Winnifred Winchester

Each morning Piper awoke at four in the morning to gather ingredients from the hold for the kitchen crew to prepare the day's meals. Then, she would mop the entirety of the upper deck with the other swabs. At eight, the crew would gather in the dining hall for morning reports from Captain Tartan and First Mate Volgull - the birdlike officer from before just prior to mealtime. Afterwards, Azariah and the other officers would separate duties for those under their command. Each day they were put into different sets of four and assigned a region of the ship to perform routine maintenance on (usually rotating at mealtimes, so that a single group would not have to maintain the boiler for longer than four hours). 

The main, or top deck, is where every group wanted to be. There was the kitchen and dining hall, control room, captain's cabin, and of course, the deck was open to the sunlight and salty sea air as opposed to the confines of the lower levels. Below this was the gun deck - while the port holes still provided light and fresh air, there was a pungent scent of oil and gunpowder that made the room emanate a strong and uncomfortable odor. A few higher ranking officers had cabins on this deck, but most of the crew were one deck lower. The cabins made up half of the third deck, while the other half was devoted to the storage of provisions and necessities. This deck had to be cleaned in the afternoon whilst the crew went about their duties, due to the fact that in the mornings and evenings it grew so clustered with bodies that it was difficult to walk through, much less swab, any cabin or hall. 

Lastly, the bottom deck was the small, loud, and usually filthy Boiler deck. Half of the cramped area was taken up by the heavy machinery used to power the entire ship; branching off of this region was the coal room, and a small brig. Aside from the usual soot and dust that consistently covered every inch of the fourth deck, the lack of windows made it so that the coal dust choked the stale air even when the boiler wasn't running. This meant that after a couple miserable hours of labor, even the fittest sailors would be reduced to fits of coughing if left without a chance to access fresh air. It was this floor that the swabs loathed, and each day Piper dreaded her turn. Keeping the area cleanly seemed like an impossible task with the amount of grime and grease coating every surface. Azariah routinely rotated between groups set to manage these tasks so as to not keep them confined for too long, and usually stopped by each shift to check on whichever unfortunate swabs were working the fourth deck. 

It had been a week since Piper's boarding of the Lockjawe, and that morning hers was the unlucky group set to maintain the boilers. The first thing to do was always to check the piping to make sure nothing was loose, cracked, or leaking. 

"This one ere's a bit tricky, pipe got replaced not too long back an' the fool 'at did it put too small a piece here in 'tween the brackets, so check 'an make sure it ain't come loose in the night." Azariah had pointed out on her first tour of the ship as a swab. 

She had made her way quickly down below ahead of the rest of her group so that she could do a preliminary maintenance sweep without any distractions. She grabbed a slogging wrench and a pipe wrench from a toolkit and tightened several nuts, before testing the piping - sure enough, that same tricky pipeline had come loose in the night. She sighed and tried to tighten it using the pipe wrench, only to find that the pipe would not go stiff, but kept rotating in place. 

She addressed this issue to Azariah when he came down with the rest of her group. He ambled over to the problem spot and examined the pipe with a high whistle. "Seems like it came loose from it's bracket there, ya mind grabbin' me the pliers from the box, Piper?" She nodded and fetched the tools as instructed, and handed them to the old sailor as the other three swabs watched from behind with mild interest. "Ooooh-O-o-ooh, it's bein' real stubborn today." Said he, as he huffed with the strain. Suddenly, his hand slipped and smacked into the steel beam at his side, causing him to curse and the pliers to slip from his grasp and fly behind a large portion of the main boiler. "Confound it!" Said Azariah, "Y'all get on to work now! Piper an I'll see to this!" He ordered at two of the snickering swabs. Muttering, he got to his knees and reached his knobbed hand in between the tangle of pipes, but was unable to gain hold of the pliers. Piper tried the same, but her shoulders were too wide to fit through the narrow crawl space. She rose to dust off her trousers and was about ready to give up and fetch another pair, when a slender figure slipped past her and into the dark area behind the boiler. 

"What in Luv's lillies do you think yer doin missy!? Shouted Azariah with alarm "'At boiler lets loose one wallop of steam 'an you'll git yerself cooked as a grouse, c'mon back out!" 

There was no reply from the girl, who could no longer be seen. After a minute, Azariah grew frantic. "Winnifred, you come out right now 'er yer gettin' written up to Captain Tartan!" 

Just as the warning had been issued, the girl that now seemed vaguely familiar to Piper calmly crawled back out, face covered in soot, and pliers clasped tightly in one hand. Azariah breathed a sigh of relief and briefly scolded her, but seemed grateful for the return of his tool and took it no further, since no real harm had been done. He fixed the bracket with the two girls holding the pipe, before going up a deck to fetch a bandage for his hand and leaving them be to continue their work. 

