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goldenart0 · 11 days ago

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Third Wheel - Emi's Equivalent Exchange 2024

Gift for @afleetingdownpour for @emis-equivalent-exchange!

I have not only sent Worm on an adventure, I have sent her on several. Hope you enjoy it, this was quite fun to work on!

(Ao3 Link)

Worm gave a yawn and leaned forward against the controls of the ship. Traveling through the night was not her favoriteactivity, especially if warm buildings were an option, but the biggest swarm of Imago in the century was a fairly good reason to keep going. The adrenaline from whatever went on between the man she delivered the crest to and that Cowboy guy was long gone and the spite of stealing Cowboy’s ship could only take her so far before sleep was necessary. She could read the room, okay, she knew how much consideration either Lord had for her at the end of the day, even if she was the one that brought them their precious crests. And she trusted the Farmerling’s Thopter plan to get them out safely, which yes, she could have offered to help with but they seemed to have it covered! Not to mention how it might have messed with her route. But they were safe, the Cloudlings would do whatever Cloudlings did, the bugs would eat the fancy tech, and she, Worm the Third, got a sparkling Cloudling ship in the process.

Worm turned to look at her bag, her guide to travels and in many ways her life. She titled her head, considering figuring out where to go next. After a few minutes of thinking she fell backwards into the pilot’s seat. Now was time to sleep, the letters and potatoes could wait until the morning. Worm grabbed a jacket out of her bag, good for colder weather as well as for sleeping, and tucked into the pilot’s seat. Flamethrowers, crests, ships, and bugs drifted away from Worm’s mind as she got ready for the next steps in her journey.

Whatever came to Clancy and the Farmerling Family or Lord Cowboy and his group wasn’t important for Worm anymore. They had their own paths to go down, and she still had packages to deliver.

~~~~

While you couldn’t see the sun, all things considered it was a nice day out as Worm made her way down the rocky street. As far as she knew, the Imago swarms had focused on torturer tech so as long as you kept it out of your hands, the bugs minded their own business, leading to a much less stressful time then she’d expected.

She’d had a few things to deliver in this town, being a more populated place, and next on the list was a bundle of letters for one Ms Emlie Marena. According to people she’d asked earlier, she worked at a bookstore close to the town centre. The store’s brightly coloured sign also helped her find it, it’s reds and blue catching Worm’s attention easily.

Worm tucked the bundle under her arm and knocked two times on the door. A woman with light brown hair put up in a bun and a long, flowy dress opened the door.

Worm smiled and held the bundle up towards the woman. “Hello, I have a package for Ms Emlie Marena.”

The woman pushed the door fully open. “Oh, well come inside then.” She gave a small laugh, “I wasn’t expected anything today. It’s been a busy few weeks.”

“A courier job is make sure all letters and packages arrive to their intended recipients, regardless of any situational issues,” Worm recited. There was a moment of silence, Worm still staring and smiling at the woman. Worm blinked a few times. “Are you Ms. Marena?”

“Oh, yes, yes that’s me,” the woman gestured inwards towards a door at the back of the shop.

Worm stepped into the shop. Emlie closed the door behind them and started to lead the way to the door. It wasn’t a super complex place, but cozy-feeling with how the interior was organized. There were pockets between shelves with chairs and pillows, and the larger windows in the front filled the space with natural light.

“Do you take anything in particular as payment?” Emile asked, looked back towards Worm

Worm paused for a moment. “I mean anything you have really. Foods always nice. Or hot chocolate.”

“Well I’ll get you some food then.”

The woman led Worm into the part of the building that must have been her home. Worm stood awkwardly in the doorway, still holding the letters up in front of her.

“Here, I can take those,” Emile reached for the letters and Worm released them, not moving from the doorway. Emile gestured with her hand again. “Come and sit down. Are you busy today? Do you have a lot more deliveries?”

Worm took a seat at a table in the kitchen, placing her bag on her lap. “I only have a few more people to see, then I have to check if people have more things they want couriered, then I’m out of here.” Worm paused, “Do you have anything to send?”

Emile looked questioningly at Worm’s answer. “I- I don’t have anything to send to someone right now. Are you leaving today? Haven’t you just arrived?”

“Yeah?” It was true. Worm flew into town this morning, landing a short walking distance away from the main streets. Having a ship was very convenient for faster travel between settlements yes, but also to rest on the road. No more getting caught in between towns at night. It was the best possible outcome for her, in her own opinion.

Emile seemed shocked at Worm’s response. Worm tried to not roll eyes. People kept acting like it was weird to basically live in a ship. It wasn’t like Worm didn’t know what she’s doing. She’s a professional courier and has been doing this for years. And she’s been creating a pillow collection, so the ship was pretty cozy.

“It’s really not a big-“ Worm got cut off by a doorway slamming open opposite from the one they had come in from. A kid with shoulder length black hair and looking younger than Worm ran in, breathing hard.

“Beni! Are you alright, where have you been?” Emile set down what she had been using and ran to the doorway, reaching for the kid. “We’ve been worried trying to find you,” she briefly paused before asking again, “Are you alright?”

The kid looked like they were out of breath from running, but they also seemed to be scared as Worm looked at the situation from the kitchen. The kid grabbed their mom’s arm and opened their mouth to respond. Right as that happened, another child popped out from behind the first. They looked nearly identical to the first but with greatly different manners, looking more upbeat and excited. Emile leaned back in surprise as the second kid came into the doorway.

The first child finished talking, too quiet for Worm to make out the words. Worm stayed seated in the chair, looking between Emile, the first kid, and the second kid. Seemed like some slip nonsense, if Worm had to guess. She had a brief consideration of casted her own magic to help, but it didn’t look like anyone was hurt from whatever happened. Worm turned her attention to the food Emile had started to prepare. She had gotten a loaf of bread out as well as some crackers and cheese. There were some vegetables near it on the counter ready to be cut and a pot on the stove slowly warming up some liquid.

She could leave right now, and let the family figure out what ever they had to right now. But that would mean missed out on the food here as well as the potential hot drink.

She spend a few moments debating with herself over what to do while Emile fussed over the kids, ignoring Worm entirely. In the end, with Emile focused on the children, Worm grabbed some cheese and crackers, a few root vegetables, and, looking sadly at the boiling liquid, slid herself out the door to the shop.

