Snippet #1726064

Life on a ship changes you. Her father had often told her how a man who goes out into the vast expanse of the Cloudsea would never return the same. As a child, she'd never truly understood what he'd meant by that. Did that mean if she left and come back, he wouldn't be her dad anymore? Maybe not, but she didn't want to take that risk. When she was older, though, the idea became more and more tempting. She wanted to leave port one day and come back as a person no one would recognize. Someone with nothing to tie them down or hold them back. Someone with the world in the palm of their hands.

As it turned out, her father had been right: Angel had changed in her time on the Daedalus, but not in the ways she'd hoped. She'd snuck onto this ship in search of freedom and adventure. Instead, she'd found pain, betrayal, abandonment…heartache. Even months after that fateful day, she sometimes wondered if running away had even been worth it. Sure, she'd be stuck in a miserable marriage with some pompous jackass, but she also wouldn't have seen hundreds of people die on Tirdwell. Wouldn't have gotten close to her crew mates just to have fate rip them away. Wouldn't have had to watched the man she'd let herself trust walk away after betraying them to join the enemy.

Sighing, the Half-Blood dragged a hand through her hair, pushing those thoughts away. She couldn't keep dwelling on the past. Yes, it was horrible, but there was nothing she could do about it. What mattered now was doing her job and preventing those Red Cloth lunatics from causing anymore damage. Forcing herself to focus, she scanned the horizon from her perch atop the crow's nest, searching for any shift in the surrounding clouds. Nothing yet. On the deck below, she could hear Sierus trying to coax introductions from the new crewmen.

She'd known it would only be a matter of time before it came out that she wasn't exactly a part of the crew. By the time she'd been found out, though, Novus Terra had gone to Hell and half had either left to aid the other sky cities or- …Well, suffice to say the Daedalus needed every hand they could spare, and Angel's sharp eyes quickly earned her a position as the lookout. Truth be told, she had no qualms about being hidden away at the top of the mast all day. In fact, she welcomed the solitude. After losing the few people she'd called friends, she wasn't exactly thrilled to go out and make new ones. Time had yet to heal her wounds, and being around other people wouldn't do her any favors.

Absently, her fingers traced the bandana tied to her wrist. That she'd been able to find the damned thing after losing it on Tirdwell was nothing short of miraculous. Although, it never did make it back to it's previous post atop her head. She was no longer ashamed of who and what she was, and hiding her ears just wasn't so vital anymore. A voice at the back of her mind couldn't help but guess that Edwin would've been proud of this change of heart, but Angel quickly silenced it. Edwin was dead, or at least the one she'd befriended was. All that was left was a traitor, brainwashed by those murderers.

Gritting her teeth, she snatched the pistol from her waistband and set to work loading and unloading it irritably. It was a habit she'd developed after Tirdwell, and all she could think about while doing it was how fulfilling it would be to shoot bullet into the Red Cloth leader's black heart. The man who'd killed Edwin, slain by a gun given to her by the mechanic. To her, it seemed like justice. That was why she was so eager for an attack; a chance to make those terrorists pay for the lives they'd destroyed. "Come on, you bastards," she muttered under her breath, glaring out into the darkening sky. "I'll be waiting for you right here."