[Log] "...virtue can hurt you, an' all."

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Eavesdown Docks, Persephone
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Surrounded by slums on the edges of the city, the docks are chaotic and bustling. Ships are haphazardly lined up side by side, and vendor's stalls and carts are interspersed between them. Dust kicked up by ground traffic and engine exhausts billows through the air, coating near anything that manages to remain still long enough with a film of grime.

Single voices vie to be heard over the cacophany of crowds from across the 'Verse, and are lost altogether amongst the grind of machinery and roaring of engines. Exotic scents mingle with that of the unwashed and sweaty, while there's an undercurrent of less easily defined odors in the air. Unless you're looking for clean and shiny, there's a little something for everyone to be found here on Eavesdown's docks.
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The light scudding clouds of yesterday preceeded the heavier rain clouds the wind blew across Eavesdown in a thunderstorm throughout the night and early morning. Even now with the sun sitting high and not a cloud in evidence across the sky, water drips from rooftops and ships gleam with the impromptu baths they received. The ground below is churned into a muddy morass and puddles are settled in dips and pools.

Where Grace stands docked toward one end, her ramp lowers with the quiet whine of newly oiled hydraulics and hits the dirt with a thud that sends mud spraying up and splattering more than a few passersby. A moment after the cursing dies down, a head peeks around the side with a small grin and Aradia appears from the darkened interior of the cargo bay, ambling down the ramp with a bottle in hand.



Standing in the Spaceport Will is arguing with a man in his late fifties, they're both extremely animated their voices somewhat low, but obviously hostile. "I don't care Duncan, I want my gorram ship. You said it would be here!" Duncan sighs slightly, his voice becoming a little calmer. "Look Will the ship will be here, I left it with people I trust, they're just getting it repaired."


Hearing the raised voices, Aradia pauses midway down the ramp where her elevated vantage point gives her a view across people's heads and across the short distance of the docks to where William stands with another man. Looking briefly alongside the ramp to a stack of crates, she takes a leaping step off the ramp and up onto one of the crates before taking a swig from her bottle and returning to watching the show.


Shaking his head William thrusts a finger at his 'friend'. "I don't care my ship was due here two days ago. You know what that ship means to me. If it's not here soon I'm going to really lose my temper." He sighs slightly. "Why don't you go see if you can find out anything else." He man nods looking a little hurt as he heads away before Will turns to look at Aradia his frown increasing. "You enjoying the show?" His questions little more than an angry bark.


Aradia's brow quirks a little as she crouches down and then sits back on the crate, stretching her legs out and letting them dangle over the side. Waving her hand with the bottle in it in a vague gesturing motion, she replies after a moment of consideration, "It was passable. Not nearly as much cursing as I was hoping for and I think a melodramatic stamping of the foot would have really polished it off. Especially if you could get the mud to splatter a little when you did it. Go ahead, try it out."


There's second where Will looks at Aradia as though he's about to lose what little patience he has left, but his expression quickly changes as he offers a quick laugh. "Good answer. But I'm not one for melodramatics unless they serve a purpose."


A wide grin meets his laughter as Aradia says, "It's entirely too much effort if there ain't nothing to be got out of it." Letting her gaze shift past William toward the other man disappearing into the crowds, she turns her attention back to Will and asks, "What happened to her?'Shrugging Will sighs looking around the Spaceport. "I had some business to attend to local, I sent the ship ahead to handle something else. I trust the people aboard, but I don't like that they're late. It makes me... uncomfortable when I'm out of the Black for too long."


Chuckling, Aradia brings the bottle in hand up, sipping from it before she replies, "You prefer the floatin' out in the Black for weeks chewin' your nails for want o' something more interesting to do more than actually getting to where she's taking you?"


There's a few moments as Will seems to think it over. "It's hard to explain, I've lived on ship my entire life. I don't know what exactly it is I miss, but it ain't the same on these mudballs." He sighs looking at the sky again.


Aradia's gaze lifts briefly skyward before returning to the mudball below. "It ain't always mud. Usually it's just dirt," she says, "When it gets like this it's fun to watch the fancier folk trying to manuever through the puddles. O' course when it all dries up again there's plenty o' new holes and what not that people spend a lot of time tripping over to keep yeself entertain." There's but the briefest pauses before she continues, "You worry too much. Did you send 'em a wave?"


