WIP birdfucking

        I seem to be damned to the worst luck. The captain has, once again, decided that cutting travel time is more prudent than ensuring crew safety and has decided to travel through the Corum Gehhenae. Of course I vetoed the decision immediately; if it had been my choice, we would be steering well clear of those treacherous airways, especially since our own airship and piloting skills are insufficient to make the trip on our own, meaning we’ll have to outsource help from the Accips.

        The captain shot me down immediately, assuring me that the trip would go smoothly and that I was simply being paranoid and just a tad bit prejudiced. Do not get me wrong, Captain Vesper is a good man and has gotten me and the rest of the crew out of jams before, but has also put us in a few with his stubbornness and somewhat questionable decisions. And I do take offense to the accusation that I am prejudiced; I have adapted well to a crew with barely any other humans besides myself, the captain, and the cook. But these are accips we are talking about here! Those wretched hawkmen are pirates and scoundrels, and the captain knows. The only reason anyone lets them ferry ships through the Corum is because of their incredible propensity for flight, both airship and natural. I am still loathe to trust a snake just because it points me towards home.

        Damn this turbulence--the cabin shakes more frequently the closer we draw to the Corum. The stabilizers, as good as they are, only do so much. We will meet with the feathered pirates tomorrow to negotiate an escort through that infernal windstorm. I only hope that they do not attempt to rob us of our wares then and there, but I keep my sword and rifle at my side, and my mirabilis machina always ready.



 

        I suppose the captain is due some credit and apology; the initial meeting and contracting with the accips, while nerve wracking for me, was largely uneventful. Their leader is a grizzled fellow, perhaps in his fifties, who bears proudly the results of his ill-gotten gains, both from his flashy baubles and jewelry procured from profit or privateering--I care not to know which--as well as his plethora of scars and prosthetic left wing.

        As to be expected, he was a crass and boastful fellow, although surprisingly amiable. The pirate captain and the crew that flanked him seemed to hit it off with Captain Vesper and the rest of my crewmates; I, myself, preferred to simply observe the proceedings with respectful silence, although to my annoyance more than once did an accip elbow me in the ribs to see if I was “human or statue”. No sooner had the details and payment for our trip been hammered out had the old hawkman brought up the matter of drink, which the captain took to with distressing swiftness. Before I knew it, we were scheduled to join in with the air pirates in a bought of drunken revelry on their mothership this very evening, after other necessary preparations had been attended to.

        After the meeting was adjourned, I sought out the captain hoping to catch him in private, but the best I could manage was in the corridors of our own airship, outside of earshot of the Accips. Our mechanic, Mahiri, was with him, and I knew better than to talk about such things to the captain with her around, but seeing no other opportunity to veto the decision I took my chances.

        Clearing my throat, I began to ask the captain to reconsider the whole situation, but he shook his head with that fatherly smile of his and stopped me before I could finish.

“I know what you’re going to ask, Ambrus,” he said, folding his arms, “and the answer is no. This is the best means for us to get through the Corum, and even if I did want to go a different way we’ve already come too far to reconsider.”

        I had expected as much, but could not be so easily dissuaded. “But Captain, even if that’s the case, don’t you think that just agreeing to go get drunk with them--in their own territory, mind you--is a bit foolhardy? I mean, when all is said and done, they are pirates. They run a...legitimate-seeming business, but what if they’re just expecting to rob us of everything when they’ve the advantage?”

        The captain looked as if he was to say something, but Mahiri finished his thought before he could articulate it (I have to wonder if Sokwe have some sort of inborn precognition of which they are reluctant to inform others?). “C’mon, Ambrus,” she said, batting me lightly with her chimpanzee-like tail as she is wont to do when having fun at my expense. “Lighten up a little. You gotta have some fun once in awhile instead of just brooding over ledgers and gears. Get to know your new friends a little.”

        I pulled back from her tail--Sokwe are just as mischievous as the monkeys they resemble. “I have plenty of fun in my life, thank you very much. And they are not friends.”

        “But they are our business partners and guides,” Captain Vesper interjected. “Don’t you think, if we are to travel with and depend on them for at least a week, we should be on friendly terms? Or do you not have faith in my decisions?”

        I could not answer, as the directness of the question and the shame it brought at least temporarily halted my objections. The captain put his hand on my shoulder and spoke to me calmly. “Ambrus, I know you’re worried and are just thinking about the good of the crew, and I appreciate that. But you have to trust me on this. Give them a chance; and you know that if something were to go wrong, well…” he chuckled. “You’ve lived through the scrapes I’ve pulled us out of.”

