By the time we got back to the repair dock, most of the large warships had already departed and only a half dozen small craft were left. I saw the Fortunate’s overhaul being supervised by the stern-eyed Aunt Gracie. She was pouring over a navigator’s slate that had schematics of her vessel displayed and was arguing with Costas about something.

As I approached the pair Costas turned to me and beamed. “Ah Becca! Missed ya earlier, we just finished setting the new bracket around your crystal. Just waiting on the gimbal install now. The retracing work is done, and I’ve worked my way through your maintenance request, that should be finished by tomorrow.” I nodded curtly and looked over his shoulder at Gracie.

“Need to talk to you, in private for a sec Aunt Gracie.” I saw her single eye narrow at me and she snapped her discussion closed and excused herself from Costas as he frowned.

“Let’s get to my ship, I’ll set the wards.” She said and I clipped myself onto one of her side raceways and we streaked up Fortunate’s stern to the top deck. I looked out over the larger ship and tried to suppress a bit of envy.

Fortunate was a newer design, about thirty years old or so, which is pretty young for an airship. It was built sort of like a stretched-out circle with its ballast in a tightly packed wire net in the center, the edges of the net were on rails so you could spin the ship around the ballast to turn the entire vessel. The ballast bag was secured to the races by a spiderweb of cables and, it rested the entire weight of the ship on that network of supports.

The holds were along the sides of the ship and smaller compartments fore and aft of the vessel. Still, the dimensions of the design dwarfed the size of Sweetwind with a beam at the center of the ballast of nearly 80 ft and a length of around 250 ft. On either side of the ballast there was a large mast, and there were wing masts folded into the sides of the ship both at the forward section and the stern. It was a beautiful vessel, and it was home to many of my cousins as well as Gracie.

It was like a small piece of home had survived here, untouched by the events that had transpired over the last few years. I teared up when I saw my father’s family crest etched into every familiar nook and cranny. I had played here with my cousins when I was little and the family gathered at the holdings to celebrate marriages or a change of command. I remembered climbing up into the rigging and pretending that I was a fierce sky pirate, and Archie, my cousin chasing up after me and calling out oaths to defend his dear ship with his life. Now he was dead, along with so many others.

Grandfather had once commanded Fortunate before he settled down and bought his much smaller trading ship and did short runs in his retirement to help resupply the islands and keep his hand on the helm. Father had also once served on her, and it had been where he had earned his journeymen’s papers.

Aunt Gracie saw my tears and hugged me as she realized what it meant to be standing on her ship. “I never did stop to talk to you about…what happened."

“I don’t want to talk about it!” I yelled and tried to compose myself. I just didn’t want to dwell of those memories, or I would jut fall apart. I couldn’t fall apart, not now.

She stepped back from me and nodded. “I understand, but it’s been three years Becca, you have to talk to someone about it, I can see how it’s changed you… how it’s changed all of us.” She trailed off and I saw her face go hard with bitterness. I nodded, and knew that she had lost people too.

They had all tried to get me to tell them what had happened, but I had refused. I had limped into nearby Spinner’s Point one day, my ship battered and full of wounded, with my grandfather in my bunk shivering from fever and my mother’s body wrapped up on the deck next to Archie and Kent.

I had only told the adjudicators what they needed to know to transfer ownership, and certify my captaincy. How could I have told them about my failure? I didn’t know if anyone in the family would ever trust me again when they found out the truth.

Never, would I bring myself to tell them what happened. It was a shame that I simply wanted to keep in my past, a past that didn’t need to be revealed. I knew that in some ways that Aunt Gracie still blamed me, and I loved her, and I didn’t know what I would do once she finally knew the truth.

“I need to tell you something, it’s about Sweetwind.” I said as we climbed belowdecks and into the corridor that led to her captain’s cabin. She nodded and palmed the wards on her door and let me in.

The door opened up into a small study, with doors on either side that led to berths for her and her husband and into a small observation ball at the stern of the ship. We sat down in the comfy leather chairs around the map table in the study and she fixed me with her gaze.

It took a while, but I told her about my conversation with Cid and how I had gained my new executive officer, and the fact that her father would likely hunt me down for the insult of a half-blooded elf running off with his daughter.

She chuckled when I told her about that and grinned at me. “Well at least I’m not the only one with enemies on the committee now. Girlie you have your hands full of a pot of trouble.” She cackled and I glared at her.

Walking over to her desk she pulled out a stack of papers and set them down on the map table. I looked at the stack and grinned. They were sponsorship contracts from the adventurer’s guild and from the messenger’s guild.

“Captain Roark was by about an hour ago, and was looking for you. I told him you would be along later and I’d give you these sponsorships he picked up.” She said and I nodded. I would still have to stop by the Magisters Guild and a few others, but I figured that I had all I needed here for the castaways.

“Now, I’m going to attend your penalty board, along with a few others of the family that are in port. It’s in a couple of hours yes?” She asked and I nodded, my stomach clenching in dread.

She laughed at my expression and shook her head. “Don’t worry so much about it! I’ve been to many of them and your board will go well, especially since you have plenty of evidence to show the reason for your delay.”

