrated, he’d taken to using a cane for assistance, all polished black with a brass knob. He thought it made him look old. Adelyn said it looked dignified.

She’d been there to help him, such that she could. From the pain in the hospital, bleeding away their gilders before help could come from his family, to walking with him to and fro the Smelt, making sure he could keep up his work, that a bad-mannered beast wouldn’t take advantage of his weakness.

After a while, when he could confidently move again, the jill had needed her time back, to move on to other obligations. He couldn’t fault her for that.

The young stoat jack examined himself in the mirror. The scar on his right leg was all but invisible now, covered over with fur. His back was another story. The burns could have been worse, but they still stood out often, ugly pink splotches that hadn’t quite faded or been covered again by fur. At least it was mostly impossible to see under his usual shirts. At least it had only been his back that had been burned, and the scars from the shrapnel were mostly gone.

The knock at the door came as a surprise. He hadn't been expecting anybeast.

“One moment, please,” he called in its direction, setting down a comb and reaching for his clothes.

He was half-dressed when he reached the door, wondering who it could be. It had been a few days since he’d seen Adelyn, but she was busy, and his coworkers from the Saturday Evening Smelt were largely content to let him demolish his own career in seclusion.

It wasn’t that it was a particularly impressive, or roomy apartment. Certainly better than anything in the Slups, not far from the Trenches, and - to be sure - a rich bit of privacy in a city that was often much too public for his tastes, but it was barely the size of his room back at the Tully Shore Brudenell estate, with a writing desk and dresser comprising most of his amenities. There was a couch near to the desk, where he could keep guests while he wrote, or more often attempted to write, under the light of the apartment’s sole window.

Opening the door, still without a shirt over his upper body, brown fur slowly beginning to give way to winter white, he didn’t immediately recognize the beast before him. His first thought was that he didn’t know any pirates. The realization that he did in fact know such a beast manifested first with a shocked expression, though it quickly gave way to softness.

“Nuori?”

He caught himself after he’d spoken, collecting his senses.

“Er, Bloodypaw, was it? Bloodsnout?”

Aiken didn’t give her time to correct him, hugging her right there in front of the doorway, a rare authentic smile on his sharp, musteline face.

“’Gates, I-I didn’t know if I’d see you again. How have you been?”