Chapter 15

Fifteen

Pip stood on the metal catwalk that ringed the top of the gondola. Standing at the bow, the breeze of the airship's passing toyed with her curls and smacked cold against her face. Stars twinkled in the depths of the nighttime sky that spread out high overhead, partially blocked by the balloon of the dirigible. Below, clusters of lights marked out Escarlish villages amid the darkness of empty farm fields. The distant whistle of a train echoed on the breeze, but it was the only sound that could reach her from the land below.

Behind her came the thrum of the propellers, clank of footsteps on various catwalks, and the buzz of indistinct voices from the dirigible. Despite the noise, her spot at the railing was strangely peaceful, drifting between land and sky.

Bootsteps clanked on the catwalk behind her, but not with the heaviness she'd heard from the airmen. She stayed where she was, not surprised when Fieran leaned against the railing next to her. Only an elf—or half-elf—could manage to walk that quietly on an echoing metal walk while wearing army boots.

"A peaceful night." Fieran breathed in deeply. A hint of his magic sparked over his fingers and jumped to the railing. He glanced down, then clenched his fists to snuff out his magic.

"Yes, it is." Pip gestured to his hands. "Less peaceful if you lose control of your magic. That's getting worse."

"I'll be fine." Fieran shrugged, though another spark of magic jumped from his fingers to the rail. "I'd sneak away to the top of the balloon again to let loose, but I've already risked that once. I think someone would notice a blue glow lighting up the night. Besides, I don't want to risk accidentally incinerating something critical. The balloon looks sturdy, but it wouldn't take much of my magic to damage it enough to take it down."

"Thanks for that mental image." Pip gave an exaggerated shudder. "Just when I was enjoying this airship cruise, you had to go and remind me how easy it would be to crash."

"Don't worry. This airship is heavily armed and magically protected. Nothing short of my magic is going to take it down." Fieran nudged her with a shoulder. "And I have my magic under tight control. No incinerating things tonight."

"We could still crash from a hundred other reasons." Pip found herself gripping the railing just thinking about it. She was doing a decent job of suppressing the longing for the ground, but talking about it was causing that panicky feeling in her throat again.

"That's why you mechanics are here to make sure those hundred reasons don't happen." Fieran's tone was light, but his grin faded as he turned to her, his face visible in the golden light filtering up from the gondola below. "How about a change in topic? I have a question I've been wanting to ask you."

"Go ahead. Shoot." Pip gripped the railing and closed her eyes, concentrating on the cool breeze sweeping across her face.

"What's with the hyphenated last name?" Fieran's voice was low, regaining that hint of a chuckle. "Not that I'm criticizing or anything. My own name is a mouthful."

"I've been wondering about your last name too." Pip peeled her eyes open, focusing on Fieran rather than the ground far, far below. "Laesornysh is quite the last name to inherit. I'm a bit surprised your parents didn't settle on something else."

Years ago, elves hadn't had family names like the humans of Escarland and trolls of Kostaria did. They earned titles instead, which held great meaning among the elves when they were bestowed.

Thanks to the alliances, King Weylind had decreed that elves also take last names to create a standard across all three of the Alliance Kingdoms. Of course, they could still earn titles on top of their last names, but it would be an additional third name and not used like a family name.

Pip's dacha's title Inawenys meant Negotiator of Iron, bestowed for his role in negotiating the current trade agreement between Tarenhiel and her muka's kingdom of dwarves. That title had become a part of Pip's last name thanks to King Weylind's decree.

Fieran rested more fully against the rail and sucked in a deep breath, as if preparing for a long explanation. "Since Mama is a princess of Escarland and Dacha is a prince of Tarenhiel, they could have picked the royal last name of either kingdom. Instead, they decided to leave the royal names for my cousins on both sides and take a new family name."

"I guess that makes sense." Pip tried not to let her bubbling squeal loose at the casual mention of Prince Farrendel and Princess Elspeth. She would concentrate on this conversation and not get sidetracked with hero worship. "With how long you will live compared to your royal Escarlish cousins, it would be awkward if you had the same last name as those in line for the throne."

"Exactly." Fieran smiled at her, as if pleased that she'd understood so quickly. "My uncles did the same thing for the same reason. Uncle Edmund uses his elven title for their last name, and Uncle Julien took Aunt Vriska's troll family name, even though neither of them technically needed to drop the Escarlish royal last name for something else."

