Vanahara nodded, moving to take her position in the middle of the deck. She didn't have long until they were in the thick of the storm, and she needed to bolster their defenses before then. Setting her feet firmly, she brought up her hands, moving through an Ironworker form—a simple one made not-so-simple by sheer size as the metal plating of the ship's hull began to thicken at key points. Glancing up at the storm again, Vanahara quirked a brow and stabbed her fingers upward, drawing a lightning rod up slowly from the stern of the ship. No use having the whole hull electrified. Thick ice began creeping over the plating, and Vana nodded to the hydromancers in thanks. 

The wind began to pick up, and a thought occurred to her. She'd never been on an airship before, but her home had used sand gliders to travel long distances—living so close to the storm made for near-constant winds—and one piece of equipment was always present. Striding over to one of the masts, she found what she was looking for, the one thing that was always available on a ship—rope. Taking three separate ends, she lashed them quickly to an available metal ring, taking an extra moment to bind the metal itself to both the rope and the mast it was attached to. With the opposite end of one rope, she pressed it to the metal at her belt, and the iron began to worm its way through the fibers of the rope itself—the most secure hold she could manage. Walking back to the middle of the deck, she tossed the other two ropes to the two Hydromancers, Celeste and Andrade.

"Tie them around your waists," Vanahara said shortly. "Helps you keep your feet." Satisfied that they'd be able to knot a rope by themselves, she moved about halfway towards the prow of the ship, setting her feet and taking a deep breath as the ship picked up speed and slammed full tilt into the edge of the Storm.

It was like nothing she'd ever experienced. Living a few kilometers from the very outskirts of the Storm was one thing; standing on an open deck while it raged around you was quite another. Still, though, she kept herself rooted to the deck, and when [i]things[/i] started coming out of the storm, she didn't flinch. Her fists clenched, and the metal of her bracers began to spread and sharpen. 

Keeping hold of the hull as she was, she felt it when it was breached, head whipping around as she sensed the harpy tearing into the cannon bay. She was no Master—she couldn't grab a cannon out of the sky, not in this wind, and she didn't dare try to take control of the beams of metal flying through the sky, not when they were bound with light like that. What she could do was try to make up the loss.

"Lost a cannon on the starboard side!" she shouted, turning over her shoulder to face the hydromancers. "Patch the hole if you can!" 

Turning on her heel, she slammed her fist into an oncoming harpy who thought it had found a distracted meal, the point of her now-sharpened gauntlet biting deep. Ducking under the creature's talons as it gurgled on its own blood, she came up under it, digging her shoulder into it's stomach and heaving. The mortally wounded thing went flailing over the side, it's claw hooking into Vanahara's belt, and she would have gone over too if not for the rope attached to her belt.

Almost immediately, Vana swung back into her position, feet spread as she regained her grasp on the hull. While the beasts were more likely to go after the easy pickings on the deck, flaming stones and shards of the light-metal could do just as much damage while she was distracted. Now, though, she could focus again, and she straightened out and reinforced dents as quickly as they appearaed. Locking her arms, Vanhara grimly thought to herself that she'd be on her knees and bleeding out before she let this hull crack.