        I could only nod--the captain had a point, and had saved our lives when I thought all was lost more than a handful of times. Seeing as I could no longer argue the point, the captain excused himself and went back to discussing the logistics of the flight and staying with the Accip fleet with Mahiri, while I simply retired to my quarters.

        I now watch the clock with dread as I write these words. The time for revelry is drawing near, yet it fills me with the sense of anxiousness as a condemned man counting down the hours to his final punishment. I might be imbibing more than I had originally suspected tonight.

 

        I must admit, I am quite confused.

        I will confess to being a tad inebriated when documenting this, but my mind is still clear enough to put words to paper, and I want these facts recorded now so I can better understand them later. It seems that while I was ultimately correct in my suspicions that something would happen tonight, I was incorrect in the scope. There was no catastrophe, no betrayal or violence or robbery this night, but what happened to me, personally, still fills me with a pounding sense of worry.

        To put it bluntly: one of the accips has taken a liking to me.

        Normally, such a thing would not bother me--I am not such a prude or a shut-in as people like Mahiri would suggest, and am no stranger sexual involvement with women or men--but the source of this interest is making me more than a bit uncomfortable.

        The hawkman’s name is Surgere. He stands at least two heads taller than I, and makes no effort to hide the fact that his work has given him a chiseled physique--indeed, I feel dwarfed by him. His feathers are golden brown, his eyes a rather piercing gold, and he has an air of annoying confidence, one that is--

        I waste too much time on petty descriptions; let me get to the point while I can still best recall events. The “festivities”, if they could be called as such, took place on their deck and in the mess hall below. The whole place reeked of shoddy alcohol and the sweat and musk built up by hawkmen inhabiting such a place for so long, but no one aside from myself seemed to even notice it. The mothership and all the other airships, including our own, were anchored in the cliffside port of one of the Accips’ mountain-carved towns (although whether it was truly a town or just a waystation for criminals and other ne’er-do-wells I do not know, as I did not wish to venture into it), although due to our proximity to the Corum and the number of moving bodies the ship still rocked and swayed at times, a feeling that alcohol refused to blot out.

        At the captain’s urging, I sat with the crew and made an attempt to be sociable, although I was perfectly content with sitting out of the way of most of the action, letting any conversation that happened be one the pirates brought up, not myself. A few of them tried to prod me into speaking, asking me of my previous exploits or--more often than not--boasting drunkenly about their past misadventures, often in distressingly explicit detail. I, myself, managed to smile and nod along, liberally taking drinks of what passed for liquor.

        At some point or another, however, I realized there was one of the accips that kept looking my way. The pirates around me seemed to have noticed too, and this fact made them laugh and make those irritating caws and screeches they are wont to do, which I assume is akin to catcalling.

        Eventually I bit and asked what the deal was, to which one of the pirates, a rather lanky one missing an eye simply laughed more. “You’re marked, that’s what.”

        “Marked for…?”

        “Ol’ Surgere, he’s got his eye on you. I bet it’s been ages since he’s been with a smoothskin.” He nudged me in the ribs. “Hope ya swing that way; might be yer lucky night!”

        I did not speak further, as my preference in either sex was of little concern to me at that moment. They made a few more vulgar jokes and jabs before eventually moving back to conversing with themselves when they realized I would not be egged on. However, it did little to put my mind at ease. That accip is larger than I, much broader, chiseled build, and I was out of my element and in his. If he really had such lewd machinations, would I be able to stop him? I had my mirabliss machina with me, yes, but my confidence in its use was waning. My mind began to fill with all the sorts of devious, carnal things he was probably plotting to do to me, and in my increasing distress, I turned more and more toward drink to see reprieve.

        That was a mistake, it seems; as I kept drinking, I did not realize I was consuming beverages paid for by someone else. Namely, him. Before I knew it, Surgere was sitting adjacent to me. I could think of nothing to say, and he offered some words--a toast to our new partnership or something of the sort? I am a bit foggy--and we drank. He began to say more, but I told him I had work to do and was already drawing too heavy on the spirits, and used that excuse to take my leave before he could say anything else.

        I must have checked behind me no less than a thousand times as I made my way back to my quarters. The door is bolted tight; he cannot get me in here. I feel, however, that the alcohol has worked its magic on me too well, and I must record further in the morning. Hopefully, I can sort things out then.