Lapiutalnice stared off just past the spinning windmill, out into the deep blue of the sky beyond. It was brilliant that afternoon, the puffy clouds billowing up from the southern seas blurring the blue canvas with strokes of white and gray, occasionally providing shade from the sun as she drifted across the heavens. At the center of it all was what held his attention, however: a single point of vibrant color, standing in stark contrast to the blues and whites around it. The child's red kite rode the same breeze that powered the spinning sails it was almost hidden by, bouncing and swaying as if on a rolling sea.
How long he had been sitting there enraptured by the sleek gliding toy? The elf man did not know, nor did he care. Nestled in a bale of hay just in front of the barn, he would have been content to watch that kite there forever. It was a truly beautiful day, and it had been a long time since he had been able to enjoy one like he had as a kid, flying his own kite along the shores of the Nalchraihaniel, watching the great sails of the merchant ships pass by his small coastal hometown. These days he only flew kites for research, when he had the chance, and had not seen a galleon for the better part of a decade.
For there were no great ships along the dusty roads of Natniln or anywhere in Daechûg, for that matter, except the smaller vessels which sailed the lake. Lapiutalnice's wife tried to get him there often, she said to get him to shut up about boats, but that couldn't be the real reason. She was very smart and knew very well that those trips only encouraged his “extravagant hobby,” as she called it. Sadly, the Gaité at which the Fienlapus were posted was a three-day horse ride from Dacitcué –and thus a small commitment to go out that way.
Today he contented himself in watching the kite instead of flying one, cherishing every moment that he was off duty. He probably should have been catching up on more of his farm duties, but the injury he had suffered while training made that difficult. Not that he was complaining – Lapiutalnice's leave from the army was very opportune. It finally gave him time to focus on his project which he did not normally have, despite his work at the fort being comprised of staring out over the steppe for hours on end with little to do.
Unfortunately, the empress in Paipadaívaen did think it was important to watch the sea of grass. Thus, by mandate of the City of a Thousand Trees, he had few free moments to do what he wished to be doing that very moment if not enjoying the clouds drifting by. With that reminder of the task at hand, he glanced toward the dirt path leading out of the farm. Beyond, he could see the scattered fields and houses of Natniln, but no horse and cart yet. Nulaidutice was running late this afternoon, it was probably taking her awhile to find the steel rods he had requested. They were normally sold directly to the Gaité for use in gun repair, but he couldn't see why the excess wouldn't be sold to normal citizenry.
He hoped so at least – he needed them to continue. Craning his neck to look back into the barn, he sighed. The inside space was mostly taken up by a large object covered in canvas, sitting there idly until his wife got off her own work. A cat sat nestled on top for the time being, enjoying the snug warm shade of the barn while it wasn't filled with the sound of beating metal or sawing timber. A rare event since Lapiutalnice's injury. Another feline could be seen yawning atop the bundles of canvas and lumber which were stacked nearby, waiting to be used. Everything was still in order; all that needed to be done was wait.
Turning back to the sky, Lapiutalnice settled in to do just that. It turned out to be awhile longer, and with the warm sun peeking out between the clouds, the elf man must have fallen asleep. For he didn't remember ever hearing the cart approach, nor the horse being unharnessed, nor the approach of the cross-looking elf woman whose face now blocked the patch of sky where the kite had once been. “Oh there you are, Nulai,” he smiled, totally unconcerned with the glare he was receiving. “Did you have a nice day out in town?”
“You lazy oaf,” she was trying to say sternly, but his confidence already was cracking her façade. “You've been lying here the entire time I was gone, haven't you?” Though trying to look menacing, being built like a twig wasn't helping her case. Granted, Lapiutalnice was not all that much larger, but his military training had given him a bit of an edge. At least he was somewhat muscular for an elf, and probably would have considered himself strong if he had never met orc scouting parties while he was out on patrol. After seeing one of those gray-skinned goliaths no elf intimidated him anymore. And he tried to stay as far away from patrol as he possibly could.
“Did you find any rods out and about?” he continued without answering the question. “I hope so or I might have to try and pester the captain for some. And we both know what he thinks about me.” He added the last part with a chuckle, though he meant it too. He didn't exactly impress his overseer, and his lack of care for the captain's opinion would have frustrated the man greatly. But the comment did manage to soften his wife's face a bit. She tried to maintain the scowl but failed to keep it up in the eyes any longer.
“It's your lucky day,” she sighed, waving toward the barn. “I already put them next to your mad scheme, which frankly made them very hard to buy. They know all these supplies I'm buying are going to something strange, and it's not a good look, mister. Not exactly much use for someone like me to be buying a bunch of steel rods, is there?”