I nodded meekly and stood up, and Aunt Gracie offered me a document case to roll up all the sponsorship contracts into and I took it and carefully stowed the enchanted contracts into the case before slinging it onto my back.

“Fortunate and Argos will be by your side when you lift ship, don’t worry.” She reminded me and I clenched my jaw as I realized that my situation could probably put the family in danger in the long run. In any case I would have to leave this side of the world for a while, and get as far away from Mageos as possible.

“I’m going to go north, um afterwards.” I said and she nodded but looked at me closely before speaking. “Right into the war?” She said and I nodded.

“Your crazy Becca!” She sighed in exasperation and rubbed a hand over her tired looking face and then placed it on my shoulder. “I’ll not have you go there unprepared. We will spare some crystal for you and I’ll talk with Captain Roark about getting you some extra hands, I trust that man with my life, and he is my son-in-law after all.” She chuckled at my frown and I shook my head.

My older cousin Sally Marshal had married Allister Roark four years ago, and it had been no surprise at all to the clan when they had started courting. The Roark clan was one of our family’s closest allies and had been a long-time trading partner for the past several decades. I had known him as an honorary uncle since I was old enough to speak, as he had been my father’s best friend.

“Remember Becca, we are here for you… if there is anything you need just ask.” She said and gave me a crushing hug. My stomach sank and I tried not to shake. I hadn’t asked for her pity, or for handouts but right now I was desperate. I needed that crystal badly, and there was no one I could turn to find people I trusted.

It had been a mark of pride in myself and my independence that I hadn’t needed a crew to fly Sweetwind but now that time was over. I was going to be flying into troubled skies, and now I needed to swallow my pride and do right for my ship and my new crew. I had to preserve my family’s legacy and ride the wind to wherever it may blow me.

As we emerged from the captain’s cabin, I heard the whistle-call of a ship’s horn and we both silently watched Lynx float off her cradle and get pulled out of the repair hanger. The ageing warship ran up its battle standard and with a few cheers and waving, ascended into the darkening sky. “Even the Lynx?” I stammered. Costas nodded to us and pointed at the elderly warship. “Yea, they pulled her out of mothballs last week and we have been doing her refit.” He said with gritted teeth.

“But, I thought they decommissioned her years ago!?” I gave weak laugh and shivers went up and down my back. The grim faces on everyone in the hanger as they watched the leisurely climb from the old vessel told me just how desperate the situation was.

"Word is, the entire Imperial fleet was recalled from the quarantine zone, and there was a battle at Raider’s Point a week ago. The League took heavy losses. They even lost their new flagship Victory in the fighting."

I had remembered seeing Victory last year when I had passed through the league airspace. That was an immense airship, one of the largest I had ever seen. It had been even larger than Triumphant by a decent margin. If the Empire of Nadir was mobilizing all of it’s might into the conflict then things could go very badly. “Also, we got some rather… disquieting rumors.” Costas said and his face paled.

“What rumors?” I asked and he shook his head and waved his hand in dismissal. “They say that the black avatars have returned, and the underdark have broken from the quarantine.” He gave a shaky laugh as if the idea was absurd but I didn’t see the laugh draw a smile from anyone. We all just stared at him in horror.

“But… that would mean that…” I trailed off and looked in horror at the evidence all around me that Mageos was near panic, and I now realized that it wasn’t from the prospect of war with the Empire of Nadir.

A lot of what I had been seeing was now making more sense, in the larger context if there was more to the fighting up north than just a spat the Empire was having with a small province that had been blown up to massive proportions.

I had heard of the Underdark, the vile twisted creatures that were contained outside the world tear of Narkas, the sunken kingdom. Everyone had heard those tales of horror told around cookfires and to scare children into behaving. The Empire of Nadir had been holding them at bay for centuries, hadn’t they? Had something happened? Had they finally found another way into Prime? I shuddered at the implications. If that was true, the results would be nothing short of catastrophic.

Costas saw the look of panic on my face and raised his hands in supplication. “Just rumors Becca, you know how it is, people tell stories and I listen. It doesn’t mean I believe everything I hear.” His shaky voice betrayed him however, and I saw Aunt Gracie giving him her piercing gaze as he went suddenly silent.

“Don’t worry about what we have no control over. Just worry about that ship of yours and get her ready to lift.” Aunt Gracie chided me and I nodded, clipping my harness to a raceway and sliding down it.

Walking over the Sweetwind I saw that Neil was nowhere to be found. I could see Natasha in the bow helm compartment inspecting the controls and I climbed up the ladder under the compartment and popped the hatch.

“Where is my apprentice? I need him to tag along to the penalty board.” I said and she shrugged. “He did his traveler thing and vanished on me.” She chuckled as she tried to puzzle out the highly customized helm controls my mother had rebuilt when she had first taken over as captain of Sweetwind. “How am I supposed to pilot this thing? All the ballast controls are… well built for a magi.” She grumbled.

