Naia wiped the sweat from her brow.
It was winter, the cool winds sweeping from the Suvan tousled her wild locks, and yet she could still feel the uncomfortable trickle of sweat down her back as she reached to undo the final knot that bound a number of smaller crates. The hulls had been full, brimming with goods from the cities all along the trade route brought back to the City of Illusions to brim and fill the local stocks. A great majority of smaller goods had been cleared to the crimson decks, making way for the largest barrels and assemblages to be extracted.
Even with so much room aboard the ship, when dozens of bodies were in a constant string to and fro the hulls, decks, and Port, the breath that one breathed was not their own, and had Naia not been one of the taller women, she'd have likely found herself pushed and prodded back into some ill defined corner. Her height gave her the much needed view among the sea of sweaty bodies, and though it meant she was often face to face with red cheeked, sweat sodden men - it also gave her a much needed boost to the illusion of productivity. So long as she could see that there was work being done, she didn't at all feel the biting urge to do all work herself.
The crew had only worked through some of Syna's light the day before- the encouragement of as many and any to attend or support the performance on the 3rd left some great number of sailors with blood of alcohol, and those that were fine were hardly going to let their superior sailors know that.
Someone grumbled a harsh word to the Svefra's near left, and Naia gave a contemplative stare at the knot before her. It was tight, and the rope itself seemed to be rather worn and fraying, the goods having come from the more recent stop of Riverfall; they'd barely broken ground on the goods from the second venture to Kenash. Either there was an exceedingly grand amount of stock and work cut out ahead, or the vast majority of the crew were worryingly ineffective. She was willing to hedge her bets with the later - many saw it as a season of holiday, too caught and lost in thoughts of friends, family, and food to mind the mind the colossal and weighty barrels and crates they were lifting.
Naia had to use both hands to count the time she'd nearly been crushed, bumped, or otherwise run into, but the crew seemed to be getting into the rhythm as the morning pressed on, the additional hands from labourers who worked in the Patchwork Port having born more hindrance than aid until then. Now, if only the performers would stop floundering about like jungle foul in a thunderstorm.
She was taking too long to act, and the man made another disgruntled sound, seeming to make out that he wasn't enjoying the moment of ease and the cool rush of ocean winds. "The rope isn't worth saving, I'm borrowing this," to award the man's rudeness, Naia reached to his belt and plucked his knife, an old, near rusty little thing, and with much greater difficulty than she'd thought, severed the fraying rope.
The higher most of the crates teetered at the release, but two ticks of held breath proved the object to be stable enough, and Naia blindly handed the fellow sailor back his knife before placing a rough hand around the crude groove that made more a handle, and tipping its weight so it slide down, and towards her, the woman barely managing to round the object with her other hand before it fell. "They're heavier than I thought they'd be," the little slip of justification was entirely uncalled for, but she couldn't let the slight rising of the other sailor's brows be left unremarked on. With any luck, the next two crates were heavier, and her words were wrongly justified.
It was almost like Naia had dived into white water rapids, suddenly losing her ability to control pace or direction, shoulder to shoulder and jabbing unsuspecting sailors with sharp edges as she made the journey through the funnel to the gangplank. Naia had long grown used to diversions and baiting of the performance side of the crew, and did her best to enjoy the music as she willfully ignored the irritating placement of its source.
Something hard and heavy hit her square in the back, and a sharp pain bloomed between her shoulder blades, just five steps after clearing the gangplank and hitting the sturdy wood of the dock. Naia teetered forwards, and scarcely caught herself, the crate in her hand knocking the poor, wry fellow before her near clear off his feet, and the young man skidded into the luckily empty place before him. Common wasn't a language expressive enough to vent her flare of anger, and her words rung out in crude Fratava. "Hey, can you watch where the petch-" her head had whipped around so quick her gaze spun, but it was evident that the man was a labourer, and quite obviously bare handed.
"Sorry, I uh-" the man spluttered common, hands rising to give further gesture. He didn't seem at all to have cause for the slip, just another victim to inattention, and the Svefra took the opportunity to bring into play the rites of words versus actions, affording herself a quick shoulder check to ascertain the state of the fellow that she'd near fallen, surprised to see that he'd already disappeared into the sea of people.
He obviously bore no great pain, she figured, and her tone softened immensely as she switched back to common. "You're going to show me how sorry you are by taking this crate," she arched her eyebrows at the man, and remained resolute as she too became a fixed point that bottlenecked the efforts. The man took several ticks to relent and take the box from her hands, and when he did her smile was sweet, before she squared her shoulders and broke from the mill, seeking a quiet spot as she rolled her shoulders as she surveyed the damage she could.
