more of this whatever it is
boring original fic is boring. move along folks
Ninety-eight point seven percent sure he was about to die, Tenma squeezed his eyes shut against the wind rushing past his face.
To his surprise, he hit wood, not water, and about three hundred yards too early.
The wind knocked out of him, ears ringing, Tenma groped blindly at the wooden rails and spit a bloody molar out of his mouth. The craft he'd landed on pitched wildly beneath him, bucking like an untamed horse, and somebody's knuckles cracked sharply on the back of his head. "Goddammit, ya've thrown 'im all off! Dammit, dammit!"
"What? What?" Tenma asked, blinking wildly and trying to sit up, but it was all he could do to keep from falling off the port side when the craft swerved again. He glanced up and back at the owner of the offending fist, eyes watering, to a boy maybe two or three years his junior with a kerchief wrapped around his face and goggles obscuring his eyes under a newsboy cap.
"Lean starb'rd, ya fool! Starb'rd!" the boy screamed, using both hands to haul on three ropecords while hauling his slight form to the right as far as the safety harness would allow. There was no wheel, no steering devices of any kind except for the cords in the boy's hand.
Tenma threw himself against the starboard side of the airship, bracing his legs against the port rail. Behind them both the motor roared over the sound of the wind, and the stern sail cracked threateningly in protest, but the craft veered right - and down, Tenma suddenly realized. They were headed downwards at an alarming pace. He dared a glance over the rail and saw the silt valley less than a hundred yards below. "Pull up!" he bellowed. "Up!"
"Can't," the boy shouted back grimly. "Lost the starb'rd tilt when you landed! Move back, idjit, 'less you wanna land nose-first in the gully!"
"Move back where!?" Tenma demanded, his voice cracking threateningly. The craft was incredibly small, barely a foot between himself and the boy's knees.
"'Tween my legs, then! But get back," the boy snarled.
There was no choice. Tenma splayed his fingers against the gleaming wooden deck, braced a foot under himself, and dove between the boy's legs, wedged between his heels and to the starboard side. The motor instantly deafened him, roaring inches from his face; a chunk of his hair was caught in a gear and ripped off his skull. He bit his tongue against the pain of it: not that the boy would have heard his scream, but it was the principle of the thing. The boy's knees knocked against his sides as he fought to balance himself over Tenma. No matter his efforts, it was going to be a very rough landing; the boy would probably survive if the craft didn't flip on the shallow swamp water, but Tenma would likely be thrown free and, hopefully, not have a limb chopped off by the propeller on the back end.
He had a better chance of surviving this than hitting the water at terminal velocity, but he still estimated his chance of death at about 78.6% when they hit the water with such force that his head was knocked against the deck hard enough to make him see stars. Then he was airborne, skipped against the water twice, smashed his knee into a root, and collapsed on his face in six inches of water and a foot of muddy silt.
Tenma came up sputtering and gasping in pain, but alive. He floundered in the shallows and managed to get himself flipped onto his back, spitting mud and swiping ineffectually at his face with equally muddy hands. His gun was undoubtedly ruined; he didn't even bother to check, indeed didn't think to check, as he shakily drew up his left knee with both hands. The pain of it made his eyes water; he doubted he could walk, but he couldn't very well just sit around in the mud and wait for someone to come to him. At the very least he should check to make sure the young pilot of the airship was all right.
With this in mind, he struggled to get to his feet for about five hundred seconds and succeeded instead in cleaning his cheeks with his tears of agony and sinking further into the mud.
"Wonderful," he muttered, shivering in his soaked clothes, and he twisted to eye the setting sun on the horizon. It was going to be a long night.
*
The idiot that had fallen off the cargo ship had gone flying moments after Skiff hit the water; Karlin had no time to worry about him, stomping backwards on the pedal to shut off the motor before dropping to her knees to lower the center of gravity. She braced her hands on the railing and threw her weight to the sides, waiting for the skimmer's speed to drop while she guided it away from the sparse trees. Lucky for the craft - and the idiot - that Skiff had landed so far from the shore, but the water was still only a few feet deep and the stern kicked up mud as the craft ran aground against a silt bar.
Karlin struggled out of the safety harness and ripped the kerchief off her face, spitting bloody saliva off into the water from biting nearly clean through her tongue. Her knees would punish her for the landing later, no doubt - nothing but a miracle she hadn't broken her ankles! "Damn that fool," she swore, and only noticed how much her hands were shaking when she reached for her goggles and it took three tries to get them off her face.
She checked the engine for damage; to her inexpert eye there didn't appear to be anything that needed immediate attention. She couldn't check the skeleton until Skiff was out of the water, but she inspected the interior for leaks; instead she found a bloody twelve-year molar wedged between the rail and scaling. She grimaced, drawing back her chin and shuddering. "Ugh!" It belonged to that idiot, no doubt, but Karlin couldn't even bring herself to touch it. "Blech!" She shook her hands as if shaking off water and twisted away, sitting crosslegged in the body and unhooking her radio from her belt.
