I'm very not in a good mood right now. My german oral disc ist gebrochen, and the internet is being pissy and I hate typing and I fear this story will not live up too much less exceed anyone's expectations being I am awful at twists so I generally avoid the crap out of them. So prepare for disappointment just in case.
There are some flash back sequences in this story, so be prepared for those hateful long italicized sections. I'm such a hypocrite.
"Your daughter? Maka?" Kidd was frustrated, but thankfully didn't have to deal with disbelief like many other captains in his situations would. Kidd believed in the evidence. A man of science who firmly believed in equal opportunities. But that didn't ease his annoyance, he knew where the Niddhogg was headed, and they were giving chase, but not fast enough. How could a cargo ship, especially one as old as the Niddhogg be that fast? they had no chance of catching up befor it got to the port- they best they could do was send a message and hope it arrived before the ship.
Everyone was aware of the huge scandal that was Spirit Albarn and his wife Kami's broken down marriage, and his estranged daughter.
"When Maka was little," Spirit smiled nostalgically, "She was obsessed with the Ancient Airships and the lost Technologies- she made me and Kami read them to her as bedtime stories, like they were fairy tales, and after we tucked her in, she'd go right on and read some more. She'd read the Books of Eibon by the time eight and devoured any airship manuals she could get her hands on. She could take apart and rebuild a car engine before she turned nine. She studied every book on airships and engines and clockwork she could get her hands on. She went to the junkyard everyday until she was twelve, convinced she could crack it if she worked with the scraps. The owner and his wife treated her like family. I suppose, for her, it was an escape," Spirit's face darkened, the note of pride evaporated from his voice.
"That was were she met him. Soul Evans, musical not-prodigy-enough-for-his-parents was skipping out on a lesson, and studying a flying manual. Unfortunately, around that time, I put my foot down, trying to do what was best for any young girl, but evidently not what was best for Maka. Maka had to get her head of books and plant her feet firmly on the ground. No airships, no engines and no Soul. He was a corrupting influence. A rebel, he was out of control and all he wanted to be in the world was a pilot, " Kidd looked a bit disgruntled-what was wrong with being a pilot, he wanted to know. " His reputation for truancy and ill-commitment exceeded him and his parents had to make extremely sizable donations to ensure his spot in Shibusen.
"We don't know when it started, but Maka started sneaking out at night me and Kami were too caught up in our problems to notice anything other than how well she was getting on in more suitable practices for young ladies- foreign languages, the management of a household, drawing and music.
"We woke up one morning, only a couple of weeks before Maka would be properly allowed out into society, and Maka, our daughter was gone. The only thing she'd left was a clockwork sparrow and letter explaining that she and Soul had eloped together." It was a while before anyone spoke again.
"I remember Soul," Kidd said, more to break the silence than for any other reason, "He quit the Academy after just one week. Day eight he just never showed, his dorm locker was cleared out and we were never told what happened to him."
"Well, the Evans certainly shelled out to keep the word that Soul eloped with a girl from a lower station," Spirit, had been a student of the Academy, but like Black*Star he'd been a charity case-the more politically correct term was 'scholarship student'.
"I don't think they eloped," said Tsubaki quietly, startling everyone. Tsubaki was a regular romantic and apart for the large amounts of tech in her room, there were also piles of romance novels.
"No? They just live on an airship alone together?"
"Would you," Tsubaki paused, a faint pink dusting her cheeks as she called on every romantic hero she'd ever encountered in the literary world, "Would you ever have left Kami like Soul just left Maka?" Spirit shook his head, but hastened to cobble together some kind of explanation.
"They were just kids! they didn't understand the commitment they were-" Ignoring the fact the Spirit in this situation, and for once, might actually know what he was talking about in relation to ways to the heart, Liz interrupted.
"Face it Albarn," She spun a revolver on her finger, "You don't want to believe that your little girl Maka built the the Ghost, probably the best ship in exsistance, and managed to persuade her friend to fly it.
"I didn't think the conversation had escalated to that yet. We just went from A to Z and skipped H to U." Hiro pointed out, somewhat out of character, normally he was content to sit in the background and act at ship stenographer.
"Well the damn thing didn't just fall out of the sky did it?" Liz asked what the crew could only assume was a rhetorical question.
"Tsubaki, contact the Moher port authorities and let them know that the Niddhogg's coming rather unexpected to port, they'll want to search it and arrest the crew and Maka Albarn-" Kidd remembered his decision to notify the authorities.
"What does Maka look like, Spirit? Tsubaki asked gently, but there was no need for fear, a soft, reminiscent expression appeared on Spirit's face. It was clear that no matter what she'd done and what he'd done , his daughter still meant the absolute world to him.
"She's nineteen," Three years since she run away, and the urban legend had started around then, " She got ash blonde hair like her mother and the same wonderful olive-green eyes. She's quite pale, but she got nerves of steel."
