For Forty Weeks the Sunbird Flew: An Airman's Tale

Chapter 1: Sunbirds

Archer clutched his backpack nervously as he stood in the small group of new hires waiting to board the ship. The Sunhawk was her name, and whilst Archer wasn't quite sure what he'd been expecting this wasn't exactly it. Maybe he'd had a few visions of grandiose vessels and aristocratic cruise-liners floating through his head when he'd signed up, maybe he'd just wanted to leave the estate his parents worked on. He wasn't quite sure anymore, but whyever he'd signed his charter, it didn't matter; the fact was that he'd signed it, and he was here. He'd done a little research on the vessel in the Skyflight archives at the library whilst he was waiting for the vessel to reach port to try and get a feel for what sort of ship she would be, but in all honesty she looked... well, 'old' was the only word that came to mind. Not quite 'outdated', but the scorch marks along the hull seemed to be the only thing that was 'new' on the entire body of the airship.
He really hoped that the smoke was just from coal or oil fires, and not the result of some terribly neglectful maintenance.

Still, he'd continued looking into the ship, and had a rough idea of what she would be like. She was a Dawn-class heavy frigate, a line that was almost forty years old, and though she and her remaining sister ships had seen some modernisations across their service lives they were far from top-of-the-line. Her balloon was a patchwork of canvas that more resembled his own tattered and worn jacket than the clean sheet it had been when she'd first entered service, her rigging seemed to be stiff and rigid, and as for the other men hired alongside him to act as crew... well, if these were the men accepted as deckhands then he was worried about who exactly he'd be serving alongside for however long he sailed the skies on this old frigate. To be sure, they didn't all seem bad, but of the twenty or so hirelings stood on the docks and those sailors he'd seen in the last two weeks at the port waiting for the Sunbird to arrive, he'd come to realise that they were almost all very, very cutthroat. He'd kept his head down and waited for the day he'd be able to come aboard and start his new life; there was little harm in putting off meeting his new comrades a little while if he had the next five years of service to look forwards to alongside them.

Something about his demeanour must have come across as tense, as a slight hand tapped his shoulder making him jump a little. He turned to face the man who'd tapped him, who gave him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry for the fright, friend. I didn't mean to scare you, quite the opposite in fact! You seem to be a little anxious, if you don't mind me saying so."

Archer tried for a smile, but his nerves were too on edge for it to have come across as anything other than painfully awkward.

"Yeah, sorry. I've never been so far from home before. Feels..."

"Strange?"

"I was gonna say gut-turning, but strange works as well."

The man smiled and gave a small laugh.

"Let's hear it then, whereabouts are you from?"

"Me? My family's from the Bayview Estate, you know, the uh... the baronetcy just north of Rothery."

"What, like Rothery Harbour? You've come a little ways then, haven't you. Still, I imagine it's not too bad for a family of barons."

Archer's eyes widened a little, and he shook his head fervently.

"Baronet, not baron, but no. My family aren't the owners of the estate, we just work on it. Have done for generations."

The man nodded and continued.

"Ah, I see. Apologies for presuming. I assumed you were of the lesser-gentry such as myself, given your well cleaned-up nature."

Archer turned away a little, face reddening slightly at the young man's words. For his part the young man continued speaking, oblivious to Archer's own embarrassment.