The ship arrived with a weather front on its heels. The sun vanished slightly early behind the peaks of distant cloudbanks that were only halfway over the horizon line. The previously still air was moving now in steady breeze, with a few intermittent gusts and heralded and angry blow ahead. The ferry's final approach was a novel event for Makoto to watch, as she'd never seen a ship this large maneuver. She dragged Ren over to the pier for a closer look.
It was perhaps three times as large as any of the coastal trading vessels that zipped in and out of Tock-Yo Bay with their bright sails flapping. The shape was decidedly square, with a slightly narrowing at the bow that was almost like an afterthought. It had no sails, but it belched out a prodigious amount of white smoke that Ren advised her was steam. Apparently, the vessel was still powered by a persona, just like back when the Empire covered the world.
"The one powering the ship is probably very similar to Ann Sakamoto's persona," mused Ren. "I think her's used fire to run a foundry. But this one is fire for a boiler."
Makoto knew what boilers were. The Niijima Estate used one for heating and hot water plumbing. But until now, she never would have guessed the same style device could be used to move a ship across the water.
"How does a boiler move that?" asked Makoto, curiosity overwhelming her. She would have to tell Iwai about this. He would probably get all sorts of ideas.
Ren crossed his arms and looked thoughtful. "From what I understand, the persona turns the water to steam, and the pressure of the steam pushes through strong pipes, and in its movement, it turns the propeller of the ship- which is like a windmill, but underwater."
"That's incredible!" said Makoto.
Ren looked at her with some amusement. "I suppose so."
"And it can move itself sideways!"
"I think the propeller can be turned in almost any direction."
They watched as the unwieldy box of a ship churned itself around like an injured old man, the sound of the engine hissing and puffing in wheezy effort, until finally, it ground its way to a halt against the long pier. A small door opened in the side of the ship and a male figure with dark, droopy-brimmed hat stepped out on the pier. One of the dhampir crewmen, to be sure. Meanwhile, another man with the same style hat was walking the heights of the ship's deck and tossing down heavy ropes to the man below.
The ship secured. The crewman turned towards the ferry terminal. He spotted Ren and Makoto and veered slightly in their direction.
"Makoto…" said Ren out of the corner of his mouth.
"I know," said Makoto, reminding herself that it was back to the slave act.
As the crewman neared, Makoto realized she would have a hard time remembering this man's face, as it was so average and unremarkable that there was little for memory to grab on to.
"You got cargo?" said Crewman to Ren as he neared them.
"Just the one here," said Ren, giving a backhanded indication to Makoto. "Mind if we stay on deck."
Crewman's eyes briefly landed on Makoto but slid off from lack of interest. He looked back at Ren. "As long as she doesn't shit or piss anywhere, I don't care what you do. Got your boarding pass?"
Makoto felt a flush of offense and she noticed Ren's hackles also rise slightly, but he took a deep breath and then pulled out the document that represented the custom clerk's last official act. Crewman glanced at it, pulled out a notebook and pen, and wrote something down.
"You can board to the deck if you want, but stay out of the hold until we get the ghouls out. Any other passengers?"
"The clerk said there was a noble with his carriage."
Crewman cursed under his breath. "Great… just great… Well- we leave after sundown then. Make sure you are on the ship by then."
Crewman left to enter the ferry terminal by one of the man-sized doors in its side. Ren looked to Makoto and indicated they should make way to the ship now. They walked out onto the long pier.
"You didn't warn him that the noble is the Reaper and he murdered the clerk," noticed Makoto.
Ren looked at her slyly. "Oh, right. I guess I forgot."
Makoto smiled to herself as she followed Ren to the ship. He'd been offended on her behalf and sought out vengeance for it. It was petty and vindictive. But it was also kind of cute.
She followed Ren into the side of the vessel. The sides seemed somewhat rusted, or at least Makoto thought it was rust. She looked down at the ship's waterline and saw huge colonies of barnacles all along the hull. It was the first time Makoto encountered a metal sea vessel, but she had the immediate impression of poor maintenance.
The interior was marginally better, though one could easily tell the difference between the paths that crew often took and the paths they did not. Ren led them through a narrow labyrinth of passages and stairs, leading them upwards. He looked at her from above on one of the stairways.
"Don't come back in here without me."
"As if I would," whispered Makoto. She recognized a death trap when she saw one. Well… most of the time.