“Well,” Lapiutalnice said, sitting up, “I did offer to buy them myself, dear, and save you the trouble.” He tried to stand, but Nulaidutice was not about to have it. Before he could protest, she had her arm around him and was guiding him to his feet. He was pretty sure it was unnecessary, but she wasn't going to let him find out and hurt himself falling like last week.
“It's still my money, stupid,” she snapped, leading him into the barn where she knew he wanted to go. “You think the military is paying you anything while you're away from the Gaité? You're lucky you've beguiled some woman enough to pull you out while injured to heal instead of sweeping the fort until you can shoot a gun again.” Setting him down between the canvas-covered object and the supplies she had brought in, she quickly moved to the back of the barn. There she started loading up a box with various tools, occasionally holding one up to confirm that her husband would need it.
“I don't know what I did to appease Lady Luck so either, but you aren't going to find me complaining,” he replied warmly, “At least if I were out and about doing it, there is a less likely chance that they'd attach your face to it, and maybe you'd be spared a little bit.”
To this she grunted, the amusement having left her eyes a bit, though that was partially due to her lugging over the huge tool-box she had just assembled. “Doubt it would help much, ladies gossip Lapiu, and they aren't going to leave me out of the fun. It isn't that bad though, the Plains Elves just assume it is some new High Elf fad I picked up in university. Pampering your husbands or something like that. They come to some weird conclusions out here.” This might have been true, but Lapiutalnice also knew it was just as likely that it was her hair color as much as her university degree that was sparing her the brunt of it. A wall of superficial concerns that would not hold forever.
Her ruffled blonde hair was the mark of a High Elf lineage, a sign to the border elves that she came from the heart of the empire. It was only logical to put up with some of her antics, as she likely had connections in Tivowichaisch, connections it would be better to be on the good side of. Yet beyond this superficiality, another mark of her heritage could be seen faintly on her face: the freckles that outed her Wood Elf relations, and similar origins at the edge of the imperial heartland. In university she'd had to fight to be accepted by her peers from powerful political families, but out here at the edge of the steppe no one knew that. In Daechûg anyone with blonde hair was assumed to have some stature because the only ones they ever met were officials and engineers from the silver forest. Even Sea Elf soldiers were rarely relocated into the area – Lapiutalnice was just one of the unlucky few because he had some Plains Elf relatives who might take him if he ever became unfit for service on the bloody orc frontier.
“Well, I don't mind this new fad,” he chuckled once again, taking a pair of tongs and hammer from the box as his wife moved to uncover the object of his labors. “And I'm sure I'm not the only soldier out there who wouldn't mind their wife taking an interest in their projects.”
“Don't wrap me up in this,” Nulaidutice retorted, despite now moving over to light the compact forge for her husband's use. “It's not my fault you're the only man in the whole empire with a dream to accomplish something. I just have to keep you busy so you don't tear the house apart to realize your mad vision.”
“It's more of a shed really,” her husband replied with a smirk, “not at all like the elegant stone buildings on the coast or the treetop cities in the woods. The Plains Elves are nice enough and all, but their houses feel just like the barns they pride themselves on. It really wouldn't be any loss.”
“Hey!” Her reply came accompanied by a loose coal being thrown at him. “I design those barns you know, and I didn't spend two decades in university to have my husband mock them.”
“It really is a loss on their part,” Lapiutalnice laughed, reaching into the tool-box to remove the wrenches he wanted, then began inspecting boxes of bolts, “If they had kept you designing wagons instead of their timber cubes we probably wouldn't have to worry about drought season anymore.”
“Dear, you are a soldier, you know the Gaités are important for keeping the orcs out of our lands,” his wife sighed, pushing over the super-heated furnace to the waiting project.
“Bah, I've only seen orc clans a few times, and never have they engaged us. All of them far from the Gaités. They aren't imbeciles, they learned generations back that charging into a musket line isn't ideal for their health. We could have stopped building Gaités a century ago and still be safe,” he chuckled to himself, knowing full well that Nulaidutice had heard his argument a million times before. Reaching forward, he grasped at the side of canvas and gave it a hardy tug.
His effort was met by a snort from his wife, and a snarky comment, but after she pitched in her efforts, as well, they uncovered the wooden frame underneath. “It still doesn't look like a boat,” was all she said after taking the progress in for a few seconds, causing Lapiutalnice to grin and roll his eyes.
“Well what do you want to call her then?” he retorted as he began to beat one of the steel rods into a hook. “It carries passengers through the sky like a boat does over water. A Lapudrum is very fitting in that case, at least in my opinion.”
