“JUST… stop shouting for a minute! Its MY ship, and it’ll be fine, ‘kay?” Carmilla shouted at Cid for the umpteenth time, as she stroked the beak of the large bird squawking restlessly while still trapped under the net.

“JOU… Its… how do I say this so jou’ll understand…” Capítán Cid ran his hand through his hair, his face contorted in exasperation.

“Just because jou… maneuvered jour way into this project, and jou invested jour own fortune to get some influence, this is still NOT. JOUR. SHIP.” Cid clapped his hands together to emphasize his last point. “It even has the royal seal printed on the side!” he continued, having managed to stop yelling and instead was just reasonably loud.

Behind them, soldiers hurriedly rushed about. One rushed up from below deck with a large cylindrical device, with a finely carved mana stone lodged into the rear of the device. The device itself was a deep grey, with golden lines carved alongside it. They snaked in to the concave depression at the front of the device.

The soldier rushed to the burning engine, lifted the device up, and placed his shoulder into a groove on the back. The stone glowed a bright blue, and the golden etchings quickly matched its color as a stream of water cascaded out of the device!

The other soldiers’ faces quickly relaxed in relief, as the fire was quickly put out. It hadn’t spread much, due to the large amount of iron used in the design and structure of the ship.

Cid glanced to the fire, and then apprehensively back at the multicolored bird. Carmilla hadn’t bothered responding to Cid, and instead focused on trying to calm the bird, as it had started struggling harder in the net and squawked furiously. It darted its head around quickly, as if looking for something.

“Shhhh, its alright baby! You’re alright girl!” Carmilla cooed at the writhing creature.

“And… and… why? Why did jou catch the Quetzalcóatl? This bird, it will bring nothing but trouble…” Cid moaned, as he looked on apprehensively.

“You know what this is?” Carmilla exclaimed, as she looked excitedly back at Cid.

“Well, jes. Somewhat. Cortés, I believe he spoke of this creature cuando fui niñito. Ah, I mean, when I was a young child. We need to get rid of this thing, before it curses us again!” Cid exclaimed, as his hands gesticulated wildly.

“Capítán, this… quetzalotl…” Carmilla started, before Cid jumped in to correct her. “Quetzalcóatl.”

“Yeah. That. Well, we can call Lyra that, but she isn’t that bird from your world! She’s from here, aren’t you, cutie pie? And, I brought enough money. We can just get the ship fixed! No problem!” Carmilla stood tall, and clapped Cid on the shoulder while giving him a bright, intense smile.

“Jou named it already?! And where, where will jou find someone outside the capital who can fix this!” Cid exclaimed again, before freezing. Carmilla’s face quickly twisted from one of bright certainty to concern, as she focused on something behind Cid.

“Oh, what now?” He groaned, as he turned around to see two kids, a young boy and girl, running on the deck of the ship. The girl pranced around excitedly, as the soldiers looked at her and backed off carefully, murmuring. The boy seemed a lot more interested in the propeller engine systems, and seemed to be trying to guide the girl towards the blown-out engine.

At least one of the soldiers seemed to be trying to stop them. As Cid hurried over, he could finally overhear some of their conversation.

“That crest… she’s from the Culaine family!” One soldier with a moustache hissed quietly, while trying to hide behind another soldier.

“What? She’s a daughter of that Duke? What do we do?!” The other soldier blanched, as he glanced towards the domineering child.

“How the hell did they get up here?” A third soldier asked, while another hurried to meet Cid.

At least one soldier, glancing nervously at his companions, tried to do his job.

“Young miss, I, uh, you cannot be up her miss. We- uh, we have taken a lot of damage and its dangerous to be up here! We don’t know if something else will explode…” The soldier tried to explain to the girl, her silver hair curls bobbing as she came to a stop.

However, the poorly dressed boy responded first. “Hmmm… no, doesn’t seem like anything else will explode. No more mana is running, the ships at rest… aaaand you got the fire out. Looks fine to me.” He dropped a wide, toothy grin while the Diane nodded along.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Cid hustled towards the girl, as she unleashed an energetic barrage on the unfortunate soldier. “See? Thistle thinks its safe, so its gonna be safe. So… tell me! Tell me about this ship! How does it fly?! How do I get one? What else does it do? C’mon, I wanna see the ship! I’ll do anything, so please please please let me see the ship!”

“Captain!” The soldier saluted Cid, before continuing. “This girl-“

“Jes, jes. I will handle it. And that’s capítán.” Cid responded, returning a quick salute before he waved the soldier aside.

Cid flinched slightly, as Diane spun gleefully around, and promptly barreled towards him.

“So you’re in charge of the ship? Capuh, capi, capítán? Capítán, you have to let me see this ship! It’s amazing! And where’s that name come from?! It’s a fun name!” Cid’s temple throbbed, as he stared down this ball of energy posing as child. Its attitude struck him with a certain, sinking familiarity.