Well… some of the time.
They re-emerged into the evening sunlight. A gust of wind blew past them from a bank of darker clouds to the east. The deck was a mostly open space dotted with a few pipe openings, a few secured containers, and a rusted crane. The middle of the deck seemed to be some large door that could open, but judging from the state of the crane, it had not been used in some time. The crane looked like it didn't even have its steam boiler attached, or maybe it ran on some other form of power. Or had. It probably didn't run at all now.
The decking was empty save for Makoto and Ren. She wandered over to the side of the ship to look down on the peir. It seemed the crew was extending a sort of metal tunnel from the ferry station to the side of the ship. The thing expanded like an accordion and screeched its way across the pavement as the metallic poles of its supports ran along the ground. It seemed entirely unwieldy, but the dhampir workers simply manhandled it with their strength. Makoto mused that it probably used to have wheels. Maybe a long time ago.
Almost directly below Makoto, one of the crew laned inside the ship and shouted audibly.
"Secure! Let 'em out!"
The only way the tunnel was 'secured' was by two crewman leaning against the tunnel's end and holding it against the ship manually. Regardless, there was a grinding sound of metal, and then a chorus of grunting and snarling voices and slapping footsteps inside the tunnel. It rattled as things inside it banged against the walls. Ghouls, Makoto realized. They were unloading the ghouls.
Makoto frowned down at the process as she could audibly track the progress of the ghoul swarm as it made its way down the tunnel and into whatever depths of the ferry station where they would be held next. She wished she could just rip open that tunnel. There was enough light out to kill those ghouls within a few moments, and there was not very many places of shadow to hide in. How many of those immortal little monsters would cause grief for a human somewhere? There was no way to know. And each one themselves a human tragedy, too.
The crewmen were talking openly as the ghouls made their steady way out of the ship.
"You hear the clerk is dead?"
"What?"
"Yeah, you know the noble that's here?"
"Yeah."
"Its the Reaper. And he killed the clerk, it looks like. Splattered him all over the floor."
"Are you serious? I hope he stays in his damn carriage then."
"Same."
They were silent for a moment. Makoto felt Ren's presence nearby. He was as interested in the opportunity to eavesdrop as she was.
"Gonna be a rough ride tonight."
"Yeah."
"I'm sick of this job. I think I might sign up with Yaldabaoth. No more stormy seas for me."
"Man, if you get involved with the proginators, you're just going to end up splattered all over some floor, too."
"Yeah, maybe. But aren't you bored? This same stuff all the time?"
"Sometimes. But Edgetown has all I need, and this job pays enough to get it. And I won't get splattered."
"... You're kind of a boring guy."
"Yeah. But I kinda like it."
A klaxxon sounded. One of the crewmen hopped up on top of the steel tunnel in a single leap and lowered a panel over the end of it, cutting it off from the ship and enclosing whatever might still be inside its length. He then jumped down and they started shoving the screeching and complaining metal accordion back towards the ferry terminal. Ghouls successfully unloaded, apparently.
Another klaxxon sounded, and a much larger door opened outwards from the side of the ship, slowly lowering until it set itself upon the stone pier like a bridge. Meanwhile, a large steel door on the ferry terminal was opening. A few crewmen emerged, pulling along behind them pallets of felled trees. And amongst them emerged the carriage of Lord Meier Link.
A team of four mechanical horses, gleaming jet black, trotted effortlessly into the growing twilight. Behind them, a long, stately carriage rolled smoothly and driverless. It was coffinlike in shape and covered with intricate textured designs of gothic vines. The carriage too, save for some travel mud on its lower sides, looked entirely pristine. Makoto, Ren, and the crewmen laboring nearby could not help but watch the stately carriage make its way for the ship. Here amongst the rubble, rust, and neglect of the fallen empire was a singular example of its past glory and power. It was an artifact of a different world and time.
The carriage vanished smoothly into the bowels of the ship. Makoto realized both she and Ren had been frowning down at it until it had gone out of sight. The idea of another tense conversation with the mad vampire lord was not an appealing one.
"I hope he stays in his carriage," said Makoto.
"Same," said Ren.
Makoto grew up with the ocean. Tock-Yo bay was clearly visible from the front porch of the Niijima Estate. She could see the turbulence of storms, distantly boiling gray. She could see the calm of a windless day, though the water was never quite still, always rippling. She imagined the sea was murmuring to itself about the wonders of tempests past.
