A/N- Hello Everyone! I now give you the first chapter of the Ceto story. Please feel free to review or even suggest ideas.
Disclaimer: Im not Mr. Westerfeld
One
Welcome To Amiens
The pub shook as another bomb run was taking place a few towns over. Sounds of shivering glass and distant rumbles silenced the room. Some people paused, listening and waiting for a shell to meet them with same fate as the distant town. While others simply let the liquor continue to burn down their throats without hesitation. Alek and Deryn entered the pub, the door shutting behind them with a quake.
"Are you sure this is an Inn?" Deryn asked walking up to the bar. Alek noticed that she took care to use her boys' voice. It didn't come as a surprise given the amount of testosterone in the room. The former prince joined her and took his own precautions. He looked at everyone in the pub making sure that they weren't followed or expected. Volger's paranoia had seemed to rub off on him.
"Yes, I'm sure of it." He gave a reassuring glance to Deryn, "We will be gone by morning."
Bas de L'auberge de Auderge was one of the few standing pubs that doubled as an inn, in this part of France. Its close vicinity to the western front did not make a very desirable location and yet the room was full of people, most of who were allied soldiers. All were drinking, laughing, or telling war stories in loud, slurred French. A few gathered around a woman playing at a battered piano near the stairs that lead up into the inn part of the pub. The only resident that appeared sober was a young man that sat at the far end of the bar, taking small sips of clear liquor, his eyes never leaving the papers spread out in front of him.
Bovril seemed to be the only one of the trio, enjoying the new setting. The Loris was tucked away in the rucksack on Deryn's back, but was still contently muttering bits of the new language and trying its best to mimic the piano.
"Puis-je vous aider?" the bar tender asked, spitting into a glass before taking a rag to it. The young man at the end of the bar noticed and lowered his own glass and pushed to the side, earning a chuckle from Deryn.
Alek switched to French, "Uh, yes. We would like to rent one of your rooms, please?" He placed a few coins on the bar. The bar tender looked between the two then replaced the coins with a key that bore a tag with a faded "3" in elegant script. Alek gave his thanks and gathered up the key.
As he and Deryn made their way to the stairs, one of the soldiers grabbed Deryn by the arm and plopped her down beside him.
"Aye! Whsy vdon't you layds join ufs sfor ja drink?" The man said obviously drunk, but in English of all things. His arm was draped around Deryn's shoulders and Alek could smell the alcohol from where he was standing. He could see the shock in the former middies eyes and her desperate attempts to escape the soldiers grasp. As Alek rushed over, an arm extended in front of him before he could reach her. He looked to see who had stopped him and saw the young man from the bar. A scowl nestled between his brows.
"Captain Prosper?" He said in French, walking to stand in front of the drunken man, "I do believe I heard a woman calling your name from the street." The young man seemed irritated in the midst of drunken men. Captain Prosper perked up and immediately stumbled his way to door while the rest of the men whistled and howled. How clever.
Deryn got up and walked back over the Alek, brushing her hands over the spots where the drunks arm was. Alek turned to thank the man, but he had already returned to the bar.
"Sir?" Deryn asked already one step ahead of the former prince, "Thank you for the help."
The man turned to face the pair fully, "Anytime my dear boy." He said and turned back to gather up his things, "My name is Felix." Felix had a square jaw and fine features with a scar that parted the tip of his right eyebrow from the rest. His dark hair was short on the sides, almost shaven, with long messy waves on the top that showed endless nights of restless fingers combing their way through it. Though he looked tired, he was well shaven and alert, his voice silvery and appealing. He looked as though he were in his late twenties or early thirties and was rather thin for a man and only a bit taller than Deryn.
Alek and Deryn both gave him their thanks once more, but before the two could part ways with Felix, the man placed a hat upon his head. Not just any hat. A hat they had grown far too familiar with. A black bowler. The trademark of a boffin.
After the boffin finished placing his papers in a leather shoulder bag he turned to begin his walk to the stairs but bumped dead into Alek, "Oh my heavens, I didnt see you there, lad." Felix said placing a hand on Alek's shoulder to balance himself. "I thought you two had left already. Did I miss a question?"
"No sir, it's just", Alek said trying to think of the right words to say. This man could be a spy after all, "It's just that… You wouldn't happen to be Dr. Morin or know of him?"
"Aye", he answered raising his scared brow, "that is me". Dr. Morin studied them through large round glasses, seeming to take in every detail about them. Suddenly his eyes grew wide, "I-I know you! I've seen you… In the papers! You're that prin-"
"Shhh!" Alek felt himself tense up and saw how Deryn placed her hand near her belt where her rigging knife was, "Please, may we speak somewhere more private?"
Dr. Morin nodded, immediately recomposing himself, "But before we go." The boffin reached a hand toward the rafters of the pub making a small whistling noise that reminded Alek of the whistles on the Leviathan. Alek followed the direction of the out stretched arm and saw a strange dark creature staring at them through large amber eyes. It to extend an arm down to the doctor's and climbed its way down onto his shoulder. The creature looked to be a mix of a lemur and a bat and was about the size of a dog. It had thin black hair that grew thick around the neck and tail but almost if not completely absent around the paws, muzzle, eyes, and abdomen. Its large leathery wings wavered, opening and reopening to keep itself balanced. "This is Cher Ami. Now, where were we?"
Dr. Morin's room at the inn looked like a mad man had projected his thoughts on to the walls. Papers were pinned to random places with bits of strings connecting most of them. Some even hung from the ceiling. Why was it that every boffin they came across had a few loose screws?
"I hope this is private enough for you", the boffin began to collect the papers and neatly place them in a pile on a small writing desk, "sorry about the mess."
"It's alright, this will do" Deryn said while glancing at the clutter. The half empty cups of coffee and liquor strewn around the room filled the air with their smells.
Alek went to walk further into the room but was stopped by a couple stacks of old, dusty books. "You seem to like books" Alek said with a hidden smirk.
Felix looked up from his collection of papers, he looked distracted. "Oh yes, you can never know too much. Plus it helps to keep the ol'gears running." he pointed to his temple. "Care to explain yourselves?"
"Yes of course," Alek started, "I am Alek Hohenberg and this is Dylan Sharp." He motioned a hand to Deryn who nodded politely. She was removing the rucksack from her back allowing Bovril to crawl its way out onto her shoulder.
"Mister Sharp," it chirped happily.
"Aye and this is Bovril" Deryn added, scratching the beasties head. Cher Ami leaped down from its place on top of the room's wardrobe eyeing the loris with intense curiosity. "Dr. Barlow said you knew what the stolen plans were all about." Deryn said with a slow pace.
"Dr. Barlow?" Felix pulled out couple seats for them that looked an awful lot like the ones from the pub. "The Society sent you?"
"Yes." They took the seats and adjusted them accordingly around a map that Felix had laid out. Alek removed a few papers that had gotten caught underneath his chair legs and handed them to the doctor. A few rough sketches of an airship stretched across the white expanse; the word Ceto was written boldly at the top, "I believe we were sent for this."
"That's what I thought or hoped more like." Dr. Morin placed the drawing off to the side, "Though I didn't quite expect them to send a Prince and a sailor."
"Well that's what you got. So what do you know about these blueprints?" Deryn said not looking up from the map.
"More oppressing matters," Bovril reminded them in Dr. Barlow's voice from a top a stack of books. The Loris was saying simple words and phrases with slow, careful clarity to Cher Ami. Cher Ami only replied with snuffles and staring.
"The beasties right." Deryn agreed, loosening her tie for this could be a long night.
Dr. Morin gave a focused nod and began.