two kinds of mysterious floating rock

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick is minding his own business, collecting floatgrass and onions from a random island a fair bit south of the equator and wondering when it'll rain again, when someone rather rudely appears directly above him.

Comments

[greatestgift]

"Whatever powers Terraria is definitely nonsense."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Well, if it can be useful nonsense I don't really care. Do you want to fly south with me so you can safely try to put down some blocks? My name is Nick, by the way, nice to meet you."

[greatestgift]

"Sable. Sable Arrowsmith. And sure."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Do you mind if I bring my airship? It's definitely a lot slower than wings-" he flaps them for emphasis "-but I don't particularly want to just leave it here."

[greatestgift]

"Reasonable. I don't mind."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

So Nick spends a few minutes collecting floatgrass, skips the onions and berries, and starts untying the ropes holding his ship to the island.

"If you want, you could learn a bit about the ship and help me get it running more quickly. It's not that hard, just a bit finicky."

[greatestgift]

"Sounds interesting."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He explains how to get a ship like this moving, with lots of information about how air and solid objects interact, how ropes and cables are used to control the little canvas flaps all over the ship, how to start the engines - "I'd explain how they work but it'd take a while."

Among the explanations are a fair number of warnings about things she shouldn't do, and a few things she extra definitely cannot do under any cicrumstances, like cause sparks or fire.

[greatestgift]

"No fire. Got it."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

No fire is repeated several times. It is the most important point. Also important, but not as critically, is to try not to throw anything overboard and be careful not to break open the gas cells, since the gas inside is both poisonous and the primary thing keeping the ship floating.

Then: The ship is flying along at the brisk pace of about fifty kilometers per hour.

[greatestgift]

"You're right, it is kind of slow... not bad, though, for not being magic."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It could be a lot faster if we had more metal around here. I had to make the engines mostly out of ceramic, and ceramic is just not strong enough to support high compression ratios, so the engines kind of suck."

[greatestgift]

"I have some metal with me, but it's Terraria metal and therefore very weird," says Sable. "So I'm not sure how much use it'll be."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I think I'd better not try to apply any weirdness to my ship, at least not right now."

The ship frequently tilts to the side a little or otherwise shifts around. Nick is obviously comfortable at his controls. He looks slightly nervous - though maybe that's not the right word (diligent?), but he's smiling and he knows exactly when to pull this or that lever when a gust of wind tries to take the ship off-course, sometimes correcting for things before Sable can feel anything wrong at all.

[greatestgift]

It's soothing to be right in the middle of such a well-built machine, sensing its identity as a whole creation rather than just a collection of parts. Terraria doesn't really lend itself to this kind of construction, and she didn't know how much she missed it until just now.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick is apparently of the 'companionable silence' type when he's flying.

[greatestgift]

That's okay. Sable hasn't spoken to another real live mind-having person in ten years. Companionable silence is infinitely preferable to the alone kind. She even manages not to talk to herself.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

They could pass a lot of time like this, then.

After a while, Nick does something to the controls that causes the ship to keep flying in a straight line by itself (not as straight, but close enough) and says, "What are your opinions on lunch?"

[greatestgift]

"I'm pretty enthusiastic about lunch."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Meat is expensive, milk doesn't keep well, and we can't cook because fire, but I have bread, and a lot veggies and fruit, and olive oil, and some cheese, any preferences?"

[greatestgift]

"That all sounds great to me."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick looks at her a bit strangely, shakes his head, and says, "I'll lead the way then. Have a bit of everything if you like. Normally I'd be talking about payment right now but you letting me borrow these wings is easily enough fun to be worth a month of food, so have at it."

For himself, Nick eats some tomatoes-and-cheese-and-olives on bread and various fruit, in addition to two whole onions from the rather large pile of onions.

[greatestgift]

"Thank you."

She tries a little bit of everything, and seems delighted by all of it.

When the meal is winding down she gets around to explaining, "In Terraria there's plenty to eat, but the selection's kind of narrow and it's... Every mushroom is exactly like every other mushroom. Every rabbit is exactly like every other rabbit. It doesn't take long to get pretty tired of an infinite supply of identical rabbits. This much variety in a meal is new, and very much appreciated."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick seems to realize something. He smacks himself in the face. "I'm a bit of an idiot. You even said it and I didn't make the connection. Terraria's not your original world, and you get wings by killing a lot of monsters, and you have a lot of wings, so you were probably there for a good long while, weren't you? And there aren't any people in Terraria."

"I don't know about you, but I can only stand being alone for about a month, and only that long when I'm flying my ship. Being stuck in a strange, dangerous, alien world for what sounds like years... Anything I can do to help you get used to people again? Er, person, since it's just me."

[greatestgift]

"Yeah, it's... it wasn't great," she admits. "But I think I'm doing okay. You've been a pretty good first-real-person-I've-seen-in-ten-years so far. Good job."