“The Swift is amazing, Jacky!” The excited former barmaid gushed. “She’s been changing to rooms that the passengers used to make us a kitchen and dining room, and she’s listening to my suggestions!”

“They’re called a galley and a mess room on a ship,” I corrected, causing Mable to huff.

“I’ve never understood why sailors needed different names for everything. A kitchen is a kitchen, and a floor is a floor. But look!” she pulled me over to the working surface. “The sink has pipes we can connect to a barrel up on the main flo… deck, so we can get water here, and she made me a stone stove I can light charcoal in so I don’t need to have Marjory heat up everything I cook, and…”

“Hold on!” I interrupted the babbling girl. “This is precisely what I wanted to talk to you about. I take it that you’ve decided to stay on board?”

“Where else am I going to go?” Mable’s enthusiasm seemed to leech out of her instantly, replaced with the sadness and despair that had gripped her after we found her in the ruins of Gerald’s Rest. “I don’t really have a home to go back to, do I?”

I reached out to her and held her, feeling like an absolute heel that I ruined her excitement. “We’re heading towards Whitecliff now. I’m sure there are plenty of taverns you could…”

“I could what?” she asked bitterly. “Serve tables for coppers? I loved Agnes like my own mom, and she paid us serving girls as much as she could afford, but I still had to whore myself out if I wanted to save even a little. I don’t even want to think about how many fat stinky traders I’d have to entertain in a stranger’s tavern.”

She pulled away from me and wiped angrily at the tears streaking down her face.

“I like it on the Swift,” she whispered. “I don’t have any money to pay you, but I… I could share your bed if you’d let me stay.”

“I’m not going to make you pay me with sex, Mable. Not after what you just said about how much you hate it.”

“I don’t mind if it’s you,” her voice was almost impossible to hear. “You’re nice to me, and you took a shower before you invited me to your room.”

“Still, you’ve already been cooking for us since we started to follow the raiders, and you seem to be taking over as ship’s purser as well. I’m the one who should be paying you for staying with on board.”

“You really mean that? I… I don’t think I’ll go into any more ruins with you. I’m not much of an adventurer.”

“I think you’re a lot more of an adventurer that you give yourself credit for, but I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. I will ask you to help defend the Swift if we get attacked though. You’re still the only one of us who can use the lightning staff.”

“I think I can do that,” she said, looking determined, and a lot less depressed. “She’s an amazing Ship, and I’ll be happy to help defend her.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“So…” she started, a little hesitantly. “Just how much am I going to be paid?”

“Well, purser is an officer position. If we were a trader, the standard pay would be a half share, same as Marjory. But since we’re going to be making most of our money exploring ruins, it wouldn’t be a fair share. And offering a half share from anything except ruins would leave you with almost nothing. Does a quarter share sound reasonable to you?”

“I... think so? I have no idea how much it would amount to, really.”

“It’s hard to tell you any real number,” I shrugged. “It should be more than you made in the Boar, assuming we find good ruins.”

“Then I agree,” she said firmly, then darted towards, throwing her arms around me and kissing me. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

“Thank you for staying,” I held her close, feeling my blood rushing down at the feel of her large breasts against my chest. “Neither Marjory nor I are inclined towards the purser’s job. Or towards cooking, for that matter.”

She smiled at me, and I had no doubt that she knew precisely what her proximity was doing to me. Then she shoved me away.

“Good,” she said with laughter in her eyes. “Now I need to help the Swift finish rearranging the galley, and make an inventory. I’ll have a list of equipment and provisions we need to buy by the time we reach Whitecliff.”

I was left dizzy by the abrupt change and needed a moment to get my thoughts back in order. “I’ll leave you to your new domain then, madam purser,” I bowed and turned towards the ladder, smiling at the sound of her giggling behind me.

***

Doreen was still flying when I got back up to the main deck, and I had no way to signal that I wanted to talk to her. Yet another thing I’d have to think about, assuming she stayed on board. I knew ordinary ships used colored flags to communicate over large distances, and while Whitecliff wasn’t a port town, I figured I had a decent chance at finding something similar in the market. I’ll make a simple code that any one of us, or even my Shapes, could use to signal the warped woman.

None of which helped me in any way in getting Doreen’s attention, of course. I made one more attempt at waving at her, but even if she was looking in my direction, she was too far away to distinguish me from any of the Shapes on the deck. I figured she’d come back to the Ship before we reached Whitecliff anyway, since a flying warped was probably not going to be well received in a human town. I’d just have to talk to her then.

Putting the conversation I needed to have with Doreen aside until she came back, I climbed the ladder to the forecastle deck.