The girl called Winnifred began to walk towards the cleaning supplies, but Piper detained her with a word. It had finally dawned on her who the girl might be.

"Winnifred?" 

She responded not with a response but with a pause, looking lightly over her shoulder. The girl had startlingly purple eyes, Piper now noticed.

"I believe we're bunkmates." Stated Piper lamely. "I wasn't aware we'd been assigned the same duties." 

The girl blinked. "This is the third time we've been in the same maintenance crew." She replied bluntly.

"Oh." 

Piper was unsure how to respond. Sure, she had in the last week been dedicated to her work and had not taken much time to get to know the other swabs, but not recognizing her bunkmate as a member of her own team after a whole seven days of labor was embarrassing to say the least. She was working out a way to apologize in her head, when the girl saved her from coming up with an excuse. 

"It's quite alright. I never introduced myself, and being a swab isn't something one usually boasts about." She spoke quietly and with some timidity. 

"Well I appreciate your help, Winnifred." Piper said with a smile of relief, holding out her hand. "Piper Raddendale, pleased to make your acquaintance." 

Winnifred gave a small, yet genuine smile in return and took her hand. "Winnifred Winchester. You may call me Winnie, if you please." 

From then on, Piper found herself paired with Winnifred no matter the duties of the day. She had no idea why this was, though she had suspected that Azariah had seen a hint of their growing friendship in those days and had decided to stick them together so long as they continued to put forth their best efforts. 

That old man was starting to grow on Piper, though she denied herself to recognize it.

Winnifred was friendly enough and plenty helpful - if not more than unusually quiet. They talked idly of course; Winnifred turned out to be exceptionally well read, and knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics. Science, history, mechanics - it didn't really matter the subject. If it could be studied, Winnie held some sort of interest. 

Despite her looks, she certainly has an Animaerisian brain. Thought Piper one day, during a discussion on whether it was altogether fair of the Dracticos Isles to impose taxes on Animarisian ships trading with Dwarven vessels in their waters. 

During such debates, Winnie's eyes would light up with a sort of flare - she certainly held a high opinion on many things, although she may not have revealed it often. 

However, there was one direction she would never dare turn the conversation, and that was to her personal past. Piper had once or twice asked about her home or family, but the only answers she would hear would be vague, if she were to glean any at all before a brisk change to the topic was made. This didn't bother Piper much, as speaking of her own life before becoming a soldier was not something she was fond of doing. Besides, whenever such a time did occur, a melancholy mood seemed to settle over the both of them, so they both unspokenly chose to avoid it.

There was little free time to be had during life aboard the ship; as such, most social interactions were to be had during communal mealtimes. Early in their departure, the recruits had mostly stuck to eating with those in the same department; however, friends were quickly made, and Piper had begun routinely eating with Micah, Horace, and Emeline after the first couple of days or so. Not too long afterwards, Piper invited Winnifred to join them - and she had ever since.

 At first they had all discussed the pros and cons of each of their daily tasks, though, as they were all stuck aboard the same ship, this quickly became old and made for dull conversation. Instead, they spoke on future plans, rumors of upcoming assignments, and an occasionally vivid story one of them was lucky enough to hear from a veteran sailor. Althewhile Winnifred typically kept to herself, though her piercing lilac eyes followed each conversation with keen intelligence.

"Mr. Stanhope told us of a time before him, when those Padasirian pirates had enough control over the Clarimo Sea that they were bold enough to come this far into our waters." Whispered Emeline one day, wide eyed in amazement at the very thought. 

"That must've been before the navy was as strong as now - shortly after the revolution when Regganor lost control of the region." Thought Micah aloud. His job as a rigger aboard the Lockjawe seemed to have lended him strength in both mind and body, Piper noticed. He seemed less hesitant to voice his mind, and less naive when presented with new ideas.

Horace on the other hand, scoffed. "There's no way those Syraumian mermaids would let them get past their seas - be it ten roats ago or a thousand." 

"Just because they fall under the category of Merfolk doesn't make them all Mermaids." Corrected Emeline matter-of-factly. "Mermaids tend to be more nomadic in nature anyhow. The Fyearn that live in Syraume prefer the name Moihomin." 

Horace rolled his eyes. "You realize you don't need to be a smartass about everything, right?" He jabbed. 

"I wouldn't have the need if a sailor knew more about the sea." She tossed back.

Piper and Micah railroaded the conversation before the argument got further out of hand and drew the attention of their commanding officers. Instead, Micah started up with a story he had heard a few days past on a dreary afternoon, when he, along with his officer and a few of the other riggers, took lunch high above the main deck.