Horizon's Edge

Chapter One: The Captain is an Airhead?

Two weeks later, aboard the Python airship the Monty, Leon wearily leaned his back to the curved wall of the engine room.

After being half-kidnapped on that dreary, drizzly night, Leon found himself dragged across half the city by the Captain. She had said they were heading to the airship docks, and at first it had certainly seemed that way; but half an hour later, and two trips over random rooftops, Leon was forced to realize that his new Captain was hopelessly ditzy. Tired, hungry, cold, and at his wits' end, Leon took the lead and pulled the Captain into the nearest open inn for the night. He couldn't help but blush as the innkeeper winked at him while passing over the key.

Now, finally aboard the ship, he was finally told his role as a member of the Captain's "crew." He was the engineer...and gunner.

"After all, if you like tinkering with normal machines, you might as well tinker with killing machines!" the Captain had cheerfully reasoned, nodding as if her "logic" was the most rational thing in the world.

"But why do you need a gunner?!" Leon protested. "Who are we going to be fighting?"

The Captain grinned, and a chill suddenly shot down Leon's spine. "We'll fight anyone who gets in our way," she stated. A wild glint danced in her mismatched eyes, and her tone was calmer than Leon had ever heard her before. And it was terrifying.

He eyed the rapier hanging from her belt, and all at once wasn't as sure that she couldn't use it.

-

The speaker on the wall above him drew Leon out of his reminiscing. "Leon!" it called in a fair recreation of the Captain's voice, "Let's get the engine running and take off! I just got the clearance from the dock captain."

Leon pressed the button beneath the speaker to reply, "Roger that, Captain," and sighed at her girlish giggle. He turned away from the speaker as she muttered, "I've never been told 'roger' before, it's so exciting!" and started cranking the engine's ignition lever.

After a few cranks, the furnace built up a steady roar and the pistons began the work of pumping the emissions to the gears of the rotary fans outside the engine room. Satisfied that his work was done, Leon made his way over the sky-bridges between balloons to the front deck, where the Captain was lazily reclining in the pilot's chair.

"Engine's started, Captain. Should be only a  couple minutes until the fans are spinning fast enough for takeoff," he reported. The Captain beamed at him (he couldn't fathom why, but had long since given up trying to understand the things she did), and pointed to the map of the known world hanging on the wall behind her.

"Great job, Leon! Since we have time, why don't you pick a destination for us?" she said, propping her boots on the wheel.

Leon gaped at her. "Pick a destination?! Weren't you the one who asked me to 'go on an adventure?' Why are you only deciding a destination now?!" he complained. His disbelief made him lose his polite attitude, but the Captain didn't seem to care.

She swiveled her seat around to face him. "Well, yeah, adventuring is the whole point of being a Captain, right?" she explained. "But adventures are boring if you know where you're going ahead of time! Then you can do boring things like plan and prepare. But now that you're here, I don't have to know where I'm going before I leave!" She smiled again, pleased with her "logic." Leon felt his pulse begin to pound in his temple.

He could hear the fans spinning at near-full capacity, and knew he didn't have time to argue with this woman. With a resigned sigh, he threw a glance at the map on the wall and called out the first name his eyes landed on. "Vienna."

The Captain giggled, teasing, "Ooh, romantic~!" and turned her chair away from his blushing glare. She skillfully manipulated the ship's controls, taking off more smoothly than Leon had expected of someone with her mindset, and called, "Then we're off to Vienna! Can you speak Austrian? I can't. I think."

"Urgh, then why did you say pick anywhere?! Of course I don't speak Austrian!"

"Then I guess one of us will have to learn, right! Hahaha!"

"Don't laugh, how am I supposed to learn on a ship..."

Their one-sided bickering  followed their ship into the sky.

-

Over the course of the week following takeoff, Leon took the time to organize his thoughts.

First, was Captain Amy Krane herself. Once he'd seen her in the daylight, he was more confused than he had been when they first met under that bridge on that fateful rainy night. Her clothing would have been stately, had she not undone several buttons for comfort and chose to wear pilot's goggles but not use them. In addition, her hair was of a bouncy and unorthodox cut, rather than a usual Captain's strict trim or clean style. Half of her long bangs were pulled back with a shiny barrette, as if to show off the large white scar above her silver eye, whose pupil never dilated. 

Second, Leon couldn't help but wonder, why did she wear a sword on her hip so comfortably? Even if a civilian had the authority to openly wield a weapon, they would always be too conscious of it to hold it with such ease. But the Captain seemed to hardly notice the blade, as though it never left her side. On top of that, the sword was of an unusually high quality, engraved with flawless scrolling on the sheathe and hilt. He couldn't say if the blade itself was as beautiful, since he had yet to see her actually draw it. Why, then, was he so sure that she would be absolutely deadly if she ever did?

He played with the brass plate encircling the rim of his left ear absentmindedly, feeling the slight pressure where it pierced his flesh. There had to be no way that she hadn't seen it, especially when he took his hat off that night at the inn. He had been braced for her questions, or even accusations, but she didn't mention it at all. Did she not know what it meant? Did she not care? That seemed more likely, but wouldn't it interfere with her "adventure" if it ever came to light?

Leon heaved a sigh and tried to quit his musings. All he needed to know for sure was that she wasn't going to lead him to his death (in a piloting accident, at least), and she was a total airhead who only wanted to have "an adventure." Everything else, he would learn eventually.

Probably.