Expedition Private Voyage to Croper's Cove: In Trouble on the First Day...?

[Gyles Stowett]

Once every beast had given them the space, Gyles motioned for Morgan to come closer. He thought for a moment how to approach the delicacy of the matter, the circumstances of their mission. For much, he would just have to trust his instinct about her. He motioned to the weatherbeaten chair that had served Lieutenant Tultow sometime earlier that morning during recruiting business, heavy iron frame keeping the thing on the heaving deck beneath them.

Give me a stout seabeast any day. Always a sight more dependable than a powderkeg of squabbling bureaucrats in a pinch.

"Humor a stoat a moment and tell me a little about yourself, Seabeast Morgan." He held up the beaten brass decanter as he rummaged about with his other paw in the seachest under the table. "Brandy?"

They were sheltered here a little in the shadow of the aft awning, but not much. Keen wind enough to mask whatever transpired.

@Morgan Liu

 

[Morgan Liu]

Morgan sat awkwardly, checking the chair first for any visible traps. Part of her couldn't help but feel like there were invisible manacles waiting to hold her down. The offer of brandy gave her pause, her suspicion of any offer being made from someone so far above her in rank warring with the sense that to refuse would be bad form. "Just a little," she allowed, her diction already cleaning up as her mind adjusted to the new social environment. As the captain poured a drink for her, she kept her explanation of her own history brief. "There's not much to tell, sir. I was born overseas, spent most of my life taken from one port to another. Not a very stable kithood, but it did give me a talent for languages. I only wish it had been enough at Urk, sir." She couldn't quite keep the stiffness out of her voice, unable to sit at ease.

She couldn't keep her guilt from rising to the surface as she rushed to add, "I apologize, sir, for my performance in the last mission. I know that I failed in the negotiations with the shrews. I wish there had been anyone more skilled to take my place. Maybe then the calamity could have been averted." Maybe then, all those lives could have been saved.

 

[Gyles Stowett]

"I only wish it had been enough at Urk, sir."

Gyles filled a glass and pushed it across to her. "A catastrophe."

Urk, devil take it. One more power play in the long list of Ministries shoving the Navy about after whatever new bauble caught their eye, the lives of her bold sons and daughters be damned to Hellgates. As different as any two creatures one might pick out on the street, they seemed the both of them to share a strong distaste for current political movements in the Imperium, the Powers That Be and the lives they wasted.

The apology was a surprise. Heartfelt, real. He felt a weight in his own chest. Don't blame yourself for a second for their deeds, blackguards all of 'em. They were alone, after all. What harm could it do? A world of harm. No, he would speak no ill. Not here, not now.

Instead, he spoke Alkamarian. Not the sort of Alkamarian spoken in the courts or high-society parties, or even the cities, but a rough, mountain variety of Alkamarian learned from Miklarian sailors. It would be known to anybeast with a sense of the language that it was secondhand speech, a hand-me-down frayed and patched with its speaker's own idiosyncrasies, but that didn't matter.

"Mé sovegno que vos avai on don pè lé lengouè. Vos sari bin droi de pensa que cé l'è propro pè quaicâ que nos aven ceta rencontra, de verâ. Fau que demando vostro pardon pè ceta petita roussa," and he motioned around them, "mai quécó ... vo' dirâ ... lé chosâ sensiblâ son miei parlâ ren qu'en confidença, vos sabéd."
"I recall you've a gift for languages. You'd have right to presume that is exactly why we are having this meeting, wouldn't you. I must ask your pardon for that little trick, but some, that is to say, sensitive matters are better spoken only in confidence, you know."

He leaned across the table slightly, analyzing her. There was a lot more to anybeast than met the eye. Morgan, however, didn't hide any part of herself. She wore it proudly, from her piercings to her dark leathern jack. Young, rebellious, no high-level motives. Just trying to survive. What better beast to trust?

"Z'imagine que vos avai étâ à Alkamar bin dé foi, nan?"
"I imagine you've been to Alkamar plenty, eh?"

 

[Morgan Liu]

Morgan went from grief to shock in a matter of moments as the captain began speaking... She had to tilt her head and consider the words, parsing them through several of the languages she'd picked up before the roots clicked into place, the conjugations sliding easily around them. Miklarian and one of the Varangian dialects shared a common ancestor thanks to Miklarian sailors who settled on that continent, as did the Callisparians. Many folks tended to look at languages as isolated things, much like the islands on which they originated, but really they were a living tapestry woven by a million paws. Between her lived experiences in Alkamar, Callispar, and Varangia, it was easy enough for her to piece the dialect together.

"Mé so... Mé z'é habitâ dos ans à Alkamar avoué mé mèrés, mas mé z'é ren visitâ Miklar qu'on côp. Mé vo... Mé z'é tot-dia voulu aprèndre lé viéé lengoué miklariènna, mas mé z'é ren zamés avoué la chiance."