A familiarity which just clapped him on his shoulder, and leaned in towards the child. “No no dearie, his name is Cid. He just likes to be called capítán instead of captain, it’s a culture thing.”

Carmilla’s voice swapped so quickly toward something calm and motherly, it left the capítán speechless. Instead, he just stared at her wide-eyed. Then, he quickly and sharply looked back towards the quetzacouatl. He breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the bird appeared to have passed out.

“So, you wanna check out my ship, huh?” Carmilla continued, smiling sweetly. Diane grinned a wide grin, her purple dress fluttering along with her excited bouncing.

“No! Jou can’t be serious! The ship is a mess, we just crashed and one of our propeller engines just blew up! Madre de dios, she has to leave the ship!” Cid shouted emphatically, and he glared at Carmilla.

Diane looked like all the wind hand been ripped from her sails, before she swapped to the poutiest face she could manage. Only a very sharp eye would have caught on that she was using some of her mana to quietly slow the tears near her eyes, causing them to well up larger and much more pitiably.

“P-please, capítán? I’ll really do anything…” Diane begged passionately, as she deftly grabbed Cid’s jacket arm and stared deeply into his eyes.

Cid winced again, but managed to hold firm. “No means no.” He answered resolutely.

“Oh cmon, Cid, how about we let her take a look around once we clean the ship up? We’ll still be here for a while, since we need repairs anyways. Plus, we gotta work out how well these goods we picked up from the Ebenheim sell! You can at least allow that much, cantcha capítán?” Carmilla dropped onto her knees to match Diane’s height, and joined her in pouting, adding her own emphasis to Cid’s title.

Cid flinched back further and ground his teeth, as he looked between Diane and Carmilla. Carmilla’s skin was slowly reddening, with a slight fine steam coming off of it. With a grunt, he relented. “Fine. Jou can come back in a few days. It should be fine then.” He apathetically waved them away before he returned to shouting orders to the crew.

Diane cheered as she turned and grasped Carmilla’s hands. “Thank you thank you thank you! This is the best!” The little girl was back to bouncing excitedly, her shoes clacking in the iron grated deck.

Carmilla smiled warmly. “Don’t worry, us pretty girls gotta watch out for each other. Anyways, you should probably get going before Cid changes his mind. But… how did you get up here? We haven’t dropped the gangway down yet.” She looked towards the empty spot where the ramp would normally be set.

Diane just tilted her head quizzically. “Hmm? I just climbed up the side though?” She said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Carmilla laughed emphatically, and patted Diane lightly on the head. “Hey, I didn’t catch your name.” The woman smiled, swapping back to her usual bold voice.

“I’m Diane. Diane Culaine. And… and you?” Diane chirped back, as she slipped out from under Carmilla’s headpats.

“I’m Carmilla. The one and only!” She grinned proudly, as the thin cloud of steam surrounding her glinted in the failing sunlight.

A couple of soldiers rushed to deploy the gangway as they approached the exit.

“Cmon Thistle, lets go!” Diane shouted back. Carmilla glanced back, surprised that she almost forgot about him. Her eyes widened further, as one of the engineers had come up from the engine room below the deck and seemed very engaged in conversation with the kid.

The engineer looked like he was about to shout something, but Cid’s shouting beat him to it. “WOULD JOU ALL HURRY UP AND GO, WE HAVE WORK TO DO!”

The engineer grumbled something unintelligble, and gave the boy a nod before heading back down below the deck.

“What… was-“ Carmilla started, as she was about to ask Thistleman a question, but quickly spun around at the sound of heavy clanking armor coming up the gangway.

“Pardon me, sir. I know you’re all probably surprised at our ship landing here, but can you give us a minute? We are on a royal mission, and we will be down to meet you shortly.” Carmilla snapped, as the shadow of the giant man strode up onto the deck. Carmilla, undeterred, strode to meet him, puffing out her chest in indignation.

“I know.” The giant responded curtly, and stared menacingly down at the woman. The muscles twitching underneath his scars only accentuated the intensity of his gaze.

“Then…?” Carmilla waved, pointing her hand back down the ramp.

“This airship came from the capital, and all airships are under the authority of the king.” Krom began, his muscles tensing before he bellowed loud enough to seize the attention of everyone on board the airship. “And under the King’s authority, as the Royal Knight’s commander of this garrison, I am taking command of this ship to prepare for war!”

Carmilla blinked slowly, and she almost missed the two kids quietly leaping off the side of the airship while all the attention was on her and Krom. Diane gave her a smile and wave as she hopped off the side, mouthing the words “It’s a promise!” before her head disappeared past the deck.

Flustered, Carmilla manged only one word after her jaw seesawed open and closed a few times.

“WHAT?!”