Disclaimer- I still don't own the Edge. I'd like to live there though. Mr Stewart, Mr Riddell, could you please write me in? Haha.
A/N- New chapter...written more from Maugin's POV this time. Review, review, review!
It was still dark when Maugin opened her eyes and panicked momentarily- it was so dark it was like being blind. She looked around, her eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the darkness and groaned quietly when she recognised where she was.
The Windcutter.
Its once-fine curving walls were flecked with white Mire mud and her heavy suit was slumped in a corner, the hood resting on top and giving it the appearance of some queer-looking beast without a neck.
She giggled to herself, momentarily amused with her fancy and stretched, her back arching neatly like a woodcats. She wondered if Twig was awake yet- he had worked so hard yesterday that she doubted this very much and leaned close to the wall that she knew he was sleeping on the other side of.
Listening intently, she could just make out the sound of his breathing, slow and steady. She smiled and swung her legs out off the bed, the nasty gash she had acquired in the Twilight Woods paining her as she took a few wobbly steps around the small wooden room.
She leaned against the wall that separated herself and Twig breathing harshly from the sheer pain of her leg. Though it wasn't broken, Maugin knew her leg would be a burden for at least a week and she clenched her fists in anger- feeling useless and sitting idly were not two of her favourite things.
Trying to stand up, she pushed herself off from the wall a little clumsily, regaining her balance as she bit her plump lower lip and staggered across to the other wall.
Her head turned to the corner where her suit sat and she tottered over unsteadily, she was wearing only a flimsy slip of a gown with thin straps and a hem which just brushed her mid-calf. Though intended to be white, it was admittedly faded and quite dirty from being under the suit constantly.
"Needs washing," she told herself quietly as she slipped on the rough Stone Pilot's suit. She would leave off the hood for there was something that left her feeling more at ease in Twig's presence than anyone else's. Even with Cloud Wolf she was not so comfortable.
Standing again, a little more balanced than she had been when she first tried to walk, she made her way slowly to the door and opened it with a soft click and a squeal of rusty hinges.
In the mainhold where they had first entered the Windcutter and found the disgusting display of mummified toes, Twig had left a heap of greying sails that either needed mending or attaching to ropes.
Maugin sat quietly, picked up a needle and thread and began working. She failed to notice the room become lighter around her and the Mire sky lighten from deepest indigo to the usual blinding white. She failed to hear the door behind her open and the low-heeled boots walk out and stand silently behind her.
"Early work, Maugin?"
She gasped in shock and then gasped again, this time in pain after she thrust the needle into her finger accidentally.
"Ouch!"
She nursed her finger to her chest and looked at the dark line of blood dripping from it onto the wooden floor. Twig bent beside her, his face crumpled with concern.
"Here, let me…" he said, his voice quite soft.
Maugin offered her hand and watched him examine it slowly and gently. Even with his hands roughened from the hard work he had done the day before, she could feel they were soft and impossibly careful.
A strange sensation flicked at her like icy fingers running up her smooth spine and she took her hand away.
"I'll be fine. Have we anything to eat?"
Twig sat back on his heeled boots and looked up at the wooden ceiling thinking,
"There's a box of ship's biscuit next door…oozefish in the Mire…woodgrog in Screed's old quarters…"
"Then a breakfast of ship's biscuit and oozefish, though I daresay it's a little early to be drinking. Isn't there any water at all?"
Twig went very quiet for a fairly long time before he looked up into her anxious and questioning eyes,
"Yes."
"Show me," Maugin asked gently. She could see something had upset the Captain and she wasn't about to press it any further than he wanted.
Slowly, he lead her outside to the pool where he had buried the Professor of Light and she gasped.
"How is this possible? In the Mire! Thank Sky!"
Twig watched her wonderment and smiled before he held up his hand, the one with the Sepia Knight's gauntlet covering it,
"Phraxdust, Maugin, it purifies even the foulest of waters."
"Of course…" she breathed. Everyone knew the amazing properties of the phraxdust yet there were few who kept some and only one who knew the secret of how to create it- the arrogant Most High Academe himself, Vilnix Pompolnius.
"It's beautiful…" she whispered, her eyes following the millions of tiny glittering crystals that slipped over the glove.
"It is," murmured Twig, not looking at the gauntlet but at Maugin's wonder-lit face.
Let me know how it's going :