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Olethra MacLeod is not stupid. She’s not the naive girl who left her family home with a mech suit and a dream, only a few short weeks ago. The blood that stains the deck of the ship runs dark, and soot tinges the faces of all of the crew.
So when she says, “Bert, do you have any of that Disaronno left?” it’s not about wanting to get drunk after the high of combat.
It’s not entirely about that, at least.
The glasses go around, along with slices of pizookie and aioli chasers. The alcohol warms in her belly as she sees Marya and Ludmila laughing, Maxwell razzing his brothers and being razzed in turn, Monty tossing slices of pizookie up for Courtney, and Van, directing the crew to dock near the center of Zumhara.
Pappy is standing at the bow, guns stowed after he shot Wealwell, staring out into the night sky with Zern hanging above.
He’s holding something in his hands, fiddling with it as he looks out over the horizon, lost in contemplation.
He doesn’t look like the man who haunted her hometown, dispatching goons in the shadows, or the man who kept his gun arm steady while drowning.
He looks, for once, like the years are weighing on him, now that Comfrey MacLeod is ashes among the clouds.
Something in her rebels at the concept. It might be her stomach, after all that pizookie and fallen angel martinis. She turns back to the deck, determined to find a distraction.
“Hey Monty,” she says, coming up to where he stands near the middle of the ship. “Why did you fall in love with Pappy?”
I. Montgomery LaMontgommery
The crew of the Zephyr raced over the skies of Pilby, pushing the friodynamic balloons to their maximum as small craft tailed them, launching from the rooftops.
“How are we doing on that emergency rise?” Comfrey yelled to Marya at the helm as she held up her spyglass.
“Almost…there…” Marya yanked on a lever, and the air went cold, the balloons finally lifting them enough to meet the clouds.
“We have incoming!” Van shouted from the stern, where she had begun to rotate the spotlight. “Stations, people, move, move, move!”
Monty braced against one of the rotator guns, his own shotgun holstered on his back. In his hand, he held a tiny sparrow that was struck during the emergency rise. It made a little chirping noise as he tucked it into his pocket, chunks of ice slowly beginning to melt off its wings.
The deck of the Zephyr descended into chaos. The first of the small craft, launched from Pilby, landed on the deck with a harsh screech against the boards, holes already smoking in its chassis.
Monty looked up to see Pappy, braced in the rigging, his rifle trained on the pilot emerging from the small biplane. Before the pilot could take another step, he fell backward into the cockpit, knocked down by the force of Pappy’s shot.
“Good one, Pappy!” Monty shouted over the wind, taking potshots of his own off of the left side.
“Keep it going, Monty,” is all he heard back as Pappy vanished towards the stern.
Monty braced himself against the railing, looking out over the side to the canyon below, where several of the pursuing craft had begun to regroup, noses pointed to the sky.
The critical mistake was taking his eyes off the deck long enough for another of the small craft to land without him taking a shot. Monty found himself knocked back over the railing by a shotgun blast, the wind ripping at his face.
A hand, calloused and warm, caught a hold of his arm as he hung over the side of the deck. Daisuke “Pappy” Bucklesby gripped his arm from palm to elbow and tugged him back to the deck with surprising strength. Monty looked up at the man who saved his life, not for the first time, and felt something in his heart beat faster as Pappy said, “Careful there.”
“Was that the same incident as Pilby ‘71?” Olethra asks, the story sparking something in her memory.
Monty takes a long drink out of his martini glass. “Yep.”
“Is he talking about when he fell in love with Pappy?” Van chortles. “We’ve all got one of those.”
II. Vanellope Chapman
The night was quiet, or as quiet as it could get in the Uplands. The crew of the Zephyr had just come out of a rough brawl with sky pirates to get Van home in time for her mother’s funeral.
Van felt the years away from home pressing on her sun-worn skin, older by far than most of the Chapman relatives, the curse held off by remaining in the skies. Her mother, who married in, had lived a sight longer than Van had expected.
It did not hurt less for knowing it.
Van stumbled back onto the deck of the Zephyr, drunk as a skunk, her face bruised and bleeding from her hands. She rocked from side to side, bouncing between Monty and Marya, who had come to retrieve her from the Rusty Nut.
“Come on, Van. Pappy’s made his special beans,” Marya said, the sparkle in her eyes not diminished by the darkness of the night over the clouds.
The man himself marched out from the mess, his arms shaking slightly under the weight of the enormous pot of beans. He dropped the pot on the table, directly in front of Van.
