The Wrought-Iron: Volume One (A Guns of Icarus Online Fanfiction)
Chapter 1: Leaving Home
"Alright dad I'm going, and this time I'll get work for sure! I promise, this time I won't come crawling back in the evening. I'll get a job on a crew today no matter what!" Lucy shouted out after her father as she left home in the morning.
She thought she heard her father grumble something about her being a fool for trying, but she wasn't listening. That and the fact that as soon as she stepped outside, the snow and wind blew all sound away from her.
Trudging through the snow, Lucy brushed her light brown hair out of her eyes looked up toward the docks. She would get a job as an engineer this time. True, she had been saying the same thing for a month now, ever since she had turned eighteen, and nothing had turned up, but she could feel it, today would be the day.
Ten minutes later she was slowly making her way up the icy steps of the docks to begin her search. By the time she got up to the first docking pad level, she was sweating in her furry coat despite the biting cold all around her, and her arms were already starting to tire from carrying her satchel and her engineering equipment. Looking toward the first of the airships nearest her, she began asking for work.
Six hours later Lucy found herself without work, in a bar at the dockmasters' station, wolfing down a hot meal that had been paid for by the last of her coins. As she ate she looked around at the other bar patrons. The place was packed, as it usually was, even though the town was a small place. The fact remained that the Anglean Republic was rather distrustful of the other nations, and so it reflected in the bar, as it was the only one in the whole town of Linergh that was open to foreigners. Most of the people in the bar consisted of crews who had docked their ships outside, while the others were a few locals who were brave enough to mingle with them. It was still quite early in the evening so all the singing, yelling, and drinking had not started up so much yet, but after having stayed there for dinner for a month now, Lucy new that it inevitably would.
Returning her attention back to her food, Lucy resumed eating when George, the barkeeper, strode up on the other side of the bar.
"Still no luck with work, eh Lucy?" he asked in his gruff voice. His generally unclean and rough-cut appearance along with his heavy accent usually deterred most trouble if it was directed at the barkeep, but Lucy knew he was really just a big, kind, bear of a man.
"No, still nothing George. I must have asked every crew docked here, but no one needs an engineer!" she said, finishing loudly.
"Well, we're as far north as you can get, the only ships that can get here are those that are kept in good enough condition to fly all the way up here and not freeze on the way. And they already have engineers to keep them together." George remarked before burying his face in his beard and wiping some mugs.
"Or they get up here through taping their ship together every step of the way and having a balloonful of luck," said a man sitting next to Lucy, who she had not noticed before.
"I'm sorry to eavesdrop young lady, but did you say you were looking to be a part of a crew as an engineer?" he asked.
Lucy looked the man up and down. He looked to be in his late twenties, was wearing a large blue overcoat with gold trimming and a black tricorn hat that did nothing to hide his short black ponytail. He wore round glasses, was disarmingly handsome, and was clean shaven, a rare thing for crewmembers, especially up north in Linergh.
"Yes, I am looking for a job, but I've already checked with every ship here and no one needs me," she replied.
"Well my ship just docked here less than an hour ago and we didn't see you come by," the man said, and for the briefest moment, Lucy thought she saw a twinkle in his eye.
"Name's Deere, missy, Markus Deere, and if you're still looking for work, I'd be happy to have you on board my ship. See we've been missing an engineer ever since we got attacked by pirates, must be… six months back."
Deere turned to the barman and gave a little laugh, "time sure does fly sometimes, doesn't it? Oh, well."
Turning back to Lucy, who had by now forgotten all about the half-eaten meal in front of her at the prospect of finally leaving the frozen wasteland of the town she called home, Deere continued, "so when you're finished, if you're wanting to join my crew, come down to docking clamp seventeen, meet the crew and see if we're the right fit for you. We could always use a real engineer."
With that, Deere got up from the bar, paid for his drink, and walked out the front door, into the snow, which had begun to blow more harshly.
Right before she turned back to her food, Lucy saw three men in an assortment of coats and hats clearly not fit for the weather, file out after Deere.
After waiting for a few more seconds, Lucy was about to forget about the men when her attention was caught by a man in a very long trench coat and a wide grey hat, as he melted out of the shadows of the bar and left.
Lucy looked around the bar, where none of the other patrons seemed to have even noticed the other men leaving, and indeed, she just realized herself, no one had left the bar for a while now. Finishing her meal as quickly as the hot food allowed her to, she picked up her belongings, put on her giant fur-lined coat and gloves, and went out into the rapidly darkening snowstorm.
Making her way to docking clamp seventeen, Lucy noticed how dark it was becoming, and hurried her pace. Docking clamp seventeen was one of the ones closer to the base of the mountain from which the whole docking assembly clung, made for larger ships whose weight couldn't be held by the smaller struts closer to the top. As she walked, she imagined what type of ship she would begin her journey on. A Spire? She thought, maybe a Mobula, wait don't tell me it's a…
As Lucy rounded the corner, she saw the ship attached to superstructure of the docks at the end of the clamping mechanism.
