Mal lets out a string of curses. Alice is mostly interested in them because she hasn't heard this chain before. "It won't fit," he says angrily, throwing down his tools. "It's too big."
"It will too fit," she says firmly. "I know. I just tried it."
"Then why don't you do it, little Miss Know-it-all?"
"Because I'm not the one who needs to be taught how to pick locks," she says flippantly. "You're the one who asked for my help."
"And I expected help, not 'here's five seconds on how it works now try it'!"
"It's something you gotta learn by doing," Alice says irritatedly. "That's what I was trying to tell you. You need to—"
A knock on the cabin door interrupts them. "You both clothed?" Gunny calls through it.
"Come in, Gunny!" Mal calls out. She pushes the door open, but only gets a step into the cabin before getting caught up in staring blankly at the mess on Mal's desk.
Even Alice can't entirely blame her. They'd gone through a lot of locks before Alice found one that she deemed easy enough to Mal to start with — and even that one is giving him trouble. It's a simple four-pin fixture, one that took her a mere moment to pop, but Mal was having trouble understanding what to do. So Alice had offered to take apart one of the locks that was a bit more complicated, that they maybe wouldn't need to put back in working order, and she'd be able to explain better. So in addition to nearly a dozen locks of varying sizes in different piles, there's also all the bits and pieces that had originally made up the locking mechanism of Mal's sextant's case.
"What's going on here?" Gunny asks.
"I'm teaching Mal to pick locks!" Alice says proudly. "I could teach you, too, if you'd like."
"What're you starting him with?"
"A four pin Chessen. Why, you got something better?"
"Actually — yes. I've still got the two pin my sergeant taught me on. Hang on, let me go get it."
"See?" Alice tells Mal. "I told you we should've let her in on it. It's not like she's going to judge you for learning to pick locks."
"Oh, no, I'm never going to judge him for something like that," Gunny says, returning to the cabin with a small box under her arm. "I'm only going to judge you for not telling me what you were doing, having the door closed, and talking about things that could be easily construed as sexual."
Mal flushes. Alice grins. "I like you," she tells Gunny, who seems rather nonplussed by that development.
"The one flaw is that I can't get the lock out of the box. But it's easy enough to get open despite that."
Mal abandons the lock in his hands in favor of the box that Gunny hands to him. The locking mechanism on this one is much smaller, and Alice fishes around for a fine-enough pick before handing it over. Mal takes it gratefully and then gets to work.
"So, why'd you come in? Hoping to catch us in the act?" he asks.
"Actually, I just wanted to update you — we're at stable altitude, there aren't any clouds around, and Tuanaki is steadily slipping out of sight. You're sure of these coordinates, right?"
"I am," Mal says, still fiddling with the locked box. "I wouldn't follow them if I weren't."
"Yes, well. I'm not entirely convinced."
"And that's why you're not the captain," Mal says simply. He's still concentrating closely on the lock and then — with a soft click! — he gets it open. "Ta-da!" he says proudly, brandishing the unlocked box at Gunny.
"Great!" she says. Then she presses down on the lid lightly, just enough to get the lock to engage again. "Now do it again."
Mal groans.
"Or, if you're done playing thief..."
"Hey, I'm no thief," Alice complains.
"No?" Gunny asks. "Then what are you?"
Alice opens her mouth to say something witty but she never gets a chance to, as Mal interrupts her first. "Ladies. Please refrain from fighting amongst yourselves. We have plenty of other enemies to worry about at the moment."
"I haven't seen any blacksails yet," Gunny says. "Not to say there aren't any, but — perhaps — they haven't followed us. Or maybe they just don't know we've left yet. Either way, we have a pretty good chance of getting to this island — what did you call it again? 'Drop'?"
"That's what Fahrn called it, yeah," Alice says.
"It's not much, but it's got fresh water," Mal says. "Which we'll need to get on with the next leg, yes, Gunny, I know our tanks are low."
"And how are you planning to get us back to Tuanaki if this 'Drop' doesn't turn out the way you want it to?"
