A/N; Sorry about the late update, the site didn't want me uploading files on it for some reason. And kudos to inujisan for knowing what's important! I support you!
Chapter Seventeen: Unplanned
Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.
-Carl Sandburg
xxXxx
Baron wasn't certain how well his arrangement with the Sea Maiden would work out. For the first week, Haru hadn't gone out to the sea at all, choosing instead to stay by Yuki's side until she was completely recovered, although another servant was caring for her.
But he could still tell that something was off, during the supper after her first venture out of his castle. Haru kept her slightly glazed eyes on her plate, pushing the perfectly prepared food around with a fork more than actually eating it. Lune didn't notice, since he was too busy trying to ignore Yuki's presence behind them in the large dining hall. They had taken to eating in there for evening meals, to give Haru practice in the right setting.
"Is something wrong, Haru?" Baron finally had to ask.
She didn't answer. For all he knew, she didn't even hear him.
"Miss Haru?" he tried again, still not getting an answer out of her. "Haru? Oh, really! Lune, would you mind?" he asked, hoping the prince would nudge her back to the real world.
The prince was also too lost in his own thoughts to hear him.
Baron growled with exasperation, and fell back to a technique that he had once sworn that he'd never use.
He kicked Haru's leg underneath the table. It wasn't very hard, since he didn't have as much strength as other cats, but it was enough.
She looked up with a gasp, making Lune snap to attention as well.
"Is something wrong?" the prince asked, more out of duty than anything, guessing from his tone.
"… Baron hates it when I space out," she said sheepishly, giving the kitten an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I'll try harder not to do that."
"I most certainly hope so. Now, would you mind telling me what's bothering you?" he asked once again, now that he had her attention.
"What, nothing's wrong," she quickly assured him, her eyes a little frantic.
He tilted his head at her, and narrowed his eyes slightly. "You are a terrible liar, Haru." 'Yuki wasn't kidding!'
She flinched, and looked down at her plate, unaware that the conversation had captured Lune's attention, as well as the few servants in the room. Yuki, however, looked unsurprised. If anything, she was glaring at the back of Haru's chair as if to say 'get on with it!'
"Come now; is there something wrong with your accommodations?" he guessed at random.
"No, of course not. I like what you've provided better than what was at the palace."
He smiled at the admission. "Then what is troubling you?"
She gave him a nervous look, and took a deep breath. "It's about your dock."
He nodded a bit. "We had a cyclone about the same time that you met Lune. We're still in the rebuilding process, as you have probably noticed."
"It was hard to miss, but…"
"Haru, whatever it is about my dock that's bothering you, please just tell me," Baron told her, nearing the end of his rope.
"The rafts your carpenters were building aren't very safe," she spat out, almost speaking the sentence as a solid word in its speed to escape her mouth.
He looked at her carefully, already knowing that. "Go on."
"I mean, there's no balance to them, nowhere to really put the fish once you've caught them, and I bet that they have to be replaced on a pretty constant basis, because the carpenters aren't taking the pains to make sure they'll last. On top of that, since most cats hate swimming, I bet you have a certain number of casualties every year, right?"
Baron stared at her, and set his fork aside to give her his full attention. "I suppose you could design something better?" the kitten asked carefully, realizing how much more experience humans had with water, especially this human.
"Better, safer, more efficient, and able to last for possibly decades with minimal repair work," Haru replied without hesitation; a familiar stubborn streak returning to her large brown eyes. "Making them will be a lot harder than what your people are used to, but think about how many lives will be saved in the long run."
He smiled, thinking about exactly how many lives could be saved in a lone year. "Very well; we'll adjourn to my study after dinner, and you can show me what you have in mind."
She smiled with obvious relief, and started actually eating her filet mignon.
ooOoo
"Just out of curiosity, why were you so nervous about telling me you could design a better boat?" Baron asked as he pulled loose a large piece of paper from an even larger folder behind his desk.
"I wasn't sure if you would be willing to listen," Haru admitted, accepting a simple quill from him as he uncapped a small bottle of ink. "Most guys I've met can't take criticism, even if it's constructive."
"That is quite foolish of them, then. Now, how would you go about designing a boat?"
"Well, first of all, I wouldn't mistake rafts for boats. Boats have more of an almond shape like this," she informed him, sketching a slim shape onto a corner of the paper. "But in order to make them last, you have to cure the boards."
"By what do you mean, 'cure'?" Baron asked curiously.
"Well, don't cats cure meat to make it last longer?"
"Yes…"
"Well, you can do the same thing with wood," she told him as she dipped the quill into his inkwell so she could keep drawing. "All you need is pine tar thinned down with linseed oil."