"So you ended up Laesornysh." Pip gave a slight nod, the elven warrior name rolling off her tongue.

"Yes. I don't mind carrying Dacha's title. It's just…" Fieran sighed and gave a weary roll of his shoulders. "It would have been nice to inherit a last name that didn't carry such weight. It is a title given to a worthy warrior, not carried by someone who has yet to prove himself in battle."

Pip rested her hand on Fieran's forearm, his muscles flexing beneath her fingers as he clenched his fists. "Even if the elves can't see it yet, you have every right to your dacha's title, and I know you will be a warrior every bit as brave as he was. And I say that as someone who is rather overawed by his magical-mechanical accomplishments."

"Thanks." Fieran dropped his gaze from hers, his shoulders hunched. But the melancholy lasted only a moment before he straightened, his smile returning. "The other annoying part about the last name of Laesornysh is the Escarlish find it hard to pronounce. I'm just thankful my mama managed to talk my dacha out of naming me Fierendel. Can you imagine going around with the name of Fierendel Laesornysh? People already accidentally call me by my dacha's name as it is."

"I could see how that would get annoying." Pip laughed, shaking her head. As she, too, was half elf, he didn't have to explain the full connotation. Fierendel would have been the proper elven form of his name, meaning One with the Fiery Red Hair. "Elves have a hard time with the dwarven Pippak, so I usually go by Pippa or just Pip since it's easier, despite the elves' horror at shortening a name like that and butchering the meaning."

"Elves can be quite stuffy about nicknames." Fieran gave a more relaxed shrug this time. "At least Red is what the drill sergeants call me anyway. Little do they know that my name is literally Red Hair in elvish."

Pip nudged him by leaning into him with a shoulder. "Red fits you so well."

"Doesn't it?" He swiped a hand over the short strands of his red hair. "Probably even more so if I wore my hair in the long elven style. But much to my dacha's chagrin, I preferred to keep my hair short even before joining the army. I didn't inherit the mystical and magical properties of elven hair."

"I didn't get my dacha's hair either, though my hair doesn't frizz as much as most curly hair." Pip rubbed a hand over her chin. "Nor did I inherit the mythical and magical properties of beard hair. And as much as I love my muka, I'm elven enough that I can't be too sad about that."

Fieran tipped his head back as he gave a full-throated chuckle, the kind of laugh that made everyone around him want to laugh along. "I can't imagine you with a beard." He paused and glanced at her. "But you didn't answer my original question. What's up with the hyphenated last name?"

"You distracted me with all your talk of magical hair." Pip rolled her eyes right back at him. "A dwarf's last name refers to their clan, which is one large, extended family. But it's more than just a statement of familial relationship. A clan lives in one mountain, which is named after the clan, and the clan head acts as something of a mayor. Groups of clans form the next tier of government, and so on and so forth all the way up to the dwarf king."

"That's neat. So your mama is from Mount Detmuk?"

"Yes. My great-great-uncle is the clan head." Pip rolled her shoulders in another shrug. "I don't really know him. But Clan Detmuk does have a decent amount of influence since Mount Detmuk serves as one of the main railroad terminals between the dwarven mountains and Tarenhiel."

"Was that how your parents met?" Fieran glanced at her before facing the night once again, peering outward as if taking in the view of village lights crawling past below.

"Yes." Pip smiled, remembering the looks on her parents' faces whenever they talked about falling in love. "My dacha traveled to Mount Detmuk to negotiate a renewal of the various treaties and trade agreements, and he and my muka fell in love."

"Sounds like your parents should have legends told about them." Fieran's smile turned lopsided, his face both highlighted and shadowed by the lights from the gondola. "I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind sharing the spotlight."

"Everyone knows elf-dwarf romances aren't as widely celebrated as elf-human ones." Pip shook her head and nudged Fieran again. "Besides, my parents got married before yours in the time when Tarenhiel was more insular. My parents' marriage was far more frowned upon back then."

"I'm glad my parents helped make things better for your parents." Fieran's smile faded again to that soft, sincere expression of his that darkened his brilliant blue eyes.

"Well, somewhat. My dacha's parents still make snide remarks when we make a rare trip to visit them." Pip rubbed a hand over her jaw again, her chest aching slightly. "They routinely inspect me to make sure I haven't sprouted any beard hairs yet. I don't even want a beard, and it still makes me feel prickly. My machasheni barely even acknowledges my muka."