"Tsubaki, don't forget to tell them that the women on board were being trafficked. Except, of course Maka Albarn."
"On it!" Tsubaki chirped.
"Hiro, can you sit with Spirit and work up some kind of sketch? Of Maka." Hiro looked significantly less pleased with his task, but nevertheless, he moved to sit beside Spirit, pulling a larger sheet of paper across the table to work on.
"Spirit, what's the name of the junkyard Maka used to visit so often? She must have built the Ghost there. We can get some ground people to check it out, with Father's approval." The Ghost was no only a real and tangible ship, but it had been built by a young teenager. Barely more than a child.
"Don't blame me and don't blame the Ghost Soul!" Maka screeched, it had been a long day, a longer night and to top it all off, Soul was leaving for the Academy soon. Patience was a virtue, but even on her best days, not one she had been blessed with. "It's not my fault you can't focus your wavelength!"
"I don't even- What the fuck does that even mean?!" Soul grumbled, albeit incredibly loudly, for grumbling. "Why can't you fly it?"
"I just can't. You wouldn't understand if I explained it to you," Maka said, before trying to take a deep, calming breathe. It ended up being more of a yawn than anything else "You have to instead."
"Why do I have to? Maka, you're the one who figured all this out, the one who built this airship that can't fly for reasons that make absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. this is your theory, and it only makes sense to you."
"Just try Soul, please. Once more. That's all I ask, I promise. I won't ask again." The defeat and resignation in her voice was heartbreaking, to beaten to even yell at him anymore.
Soul got in the cockpit- you couldn't describe that tiny space as anything but 'pit', on any other ship it was the bridge, but the Ghost was just way too small, it was a pit. And Soul tried once more, tried like his enthusiasm hadn't seriously waned and focused on the faith he still had in his best, his only (let's call a spade a spade) friend, and tried. He really did try to wrap his head around the most abstract conceptual theory he'd ever encountered and tried to fly that goddamn ship. But it still wouldn't fly.
Maka started crying and when Soul had arrived on the scene, getting in and out of the ship took a while, he immediately recognized what kind of tears they were and ignored them. These were quiet personal tears, and each little ratcheted barely audible sob hurt. It seemed like a long time they sat there, Soul keeping a silent vigil on the piles of scrap, old airships and motorcars, avoiding catching so much as a glimpse of Maka's shiny tear filled eyes.
But she sniffed once , and opened her mouth to speak. And that's when Soul knew it was time to break out the chivalry and cough up the monogrammed handkerchief so she could dry her eyes. She scrubbed at her tear-stained cheeks and the dark hollows under her eyes.
"I saw your soul once. When you were playing the piano."
"You've seen me play a thousand times, and I thought you could always see my soul."
"Not like that," Maka shook her head, "It was different that time. It really was you,"
"I don't understand Maka," She shivered against the cold night air. He'd offer her his jacket, or else silently drape it across her shoulders, but he'd left it in the cockpit. He draped an arm over her shoulders. She was wearing a jacket, but it was so old and worn and so incredibly thin, that it may as well not have even been there for all the warmth it was conserving.
"Your parents weren't home. and Wes was out with friends or something, I don't remember. And, and you invited me over. I'd never been to your house before, nor since- what business did a lowly navigator's out-of-wedlock daughter have there?" She chuckled quietly, remembering the memory and leaned into Soul, probably because of the cold but maybe because of reasons Soul couldn't afford to think. As much as her grandparents had attempted to rush the ceremony, Maka had been born a whole three days out of wedlock.
"I asked if you would play for me-do you remember? I was amazed by the gran piano, it was unbelievable to me how close it was, how important and expensive and I couldn't believe you got to use something like that every day.
"And you played me a piece you write yourself, one that you hadn't played to anyone before. One that you hadn't even played before, you'd composed it all in your head. It was dark and strange and wonderful and it made your soul swell, and it was dark and twisted and that was okay because it was you and you were so focused and it was crazy and insane had you were in control of it all. And that's how I knew, and everything just fell into place right before my eyes and I cracked it right there in your bedroom.
"Soul you have to fly the Ghost because every piece I made, I attuned it to your soul. Every piece of myself I put into this airship, I focused it onto your wavelength as I saw it in that moment."
"Oh. Oh. So you're saying that- oh,"
"Soul I made the Ghost for you because your soul, it's the most dynamic, interesting. Nobody else could fly this ship because nobody else has a soul like yours, not anymore. All the human souls are boring and cast in the same mold. Even my own soul... your soul, it's just the most amazing- Soul it's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
"But I haven't seen it like that since then."
"I know what's missing,"
Soul brought the organ the next day. He fixed it patiently and Maka some how installed the organ with the patience she only seemed to have when it cam to matters relating to her airship, even after Soul had left for the Academy. Not that that had lasted very long.
Maka used a knife to jimmy open Soul's dorm window, a trick she later taught him, and confided that she'd learned for the scrap master's oldest son. The one with the criminal record. He'd also taught her how to pick locks and pockets.
