Khymarah stood in the studio, putting the finishing touches on Ivan's painting. She'd spent the days since his departure in here, barely leaving the room for food or company. Sleep had been optional, all she could do was paint. It stopped her from thinking about him.

Stepping back, she looked at the painting, and with a satisfied nod, put the brush into the turpentine. It was done. Lingering for a moment, she turned and left the room, closing and locking the door. It was the 8th, and a carraige was due for her soon. Picking up her pace, the ruby haired woman made her way to her own room and quickly got changed into a rather posh lavender gown. Looking at herself in the mirror, she realised she looked really tired. Quickly applying powder, lipstain and kohl to her eyes, she spent the next twenty minutes brushing her hair and arranging it with trinkets. Turning, she hurried down the stairs. Her luggage was already at the front door and she began to fret she had forgotten something. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone familar.

"Fion! Be a dear and take these bags out will you? I've the feeling I've forgotten something." With that she dashed into the sitting room, looking for her strongbox.


----




A low rumble in the background threatened to drown out Khymarah's last statements. At first it was not noticeable, but by the time she had finished speaking it became apparent that there was [i:1455gpao]something[/i:1455gpao] outside, and not at the front gate, either.


-------

Fion was standing by the door and frowning. It was maddening. She kept expecting to see her own door, to be able to walk outside and see her neighbours. To see her son playing in the street. Even just to see that bitch, Miriam.

She turned when she heard Khymarah descending the stairs.

"Hey, how are you?" She raised her hand in greeting.



Fion's hand dropped.

"Sure." She said softly.

Khymarah was already gone. Fion looked at the bags. She wasn't a porter. "Be a dear"? That was how you spoke to servants, not to friends. She'd been feeling that keenly, lately. Khymarah wouldn't let her pay rent, so Fion tried to help out around the place. The more she did it the more she began to feel like she wasn't paying her own way well enough. Something that felt very much like Fion's pride seemed to fall from her lips with her next, gasping breath. She once would have said "have you not arms?" before helping anyway.

She picked up the handles of two of the bags and walked outside, towards the carriage.


-----



Khymarah stopped where she was, wide eyed and a little fearful.

"What the clock!?" She exclaimed softly, rushing to the nearest window to look outside. Glancing at Fion for a moment, she shook her head.

"Forget the bags! Get upstairs! Make sure everyone is hidden!" Her voice was urgent and sounded snappish, although she didn't mean for it to be. Mostly she was worried witless.

As Khymarah looked outside her window, she saw the smallest aeroship she'd ever seen. It was barely big enough for three people, with a single white balloon and a single engine; the two rotary blades were whipping the grass in her backyard like a sea during a storm. It was very clean; the brass and rich wood gleaned in the sunlight, but it had definitely been through the ages - the sides were dinged up and the balloon had several patches in it.

Over the sound of the engine's roar, she thought she heard a shout; if she was still looking, she would have seen a tall figure leaping over the side of the ship and landing gracelessly on the lawn.

Fion had already opened the doors and seen a youngish man fall base over apex. She dropped the bags where she stood. She sounded like Madame Olive. Fion was at 'home', she didn't want to hear that voice.

She mused about all of these little worries and annoyances as she took the stairs two at a time.

"A guest has arrived." She said quickly to the wicks who had started to meet out in the hallway in the hope of staving off utter boredom. "I'll be downstairs keeping an eye out but it's best if everyone stays in their rooms and is as quiet as possible until he leaves. Is everyone here?"

Fion looked around for Piran.


----


Piran was upstairs, his nose pressed against the window, staring wide-eyed at the aeroship and the man who had just toppled out of it. His mouth hung open; he was utterly awestruck. A flying machine - he'd never seen one this close before! He could almost imagine running outside to touch it...

Khymarah watched the man fall off the small aeroship and quickly looked back to check Fion had gone upstairs. Straightening her dress and hair, she quickly made her way to the front door and dashed outside. The wind from the flying machine was more than she expected, and with a little squeal, she held down her dress.

"When Professor Moore said he'd send a carriage, this is not what I had in mind!" She yelled over the noise at the man, unsure of who it was.

"Yes, well, the best laid plans and all that," yelled the man, and as the propeller began to wind down she could hear that it was Professor Moore himself. Removing his aviator's hood and pushing his goggles to his forehead, he got to his feet and brushed himself off, and began strolling across the lawn as though nothing had happened.

