Two-World Traders (progression fantasy)

Gabby Mason once told her colleagues at The Two Worlds Trading Company that she liked airships because airships were for people like her. In contrast with Bertrand, Gabby was a literal person, and yet she had imbued every layer of Sailor's Rise with coded meaning and metaphor. Stone manors were for large, multi-branched families with patriarchs and matriarchs and children who rode horseback in the country. Wooden houses provided basic accommodation for basic families: a mother and a father, a sister and a brother. And airships—airships were for people like Gabby. Airships were safe harbor for found family.

Her real parents had died when she was very young, and what she could remember about them was seldom mentioned. No, Gabby's true family—the unlikely man who'd rescued her from an orphanage and raised her to be the teenager she was today—had shared no blood with his adopted daughter, but what was blood worth anyway? Blood was the ultimate inverse currency, Bertrand once remarked: valued above all else by those who lived in stone manors and hardly worth a copper to a parentless mechanic in Lowtown.

Her adopted father had never been a picture of health, nor fond of doctors for that matter, but Jasper had always endured whatever life threw his way with little complaint. Perhaps it was for this reason that his death a year ago caught Gabby by complete surprise. He had hidden the symptoms of the gray fever too well, and she had believed in the myth of her dad.

Everything changed in an instant. Mr. Mason's Ship Repair and Other Services ceased to be, though Gabby had inherited the hangar and an apartment she'd shared with Jasper. The Sapphire Spirit was no longer berthed in Lowtown, and nothing technically tethered her to her childhood district save for her own insistence, but she was a Lowtowner, and that was that. Iric seemed to understand this best.

Others offered support in their own way. Elias, of course, could relate. He had lost a parent to the same sickness at roughly the same age. Bertrand was generous, dolloping her with dinner invitations aplenty. Briley was helpful, executing favors before the younger woman could ask or protest. And Islet probably brought more comfort to the teenager than anything any of them could say or do.

But even with all the help in the world, it was never easy to let old things go.

* * *

"Five thousand relics is what we agreed on." Gabby crossed her arms and squinted disdainfully at her buyer, a bald man with a large moustache and a small stature. "I don't like being fucked around."

"Four thousand is all I can offer," the bald man said. "The market has changed since last we spoke. Not a lot of buyers for a hangar in Lowtown right now."

Elias and Iric were standing a few feet behind Gabby, each resisting the urge to intervene. They knew she could handle this herself. She had been holding onto the hangar for a year now, and they had briefly considered whether The Two Worlds Trading Company might have use for it, either presently or in the future, but an unguarded hangar in Lowtown simply would not have been secure enough to store precious cargo. If and when they required a warehouse, it would be in Hightown, alongside all the other well-guarded warehouses.

Thus, Elias had offered Gabby what little help he could. He would witness the sale of her hangar to an almost certainly unscrupulous buyer and the signing of their contract, ensuring the terms were fair and reflected their spoken understanding. Even Briley could admit that Elias had developed a suitable eye for contracts.

As for Iric, he had invited himself along at the last minute.

"The market hasn't dropped twenty percent in the last week," Gabby told her buyer.

"Unfortunately, my offer has," the man replied. "I have the money on hand." He unlocked a tarnished cash box and showed them its glistening innards. "All you need to do is sign and be on your way, richer and free of this burdensome facility, which, I might add, has certainly seen better days."

"The condition of the hangar is already priced in," Gabby said. The wooden hangar in question stood twenty feet away, as if it could hear every unkind thing they were saying about it. "I'm not doing four thousand."

"Then best of luck to you."

"Yeah, right."

The man turned slowly, walked five feet, then stopped. He sighed a dramatic sigh. "Best I could do is four thousand and two hundred."

"Four thousand and five hundred and not a copper less," Gabby insisted.

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The man rotated back around, looking at her differently than before—less like a child, perhaps—before examining the men standing behind her, still as quiet as soldiers. "If I moved some money around, I suppose I could get it to four thousand and three hundred, but any more than that and I'm seriously reconsidering this deal."

"Is that how you do business?" Gabby asked. "You promise prices you have no intention to pay, then haggle at the last second."

The bald man shrugged. "This is Lowtown, darling. It's how we all do business."

"You don't need to tell me how my neighborhood works," she said. "I'm a Lowtowner too, you know. That's not how I do business."

"I thought you folks were hoity-toity Hightowners."

Based on appearances alone, it wasn't an unreasonable assessment, and not inaccurate in the case of Elias (who had only recently moved) and Iric, though Gabby seemed rattled by the comment—not angry, exactly, but slightly concerned. "Hand me the goddamn contract." She exhaled her request with an outstretched arm.