It was a Galleon.
One of the largest and most heavily armored ships in current production, it was the kind of airship that could hold a crew of up to ten.
Nearing the gangplank on the port side of the ship, she heard a commotion, but because of the dark, she couldn't make out much. One voice she recognized was that of Deere, the man from the bar who had given her this job opportunity, but the others she had never heard before.
Just as she made out five figures surrounding the base of the gangplank, a whirring noise and the sharp chink of metal on metal cut through the air and the conversation, ending it.
Standing back a short distance, Lucy watched as the same three men from the bar slowly backed away from Deere and the man in the large grey hat before turning around and walking back the Lucy had just come.
The whirring sound finally died down and Deere noticed Lucy standing off to the side in the shadows.
"Well, well, well, it looks like she showed up!" Deere exclaimed, "I'm guessing you want to join the crew pretty badly if those guys didn't faze you. What's your name missy?"
"I'm Lucy," Lucy replied.
"Well the whole crew isn't here right now, two of them are just selling some goods which were the reason we came all the way up here for, but if you want to come aboard, I can show you around the ship and you can meet who's here. Seem fair?" Deere asked.
"One moment. First and foremost I want to discuss the method of my payment." Lucy replied.
Deere gave a little laugh, then said, "At least you're a smart one Lucy. Fine. You get an equal share of whatever we get from our work, but only after we deduct maintenance costs, the cost of resupplying after every journey, any repairs you can't fix, and the payments on the ship. Deal?"
Lucy thought about it for a few minutes until a sharp female voice cut through the quiet.
"Just make up your frigging mind already! I'm gonna freeze to death before you say something, or did your mouth ice over?"
"Ah, yes," started Deere, "that's Shira, but you'll meet everyone in a minute-"
"I'll take the job." Lucy interrupted.
"Really? Well I'm glad to hear it, and I'm happy to have you." Turning back to the ship Deere yelled, "hear that Shira? We finally got ourselves a proper engineer. How do you like that?"
"Whoop de fuckin' doo, now let's get somewhere warm, I hate this cold." Came the biting reply from the dark ship.
As she approached Deere he came out to meet her.
"Alright then Lucy, My name, as you already know, is Markus Deere, and I'm the captain of this ship. Now that you're on my crew you'll have to refer to me as 'Captain,' 'Captain Markus,' or 'Captain Deere,' do you understand?" Captain Deere asked.
"Yes, sir, Captain!" Lucy replied to a rather astonished look on Captain Deere's face.
"I've never been called sir by any of my crew before, were you in the military or something?" Captain Deere questioned.
"No, captain, my dad just taught me to call people I work for 'sir' to be polite and proper." Lucy answered.
"Well, how nice of you. Now, I'm sure you would like to get out of this wind, you look like you're about to get blown over any minute now." Turning to his silent companion, he called, "Hey Cartridge, come help our new engineer get settled in."
The tall, thin figure in the black trench coat and wide grey hat came over to the two of them where he bent over and picked up Lucy's satchel and her toolbox from where she had put them down when she started talking to Captain Deere. Giving her a little nod and a twitch of the head which said follow me, he turned around and started making his way up the gangplank onto the ship.
The Captain, Lucy could understand, but as she followed the silent man into the silent ship, she could discern no emotion from him. If it even was a him. She had no idea if he was a man or a woman actually, chiefly because the trench coat hid any identity of gender and the figure in front of her wore a mask of sorts, with small, sophisticated-looking eyepieces, a blank metal v-shaped piece fitting over its mouth and nose, and two small metal hoses coming out of the back of the mask which attached to a small backpack-like contraption on its back.
The figure led her to the bottom deck where there were several small tent-like structures set up against the inside hull of the airship, near the engines.
It showed her to an empty one where it deposited her belongings and was about to leave when she said, "hey, the captain said your name was Cartridge, right?" to which the figure only looked back, piercing her with that mechanical gaze, and nodded, before leaving her in the light of the ships' few lamps.
As she was finishing packing away her things in a way she was comfortable with, she heard more people come on board above her.
Making her way up the staircase on the starboard side of the ship and getting onto the main deck, she saw several figures talking together in a cluster near the gangplank, the cold air making their breaths into frosty fog.
"Hey, what's going on captain?" Lucy asked as she saw the captain standing among them.
"Ah, here she is! She's the one I was telling you guys about, Harvey, Vanneeta, this is Lucy, our new engineer. Now that everyone's here, I guess proper introductions are in order."
Motioning to a slightly short guy with wispy brown hair and a cautious air about him, Captain Deere said, "Lucy, this is Harvey, our part-time cook and unofficial medic. This," he motioned to the figure completely enclosed in dark blue shawls, with only hazel eyes and dark skin around them showing through, "is Vanneeta, she's our other cook and was temporary mechanic before you showed up."