"Dreadfully sorry about that," he said, noticing Khymarah's now-windswept lawn. He bowed respectfully to her. "I discovered earlier today that the carriage I had requested never left the station." He grimaced, his face clearly showing that he did not believe this to be an accident. "Luckily the Crane was available. She's Devlin's ship, but he's been out of town, so I was able to use it at the very last moment. I do hope you're not opposed to heights, madam."

Khymarah looked around at her lawn a little dismayed. It would take ages to fix this up! She smiled grimly at Moore.

"Professor! Well, I can't say for sure how I feel about heights. I've never been in an aeroship." She spared a glance at the upstairs windows and spotted Piran. Biting her lip, she turned back to Moore and curtsied.

"If you just give me a moment, I shall bring out my bags and we can go. I must admit, I am rather excited!"

Fion was down at the bottom of the stairs, tying on an apron so she'd look more like the help.

She hadn't been able to find Piran and she wasn't sure whether the galdor had seen her with Khymarah's bags before. It would look strange if she didn't have a maid.

She wanted to be sick, just a little.

"Of course," said Moore, nodding. He wondered privately why she did not invite him inside; that was a bit odd.

Glancing up, he saw the face of a small boy in a nearby window; as soon as he made eye contact with the child, he disappeared. Harper recognized galdori features: the high cheekbones, the slanted eyes, the pale skin. He wondered if Khymarah had a child; he had never bothered to ask if she was married.

Turning, Khymarah made her way back inside, feeling bad for not inviting the man in, but at the same time, too scared to tempt fate. It was just too risky. He could think her rude, it would have to suffice. Opening the door, she began to reach for her bags and stopped, staring at Fion.

"W..What are you doing?" She said in a confused voice, looking at the apron. The seamstress looked like a housemaid.

Fion's face was almost expressionless, cold. It probably wasn't a gaze that Khymarah had been subjected to before. She didn't want Khymarah to know how she was feeling, so she simply turned her feelings off at the tap.

"I'm getting your bags. Women in your social class have maids." Fion reached down to pick up the two largest ones and walked outside.

Piran was in the library, surely. He must have been in the library, away from the windows.

She ducked her head at the strange man outside.

"Hello sir, where might I put Lady Theraldon's luggage?" She said, mouth smooth and eyes ever so slightly down-turned. She was loose limbed now, hiding her tension.

Professor Moore smiled politely when he saw her. It always paid to be on the good side of the wait staff. Walking forward, he put out a hand to take the bags from Fion.

"Here, I haven't used these arms for a few hours now," he said briskly, motioning for her to hand them over.

Khymarah stood with mouth agape momentarily, before snapping it shut as Fion met with Moore. The older woman was right, but really...she seemed so cold. Part of the galdor felt cut away from the woman, and it hurt. She wanted to shake her and tell her to stop it. But instead she followed her out, head raised, watching the exchange of luggage. Walking past the two people, she looked at the window again. Fortunatly, Piran had moved away from the window. The ruby haired woman thanked Alioe.

Fion wasn't sure that maids were supposed to let galdori carry their bags but she was sure that they didn't talk back.

"If that please you, Sir." She said, handing them to the other man.

Fion turned to Khymarah without meeting her gaze.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, madame, before you leave?" She said, trying to keep her voice smooth and less unrefined than usual.

Professor Moore nodded brightly and set off to store the luggage in the aeroship's hold.

It was an odd little compartment, set into the side of the ship rather than being only accessible from the interior; a scrolling door opened at the pull of a lever, and Moore began shifting around boxes and boxes of research equipment to make room for Khymarah's luggage. The compartment was large enough to fit several people inside, though it might have been cramped, but at the moment it was filled with equipment and storage boxes. There were many strange machines inside the hold, including a chair with what looked like a metal cap and a hundred tiny wires attached to the headboard.

Piran couldn't help but be consumed by curiosity; he pressed his nose against the windowsill, with the top of his head poking up, so he could watch the Professor load up the ship.

Looking back at the house, a little face had appeared at the window again. Obviously curiosity was Piran's strong point. Turning back, Khymarah reached out a hand to touch Fion, then stopped, pulling back. She shook her head, trying to keep the strain of confused hurt out of her voice.

"No. Nothing. But please see to it my nephew is well looked after." The red head said pointedly, hoping Fion could see Piran in the upstairs window. Nodding once, she walked past the seamstress over to Professor Moore, glancing inside the hold.

"Oh my, its very..." She spotted the strange chair, feeling slightly trepidous about it. Something about it seemed downright creepy.