~~~~

Worm leaned back in her pilot’s seat, sighing. The sun was starting to go down and while she could keep going, she wouldn’t make it to her next stop before morning anyway so there wasn’t any reason to push through the night. The ship made travel easier, for sure, but it also pushed Worm to go further and take jobs across greater and greater distances.

She pushed herself back up and made her way over to a set of drawers and counter space in the main section of the ship. Worm knelt down to look into drawers to see what she could put together for food tonight. It wasn’t like she had anything fancy per se, but she liked to keep a variety of food the best she could while picking up stuff in towns. Or being given it as payment. Worm ended up just grabbing a cup and box of tea out of a drawer for the time being and fiddled with a device holding a pot on the counter to set the water to boiling.

As she stood waiting, a spot of light caught Worm’s attention from the side of her vision. She pivoted around to the front window of the ship and in the darkening field around her. The light was connected to a shadowed figure carefully walking through the taller grass who didn’t seem to be paying attention to, if they even noticed, the ship.

Worm reached for the controls of the ship and flashed the lights on. The walking figure startled and turned to face the ship. Worm gave a wave to them through the glass. In front of the ship, now illuminated, was a younger woman with a large backpack and hair tied back in a ponytail. She gave a slower wave back at Worm. Well, it wasn’t like Worm had any other plans this evening.

Worm pushed open one of the doors and leaned her head to call out to the woman, “Would you like some tea?”

The woman walked closer. “Oh, that sounds great!”

Worm let the woman into the ship and made sure the door was shut. Even if the swarm was coming to an end, one could never be too careful. She was sure she had some chalk somewhere, either in storage or as a package. Worm reached back into the drawers to grab a second cup and set it down next to the pot.

“So…” the woman hovered around Worm. “What brings you out here? This is an odd place to land,” she paused, “I’m Lyn, by the way.”

“Flying from town to town, delivering letters and such. I didn’t want to fly through the night so I landed for here the evening.” Worm finished pouring the tea for Lyn and handed it to her.

“That sounds fun. Do you travel a lot?”

“I mean it is my job, so yes.”

“Oh, right, that makes sense,” Lyn gave a small laugh.

There was another pause as Worm sipped of tea. Lyn took a long sip of her drink and shifted from one foot to the other.

Worm placed her cup back on the counter. “What brings you out here?”

Lyn startled, looking back at Worm from gazing around the ship. “I’ve been trying to research Imagos.” She smiled, “I don’t live too far from here actually, but the swarm came by, maybe a few months ago? And it’s just interesting, how they work, why they do what they do. I mean they don’t just attack us, they go after chalk and technology, so clearly there’s a drive there-“

Ah, Imagos. There’s been a lot of talk from almost everyone Worm’s talked to about Imagos throughout the year of the swarm. People being too scared about them, people being not scared enough. And of course, people wondering if maybe Imagos aren’t bad after all and are just mad about the torturers. Of course the Imago didn’t go after people, they went after chalk. You could see that easily. As long you don’t mess with torturer stuff too much, you’d be fine. That’s the way Worm’s always done it, save a few ill timed crest deliveries, but even so most of that was out of Worm’s hands.

