Chapter Text
Chapter One
Ten Stars In Orbit
The Lich isn't a pretty ship, and Lucretia never wanted her to be.
Phandalin is far from a pretty port itself, and the Lich almost looks like a stain on the docking bay. It's a hulking mass of rusted red metal; a remnant of war. All the other ships about are blue and slim and fast, and the Lich is just a plower that easily has thirty years on all of them.
A soft smile appears on the creased corners of Lucretia's lips, and she tosses the greasy rag in her hands into a nearby toolback. Rust still coats the ship (perhaps it'd even look empty without it) but for now the nameplate is clean and clear, and that's more than enough.
Their passengers will need to see the name, Lucretia reasons, but at the same time it isn't as if anyone would mistake the ex-war plower for any of the polished speeders about. Along with their time and place, Davenport had given a thorough description of the ship to the few that'd soon be finding a temporary home there.
Lucretia makes her way down the ladder she had propped up along the ship's side, and when her feet are on the ground once more, she rests a hand on the hull like she would the shoulder of an old friend.
She can't think of a sane soul in the galaxy that'd call the ship pretty, but the old girl was nothing less than beautiful to her Captain.
After a gentle pat, Lucretia tips the steel ladder onto her shoulder, and begins hauling it into the cargo hold. It's just one of the few loose ends that needs tying up before the passengers arrive.
The manifest is the first thing she attends to, once the ladder is neatly squirreled away in the cargo hold. Because, yes, for once, she was able to make a manifest. For once it isn't stowaways mid-battle, or newfound war companions, or “Get on my ship if you want to live because this planet is about to blow.”. This is a honest-to-the-gods organized list of passengers, prepared in advance with not a mistake in sight.
(The organization feels amazing. Davenport thinks it's a tad overboard, but he isn't hear right now, and Lucretia will be as overboard as she damn well pleases.)
Although Lucretia is organized and prompt, her passengers are not The manifest on her holopad complies all of the info on the newcomers that she was able to gather, but it isn't much. She steps back out into the blazing Phandalin sun, soaking it up all she could. The holopad is a tad harder to read under the glare of sunbeams, but she doesn't know when she'll get the chance to feel the warmth of a planet again. She squints a little, making out the light blue print of her list.
Magnus Burnsides. Carey Fangbattle. Merle Highchurch. Lup Taaco. Taako Taaco.
Just the five, plus the four of the crew of the Lich.
This should be easy.
(One outside the ship, three inside, one in the port, five en route to the station.)
(They're not planets, they're people, but gravity pulls all the same.)
(And it seems the Lich is their sun.)
Lucretia's been over the manifest a dozen times already, three this morning alone, and she goes over it once more. A pair of twins, a carpenter, a handy-woman, and a minister, all slated for the year long trip to the Outskirts Opposite.
The trip cuts straight through the Capitol, the hub of the New Order at the center of the galaxy. And given both Lucretia and Davenport's reputations and life before 'after the war', she needs every possible excuse for their trip to seem legitimate.
Which is where the passengers come in. No one honorable hires an ex-war plower to slice through the galaxy with no questions and all precautions. Everyone soon to board must have just a shifty relationship with the Order as the Lich does. The reason they're together is a simple one: alibis.
“Stress ain't good for you, y'know.” Killian's voice easily cuts into the stillness of the morning. Lucretia glances up from her holopad, and smiles.
“More stress now means less later,” she says, something she stands by. “You're up early.”
“Couldn't sleep, too excited for the day,” Killian replies, shrugging slightly before shifting her weight a tad more on her cane. She shoves her freehand into the pocket of her bomber jacket, and a lilting smile appears on her lips. “When all I have for company is Barry, you can see why I'm excited about new people.”
As if on cue, there's a stomp in the cargo hold. The two women turn to the noise, finding Barry standing in one of the doorways to an inner hall. He folds his arms over his chest, and forces a mock pout onto his lips.
“That's what you get for eavesdropping, B,” Killian tells him, teasing smile not once leaving her lips.
Barry replies with a little roll of his eyes, as he steps towards the two in the sunlight at the edge of the cargo hold. Davenport seems to conjure up from behind him, as Barry's form leaves the doorway.
“Good morning!”Davenport calls out, a smile lighting up the creases in the corners of his cheeks.
“A little less better now that Barry's here,” Killian beams.
Barry mock glares at the affectionate teasing, his hand fluttering in position to sign a few insults in return.
“Good morning, Barry, Davenport,” Lucretia cuts in. Killian and Barry go at it like squabbling siblings, if she didn't get a word in early, she wouldn't all day. “Feeling alright, you two?”
