"Tell me; do you see anything unusual in the distance?"

Cally blinked, slightly puzzled by the doctor's question: she'd been expecting simple things, like maybe grinding up some herbs in a pestle and mortar or laying out some bandages and gauze for treating any wounded, not questions. "Um-" she squinted out uncertainly in the direction he indicated. Her father had told her to learn what she could on this voyage, and he must have had a reason for asking, so she strained her eyes. "I don't [i]think[/i] so, doctor." She said hesitantly. 

"We're sailing around the cloud towers, of course, and have been sailing rather too slowly lately." There was a hint of disapproval in her voice: Caliana loved airships enough to think doing anything that could damage them was wrong. She felt the ship give another slight skip under her feet as it started to rise.

"Oh! Is that where the other ship is going to appear?" She asked. "The one we're going to attack?" Her voice was slightly breathless with growing excitement, and one hand unconsciously dropped to the hilt of the dagger at her belt, gripping it tightly.