Fanfic: On Starlit Wings 4/?
On Starlit Wings 4/?
Rating: Teen
Characters: Bill Adama, Ensemble
Summary: Captain William Adama and the crew of the dragon Galactica are to be posted to the Americas; Britain's Aerial Dragon Corps having little use for the aging dragon. But first there is the treacherous crossing of the Atlantic to be taken; tensions between the crews of ship and dragon and family, and why has the Lady Laura Roslin taken passage aboard a dragon transport ship? And then there are rumours of sightings of the ships and dragons of a group of pirates known only as the Cylons... A Battlestar Galactica/Temeraire crossover AU.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, I'm just borrowing them. Not my world, I'm just playing in it. They belong to RDM, Syfy etc. and Naomi Novik.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Notes: 8 months since the last update, and despite all that time I show up with this one where not very much happens. I do have a plot, roughly, and hopefully it won't take so long to actually get to it from now on.
Galactica had travelled by sea enough times to know that one day was often very much like the other, with only the hope of battle to interrupt the routine of sleeping and eating and sleeping again. Unfortunately the French were proving to be most inconsiderate; a small frigate provided the tease of a skirmish in the morning but had stubbornly kept its distance, until it had eventually disappeared over the horizon. And so one day would follow another with little of note to mark them.
At least the sun was warm and the weather pleasant, and with the favourable winds and full sails at least it felt as if they were going somewhere, even if she could not do the flying herself. There were worse things that the heat of the sun on your scales while you listened to the life of the ship around you.
The days were spent listening to the babble and gossip and little arguments of the sailors and her own crew; often amongst them she could hear that Lee and Starbuck having one of their arguments again. It vexed her; arguments were so much easier when it was only one of her crew against an outsider, and then she could just solve the problem by tipping the interloper over the side. Even more inconsiderately, after the first was carried out in her presence they would then conduct them below decks, making it so much more difficult for her to intervene and make her opinion known. But not impossible, and she was giving serious thought to pulling up the planking. One morning when she was wondering if her claws were narrow enough to pry up the boards or whether to simply push down at one end until it broke free of its nailing and seesaw upwards when she was distracted by another style conversation going on, one of a style unfamiliar to the coarse gruffness and swearing that made up the backdrop to sea voyaging.
Some of the other passengers were coming up onto the deck to partake of the fresh, sea air; Galactica had swung her head around to get a better look and gave a snort of disgruntled amusement when this evident attention caused the conversation to halt. People really did lack sense.
Sitting in the crook of her foreleg, her Bill had only looked up from his book at her movement for a brief moment, with the only sign that he had noticed anything a slight squaring of his shoulders. However, Galactica was glad of an opportunity to get a look at these strangers for herself and so blatantly stared at them to see how they would respond.
The lady, who would have to be the Lady Laura Roslin unless any other had managed to come aboard without her noticing, calmly walked to the railing disappointingly without any of the screaming hysterics that in her experience ladies so often seemed prone to. The identities of the two men would take a little more deciphering and eavesdropping, however she came up against one problem straight away; conversation suitable for polite society was so very boring.
The older of the men, the one in the dull clothing of the clergy which would have identified him as Gaius Baltar even if it were not for his way of speaking familiar from the dinner conversation of the night before, was prattling on about some event he had been to as if it should be the most interesting thing in the world, even though there was not even the slightest bit of action in them. Not even any descriptions of the fine gold and jewels that society people like to wear, which was the only thing ever interesting about them, but instead he was wasting time talking about some other conversation with Lord such and such.
With a creak of her jaws she gave a sail-rattling yawn. Once the rumble of her exhale had died away she noticed that the conversation had halted and she was a subject of interest again; as she looked down at them she noticed Lady Laura's mouth twitch before the lady quickly turned to look out to sea.
The next day they were above decks even earlier; the breeze was still cool much of her crew and her Bill were below decks at breakfast and she had just finished licking her claws clean of the blood from her own. Lady Laura, the same young man and another one, tall and with a watchful air that reminded her of a solider, albeit an undisciplined one. The little group stood at the rail and Galactica soon lost interest in them until Gaius Baltar appeared from below and after a furtive look in her direction quickly approached them. This provided her with a little distraction until Bill reappeared, where then the strangers were put out of her mind in the face of family drama that was resisting all her attempts to correct.
