21 Ash 121
Zaichaer Outskirts
The city of Zaichaer disappeared behind Vanessa as her carriage rattled on down the ill maintained roads that dotted the outskirts of the city. She had slept terribly, and it was damnably early besides. It was a small comfort that she was not hungover, the last thing she needed before a long flight was a splitting headache.
The stagecoach carried her far away from the city and its guards, and did so under a heavy blanket of night. The clouds hung heavy in the sky, blotting out the moon and stars and meaning that the carriage driver was largely guessing on where the road actually was. Thankfully the driver and horse knew the roads well enough to keep from careening off into a ditch, for which Vanessa was patently grateful.
The lack of foot traffic was a boon as well, and it meant the horse could comfortably be brought to a trot without fear of running anyone down. The carriage driver did so once they were well away from the city gates, having well understood that Vanessa wanted to be as far away from prying eyes as possible before she made her departure. He was one of the drivers that House Michaelis often used, and he had grown quite used to Vanessa's peculiar requests. She had always tipped him well despite him already being well paid by the noble house, so he had never truly found a reason to complain. Carriage drivers were not paid to care about when, where, or why someone needed to be taken elsewhere, and focused instead on merely meeting that demand. If Miss Quill wanted to be taken to the edge of town on an unmarked, painfully plain carriage, then she damned well got it.
The ride was otherwise uneventful, and after a little over an hour, the carriage slowed to a halt, and the driver rapped his knuckles on the covered carriage. “Miss Quill. We have arrived, such as it is.” He said with terse kindness.
Vanessa opened the door herself and stepped out onto the crossroads. From here the road split off in half a dozen directions, and there was precious little way to tell where any one of them might lead. Luckily, Vanessa had no need to use any of them, so that scarcely bothered her.
Behind her, the driver now lit the carriage lamps to give Vanessa a bit of light by which to see. The heavy mist hung close though, and made the lanterns more of symbolic gesture as the two were surrounded by smothering gray rather than black
The roads themselves were well traveled, but stepping off the footpaths led to unconquered wilderness. It would not have been especially treacherous during the day as the pathways were long and straight. By night though, the routes looked ominous. Trees covered passages, branches extending like fingers. Wolves and other beasts prowled just out of sight, pitched howls only occasionally interrupted by the death knells of their prey. She could not blame the carriage driver for carrying a cudgel on his hip and lurching at every unknown sound.
The only signs of civilized life were the smallest little beacons of campfires, or lanterns left out over a distant inn. There was an odd serenity to it all, and one that could make even the fearsome Vanessa Quill feel a bit small.
But feeling small was not why she had come so far, and so she set her mind to her task. She looked over to the carriage driver and nodded. “Thank you, Walter.” She took a few silvers from her pouch and handed them over. The driver tucked them appreciatively into his coat pocket, and regarded Vanessa again. “I shall be here again on the twenty third, correct?”
Vanessa nodded. “That's right. Feel free to bring the proper coach, and arrive at a normal hour. Evening work fine?”
“Of course, Miss Quill.” Walter agreed. “I do hope you enjoy your trip.”
And with that, he brought the coach around and started back towards the city at a brisk canter now that there were no passengers for whom he must consider comfort. She waited for the sounds of the horses hooves and the rattling wagon wheels to die away to nothing before she took her next steps in the enveloping darkness.
Underneath her heavy doublet was her cloak of flying. Simply by reaching with her mind, the magic within ignited and she was freed from the tyranny of gravity. Once awoken, the magic required little attention for it to function, and Vanessa surged upwards through the air like a wyvern. She cleaved through the low hanging fog that clutched the ground, and continued to ascend until she was above the lowest clouds in the sky. Once there, Vanessa stopped and marveled at the ground below her, little of it though she could see. It reminded her of life on an airship, but this feeling of freedom was not an exact match. The Queen Bitch had been a nimble vessel, but she still responded to commands slowly and laboriously when compared to how quickly Vanessa could control herself with this cloak.
Once high enough in the air, Vanessa turned herself towards Kalzasi. She retrieved a pair of sunglasses from her coat pocket and donned them despite the darkness. Then Vanessa sent herself sailing through the skies with but a single thought. The air was still, but that scarcely mattered for the sprint she had set herself on. The air rushed past her, drowning out any other sounds and smothering her in the rush of winds. Such sounds were familiar to her, and did little to dissuade herself from spurring on faster. She did not need to worry about exhaustion, so she pushed the magic of the cloak as fiercely as she could stomach.
The ground swept away beneath her, trees little more than blurs as she streaked through the air. The darkness did make the first hour of the voyage feel more perilous, but Vanessa was hundreds of feet above the ground without a single soul to spot her in the blotted ink of night.
Dawn came quickly, sun chasing away the darkness and bathing the countryside in a beautiful magenta. The clouds themselves took on more reddish tones, and beyond them was the vast fathoms of the sky.
It was beautiful, so beautiful that even a bullish woman like Vanessa could see it.
Beautiful and hers.