“Good as gold,” Davenport says. Being on land, for however short a time, always puts him in a good mood. Today is no exception.
(Davenport maintains that his first love is and always will be space, but sometimes you do have to take a break to regain appreciation.)
(That, and docking allows him to restock his tea hoard.)
Barry shoots Lucretia a thumbs up, and then signs a “Good morning, Captain!”. His eyes then flick to skim over the cargo hold, Lucretia catches the look in his eyes that he's looking for something to fix.
“You're too late, I've been over everything five times,” she tells him, “There's nothing left to fix.”
“Five times, do you even sleep?” Killian jokes.
“Fifteen minutes a night, thirty on Wednesdays,” Lucretia returns smoothly.
(Neither Killian or Barry can tell if she's joking, but Davenport lets out a quiet chuckle.)
“Killian, I wanted to go over some of the flight plans for the trip,” Lucretia continues, not missing a beat. Killian shifts, moving her arm off of Barry to lean on her cane once more. “One of our passengers has a few requests for planet stops, so I wanted to make sure that fits in with your plans.”
“I have no flight plans,” Killian says, “I was just kinda winging it.”
Barry smacks her arm, and Killian grins. She ignores the slap in favor of fist-bumping Davenport for her sick-ass pun.
“But yeah, we can go over that, Captain,” Killian says, before slinging an arm about Barry's shoulders, “As long as this nerd promises to make muffins for breakfast.”
Barry rolls his eyes at the affectionate nickname, before shooting her his signature thumbs up. Killian ruffles his hair, prompting a soft elbow to the side courtesy of Barry. In the midst of their bickering, Davenport offers to wait up in the hold for any new arrivals.
Lucretia turns away from her crew before the smile on her lips shows, and they all set to work.
Neither of the Taaco twins are early risers, and Lup lets out a yawn. Taako tugs her hand and keeps them going, ignoring the heaviness behind his eyelids as well. Missing out on a few hours of sleep is far better than the panic attack that would ensue if they had to wade through a crowded port.
It's early in the morning, and far before the check-in on that ship, which works out just fine. Due to it being barely past the edge of dawn, the Phandalin port is sparse, even counting the merchants setting up tables and ship crews loitering. For now the crowd is only a nuisance, not a problem.
Taako leading the duo, the twins make their way to an isolated edge of the platform built into the rock of the cliffs the port rests on. They're out a distance, a medium walk to their designated ship, but far enough from the growing throngs of people. Once satisfied with their perch on the platform, Taako slides his bag off his back, and sets down Lup's bag that was in his free hand.
“You doing okay?” he asks, glancing at his sister.
Lup doesn't reply, which isn't unusual. Her wide eyes are on the canyon beyond the platform, the orange rock dotted with rare patches of grass and the occasional heard of some kind of bovine. The wind drifts lazily through her hair, and the sight of the world beyond the platform is a touch tempting. She's perched at the very edge, occasionally glancing down at the miles deep drop below, and wonder what it's like to fall. If Taako's hand wasn't in hers, maybe she'd go adventuring. But Taako's hand is, in fact, in hers, almost as if he knows what she's thinking.
(Which he probably does.)
(This isn't the first time.)
Lup plops down into a sitting position, letting her legs dangle off the edge of the platform. After a moment, satisfied with her simply sitting still, Taako lets go of her hand to fish through his bag. The heat from the sun is oppressive, even in the dawn, and his canteen has gotta be here somewhere.
“The ship won't let us on for a few hours,” he says, half to himself and half to his twin, if she's even listening, “Crowds gonna get a bit bigger, but it's a tiny walk, we'll be just dandy.”
Lup tilts her head, and points to the nearest ship, a shiny silver speeder.
“Nah, not one of the silver ones,” Taako answers, after following her finger. “It's that red one over there, I know you don't like the silvers.”
Lup drops her hand, seemingly satisfied with that answer.
Taako sits next to his sister, and smooths out his skirt. Part of him wants to root through the abgs a few more times, making sure they had everything they needed, but he did that already. Quite a few times. His shoulder sag almost as heavy as the bags under his eyes, but he maintains he won't rest until they're on the ship and safe.
And that's a lie, because even then he won't rest.
(Being a caretaker kills him, some days, but he'll rest when he's dead.)
(Until then, he has work to do.)
“Gonna miss Phandalin?” he asks. He doesn't really expect a reply.
(Three years, one month, and seventeen days since Lup last spoke.)
Lup lifts her and and moves it in a non-committal gesture. It's one of her slightly more lucid days, her being there enough to communicate to some degree.