It was extraordinarily frustrating! It was not a large ship, she could travel from one side to the other in a few awkward steps, and yet out of sheer stubbornness father and son had continued to avoid being in each others presence since the dinner party.
It seemed to her as if she would have to employ subtlety.
"This isn't a bad voyage," she said, stretching her wings and yawning in an exaggerated manner. "No storms so far, that's good."
"Yes it is." While below Bill had picked up one of his books and taking his place upon her foreleg she watched as he took out his spectacles and then flicked through the books pages to find his place; she could never see the point herself, but she did have to admit that on the occasions he would read out loud the nonsense that the authors persisting in writing his voice was very soothing.
"And it is nice, it just being us. None of the youngsters taking up space."
"You miss having them to boss about." He turned a page.
"I do not!" she exclaimed with a snort, then lowering her head down to rest on the deck admitted "a little bit. I have to make do with you."
"Now that does scare me."
She huffed at him. "Then you need to find something else for me to do."
"It is not as if I can summon enemies out of the aether for you to fight." He looked up briefly towards the upper deck then quickly returned to the book.
"Now that would be something useful," she said with a wistful sigh.
Bill made the noise that meant he was secretly amused, and companionable silence descended upon them once again, Galactica occasionally stretching a wing or a leg with a groan. The problem with subtlety was that it took such a long time to get anywhere with it!
Another yawn, and eyes half closed in concentration she glanced over in the direction of the odd little group of strangers as she tried work on subtlety. Gaius Baltar was talking in that same confidant, nonsensical way as he had at the dinner party, while the Lady Laura would smile politely and continue to take careful steps around the deck.
People of society were terribly dull.
She briefly wondered what was likely to happen if she happened to give a small roar, just a small one, to make sure her voice was still working properly; the reaction of even the most seemingly stoic of sailors could provide a moment of interest during voyages of the past, though she was always careful only to try it when she was truly bored. But she was supposed to know better than that.
Not even looking up from the book, Bill said "Don't even think about it."
Sighing, she turned her interest to the group of strangers; the subject of dragons had turned up in their conversation and might indicate that they had something of interest to say.
"Well, that's not right at all," she grumbled, looking down at Bill and tapping a claw against the deck.
"Doesn't matter what he thinks," he said, showing an irritating lack of emotion as the man Baltar continued to broadcast his opinions on the Corps's latest acquisition.
"But he's talking a load of nonsense. You are talking a load of nonsense." Ignoring Bill's hand against her leg, it only took a stretch of her neck and she was able to interpose herself into the conversation. She looked down at the group, which had now fallen silent as her impressive shadow fell over them. Baltar was twitching as he stared up at her and had started stuttering, while the other two men were managing to put on a better front than him, but it was the Lady Laura whose reaction surprised her; the lady complexion may have gone slightly pale but she was able to calmly meet the dragon's gaze. So it seemed the woman knew something of dragons: Galactica was reminded of a few occasions where other dragon captains who had managed to marry well, whatever that meant, and their wives nervous familiarity with the dragons. She had noticed because those wives had been trying, at least.
Curious, but there were other matters that were more important to deal with first. "A dragon has a perfectly fine judgement of character, whether that person is Corps or Navy," she said as her upper lip curled up in an approximation of a human smile, a trick she had learned under her second Captain that allowed her to show off her teeth while able to quite firmly deny that she was not snarling. "If a dragon chose a Naval officer as a captain that must have been the right man for the job."
Similar to others who had been on the receiving end of such an expression, Baltar did not attempt to call her out on her artifice.
Though it did put a damper on conversation, but as she had made her point quite clearly she did not much care when Baltar stammered his excuses and returned below decks, the Lady following not long after at the urging of her companions that she had dinner with the Captain of the ship to attend to that evening.
