Icy winds were howling their frustration through the walls of The Risk’s Reward, and gnashing sharpened teeth at the patrons within, as they sheltered in the warmth of good company and a readily-stoked fire.

For generations the wood and stone of walls and floor had been seasoned with talk, stories, and song, and tonight was to be no different. Orange glow from the windows blooms out into the dark, and a lively hubbub murmurs its way a short distance out onto the street.

Ezmi Shime crouches by the hearth, where she is carefully placing a log to re-stoke the guttering flames.

“Alright y’old blowers, who’s got a good tale?” she shouts, projecting clear into the din as the dry bark begins to catch and sizzle. A ripple of commotion passes across the disturbed surface of the room in response, while she hoists her stocky frame upright and returns to her regular position behind the bar. Old wood, long-serving, patterned with the unavoidable scrapes and stains accumulated in spite of tireless care. A row of tall wooden stools stand unoccupied across from her, which will fill up as more trickle in through the night. The first groups are already here and settled into their usual nooks, but beyond the fire, she knows her job here is to stoke the room and, by extension, the community. A story, a song, a lively discussion, it all brings people together and knits bonds that last beyond lifetimes. “Sure, you can splash the drinks about,” her Dad used to say, “but treat ‘em like oil: a little makes for a good flame; too much starts a blaze.”

“Well?” she enquires, the weight of a burgeoning smile pulling her head over to an angle, “Look if I start the bribes this early, there’s not a one of you’s going to be able to walk home at the end. And I do not have the room, nor inclination, to house a drunken pubfull.”

She had stewarded this house for over half her life now, inherited from her father, who took over from his mother, who inherited from her adoptive fathers. It didn’t have a name back then, it was just a place the locals gathered to relive good times, or remember the bad, in the presence of others. She casts a glance up at the three portraits which have hung above the fireplace since long before her time: firstly Luz, with his face expressing a mixture of contentment and discomfort; of peace found in his family, and displeasure at the formality of stillness and smart dress. Across from him beams out Alistair, joy painted across the relieved canvas of his face, as of one whose final throw of the dice came up all sixes. The third, safely nestled between the two of them, is that of her grandmother as a child, painted not long after she joined the family.

“Go on Arlin, tell us about yer first trip out again!” calls a gruff voice from one of the corners to another table, followed by a playful chuckle.

“Why do I ‘ave to start? I’m always up first!” comes the reply laced with indignance, but from a scraggly man already in the process of rising to his feet.

“Ah, yeah, but I like the way you tell it!”

“Well thank ye very much Tom…”

“Yeah, it gets shorter every time!” jabs Jill Catwish, his wife.

The walls shake with laughter, heavy hands slam tables, Arlin himself is bent double, taking it in good spirits. Ezmi smiles and relaxes a little: this should be a good night.

Arlin Catwish’s Story

Now, like more than a fair few of you here, I got my start on a ship as a young lad by talking my way aboard. Drop some of the right words with a bit o’ confidence, and you’ll have ‘em believing you’re the new crewmate they didn’t know about. So there I was, a wide-eyed skyman without the first clue how to pull a rope or tie a knot, but following the bosun around, hands in pockets and nodding along like I knew every last plank by name. Well, he pats me on the back and leaves me to my post, so I sidle up to the first person I see who looks like they know which way’s down, hoping I can just copy ‘em and try not to stand too proud. She just looks me up and down once and goes right back to hoisting something or other, drop me if I know, so I grab the next rope along and starts doing the same.

Well, a day or two later and we’re out in breeze, on our way to gods know where, and the Captain finally shows his face. We’re up on deck and out he swaggers in this big, bright coat looking like it’s brand new, and a couple of mean-looking cutlases swinging at his waist. He just stomps up and starts giving orders, yellin’ out hoist this, pull that, belay the other, and all of a sudden I realise I’m several days from home but only one mistake from gone. I don’t know what he’s asking or how to do it, but everyone else snaps-to and the whole deck comes alive with things raising, spinning; there’s people climbing and shouting, passing all sorts back and forth. Well, I do my best to blend in, I find a chain and pull it then help some of the others with pushing, but all the while I’m doing that, I’m thinking I need a friend who can look out for me.

So that night I go find herself that I shadowed on the first day, I put out my hand and, bold as brass, I say: “Hello, I’m Arlin, and I don’t know what I’m doing”.