And she'd gone to the beach a couple times when she was young.
But she'd never been on a boat. The flat-bottomed steel box of a ship that was the imperial ferry should not have been the vessel for her virgin voyage. It seemed as seaworthy as a child's ball in a stream- bobbing and listing, only seeming to stay afloat due to some innate advantage of its stupid buoyancy. Whatever harbor-work the ugly contraption was originally intended for did not seem to have many of the qualities which allowed the graceful trade ships of Tock-Yo to dance upon the tide. This beast had a big, enclosed cargo hold, it floated, and it could move itself. That was the entirety of the vessel's virtues.
Makoto stuffed herself into the part of the boat that was perhaps it's bow. If a rectangle could be said to have a bow, this point was it, anyway- two angled walls of steel meeting at an arrowish point, further out front of all other points along this, forward side, of the ship. Bow it was. Makoto was picking up nautical lingo quickly.
Another new word: seasickness. The approaching storm winds were agitating the waters of the strait, sending walls of wind-blown water down the relatively narrow passage like a hose. The rough ride had arrived.
As a three meter swell rolled under the boat and it swayed like a drunk duck, Makoto's stomach rolled up and down. Ren crouched nearby, blocking what view of them anyone else might have. No one on the ship seemed to care. Possibly no one on the ship even knew they were still out on the deck. And if they did, maybe they would think Makoto and Ren crazy- or more likely, that Ren was enjoying bit of his human slave in privacy. Regardless, the open air was about the only thing that gave Makoto's stomach any sort of relief.
Another swell rolled under the boat, another, and some counter-wave suddenly slapped the ship on the other side, a metallic clang like the boat was grunting from taking a punch. Alarm ran through Makoto, an instinctive dread of the water boiling all around them. She could swim. Some people in Azabu had pools of fresh water just for swimming. But the ocean seemed slightly different from that. If she went into this pool, she would never get back out.
Ren didn't seem concerned. His face was placid, though his eyes stared at her in a way that was either worry, or an appraisement of her current display of weakness. Maybe both. Probably both.
"How do I make this go away?" she said, her voice mostly lost in the cacophony of moving water and rumbling engines.
"I don't even know what it is," said Ren. "I think only being back on land will cure it- perhaps the disease dies when it gets dry."
A quick acting plague that can only affect you on the ocean? She'd never heard of such a thing, but then again, no one really knew what plagues were- so Ren was probably right. He at least had a name for it: seasickness. A rather unimaginative, literal name- but it got right to the point, didn't it?
Regardless- there was no cure but to press on. When this boat ride was over, she would finally be there. The Island! So, Makoto felt impelled to put on a strong face. Ren didn't need to see all her weaknesses all the time.
She could do this. She could- whoa, God, that was a big one…. She could- stand up!
Makoto's arms seemed to do most of the work in getting her up, using the deck walls as leverage. Ren didn't move to help her, instead watching her struggle on her own. Did he think she could handle it and she wouldn't want his help, or did he regard Makoto's invisible illness as something he might b infected with? Well, she could drive herself mad playing guess-Ren's-motive again. She was tired of that game, and was not, at the moment, feeling particularly magnanimous about her own views of him.
And how they had somewhat changed on this trip. Like how she had thought Ren was an honorable and enigmatic mercenary killing vampires for his own private justice; but no, actually Ren was on an errand from his Mother to spy on her enemies.
The redemptive vigilante was revealed as a momma's-boy.
Wow. That was a harsh thought. But there was another thing: Ren and her had become close on this journey. They had become one on this journey, quite literally. But the delightful heat of that cave was as distant in Makoto's mind as it could be in this tossing and rolling bow of the ferry.
And so, a few uncharitable thoughts about Ren helped fuel herself with just enough anger to force herself to her feet, to forget about the chaos in her belly, and to look out over the undulating gray of the boiling ocean around them. The sea was gray and blended well with the grumbling gray sky- all the sea and all the sky mixing, mingling, dancing; a mesmerizing monochrome.
God.
Makoto dropped back down to crouch on her heels and vomited all over the deck. That crewman would be angry at Ren upon finding the vomit of his human. Well, fuck that guy.
Makoto vomited again.