The skimmer was designed to take off from a track and land on water, but since Skiff was purely a racer there was no way to get him back in the air from water. In a pinch he could function as a boat, but the engine was equipped with only one speed, and that was roughly three hundred and forty miles per hour. Karlin was stranded on the edge of the silt valley. "Mayday, mayday," she called into the radio. "Skiff-oh-wahn down!"
There was a static-filled pause, then a tinny, distant, "Karlsssht, ya oka--y!?" The last word ended on an ear-piercing shriek and Karlin yelped, wriggling a gloved finger in the offended ear.
""m fine," she replied. "Some idjit took a jump offa carg'ship, landed on mah Skiff. Went down in the silt."
Again there was a long pause before she heard the indignant squawk of Mr. Skiff. "He's a'right, too, yeah?"
"By some mir'cle, yeah," Karlin agreed, grinning. "Ah need some 'elp if ya kin get it. Far end of the silt valley. And ah've gotta rescue an idjit, if he survived."
"Don't ya leave 'er," Mr. Skiff demanded. "If we find 'im and not you I'll be spittin' mad!"
"Ah might hafta," Karlin sighed. "But ah promise ah'll be back soon 'nuff. Ah can't take the radio, so ya won't be able ta raise me, but ah promise ah'll be back," she repeated, biting her lip.
The response came right on the heels of her transmission. "We're comin'. Sit tight!" This was Ark. They didn't seem to have heard what Karlin had said.
"If ah'm not here when ya come, wait fer me!" she called, but there was no response except static. The sun was clinging to the horizon in a haze of red when Karlin put down the radio with a sigh. She looked out across the water; it was probably colder than it looked, all bathed in sunset light, and water moccasins and crocodiles and snapping turtles lurked here, all unpleasant swamp creatures. But if the falling idiot was still alive, Karlin had to find him; not only was it the right thing to do, but there was a decidedly un-hilarious irony in saving a suicidal man only to let him die anyway.
Karlin threw her cap into the bottom of the Skiff, kicked off her shoes, and swung herself over the side of the skimmer and into two feet of water and what felt like another two feet of mud.
"Ugh, blech," she grumbled, and staggered her way across the silt bar in the direction her Skiff had come from.
punch me if I continue this
Ninety-eight point seven percent sure he was about to die, Tenma squeezed his eyes shut against the wind rushing past his face.
To his surprise, he hit wood, not water, and about three hundred yards too early.
The wind knocked out of him, ears ringing, Tenma groped blindly at the wooden rails and spit a bloody molar out of his mouth. The craft he'd landed on pitched wildly beneath him, bucking like an untamed horse, and somebody's knuckles cracked sharply on the back of his head. "Goddammit, ya've thrown 'im all off! Dammit, dammit!"
"What? What?" Tenma asked, blinking wildly and trying to sit up, but it was all he could do to keep from falling off the port side when the craft swerved again. He glanced up and back at the owner of the offending fist, eyes watering, to a boy maybe two or three years his junior with a kerchief wrapped around his face and goggles obscuring his eyes under a newsboy cap.
"Lean starb'rd, ya fool! Starb'rd!" the boy screamed, using both hands to haul on three ropecords while hauling his slight form to the right as far as the safety harness would allow. There was no wheel, no steering devices of any kind except for the cords in the boy's hand.
Tenma threw himself against the starboard side of the airship, bracing his legs against the port rail. Behind them both the motor roared over the sound of the wind, and the stern sail cracked threateningly in protest, but the craft veered right - and down, Tenma suddenly realized. They were headed downwards at an alarming pace. He dared a glance over the rail and saw the silt valley less than a hundred yards below. "Pull up!" he bellowed. "Up!"
"Can't," the boy shouted back grimly. "Lost the starb'rd tilt when you landed! Move back, idjit, 'less you wanna land nose-first in the gully!"
"Move back where!?" Tenma demanded, his voice cracking threateningly. The craft was incredibly small, barely a foot between himself and the boy's knees.
"'Tween my legs, then! But get back," the boy snarled.
There was no choice. Tenma splayed his fingers against the gleaming wooden deck, braced a foot under himself, and dove between the boy's legs, wedged between his heels and to the starboard side. The motor instantly deafened him, roaring inches from his face; a chunk of his hair was caught in a gear and ripped off his skull. He bit his tongue against the pain of it: not that the boy would have heard his scream, but it was the principle of the thing. The boy's knees knocked against his sides as he fought to balance himself over Tenma. No matter his efforts, it was going to be a very rough landing; the boy would probably survive if the craft didn't flip on the shallow swamp water, but Tenma would likely be thrown free and, hopefully, not have a limb chopped off by the propeller on the back end.