"We'll deal with that when we get there," he says. "But it's only five days there, and we have plenty of coal to pull a propeller boost."
"Fine," Gunny says. "I'm going back on deck. You can play thief for as long as you'd like but I'd appreciate a break at some point."
"I'm coming up," Mal says, quickly putting aside the re-locked box. This whole endeavor has proven far more difficult than he expected, and he'd like to go back to doing something he's already good at — like flying.
"Go ahead," Alice says. "I've got to clean all this stuff up, and see if I can do something about your sextant case."
"I'd appreciate it," Mal says. "Gunny?"
With no more prompting necessary than that, she leads the way back to the Ship Without a Name's deck.
#
Alice is still struggling with re-attaching the locking mechanism to its spot in the case when the door to the cabin open. "Mal, I've done my best, but I'm afraid it's hopeless."
"Nothing is hopeless," says a low, gruff voice Alice doesn't recognize. She looks up to see Den in the doorway, carrying what appears to be a bucket of hot coals with him.
"Oh, uh, hi, Den," she says. Her memories of their introduction are hazy at best, and she can't even remember if they've actually been introduced, or if she's just heard about him a lot. He certainly isn't out and about as much as Mal or Gunny is, that's for sure. "What've you got there?"
"Coals for Mal's stove. He likes warm when we have flown all day."
Alice is surprised at the thoughtfulness of the gesture. It's certainly got to be annoying, carrying a bucket of terribly hot things all the way here from the boiler room just because Mal likes it that way. Maybe this is why I've never seen Den about, she thinks. He's always running around doing little things for the real crew members...
"That's nice," she says. She's not really sure what else to say, so she watches, as Den walks over to the little stove at the back of the cabin. He reaches into the bucket and pulls out some glowing lumps of coal.
Alice gasps. He's reaching in with his bare hands. "Isn't that — hot?" she asks.
"Yes," Den says, matter-of-factly.
"Doesn't it — hurt? I mean, it's gotta be really hot, right? So—?"
"Dwarves are forged of fire," Den says. "It cannot hurt us."
Needless to say, Alice is incredibly impressed. She also notices that Den doesn't put the bucket down in order to pull things from it — which makes her wonder if it, too, is incredibly hot. "Do you have any other tricks?" she jokes.
Unfortunately, that seems to be a mistake. "Tricks?" Den asks.
"Uh, I mean — any other particular — abilities? Things that say, a normal human couldn't do?"
Den considers this for a moment. "I am gölet," he says.
"I'm sorry, what is gölet? I assume that's something in Dwarven?"
Den nods. "It means I — make things? That is a word, yes?"
"Yes, that's a word," Alice says, nodding. "So then gölet is, what, like a tinkerer? Say, would you be any good at putting something back together?"
"What is it?"
So Alice explains what happened to Mal's sextant case. Den comes and inspects it, careful not to let the bucket of coals touch anything. It gets close enough to Alice for her to feel the strong heat rolling off of it — as warm as the straight coals themselves.
"I can fix," Den says. "I have to take these coals. Bring it to the boiler."
"Thank you, Den!" Alice says excitedly. "I'll meet you there in just a moment. I just want to make sure I get up all the right pieces."
Den nods, and then he slips out of the cabin. True to her word, Alice scoops up the pieces that don't belong to other locks they've tried, and brings them all down to the boiler room where Den will do what he can.
#
When Alice gets back into the cabin, it's already warm. Far too warm, for her tastes. So she picks one of the fairly simple locks on Mal's desk and goes digging around in his drawers until she finds a spare pair of goggles. Once she has, she puts them on, and then goes over to the wardrobe to get an idea of how they look.
Mal's mirror is small and cloudy, but it does the job well enough. Alice can tell she looks just reasonable enough for her not to discard the plan entirely. The goggles are at least one size to large, but they'll have to do.
The last thing she grabs is a scarf from her ruck bag and wraps it tightly around her neck before firmly closing her jacket up over it. She decides against checking this look in the mirror, since she knows it'll only look ridiculous. Her outfit complete, she scampers out of the cabin and up onto the deck.
