#AN: This has been more or less done since the last chapter went up, but I wanted to have something for the chapter after before posting this and... yeah, getting things to fit together has been a pain. I waffled endlessly on having another transition chapter, but ultimately decided that if I didn't at least lay some of this groundwork, a whole lot of things later will feel like asspulls. Maybe I'll screw it up anyway.
Chapter 17: Booned Docks and Saints, Jurisprudence of (pp. 349)
Things were coming together. They had a royal mandate, they had what was apparently a ship made by a genius ogre or something, they had a crew that even wasn't pirates, and Louise finally had some peace and quiet while Kirche was off "playing" with her new "toy".
No! The ship is the toy and the playing is non-sexual. Bad brain, don't think about the crew- aaaaah dammit. She covered her face with both hands, trying to banish the imagery her imagination conjured up.
"Hmph, it's not like it even matters if she did!" The justification she gave the empty room sounded rather hollow for some reason, but it was enough for her to snap back to her research. So engrossed was she that she didn't notice someone had entered until two long, hard objects were placed on the desk in front of her.
"Tabitha, what is this?" She wasn't really sure how she knew the source of this interruption without seeing her, but the question had escaped before she had a chance to think about it.
"Dagger and colichemarde," Tabitha replied from her periphery.
"Yes. But why have you placed them on top of my homework?" Louise had a sinking suspicion that her research binge was coming to an abrupt end.
"You need training." Tabitha must have taken her incredulity as a request for more information for once. "This will allow you to protect yourself from those who encroach."
"Are you nuts? I'm a noble!"
"And defenseless."
"Grr, that's why I have you, isn't it!?"
"Preparedness is also my job."
"Why does this even matter!" In some far off corner of her perception, she was aware she was being a brat, but it was just so... menial. Thuggish. An acknowledgment that she was a useless mage.
"A demonstration," Tabitha said, pointing at a spot in the middle of the ornate area rug that covered the smooth stone of the castle. "Stand, please. Wand out." Tentatively, Louise rose from the desk chair to take the indicated position. Then Tabitha stepped close and commanded: "Aim at me."
Louise cocked her head to the side a bit, shrugged, and took a step back to- Oh, Founder's sakes, I see how it is... Naturally, Tabitha moved with her. She took a few more steps but Tabitha stuck to her the whole way, even when she tried to fake her out.
"Nnnnnnn, Tabitha! I can't do what you said if you're so close!" she complained. It was a reflex, but as soon as she said it, she realised she had just played her part perfectly.
"Precisely. Your current magic lacks versatility and you have low mobility. Carrying a sidearm is common sense." With that, she pantomimed pulling the dagger from her bandolier (Huh, that's new.) and stabbing Louise several times in quick succession, a collection of wounds that would have left her in need of several high-grade healing spells in rapid succession. "I can teach you," Tabitha offered. Louise didn't need a revealing facial expression to deduce she was feeling a bit pleased with herself. It... kind of pissed her off.
"No! You know what? I don't want to! I'll never be good at it anyway!"
"Then you will remain when we leave."
"Uuuu, Tabitha, you're no fair! My body is weak and small!"
"Lightweight thrusting weapons moot that." Louise was acutely aware by this point that the battle was long lost and her familiar would be teaching her the finer points of stabbing people to death.
Tabitha came back from the so-called "High Reliquary" as a pilgrim who had unintentionally stumbled onto enlightenment, as if such a thing were just found laying around in subterranean storage vaults. Or happened to be numerous, long, hollow, and made of a truly mind-boggling quantity of exotic tempered steel and other metals of a character that only earth mages were capable of reproducing.
And like a pilgrim, it ignited a kind of fire within her that she had never felt before as she began exploring the possibilities afforded by this opportunity.
However, it was only after Kirche dragged her on a flight exercise (read: "joyride") in the unusual ship they had procured that she made the final connection. There was just one question that needed answered:
"Armament load limits. Tell me."
"Coals alight, what's gotten into you, Tabitha?" A strange question, considering the source. But it was the case that she was possibly just a bit more... fervent... than usual. But she had a good reason, and she fully intended to spread the gospel of...
"Guns." Tabitha stated it plainly. There was no question in her mind that Kirche would understand soon.
"...Guns?" Kirche asked, nonplussed.
"Guns." Tabitha reaffirmed.
"Guns." Kirche verified.
"Guns." Tabitha agreed, nodding sagely.
"Guns...!" Kirche anticipated.
"Guns!" Tabitha enthused.
Several moments later, Louise walked into the room...
"Hey Tabithaaaiiii think I have somewhere else I need to be, goodbye!"
