High over the deep oceans of Exandria, skyships sail. One in particular floats in the early morning sunlight high over the glittering water. Flocks of birds swirl down below it as a figure watches them from the deck.
It is early, so the ship is quiet. The figure stands at the railing, idly plucking the strings of a lyre. Dorian Storm watches the world sail by with tired eyes, having been awoken by an early morning commotion.
Below the deck and the sound of gulls and plucked strings, lie the cabins and interior quarters.
The scene of the commotion, cabin four, continues to be disturbed, as a faun and a halfling fill the room with talk.
The smaller figure finishes with the buckles on his breastplate and turns, curious, to his friend. She's humming quietly as she stands from the bed, abandoning the tangle of bedsheets to its fate.
‘Why am I the one doing this?’ He asks, carefully positioning the cabin chair to stand on, ‘I get that your arm makes it difficult, but isn’t Dorian a better height?’
Fearne laughs in the way she does, cradling her damaged arm as she turns to face him. ‘He got all flustered about it.’
Orym chuckles, ‘okay, yeah, I can see that.’
Below his feet, the skyship whirs and rumbles as they coast through the sky. Fearne and Orym are alone in the cabin the three of them are sharing. The dim light of morning flutters through the window, and golden rays of sunlight make the ruffled bedding glow.
Fearne stands in the middle of the room, her arching horns tapping at the ceiling as she moves her head to watch him. Her hair is still messy from sleep and more so than usual due to last night’s incident. It had been dark and confusing and now Fearne’s arm is a little bashed up.
Her staff rests in the corner of the room. Orym nods and goes for the pile of clothes she had discarded the night before, returning to the chair with small arms full of lightweight fabric. Fearne shakes out her hooves with a smile.
She’s clad only in a shift that Orym’s mother would describe as ‘shamelessly short’. It’s a delicate, peachy coloured thing. Fearne undoes the drawstring at the neck with her good hand and lets it slip off her shoulders a little.
‘What first?’ Orym asks, rifling through the pile of fabric.
‘Corset first,’ she says, pointing.
Reaching for the garment, Orym gets to work. Fearne obliges him as he stretches his arms as far as they will go to wrap it around her. He works carefully to do up the clasps at the front. She giggles at his cautiousness.
‘Turn around,’ he asks, once he’s got them all hooked. She obliges with a laugh and he hooks the loops in the laces at the back and pulls. ‘Good?’ He asks once they are beginning to pull taught.
‘A little more,’ she says, ‘else I’ll escape,’
Orym obliges, before wrapping the loops around her waist and tying them off at her nod. With her good hand she tugs at her shift, letting the untied neckline slip away a little further.
‘Dress next,’ she says. Orym picks up the yards of fine mint fabric and feels the yards of it flow through his fingers.
He looks up at her, ‘how-?’
‘Sleeves first,’
He rummages through the fabric and eventually pulls out a delicate sleeve. Fearne grins, looks at it, and offers her right arm. Orym slips the sleeve on and the mass of green fabric follows as Fearne uses her good arm to pull it on. Fumbling, she finds the other sleeve and the mass of fabric is transformed into an oddly shaped, overlong robe.
She laughs at his visible confusion before carefully finding small hooks and hooking the dress into the drapes that Orym is familiar with. She hums as she works, and new flowers bloom along the path that her fingers take. Orym watches.
When she is done, she flicks her hair from her back with an absent motion and hums. ‘Help me with my armor, Orym?’
He nods and picks up the loose pieces of leather. He fits the pieces around her waist and her upper arms. As he works, he admires the soft down that coats her arms, a little thicker than the arm hair he’d anticipated, it is speckled with the occasional white splodge of a deer.
When he is done, he turns to hand her her cloak and she slings it one handed over her shoulders and tucks the ends into the fittings of her underlayers. With a little wiggle, everything is draped neatly as Orym expects. On her legs, flowers bloom. Orym smiles.
She frowns a little and reaches for the enormous pile of ribbon on the chair behind him and stuffs all but a couple of little pieces down her top. Orym disregards his confusion. He’s heard odd things about the fey, and he knows enough about Fearne for this to slip into a more normal activity.
She moves to rummage through her pack and pulls out her comb. Orym's grown familiar with the comb, although he still can't figure out if it is made from bone or not.
He holds a hand out for the comb and she folds her legs up to kneel before him. He combs patiently, working out knots and loose bits of twig. He gathers up the remaining bits of ribbon and attaches them to her with little bows.
Fearne grins. 'Thank you Orym.' She kisses the top of his head as she stands. 'Shall we go find Dorian? I want to play the flute'
And with that, she's off. Orym puts the comb down and follows, falling into step behind her. He wonders if he should remind her that Dorian gave her her own pan flute so that she wouldn't keep taking his.
He considers it. But he discounts the option. He's fairly certain Fearne's just on the hunt for trouble.