The difference in temperature alone is enough to stop her in her tracks. It's also unbelievably windy, and she suddenly understands the necessity of the goggles. No other ship she's been on has gone this fast.
At least, not when passengers were allowed on the deck.
"Alice!"
She turns towards the shout. Mal is waving her over to the aft deck, where he's standing beside the wheel. He's got a spyglass in the hand he's gesturing with.
Alice does her best to move towards him. The wind is buffeting her, and she's not exactly confident about walking, so she takes the roundabout path that keeps her within arm's length of the rail. She makes sure she's got a hand in contact with it on the whole trip and eventually she finds herself only a few feet from Mal.
She takes the last steps hesitantly. Mal shouts something at her, but it gets torn away from her by the wind. "What?" she shouts back.
The next moment, Mal is up in her personal space, his hands on her shoulders and his cheek pressed against her so that his mouth is inches from her ear. "Your goggles are on upside down," he says.
Alice valiantly tries to pretend that the shiver that runs down her spine is only because she's cold. That's a factor, yes, but—
"Close your eyes."
She does before she's had a chance to think about whether it's a good idea. Then, she feels Mal's hands move to pulling the goggles off her head. What if he doesn't put them back? She wonders. Or what if he leaves? If I open my eyes now, will I be able to see? I think I remember where the hatch is from here, but what if—
Mal carefully orients the goggles over her eyes and then tugs the strap over her head, somehow managing not to tangle it in all her flyaway hair. He tugs on the ties a little and then leans in again. "You can open your eyes again," he says.
She does — and suddenly she's twice aware of how close he is. She could reach her arms out and wrap them around him, and they'd only have to turn their heads a little for their mouths to meet, and—
"Better?" he asks.
She swallows — or tries to, but her mouth is strangely dry. She can only get out a strained, "Much," and thankfully it's even true. She can see much better now — the shape of the goggles is much better in this position. It's weird not to be able to see what's next to her, but she doesn't really want to imagine what it's like to keep her eyes open in the wind that's biting at her cheeks.
Mal grins, and then leans back and looks her over. He makes a gesture that she interprets as asking what's making her so lumpy.
"Scarf!" she shouts. He nods, and then moves for it. Alice swats his hands away and pulls it out herself — she's worried that he'll open her coat to get it, and she's chilly enough as it is. She carefully pulls it out and offers it to Mal.
After he takes it, the first thing he does is fold it in half. Then he reaches out and wrap's the folded scarf around her neck, pulling the two loose ends through the folded one. It's thicker and warmer than the way she had had it, and even though the loose ends of the scarf are slapping wildly in the wind, it feels far more secure on her neck.
Mal looks at her inquisitively. She nods vigorously, and he grins. Then he offers her the spyglass, but she refuses it. Tuanaki is now too far behind them for her to have any hope of seeing it, and they won't be in sight of their destination for days yet. She doesn't really want to stare even closer at the infinite expanses of sky around them and sea a far way below them. There's a bit of a cloud formation off in the distance, but there's not even a hint of land, and she doesn't need any more reminders of just how small and vulnerable she is.
Plus, she's perfectly comfortable leaning against the railing and just staring out at the horizon. It's beautiful, in a cold, clean sort of way. There's not much of anything to see, just a distant, swiftly-setting sun off the port bow. Alice leans on the high rail of the aft deck and watches it set, enjoying feeling both alone and safe at the same time. It's not a combination she gets to enjoy very often, since the few places she'd really consider safe are all someone else's, and they don't often let her be alone there. But here, on The Ship Without A Name, the wind that's buffeting her and running her cheeks raw also gives her a bubble of protection against being touched or spoken to. For a moment, if only just a moment, Alice can pretend that the last four years turned out very differently — that she had convinced Piers that, instead of training to be a proper young lady, she should be trained to sail instead, that she had graduated with flying colors, that the ship keeping her aloft was hers and it was aloft at her direction and she was leading an exploration expedition, that she would be the first person to discover—
A hand on Alice's shoulder startles her from her reverie. She turns to see a dark figure standing over her — in the time she's been staring out at the horizon, the sun has set, and the stars have come out. There's no light on the deck, but there's a lantern hung on the ladder that leads below, and it provides a small bit of illumination. That's just enough for Alice to feel confident that it is, in fact, Mal, and not someone else.