...pulled a smooth 180 and walked right back out the door, leaving Kirche and Tabitha chanting "Guns!" at each other.
Kirche's "lot of work" turned out to mostly not involve Louise. For several days. Which was just fine. Good subordinates should be able to work without guidance; she shouldn't HAVE to be involved in every little thing. She wasn't resentful at all. Really. Even if preparation for her point-proving mission was almost entirely out of her hands. Okay, so maybe she was a little resentful. Or just generally irritated. Or maybe... maybe she was just lonely?
Kirche going off her rocker more or less made sense once she wrapped her head around the fact that the girl had an unhealthy obsession with machinery of all sorts and airships in particular. And... other things.
Louise's eye twitched to see the flag flying from the mast. It was black with a skull and crossbones.
"Kirche, do you not know what 'subtlety' means?"
"When you have tea without biscuits?"
"Covert?"
"Feathery!"
"We're doomed."
I should probably make sure to check again when we launch.
But the zeal with which Tabitha had gotten involved was... honestly disappointing. Weird, too, but Louise had the strong impression that there were Very Good Reasons for her to do so. This didn't make it less worrisome when Tabitha came back late every night, collapsed on the bed, and had to be coaxed into even bothering with taking off her day clothes before slipping under the duvet. Even the shelf of recently published novels in their room didn't seem to draw her interest. If Louise didn't know in her gut that Tabitha was not fraught with some sort of malady, she would have sought a healer.
I still can't imagine what else could have possessed her to go along with Kirche's bizarre chanting, though... She shuddered a little at the memory and hoped the crazed grin on Tabitha's normally subdued face as she shouted "guns!" repeatedly was just a trick of her memory. She frowned. Maybe an exorcism instead...
But whatever the case, she could admit to herself, in private (internally, at least), that, more than simply "used to", she had grown fond of Tabitha's near-constant presence, and had decidedly not realised just how much it would throw her to not have that companionship for a couple days.
Which was silly. There was no need for them to be joined at the hip. Tabitha had things she needed to do, just like Kirche and, yes, even Louise herself.
Really, these arrangements were ideal for pursuing a few projects of her own. As reluctant as she was to skip so much of her formal education, she was mollified by Headmaster Osmond's assurance that service to the State fell under the "extracurricular special accreditation" bylaws of the school charter and she wouldn't be penalised for the missed course work. As such, it was giving her some much-needed time to pursue independent study on suddenly-very-relevant topics. Though the princess had provided use of her old room at the palace on an unlimited basis "as the true owner of the Prayer Book", she was mostly deep in land grants, property law, and establishing just what she might theoretically be able to accomplish through brute political force. Tabitha had driven home that she couldn't truly be exposed as a fraud, but why leave things to chance?
Is there really no annexation power reserved by the Church? Maybe this is the wrong approach.
Not that she hadn't tried to figure out the Prayer Book, too! It just... well, it was empty. Entirely. In her more frustrated moments, she had been slightly tempted to write ordinary, respectable journal entries (and definitely without extensive profanity) in it just because the paper was nice.
A knock at the door caused her to look up from some jurisprudence records for saints and other high-ranking church figures.
Too early for Tabitha yet. She idly rubbed the calluses that were forming on her hands from her Familiar's absolutely terrifying drills on the steel murder devices she had been gifted. Tabitha was a stern taskmaster on the practice field and that stupid talking sword wasn't helping anything, giving her advice that made no sense. She at least had finally gotten the basic thrusts to the point they had earned a neutral "acceptable" earlier in the day.
Kirche would barge in and make herself known without the pretense of politeness... Though the fiery lunatic had been absent at night, apologising profusely for "depriving her little peach of skinship", but she simply had to spend time with her "baby" and establish a good working relationship with the crew. Which was... reasonable, yes, but she was probably taking it too far. That girl has a problem. Several. But that left the question of who would come to visit in the mid evening without preamble.
"Yes? You may enter."
"Louise Françoise, it's good to see you're making use of this room. I had my worries." Ah, should have dressed properly after my bath after all. She quickly spun up to a minor panic state as she disengaged from her legal studies and awkwardly leapt from her chair to kneel.
"My Princess! I wouldn't presume to shirk your generosity!"
"Louise! Truly, must you stand on ceremony so? And in your nightgown, too!" Henrietta's admonishment stung. "I realise I've slighted you terribly to leave our friendship fallow, but the fault lies with me and mine. Please, enough with this unsightly grovelling." Sheepishly, Louise re-situated herself on the positively genius Circular Rotation Seat while Henrietta perched on the edge of the bed.
