The horizon of Persephone flickers into a mirage as they leave atmo, and Lan Fan checks her pistol, wondering whether or not anyone will mind if she shoots that blonde-haired gold-eyed Alliance hun dan before they reach Whitefall.
Ling just has to cock an eyebrow at her to get her hand to drop away from the gun, but it don't mean she doesn't damn well imagine every second of it.
"Welcome to the good ship Tranquility," he says to the gaggle of passengers Winry went and picked up. Winry, Lan Fan thinks privately, is an idiot for thinking this is a good idea—the goods that Breda has them moving are a thousand times more tricksy than Breda himself even realized, and adding strangers into the mix is not healthy. Then again, it's their damn fool of a captain who actually took the commissions. "Mighty kind of y'all to sign aboard with us, and I can promise a peaceful voyage to Whitefall."
The blonde man with Alliance stink all over his shiny suit snorts a little, but he doesn't say anything, so Lan Fan can pretend she didn't hear him. Winry huffs quietly under her breath, and knocks her pointy elbow into Lan Fan's side. "Liu kou shui de biao zi he hou zi de er zi," she says into Lan Fan's ear, "but he's a high and mighty little man," and Lan Fan snorts in spite of herself. Ling cuts his eyes over to them, but it doesn't look like Little Big Man heard, so he just lifts his eyebrows and goes on.
"Now you've come aboard you've been shown your bunks," he says. "I'll expect you to keep to them. Dinner and supper are strictly timed, and we can at least promise something nutritious, if not tasteless. All rooms on my boat aside from your bunk and the kitchen are off limits. If you need to be accessin' the cargo bay, hold it until Whitefall. If it's an emergency, hold it until Whitefall. Ain't nothin' to be done out here in the black, and there's three full days of it ahead of us." He pauses. "If that's too difficult to understand, I'm sure Fuu can make it clear to you."
Grandfather looks up from where he's cleaning his gun at the table, and then looks back down again. Mei's gonna have a fit, thinks Lan Fan, eyeing the oil smears. Ain't no doubt.
A fingertip ghosts along her wrist, where she has her hands clasped behind her back. She glances out of the corner of her eye at the captain, who hasn't moved an inch aside from the hand that has now crept behind her back. Lan Fan faces forward again, and wonders if any of them will be able to read the smile in her eyes.
"Introductions," says Ling, and stands. His fingertip leaves her skin. "Like you heard, m'name's Yao. You'll be calling me that or Captain, if you please. Don't like my given name much." He tilts his head at Fuu. "Any questions, direct 'em to Fuu or to me. You won't be seeing much of the rest of us."
"And who are the rest of you?" asks the man in the white fedora. His smile seems genuine, if a little flat. "Of course, we know Miss Winry—" Winry gives a pleased little curtsy, and smiles "—but there seems to be—quite a collection of you."
Lan Fan meets her grandfather's eyes, and shakes her throwing knife deliberately out of her wrist sheath.
"'course," says Ling, looking pleased. Of course he wants to brag about the crew. He always does. "Lan Fan's pilot. You won't be seeing her at all."
Lan Fan inclines her head to Little Big Man, who seems surprised, but nods back.
"Mei—" he points at his little sister, who crinkles her eyes into a smile, "—is the ship doctor. Have any hurts, take 'em to her. Clinic's down at the end of the hall of bunks. Havoc is—"
"A freeloader," says Mei, at the same time Havoc says, "First mate."
"—a space barnacle we can't seem to shake," Ling finishes, and the double-blow makes Havoc wince. The man in the white fedora doesn't move an inch. Neither does the Companion, though she is smiling a bit. Her hair is almost as blonde as Winry's. Her bodyguard is silent, and keeps fiddling with his gloves. Lan Fan sighs—at least with a Companion signed on, Alliance can't just board them without a warrant—and looks at the table again. Ling's still talking.
"—gong will be rung in a few hours' time for supper, so I'd suggest you kip for a while. Rooms are cozy, but clean—unless you signed onto a shuttle, like our lovely friend Miss Hawkeye here." He dips the Companion a wink, and she snaps open a fan patterned with phoenixes. "Questions?"
"Yeah," says Winry into Lan Fan's ear. "What's Little Big Man's deal? He's twitchier than a rattlesnake on a hot stove."
Lan Fan strokes the hilt of her throwing knife, and murmurs back, "That's what I'm plannin' to find out."