Chapter Two

     The notion of willingly stepping onto such a thing was impossible to grasp. Still, Linus allowed the expedience to settle.

     The phantom of a disproportioned ship flew across his vision, flags billowing dangerously as fraudulent paddles cut through the air. Even though the ersatz bird was nothing but a day-dream, Linus could distinguish his lungs' desperation; the knot sinking to his stomach; the pop of his eardrums as the comfortable hum of machinery and water was dominated mercilessly by the crushing winds. He trembled with the chill that crept along the canals of his veins, shooing the thought away quickly. If he were to be honest (with himself), he would be forced to admit that he had established a foreboding fear for the flying vessels. He solely believed ships belonged in the water or not at all. Or, perhaps, he circled inwardly, it was the heights that kept him firmly grounded.

     If 'grounded' accurately defined the waves swaying genially beneath him.

     The day had sentenced a blanketing heat over them, moist and suffocating, that left Linus to suffer along with the rest of the crew as their above-deck rendezvous becoming increasingly hell-ish. Linus shifted his weight for the umpteenth time, no doubt his discomfort displaying itself upon his brow. The captain continued his speech nonetheless, tugging at his shirt collar with absent-minded attempts to cool down.

     "Dangers stand as they-do," said he. Each breadth of the captain's words was different; Celtic beginnings trying wholeheartedly to shake off their northern counterparts. This gave any attentive presence a short story of the man's struggles, as the bitten syllables were an uncanny nod towards Algreth. The captain gave up on his shirt collar and proceeded to push oily locks from his forehead. "I can't start to tell you how it's to end - so don't you even start, Vint."

     Attention was momentarily taken off the captain and refocused onto Vint whose lips had already parted. At this, however, he clamped his mouth shut. Linus traced a scarlet blush that fanned over the boy's features - starting at the tips of his ears and stretching over boyish fat cheeks to irritate the button of his nose -- as his eyes clattered to the ground.

     "This's where we've been pushed - they've forced our hand innit!" the captain continued passionately, drawing Linus's attention once more. Linus noted that the heat had applied a similar flush to the captain as the embarrassment had to Vint. Precipitation rolled down the captain's face, leaving visible streaks. The captain's neck flexed as he tipped his chin towards the sky. His coal skin - in both colour and texture - shone with sweat as he glared at the clouds, his glare no doubt directed at the spot that indicated the hidden sun. "These waifs have thrown them-selves at us, and we're gonna stick them to-it." Following the captain's aberrant scowl, Linus came to the realisation that it was not the sun whom reciprocated the captain's hate, but the almost shapeless spec flying across of it.

     'A fleet of sky pirates, no doubt,' Linus thought to himself. Ever since Linus had traded his locum professionalism for piracy he had learned of the conflict between the water and sky pirates. Linus had been none-but-enticed by his side's animosity. It had been the sky pirates that murdered his parents, and he had avowed long ago to take every single one of them down -- even if it meant drowning his fear of heights to accomplish it.

     The captain lowered his chin once more, his fingers going round-two on his collar. He was nervous. "It's time to act," his voice reached a dangerous conclusion, "who --" he paused, the word stuck to the tip of his tongue - "who ventures a spot?"

     Linus knew what was being asked of them. He stepped forward hastily. His hair was desperate to keep a bounce -- despite the humidity having left each strand pasted to his skin --  and he could feel the mingling glare that left his nape to blister and pop. This was his chance for revenge; Martin would just have to accept that.

     Another crew member stepped forward; then another and another. A few -- arguably the wiser of the crewmen -- took imperceptible strides backwards in attempt to not be grouped-up. An unmistakable rift bifurcated the crowd after a long minute. The captain nodded his condolences, his unsaid words written across his countenance: this mission was for the voluntary only; there would be no consequences for those who stayed.

    The same could not be said for those who went.

     Linus stood rigid as stone as he awaited the next orders. He would not let his features betray the stew of emotions stirring about his chest. He wasn't positive if he was ready -- to fly, to fight, to try his hand at the only thing he'd ever truly wanted -- but, if he had learnt anything from his years as a pirate, it was that he would have to destroy this obstacle before it had the chance to destroy him.