Baron's jaw dropped. "I thought that was only good for furniture. We always assumed that the water would wash it off."
"It has to be applied warm for best effect, but it stays on if you don't put it in the water until its dry. Now, because cats hate getting wet, here's an idea you could think of," she continued, drawing a strange pole from near the middle of the boat, one that was bent at a strange angle after a certain height. "Fishing boats in my world sometimes have something like this. The pole is based on a rotating hinge, both at the base and a bit at that angle there. Then you attach a net on a certain framework on the end, and use ropes and such to control it."
"A bit like a drawbridge," Baron realized, taking another quill to make small notes next to her sketch. "The hinge at the top would have to be a different type than at the bottom, and would have to be stiffer in order to support the weight of the fish."
"That's why it might not be a bad idea to start off with small nets at first, and use the curved belly of the boat to store the fish after emptying them each time," Haru agreed, drawing a straight line across the boat to give the fishercats an even place to walk, and made a small mark that represented an open entryway to the lower level.
"That would also increase how much fish they could catch before having to return to shore," Baron said softly. He had tried to find books on human boats before, but unfortunately, cats avoided so much as mentioning humans and water in the same subject.
"Exactly. Also, is there a lot of wind around this area?"
"Mostly around late spring to late summer; you just missed the season for it."
"Well, then you could use sails around those times of year. It'll take a bit of practice for your fishercats, but once they get the hang of it, they'll have more energy for the actual fishing. They'll also be able to go farther out to sea and back during the lean seasons."
"That would definitely be a blessing," Baron agreed.
"Here's another idea." She moved to a different area of the paper, and made a strange 'x' mark, with a curling line leading away from it. "Since cats don't swim much, it wouldn't be a bad idea to outfit your cats with life jackets."
"Life jackets?" Baron asked in confusion.
"Yeah. Humans have had them for… I'm not quite sure how long, but they're great. Since I'm not sure we have access to the right materials here, we'll go for the next best thing. They'll pretty much be leather vests, but with a large secure metal ring in the back. If you tie a sturdy rope to the ring, and then to a secure place on the boat, then the fishercats could pull on the rope if someone falls out. Plus all the fallen cat will have to do is hold onto the rope to keep from drowning until being rescued."
"But wouldn't everyone trip on each other's ropes?"
"That's why you have one cat to each station on the boat, and have the two closest ones bring up the one that falls. Organization is key."
"Truer words have never been spoken," he agreed, watching her work on more details of the boat design.
Then he noticed something that made him almost laugh. "You've forgotten the measurements," he reminded her.
She blanched in disgust. "Drat, the math part. I hate the math part," she muttered under her breath as she started tapping her fingers against the paper in concentration.
"Mathematics is not your strong suit?" Baron asked with a small smile, although he knew that it wasn't.
"No. I mean, I know enough to get by for simple things, but when it gets complicated like this… well, you can probably connect the dots."
"I can." He grinned, and decided to show her mercy. "However, I happen to have a knack for numbers. Let's say that we make the length of the boat ten feet, and the width six feet. Then if the boat itself is eight feet tall, even with the curved edges…"
The following minutes were dedicated to numbers, which were suddenly more than happy to bend to his will. He manipulated them with almost a casual ease, which in turn impressed Haru, if her stunned expression was of any indication.
Baron found that he rather liked impressing her. The amazed look on her face was enough to even banish the cry that had been haunting the back of his mind since returning the locket.
Suddenly he stopped scribbling calculations on the paper; his heart sinking into his shoes. "It's a wonderful idea, Haru, but it won't work," he said mournfully.
"Why not?" she asked curiously. "It works just fine back home."
"Then the wood must be different there. We have tried to update our water crafts before, but any design other than our current one leaks at an incredible rate."
Haru twitched, and then slapped the back of her head while laughing at herself. "Why did I forget about that? Don't worry, Baron; if you have access to a tar pit, even that won't be a problem."
He looked at her curiously. "How would a tar pit help?"
"If you keep it warm and line the inside of the boat with it, tar will sink into all the crevices, making it watertight when it cools off. But since you don't want to spoil the fish, it might not be a bad idea to cover the tar coating with canvas."
He stared at her in amazement. "Why didn't I ask for your input about the boats earlier?" he wondered aloud.
Haru put a hand to her chin in faux thought. "Let's see; first you're an incredibly busy cat managing your baronetcy and fledgling mulberry business, then you're a tutor to me, which is no picnic for either of us. That'd be a lot for anyone to handle without worrying about renovating the boats."