“I put a little cheese at the end this time,” he said. “Just the way you like it.”
The crew gathered on the deck, around the enormous pot, where Pappy stood stirring the beans.
“We’ll say grace,” Comfrey says, holding out her hands. “There’s no god I’d believe in, but for this crew, I’d give my faith.”
In a disjointed chorus, with hands joined over the table, the crew begins to sing.
“Dear Gotch–”
“So I thank the Gotch–”
“Without them we’d have no money–”
“For giving me the beans I need–”
“Gotch is fair and balanced–”
“I love them, they are so yummy–”
“Oh, Gotch is good to me–”
Van was holding back her tears with the stoic countenance of a sailor, so she had stayed silent through grace. But as Pappy handed her the first spoon for his special beans, a knowing look of loss in his eyes, she set her chin firmly and fought for her share with all the rest.
None of them had to know about her quiet gratitude, tinged with something more.
“By Gotch, Van, is that why you always monopolized the beans?” Marya gasps. “I did not know the memory was so heartfelt.”
“Oh, nah,” Van says. “It passed in the night. I have my Bert now, y’see?” She pulls her husband into her side. “He can cook me up beans any day of the week.”
“That’s right, lovey,” Bert says from under her arm.
“Did you ever fall for Pappy, Marya?” Olethra asks, starting to be a bit morbidly curious.
III. Marya Junková
There was a certain strength to each of the Zephyr crew, in Marya’s sky-eyes.
Monty, the great naturalist, his gentleness an inspiration through their many adventures.
Van’s tenacity, the power of her body and manner a force behind their efficiency as a crew.
Haunch’s willingness to gossip, to be unafraid of spilling truths.
Sylvio’s loyalty, behind the sinister facade.
Onion’s diligence through thick and thin.
Of course there was Comfrey, her mentor, the great inventor who brought them to the skies from her thirst for endless exploration.
And there was Daisuke. Pappy.
Marya didn’t know what to think of the old outlaw at first. Each snippet of adventure she heard about seemed to be greater than the last.
But there was a simplicity to him which resonated with a Scrapsylvanian instinct in her: that life was to be lived.
“So you didn’t fall in love with Pappy,” Olethra says.
“Not as Comfrey, or Monty, or Van, or even Miryam did, no. I reserved my romanticism for the skies, in those days. I have wondered whether I was meant to at all, but now,” her gaze flits to Ludmila, holding Koĉka in her hand, “I know I am happy without.”
IV. Maxwell (and Wealwell) Gotch
“Maxwell,” Olethra says, the last of her drink swirling in her glass, “Did you ever fall in love with Pappy?”
The speed with which the word, “No,” comes out of Maxwell’s mouth is almost frightening.
“Aren’t you good friends now?” Marya needles. “We can do the ritual again…” She creeps closer to Van, threatening to link hands around Maxwell.
“No, no, there’s no need for that,” he says hastily. “I suppose after all of these adventures I can see where you all had the opportunity, but he was never going to be the one I fell in love with.”
Olethra pounces. “Why not?”
“Well, he’s certainly admirable, but my tastes lie elsewhere.” His eyes very quickly flick to the left, to the ground below the hovering Zephyr.
“Speak for yourself, brother. I know who my favorites were from Monty’s novels,” Wealwell interjects. He has his leg braced above his head in the rigging, for some reason.
“Didn’t he shoot you?” Olethra asks.
“Well, he didn’t finish the job, did he?” Wealwell says cheerfully. “Next time, I’ll get him. It’s our little game. It’s him or me, and I can only be slain by a Gotch.”
“Alright then, Wealwell, give the man a break. His wife died today,” Monty says.
“Well of course I’ll give him the night,” Wealwell says. “Tomorrow? It’s on.” He unwinds his leg from the rigging and brings it down with a dramatic snap.
With that, the Zephyr crew begins to disperse, making their way into their quarters or out into the Crystal City.
+1. Olethra MacLeod
Olethra watches her grandmother’s mech suit walk of its own accord up to Pappy, holding a slightly glinting object. It plays some words from the interplanar radio that she can’t quite hear before wrapping metallic arms around him.
As it jumps from the deck, making its way to its own adventures in Zood, she can’t help but feel sad, even if she doesn’t need it anymore.
Pappy turns to look back at her and smiles, the last tangible link to her grandmother, a shadow in the foreground of her life.
Olethra smiles, downs her fallen angel martini, and goes to chat with Ludmila.