     "We set out to-morrow," said the captain at length, "those departing stay, everyone else back to work." Linus was aware of the drawling shuffles. He didn't turn. He wondered whether Martin had stepped forward. Probably not. "In less than twenty hours you--" the captain made clear that each present member was being addressed personally --"will either be dead or the enemy." He took a step, the beginning of a dizzying pace. "If you make it there will be nothing we can do to help. You will be on your own. Are you all awares of the bases?"

     Off-beat heads nodded. Bases were important in this; they were vital. Almost every populated port around the world was infiltrated by water pirates' bases. They were safe-spots to pass on information, and would be their only way of communicating with their kin until the mission was over and they were free from the masks of sky piracy.

     The bases were the organisation in the chaos, and Linus's fleet was far from the only one to take part in the plan. All over the world sky pirates were posing as commoners with itches to become flying tyrants; purposely getting captured to "sell-out" and become recruited members; taking over ships so that whole crews could escape with new identities. It was an ironic ordeal, really, but had made surprising advances in the last year. Now it was time for the new wave of imitators, and Linus was eager to offer himself to the cause.

     "Good," the captain breathed, his demeanor slackening a bit as he used his sleeve cuff to dab at his brow. Linus couldn't properly secure any other possible answer they could have given. Every new-recruit (that was deemed trust worthy) was broken in with base concept and layout. "You will follow common update procedure. No information is to be spared -- and you will die before you tell any-a soul of the movement!"

     Movement. Linus was taking a part in a movement. He felt a small tug at the corners of his lips. No, he was taking a part in an opportunity. Everything else was minutiae.

     "From here you've one final chance to re-consider. To-morrow's the final stage," he swept over them with one last scrutinising nod. "Dismissed."

     Something like a weight had been taken off then. Linus rolled his shoulder back, swallowing luke-warm oxygen like it'd been years since he'd the pleasure. Slowly, he allowed his gaze to wander to the other volunteers. There were less than he initially pictured. A singing doubt perched at the back of his brain, wondering how successful the last year had actually been. Perhaps all the rage was simple propaganda.

     Linus was struck with a sense of wonderment when he saw that Vint had stepped forward. Vint still held a steady gaze forward, as if her were too dumb to move, but before Linus could consider walking over to him a hand clasped around his shoulder.

     "Boy," Martin's stern tone was simmering, "it's a piss decision you've gotten in that thick skull of yours."

     Linus turned to face him. Martin had grown a new wrinkle in his forehead since the beginning of the meeting, and his pale green eyes were unrelenting. With a lame shrug Linus traced the floor's planks, no longer able to hold the forbidding, fatherly grimace that had captured Martin's features. "It's my chance, Marty," he bit back, "thought you'd understand."

     Martin shook his head. Tightening his grip until Linus returned a respectful reproach to the conversation, Martin squinted at him, ripples crinkling his eyes threateningly. "I can understand hating them. I can understand wanting them dead. But this -- this!" he used his free hand to motion towards the departing crowd. Linus comprehended for the first time how young everyone who stepped forward had been. With a step of his own Martin lowered his voice, forcing Linus to pay closer attention. "This isn't a way to get back at them, boy. Ain't going to do your parents no-good if you join them. It's suicide. I didn't take you in for you to -- to throw all your potential away!"

     "Where is my potential getting me at 'round here?" Linus demanded snappily, throwing a glare of his own. "You've taught me to fight -- now let me put that to use! We can bring them down from the inside; we can win!"

     Martin's grip slowly became lax as a silence stretched between them. Linus couldn't name the emotions fleeting across the older man's gaze, but one was distinct: disappointment. Martin parted his lips, closed them again, and repeated that dance for a whole minute. The flush of his skin gave that he had half a mind to scream at the stubborn youth, but the lingering hand suggested the other half battled against pulling him into a tight embrace. At last, he lowered his gaze with a conflicted sigh. "But at what cost?" The words sent an arrow through Linus's side, guilt resting on his conscious for the first -- but far from the last -- time that day. Martin's hand slipped away and he disappeared with a bowed head.

     For the remainder of the day Linus was left alone. Anytime Martin appeared in the corner of his vision or as a phantom of his day-dreams a solid, beatless mass would replace Linus's heart. Martin had been the one to recruit him; Linus owed the old bat so much. He had given him a life beyond pickpocketing and working as some lowly busboy. Giving him up would be like giving up his parents all over again, but, this time, deliberately.

