"I don't like being rushed along to christen this ship, Captain," Mercy admitted as they climbed the stairs to the top deck. Leslie had already reached the hatch, and was winding the wheel on the door to open the seal.

It had only been an hour since they had met to disuse their first job. Just long enough to expand their food stocks with their recent windfalls, and test all the ship's systems. Despite how quickly it happened, the expansion of their food stores and knowing the ship worked had left Vincent anxious and eager, with an eye on the horizon.

"You think it sets a bad precedent?" Vincent asked, just as the hatch opened. Sunlight streamed in through the crack, and a gentle breeze followed through. "All things considered, it seems rather apropos."

Mercy laughed. "Carried along by the winds of fate, forced to either ride along or crash on the rocks?"

"Unnervingly true," Vincent admitted. He sighed, and stopped as Anita and Leslie went on ahead. "I suppose I could have refused Nottle."

"No, you couldn't have. The money is pretty good, but the opportunity to be in the Admiralty's good books is too good to pass up. As are the intelligence reports on piracy in all the skies Volante patrols. Those reports could save our lives when the Monastery calls on us."

Vincent involuntarily sucked in a quick breath when Mercy mentioned the Monastery. His thoughts were carried back to the day he lost his commission and his ship, as well as the dark days that followed. "That was my thinking when I agreed to the job," he said eventually.

Vincent moved to climb up the rest of the stairs, but Mercy stretched her arm and gripped the rail, blocking his path. She tilted her hat back with her free hand, and looked him in the eye. "You aren't hoping they'll take you back again, are you?"

The question bit at Vincent's calm like a hot brand. He flinched, but forced himself to meet Mercy's questioning gaze. "I'm not a fan of being used as ballast. They tossed me aside. There is no undoing that."

"But if they offered you a place again?"

"I'd be spitting in the face of every sailor on the Hood, when they did their duty during our last mission."

Mercy nodded, and dropped her hand. Vincent marched up the stairwell, and onto the top deck.

Sweet air swept across the deck, pulled by the constant winds in the skies this far above Idlewind. The light was warm, it's light potent as the island was now close to the sun in its circular drift through the skies. The sky was bright, the clouds were thin wisps, like bits of cotton stretched out between a pair of invisible fingers.

"It's good sailing weather," Mercy mused, as she followed him out of the stairwell. "Winds are strong, skies are clear."

"Even destiny wants us in the skies?" Vincent asked.

Mercy shrugged, and played with her hat.

Vincent walked out onto the deck, towards the back of the ship. There was a canvas tarp making up most of the aft-quarter of the top deck, covering a machine Vincent was hoping to avoid using for as long as he possibly could.

Vincent turned away from it, and reached into his deep coat pocket. When it came out again, he was holding a glass bottle, nearly black, with a simple paper label. Tallowire mead, a bottle he had purchased nearly a year ago, when the four of them had agreed to commission this ship.

"I really don't know what to say," Vincent admitted, loudly, as he held the bottle in his hands. "You'd think that knowing this day was coming, for an entire year, I'd be better prepared."

The others gathered in a loose circle around him. Mercy directly across, Leslie to his right, Anita to his left. They all waited, smiles on their faces, as he blundered his way through a speech.

"I, I didn't imagine any of our lives leading to this, when we were all together back on the Hood, when we served in Volante's navy. Things have happened fast since then, and judging by what we're setting off to do now, it doesn't look like that's going to change," Vincent said. He looked down at the bottle, then to each member of his crew, and shrugged.

Mercy held out her hand. "Mind if I, captain?"

Vincent banded her the bottle. She took it by the neck in one hand, and held it up. "By Wayfarer custom, the four of us are a clan now. To those of us who live in the far skies, we trust our lives to every other person we sail with. That our clan is so small, is because I'm being honest about the people I actually trust. It's a privilege to have chosen the people I ride the winds alongside."

She handed the bottle to Leslie, who held it by the base with nearly the same ease Mercy had gripped it by the neck. He stared at it for a moment, and said 'I think my biggest regret right now is I've never actually tried Tallowire mead before."

Vincent laughed, and clapped Leslie on the shoulder. Leslie nodded his head, and held the bottle up. "It's nice to feel like life has a direction again. I've been drifting too long."

Leslie handed the bottle to Anita, who held it in her hands as if she were afraid of dropping it by accident. "I didn't imagine being able to choose my way. Thought it was just me at first, but the more I meet people out here, the more I realize they don't get to chart their own course. Being able to, it feels wonderful."

She handed the bottle to Vincent, who held it up in the air between them. "Then let us welcome the Ravens' Child into the skies," he said, and he dropped the bottle.

The glass shattered on contact with the steel deck, spraying glass shards and froth across the deck and onto their feet. The others cheered, and Vincent joined them, as this last omen looked favourable.

"Waste of good mead," Leslie said ruefully, as the cheers died down.

Vincent let the moment pass, as the others eventually looked to him. With this heartfelt, meaningful moment finally taken by the wind, he let himself slip back into that comfortable mantle had had missed wearing.

He was a captain again.

"Leslie, Anita, as soon as we cast off, we'll be in the weak pull of the far skies. You'll need clips and harnesses immediately," Vincent said. "Anita, once you're geared up, prep the engines. Expect a long run at cruising speed, with unexpected bursts at full. Mercy, to the chain hub, in case the sail lines misbehave. After that, support or relief duties as you see fit. Leslie, you have lookout duties on the deck. Take special note of any ship that launches shortly after we do, it's possible someone's been eyeing our ship for these last few weeks."