She gives me the same look she did on day one, down then up, then her eyes widen and she leans in and says-

“I’m Jill Catwish and neither do I!” bursts out Jill, gasping through hysterics, as the inn erupts-

She did! True as I’m stood here right now! Well, all I knew how to do was hang my mouth open and hope something smart fell out. It didn’t, as I’m sure you all know. So she keeps on talking, saying she bluffed her way aboard four days past, said she was the new crewmate, found someone lookin’ like they knew their way around, and set to copying him. Well obviously it’s a relief to have someone else on board wearing the same shoes as I am, but that doesn’t really get either of us closer to home or safety. Probably be quite happy to trade a couple incompetent scrubbers for two less mouths to feed.

So next day, the two of us are kicking the timbers, looking for cracks or loose boards as she’d learned to do from her ‘guide’ as it were, and we’re working out what our plan should be and how we’re going to get away safely. As we’re talking this biiiiig feller in a smart hat comes over and claps Jill on the shoulder and says.. if you would please, Jill-

Jill stands up at her table, “I overheard you two saying you lied your way aboard? Is that true?” she booms out across the rapt crowd.

I was ready to step between ‘em and say, “No sir, that’s just me’s the one don’t know port from sherry,” when he suddenly grabs her by the shoulders and shouts - ah if you would, my love…

“I need your help, I talked my way on board about eight days ago and now everyone keeps coming to me, seeing this hat, and asking for orders!”

So! You’re probably seeing a pattern now, right? Three days later we had the mates, the stewards, the helmsman, the cook, and the bosun! We’ve all gathered outside the Captain’s cabin, bosun there hat-in-hand, and he knocks on the door. We wait. In the perfect quiet, we can hear him putting on his cutlases, one by one, and then his coat. We hear his boots coming over to the door, clomp clomp clomp. He stops to clear his throat, then hums a little tune to himself. The handle turns, the door retreats a crack into the cabin, and then two eyes appear in the empty space.

“Hello?” he asks.

Then he looks past the bosun at all the rest of us, the whole of his crew stood at his door.

“Ah…” he mumbles, “yes, yes I see, you seem to have worked it out. Well, no point in hiding it any longer. I do hope you’ll all understand but…”

“I HAVEN’T A CLUE WHAT I’M DOING!”

̃

Tears are wiped onto sleeves, hands slap onto tables, and Arlin feigns a quick bow before sitting back down. The room eventually returns to a level commotion, and Ezmi readies herself to recharge tankards from the casks at her back, and re-stoke the fire. More people have trickled in during Arlin’s storytelling and the cold has fully retreated from every corner.

“What about you, Jack?” prompts Wilvey Kinnett, a recent occupant of space at the bar, to the woman sitting beside him. Jack Trencher looks up, startlement briefly crossing her face as her hands reflexively move to push her sleeves up to her elbows, revealing a bright and intricate series of tattoos.

“Oh I don’t know, Wilv, I still feel like I’m trying to fit in, you know?” she replies.

“Yeah but you must have some good stories from your side, right? Nobody here’s going to have heard anything like it,” persists Wilvey, “you could just get up and describe your day to ‘em. They’d drink that right up!”

Her protests are interrupted by a flurry of noise and activity, as the front door bursts open.

“HWOOF!” exclaims old Glanville Johns, enacting his whole performance of loudly bustling in, removing his long, patched-up overcoat, and shaking off the cold, “Hammer’s come down fierce this year, ‘asn’t it!”

He ambles his way across the floorboards, being sure to greet every occupant along the way, until he reaches his stool, tucked into the corner at the far end of the bar, against the wall. Melted snowflakes now sparkle as droplets of water on his considerable eyebrows and beard, and a steaming mug of richly-spiced coffee has already been brought out from the back and placed into his waiting hands.

Jack’s attention returns to her mug, and the interrupted conversation.

“Yeah I’m just not sure I’ve got much of a story to spin out of a nine-to-five office job whilst trying to moonlight as a graphic designer. We’d probably be here ‘til next week just explaining that sentence,” she mutters in Wilvey’s direction.

“Well, tell you what; you have a think and I’ll give ‘em something while you do” he responds, the feet of his stool announcing his intent by grumbling their way across the floor.

Taking his refreshed tankard in hand, he saunters to the middle of the floor and loudly clears his throat to request attention.

“My friends!” he presumes, “Thankyou all for being in such fine attendance this evening, it really is lovely to see so many faces here. Now I understand an open bounty has been placed upon the telling of a good story and I believe I may have just such a one as fits the bill. Drum-roll, if you please!” His hand flourishes into the air with a loud click of his fingers.

The shout bounces off unreceptive faces, and echoes through the silence.

