Please Remain Calm: A Cithara Tale

Seeing all this, I'm beginning to think we should be more focused on ending the war rather than winning it.

A plethora of seagulls were in constant motion around a dingy little motor boat that was skipping along the water and the waves. Periods of calm would be interrupted by brief bumps or skips as the boat would launch a foot or two into the air before smacking back against the sea.

"You two ain't pukin', yet. That's a first," yelled the little yellow unicorn filly who was currently operating the engine and rudder. River Lily, her name was, and she had been hired by her two passengers to take the two-hour route from a shady dock in Manehatten all the way to the town of Mirelight in Trottingham. Her passengers, both griffon mercenaries by the looks of them, had scowled and looked off when she had called the island that. Trottingham, that is. In actuality, that was just the name of a city, but many (mostly ponies) had ceded to calling the entire region just Trottingham.

The feathered mercs hadn't said much since paying, only having briefly stated where they wanted to go and promptly haggling a reasonable price for the venture. River Lily had only been at this gig for two, maybe three, years now, but she had been able to figure out a few things about her current clients just from observation. First off, they seemed to be freelancers, not baring any insignia or marks. That was an obvious detail from the start, when they had approached her in her little shack by the edge of the dock.

That bit led her to her second observation. They chose her over hitching a ride with one of the larger, slower ferries across. That much was enough to know they wanted either discretion or just that they were in a hurry. Likely both. There weren't too many options, really, but there were only a few who would traverse the faster routes. Just as fortune favors the bold, smaller, faster boats with as few passengers as possible was key to successfully avoiding and evading the swarms of hostile seabirds and carnivorous bloodwings.

With little else to do but steer the boat and occasionally glance around at the waters, River Lily found herself inspecting the two griffons every now and then, just looking over their outfits out of curiosity. Maybe their faces too.

They were remarkably similar in color and shape, likely related to one another, and the only differences she could tell were their eyes, the feathers atop their heads, and their beak shapes. Even still, they were close, all things considered. She steered the boat around a sunken fishing barge before pondering why the male, for she was assuming the more masculine-ish one to be a he, was wearing a bright red -- if a little dirtied -- scarf. It was the only real oddity between the two. One was dressed in an armored trench coat and the other a light duster and a scarf. Trenchcoat likely had guns hidden inside, but Scrafy had his slung over his left shoulder and on his right side, facing her. She figured it wasn't done intentionally, probably just out of sitting habit, but it did let her have a gooood long look at it.

It was...definitely a rifle. The barrel didn't extend too far out of the frame of the gun, and the magazine was loaded into the stock...Probably automatic? There were inscriptions and chiselings here and there, but she wasn't able to read any of them from where she sat, in the back of the little boat.

The two had spent most of the ride sitting on their haunches and looking past each other through the fog, eyes peeled for any nasties from either below or above. Scarfy's talons were firmly secured on the grip and bridge of the rifle, a claw just a tap away from the trigger. Trenchcoat had her talons tucked into the opposite sides of inside her coat, either keeping them warm or keeping hold of something. Pistols, maybe. Or knives. She had met a few mercs who used throwing knives, and one who used a weird scrap of metal he called a "boomer-rang." Evidently it was something you threw that came back to you, but he had just thrown it into the head of an irradiated shark and, suffice to say, it didn't come back. Fun times, shark season.

Little else happened during the ride. A few course adjustments every now and then, a few brief stops to recharge the spark engine battery, and the occasional flinch at a nearby splash were all that filled the eerie, wet, salty ride from dock to dock. All things considered, they were lucky it was just a fog and not a hard storm. It was never clear skies, but a day without any rain at all was a blessing. Mentioning that had also drawn sour looks from the birds, so, River Lily did her best to avoid saying much. They were paying in caps AND in goods, so, she really, reeeaaaally didn't want them upset.

They slowly approached the dock without much incident, passing wrecked hulls of old ships along the rocks before approaching the newest established dock. The older one had been washed away in a storm a year or so back, and the new planks had to be imported all the way from Phillydelphia. For whatever reason, logging on the island was a no-no. Given the reputation Trottingham had for monsters, it was easy to believe. Waiting by an oil-fueled lantern was a short, stocky griffon that looked part owl and part bobcat, pacing to and fro with it's eyes locked on the pair River Lily was transporting.

She leaned forward, a little nervous. "You two know him?" she asked, whispering loudly over the buzz and hum of the engine.

"A little. You don't have to worry about him," answered Trenchcoat, who had taken her talons out of her inner coat pockets when they arrived at the dock.

Scarfy leaned over, holding his rifle across his lap with his left talon and offering her a folded scrap of paper. "You'll find the dead-drop stuff if you follow these instructions to the dot. It's got the rest of the payment hidden in...well, it says so on the paper. Don't loose that, y'hear? That's about a month's worth outta me own stash. 'Course it isn't anything too much, so no one'll kill you over it, but, still, do try 'ta keep hush hush about it, yeah?"

River Lily nodded, levitated the note over to herself and checked it, making sure there were actual instructions on it before slipping it away into her greying wool hat. They were right along the docks now, and her customers had already hopped off onto the wooden planks and were discussing something not River Lily's business in hushed tones. She made extra sure to absolutely ignore what they were saying, knowing she probably didn't want any part in it. She ran her little boat service, and that was enough for her. For now.

With business concluded, and the weather clearing up just a tad, River Lily took some extra time to funnel as much of her magic as she could into the boat's spark battery converter before heading back to Manehatten. If it were raining, she'd have probably stayed in town for a day or two, just because, but the air was nice. She wouldn't dilly dally on her way back, of course, but it would be nice to enjoy the ride again.