The pleasant smile on Simnia's face grew strained. [i]Not that important? The engines of an airship would be left to [b]one[/b] man? The [b]captain[/b] was only now seeing the ship for the first time? [b]Some[/b] form of job security? [b]Find[/b] some other kind of work?[/i] Her mouth twitched, and she struggled to remain pleasant. Work comes before the slave! Every illiterate mongrel child understood this concept. And if an engineer had told her before a long haul that he'd never set eyes on a train engine before, she'd throw herself off a cliff and save him the trouble. She had a vision of that ship falling into the mountains in a ball of white fire, and she forced herself calm.

"Well. I'm sure if Dariq were open to having an assistant --" There was a commotion, and someone bellowing in an altogether inconsiderate tone, and Simnia turned to give the raucous dwarf the stink eye, because how dare he interrupt people when they were in the middle of negotiating important business! But much to her frustration the captain rose to meet his heckler, thus abandoning what might have been one of the first productive conversations of Simnia's life.

But what followed was a tumult of disaster.

There was shouting. There were demands. A blade flashed in the sunlight. A shot rang out like thunder and Simnia squeaked like a kitten as loosened brain matter glistened in the spaces in the crowd. Instinctively she spun around, scanning the ship for the source of the shot, wondering whether it was aimed at [i]her[/i] head next, while a roar and thrash went to war all around her.

[i]Where was the little human?[/i]

"Anisa!" Simnia breathed hurriedly, and she slapped her signed contract on the table, and dodged Aria's blade, and jumped when a rifle shot whizzed by her ear, and she may or may not have stepped on someone's tail, and everything smelled coppery and musky like blood and new sweat, and her ears rang and her mouth was dry, and she hopped over the bodies and muttered obscenities to herself, and her eyes were wide and worried while she scanned the slashing and murdering. In the corner of her eye, tethering lines were flying severed in the wind. The ship was turning, the gangplank precarious. Someone moved behind the remains of her old faithful apricot crate, and she never thought she would be so happy to see it.

"Elani!" Simnia stopped short of having her nose cut off by an enthusiastic sword, and she sprinted into the corner and extended a hand. "The ship's about to move, we have to go. Has Anisa gone, have you seen her?" She never should have taken her eyes off the girl.