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The sun was just rising over Arrhen but the city had been awake for several hours already, bustling with the heightened energy of a busy port. Its seaside docks were unparalleled in the Empire, due in large part to the unique shape the city wrapped around the coast, and only Tremont boasted higher numbers of airships in and out of the city every day. The city also played host to a one-of-a-kind attraction, a fixture to the north of the city called the Azure Market, famous for being open to both human and otherkind. There were permanent stalls that operated year-round and attached fair grounds for the high holidays when hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Arrhen. From the almond-eyed traders of Yulen to the sun-roasted merchants of the southern jungles, any and all kind rubbed elbows with one another throughout the port city. Often rubbing elbows turned to butting heads and they were all sailors after a fashion, so brawls turned bloody quickly in the taverns of Arrhen. It was one of the many charming aspects Ruth Hutchinson had observed as she walked through the main streets on the way back to the airships docks.

She took a deep breath, filling up her lungs and releasing it in a loud yawn, displaying the uncommonly white teeth she had in comparison to the roughshod sailors and pilots they passed by, but the man who walked comfortably beside her snorted at the sight. "Very ladylike," Dane said, smiling widely when she made a rude gesture at him. They continued their walk in silence for another minute, Ruth's hands free and draped lazily over her shoulders, unconcerned about the fact that Dane's hands were full with the groceries they were both sent to retrieve.

"Him?" She asked her companion, flicking a subtle nod towards a particular hairy man walking opposite of them.

"A boar, you can tell by how many times his nose has broken in a charge, very easy." Dane grinned, showing a smile just as white as her own, though it was obscured by the shoulder-length, blond hair he hadn't tied back that morning. It was clean, which was more than could be said for most of the people on the docks. "A small flirt with his tavern wench and he'd be rabid for a fight." She considered it for a second and nodded, accepting the answer when she couldn't think of doing anything different. Her companion's eyes, brown with small flecks of amber, roved over the crowds when he smiled: "That one, the bald monster."

"A pugilist, thick knuckles, scars on his cheeks," she analyzed, her accent thick and common to the country of Concercria to the north. Passersby would even claim that she walked with the haughty gait typical of her countrymen once they had the chance to judge her. Granted, the impression wasn't helped by the fact that she had made her male companion carry everything they had bought at market. "I would comment on the diminutive prowess of his masculinity and–"

He made a rude noise by forcing the air out between his pressed lips, laughing at her quirked eyebrows. "You've used that excuse twice now," Dane said.

"It’s not my doing that such faults are of major concern to every man, I'm just using it to my advantage." She said, smirking just to taunt him. Instead, he laughed, ignoring the bait with a smile of his own.

"I win this round," he claimed, readjusting his grip on their grocery bags. "As the poor loser, you choose the next game."

"The proper term is 'sore loser' and you cannot be serious. Because I used the same method to goad an enemy into fighting more than once, you win?" Ruth asked, clearly outraged but she frowned at how confident he looked. "That's not fair, not when you've used 'kick him in the bollocks' three times in a row."

"It's not my doing that such weaknesses are of major concern to every man, I'm just using it to my advantage," he said, repeating her words with almost the exact intonation but his own northern accent was problematic for pronouncing her drawl correctly. The attempt still had the desirable effect and Ruth promptly stuck her tongue out at him. "No, I win because you miss the obvious. Your pugilist, as you named, has a leg injury to his right kneecap, older than a year but no older than two. The cut of his clothes, the colors he wears? Notice the little toughs hanging about him? He's an enforcer with hired help, making your stratagem useless, so I win."

Ruth took a moment to consider this, then after that moment, she pouted.

"Oh stuff your silly warrior's games," she said, crossing her arms. "They're not fun anyway."

"Especially when you lose," Dane pointed out lightly. She said something scathing in her native Creshe that suggested he do something intimate with a goat and then made the hand gesture for emphasis. He laughed, familiar with the crude humor of his companion, but it was noticeable that a few passersby stared wide-eyed at Ruth. Just as the two of them watched others in the crowd, others in the crowd were curious of this small, pixie-faced brunette that made such a suicidal gesture at a man who was unmistakably a Togule.