     'And to the same damn people, too,' he sneered voicelessly.

     He had only been sixteen when he'd first met Martin. It was a few months after he had finally shaken off the orphanage workers -- catching a syline-mettre[1] that took him from the mainplate of Tamil[2] to the outer, less civilised coast. There he had scraped by with fraudulent papers any job -- more or less legal at times -- he could come by. The first time he encountered Martin had been an eye opener. With what he considered to be traceless fingers, Linus dipped a hand into the old man's pocket, chasing after the breadth of a purse-chain that glimmered seductively just-in-reach. The speed Martin had caught him with was impossible, gripping his wrist with a bruising hold. Linus had been sure that that was his end -- be it the tecni-police[3] being called or the more-than-capable man finishing him off right there. But it wasn't his end. It had turned into a beautiful begining. Linus still wasn't sure if it had been pity or amusement that had compelled Martin to let him go, but whatever it was had sent Martin to seek after Linus's location later in the week with a proposition. He had offered him a spot as a pirate, promising the job to pay in cash and adventure. Linus had said yes without any meditated thought.

     It was interesting to think that that had been only the first-time Martin had saved him. Any who wished to document each time Martin's hand had steered Linus from ill-considered ideals would be wasting stacks upon stacks of parchment. He was in Martin's debt -- eternally, and happy to be so -- but he was also caressed by the fact that he was forever contracted by the obligation to avenge his parents. Linus was torn, and the never-ending knot in his gut wasn't helping. At all.

     The clouds above their ship darkened, indicating that night was falling. For the first time in a long time a pang of longing for a simple syline's glow demanded his sympathy.

     It was a while before he finally settled below deck, but when he got there he wondered whether it had been the right decision. Boys' shuffling in their sleeping sacks was infuriatingly deafening. Linus hadn't expected sleep to come easy - if at all - but he had counted on silence. Another shift in the shadows. Stifling a grown Linus ran a clammy hands over flushed cheeks. The day had cooled by only a hair, nowhere near enough to offer them any comfort below-deck in the crew quarters.

     He flipped over onto his side again, the same imagined sequence running through his mind once more, breaking through the day's stress to offer him sick comfort. His home in ruins, monochrome under dark clouds and broken sylines; the Medicinae hoverers parked close enough to send their hot extrusions down Linus's shirt; being pulled away, unable to grasp any concept past his blurry vision or hear beyond the coursing of his blood and his drowning, inchoate thoughts. The soft murmurs of reality became a cacophony of his vision, scraping medals and screams and desperation. A survivor had been uncovered, he recalled, but no one had had any hope. How could they? Linus had worked his throat sore up until then, crying for his parents to come out, for his home to grow back, but after they had found the man - a neighbor of his, Mr. Warrson - all he could do was clench his fist so tight blood seeped around pallor knuckles.

     As quickly as he allowed it, Linus expelled the image before moisture could seep from his eyes. Turning over onto his other shoulder, he punched the bundle of his locum pillow. Before he could shove his face into it, however, he noted the feeling of eyes following his movements. It only took a moment of looking past swaying darkness to find their owner as Linus locked inquiring eyes with Vint.

     Vint started, bobbing his head down and turning to face the wall he was pressed against in his own sack. Linus continued to stare, almost expecting the boy to steal a sheepish look from over his shoulder, but, as it became apparent that Vint had no further intention to turn back, Linus forced his arm beneath the fabric and buried his head into it until his crown consisted of a comfortable pressure. There was a long day ahead of him; he should at least try to get some rest.

     It wasn't long until he'd succeeded.

A/N

Foot notes:

[1] A 'syline-mettre' refers to a type of public transport similar to a train. The word syline is, in this universe, a romantic term for sky, and mettre is the French term for 'to put/place." So you can imagine a train in the sky (will see more into it later).

[2] Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical-languages in the world. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from 500 BC have been found on Adichanallur and 2,200-year-old Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been found on Samanamalai. It is still the official language for two countries, Singapore and Sri Lanka. // https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language // In this story Tamil is both a language and place.

[3] 'Tecni-police' is the term similar to federal police. They're the ones that take care of matters beyond cities or towns.