“Wonderful, thank you! Now the story I am about to tell may be a familiar one but I assure each and every one of you that, without question, this is also a version of it. If you would kindly bend your ears and allow me to tell you all the story of…

The First Sky Sailors (according to Wilvey Kinnett)

So we begin with a sturdy Fieldworker at the start of her day, all the way down where the sun shines so brightly and the food grows so plentiful. She’s crouched down and just reaching for the first weed of the day, when suddenly she hears a voice call out:

“Hello! Can you help me?”

She looks around her, thinking it’s probably just her supervisor come to tell her she’s behind on her quota, but she can’t see anybody, and besides the voice is far too polite. She’s all alone. So she goes back to work.

“Hello there! I don’t mean to be rude!” calls the voice again, “I’m up above you!”

She looks up.

“Ah hello down there! Can you hear me?” again calls the Captain. Not five minutes prior had he and his crew been on the cold seas, singing songs of better places, and heavy-laden with all manner of goods bound for a distant port. But now, for reasons he can’t explain, his entire ship, crew, and cargo are floating forty feet above a field, and one rather surprised worker.

“Can you tell me where we are?”

“You’re in my field, sir.” comes her reply.

“And where is this field, friend?” he persists.

“Well,” she looks around, “a long way from water, that’s for sure.”

The Captain’s head disappears back behind the hull of the boat for a moment, before re-emerging.

“I don’t suppose you could direct us towards a nearby port? Or body of water?”

“Better yet, sir, toss down a rope and a bit o’ coin, and I’ll take you there meself!” she returns.

The Captain once more vanishes onto the deck and remains there for some time, leaving only the sound of creaking timbers to fill the silence.

After a short while, a hefty coil of rope comes over the side, weighed down by a small leather purse, and that weighed down further still by an assortment of coins.

The Fieldworker pockets the bag and secures the rope around her waist, taking it securely in her hands.

“It’s a bit of a walk to town, but I imagine we’ll be there by aft’noon!” she shouts, as she takes up the slack and begins to haul; the ship, cargo, crew, and Captain all obediently following in turn.

Well, time passes and they make their way through fields, down roads, past houses and homes, and as you can imagine they draw quite a crowd. Parents and children, old and young, all come running out to see this incredible sight of the Fieldworker and her flying ship. More than a few of them think there’s a parade going on and start playing instruments.

So they eventually arrive in the middle of town; ship, cargo, crew, Captain, and all of a huge crowd in tow. There’s singing and dancing, parading like they want a double harvest, and the Fieldworker at the front of it all, towing the ship. The crew have been busy tying rope-ladders together for the Captain to climb down, which they then toss over the side and down he comes. He shakes the Fieldworker by the hand, and then all the crowd gather round in a mob, asking him where he’s from, how the ship flies, can he bless their corn, and all sorts.

Realising that this is something of a special occasion, the Fieldworker suggests to the Captain that they go and see the Mayor. After all, it’s not every day the Captain of a flying ship, complete with crew and cargo, comes to visit. So off they both go, once again the Captain in tow while the Fieldworker shows him to the largest and most splendid building in town. They walk through the front door and are directed to a Clerk who oversees all the goings-on.

And so they tell the whole story to the Clerk, who sits there wide-eyed listening to every detail. The Captain tells ‘im where they’re from, what happened, how they got here, walks him through every single unbelievable detail from start to finish until eventually he beckons the Clerk over to the window and points up out into the sky to show the man the flying ship, bobbing away with ropes and ladders hanging off its sides.

The Clerk sits back down in stunned disbelief, takes a moment to compose hisself, and looks the Captain right in the eyes,

“So,” he gasps with barely-contained excitement…

“You mean to tell me,” his quavering hand pointing up and out at the impossible sight…

“That this ship,” glee spreading itself uncontrollably across his face…

“Is laden with untaxed goods?!”

̃

Groans and mirth ripple and swirl through the room, as Wilvey spins on his heel and returns to his seat. His outstretched hand offers his tankard to Ezmi, eyebrow cocked in request of a refill.

“So what’s the actual story?” asks Jack as Wilvey settles himself back down. “Obviously that’s just a joke but… do you know how it actually got started? Like who first sent a ship into the air and found it stayed up?”

“I couldn’t tell you, sorry.” comes the reply, “It’s just something we’ve always done, but the story’s not written down anywhere. We all tell it to each other as a joke, and you’ll hear it thirty different ways if you come to a few more of these; everyone puts their own touch on it. Always starts with someone from your side in a ship though, so… who knows, that part might be true?”

Across from them, Milley Taddock turns round in her seat at the end of a bench, her inquisitive face balanced atop a coarse, woollen jumper. “What’s it like? On the other side, I mean?” she asks to Jack, “Mostly it seems people come from your place and stop by for a bit before returning, but there’s not as many of us has seen what’s over there, or come back to talk about it.”