"Soul!" She hissed, throwing a copy of the bestselling 'Die Theoretische Elektrische Einschaften von Kraft- und Arbeitsmaschinen'* through the window at him. Nothing less than seven hundred pages, preferably in a foreign language, could even hope to wake Soul. "Get your ass out here!"
Soul pulled a jacket and his polished boots on over his regulation pjamas. The very reason the boots were polished every night was to act as evidence should someone sneak out at night, but Soul wasn't fussed about that- he'd rather any punishment over being on Maka's bad side. He climbed out the window, a combination of glad, surprised and slightly disappointed about how easy it was to sneak out of the most prolific pilot academy in the world. Even if it was just to the almost neighbouring scrapyard.
The organ was installed and in tune-it only took Soul a second to check that. Soul preferred the piano, but when he'd seen the organ, he just hadn't been able to let it go. Soul sat down, with Maka hovering over his shoulder anxiously, and started to play. It was loud, perhaps too loud, but when the airship juddered and lifted off the ground, the mutual consensus was that neither of them cared all that much about noise pollution.
Admittedly it didn't fly particularly high, but that was because as soon as it lifted a foot off the ground, Soul stopped playing in surprise and the airship crashed -not every far- back to earth. Soul managed to keep his cool for about ten seconds before his face split into the widest most genuine grin Maka had ever seen grace his face.
"Maka! You did it!" His ruby eyes sparkled, and he was almost knocked off his feet when Maka threw her arms around him. In fact, the only reason he wasn't is because that in the cockpit there wasn't enough space to properly fall over, especially now with the organ.
"Soul, I never thought-"
They were so caught up in the moment, years of frustration and failure having being worth it and accomplished something after all their efforts and neither of them had been this happy in a very long time and four years of sneaking out every night does make for incredibly sleep deprived teenagers, that soul did something that he still has no idea if he regrets or not.
He kissed her.
And she kissed him back too, even if it was just for a minute until they both froze and stepped back and hastened to avoid eye contact at all costs. The space between them became rapidly awkward and uncomfortable.
Maka lay down on the ground and looked at the stars, locating the familiar constellations. They were like old friends waving and twinkling at her. Soul lay down beside her and gazed up at the stars, and it seemed a year and a day before either one of them spoke.
"You know what this means, right?"
"We can leave." She stated it factually, as if she were telling him the time. "You don't have to you know, you've got a bright future ahead of you, and I wouldn't want to be the one-"
"I might have a bright future ahead of me, but the Ghost is a legend in the making. I think I'll go down in history instead," Soul replied, chancing a sideways glance at her to gauge her reaction. "Besides, I want to go with you." Her cheeks coloured.
"Yeah, I have... always wanted to escape. To go on a grand adventure, but you already knew that."
"How can we make sure they won't come looking for us?" Both of them know the 'they' he is taking about. Her parents, too caught up in their own disaster to even bother stuffing pillows under the covers as a facsimile, and Soul's own family, to whom he has been a disappointment for a very long time. Maka has thought this true and she has only come up with two solutions, which are easily sorted into two categories; feasible and unfeasible.
"We have to elope," She blushed, recalling their very recent kiss, "Or, pretend to at any rate," she quickly amended.
"Huh?"
"It'll be easy for me to disappear, to slip through the cracks- not so much you Soul," Soul didn't argue, and nor could he admit did he have any basis for one. "If you elope with me, or at least appear to , anyway-"
"My parents wouldn't even want me back," Soul said, surprising himself with the lack of bitterness in his voice.
"Soul, they'd be ashamed and disappointed that you chose me," it was painful to admit it, but she couldn't imagine how much it would hurt to admit exactly how much Soul's parents disapproval of her stings. "They, they-"
"They wouldn't even want me back." Soul's voice is flat, but firm.
"You'd be free,"
"Yeah, I would," Soul grins, but it's an empty one in comparison to his earlier elation. "Besides, the Academy's not ready for a cool guy like me."
"Is that a-"
"Maka," Soul rolled over on to his side to face her. He can see the constellations mirrored in her eyes. Somehow, they look even better there; like that's where they should have been this entire time. "Will you do me the honour of pretending to elope with me?"
"Yeah, sure." They bump fists, sealing the 'marriage' without the more traditional exchanging of rings.
*The Theoretical Electrical Properties of Engines and Machines (German, if anyone can do translating better than I can please confirm/deny this translation)
The next chapter shall probably be very much in this vein, sprinkles of fluff and my weak attempts at humour and emotions. I was in the process of maths and I needed fluff as comfort. Perhaps more flashbacks. I am uncertain.
As always, constructive criticisms are most welcome and please don't hesitate to ask any questions you have. Updates are farther apart because school.
Note-I try not to go over 3000 words per chapter(and sometimes it's easy and sometime it's not), because of long chapters are bothersome to read online in my opinion.