Worm nodded her head along with Lyn’s talk as she finished up. “That’s neat. Are you going somewhere? I can give you a ride.”

Lyn looked surprised and put her drink down, “That’s be nice I guess. You don’t have to though, I’m not too far from home.”

Worm shrugged. “It’s better than sleeping outside.”

Lyn glanced outside at the mostly dark sky. She turned back to Worm, “All right, as long you’re okay with it. Are you done for the night?”

Worm nodded, then gestured over to a small pile of blankets and pillows. “Take your pick.”

~~~~

Worm squinted at the cloud layer, trying to see any breaks or hints at what was above it. Trying to get into the cloud cities was pretty difficult when you’d never been there and didn’t have a good map.

And to be fair, Worm also wasn’t used to delivering people. Okay, that didn’t sound the best. She was hired, sort of, the payment was shaky, to get these two kids up above the clouds for reasons they wouldn’t explain. Which was fine for Worm, most things aren’t her business as long as she does her job and gets out. Neither was the fact that ‘Anan’ was clearly a false name given the amount of hesitation before it was given. But hey, Worm’s been there, she’s not going to judge.

There was a small tap on her shoulder, causing her to turn briefly, trying to look at both the sky and beside her seat. The kid with dark blond hair, Star, the more talkative one, stood looking over the back of Worm’s chair.

“How long do you think until we’ll be there?”

Worm shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I’m still trying to find out a good way up.”

“You haven’t been there before?”

“No. But the ship has so I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Work glanced back at Star who had a look of concern on her face. “Uh, we’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’m a good pilot. If you want to rest, there’s some blankets in the back, just leave something for me.”

Worm heard light footsteps go off behind her. She reached down to a bottle on the ground by her feet and took a sip of some hot chocolate she’d [gotten before the trip?]. Worm turned her focus back to the clouds. There seemed to be a few shadows ahead within the clouds. There was a chance it was just rain forming, Worm doesn’t know exactly how that works, but it didn’t seem like an average rain cloud. Might as well give it a try.

Worm slowly tilted the ship upward, angling it through the clouds a little bit away from the shadows.

Now, there was light on the ground, despite the perpetual clouds. And there were days when it was brighter or darker depending on other weather. None of it could have prepared Worm for the sky above the clouds. It wasn’t just brighter, the light was sharper too, not diffused onto every surface equally. The sun itself was glowing in the distance, luckily out of Worm’s direct line of sight or she’s sure she would have blinded herself with it. Out in the distance tall shapes reaching in all directions stood out against the pale sky. Closer by was a platform covered with metal structures. The light cut harshly against the sets of buildings and created sections of dark and light all over the island. Worm flew in closer as she looked over the island for some sort of landing platform. There didn’t seem to a specific place for ships as far as Worm could tell, so she chose a larger spot by the side of a building land down in.

She stood up and turned back to the two kids. Both kids were looking out the window over the whole scene. Star had her hand up against the window looking around at everything in sight. Anan was staring across the sky, head slightly tilted as they took it all in. Worm moved to one of ship’s doors and swung it open, gesturing at the outside.

“Well, here we are. I don’t have any directions for specific places, but we’re up here.”

Star turned away from the window looking over at her friend. Anan stayed looking out for a few more seconds before realizing Worm had spoken. They looked back at Star and lightly patted one of their pockets. Star gave a small nod in response.

Star stepped up to Worm. “Thank you for the trip up here. It was very kind of you”

“Not a problem. Good luck with whatever you’re doing. And, uh, stay safe.”

Star poked Anan who had gone back to staring at the sky. She gave Worm a smile before stepping off, Anan following close behind.

~~~~

Worm stayed in the doorway of the ship for a bit after the two kids left. She took a deep breath of the cool air up here and watched how it frosted up as if it was winter. She closed her eyes, feeling the sun on her skin even with the colder temperatures and breeze.

After a moment Worm turned back into the ship and shut the door behind her. Star and Anan seemed like they had whatever they were doing under control. Whatever happened next was out of Worm’s hands, and she had rounds to get back to down on the ground. Adventures and people come and go and Worm was sure she’d run into more in no time. For now though, with the sun and wind at her back, she still had packages to deliver.

#Worm at all possible moments: Not my circus Not my monkeys (and she's valid for that)#rwd #rolling with difficulty #rwd shadow of the skyplitter #emi's equivalent exchange #emi's equivalent exchange 2024 #I have more details on the people Worm runs into if people are curious #also I rewatched skysplitter for this and while I understand everyone talking about how messy the end was the rest of it was funny as fuck

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