He nodded, feeling relieved that at least she understood the pressure he was under without the king's added duties. "Haru," he said slowly. "I don't have any tar pits in my area. However, a neighbor of mine has a large one, and he owns a wharf even more devastated than mine. Would you mind if I shared the new boat design with him?"
"Be my guest," she encouraged without hesitation. "It sounds like he could use the help."
"He does, very much. Thank you, Haru," he said gratefully.
She shrugged, suddenly looking a little nervous. "I figured it was a good way to say 'thanks for saving my life'."
Baron stared at her in total shock. "I never saved your life," he protested.
"Actually, you did. I wasn't going to tell you, but…" She gave a sigh, one that was stranger than the ones he had previously heard from her. "Before we left the palace, Vulcan told me that if you hadn't tricked me into becoming a permanent resident of this world, Jack and his gang would have found a way to kill me on Halloween. Renny wouldn't have been able to stop them, according to him."
He gaped in shock. His mind numbly connected 'Halloween' to All Hallows' Eve, which was a mere three weeks away.
Why would anyone, even those monsters, wish for Haru's death?
"So, I'm sorry about calling you a snake and slime bag," Haru continued with difficulty, forcing herself to say the words again. "I mean, the king was the one that ordered you to trick me. My fight's with him, not you. You're just a pawn in his twisted games."
"A highly used pawn," Baron agreed; feeling like a great weight had been lifted off his chest. "Thank you, Haru. For being so understanding."
She gave a wry smile. "I was stuck in a carriage for ten days with two people that happen to like you. They were bound to make some progress on your behalf."
Baron could only smile at that.
"Besides, for supposedly being terrified of humans, I've never been able to tell that you're scared of me. You're braver than most of the cats at the palace, just for the fact that you're willing to have a decent conversation with me."
Baron's smile increased happily.
"… I still wish I could have said goodbye to Muta-san, though," Haru whispered regretfully, her eyes starting to turn hollow and sad. "He must be so worried by now, if he doesn't think I'm dead."
Baron's elation collapsed like soap bubble, and immediately replaced itself with a disgusting slime sensation; despite Haru's forgiveness. But before he could come up with a reply to that, a knocking from the doorway captured their attention.
"My lord? It's past midnight," Richard told them respectfully.
Baron and Haru looked at each other with shock before looking at a grandfather clock in the corner.
"I could have sworn it's only been a few minutes," Haru said under her breath, giving the little kitten another smile. "I'll see you in the morning then, Baron."
"Yes, I'll see you then. Sweet dreams," he wished her as she walked out of the study.
"You too. Good night, Richard," she told the old steward before walking through the curtain he was holding open for her.
"Good night, my lady," he wished her as he allowed the curtain to fall behind her.
Baron turned back to the large paper they had been writing on for apparently hours, to take his mind off her grieving step-father.
He found it nothing short of incredible, that their minds could work together in such harmony. Her designs were merely pictures without his equations, and yet his numbers would be worthless without her drawings and suggestions.
He had to say, they made a very good team.
"Well, Baron!" Richard managed to say, once he was sure Haru was out of earshot. "It doesn't appear that she hates you after all!"
"It would appear so," Baron replied gratefully, still staring at the paper as his steward came over to take a curious look.
Was it strange, that he was looking forward to probing her mind again?
ooOoo
Count DeLerouche stared breathlessly at the improved boat designs. "This is sheer brilliance," he whispered with awe. "Can you imagine how many lives this invention could save?"
"I think it will eliminate casualties altogether, as far as fishing accidents go. We're quite lucky that Haru chose to share her knowledge with us," Baron agreed as he finished making a copy of the design and the calculations for his old friend.
"Quite. However… it's a little strange that she isn't around," the old count said carefully, taking a look behind him as if he expected the Sea Maiden to suddenly appear in the doorway.
"She's been doing well with her studies, so I gave her the entire day to play in the sea. But it wouldn't surprise me if she was spending some of her time at the wharf, giving my carpenters suggestions concerning the construction of the new boats," the little kitten admitted with a small smile.
"You make that sound as if she has personal experience with boat making," Geraldo said with amusement.
"I'm almost certain that she does. If her stepfather had no qualms about teaching her how to fight, I doubt he'd have any against building a boat or two with her."
Geraldo stared at him with amazement. "Has he no respect for proper roles for a lady?"
"As far as I can tell, not in the least. The Human Kingdom is a very dangerous place, as Haru or Lune can tell you. That world is not kind to the defenseless."
"Baron!" Lune suddenly screamed as he ran into the study. "You've got to come, now!"
"What's wrong?" the little kitten asked worriedly as Lune uncharacteristically swept him into his arms to start running out of the room and down the hallway.
"Haru's trying to kill herself!"