Phandalin, and the planet it was on, had been where they lived for a year. It was a house, it wasn't a home. Just another hiding place since the Capitol, before moving onto another, and it didn't really hold any significance.
Nothing really holds significance to Lup. Not anymore.
(No matter how hard she tries.)
“I just want to get out of this dust,” Taako says, wrinkling his nose. He hated dust. He hated sand, he hated the hot sun. The entire environment of the planet wouldn't be missed. The second he got the chance on the ship, he'd wash the orange dust out of all his clothes.
Lup nods in reply. She likes sand, sometimes at least, but the dust storms do get annoying.
She swings her legs, and takes in the orange and yellow swirls of the canyon. Almost like an orange and cream sorbet.
Her dark eyes narrow for a moment.
Sorbet.
Orange rind, water, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla-
A small shudder runs through her lithe frame as Lup catches herself. She screws her eyes shut for a heartbeat, and takes in a jittery breath. When she feels brave enough to open her eyes, she looks up to the sky, where blues and whites don't remind her of any recipe.
Taako's surrounded in his own anxiety of the voyage ahead, and he doesn't notice his sister's split second of panic. Lup is grateful, if anything.
(She really does hate feeling like a burden, despite Taako's insistence that she's anything but.)
The twins fall silent.
Taako tries to soothe his anxiety.
Lup tries not to think of sorbet.
Carey Fangbattle turns her eyes off the dissipating crew in the cargo hold of the red ship, and flicks her gaze back down at the spread out jewelry on a repurposed card table. The Phandalin port is littered with vendors and beggars in between each docking station; even this early the place is bustling.
Check-in on the ship isn't for a few hours yet, but Carey isn't the type to run into anything bling. From her spot in the middle of vendors, she has a perfect look into the hold of the ship.
An older woman, soon accompanied by a younger woman, and two men. The four splitting off, three going inside with the older man remaining in the hold, sitting down on some cargo and watching the clouds.
They're too far away to make out any fine details, but it all seems more or less how it should be. A small crew, a few smiles, an old ship. Nothing raises suspicion, so a few concerns untie themselves from her mind and drift off.
“Lovely morning, yes?” the woman running the stall asks, “See anything you like? Silver would suit you wonderfully.”
“I'm more of a gold person,” Carey replies. Silver is nice, but fake silver makes her break out, and judging by the quality of the trinkets before her she'd never stop itching. She lifts the simple chain bracelet she had been looking over, and begins working out a price with the merchant.
In her line of work, she doesn't have all the money in the galaxy, but she did have enough to spring for something nice every now and again. Price settled, she hands over a coin, slips the bracelet on. She tugs her hood a bit more over her head, fixing the positioning.
Deciding to grab some snacks for the trip, she cuts into the crowd with the ease of a knife into a chest. She has a few hours to kill before check-in, and so she does.
-
Merle Highchurch is wonderfully torn on weather he's having a decent time or not.
He crowds remind him of home on the beach, where you couldn't take two steps without bumping into a friend. It's a little sentimental in a way.
On the other hand, the wooden one perhaps, he can't get a damned moment of peace in the crowd. It's an hour til he has to get to that ship – the Lock, the Lick? - and apparently everyone in Phandalin decided to spend their mid-morning in the port.
“Sir, sir! Would you like to see my-”
“I'm not buying nothing today,” Merle says, but a moment too late. Someone taller slips their arm about his shoulders and pushes him a foot or two to their stall, gushing over their wares\.
Merle attempts to edge away from the chattering merchant, but the merchant follows. Getting a little fed up, Merle stops, and fishes into the bag at his hip.
A thick bible, patched with duct tape and scrawled on with crayon, fits perfectly in his good hand. A wide smile finds it's way to his lips, him positively beaming up at the merchant.
“Now, before I buy anything, have you heard the word of Pan?”
“Ah, I don't-” the merchant falters, but Merle pushes before they can speak further.
“I'm a cleric! I'd love to tell you about what Pan has done for me, and what he can do for you! Here, in my bag, I have a few pamphlets, let me just,” he pauses, and while he pretends to dig into his bag once more, the merchant retreats.
Merle lets out a chuckle, and begins working his way through the crowd much easier with the merchant off his back.
The pamphlets always work.
Bible at his side, Merle heads for the read ship in the distance, and prays for whatever sin using his god to avoid scam-artists must be.
Magnus Burnsides parts the crowd before him like a rock splitting a river.
And it hurts.
It's the little things, he thinks.
