"At least I caught it right as it happened," she muttered to herself, "this way we won't lose too much fuel." She watched as the gas, which was spraying out of the pipe, ascended beneath her feet; just a few more seconds and she'd be at it's level. "I'm here!" she shouted to her crewmates, Finnian and George, hoping they'd hear her before she passed by the leak, wasting more time by hauling her back up to the right position.
A few shouts from above later she felt the shudder of the winch as it stopped it's descent. Perfect. She had stopped at just the right height. She followed the pipe with her eyes, all the way down to the stern of the hull and then back to the break. All the other pipes had forked off and gone to their appropriate places, which was good. If the break was in any other place, the other pipes would be at risk of breaking should the gas get on them and then freeze. However, if it had been any further the other direction, it would have likely been inside the ship, which could have horrible consequences as well, especially with the fire that was always on in the boiler room. She shook her head, trying to focus on the problem at hand, and not the catastrophe that could happen in the boiler room.
She reached to her belt and grabbed her lucky pipe wrench, pulling it out of the leather holder she had made for it. She pulled the wrench up to her chest as she was buffeted by a strong gust of wind, causing her to sway back and forth in her harness turned swing.
A moment later the wind died down, and she fitted the wrench to the shut off valve right before the pipe which was broken. She turned the wrench until she couldn't see any more gas coming out of the line, and then turned it more, just to be safe. Any sparks when replacing the pipe could be the death of the whole crew, and she didn't want to be responsible for her death, let alone everyone else's. She stuck her ear to the pipe, listening intently for any noise that would give a hint of escaping gas, but all she heard was the wind as the ship continued to chug through the sky.
She knew she only had a few minutes before the water cooled off and would stop powering the engines, so she quickly grabbed the foot-long broken pipe with her wrench and unscrewed it from its holdings, and put it under her arm as she reached into her bag to grab the replacement pipe. It was at this time that another violently strong gust of wind attacked the ship and threw her into the ship so hard that the broken pipe hit one of the water lines, and dislodged itself from the safety of her arm.
Lucy, instinctively reached for it, but it was already too late, gravity had released her of her responsibility to bring it back aboard the ship. At least she was ok, the safety harness was still holding her close to the ship. She looked down, and then felt a pang of guilt as she realized that they were over a major metropolis. "Well, hopefully I won't break too much property." She muttered to herself again, absent mindedly and returned to her work, quickly lodging the new pipe into place tightening it down with her wrench. She carefully put the wrench back into its home and yelled back up at her crewmates "Bring me up already! I'm gonna get thrown off the side of the ship at this point!"
She watched as the copper hull appeared to descend as she was hoisted up to the main deck. She was greeted by Finnian's nasally voice. "Alright, let's have that pipe so we can fix it in case we have another pipe which decides it wants to go out with a bang." He reached out his hand, which was much larger than his voice would warrant, expectantly.
Lucy unfastened her harness and held onto the railing on the side of the ship as another gust blew past. She answered as she looked down and rearranged her blue jumpsuit, which had become quite twisted up from all the wind. "The wind blew it out of my hand."
She looked up to see Finnian's face scrunched up as it always was when he was thinking hard. "What do you mean the wind blew it out of your hand? Wind won't catch something that small and heavy."
Lucy felt her face get red as her rage came on, "Well, it didn't technically blow it out of my hand, but it blew me into that jerry-rigged piping of yours that's outside the ship instead of inside, which, by the way, you said you would fix the next time we were in port, and then the pipe caught onto the water line and decided that it would rather fall to its certain demise than be on the same ship as you!" She breathed in, refilling her lungs from that outburst, and felt the anger cause the hair on the back of her neck rise and her breathing and heart rate increase drastically. Apparently I'm more upset about the jerry rigging than I thought.
Nothing but silence and a blank stare came from Finnian's face. Then a few blinks escaped, signalling that he was still alive and processing information. GAH! Sometimes it feels like the only way to get through that thick skull of his is to yell at him.
(Hiya folks! So, not quite a continuation of the fable-esque story, there don't seem to be too many people interested in it it seems, at least, not yet. Maybe at a later time... once I have thousands of followers! >:-D or something like that... anywho, this is part one of a story that I'm doing. My wife and I are both writing a similar story with the same starting sentence and the same title (this time). We both thought it was a pretty hilarious title and premise, so we decided to both go about it in our own way.
This is my first real attempt at a steam-punk story, so any (nice) criticism would be greatly appreciated, and any other comments would be acceptable as well... possibly even encouraged. Well, I hope that this Monday has been good for you (or whatever day you happen to be reading this, which will most likely be Tuesday or after since I'm posting at 11:26 PM XD), and I look forward to writing more interesting things for you to read later. Peace off! )
Dearest Drewsef, I enjoyed this and I'm glad to see you writing again! Here are my thoughts: 1. I enjoyed the description. I had little trouble following the action, except when the pipe fell. I thought it was the replacement pipe. 2. I felt like there was little suspense when there could have been quite the tension because we didn't know the consequences of the burst pipe. We they on a steep decline because of loss of power where they would surely crash if it wasn't replaced? That sort of thing. 3. I felt like the dialogue was stiff most of the time. I enjoyed the characters but felt like they could be done more justice. Perhaps rather than Lucy narrating everything, have her think things sometimes. Also I would encourage you to read out loud the dialogue to see if it flows and is natural. 4. The dialogue I did enjoy was the berating Lucy provided Finnian. That had more flair and flow to it. 5. Other than these things there were just a few spots that read a bit rough that would easily be fixed with a once-over :) There ya go sir I hope this helps! Ps we need to get together soon!
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