Prelude to Anarchy - Princess of Steam

Dive

Katherine stretched, comfy under the warmth of the sun despite the chill in the air. The fur of her coat shivered in the wind as she pushed herself to a sitting position. Around her, the sky reached out endlessly in every direction, blue as the eyes of a newborn child and calling to her with the softest of moans. At the fringes of her sight, she could see the bright starburst of the afternoon sun behind a layer of clouds and the faded browns of the forest about to come to life.

This was her favorite place, sitting atop the Crusader's top-most gondola while she moved at a brisk pace. Behind her, just a few paces away, the giant propellor of the main engine was whisking by and pushing them forwards.

She curled up, knees close to her chest and arms wrapped around to keep the warmth in while her breath trailed out behind her in a plume of steam. They had left Plumage early in the morning, before the sun was really up yet, and had made good time for an hour or two before she surrendered the wheel to the new kid.

Katherine was not yet fond of the boy, no matter how much Daisy seemed to like him. She did admit that it was amusing to be able to take a midday nap now that her responsibilities had been cut back a little.  

She stretched again, then looked up to the sun. A deep frown cut across her features. Something was very wrong. Again, she counted the time. The nap had not lasted more than an hour, two at most, so why was the sun at that point of the compass?

Realization hit like a pan to the back of the head.

Spinning around, Katherine hopped onto her still-sleeping feet and stumbled over to the hatch that led below. She twisted the handle with numb fingers and reached in to unclasp the ladder. It dropped to an inch of the ground and stopped. Grumbling to herself, Katherine climbed down rung by rung, folded the ladder back up, and spun around.

The table was where they had left it, still with only three chairs. The engine was thumping happily thanks to some quick repairs that Daisy had given it yesterday, and the entire floor had been swept of a month's worth of grime and dust. At the far end, where the gondola became narrow and pinched and where windows allowed an almost-decent view of their surroundings, was Bastion behind the controls, one hand on the throttle and another on the wheel.

He looked back to her and smiled sheepishly. "Hello, Miss Katherine," he said.

She thumped forwards, shouldered him aside and glared at the console-mounted compass. It was wobbling away, north vaguely ahead of them and to the left. She closed her eyes and seethed. "You bloody, bumbling idiot!"

He started. "I, I, what?"

"You're an idjit, a half-brained, spineless numbskull." With both hands she threw the wheel around, letting it spin wildly for two turns before stopping it. Rudders creaked all around the ship and they began to turn slowly.

Turning herself, Katherine reached out to the table and yanked a map off of it, turning it so that Bastion could read. "They taught you what these are at the academy, right?" she asked, moving the map up and down between them.

"A navigation chart?" he asked tentatively.

"Uh-huh, and where does this dotted line say we should be?" she asked, tapping the sheet.

He nodded. "I, I saw that, but that's not an official route. It's not sanctioned, or even on the maps. We can't go that way."

She groaned. "Bastion, you understand how runic generators work, more or less?" He nodded, so she continued, "You see, you need metal to push yourself up, that way the ships can be heavier than air by a bit with no trouble. So we follow the metal roads, where we know that there's plenty of it to have a good grip. But who uses that road?"