Back home, he couldn't go two steps without a wave, a “Hello!”, a “Say hi to Jul-”
(It's the big things, too.)
The room people give him in the port is a little dizzying. People move out of his way with no hesitation, and he supposes it's a good thing. Six foot five, muscles on muscles, scars dancing over tanned skin. It's no big surprise that people would tend to avoid him.
And it's nothing like home, maybe because he isn't home.
Yet.
For now he's here, a dusty hellhole, headed to the red ship a few hundred feet away. It gleams in the morning sun, like a beacon amid silver.
Magnus is wound taut like a coiled wire. A touch of energy escapes when a man slams into him – if Magnus was who he was four years ago, he would have apologized. Now, though, he catches it as a purposeful move, not an accidental bump.
The man lazes his eyes over Magnus, catching on his scratched face, bleeding knuckles, bandages about wrists.
“I'd hate to see the other guy,” he drawls. A few others behind him snicker, working as this man's hype-men.
Magnus has five inches on him, and he uses that, stepping closer to tower over the man. He flicks his eyes down, and flexes his hands.
“I'd hate for you to be the other guy.”
His voice is quiet like a storm that hasn't quite broken yet, and the man in front of him flusters. His mouth moves wordlessly, having not expected to Magnus to reply back, and he flicks his eyes to his companions for help. They offer none, unsurprisingly.
“This is the part where you get out of my way,” Magnus says, leaning down a tad and speaking as if he were talking to a child.
The man doesn't hesitate, he flies out of Magnus's way, his cohorts scrambling after him as they retreat.
Magnus lets his harsh expression fall. He takes in a gentle breath, lets it out, and carries on.
(He hates being this way.)
(He was never meant to be feared, but it's not as if anyone would look deep enough at him to figure that out.)
He walks, people easing out of his way. The red ship isn't hard to find, and he can't get rid of the lump in his throat.
(By the time he's home again, it'll have been five years.)
Angus McDonald's grubby hands tightly clutch the edge of the crate he's hiding behind. His knuckles nearly turn white, and it'd be an impossibility for his eyes to grow wider. He's nervous, but this is something he has to do.
Even if it means breaking rules.
(Even if it means breaking the law.)
He shakes his head, as if he's willing the doubts in his mind to tumble out his ears. Laws are just big rules, and he broke rules before, totally. Positively. Absolutely. He can do this. He stole a cookie when he was six. He can so, so do this.
(Never mind the fact that he cried and begged forgiveness from his grandparents for an hour after, because stolen cookie guilt was too much for little Angus to bear.)
Edging forward, Angus peeks over the edge of the crate. The port is busy, as it always is on weekends. Ships in and out, people setting up market stalls. Angus has been sneaking about the port every day for weeks now, and he knows it better than anyone.
And today, today, today, something is different.
There's a red ship.
(“Red is the warmest color, Anny; the friendliest color. Don't trust a blue soul.”)
There's a stunning lack of crew. The silver ships have so many workers, swarming like flies. But as far as Angus can see, there's only four about the red ship. People start to drift closer – twins, a tall scary man, a hooded woman, a short fellow. They all move incrementally, hesitantly, other vocabulary Angus remembers.
(He's always been good at vocabulary.)
“Ey, piss off!” a voice shouts, and Angus is barely quick enough to dodge the broom that swings his way.
He ducks into the crowd, ignoring the yelling cargo runner. Angus clasps his hat close to his head so it doesn't fall of as he runs, and easily disappears. Shippers tend to be clingy with their rates – the more suspicious the wares, the more protective they get. Even if it is just a street rat hiding behind one.
Angus weaves through the crowd, before looping around to get close to the red ship. This time he pretends he's looking at stalls. Between glancing over weird jewelry and dirty fruit, he peeks over at the ship.
People start to board. They disappear into the hold. The cargo door is wide open.
Angus lets his eyes slide over canyons of white and orange under the blazing sky.
It all feels empty, now.
Gritting his teeth, Angus turns to the red ship, and he runs.
The six not on the ship orbit it gradually, like space junk waiting to fall out of atmosphere.
Merle's the first to arrive. Then Magnus. Carey. Taako, Lup.
(Angus darts in when no one's looking.)
Davenport radios Lucretia, Barry, Killian, and they make their way to the hold.
All ten are feeling some kind of something, some kind of buzz in their chests. A few brush it off to nerves, or traveling excitement. Some swat it away entirely.
Lucretia latches onto it, letting the feeling swell a tad in her chest, recognizing it easy as dawn.
Things are going to be different here on out.
(And that's not necessarily a bad thing.)