“The wings make it look more like a bird,” Nulaidutice pointed toward the naked wooden ribs that would eventually be covered in tense canvas. “And don't play coy, I saw you taking measurements of the pigeon's wings a week ago, right before you made them.”
“Piqoug wasn't around, so I had to make do. And me asking you to help calculate the amount of lift the shape would create before doing so didn't give me away?” Lapiutalnice couldn't help but laugh. “But unlike a pigeon she won't rely on flapping her wings to stay airborne.”
“That's good,” she interjected, pointing toward the central body which, to be fair, looked much more like a boat. “Because you literally nailed the wings into the frame. You'd be restarting if you wanted it to flap, and I'm not sure either of us could handle that.”
“I couldn't think of a good mechanism to hold onto the wings that could both flap and be sturdy. Besides, at its weight Piqoug says that flapping wouldn't help much. He actually suggested I use the principle of soaring, where the lift from the Lapudrum moving will be what keeps her airborne,” he smirked, proud of knowing such technical terms despite his schooling barely teaching him how to read. “Sort of like a hawk or buzzard, or even a kite, but she'd have to be going much faster since she weighs so much.”
The elf woman sighed, raising her eyebrows in his direction as he began to sift through the bucket of bolts to fit his steel strut in place. Placing her hands on her hips, she said, “And how are you planning on getting your sky boat to go that fast, dear?”
“Well, you see, I was thinking we could put a thing on the front, like the windmill inverted. As it spins it will carry the machine forward. From the math I tricked you into doing for me, I found out if it was spinning fast enough it could drag the Lapudrum forward fast enough for lift to kick in and keep her airborne,” he said proudly, though his brilliance was met with a mock cuff to the back of his head.
“Doofus, so the windmill wasn't damaged!” She was trying so hard to act annoyed at being tricked into spending a whole afternoon fixing it but was clearly on the verge of laughing at this point.
“I would never lie to you, dear,” he winked while rubbing the back of his head, feigning injury. “Though I may or may not have engineered its failure and greatly exaggerated the damage.”
“Well, alright, you win this time, stupid,” she said, turning her head to hide the wide grin that was forming, “But what under the sun do you think can get this device of yours spinning fast enough?”
“That... I have no answer for right now unfortunately,” he said and began to zone out for a moment, thinking on the issue. The major roadblock between him and actually building a flying machine. His wife's math checked out, the aerodynamics should be sound, but if it could not go fast enough it would never fly. He would have dwelt on this issue for much longer if it wasn't for the squeezing of his shoulders snapping him out of it. “For now, I just plan to take it sailing on the lake and let the boat generate the energy needed, like a kid running with a kite. I'm hoping to have it ready for that in a week when you said we'd go again.”
With that said, he grabbed one of the twig-like hands, and looking back at his wife standing over him, said “Though... I may need more bolts... it seems I might have used all the ones you bought me last week.”
“Again! I...” she started to say, but then simply sighed. “Never mind, I shouldn't be surprised at this point. Shouldn't have told you we were going to the lake, should I. Oh well, I suppose you already thought about how to get this thing in the wagon haven't you?”
“Unlike your earlier assessment,” Lapiutalnice confirmed, tapping his wrench on the main wing beam, “it isn't actually nailed into the frame, so the wings can be removed and reattached for transport. She should be able to fit into the wagon without issue... I just hope the horse is strong enough.”
Nulaidutice sighed, “I'm sure he'll manage. I suppose you won't hurt yourself now, so I'll leave you to it. I need something to eat bad. Just don't use your leg, please, I don't want the commander to blame me for you being perpetually injured.”
“I'll keep off of it, I owe you that much dear,” he laughed as he kissed her cheek. “I made some bread for brunch, nothing fancy, but some butter should help spruce it up a bit.”
“The first smart thing you've said all day,” Nulaidutice razzed as she got back up to her feet, wiping the dirt off her dress. Then she walked her way out of the barn, leaving Lapiutalnice alone with his machine. For a moment he simply sat there, glad that there hadn't been much of a fuss in bringing his machine to the lake with them, as he didn't have a better idea of how to test the device. As usual, despite her complaints, his wife was more than accommodating toward his little schemes.
“At least until she finds out I ate the rest of the almonds with the bread,” he remarked out loud to himself, “There is no forgiveness for that cardinal crime.” Then, scooching himself forward with the wrench he got back to work fitting the metal struts under the wooden beams. If the Lapudrum was going to fly, he needed to get working – it wouldn't build itself after all.
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