Dane Bannick, Ruth’s childhood friend and Second Mate aboard the Daruna, was a very serious-faced man who wore the traditional and distinctive clothing of a warrior from Toguldor, a country northwest of the main continent. It was a summer's outfit, for anyone who knew such things, and it consisted of a gray kilt and a red tunic with a deep neck that parted significantly at the sides to better display the stitching of the fabric below, obscured only a little by the sash tied at his waist. Of course, the clothing was not intimidating in and of itself but the distinct lack of sleeves helped to showcase the Togule tattoos he had, and they spread everywhere. From the fingertips of his right hand up across his chest down to the elbow of his left arm, there were more hidden by the rich fabrics, hinted at with the black ink of his knees above his boots. They were known as Zetla-Beskri, or spirit letters, archaic designs that symbolized his family's history and protection from harm. It marked him as a warrior of Toguldor, and what everyone else in the world knew of that place was that it was filled with barbarians and cannibals. They were a people so vicious that they bathed in the blood of their fallen enemy, painting their throats red with it and earning the commonly known slur of 'togger'. It was a word the two crewmates had heard in passing several times as they walked, and not exactly in the friendliest of tones.

Dane walked confidently, not because he felt at ease amidst the looks and whispers. It was because Ruth walked with a weapon, her quiver and recurve bow strapped to her back. He knew from experience that she could have it out and strung with an arrow in as much time as it took for someone to look at him funny. She glanced at him, an eyebrow tilted in question at his silence, but he smiled and she looked satisfied with whatever answer she had gleaned from his expression.

They were very old friends; often, words just got in the way.

"We're back!" She announced, climbing up the gangplank much faster than Dane, unburdened as she was.

The Daruna, docked among several boats undergoing the same treatment, was crawling with carpenters and engineers, workers all wearing the insignia of the Sahalyian Merchant Service. Ruth nodded and waved to a few of the greetings and welcomes she received, promising that lunch would be ready in an hour and that it was a surprise, not hers to tell, but oh, they would be delighted. As soon as the two walked down below deck, the smile fell away from the Creshe's face in favor of a scowl. Yes, they were repairmen and doing their best to fix their ship, but the Daruna was her home. Having so many people on board made her skin itch. Dane gave her a sympathetic look which only deepened the irritation on her face, something she tried to smooth away when they made straight for the kitchen.

"And where have you two been? Dragging your feet, I suspect. Give that over, come on," an almond-skinned woman grabbed the bags that weighed Dane down with ease, laying them out on some available counter space before digging through them, muttering about peppers. "That lot upstairs has been nothing but grumbling about lunch as soon as they'd finished their breakfast, spirits protect me." She wasn't a very tall woman, curvy with weight that naturally seemed to settle around her hips and calves and at forty-two years of age, she carried it gracefully. Her hair, made of an abundance of tight, black curls was kept back in a loose tie. A few strands framed a face that was lovely, dusted with light freckles and creased with smiling.

Neonna Lett wasn't a very intimidating figure, but all the same, she was the reason that the head carpenter had allowed the crew to remain onboard throughout the repairs. She promised him and his workers free meals, and in return the crew didn't take up rooms at the local guild house. With a sound of triumph, she pulled out a small cache of fresh peppers from the groceries and she grabbed two in one hand. In the other, there was suddenly a long, sleek knife. The speed and precision with which she cut the vegetables down to size gave one a different idea as to why Neonna had been so effective at changing the carpenter's mind.

"Otha, tell me that you're ready with those onions!" She snapped, sweeping the neatly cut pepper into a heated pan that began to spit and sizzle.

Hands of such a dark brown they were almost black were instantly by her side, sweeping in similarly diced onions into the same pan. Otha Rains had a cheeky smile, all teeth and mischief on display as the cook waved him off, saying he could get the potatoes sliced if he was going to sass her in such fashion. He didn't say anything, just continued humming softly under his breath as he did as she told him. Neonna appeared to be completely focused on the pan in front of her that it was uncanny when she heard Dane's small chuckle at all. "And if you got something to say, young man, you can wash your hands and start slicing up the pork. Quick! Those boys will eat our ship instead of fixing it if we don’t fill their bellies first."

Knowing better than to even smile at her friend's predicament lest she be recruited as well, Ruth pointedly ignored the kitchen as Neonna shook out one of her extra aprons and handed it to Dane. Instead, she walked over and sat down with a sigh on the bench opposite of the ship's quartermaster, a man with skin like wrinkled leather and a salt-and-pepper head of hair. He adjusted the wire frames on the end of his nose and shared a look with Ruth, who flickered a glance at Neonna and turned back to him.

"I’ll not hear a word of it from you, Miss Hutchinson," he said primly. By the way his jaw tightened, it was clear he was not happy about the current arrangement either. "She found a way to deal with it. If the entire ship smells like casserole for days, I much prefer it than the alternative," he added quietly but his tone brooked no argument. She raised an eyebrow, lips pursed in a frown, but the quartermaster stared back, evenly and unimpressed.

Ruth considered making a quarrelsome remark, just to give the man something to sink his teeth into, but she didn't have the patience to indulge him. Cornelius Culton often gave others the impression that he was a cantankerous old man set in his ways, and that's precisely what he was. In truth, Ruth admired him, even if he hindered her as often as he helped.