And so, after a few adjustments, Elias's careful review, and a hesitant handshake on Gabby's part, the deed was done. Her buyer would take possession of the hangar the next day, giving her the afternoon and evening to say her goodbyes and grab anything she might have forgotten.

She did not seem interested. "We're done. Thanks, guys. Let's go." Gabby started walking first, only a second after her buyer had disappeared around the block.

"Slow down, young miss." Iric stood unmoving.

"Did I forget something?" Gabby asked.

"You did," he said. "In the north, when you relinquish a cherished belonging, you must speak your farewell aloud—or you have not truly let it go."

"Is that true?" She stopped.

Iric hesitated. "It isn't. I made it up. We do not talk about feelings in the north, even to buildings. But I think it would be a nice thing for you to do."

"I once skipped a goodbye that I still regret to this day," Elias added. "If I could do it again, well… I can't." In his case, the incident had involved live human beings, but he felt the lesson still applied.

Gabby scoffed, mumbled something that sounded like "whatever," and walked past them once again, this time in the direction of the hangar door. They followed her inside.

As they stepped into the large, empty building, Elias thought he understood Gabby's reservation. The space itself was an overly overt metaphor, an open, airy void that once contained the girl's entire childhood. Now there was nothing, no ships or sailors save for the dust motes fluttering through a sunbeam.

"I already grabbed everything I needed to grab," Gabby informed them, eyes down.

"This is a very big space," Iric said, his gaze examining it on her behalf. "Like being inside and outside at the same time. Tell me, what was the largest airship you worked on in here, Gabby?"

She scratched her forearm, thought about it, then said with a discovered energy, "Actually, The Transcontinental Trading Company sent a ship here once."

"Really?" Elias was not feigning his surprise.

"Sure did," she assured them. "Not their normal practice, mind you. Generally, they would use a mechanic in Hightown, but I guess they were all full up, and time wasn't on their side. I mean, we were certainly the best shop in Lowtown. I'm sure they asked around. Anyway, that was probably the biggest. Barely fit inside, even with the balloon fully deflated. We rolled her in here real delicately—like a cake into the oven, dad said. Nearly nicked the hangar door up there." She pointed and nodded at the spot in question.

"How did this ship compare to The Sapphire Spirit?" Iric wondered.

"Nothing compares to my girl," Gabby said, a grin tugging one corner of her mouth. "She was a pretty stunning lady, though. A custom cobrium engine like you've never seen. That baby could really purr. Obviously, a spider's silk balloon, cannons galore—you name it, she had it. Hell, the great cabin was fancier than any room I'd ever stepped inside. This is The Transcontinental Trading Company we're talking about here."

"And what was ugliest, crappiest ship you worked on?" Iric again.

Gabby snorted. "Where do you want me to start?"

* * *

On their way back to their office in Hightown, Gabby seemed lighter. The girl had donned the mantle of adulthood at a young age (it probably didn't help that all of her friends were actual adults), but on rare occasions, Elias would spot a youthful skip in her step. For those fleeting seconds, she was still sixteen, an age that felt to him like a lifetime ago. Iric, who was walking a few feet behind them, would have laughed at that.

It was a crisp but sunny late afternoon—the low sun casting long shadows through the busy intersection they passed through—when Elias was overwhelmed with a strong urge to detour. Sure, they were only three blocks from The Two Worlds Trading Company's headquarters, but this was how he dealt with the sight of Abigail Graystone these days: shameful avoidance. That was especially true when she was in the company of her husband, Levi Quinn, as she was now, perusing market stalls together.

The avoidance part was a coping mechanism initiated two years ago upon Elias learning that he could never be with her, betrothed as she was, as if their entire friendship had rested upon that unspoken assumption. And his shame stemmed from the fact that he knew he was in the wrong, that his futile hopes had been his and his alone. Abigail had reached out to him after the fact, and he had ignored her invitations. (Ignored in this instance means that he'd reread each one a hundred times, inadvertently memorizing her letters like favorite songs, her considered words playing over and over in his head as he struggled to fall asleep.) Really, everything about the situation shamed him.

Still, he once more failed to entirely avert his gaze, having given up on the detour idea in the presence of friends. He need not add embarrassment to the pile. Abigail looked back at him, if only for a second. She used to wave. She used to smile. Now, there was only the look. He would ponder it for the rest of the night.

Alas, bigger problems would soon reveal themselves as they clopped up the stairs to their office. Bertrand and Briley were seated by the fireplace, Islet and a messy stack of paper between them.

"The hangar has been sold," Elias announced. "Almost at the agreed-upon price."

"That's great," Briley said as flatly as a book cover. "So, we have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Elias more closely examined the documents scattered on the floorboards.

"A problem with the audit."