"It's very packed in here!"

She was trying not to move away from Khymarah's touch when she realised just what the other woman was alluding to. Fion's eyes widened and then, like a sunflower after dark, slowly closed again.

"Yes madame, of course." She said, trying to keep the wobble from her voice.

She looked up to where Piran was pressed against the window and contemplated killing herself.

"Luckily, this isn't where we'll be seated," said Professor Moore cheerfully, closing the hold with a resounding rattle and kicking up the lever to lock it. He gestured to the gangplank. "Whenever you're ready, Miss."

Stealing one final glance back at Fion and the manor, full of wicks in hiding, she nodded.

"I am ready Professor, let us depart!" She smiled and waited for him to lead the way.

The cramped interior of the aeroship was well-lit with golden phosphor lamps; it certainly didn't look like most aeroships, which normally projected a feel of grandeur and polish. The Crane's seating compartment looked like an engineering lab had bred with a sitting room; from the horrid striped brown-and-yellow cushions to the mini-workshop behind the captain's chair to the tiny, makeshift kitchen in the very back, Khymarah got the impression that someone spent quite a lot of time in this tiny room. It was quite clean save for a lingering smell of metal and engine grease.

"Be sure to strap in," said Harper as he held the round door for her. "Around the lap and over your shoulders. Bit of a hassle, but better safe than sorry! Not that we're going to crash."

He chuckled disarmingly.

Khymarah entered delicately, looking around with a little smirk. Obviously this aeroship was not like the ones described in those novels at Brunnhold. Seating herself, she tied the lap sash how he had told her too and sat back.

"Ready!" She said cheerily.

Professor Moore sat down in the captain's chair, which was at the front of the inner compartment, surrounded on three sides by windows and mirrors that showed what was going on in the back of the ship; several dials, levers and a compass decorated the dashboard. It was very high-tech. Harper reached under his seat and cranked a few gears, pulled a series of levers on the walls, and stepped down on a series of small square pedals on the floor in front of him; the Crane gave an enormous groan and shuddered, as though it was being awakened from a deep sleep. Khymarah heard the unsteady rumble and screech of wheels and gears as the engines started up, plus some hissing from the pneumatic pumps in the back.

"She's a little grumpy," he said cheerfully over the clamor. "I usually have to let her cool off for a bit, but our time is short."

It was no mystery when the aeroship lifted off the ground. The roar of the propellers and the jolt she felt were enough to signal the ascension. Looking out her window, Khymarah could see her house becoming a tiny dot at an alarming rate as the balloon and the engines helped lift the craft into the sky.

They hovered for a moment as the professor got his bearings.

"Hold on," he warned, before reaching forward and wrenching on a large lever marked "Acc."

The craft surged forward, knocking over anything that wasn't tied down (though most everything was) and pinning Khymarah to her seat for a moment. After the initial thrust they were soaring through the air, passing low-lying clouds and birds, the countriside moving slowly beneath them.

It took every single fibre in the ruby haired womans body not to scream as they lifted and shot through the sky. Her nails gripped the sides of the seat in a death lock and her face paled considerably. Keeping her eyes squeezed shut, she grit her teeth. As the ship smoothed into its run, she slowly opened them, looking out into an empty sky. It was rather breathtaking.

"Oh my..." She breathed, still clinging to the seat. Torn between utter terror and amazement, she stayed where she was until she knew which way she was more inclined.

"It's something, isn't it?" said Moore happily. He looked even more optimistic than usual, clearly in his element. "I usually fly her from outside - there's a terrace on the top. You can see the whole country from up there. I thought we might talk a bit on the way, though."

Khymarah could feel him working a small spell, something that very effectively muffled the sound of the engines. He had been working it silently while he spoke, and his voice became gradually clearer.

"So, tell me," he continued, "what year did you graduate?"

Khymarah relaxed enough to let go of the seat and rest her hands in her lap. It really was remarkable when you ignored the fact you were miles up in the air. She smiled.



That was a terrifying notion, standing outside on this thing. The woman decided she liked being inside it just a bit more.



"I finished my time at Brunnhold in 2707, five years ago."

"Ah, you're reminding me of my age," he chuckled, pulling heavily on a nearby lever; the aeroship swooped to the side, sending debris flying to one side of the cabin. "I don't suppose you knew Professor Devlin when he was teaching Politics, did you? He's been at the school longer than I have, probably about twenty years now."