What? [i]What?[/i] Had she heard correctly? Go down to the engines and see what she could figure out [i]without[/i] Dariq? "Uh -- ah, uhm ..." She lifted a finger, her mouth open to speak, but she wasn't sure what to say. [i]Maybe I was a bit too hasty.[/i] She couldn't figure out a ship on her own. Could she? Suddenly she was very, very sorry for thinking ill of Dariq. He was probably a genius to have known the ship would be fine following his precise cut of the balloon. Simnia was about to make a fool of herself.

"Yes ... sir," she responded, and though there was determination in her eyes, her voice was halfhearted and frightened of failure. She saluted -- did sailors salute? -- and she bustled off across the deck to the stairwell.

That daredevil black-haired boy was hobbling down the dim stairs ahead of her, swaying and hunched and bruised after his soaring fall from the dock. Any moment now he'd slip and break the rest of his bones. "Don't move another inch, Blackbird," she called, thumping her way down the stairs after him. He was a good deal taller than she was, but in that case it was all right. "Lean on me, then, come on. You took a leap of faith back there."

Up ahead, a bit farther down the stairs, she spotted a familiar face. "Elani, dear," she called, for the moment ignoring her grudge while someone needed help. "How are you with broken bones? Did you say you're a nurse?"

She needed to get to the engines -- but the broken Blackbird was a new priority.