He had a better chance of surviving this than hitting the water at terminal velocity, but he still estimated his chance of death at about 78.6% when they hit the water with such force that his head was knocked against the deck hard enough to make him see stars. Then he was airborne, skipped against the water twice, smashed his knee into a root, and collapsed on his face in six inches of water and a foot of muddy silt.
Tenma came up sputtering and gasping in pain, but alive. He floundered in the shallows and managed to get himself flipped onto his back, spitting mud and swiping ineffectually at his face with equally muddy hands. His gun was undoubtedly ruined; he didn't even bother to check, indeed didn't think to check, as he shakily drew up his left knee with both hands. The pain of it made his eyes water; he doubted he could walk, but he couldn't very well just sit around in the mud and wait for someone to come to him. At the very least he should check to make sure the young pilot of the airship was all right.
With this in mind, he struggled to get to his feet for about five hundred seconds and succeeded instead in cleaning his cheeks with his tears of agony and sinking further into the mud.
"Wonderful," he muttered, shivering in his soaked clothes, and he twisted to eye the setting sun on the horizon. It was going to be a long night.
*
The idiot that had fallen off the cargo ship had gone flying moments after Skiff hit the water; Karlin had no time to worry about him, stomping backwards on the pedal to shut off the motor before dropping to her knees to lower the center of gravity. She braced her hands on the railing and threw her weight to the sides, waiting for the skimmer's speed to drop while she guided it away from the sparse trees. Lucky for the craft - and the idiot - that Skiff had landed so far from the shore, but the water was still only a few feet deep and the stern kicked up mud as the craft ran aground against a silt bar.
Karlin struggled out of the safety harness and ripped the kerchief off her face, spitting bloody saliva off into the water from biting nearly clean through her tongue. Her knees would punish her for the landing later, no doubt - nothing but a miracle she hadn't broken her ankles! "Damn that fool," she swore, and only noticed how much her hands were shaking when she reached for her goggles and it took three tries to get them off her face.
She checked the engine for damage; to her inexpert eye there didn't appear to be anything that needed immediate attention. She couldn't check the skeleton until Skiff was out of the water, but she inspected the interior for leaks; instead she found a bloody twelve-year molar wedged between the rail and scaling. She grimaced, drawing back her chin and shuddering. "Ugh!" It belonged to that idiot, no doubt, but Karlin couldn't even bring herself to touch it. "Blech!" She shook her hands as if shaking off water and twisted away, sitting crosslegged in the body and unhooking her radio from her belt.
The skimmer was designed to take off from a track and land on water, but since Skiff was purely a racer there was no way to get him back in the air from water. In a pinch he could function as a boat, but the engine was equipped with only one speed, and that was roughly three hundred and forty miles per hour. Karlin was stranded on the edge of the silt valley. "Mayday, mayday," she called into the radio. "Skiff-oh-wahn down!"
There was a static-filled pause, then a tinny, distant, "Karlsssht, ya oka--y!?" The last word ended on an ear-piercing shriek and Karlin yelped, wriggling a gloved finger in the offended ear.
""m fine," she replied. "Some idjit took a jump offa carg'ship, landed on mah Skiff. Went down in the silt."
Again there was a long pause before she heard the indignant squawk of Mr. Skiff. "He's a'right, too, yeah?"
"By some mir'cle, yeah," Karlin agreed, grinning. "Ah need some 'elp if ya kin get it. Far end of the silt valley. And ah've gotta rescue an idjit, if he survived."
"Don't ya leave 'er," Mr. Skiff demanded. "If we find 'im and not you I'll be spittin' mad!"
"Ah might hafta," Karlin sighed. "But ah promise ah'll be back soon 'nuff. Ah can't take the radio, so ya won't be able ta raise me, but ah promise ah'll be back," she repeated, biting her lip.
The response came right on the heels of her transmission. "We're comin'. Sit tight!" This was Ark. They didn't seem to have heard what Karlin had said.
"If ah'm not here when ya come, wait fer me!" she called, but there was no response except static. The sun was clinging to the horizon in a haze of red when Karlin put down the radio with a sigh. She looked out across the water; it was probably colder than it looked, all bathed in sunset light, and water moccasins and crocodiles and snapping turtles lurked here, all unpleasant swamp creatures. But if the falling idiot was still alive, Karlin had to find him; not only was it the right thing to do, but there was a decidedly un-hilarious irony in saving a suicidal man only to let him die anyway.
Karlin threw her cap into the bottom of the Skiff, kicked off her shoes, and swung herself over the side of the skimmer and into two feet of water and what felt like another two feet of mud.
"Ugh, blech," she grumbled, and staggered her way across the silt bar in the direction her Skiff had come from.
punch me if I continue this