Our first sighting of land was in fact of ice, but I was glad to see it nevertheless. Feeling fat in heavy enough winter gear to have orphaned several fox cubs, I stood with shoulders hunched at the prow of the ship and watched the huge iron hull smash through sheet ice. A quarter of the way down the intricate swirls of metalwork, part of my lunch congealed. Art.
“A day, no more,” the captain said from behind me, addressing Wrathwrought, “And you're not. To get in the way while we're unloading. I'm making that clear. Now. So I don't have to later.”
He kept sucking at a pipe even in the midst of speaking, lending his speech an infuriating stop-start quality. I wanted to hit him. Then again, I wanted to hit everything, including Wrathwrought, who leaned back against the railing beside me.
“We'll just nip off first, then,” he said, grinning sideways at me, “I think the medic would appreciate that.”
A mumbled “fuck off” was my only contribution. I stared off out in front as they exchanged a few more words, watched hills of ice I presumed were icebergs amongst the thinner shit pass us by on either side as the captain excused himself, frowned at the bizarre expanse of white our ship was carving noisily through as Wrathwrought did his best to make conversation.
A frozen sea was impressive, I had to give it that. Some part of me found it hard to accept that, at first glance, we were ploughing through solid ground on a fifty foot fucking warship. Another part wondered if I could get off and walk. And if I could, shouldn't this count as land? Because as far as we humans, the map-writers, are really concerned, land is something you walk on. Damn the necessity of actual dirt.
It was all good because it kept my mind off the fact that we were a day at most from a bloody war zone. It also kept my mind off my stomach. Exhausted from sickness, I relented long enough to be grateful for something positive.
“Now that you're not throwing up,” Wrathwrought said, “I think we need to discuss how we're going to handle things once we're out there with the Hakurians.”
Fucking Wrathwrought.
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