politestpirate | OOM: Pearl Repairs

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OOM: Pearl Repairs

The sky is cool, grey, and occasionally misting, but that just means when you are working hard you can keep warm enough.

And there is certainly plenty of work to be done. The deck of the Black Pearl has been cleared off, with debris and pieces that are large enough to reuse stacked carefully. All over is the gleam of cut and exposed wood, the splintered edges cut and smoothed in preparation for patching sections. One mast has been cleared of charred and torn sails and rigging, the canvas and rope set in one area to work on before it can be sent back up.

One of the current priorities, however, is fixing the stern section of the ship, the back wall of the captain's cabin, that took some of the worse damage from the kraken-

Scottish autumn nights can start to get chilly, afterall.

Party thread style, slowtimes more than welcome.

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("Last one off the yardarm-")

Hands frozen on the rigging, Wellard watches him drop-

He barely remembers

wings

the moment before they snap open.

Strange, that wings would be logical at this moment. They are not in memories, though.

The landing on the footrope is a little tricky, but Crowley's been at this for a while now, and manages it without much difficulty.

The Pearl's sails aren't bent to the yards in as many places as he's seen on other ships - and as a passenger who never did too well below-decks, Crowley's observed the rigging of a fair few. For speed, he supposes; the better to stow them with fewer hands. Which serves their purposes well enough.

"Alright?" he calls over, as Wellard reaches the opposite end of the yard.

His attention is on the rigging and spar, studiously.

"Yes! I'm ready to start, if you are!" Wellard is already working on the farthest lashings connecting the tattered black sail to the yardarm. They want the sail down in one piece- or as much as there is, so cutting the ropes is a last resort if the knot will not untie.

The knots thus far, in Crowley's experience, have proved to be co-operative. By and large. Admittedly, his perspective is skewed, since he rather tends to assume that the lashings will come undone easily enough - and the lashings haven't the guts to say or do otherwise.

This set doesn't break tradition, allowing themselves to be untied with a minimum of difficulty. Once done, Crowley glances over at Wellard, and with a nod, they both begin shuffling towards the next set of ties, pulling in the outer corners of the sail with them as they go. It's the work of a few moments to secure the corner to a point along the top edge, folding the sail inwards, and then work on the second set of lashings can begin.

One set, and then the next, both of them carefully folding the sail inwards. Given the the wieght of the canvas, a job that rapidly increases in difficulty as Wellard and Crowley move in toward the mast.

He has only had to cut one set of lashings- things are looking quite good, so far.

There's a nice rhythm to the work, once you find it - it's... absorbing. You can forget there's anything outside the satisfying tug of weighty canvas and rough line in your hands, the creak and bustle of the ship beneath you, and the breeze in your hair.

It's a little brighter than when they started - Crowley blinks, looks up, and grins when the clouds split overhead and allow a ray of autumn sun to shine through.

Balancing himself on his hands, Crowley hoists himself up a little onto the yard, to check on the crack - it seems to be holding up as well as anything. He signals as much to Wellard with a nod and a thumbs-up.

(They're close enough for talking, when the breeze is quiet, but Crowley doesn't; he hasn't realised that the reason why is because he's humming under his breath as he works.)

Crowley would have gotten along well enough with Cotton-And that is who Wellard worked with often on board the Pearl before, so the relative silence up in the rigging-

(The sound of the ocean is missing, but the empty roar of the open air is still there)

is normal. He nods to Crowley, boosting himself up as well to check the crack on this side, as well as mentally take some rough measurements for when they have to fix it later. The spar is holding, so onto the next set of knots to undo, to get the spread of black canvas down.

They meet in the middle soon enough, spending a few moments using loose ties and gaskets to secure the folded sail's head to the mast proper before undoing the final set of lashings binding the canvas to the yard.

"Right, er," Crowley says when the sail hangs almost free, eyeing the tangled mass of rigging still surrounding the foremast with a dubious expression. "Do we... want to try and extricate whatever line we need to lower this, or will I just try and carry it?"

Wellard glances over at Crowley. "Its going to be rather heavy for any one person to carry- even normally, sir. So, we could lower it, or just let it drop. Its already somewhat bundled up- not like much more could happen to it, really."

He eyes the deck below the mast, speculatively. Nothing much down there it could damage, either.

"Yeah, I just don't want it to catch on the, um."

He waves a hand blankly at the next yard below them for a few moments.

"...Fore-...course yard?" he hazards. "Since a, I haven't checked that one out for, you know, integrity or anything, and b," he continues, patting the furled sail, "this whole thing might come unravelled. And - well."

For the first time, Crowley lowers his head to look at Wellard over the tops of his sunglasses - which, really, is a mean trick to play on the boy whilst they're up in the rigging, but... well, Crowley'd catch him if anything happened. Probably.

Then, one arm gripping the yard, he bends just enough to wrap the other around the top of the coiled sailcloth, and - with a very slight "Oof," - straightens his knees once more. The rope tying the sail to the mast goes slack.

He raises an eyebrow.