"Would you believe me if I said that was reflex?" That earned her a giggle and a rueful shake of the head.
"Only you, Louise Françoise! Surely, only you."
"Be that as it may, Princess, you literally own the door and the room and the building and the city. Of anyone, I hardly think you should feel the need to knock?"
"Perhaps that is so. But even if these were my personal chambers, if you were there it would feel... right, in this case. See you a crown upon my head? Nay, I come before you this evening not as the Princess Henrietta, but as your erstwhile friend..."
Louise pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I just can't win against you... Ann." Meeting Henrietta's eyes, she noticed... "Now, now, dry your tears, no need to let the old Crybaby Ann out, I do honestly forgive you. Already had the first three times you apologised. I may be young - may have been younger still - but I still understand responsibility to one's House. Be you princess or friend, know that my door is always open to you without reservation."
Suddenly her lap was full of crying princess. Oh for the love of... Helplessly, Louise sat ramrod-straight, a white-knuckle grip on the suddenly-less-clever chair that she wasn't willing to allow moving and tossing her first friend to the floor, Henrietta bawling all the while.
"Louise Françoise," she sniffled after several minutes of sobbing and half-coherent babbling, "I don't know what I've done to deserve a friend like you." Her tear-streaked face caused Louise's protests about the impropriety of their situation to dry up in her mouth. "Perhaps... perhaps I could ask your advice? An old... indiscretion, shall we say, may be coming to light and I am hapless to stop it."
"You want it stopped? Consider it done," Louise dug herself a hole with zero hesitation.
"No, no, I couldn't possibly burden you with this when you've already a noble task ahead of you. Though Albion is where... but no! This would take you far afield from what you truly need to do."
"What did I say before? Anything you desire, if it's within my power. At least tell me what the problem is; maybe we'll have some time to look into it." Louise really liked her hole.
"Truly? You would do this for me?"
"You can ask me for help, Ann. In fact, I insist!"
"Oh, my dearest Louise, you're far, far too good to me. See, the truth is..."
"It's time." Kirche was ready, drunk on the anticipation of a new voyage. Pulling her Kleiner Dienstanzug from the small chest of drawers, she began her ritual, stripping down to only her most comfortable underwear and the uniquely unflattering brassiere that Tabitha had retrieved from wherever after she had complained about back pain. She considered further binding, but quickly realized she didn't have enough material. The peculiar stretchy fabric that had made working less bouncy would have to do. "This was much easier four years ago," she grumbled. Truly, a beautiful body was such a burden.
Pulling on the hose and trousers of her uniform, she spared a thought for the crew, wondering idly if she would ever work with any of them again. She held no illusion that they were her crew. Just like back then, she noted glumly, clamping the buckles of the boots with a snap of finality.
Sure, they had gelled well over prior three days of shakedown and long grueling shifts making modifications under the watchful eye and stern direction of the master shipwright himself. But they were truly only there for entertainment and a hefty coin purse from the royal coffers. They had their own profession, their own rhythm, and she could plainly see they worked well together. She was only captain because they didn't strictly need her to call the shots to get most things done. In a way, that was ideal; if they had lacked that initiative or been anything other than competent to the last, she probably would have dumped the whole lot of them. She snorted at the thought.
"Mathilda would throw a fit." Still, though they deferred to her and even respected her, she knew there was no real loyalty to anything but the payout. They were professionals, after all.
She sank further into her musings, muscle memory buttoning the white shirt and guiding the black tie into a perfect service knot. Pulling her hair into a tight bun, she slipped on the midnight blue jacket, pinned her family crest to the shoulder and adjusted the cap on her head. Looking in the mirror, she winced, seeing for a moment the bubbly foolish little girl she had been. She hardened her gaze and came back to the present.
"Things are different now. I'm different now. That time changed me for the better," she reassured herself. She exited her quarters and deftly shimmied up the narrow ladder to the bustling control house. As she came in, activity ceased as they knew what the uniform meant.
It was time.
She nodded to her XO and he handed her the enchanted speaking tube that Tabitha had jiggered up. Where she'd gotten the inspiration was as much a mystery as the genesis of her curious new metal staff. Time enough to consider that later.
"This is the captain. We haven't had a lot of time to prepare, but the situation has changed. The latest intelligence from Albion has the revolutionary army in full control of Londinium, and we should expect a dense patrol pattern. Play time is sadly over.
"Fortunately, we have the best ship made by the greatest of masters, and an exceptional crew to guide her. The mission stays the same."
She took a slow breath, trying to not show how giddy she was to be back.
"Freischutz, launch!"