“Tarkus Willbough,” Letho accepted the handshake and was surprised to find it as firm and resolute on her end as it was on his. The black-haired woman that facilitated his acceptance to the crew looked about half the hunter’s age and lacked the leathery sunburnt haggardness of a seasoned sailor. In fact, if not for the sword at her side and the ill-fitting tunic she wore, at first glance Saryia would look more like those pretty young things that hung at the elbows of high society gents of Radasanth. Letho couldn’t imagine what circumstances made someone like that join a group of privateers flying around Alerar. Yet there had to be considerable grit to her. It was hard enough for a woman to join such a predominantly male profession, and it had to be harder still to join one in a country as foreign and as hostile as Alerar.
“It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude. I am rather certain I would not be hired had you not intervened,” Letho continued. The truth was that he didn’t care a whole lot about the fifty gold pieces offered to him by the dark elf. He currently had no lack of funds, and even if he had, the pair of wing drake hides he had left at the local stables where he had put up his horse for the next few days would sell for at least five times as much. He had filed onboard with the rest of the hopefuls for the opportunity to get a closer glimpse at the flying ship. And thanks to this out-of-place woman, he would get a chance to do so while actually crewing one.
“No thanks are needed. You seemed most capable of the bunch and they could use a helping hand,” Saryia said, nodding towards the deck just outside the door, where the dark-skinned elves scurried about, mouthing off at each other in their throaty language.
“Just not a white hand if they can help it, huh?” Letho said, offering a smirk. Though his knowledge of Alerar’s language didn’t extend past the rudimentary words and a couple of common curses, it had been very clear that the sergeant that had been in charge of the selection hadn’t been enthralled with the idea of another human onboard.
“They’re a hard bunch, that much is true. But they can grow on you if you give them a chance,” the woman said, her piercing blue eyes casting a thoughtful glance at her elven companions.
“So does a goiter,” Letho responded. It was probably unwise to antagonize Saryia at this point; if she had enough influence to get him onboard with a couple of words, she could probably get him kicked off saying just one. Yet when it came to Alerarians and their attitude towards the foreigners, Letho’s anger always came surging to the surface. Perhaps it had something to do with him being from Corone, which was generally acceptant of just about every race on the face of Althanas. Sure, there were still some that were more equal than others, but no other place seemed as xenophobic as Alerar, not even Fallien with their thousands of rules and restrictions placed on the visitors.
But if his words caused any offence, Saryia’s face didn’t show it. All he got in return was a chuckle escaping past her smiling lips before she added in a hushed tone: “You know, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that within earshot of one of them. Those pointy ears aren’t just for show.”
Letho allowed himself a brief snicker as well. “You are probably right.”
“Out, you lazy elg’cardhan! We’re casting off!” the muscular sergeant from before leaned in the doorway for a brief moment to shout his command, and was gone before Letho had a chance to respond.
“Oh, I can feel them growing on me already,” he said to the woman instead, the two sharing another smirk. Shouldering off the leather belt that held the large canvas roll strapped across the back, he lowered his inventory to the ground with a heavy thud and leant it against the wall. “Mind if I leave this here? I think the only weapon I will need out there is patience.”
Saryia merely nodded with a grin, not saying anything. For a moment Letho thought there might be something akin to mockery behind that grin, but he didn’t feel like he could afford the time to inquire about it without risking a premature departure or at the very least another earful of the sergeant’s shouts. So instead the hunter turned and exited the cabin.
As it turned out he got an earful anyways. The wind and the shouting struck him almost simultaneously, the invisible slap of the rising gale threatening to shove him back into the cabin the moment he stepped out. “Took you long enough!” the dark elf called out to him from the quarterdeck above. “Starboard side! Reel in those ropes!”
Setting sail in this weather? You are either very brave or very stupid, my friends, Letho thought as he made his way to one of the huge reels near the rightmost bulwark. To him it seemed like a bit of both. On one hand, the crew around him seemed to be comprised of weathered individuals who moved with precise grace and seldom missed a beat in the hectic chaos of ropes and pulleys even as the floor beneath their feet jerked this way and that with every gust of wind. And on top of that, the airship didn’t have sails like an actual ship, which meant it wasn’t threatened by the wind onslaught as much as a sailboat. Yet on the flipside, it was an airship, and running one of those aground usually meant running them into the ground at a very high velocity. Needless to say, it was not something Letho wanted to experience.
The contraption before him looked as if it was meant to be turned by two people in order to pull in the thick rope that held the ship tied to the ground, but Letho had no problems operating it on his own. By the time a pair of dark elves reeled in a single one at the prow of the ship, the hunter had already pulled in two on the side of the ship, his bulky arms turning the handles with power and vigor. By the time he was done, the engines below deck were working at full power, their chowa-chowa-chowa-chowa! barely reaching Letho’s ears over the whistling wind as the ship was propelled skywards. Below, the folks milling through the streets were already nail-sized specks that seemed to move incredibly slow amidst the incredibly small houses. Though not a stranger to seeing the world from above what with having a winged horse of his own, Letho still found the view quite enjoyable, even with the storm looming above and the world below painted in just about every shade of grey.
It was only when he turned away from the panorama that Letho noticed he was the only one looking in the opposite direction. Everyone else had eyes on the dun clouds above, looking at them as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. He understood little of the Alerar babble the crew exchanged, so instead he approached Saryia who had joined them on the deck in the meantime and asked: “So, uhm, what exactly are we doing here? Other than flying into a storm?”
It was probably the first question he should’ve asked once he landed the spot on the crew. Yet he wasn’t terribly concerned. How dangerous could a job be if it only paid fifty gold pieces?
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