.... Riiiiiiight. As if the wings were not enough. Wellard raises an eyebrow-

But you do not survive being up in the rigging during a hurricane by having weak hands. (Or when being tossed all over the world via magic, for that matter.)

.... Crowley picking up the sails nearly tops those, however. Wellard stares.

(His hands do have more survival sense, however, and hold on.)

"Alright, then."

"Okay."

Crowley lowers the sails until they're hanging from the mast, and then looks down again. The ratlines, the normal mode of ascent and descent, are rather ensnared with the buntlines used to lift the next sail beneath Crowley and Wellard. Clear enough for an unencumbered man to climb up and down, yes - but less easily navigable for anyone carrying what Crowley's going to be. Anyone who won't be properly able to see where they're stepping,

Hm.

"Okay," he says again.

"I'm going to go down - " he points, " - about halfway to the bottom of our sail, before where the ropes get all caught up. Then you detach it from here, and I'll get it," he illustrates with hand-gestures, "over my shoulder."

He nods slowly, looking from Crowley down to the lower spar and ratlines.

"You'll be able to handle the wieght, when it drops, then?" Wellard eyes the sail, then moves over to be ready to until the final connection.

"Once we get this down..." He eyes the spar, then the tangled mess of the ratlines, and shakes his head wryly.

"Won't be any sortage of what next to do, for a while."

"Well," he says wryly, gently patting the fore-mast, "she's not going anywhere."

If his hand lingers for a moment, fingers fitted to whorls in the dark wood, it's probably only because Crowley is charting his way down.

After a moment, he shifts his grip to the ratlines and steps off the footrope, beginning the short descent with one hand and one foot to either side of the folded sail. Halfway to the lower yard he stops, and reaches forward to pull himself and the ratlines closer in to the mast - whilst the other hand adjusts the heavy canvas where it lies against his shoulder.

As an afterthought, Crowley winches in his wings; his shirt flickers briefly as the dark feathers vanish into his back.

"Right," he calls up. "Er, ready whenever."

... Jack has a lot of interesting friends. That is the best way to put it, really.

Wellard nods to Crowley, hands already working on loosening the last connection. The knots loosen, with the rope connecting to the sail already starting to pull away with the weight of the canvas below. He moves free, watching the ropes.

"On its way- be careful, sir!"

The "Oof" is substantially louder this time, as the sail drops and its full weight is transferred, joltingly, to Crowley's shoulder. The ratlines sway alarmingly, nearly knocking Crowley into the mast, and he reaches out again to steady himself whilst imagining quite fervently that the immense roll of sturdy cloth weighs very little at all.

A few seconds later:

"Got it."

Then there's a second thick rustle, much like the sound of the sail as it fell, and Crowley's wings re-appear, one to each side of the canvas along his back.

Wellard winces slightly when the sails drop on Crowley-

He is really hoping as well that there is no immediate crash-splat, so when Crowley stabilizes, and the wings come out, there is an audible sigh of relief from the spar up above.

"... Good."

Getting airborne this time is a little trickier, but it's still a better option, in Crowley's opinion, than attempting to navigate the maze of ratlines with the unwieldy bundle over his shoulder. A few readjustments, a moment's untangling of hands and feet from lines, and then a faint tremor runs up the mast as Crowley kicks backwards, spreading his wings as he clears the rigging.

The ends of the sail, the trailing gaskets and ties... don't.

Ever see a running dog suddenly, and abruptly, reach the end of its leash?

Yeah.

"-Hell."

One of the trailing lines is caught up and tangled in the mess of ratlines just below. Wellard is already dropping down to make his way there, to see about freeing the rope-

- but Crowley's already backbeating frantically, twisting around in order to yank the tangled line free. Hovering in place (or close enough), he can do - has done before, with a tip of the hat and a jaunty wink to such concepts as physics and necessary anatomy. But waiting around for Wellard whilst on increasingly intimate terms with an exceedingly heavy and awkward sail is... not something he's about to try.

And with a final grunt, a last determined tug, the end of the sail comes free again, dropping to hang from Crowley's shoulder once more, leaving him free to begin his descent. Only...

Only the abrupt fall's caused it to slip sideways a bit, half off his shoulder and half onto his wing.

The deck's getting closer, and that flapping sound just got a lot more erratic.

And the deck's not empty.

River's head turns upwards, slowly, and her eyes widen.

"Swap out the grav boot," she says to the sky, low and urgent, under the heavy frantic beating of Crowley's wings.

The tangled rope slips free, thank ~~God~~fully. Crowley is free to land down on the deck safely-

Or not. Wellard blinks, spotting River right in his path.

Not Good.

Disasterous, even.

"Miss River! Get- get down! Crowley, there's..."

He winces.

"Dodge! Hard-a-port!"

(This thread has been conveniently subtitled for your viewing enjoyment.)

River did, for the record, have the sense to dodge aside at the last minute.

Unfortunately, she dodged in the same direction as Crowley's last desperate attempt at veering.

Oops.

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