All ships need a berth; AW

Neela Garcia · 12-13-2011, 01:32 PM

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For Temo, but anybody else who wants to join in and lend a hand is welcome.

Takes place along East River, as the point closest to Westville.

Word Count → 503

With a grinding thump the Meria Lea sank into the sandy riverbank, the large ships keel sinking deeply into the muddy sand and sticking there. Quickly and numbly Neela jumped down from the boat carrying an anchor and several reels of rope attatched to the boat, the anchor went behind two large rocks farther inland and the ropes around several nearby trees.

Her work done Neela collapsed onto the floor by one of the trees, laying her back against the wood as she panted in exhaustion. In the several weeks it had been left on the beach the Meria had worked itself deeply into the sand and prying it free had been an exhausting task, especially since she had needed to bring it upstream immediately after.

Her ship had been a problem constantly on Neela's mind after she had joined Ichika no Hoen. She was unwilling to give up the ship, but the logistics of mooring it had been a hard to solve problem; while beaching the ship was fine in an emergency or if she had no other choice, it was far from convenient for day to day use.

The answer to her problem had presented itself to her during her travels around her new territory; a old human pier in relatively good condition.

Or at least as good a condition as anything human made was these days. The wood that made up most of the small pier was so rotten that she hadn’t even needed an axe to remove most of it, but the supporting pillars were concrete and mostly undamaged. Neela had set to work the day before, removing all the rotten wood and leaving the pillars standing in the water by themselves, ready for construction.

Groaning at the ache in her muscles from her earlier exertion Neela opened her eyes, gazing around the clearing. The eight concrete pillars stood bare in the water, Grynn was perched on one of the farthest ones out, the falcon looking at Neela with a distinctly smug air. In the sandy clearing itself was the remains of the bonfire that Neela had made from the old wood and, beside it, the stacks of lumber that she had spent the last few days gathering.

As much as she wanted to just lay down and go to sleep Neela knew that doing so would make it all the much harder when she came to dislodge the Meria once more, so she got up, climbing back up onto the ship to fetch her tools. As Neela retrieved the duffel bag containing her smaller tools, along with a couple of coils of rope, she sniffed the air and her lip curled upwards with disdain. The smoky smell from the bonfire hadn’t dissipated since it was lit yesterday, and the rotten wood didn’t smell particularly pleasant.

Promising herself a nice trip down to the beach and a soak in the sea once she was done, Neela lowered herself back down onto the shore and started sorting through her tools.

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