“I still have the old consoles, I can have Cid rig them up for you. Steering is still the same standard setup everyone uses. Oh, and we are getting more storage crystals so you shouldn’t have any issue as long as you keep your power consumption under control.” I explained. She nodded and I gave her a run down of the current setup.

“Its not too bad, I think I can manage once you let me shunt directly from the ballast into the storage crystals, but I’ll likely need someone on the mechanician console to help with the frequency balance. I know you do that mentally but I need manual control.” I nodded, already having expected the request. I was impressed by her immersive knowledge of how my ship design worked. It showed that she had some artificer experience as well as practical airship piloting.

“Neil can work the mechanician station on your watch. It will let me get some sleep, and I can do everything myself when I’m on duty.” I said, and she gave me a curt nod. Normally when I shunt power, I controlled the release of the energy, and it was done using my own self-control, but that isn’t how the ship had originally been designed. It did give me a very finite control over lift and decent. The old shunt controls that operated the process manually had started to degrade and were a bit temperamental now, so my mother had removed them.

“Well not sure about that apprentice of yours, if he’s going to just disappear on me in the middle of a watch I might have some issues.” She grumbled and I nodded. She did have a valid point. I did need to find another person to help man the mechanician station. It would be a challenge, but if Cid could help me install the old controls and hopefully figure out why they had started acting up it wouldn’t be a problem.

It did occur to me then that Cid himself could keep an eye on things from the refractory’s mechanician station or man the one here in this compartment. I knew that he was a magi, and from the power I had sensed in his workshop he had a similar attunement to my own. I rubbed my hands across my brow in frustration. In fact, that it would probably be a good idea if I convinced the artificer to help me instruct Neil in his own powers. He was a teacher, unlike me and would probably be better at explaining things.

In all it had been a godsend that I had found the man, but I did worry if his obsession over my ship was a bit creepy. I knew how all artificers liked to tinker with things and it did worry me a bit that I’d have someone like Cid poking around and likely tearing things apart to figure out how they were built or worked at any chance he got.

My mom’s old artificer had been like that, and it had drove her insane. Eventually she had gotten fed up with him and he had transferred to my father’s harvester ship for the last season we had before we had lost our holdings.

The familiar pain of loss still felt sharp, like a stab in the gut even after all these years when I remembered how Harmony had gone down, with old ornery Tankersley, the ship’s artificer killing himself by burning up his own lifeforce to try to set her down. I could still hear a phantom of his dying mental voice flickering out as I grasped the com crystal and screamed as I watched the ship plunge into the ground, breaking apart, tumbling and burning…

I had to turn my back and take a deep breath to push the memory away and regain my composure before I turned back and explained how to use the Zephyrscope. It was an older type, but had a very good range to it and Natasha’s look of awe at the definition on it as I trained it into the darkening evening sky made me grin and pat the relic.

“They don’t make them like this anymore.” She said and fiddled with the dials on the scope. “You say there is another one on the stern helm?” I nodded and winced.

“Yea but it’s a newer model, I don’t think we ever found the original scope that was mounted up there. Do you have a pair of enchanted flight goggles?” I asked and she nodded.

“Standard issue, I paid them off last year so I don’t have to turn them back in.” She said and pointed to the set of goggles on her brow above her flight cap. I smiled at the prospect of not having to equip another flyer on my limited budget. It seemed that Natasha had quite decent gear with her.

“Battle harness too?” I asked and she nodded.

I smiled and gestured for her to follow me as I gave her a tour of the ship. It wasn’t a very long tour, as there just wasn’t much to show, but we ended up at my cabin a few moments later and I stopped as my eyes fell on the neat, empty bunk under mine with my mother’s picture on it. I had intended to berth Natasha under my cabin with Neil, where there were a couple of single and double berths, but honestly, I could do with a roommate.

I walked in and knelt by the altar, belatedly remembering that I haven’t given my grace to Zeus since I had last lifted, and never thanked my patron for sending Natasha my way. Natasha saw my piety and didn’t move, she just bowed her head and offered her own prayer to her own god, and I realized I had never bothered to ask about her faith.

“The sky father is my patron.” I said and she nodded mutely as I lit a small stick of incense and let my mind drift into the altar as I thanked Zeus for his assistance. I felt the warm, cracking energy flow back into myself and it was as if he was giving me his reassurance. I smiled and stood up, pressing my fingers to each of the other figurines on the altar, to honor the winds.

“Natasha, you can bunk with me.” I said, and walked over and reverently picked up the framed portrait of my mother’s beautiful smiling face, peering back at me as I struggled to control my grief. I unclipped the stay fasts on the bottom that had secured the picture to the bed and moved to a shelf where my father’s portrait hung, placing the picture back into the same spot it had occupied for years before she had died, clipping the painting back into place. It felt like I was finally letting her go after all these years, finally accepting the fact that she was no longer here for me. I kissed my fingers and whispered the words “May the sky embrace its own, mom.”

She watched me and said nothing. “Is that your mother?” She asked and I nodded, and turned my face to wipe a tear away. If Natasha had seen my lack of composure she ignored it as she left to go fetch her flight bag.