[Salone]

Through the void of dark Emmanuel Shaw commanded his airship, gliding along through the pressing night. Sure, the registration may say Bastable Air, but this bird was his. The propellers grumbled just barely over the rustle of the wind as the engines turned. A moonless sky revealed every star above, and all was right with the world as he gazed upon them...even if he was nearing Atticus. Blasted town. Walls protecting dying rot. If he never set foot there, he would be okay with that. He would stay long enough to tether and drop cargo, and then he would be gone. Back to the sky. Back where he belonged.

A thunderous quake destroyed the serenity of the captain, sending the airship rocking. Shaw and the crewman on the bridge were knocked to their feet as the vessel swung wildly.

"Hard rudder left! Damage report!"

Shaw wrenched himself upwards, capstan in his now unshakable grip as the rest of the crew roused themselves. The bridge was thrown in to chaos as it swayed back and forth. Shaw leaned slightly as the bridge began to pitch backwards. One of the engineers shouted back towards him, his face ghostly in the dim light.

"Hull breach in the gas bag, we're losing pressure fast! Starboard engines unresponsive sir, losing altitude!"

Emmanuel nodded, holding the capstan even harder for support as the bridge encroached in to a much harsher angle. His stomach took on the sickening feeling of a body descending faster than it should. "Release fore sandbags, release cargo hold, full power to port engines, hard left seventy degrees!"

There was the chatter of acknowledgement of orders. Then there was the roar. The ship rocked again, pitching wildly through the air. The bridge became a cage of confusion as everyone was launched in to the air. Nothing could be done. The ship fell, disappearing in to the clouds below. There were shouts as bodies collided in to bodies, kicking out wildly in the black confusion. The forest surrounding Atticus rose up to consume them in the enclosing shroud of night, the tips of trees clawing desperately at the wounded ship. The frame screeched and wailed as it bent and collapsed, tearing itself open as it fell. But above all as the mass of steel and fabric fell, there was the roar.

The roar...


Emmanuel Shaw awoke. He had had the dream again. That same dream that he woke from every time he was taken from blissful sleep. The same nightmare, relived. The same haunting memory that had left him stranded in this decaying city. That horrid sound that woke him every single time.

The roar came again. This time he heard it with his own ears. This roar was the same, but...different. It chilled him. It wormed and slunk its way in to his very being, tendrils reaching through him to induce an involuntary shudder at trauma revisited. Inside his tiny hovel, the former 'Captain' Emmanuel Shaw clutched an empty bottle of the most rancid, cheapest liquor as his only friend and companion. The drink had not been enough tonight. Not enough to keep him asleep until day.

He heard it again. That bestial challenge to the night. It chilled him, but the alcohol still poisoning his system reminded him that whatever may be out there was the reason he was here. And come what may, anything would be better than Atticus. Even death.

Reaching about him in the darkness, Shaw let go of the bottle and found his spanner. Clutching it in his grasp, he gathered himself and his thoughts.

He would never fly again. To be stuck to this damned earth was a death sentence. To wait this long for that sentence to be carried out was too much for him. With grim determination, he steadied himself in to an upright position, and shambled his way unsteadily in to the biting darkness that was night of Atticus.