"I live... I lived for two years in Alkamar with my mothers, but I only once visited Miklar. I want - I always wanted to learn the old Miklarian language, but I didn't - I never had the chance."

She tilted her head, considering the captain. "Capiten, z'è iunna rejon que vos m'essaiéd su la lengoué qu'est utilisâ pè la majorità di mariniér de la navalleria alkamariènna?"

"Captain, is there a reason you're testing me on the dialect used by the majority of the sailors in the Alkamarian navy?"

 

[Gyles Stowett]

"Ô, nan. Quaicâ l'è pas on essai. Ze cran que cé que vos antandé orandrai l'è l'eitandu de man, heh, Alkamarien, se vos povéd apela quaicâ. Vos avai onna bona oreillie: cé l'è la chosa dé marinie. Aprai an mar, nan? Lou peti gen - on lé apelé rusti - étivon lou pe bon dé mèitre."
"Oh, no. This is no test. I'm afraid you're listening to the extent of my, heh, Alkamarian, if you can call it such. You've a good ear, it is the stuff of sailors. Learned at sea, didn't I? The humble folk - they call them rustics (can you imagine?) - were the best of teachers."

He smiled slightly at a memory. The marten corsairs Zolac and Zeméne Coppagorza, larger than life, grinning ear to bangled ear as they robbed him of his last copper over just one more round of Bidou after a night of smoky wild abandon in one of the establishments of Callispar. Seven months at sea behind them. Five more ahead. So young then, all of them. "Heheh. Your face zousta now, Zille! D' not looket me so grim. Sis is zousta one more lesson, bredoulet. You should be sanking us!"

Best of teachers? Best of thieves, the bounders. He missed them like the devil, though, didn't he?

He corrected course, as much to avoid an explanation of his motives for now as to satisfy a growing curiosity about her. "Mai vostré maire - son-lé ancora à Alkamar?"

"But your mothers - are they still in Alkamar?"

 

[Morgan Liu]

Morgan chuckled, the words flowing more easily from her lips as she settled into the dialect. "Nan nan, celes sont totes dens lo pôrt houé. Z'è dês quâlques ans que nos z'é dèrrament habitâve à Alkamar. Mé z'é ren rejonâve comén quécó mé z'avâve gouârdâ de la lengoué, ou comén quécó la mé mancâve de la pârlâ."

"No no, they're both in the harbor now. It's been a few years since we last lived in Alkamar. I didn't realize how much I'd kept of the language, or how much I missed speaking it."

She tilted her head, curiosity entering her eyes as she looked at the captain, daring an actual sip of the brandy. She wasn't a hard liquor drinker, but she thought it tasted pretty good. "Donca, mé sié vrament ren dens la pena? Mé z'avâve pensâ que mé z'alâve étre fouettâ d’on côp."

"So, I'm really not in trouble? I thought I was about to be whipped again."

 

[Gyles Stowett]

"No, you ain't." He almost chuckled too, then he was dead serious as he continued in his curious Old Miklarian. "But I'm afraid we all might be."

"I'm not at liberty to say more about what we face, but even if I was to say, I couldn't. We don't really know. Just...tidbits. Pieces of information." He fixed her with an earnest eye. "Trust that you'll know it when you see it." No sense in putting the fear of the Gates in the crew.

Another sip. There was a damned chill out here, straight down to the bones sort of thing. "What matters is you know we will need a translator who knows Alkamarian like she knows her own whiskers. But importantly," and he adjusted himself in his chair, pulled his coat a little closer, "one who ain't herself Alkamarian. One who believes in the Imperium, for all its flaws. That's you, ain't it, Seabeast Morgan?"

He honestly wasn't sure what the ferret across from him would say next.

 

[Morgan Liu]

As the question rested with her, Morgan took a long, slow drink of the brandy. It really was more of a sipping brandy, but she welcomed the burn at the question. She set the glass down, turning it slowly on the desk. "I'll admit, when I came here, I didn't really know much about the Imperium," she confessed. "I can't really tell you know what Imperium culture or values are, and I've seen enough places to not feel any particular affinity to any one land. That being said," she remarked, looking the captain in the eye, "what's different about this place is the people. Everyone I care about is here - on the Hide and in the Harbor. The Imperium as a concept might not mean anything to me, but the Imperium as a collection of beasts, those I care about dearly - Vim, Finny, Silvie, Greenie, Swiftie, Kaii, my folks - will always have my loyalty, and I'll do whatever I can to keep them safe." She tilted her head as she inquired, "Is that enough, Captain?"

 

[Gyles Stowett]

He stopped drinking. "Aye, Morgan. 'S all real loyalty can be, ain't it. This ship is the Imperium, more than stone, earth, an' whatever ... hobnob culture Vulpinsula can claim; her crew - our friends - its citizens more than scheming nobles and arrogant ministers and Fogeys with all their rules and rulebreaking ever could hope to be. If I can save her and this crew, I will do it, aye, an' sink the whole of Vulpinsula back to the depths with the rest of Old Beastiolia."

