376. Beyond the sky, 2

(Rose)

Our long work is finally complete.

We've brought the flying ship on leash, attached to the normal ship. Bleue is sailing that normal one, bringing all of us above the open waters.

I'm already a few metres above the water, and it gives a very odd sensation. The flying ship behaves very differently from normal sea sailing already.

We haven't even begun our test flight yet, and I already can tell it's not what we expected.

Bleue unlocks the anchor at the end of the cable I nicknamed the leash. She wishes me good luck I hear.

The ship is already shaking oddly from every side. Oh boy.

~

I've done ice skating only once in my previous life. It's been an eternity since that time.

That's how I felt right there. That sensation of sliding with a higher required focus on your balance. The wind pushed me and the ship through the gently opened sail, but there was absolutely no resistance from the air as the water would give.

Every choice of movement had immediate consequences on the overall balance.

As the ship began rolling over before I could do anything, I realise it would have been a better choice for Bleue to try it first.

I'm falling toward the sea as if I'd been thrown overboard.

After two seconds of free fall, I'm entering the cold water and begin to swim back to the surface.

Back to the surface, I can see in the distance Ana releasing the leash and anchor back from the free rolling ship above water.

The sail fell down as I couldn't hold it anymore so the ship stopped its course rapidly. It just continued to slide on its momentum a little further away but slowing down.

Bleue laughed, slowing down the normal sailboat a few dozen metres away only from me. I sighed with a smile and began swimming toward her.

~

A little later the same morning, I was sailing on the water and Bleue was in the sky.

I could see the ship flying a little erratically above the sea, but it never rolled entirely over on its back.

Slowly, the flight got steadier and steadier. Bleue had better intuitions for it than me.

After a few hours, Bleue got it right. Ice skating in the sky.

The ship sailed over me a few times, and after a long and cautious sailing time, went over the shore. I couldn't follow it up there with the sailboat but looked at it carefully.

The flying ship rose slowly in altitude as the ground level was higher than the sea. The delay was clear, meaning it couldn't sail straight ahead and above hills or buildings. It would require gentle manoeuvring over uneven and rising lands.

I saw the ship turn back and return over the sea. Bleue tried the small side sails to change the altitude.

Again the ship begun behaving erratically for a while.

It was clear that the slightest uncontrolled pinch could send it spinning on itself. It had a centre of gravity like everything, but the pull to keep it upward was weakened. The woodwork that provided the anti-gravitational pull was along the hulls and the deck, too close to the centre. It wasn't like a hot-air balloon at all, more like a bubble.

But regardless of this flaw, Bleue did it. After some worrying swaying, the ship bounced and rose abruptly into the sky, quickly at high altitude above the sea.

Until I could see even Ana's flight was being matched up there. I couldn't believe it.

Ana neither, given how much she was cawing profanities after that. She didn't expect it either.

Bleue sailed back over the land for a short while, while the ship was slowly losing the altitude from its forced jump.

Then she returned above the sea and we began matching each other's sailing.

She lowered her altitude till we could yell at each other through the wind.

We exchanged very few words. It worked.

Then it was just abstract yells of cheerful happiness, until we could no longer.

~

Once the flying ship was anchored, the sweaty Bleue just jumped into my arms, still completely ecstatic.

All evening long she told me how amazing it was.

Even for her who is used to fly, it felt incredible. Her eyes were shining with that passion that is hard to express. I understand why writers speak of fires when I see her like that. She loved it intensely. And so will I certainly.

The next day, I retried. Bleue gave me her advices, but you really need to experience it and train if you're not a natural at it.

It took me days. That was a little frustrating, but I gradually learnt how to manoeuver the ship, which truly meant being swift at restoring balance whenever the wind changed, or anything else shifted.

Keeping the balance of the flying ship was intense sport. I understood why Bleue came back drenched the first day as if she had fallen into the sea as well. You have to use all your body to follow every side and aspect of it; to manoeuver with according reactivity, accurately in response, all the time. One push too strong or too late, on either side against a reaction, and you'll be swaying around, if not spinning.

I really had to learn using the ship as if it was a giant extension of my own body, ice skating fast.

It's awfully demanding physically.

But over time, I learnt how to adjust how it flew, and how I should react with my own body so the ship could follow swiftly, keeping the fluidity against every little tremor.

Even in the cold weather of the last few days, it made me work up a more intense sweat than if I was chopping down trees into fire logs all day long. Despite my gloves, my hands were numb from pulling and fastening ropes on every side, over and over, over and over, endlessly.

It was incredibly harder than sailing over the sea, even with a bird flying ahead and warning you of the sudden wind changes to expect.

With the ability to see T.I. more clearly, you could see the flows of microbes in the air to some extent, so you could kind of see the outlines of the flows of air, with their countless layers and waves coming around.

That wasn't sufficient though.

I was able to match the challenge and learnt to sail that unusual ship in a matter of days.

After a week or so, we decided to try to visit our friends up north using this new vehicle.

We were ready.

We told them by radio we would be leaving town and coming by, trying this.

The next morning, we sailed away together with Bleue.

We went softly over the sea first, and then headed straight toward the land.

We built some altitude gently, and flew over the city swiftly and as quietly as a bird.

With only the wind to hear around us, we flew rapidly over landscapes we could sometimes recognise below us. Through the abrupt change of perspective it was more difficult, but thrilling.

It was feeling almost like our first time sailing together over the sea. Bleue enjoyed the wind in her hair and feathers quite a lot. The sensations are hard to describe, it feels inhuman, unnatural, but also soft, thrilling and so alive, it's grabbing you whole and you want more.

Bleue saw how I felt, turning her joyous expression toward me. I don't know what my face looked like but that made her laugh, she could see how intense it was for me as well.

B - You succeeded in your labour Rose! You've built a flying ship! Congratulations!

I had almost forgotten about that. And I couldn't think about it whilst I was entirely devoted to that sailing above forests and hills.

I just grinned.

It amuses me that I'm always a hero in her eyes. She makes me look brighter.

~

We were sailing northward for a short while, covering great distances faster than a horse would be. We couldn't quite sail straight ahead however, because we had to work gently with every whim of the winds and gently with the landscape. We could jump higher at nearly any time if required, but knowing the ship would then slowly sink back to the bacteria intended differential altitude.

Overall the trajectory was uneven but heading rapidly toward our destination. Before we realised it, we could see the empty fields surrounding the power plant in the distance and its cooling towers.

We were surprised and chirpy.

~