Nodding Will sighs again. "More than one, but they're not responding, trust me it's nothing out of the normal." He chuckles slightly. "They're probably trying to see how long it takes for me to really lose my mind."


Regarding te man, Aradia smirks and says, "I don't think you're nearly that close yet. I reckon as they're not trying real hard if this is the best they can get out o' you." Pulling one leg up to tuck crossed under her, she asks, "They permanent crew or just folks you hired on to do a job?"


Sighing slightly Will seems to lose his good mood. "They're a long term team, but I'm hoping to get a new crew soon." He shrugs. "What about you, you local or just travelling by?"


"Both," Aradia answers honestly, her gaze sweeping across the docks as her head turns to look up to the underside of Grace shadowing her current seat. "Weren't expecting to stay here too long but ran into an ol' friend that flew with me not too long ago needin' some help so we're sticking around 'til she ain't got no need no more," she says as she looks back to Will.


Nodding he looks at Grace with a smile. "That your ship? She's beautiful." He seems to consider the ship for a few moments longer before once again looking to the sky.


Patting at a strut within reach to her side, Aradia looks briefly back over her shoulder into the interior of the bay and says, "Ain't she pretty?" Looking back to Will again, she says, "This is Grace O'Malley."


Striding along in the mud, past and through puddles made by the previous night's downpour, comes Saienne - and doesn't she look quite at home here amid the noise and bustle of Eavesdown? Shabby in presentation but with a somewhat shrewd look to her, she might as well be a native. She is wearing a large floppy-brimmed hat that shades her eyes from the bright sun glinting off groundwater and gleaming ship's hulls alike. A pheasant feather, straight and true, bobs and ducks from its position in the hat's band. She is, it appears, charting a direct course from island to island of drier ground, heading always rougly in the direction of the sleek Shark Aradia is talking about.


Nodding Will looks at the ship. "Like I said she's a beaut, of course we all love our own ships first. Iranas' Joy will always hold my heart."


"Ahh, 'n would it be prying too much to ask who Irana is?" Aradia asks the man with a faint smile, her attention momentarily diverted by the bobbing pheasant feather moving toward them through the crowd. Looking back to Will, she asks, "How long have you had her?"


"Iriana was my mother." William chuckles a little as he continues. "Oh she was my parents before she was mine, it was my father that named her, but pretty much everything but the frame's been refitted more times than I'd care to remember." He chuckles slightly. "When I said I grew up on ship, she's the girl I was speaking of."


Saienne draws closer to the pair with a particularly enthusiastic bound over the last puddle in her way. By some miracle, she manages to avoid slipping on the mud, thereby not ending up in an ignominious arse-over-face tumble onto Eavesdown's squelchy ground. She grins a crooked grin at Aradia and slips her long-fingered hands into her coat pockets. "Afternoon." Her voice is deep and rich, honey-thick. A quick glance to William, having to look up past the brim of her hat to see the whole of him. "Hope I ain't interruptin' nothin'..?"


"So she really is home in every sense o' the word?" Aradia asks with a small tilt of her head, her gaze on Will now until Saienne bounds up and she shakes her head with a flash of a grin, "No. I was just ratin' this gentleman here on his performance 'n then we got talking about his mama."


Chuckling slightly William nods. "I'm William by the way, and no you're not interuppting anything." He looks at the woman for a moment, before once again scanning the sky.


"Ratin' him on his performance?" Saienne asks, tilting her head so as she can look up at William's face again. "Don't reckon I dare ask what kind of performance you're talkin' about..." She grins crookedly at the man and takes her hand from her pocket, holding it out for him to shake. "Well an' good, William." she says. "Saienne Olaeno, an' pleased as punch to make your acquaintance, ain't I?" She stands still, but cannot help but follow William's gaze towards the Black. "His Mam?" she asks. "An' why is that? You expectin' her?"


Aradia's grin just widens a fraction and she pokes her tongue out at Saienne briefly before pulling her other leg up to cross under her on the crate. "Aradia," she says to William in response to his introduction before she too lifts her gaze skyward and says, "Oh no, just his ma's joy." Her gaze lowers to William a moment as she says, "It's ok, I was never my mother's joy either," and then asks as if the thought had just entered her mind, "Do you have any brothers or sisters out there?"