"I feel as though I know the answer, but did Essie sign off on this?" She asked, and the man scoffed lightly.

"I would like to see that woman try to do otherwise," he said. His voice had a raspy quality to it from too many years with a pipe in his hand, but it wasn’t hard to hear the iron will behind his words. Regardless of rank, he certainly would've given the Guild Mistress a difficult time if she had tried to order them off the ship. He noticeably turned to regard Neonna, the friendly cook rattling off the secret to a good casserole to her pressganged help. Ruth knew he would have been more comfortable in a real bed at the local guild house but he stayed because this was Neonna's kitchen, and as remarkable as the idea was, the two were best friends.

Ruth glanced at Dane, and smiled in sympathy.

"Besides," Cornelius continued, turning back and resting both elbows on the table. "That beast of a woman may have just returned to port this morning but there was a summons here for the captain as soon as she could get a runner down to the docks. If my calculations are correct, he'll distract her long enough for Nona's desert to cool down, after which I will ask our lovely cook to set down her knives and accompany me for a ride through the city. I'd suggest dinner but I fear if I take her to an eating house, she'll just barge her way into the kitchens and show them how to make a proper kidney pie again. Where she gets the kidneys from, that's always the mystery. There was one time when we were stranded in Ban Urenli, miles from civilization as you and I would know it…" Ruth held out her hand, pausing the quartermaster before he could go full tilt into a good ramble.

"So to distract the Goodwife Gallimore, you threw the captain at her? And you sent him alone?"

He arched a well-groomed eyebrow, his expression cooling significantly. "As if I could stop him," he replied.

"You could have tried," she said, meeting his gaze point for point. As First Mate of the Daruna, she certainly didn’t outrank the old man, but she was safe in arguing with him, especially when it came to Frederic. Ruth was sure she wasn't the only one who had noticed that the captain had been going off alone more and more often, giving out tired excuses as if he didn't even have the strength to lie properly. He had spent most of their limping flight to Arrhen below deck in the room they had converted into an infirmary, a bone of contention she had yet to swallow because he had left her to manage the ship alone. The two days' journey had been so tense that Ruth prayed selfishly for Georgia to waken, to be healthy and sound of mind, because if she came back, maybe Frederic would come back too. "Or at least stalled him long enough, so I could return. I would've sat on him if necessary," she added.

"That is most likely why he left shortly after you and Mister Bannick made your way to market. He did ask, however, if you could check on Miss Sigg when you returned," he added, and of all the things he could've done, Cornelius suddenly laughed at her. "She's almost half his age, Ma’dame, you don't need to make such faces."

"I'm not," she protested, cheeks suddenly flush with red. "I wasn't!"

"Come back when the scales have fallen from your eyes," he said, laughing in his raspy tone. "And in order to return, you first must leave. Go on, get, and let the young doctor know when lunch will be ready."

"Thirty-three minutes!" Neonna called, releasing her thralls now that the prep work was done. They turned over their aprons and abandoned the kitchen as soon as the cook looked away. Frowning at Ruth, she raised her index finger at her and said, "Tell her half an hour. I won't abide her dawdling again."

Ruth nodded to the cook as Dane sank down gratefully beside her. Otha did the same beside Cornelius, and the dark-skinned boatswain looked pleasant and preoccupied as he always did, despite having been under Neonna’s thumb longer than the Togule had. The quartermaster made a shooing motion at Ruth, and she scowled.

"I'm not going to do it, send Bonnie. The two of them seem to be getting along," she said petulantly, naming their wayward navigator. Then, as her own words floated up into her conscious mind, she glanced around and asked: "Actually, where is Bonnie?"

Otha glanced up for maybe a moment before looking back down, but Dane's sharp eyes narrowed.

"Are you two fighting again?" He asked, looking curiously at the younger man as Otha dug into his pockets for a moment and then set a deck of cards on the table.

"No," he said carefully, cutting the deck and shuffling it with a practiced ease. His voice, a melodic baritone, seemed to match his default expression in congeniality. "We are simply not agreeing at the moment." Everyone but Otha made a noise or groan of displeasure at his statement but he simply shrugged and started handing out five cards to each of them seated. Ruth waved him off when he came to her, rising to her feet with a sigh.

"I've got to check in with the doctor, see how Georgia is doing." There was a brief but subtle wince from everyone in the room, and Ruth ignored it without breaking her stride. "And if I know our Halish hellcat, she'll be down there cursing men up and down the east coast, starting with you." She pointed at Otha, giving the young man a scowl while he merely grinned. "Stay here and hide, you cowards, I'll go get our women." Ruth walked away as the men started their card game, and Neonna called out after her:

"Half an hour, don't be late!"