Capi-tain Fedanani
I'm not bothering to spell-check this--just a note.
It starts out as one of those typical infiltration dreams; you know, the ones where I’m after something. I’m in this sort of castle complex, made out of bricks and wood and granite. An outlandish mixture almost, and I don’t even really remember what I was trying to steal. I don’t remember if I was successful, though somehow I doubt it, as most of my infiltration dreams don’t end with me finishing my intended goal—I get sidetracked too easily. I do remember that something tipped off the guards, and I spent a good deal of time running through the place.
In fact, I had just managed to evade my pursuers by sidetracking through a wildly arrayed set of rooms, jumping a staircase, and slamming myself solidly behind the heavy door beneath it.
You know what, I lost the part of this I had written first... suffice to say this was the part where I found my way through some of the lower waterways--and of course met up with the lanternheads :) I'll post it when I found the damn file I decided it would be nice to split it up into...I hid myself behind the largest box I could find, crunched between the soft smelling wood. I could hear movement above me, and occasionally the slam of a door as someone walked into the room and set something down with a loud thump or crash. Not too long and I heard the door slammed hard, then bolted from the other side. I expected to shove-off, and be free at sea. I didn’t expect the strange lilting jerk that made the boxes strain against their straps and the steady rising feeling in my stomach. After I became totally disoriented, the bolt slid back and the door crashed open. Somewhere, in the back of my mind I knew the second I heard the footsteps I would be found. I crouched still and wished otherwise. When I finally saw a pair of hairy arms reach around my box, I bolted.
I think I escaped the sailor on sheer surprise. I had gained the door before he realized what had happened, once again picking my direction by whim. It worked only slightly worse this time around; I found myself in the galley. I daresay the cook had better wits than the sailor in the hold—he at least made a grab for me, trying to pin me against one of the counters. I jumped, not calculating the slight sway of the ship, and landed just beyond outstretched hands, crashing straight into a storage cabinet. I escaped with the sound of raining cutlery tinkling behind me.
Where it was I thought I could flee on a ship, I don’t know, but it didn’t stop me from trying. I made it a good way down the tight corridor and up a short flight of stairs before I found a door that looked promising enough to harbor me. Once I had secured the door against the angry chef, I turned to find myself in the captain’s quarters, a swarthy-looking man reclining in a resplendently cushioned chair behind an enormous oak desk. Another man stood in front of the desk, both of them with their faces turned to me in surprise. The captain’s expression flashed quickly with amusement before becoming unreadable, his first mate stepping forward to intercept me. A quick command stopped him, and I watched with confusion as his captain dismissed him. When the first mate left, he stood and gave me a slight bow.
“A little stowaway,” he said softly, a sibilant accent that sounded part Italian and part something else altogether. “You must be the little thief who set the ports buzzing about.” I’m not sure it was approval in his gaze, but he didn’t seem at all wroth with my escapade. “I am Captain Fedanani. Sit, and we will talk.” I took a magnificent chair across from his, and he did indeed talk, although it is a conversation I know to this day I will never remember. Odd, because I know we spoke of nothing mystical, nothing one would think that would merit such a memory-purge, but nevertheless it slipped away from me, remaining as only a haze to fill the gap in time. My memory returns at about the point we stood up and he beckoned me to follow him.
He took me up another narrow flight of wooden steps that lead to the deck hatch. I closed my eyes as I ascended the last few steps into the open air of the decking. The gentle breeze was a caress, smelling of sea and what I can only name as freedom. I heard the sails flapping above me, and opened my eyes. They were a dark silver, almost metallic looking, but they flapped and furled like canvas sails. I considered this a moment before once again stepping forward to follow Captain Fedanani. He paced the deck easily, stopping at the prow and putting his hands on the sanded railings as if the ship was the quintessence of his life. Come to think of it, it probably was. I made it half way to him before I stopped, sucking in my breath at what I was finally able to see over the sides of the ship. I uttered something along the lines of “No fucking way,” the captain turning to smile at me with his face alight with pleasure.
“You like my airship, eh?”
We were hundreds of miles above the ground, sailing along through the air with a slight rocking motion, near the same as if we were in water. I thought we had been. I actually had smelled the sea, hundreds of feet below us, only mixed with the scent of precipitation as we sailed through small wisps of fluffy cloud. A stretch of something dark and green lay behind us; the land I had pilfered and somehow escaped from on this marvelous wonder. The ocean—Ay! It near brought me to tears, looking at it. Shimmering with sunlight, I lost count of the number of shades of blue I could discern from it. Sandbars left streaks in so many different hues, and I think coral reefs must have accounted for some of the more purplish gradients.
“They said once that such a ship was but a dream, something that would never be,” Ferdinani said, nearly crooning. He laughed, gesturing about the ship with one broad-handed sweep. I heard it with half a mind, thinking in that instant that if I ever woke up it would be too soon. No wonder his comment made me jump.
“I think there are some of us who spend the best moments of our lives dreaming.” He smiled at me, and at that moment I wondered what was really going on behind those vivid blue eyes.
“I feel for anyone at this moment who isn’t a dreamer in such a flight,” I said. He laughed at this.
“Don’t you fly, little thief?” he asked.
“I tend not to do so well when I remember I can’t,” I said softly, remembering the intuition that lead me into dungeons—but always back out again, if I let it. We spoke for a while, of dreams, fears, motives and thievery. It was a sharp warning from the crow’s nest that interrupted us. Two dark shapes had materialized behind us, flying for us.
“It seems whatever you managed, they are angry enough to come chasing after you,” Fedanani said, shielding his eyes to better see. “If you stay, they will catch you. I cannot outrun them here.” I nodded, and he met my eyes. “Are you ready to face your fears?”
I could only smile at the expression in those eyes—a conspiratorial camaraderie with amusement on the side.
“Good luck, Captain Fedanani,” I said, stepping back and jumping up on the rail. I caught his wink before I let myself fall, arms spread and eyes closed, away from the ship toward the boundless and colorful water. I was not afraid of the impact—I may not be able to fly exactly, but I was capable of at least slowing myself down and softening the water. It was more my fear of what I would meet in those depths. Nearly halfway down I began to remember things like the lanternheads—there was a reason I didn’t like being suspended in a substance I could move quickly or breathe in. I held on anyway. This was a dream, and I could face those fears.
The splash never came. I didn’t reach the water before my alarm clock went off, pulling me out of the sky and into waking life.
I would have faced them anyway.
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