When he leads in behind her and whispers in her ear, she's certain of it — she's far too numb to get away with telling herself this shiver is from the chill. "Let's go below," he says.
She nods, then turns and lets him lead the way out of the wind. As surprised as Alice was when she stepped into the wind, its sudden absence is equally notable. Really what's noticeable is the way that all of the exposed bits of skin are screaming out in irritation. Still, as she tenderly pulls off her goggles, she's not even beginning to regret the time up there.
Mal is standing in front of the cabin door, waiting for her. "Come on. I don't want to leave the door open too long, we'll let all the heat out and Gunny'll get mad."
Then, Alice remembers what's waiting for them — a nice warm cabin. She grins at Mal, and gestures for him to open the door. She scurries inside and is instantly engulfed in a very welcoming warmth.
"Ooo, this feels so nice," she says.
"Den's a real help," Mal says. He rummages around in the things on his desk, clearly looking for something. Alice, meanwhile, heads for the bed. The one part of her body that would really appreciate being directly exposed to this heat is her toes, which she hasn't been able to feel for hours. Unfortunately, there are quite a few buckles and straps even to get down to her socks, so she may as well sit down while she's doing it.
She's gotten her boots off and is just getting her first stretches in when Mal tosses something her way. "Heads up."
A small jar lands in her lap. "What's this?" she asks.
"Just a salve for your cheeks," he says. "It'll help with the stinging a bit now. And if you go up tomorrow you should put some on before you go out, it's better when you use it before you're all chapped."
"You didn't put any on earlier," Alice observes.
"I'm used to it," Mal says. "And my skin is, too — tough, weathered, old-man's hide."
Alice grins a little. "Well, you are pretty old," she teases.
"Hey! I take offense at that," Mal says.
"Only because it's true," Alice says. Then she turns to the jar in her lap. The lid twists off easily enough, and then there's some kind of goop inside. It smells rather strongly of something that makes her head spin a little. But, sure enough, when she rubs it on her cheeks the stinging immediately lessens. It's not entirely gone, but it's certainly far less noticeable.
"Thank you for cleaning up all the stuff from earlier, by the way," Mal says. Alice looks over at him — he's clearing the rest of the things off his desk, which is rather unusual.
"Well, we did make a bit of a mess," Alice admits. What she's not ready to admit is the fact that she didn't actually take care of everything the way she had meant to. "What are you doing?"
"Clearing off a space so I can sleep at my desk," he says.
"We talked about this," Alice says firmly. "It's your bed. I know we're sharing it, but—"
Mal raises his eyebrows at Alice. "Are you suggesting we do now?"
Alice sighs. "No, I'm telling you, if one of us is sleeping at your desk, it'd be me. You sleep in your bed. Plus, I'm not tired yet."
"Are you sure?" Mal asks.
"I'm certainly not going to sleep yet," she says, even as she's fighting off a yawn. "Just go sleep, Mal. If it's Gunny's watch now you know there's only a few hours til yours."
Muttering, he gets to his feet. "Yeah, yeah," he says. Then, they finish switching places — Alice settles into his chair and Mal settles on the bed, removing his boots. It takes her a moment to find a comfortable position, but the chair definitely makes a better bed than some she's had.
"Hey, Alice."
She glances over. Mal is curled up in the bunk — it looks a size too small for him, with all his gangly limbs, but his expression is certainly relaxed and content.
"Share the bed with me?"
"Not tonight."
Mal grins. "That implies tomorrow night."
"Maybe."
"Well," he says, rolling over in his bunk. "Do think about it. I'd love to know your answer."
And then Alice is in a warm, quiet room, with nothing to do to fill hertime but think.