"Nope, I'm an only child." Will continues to look around the sky. "Nope, it was just me, my parents and the crew. I guess that's what always made Irianas' Joy home." He shakes the hand offered as he talks, studying the woman for a second. "Pleased to meet you."


Saienne is clearly not following the thread of this conversation very well. "His Mam's what? Joy?" She frowns, the crowsfeet around her eyes wrinkle briefly - and then smooth out again as William takes her hand and enlightenment dawns. "You're waitin' on a ship." It is a statement, not a question, and short-lived because Aradia's second comment causes her instant of epiphany to slide away. She lets go of William's hand. "Oh, aye, an' we know all about me an' my mother, don't we?" She smiles a lop-sided smile at Aradia. "But I reckon, don't you, that all of that was just on account of strong personalities collidin'... ain't no helpin' things when that happens." She nods as William talks about being at home aboard a ship. "An' that's somethin' I reckon I can understand, an' all."


"Actually, I don't think we do," Aradia says to Saienne with a chuckle, "but I reckon as it's a telling to be told one o' these days." Uncrossing her legs from under her and stretching them out with a quiet groan, she tips back the bottle in hand and gulps down the rest of it before getting to her feet atop the crate. "It was a pleasure to meet ye, William. I hope yer ship finds her way back to you soon." Turning and leaping the short distance back onto Grace's lowered ramp, she says to Saienne, "I got to find somethin' that ain't chickens before we head for Ariel."


William smiles. "We were speaking about my ship, I've been ship bound my entire life. And now I haven't got my Gorram ship!" He sighs as he relaxes a little. "I hate being stuck dirtside." He glances back towards the sky with another frown. "The ship is Irianas' Joy."


"Not chickens. Ain't got a problem with that." She pauses, looking down at the mud and thinking, apparently. "I know someone's got some perishables needin' shippin' to Ariel." A beat. "We in the market for perishables these days?" She looks up at Aradia, eyes hidden beneath the shadow of her hat's broad brim. "On the level, an' all." Another beat. "Entirely." As Aradia leaps back to the security of Grace's ramp, Saienne settles back against whatever is nearby - a pile of crates, most like, supported by the curve of the ship's hull - and nods at William. "An' Iriana'd be your mother." A crooked grin. "Suddenly it's all makin' some kind of sense." She peers up at the sky herself, one hand coming to rest atop her hat so that it doesn't slip off. "Why ain't you up there with her, if you don't mind me askin'?"


"Are they delicious perishables that no one will notice are missin?" Aradia asks with an impish grin as she trots up to the top of the ramp to leave the empty bottle off to one side and then starts back down again. "I reckon as we might be able to do that," she adds, lifting a hand in a wave of farewell as she hops off the end of the ramp and into a mud puddle, splashing and stomping her way through the crowds and off to 'work.'


Running a hand through his head Will sighs "I had things to handle here, but needed to pick something up elsewhere. So my crew took the other job while I handled things here." He then nods to Aradia. "It's been good talking to you."


"I reckon they can go missin'," Saienne says, in mock seriousness. "But only if you don't want payin' when we get to the other end." She calls after Ara as she splashes off through the crowds: "But it's your decision, ain't it, an' I ain't goin' to argue." William's vexation brings her back to the conversation at hand: "Well, don't fret none. If you trust them, I expect they'll be back for you soon enough." She squints across at Grace. "Heaven knows there ain't no such thing as a strict timetable up there, ain't it so?"


There's the slow nod of someone who's thinking things through. "I know, and I trust my crew, but I was never known for being patient."


Saienne leans into the shadow of Grace's curved and gleaming hull and reaches up to pull the broad-brimmed hat from her head. She runs her spare hand through the tight black curls clustering there, tugging one or two out of the dreadlocks they are threatening to form. "Well, if you trust them then you ain't got nothin' to worry about, ain't it so?" She smiles, lop-sided and genuine, and settles her hat onto her bent knee. "An' patience is, don't they say, a virtue." A wry smile. "But don't they also say that virtue can hurt you, an' all?" A pause, and she shrugs a fluid shrug. "I ain't so virtuous - in that respect as in others - neither."