"I'm sorry. That's hard." Fieran leaned his elbows on the railing, which put his head level with hers, even though he was bent over. "I never knew either of my grandfathers. They were both dead long before I was born. As was my machasheni on my dacha's side. But my grandmother on my mother's side experienced a long life for a human, and I had the chance to get to know her before she died. I also have my dacha's machasheni, who fills that role for all of us. But neither my grandmother nor great-grandmother ever showed any scorn to either my dacha or mama. What about your dwarven grandparents?"

"They're better about it than my elven grandparents, though they still occasionally hassle my dacha for his lack of beard." Pip leaned against the rail, though she propped herself up on her hands rather than her elbows like Fieran. She didn't want to bend over and make herself any shorter than she already was. "We don't get to see them often, though, because it's a long trip, and it isn't easy to get someone to cover our duties at the western rail terminal."

"I can see that." Fieran gestured out at the dark landscape spreading below them. "My parents split their time between Tarenhiel and Escarland while I was growing up, so I was able to know both sides of my family well. Even now, Dacha and Mama still travel back and forth frequently. I don't always go with them, but I know I always have a home in both places."

"That's nice that you were able to experience both sides of your heritage growing up like that." Pip swallowed the lump in her throat. "That's actually the reason for my hyphenated surname. Since my parents lived exclusively in Tarenhiel with only occasional visits to Mount Detmuk, my parents didn't want us to lose all sense of connection to our dwarven side. So they hyphenated my muka's clan name with dacha's elven title. Perhaps we could have used only our dwarven name when visiting Mount Detmuk and only Dacha's name in Tarenhiel. But that always felt like denying half of ourselves, you know?"

"Yeah, I understand that." Fieran stared straight ahead, a weight to his words. "There can be such a pressure to be one thing or another. To be all elf or all human. People don't really know what to do with someone who doesn't fit into their little boxes."

Time to bring back a little bit of levity. Pip leaned into him again, nudging him with her shoulder. "I fit into quite little boxes."

He laughed, nudging her in return. "True. I wedge myself into aeroplane cockpits that are quite small, especially for my long legs. But there are some boxes I don't want to wedge myself into, even if it means I need to work extra hard to forge my own way."

"I think we're making a good start there." Pip waved at the night sky and dark land below them, dotted with pinpricks of life.

"Nothing wider than the open sky." Fieran grinned, his straight white teeth gleaming in the faint light from behind and beneath them.

"Exactly." As they lapsed into silence, Pip breathed in the comfortable peace of standing there with him. Despite her earlier awkwardness around him because of his dacha, Fieran was one of those strangely comfortable guys to be around, as long as a girl didn't read too much into his smiles.

Fieran stoodalong the rear bulkhead of the pilothouse with the rest of his small group. An airman walked all of them through the steps of flying an airship, even as they stayed out of the way.

Unlike a flyer, which was simply a matter of the rudder and the stick with only a handful of gauges, an airship flew through the precise working of speeds for the two engines, flaps along the sides, dumping ballast or moving ballast between the tanks, and venting air. Watching it all, Fieran could see why the dirigibles were called airships. This truly ran more like a ship in a sea of air rather than the aeroplane he was learning to fly.

Through the broad windows at the front of the pilothouse, the setting sun highlighted the far distant smudge that was the Whitehurst Mountains. Almost directly in front and below them, Fort Charibert stood in the center of a section of forest that covered this part of Escarland.

Unlike Fort Linder, Fort Charibert had been an army fort for hundreds of years. It sprawled in all directions, strangely higgledy-piggledy despite the army orderliness of the rows of barracks made from a variety of materials, including wood, cement, brick, and stone. The fort's age showed in the shabbiness of many of the buildings.

The airship eased lower as the captain gave orders to shift ballast forward and vent the hot air trapped in some of the balloons. This air was regular air, not helium. These balloons were vented on descent rather than venting any of the harder-to-procure helium.

Gracefully, the airship drifted downward, then leveled off twenty feet above the ground. Orders were given, and airmen hurried to toss ropes off the bow and stern.

Fieran braced himself, and he barely swayed when the airship jerked to a halt, caught on the ropes the ground crew must have secured to something sturdy. Beside him, one of his fellow flyboys stumbled.

