Omnipresence

[Bree Fletcher]

The night was dark, clear, starless. Kip drifted through it, only vaguely aware of the ground so far below. There was a wind at his face, a wind that he recognized. It was the cool, thin air that the Omnipotent always flew through. It was the feeling that he loved so much, he refused to give it up ever, in his life. It wasn’t cold in the slightest. Perhaps that was because of his gratefully-thick blue and green Airman’s uniform, perhaps it was because of something else. Something that didn’t even matter…

But there was another problem. The air was just slightly too thin, slightly too crisp; he was flying slightly too high. Kip tried dipping, pulling himself downward.

There was a tug at his shoulders. He spun in the air, and saw Elisai above him. She wore a shimmering dress of a bright blue, flapping and twirling with every smooth movement of her body. “Kip,” she whispered, and pulled him upward by the shoulders. She shifted closer to his back and wrapped her arms around his chest, pressing her face close to his.

Kip jolted. “Too high, too high!” he cried, trying to pull himself away and back down again. However, Elisai didn’t seem amiable to the suggestion of letting go. They tumbled and spun for a bit, climbing a few feet with each rotation. Kip tried to pry her arms off, but a slight caress from Elisai locked his arms into place.

“Kip,” she whispered again. Sky blue fabric rustled at the edge of his vision. But it was slowly growing darker, as the blue was leeched from his own clothes, traveling up through Elisai’s dress until it was stained a violent indigo. Kip was left in just a dull green coat and pants.

Then Elisai let go.

Kip fell, screaming. The black of the sky was closing in on him, choking him… and then Kip hit glass, with an ashamed tink.

Kip lay there for a while, shivering in a cold sweat. He clutched a pillow.

Tink tink tink.

“Wha-whaddya want?” Kip asked. He weakly pushed himself upright in his bed. There was no one in the room, judging by what small amount of illumination the street lamps offered.

Rubbing his eyes, Kip staggered over to the window, where a dark figure popped up and made to hit the glass.

The lamplight reflected off of a knobbed stripe of metal hanging from the intruder’s hands. It noticed that Kip was up, and stopped its fist just an inch from the window. Then it rubbed some of the frost of the glass, cupped its fingers around its mouth and pressed them against the window, and half-whispered-half-shouted, “Hey, Cerbuck!” A smirking Pelican stared at Kip from above its black mutton-chopped face and underneath a dusting of snow.

Kip approached the window carefully, put his back to the wall, and leaned to the glass, saying, “Why are you here?” It was Private Maggred Glythe, one of the marine infantry from the Omnipotent. A wide loop of chain was draped over his shoulder, something he almost never went anywhere without. He claimed that it was the only thing a soldier ever needed to get around an airship, be it friendly or enemy. Indeed, Kip had seen him darting around struts and outer walkways with just that chain, throwing it around anything that could support his weight and he could swing from or climb up. There was no doubt how Maggred had managed to get up to the second-story window to talk to Kip.

“Well,” Maggred said, biting his lip, “you don’t think you could help me with a bit of something, do you?”

“You didn’t-” Kip started.

“No no no, it has nothing to do with a girl, don’t worry,” Maggred replied. His luck with females on shore leave was notorious. Most of his fellow marines agreed that if Maggred didn’t end up back at the Omnipotent at a dead run, then he was probably sneaking back over the outside. They speculated that his remarkable climbing skills stemmed from having to get into and out of second- and third-story windows quickly.

“Then what do you want?” Kip was still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes, and let out a wide yawn.

“‘Tis official military business,” Maggred intoned, winking. “On order from Captain Urbane himself. So you better help me, for the sake of, y’know, national defense.”

Kip grumbled a bit, but moved away from the window and started getting dressed in his uniform. Once his coat was buttoned up, he remembered that his cap and sword were still downstairs. He held up an index finger to Maggred, and snuck downstairs to get them. Now properly attired, Kip opened the window and climbed to the outside of the tenement with the marine.

“Careful now,” Maggred cautioned. He scrambled over windowsills and stovepipes, quickly making his way safely to the ground, with only a two-foot drop at the end of it. He landed neatly on his feet.

Kip watched mindfully, but when he tried to replicate the feat, he ended up losing his balance and toppling head-first into a murky snowdrift.