She claimed these skies, and they embraced her in kind. Together again as lovers driven apart by calamity, Vanessa and the sky danced. The Avialae may have called themselves skyborn, but they were not beloved by the sky as she was. Having never known life without a claim on the sky, how could they truly appreciate all that she was? They could not, not like Vanessa could. She loved the sky for she knew the pain of her absence, and Vanessa's heart soared to feel to near to her again.
But the sky was a demanding lover, and abhorred those that did not pay her proper respect. Winds rose to try and impede Vanessa, but the sky-skimmer was not deterred. Vanessa rose to meet each challenge, dancing along the currents until the winds changed and she was carried instead by a tailwind.
Over and over, the sky challenged her love, and often with precious little warning. Winds howled and the sky did well to flex her power. Over and over, Vanessa proved her devotion as she blitzed across the sky like a comet. Oh, she was spun and upended and pitched from her path, but that was the price she paid to love the sky. For hours they danced. The sky led the performance, and Vanessa followed her cues.
In the trance, Vanessa's mind turned to Anton. Even when in the throes of passion with her lost love, she could not help but think of him. He was the reason she was making this voyage in the first place. He had made clear his desire to go unnoticed, and Vanessa wanted only to help. It was excessive to visit Kalzasi for this task, House Michaelis almost certainly had a tailor of their own they could have recommended had she asked. But Vanessa would have never asked, nor would she have let anyone in the Knob learn of her newfound allegiance before she had the chance to make it public. No, her contact in Kalzasi would do well for the task at hand, small though it was.
She too wished to share this beauty with Anton, and wondered how he might see a sunrise. Would Anton weep for its beauty, or were all things so beautiful when seen through the eyes of Semblance? She resolved to ask him when she returned to the city. All of their prior outings had gone over amazingly, so she saw no reason why he might turn her down.
The day marched onward, and Vanessa did begin to see other visitors in the skies. They pierced the clouds high above her on ships she would have plundered in years past. Now though she was not quite as fast as even the slowest of airships, but was surprised by how she kept pace. Flying low, she kept out of the way of the sky barges while still never needing to change her course to avoid the geography below her. The end result was a blisteringly fast straight shot to the outskirts of Kalzasi.
Eight hours of flying hell for leather did eventually take its toll, even if it did not strictly exhaust Vanessa in the physical sense. It was no small amount of time to remain vigilant and alert, though the consequences for dallying in either were thankfully negligible. Her reunion with her lost love came to an end as the magic on her cloak had begun to dwindle. Whoever had worked the magic into this cloak had helpfully designed it so it did not simply send the user crashing into the dirt, but instead reserved a small amount to simply drift its owner lazily down to the ground before becoming inert and requiring time to recoup its lost power.
Vanessa was glad for the solid ground beneath her feet again. A tryst with one always left her with the yearning for the other, it seemed. She was far enough from Kalzasi proper that there were no nearby guard towers, and she had seen no gryphons or icewings on her approach. A few had certainly seen her, but had not labeled her a tremendous threat. Without knowing from where she hailed, she was just another sky-skimmer that was enjoying their freedom a bit too much. Though there were laws and codes for such conduct within the city proper, hardly could the skyguard be called on to harass everyone who claimed the sky as their friend.
Vanessa soon found the main footpath into the city, and fell in with a group of travelers. Not so close that they noticed her, but not so distant that she appeared to be traveling alone. Then she slipped a canvas sack out from one of the inner pockets of her doublet and unfolded it. While she walked, she stuffed her doublet inside the sack and pulled the cinches tight. The coat alone would not have given her away, but it would have invited questions that she would have rather not answered.
Her simple cloak, a hardspun shirt and patterned breeches made her blend in nicely, though her hair was an utter mess from the flight. She ran her fingers through it to try and wrestle it back into some sense of order, and at least succeeded in making herself not look half-mad.
It was well into the evening by the time she had arrived in the commons. There were guards posted, and Vanessa avoided getting near to them out of habit. None so much as glanced her way. There was distinct difference in how the skyguard conducted themselves compared to the ZADC. Zaichaer's corps were a motley crew of the dregs, while the Skyguard at least seemed to play at chivalry. There was an assumption of innocence here that was absent in Zaichaer, but still her homeland's atmosphere influenced the way she conducted herself.
After weaving through the commons, Vanessa found the Steady Hand, a tailor shop. She tried the door, but it was locked. Damn that boy, why was tonight the night he chose to be responsible? Stepping back, Vanessa peered up at the room above the shop. The lights were out, but it was too early for its occupant to have retired for the evening. Good, there was still a chance.
It was another half hour before she spotted her contact coming up the road, looking damned proud of himself while lost in his thoughts. If there was anyone alive that could have exceeded Vanessa's own confidence, than it was certainly the boy she watched swagger down the road. Vanessa cut an impressive figure brooding against the door frame, but obliviously he marched on. It was almost impressive.
When he was within earshot, Vanessa finally decided to break the hopelessly upbeat boy out of his thoughts. Her voice of iron rang out, shattering the silence of the street as she made her presence known.
“Hello, Charlie.”