Neriena had been afraid that she would have to force their new, kidnapped, bomb expert to work for them. It didn't help her feelings to find that he was a lot younger then she had thought at first. He however threw himself into the work that they gave him, at first with what seemed to be the air of a craftsman who wanted to do things to prove that he could. He was fascinated with the problems connected to arming a dirigible with guns because of the matter of weight and began experimenting with solutions almost as soon as they mentioned the problem to him.
Later he would work for them out of friendship as much as out of curiosity. They never would learn anything about him however, he insisted that they call him Blaze from the get go and never gave them another name to call him. Where Blaze came from and where he learned as much as he did about weapons at such a young age were to forever be a mystery, and it was one that Neriena never pried into. She could understand better then most the desire to work under other names when operating on the wrong side of the law. She imagined that much like herself Blaze was thinking about what would happen to him if and when the crew broke up or could no longer operate.
All things do come to an end and so it was with their pirate days. Just as they were chased out of the oceans, so too were the chased out of the sky. Blaze might have been in the forefront of the development of airship weapons, but the army was not far behind and now that air trade was picking up the government was willing to invest in ships to hunt down the elusive pirates that were giving them so much trouble. It was a day that all of them had been expecting, they had had many warnings that it was coming, and it had drawn out their career for two more years to take to the sky. Now the crew was more ready to go join the rest of the world anyway, even the wildest among them had grown tired of seeing old friends die by the sword and was ready to settle down. There was no fight therefore when Neriena announced that they were going to quit.
Having decided to quit was different then actually doing so, they wanted to quit but that didn't mean they wanted to get caught. It would have been easier if they had been willing to burn the dirigible like they had their ship but none of them were willing to do that. Neriena in particular was against the idea of disposing of the dirigible and she got more of a say then anyone since it was still hers as well as the fact that she was captain. She told all of them that while she might be ready to stop pirating she was not ready to stop captaining the dirigible. This meant that they had to create a legitimate appearance for themselves.
It was easier then Neriena had thought it would be to act innocent. First she set herself up as a wealthy woman, which she was, in a small town. Then she had members of her crew disguise themselves as workmen and deliver the dirigible. In the early days of airship making there had been no documentation of who owned one and what they did with it so no one asked any questions that she didn't want to answer. With most of her crew melting away to lead the lives of the independently wealthy once they were sure no one was gong to blow the whistle, Neriena was left to start yet another new life for herself.
Neriena wasn't totally alone in this new life of hers however. Blaze stayed with her, acting as if she were his sister so that no one would ask how they came to be together. A few members of the crew also moved in, first acting as household servants for her, and then slowly settling into the town. These were her true followers, and she had to admit, probably her only friends. There were still enough of them that they could operate the dirigible if she wanted to and that was a good feeling. They started taking it out on day trips every once in a while, and they were nostalgic. There was time when they were up in the air for them to act like they really were, with no reservations of what people would think or say. Neriena would stomp around the deck in men's clothing and no one would judge her like they would have on land, the crew would have target practice, Blaze would see what he could do to maintain the guns. It was a feeling of liberty that even with all of her money Neriena just didn't feel on land.
To be continued...
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