He stood and extended a paw to the ferret, switching neatly back to Vulpinsulan. "No more blamin' yourself for Urk. What's done's done. That's an order," and he smiled: Morgan's record on obeying orders, well ... almost had to tell the jill it wasn't a damned bloody order for her to follow it, didn't you? "When the time comes, this'll be your chance to redeem yourself, if redemption's what you're after."

Then, he raised the glass in his other paw. "To keeping our little Imperium safe, an' damn the rest."

He couldn't help but feel himself and Morgan were more alike than they were different.

If we're all patches cut from different cloths, well, our Hide's a quilt. Stitches us all together.

 

[Morgan Liu]

Morgan relaxed at Gyles words, relief coursing through her. It was good to hear that the captain was willing to accept a more practical form of loyalty rather than blind devotion to hollow, arbitrary concepts. She raised her glass, grinning at his toast. "Hear hear," she agreed, clinking her glass with his before downing the rest of her brandy, setting the drink on the desk.

She contemplated the captain, considering how much things had changed from when she'd come aboard. "Captain," she asked quietly, her gaze not quite meeting his, "how... How big of a deal is it, members of the crew being... involved? I mean, I know Silvie and Swiftie are an open secret, but, well..." She didn't name herself and Vihma outright. They hadn't been circumspect in port, but they'd been quieter about it back on the Hide, while they waited to see what the risks were.

 

[Gyles Stowett]

The Captain of the Golden Hide raised an eyebrow.

"Involved." He repeated the word to himself, rolling it around in his mind like a shimmering pearl. Smooth and precious.

He stood up, attention on the retreating outline of Vulpinsula behind them, Bully Harbour and its stuffiness and walls and eyes and ears already just one small murmur in the thin strip of indistinct noise breaking the distant horizon. Alive and well, it would seem, were the old prejudices of the Imperium that necessitated such care in the manner Morgan broached the subject. "Now, in the books, open fraternization of a more-than-filial nature between crew is certainly forbidden," he said - rare as strict enforcement was - "but engagement between a noble officer and a commoner, that's even another matter of its own." One that crossed rather a few more lines than mere crewbeast to crewbeast affections - one that might present difficulties in the future but which at present he'd determined to ignore in the case of their own beloved lieutenant and engineer.

After some time lost in thought, he spoke again, keeping his eyes on the ocean. "All the same, you can expect a good thrashing - a dozen of the Navy's best - to be levied at once upon the hide of anybeast who raises an ill paw against you for lovin' somebeast else. Much as it might be in some circles we've been in, love ain't a crime between these decks."

He frowned then as his paws clasped together behind his back.

"That said, I wouldn't go singin' the songs of your love to just anybeast, you know. However I'd like to see us as all one big family, this ship's now home to twenty five score souls, not all of 'em your friend or even friendly to you or what you hold dear. Many of 'em have an upside-down view of the world. Some of 'em could use the right amount of knowledge to hurt a beast. Whether there's a risk to you as a crewbeast from the rest of the crew's another question, one I'm afraid any officer's unqualified to answer." A sigh then. He hated it when the realist in him opened up that mouth and hated it more when what it said was more than likely right. Damned realist. "It will most certainly be used to hurt Lieutenant Songfox someday. Out here, the Mistress of Waves and Wind's the only Judge we answer to, but in port, there's less she or I, her most humble an' obedient servant, can do to protect him. I don't see it bein' a problem 'twixt crew, but officers and commoners, there lies danger."

A memory came to him, not a fond one: the sting of firstpaw experience.

"Couldn't protect Tultow, either. He had more ahead of him, you know, than off playin' soldier on a Navy ship. Might as well have been banished from the Army, name struck off the demmed record book, even without any proof, just rumors in the wrong ears. Not a Jenkins I could do about it, either, much as we both said to Hellgates with 'em all and welcomed the chance to work side-by-side again. He's better off here, but they stole the most valuable thing a beast has from him: choice."

He turned to fix her with concern in his gray-blue gaze.

"My only advice is do what you think keeps you both safe. I'm further removed from the crew. You'll get to know 'em better than I ever will, includin' who's a friend and who ain't. Know that if you find resistance, it won't be from above."

With that, he placed a reassuring paw on her arm before turning to leave. The words weren't much and he knew it, just a lifeline. Let her save or hang herself on it.

"Business in the Captain's cabin to attend to, I'm afraid. Welcome aboard for another gallivant into the bloody unknown, Interpreter Morgan." He paused. "I wish you an' the lucky creature the best. Dare the day come somebeast gets between you, threatens you, anythin' at all - don't be afraid to name the name. If not myself, Lieutenant Songfox is your todd."