He turned over to the figure in black and grey, "You've already met Cartridge, he's the Gunnery Officer here, and he keeps the guns on board in pique condition."
Oh, Lucy thought, so he is a guy.
"This over here," he grabbed a kid by the shoulder who had been standing near the rear of the group, "is Leroy, our swabbie. He just cleans stuff and does errands that we tell him to, you'll be able to order him around too, by the way."
The kid looked to be around twelve or thirteen with a gaunt look to his pale face, and dusty hair that pointed out in all directions, while the large winter jacket he was wearing seemed to swamp him.
"And this, finally, is Shira, my first mate and the ship's resident asshole." Captain Deere was talking about a rather pretty, young woman with a generally hostile air about her.
"Cap'n, I swear, if you keep this up I'll gut you." Came the hissed response.
While there was obviously something going on here between the crew (Lucy wasn't very keen on finding out just what it was), Shira had switched her gaze from the Captain to Lucy.
She was staring at Lucy with either boredom or pure hate, Lucy couldn't decide which, and her coal-black eyes burned into whoever she looked at, while to Lucy, her hair, which was black and red and tangled past her shoulders, looked like the heat of a furnace.
"A word of warning," said Captain Deere, snapping Lucy back to the moment, "Shira here generally doesn't like people, so don't take anything she might say personally, but don't piss her off, or she'll shoot you."
"You say that like it's going to happen, Cap'n," Harvey spoke up, "It's only happened once, and Marvin deserved it for how he betrayed us."
What kind of a crew did I just join? Lucy thought to herself.
They left that evening, the giant Galleon lumbering away from the docking supports that clung to the cliff face, while Lucy looked back on her home town as it slowly receded into the distance. Turning toward the front of the ship she noticed that they were the only ones in the air that night.
Hearing someone come up behind her, she tensed, ready to react to the situation. The captain had introduced the crew alright, but she still had no indication of what kind of people they might be. Except for Shira. Lucy instantly disliked the first mate and knew that the same held true in reverse.
Luckily it was not the, "resident asshole" first mate, but rather Vanneeta, the other enigma on the crew.
What am I thinking? Lucy caught herself, they're all enigmas to me right now. The only ones I have any inkling of personality of are the Captain and his first mate.
Determined to learn more about the crew she had joined up with, she tried making small talk with the shrouded figure, but all her attempts were in vain. She soon realized that Vanneeta would only respond to yes or no questions, which she answered by nodding or shaking her head. Anything beyond that only yielded a blank stare from within the dark shawl.
Becoming more and more uncomfortable with her current situation, she was saved as the swabbie, Leroy, came over with a message that the Captain wanted to see Vanneeta. Nodding in his direction, she cast one last look at Lucy, gave a short bow, and went in search of the Captain.
"Thanks, kid, you saved me there, I felt like I really wasn't getting through to her at all. You're not all like that are you? I mean, all quiet and mysterious for no reason," Lucy said as the two watched Vanneeta disappear belowdecks.
The boy gave her a sort-of uncertain look before giving a sheepish reply of "You're… welcome… as for the others… they're okay… you just have to get to… you know… get to know them better"
Not wanting to be put off by her new companion's awkward reply, she pressed on.
"So, tell me Leroy, what are they all like? How'd you even come to get mixed up with all of them in the first place?"
"Umm… well…-"
"Okay, one thing, you have to stop with the muttering, I can barely hear you, you have to speak up and keep the words flowing, okay? The Captain said I can give you orders, but I don't really want to think of it that way, we're crewmates, alright? You don't have to be so nervous around me. In fact I'm the one who should be nervous, I don't know any of you, and I just sort of got scooped into all this, I didn't even really think about what I was doing, and now I'm flying to who knows where."
His expression stopped her from saying any more.
"Wow… and I thought I was nervous," Leroy said with a hoarse chuckle. "I guess you're right though… you do have more to be scared of than I do right now."
"Damn right I do," Lucy said with a grin. She'd finally broken the ice a little bit, at least with one of the crewmembers.
Leroy was about to say something when the wind suddenly picked and he was nearly bowled over by the force of it.
"Here, why don't we get belowdecks, we'll actually be able to hear each other a bit, and neither of us will get thrown overboard."
As Leroy started agreeing with her, the ship was hit by another jolt in the increasingly turbulent air as snow swirled around them, obscuring their vision even more.
It was at that point that the first mate, Shira came up on the deck, hollering at them to get somewhere safe before the storm got worse. Making their way to the ladder that led to the lower decks, Lucy had to steady the kid to make sure he didn't get bowled over by the strong winds, and together they managed it, and when they were both safe, they shared a small laugh, just for the sake that they were starting to trust each other.