Jack scoops up her mug and turns round, leaning her elbows back on the bar, and taking a minute to consider the shape of a useful answer. “Loud.” is the first word she falls upon, “Not everywhere, mind, but it’s not all noise that you hear. It’s like… you’re surrounded by so many things all asking for your attention, you know? And that’s not to say this place here is all peace and quiet, but it’s… I guess I’d call it harmonious. Our boats just stay in the water…”

“Yeah but ‘ave you tried?!” calls the voice of George Riston from beside Milley, announcing his entrance to the conversation. He hauls his booted feet up and over the bench, which acts as an invitation for Bryn Tamber, the remainder of the group, to also swivel himself around and extend the borders.

“Hah!” Jack laughs, and rocks forward to rest on her knees “Of a sort, I suppose… we have other ways of travelling through the air. Lot noisier though. And as for me, well, you folk have been nothing but welcoming, which was something I needed.” At this, Wilvey slowly reaches his tankard across and lightly bonks it into the side of Jack’s.

Sensing a moment of quiet sincerity, Bryn eagerly declares; “Well if you ever want to compare notes, I’ll have you know I’ve been through and seen what it’s like..”

“Bryn, I love you but you know that’s not true.” interrupts George

“I have! It was like falling through a cloud of colours, and on the other side they’ve got..”

“You were kicked in the head by a horse.”

The back of Bryn’s hand slaps George on the chest, “Well, if you’re just gonna open the barn door like that!” he proclaims, already on his feet before anyone is able to stop him-

Bryn Tamber’s Story

So there’s this horse, and…

̃

He is roundly tackled by his friends and pulled back into his seat.

Watching the whole of this scene play out from her home behind the bar, is Ezmi. Her smile has changed its form a few times through the evening, but it hasn’t left her face all the while that she has been pulling or fetching drinks, stoking the fire, or engaging in chatter with the various familiar faces to walk through the door. For a brief moment she has no immediate task in need of attendance; the drinks are full, the conversation is flowing freely, and there is a comfortable warmth throughout the room. Her attention drifts across the spectrum of faces all swapping tales or making plans, tables pushed together or chairs turned round. Eventually it alights on the rickety movement of Tom Nale, rising from his seat and wincing just a little at the contortions required to pull on his coat.

“Heading out are ye, Tom?” she calls in his direction.

“Aye, but my thanks as always for a lovely evening!” comes his reply.

“Well you go careful, alright? The years take more than they give back, and it doesn’t look friendly out there.”

“I know it, Ez, and you.”

“I mean it! Mind yer last hundred, alright? Get home safe.”

“Oh don’t you fuss, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.”

The last of this was muffled by the closing door.

“I mean it, yer daft old pillar,” mutters Ezmi, now to nobody in-particular, “mind how you go.”

As the room quietens, Jack pipes up: “Actually, can I ask something?” she enquires, “What’s the history of that? I get what it means, but back where I’m from I’d be looking it up on my phone right now, and…” she mimes taking something out of her pocket and waves an empty hand, “I guess I need to ask.”

The room falls yet quieter.

From her right side, the voice of Glanville melts the stillness: “It means you’re not home ‘til you’re home,” he states in his warming, gentle tones, “and a hundred feet away isn’t home.”

His hand comes up and points to the painting hanging on the wall behind Ezmi’s bar, a three-masted ship in port, set against a bright wash of orange clouds.

“Somewhere ‘bout a hundred year past, that ship left to chart some particularly nasty routes through the sky. They were gonna bring fame to this little town, put us on the map, make better lives. One Spring morning, around six months after they left, a lookout caught sight of ‘em coming back, fighting their way through the biggest storm to blow through these parts before or since. The whole town gathered down at the dock to see them back, my grandfather and his mother included.” He pauses to take a sip from his drink.

“Almost made it. Hundred feet away, and a gust of wind laden with ice blows right through ‘er, sending her down.”

Jack sees him blink back the tears beginning to pool in his eyes, lips pursed to keep them from trembling. She looks back out into the Risk’s Reward and sees that every occupant has raised to their feet, and is taking up their drinks.

“Jack, as one of us you’d be most welcome to join in a toast, if you will.”

Without even noticing it happening, Ezmi had poured an ale and placed it on the bar next to her hand.

“The Zaira, and all who went with her. Thank-you.”

“The Zaira.”

Some nights they gather together to relive the good times, others to remember the bad, Ezmi thinks to herself, but it all knits bonds that last beyond lifetimes. To the Zaira.