It was not until the lamps were beginning to be lit that Bill would speak to her again.
Rating: Teen
Characters: Bill Adama, Ensemble
Summary: Captain William Adama and the crew of the dragon Galactica are to be posted to the Americas; Britain's Aerial Dragon Corps having little use for the aging dragon. But first there is the treacherous crossing of the Atlantic to be taken; tensions between the crews of ship and dragon and family, and why has the Lady Laura Roslin taken passage aboard a dragon transport ship? And then there are rumours of sightings of the ships and dragons of a group of pirates known only as the Cylons... A Battlestar Galactica/Temeraire crossover AU.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, I'm just borrowing them. Not my world, I'm just playing in it. They belong to RDM, Syfy etc. and Naomi Novik.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Notes: 8 months since the last update, and despite all that time I show up with this one where not very much happens. I do have a plot, roughly, and hopefully it won't take so long to actually get to it from now on.
Galactica had travelled by sea enough times to know that one day was often very much like the other, with only the hope of battle to interrupt the routine of sleeping and eating and sleeping again. Unfortunately the French were proving to be most inconsiderate; a small frigate provided the tease of a skirmish in the morning but had stubbornly kept its distance, until it had eventually disappeared over the horizon. And so one day would follow another with little of note to mark them.
At least the sun was warm and the weather pleasant, and with the favourable winds and full sails at least it felt as if they were going somewhere, even if she could not do the flying herself. There were worse things that the heat of the sun on your scales while you listened to the life of the ship around you.
The days were spent listening to the babble and gossip and little arguments of the sailors and her own crew; often amongst them she could hear that Lee and Starbuck having one of their arguments again. It vexed her; arguments were so much easier when it was only one of her crew against an outsider, and then she could just solve the problem by tipping the interloper over the side. Even more inconsiderately, after the first was carried out in her presence they would then conduct them below decks, making it so much more difficult for her to intervene and make her opinion known. But not impossible, and she was giving serious thought to pulling up the planking. One morning when she was wondering if her claws were narrow enough to pry up the boards or whether to simply push down at one end until it broke free of its nailing and seesaw upwards when she was distracted by another style conversation going on, one of a style unfamiliar to the coarse gruffness and swearing that made up the backdrop to sea voyaging.
Some of the other passengers were coming up onto the deck to partake of the fresh, sea air; Galactica had swung her head around to get a better look and gave a snort of disgruntled amusement when this evident attention caused the conversation to halt. People really did lack sense.
Sitting in the crook of her foreleg, her Bill had only looked up from his book at her movement for a brief moment, with the only sign that he had noticed anything a slight squaring of his shoulders. However, Galactica was glad of an opportunity to get a look at these strangers for herself and so blatantly stared at them to see how they would respond.
The lady, who would have to be the Lady Laura Roslin unless any other had managed to come aboard without her noticing, calmly walked to the railing disappointingly without any of the screaming hysterics that in her experience ladies so often seemed prone to. The identities of the two men would take a little more deciphering and eavesdropping, however she came up against one problem straight away; conversation suitable for polite society was so very boring.
The older of the men, the one in the dull clothing of the clergy which would have identified him as Gaius Baltar even if it were not for his way of speaking familiar from the dinner conversation of the night before, was prattling on about some event he had been to as if it should be the most interesting thing in the world, even though there was not even the slightest bit of action in them. Not even any descriptions of the fine gold and jewels that society people like to wear, which was the only thing ever interesting about them, but instead he was wasting time talking about some other conversation with Lord such and such.
With a creak of her jaws she gave a sail-rattling yawn. Once the rumble of her exhale had died away she noticed that the conversation had halted and she was a subject of interest again; as she looked down at them she noticed Lady Laura's mouth twitch before the lady quickly turned to look out to sea.
The next day they were above decks even earlier; the breeze was still cool much of her crew and her Bill were below decks at breakfast and she had just finished licking her claws clean of the blood from her own. Lady Laura, the same young man and another one, tall and with a watchful air that reminded her of a solider, albeit an undisciplined one. The little group stood at the rail and Galactica soon lost interest in them until Gaius Baltar appeared from below and after a furtive look in her direction quickly approached them. This provided her with a little distraction until Bill reappeared, where then the strangers were put out of her mind in the face of family drama that was resisting all her attempts to correct.