As the airship steadied at the end of its ropes, Fieran sighed and turned to Merrik. "I guess our little airship cruise is at an end."

Merrik elbowed him. "Not so loud. If someone hears you, our reprieve from PT will also be at an end."

Lije heaved his own sigh, though he spoke under his breath. "I'm going to miss navy food."

"Me too." Fieran had gained a whole two pounds in the past two days. It wasn't going to be easy going back to bland, tasteless, formless army food. Worse, they were headed out for a week in the woods where they would be living on hardtack and tinned food.

At least Pip wouldn't endure the week in the woods. She and the other mechanics would be spending a week in the airship hangar here at Fort Charibert, continuing their training.

After being ordered to collect their rucksacks, Fieran joined the others in the airship's mess. All too soon, the drill sergeants yelled them off the airship, and Fieran descended the ladder with his rucksack on his back. At the bottom, he assembled into line with Lije on one side, Merrik and Pretty Face in the row behind them.

Instead of being shown into nice, drafty barracks for the night, they immediately marched through the fort and into the surrounding woods.

They hiked along sandy trails, winding through a forest of scrubby pines, maples, and straggling oaks. At this time of spring, the first red buds sprouted at the ends of the branches, still a few weeks away from bursting into leaves. The night's chill fell around them, so cold that Fieran could see his breath puffing before his face.

Finally, the lieutenant called a halt, and they were instructed to dig foxholes in the dirt at the base of the trees for shelters for the night.

While Lije stood guard, Fieran pulled out his collapsible shovel and set to work digging what would be a two-man foxhole for himself and Lije. The sandy soil wasn't that hardpacked, but there were so many roots that it was hard digging.

A few feet away, Merrik dug the foxhole while Pretty Face stood guard, their foxhole positioned to coordinate lines of fire.

Fieran scraped away the two-to-three-inch-deep hole to lie in, trying to decide the best way to chop through the roots to dig the standing trench in front of his foxhole.

A faint green glow spread through the area around where he, Lije, Pretty Face, and Merrik had been assigned their foxholes. The roots that had been blocking Fieran's way wiggled back into the ground on either side of his foxhole, leaving nothing but dirt in his way.

Fieran took a moment to nod at Merrik before he went back to work. The roots curved around the spot in a wall, making the foxhole almost cozy.

For years, Fieran's family had camped out in the forested parkland of Treehaven several times throughout the summer. Sleeping out in the woods beneath the stars wasn't entirely unfamiliar to him, despite his privileged upbringing. But the whole dig his own foxhole and sleep with a gun tucked in next to him was new.

"Aaah!"

Fieran woke up to a scream. He bolted upright, reaching for his rifle.

A few yards away, Stickyfingers was hopping up and down on one foot, holding a boot in one hand. "Snake!"

"What kind?" Lije scrambled out of their foxhole, then dove after the snake. He came up with a long, wiggling black snake that was about three feet long. "Ooh, this one is good eating."

"I'm not eating that thing!" Stickyfingers lurched away from Lije as quickly as he could while hopping on one foot. "It was in my boot!"

"Come on, Sticky! Don't be a coward." Pretty Face smoothed a hand over his hair, though he kept his face turned away from Lije and the snake.

Fieran shook out his boots before he pulled them on. "I've never had snake before. What does it taste like?"

"Chicken, more or less." Lije hiked a few yards into the forest outside of their camp, pinned the snake to a rock, then cut off its head in a quick strike with his army knife. He tossed the snake's head into the brush and hung the body up by the tail to let the blood drain.

Tiny gathered wood while Fieran lit the kindling, coaxing the small fire they were allowed to light into life.

Stickyfingers prepared the coffee pot, and Merrik fetched the water that they would boil to give their salted meat some life. There was nothing much they could do about the army ration hardtack. Pretty Face took his time groaning and rolling out of his bedroll, grumbling the whole way.

By the time the water was boiling, Lije had gutted and skinned the snake, and he dropped the fresh meat into the pot with their pieces of salt pork.

Once the meat was cooked, they divided up the fresh snake meat. Even Stickyfingers claimed a piece, despite his earlier protests. By the time they shared with a few of the others in the unit, they only got a bite or two of snake meat each.

Fieran chewed his bites, taking the time to savor them. As Lije had said, it tasted like slightly gamier chicken. Not bad, really. Better than more salted meat and hardtack.

Perhaps life out in the bush wasn't so bad after all.