None of them moved. Leslie and Anita just stood with wide smiles on their faces, and even Mercy was grinning as if she was enjoying an inside joke. Vincent scowled at them, and pointed at the hatch. "You have your orders. Hop to it, or you can beg Commodore Nottle for a berth on that plague house he calls a ship."

Anita and Leslie snapped to attention and started moving. Mercy waited just a moment longer, and then gave Vincent a salute, a flick of two fingers against the brim of her hat.

"Good to see you back in form, Captain," Mercy said, before she turned away and marched off to the side of the hull.

Vincent stepped back through the stairwell and shut the hatch. He walked down the stairs, opened the door to the hall, and took a left. Just past the mess hall, and door at the end of the short walk opened up to his ship's bridge.

A semicircle of brass rails encased the ship's controls like a corral. The lacquered wooden wheel gleamed in the light, the dozen different dials were almost too good at catching the light, and the assortment of levers on the right side all shone with fresh polish. Vincent stepped up to the controls, and let his hand rest for a moment over the speed controls.

And just beyond the brass rails, the ship's bow. Unlike any other ship that sailed under the sky, it was a dome made of thick, bullet-resistant glass. The same glass the Academies of Vol Ayre used to create the palatial swimming pools. The final piece required to make a ship that could, if need be, sink underwater without taking in water.

Which also meant the Ravens' Child could sail where the air was thin, in the furthest skies.

Vincent turned away from the controls, and faced a small assortment of metal tubes sticking out of the floor. Each one had a small nameplate just below the open tube, identifying where the tube lead to. Vincent leaned towards the one with 'Upper Deck, Aft' on the label, and spoke into it as if someone was just next to him. "Mercy, do we have any dockhands ready to launch us free of the Roost?"

"We do indeed, captain," Mercy replied, her voice only a little tinny from speaking through a hundred feet of metal tube. "Our ship's a bit of a novelty, there's a bit of a crowd gathering to see us off."

"Long as one of them can release the clamps," Vincent said. He reached to the harness he had put on recently, a three-point harness that housed a retracting length of metal wire with a hook on the end. Vincent extended it to a nearby piece of rail, and clipped himself to it. "You clipped in, Mercy?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Good. Let me know when you see Leslie back on the top deck," Vincent said. He looked to the left of the wheel, at the assortment of gauges. The one closest to the wheel, which displayed the steam pressure in the engine boiler, was just starting to turn straight up.

That moving dial meant Anita had reached the engine room, and had gotten to work. "Anita, are you clipped-in? And your boots have bite?"

In the far skies, where the pull of the isles was weak, wearing boots with magnets stitched into the soles was as important as a warm coat in a storm. Even if his crew found it fussy and paternal, he was going to ask anyway. "All's well. Clip is set, and the boots cling like a courtesan to a banker. Ship's purring happily, boiler pressure's building fast. If I had a complaint down here, it would be the machinery's too quiet."

"It can be as quiet as it likes, so long as it works. Let me know if anything changes," Vincent replied.

"Cap, Leslie's back on deck. His clip is set and his boots have cling."

"Then let's get into the sky again. Let the harbour master know we're ready for launch," Vincent said.

Vincent's hands settled on the ship's wheel, and his eyes were fixed on the horizon. Above, he could see the tether chain that held the Roost to Idlewind, and swung the shipyards about like the ends of a windmill.

Any ship that left the Roost could use that momentum to launch themselves out into the skies, taking to the air at speed and almost instantly. And all the harbour master at the Roost had to do, was pull a switch.

All of a sudden, Vincent was weightless. The dockyards shot upwards, and in a heartbeat Vincent was staring at the underside of the Roost. One, two, six, twelve, suddenly Vincent could see the keel side of dozens of ships. Looking up through the window, the entire Roost came into view in well under a minute, and kept shrinking.

Vincent could feel his body pulling gently at his boots. Idlewind's gravity was too weak at this distance to notice, and it was by far the closest island in the sky. Without clips and magnetic boots, he'd be floating around in his own bridge.

Vincent pulled a lever on his right, pulling down to just four markers from the bottom. He leaned over to the speaking tube. "Miss Hoffman, all ahead cruising speed. Avoid stressing her out, but let's put the new girl through her paces."

"Aye, cap!" Anita called back.

Vincent could feel the propellers push the ship forward, both in the gentle rumble of the propellers as they vibrated the ship, and as his boots pushed into his heels. He spun the wheel, just a little, and turned the ship away from the still-shrinking shape of Whiskeyjack's Roost.

"Mercy, how's the sky?" Vincent asked.

"Wind's strong and the sky is clear. The harbourmaster timed that nicely for us, the Mistral winds are at our backs," Mercy reported.

"Sounds lies something we ought to be taking advantage of. Let out the sails, let's see what a cruising speed feels like for this ship," Vincent said, and he pulled one of the smaller levers further to his right.

The sudden surge of pressure pulling the ship forward was shocking. Vincent tried to look to the sides of the ship, too see what the sails looked like. It was hard to tell a ship's speed in the open skies, but if they caught most of the Mistral winds they could be sailing more than forty knots.

"It's been a long time in the making," Vincent said. He patted the wheel as he spoke, smiling happily as the whir of the engines caused the whole ship to hum. The sound the ship made was precisely the same tone Vincent was whistling as he sailed.