It was extraordinarily frustrating! It was not a large ship, she could travel from one side to the other in a few awkward steps, and yet out of sheer stubbornness father and son had continued to avoid being in each others presence since the dinner party.
It seemed to her as if she would have to employ subtlety.
"This isn't a bad voyage," she said, stretching her wings and yawning in an exaggerated manner. "No storms so far, that's good."
"Yes it is." While below Bill had picked up one of his books and taking his place upon her foreleg she watched as he took out his spectacles and then flicked through the books pages to find his place; she could never see the point herself, but she did have to admit that on the occasions he would read out loud the nonsense that the authors persisting in writing his voice was very soothing.
"And it is nice, it just being us. None of the youngsters taking up space."
"You miss having them to boss about." He turned a page.
"I do not!" she exclaimed with a snort, then lowering her head down to rest on the deck admitted "a little bit. I have to make do with you."
"Now that does scare me."
She huffed at him. "Then you need to find something else for me to do."
"It is not as if I can summon enemies out of the aether for you to fight." He looked up briefly towards the upper deck then quickly returned to the book.
"Now that would be something useful," she said with a wistful sigh.
Bill made the noise that meant he was secretly amused, and companionable silence descended upon them once again, Galactica occasionally stretching a wing or a leg with a groan. The problem with subtlety was that it took such a long time to get anywhere with it!
Another yawn, and eyes half closed in concentration she glanced over in the direction of the odd little group of strangers as she tried work on subtlety. Gaius Baltar was talking in that same confidant, nonsensical way as he had at the dinner party, while the Lady Laura would smile politely and continue to take careful steps around the deck.
People of society were terribly dull.
She briefly wondered what was likely to happen if she happened to give a small roar, just a small one, to make sure her voice was still working properly; the reaction of even the most seemingly stoic of sailors could provide a moment of interest during voyages of the past, though she was always careful only to try it when she was truly bored. But she was supposed to know better than that.
Not even looking up from the book, Bill said "Don't even think about it."
Sighing, she turned her interest to the group of strangers; the subject of dragons had turned up in their conversation and might indicate that they had something of interest to say.
"Well, that's not right at all," she grumbled, looking down at Bill and tapping a claw against the deck.
"Doesn't matter what he thinks," he said, showing an irritating lack of emotion as the man Baltar continued to broadcast his opinions on the Corps's latest acquisition.
"But he's talking a load of nonsense. You are talking a load of nonsense." Ignoring Bill's hand against her leg, it only took a stretch of her neck and she was able to interpose herself into the conversation. She looked down at the group, which had now fallen silent as her impressive shadow fell over them. Baltar was twitching as he stared up at her and had started stuttering, while the other two men were managing to put on a better front than him, but it was the Lady Laura whose reaction surprised her; the lady complexion may have gone slightly pale but she was able to calmly meet the dragon's gaze. So it seemed the woman knew something of dragons: Galactica was reminded of a few occasions where other dragon captains who had managed to marry well, whatever that meant, and their wives nervous familiarity with the dragons. She had noticed because those wives had been trying, at least.
Curious, but there were other matters that were more important to deal with first. "A dragon has a perfectly fine judgement of character, whether that person is Corps or Navy," she said as her upper lip curled up in an approximation of a human smile, a trick she had learned under her second Captain that allowed her to show off her teeth while able to quite firmly deny that she was not snarling. "If a dragon chose a Naval officer as a captain that must have been the right man for the job."
Similar to others who had been on the receiving end of such an expression, Baltar did not attempt to call her out on her artifice.
Though it did put a damper on conversation, but as she had made her point quite clearly she did not much care when Baltar stammered his excuses and returned below decks, the Lady following not long after at the urging of her companions that she had dinner with the Captain of the ship to attend to that evening.
It was not until the lamps were beginning to be lit that Bill would speak to her again.