And like this referred to the boisterous chugging along of a steamboat. The metal contraption felt like the harbinger of the end, with its engine hissing loud enough to be heard even all the way up on the deck - and that, too, was nothing pleasing. Others might have seen it as a means of both showing off some meager wealth or as a decent way to travel, but the heavy hitter would see it as neither as long as her days carried. It was not a matter of getting sick from the steam or movement; she'd gotten over that a long time ago. If she could avoid it, she would, but there was a need for travel to be faster, so she was stuck with this.
Confining herself to the quarters did her no good. She shared it with wicks and humans alike, but what bothered wasn't them. It was the sharing. They were too intimate. Losing herself to the oblivion of sleep or drink was a welcome distraction that didn't come easy. Wouldn't come easy. Because they'd realized that she would be traveling in the same floating shit basin as them, they saw their chance. If they knew what she did, she wondered if it would change their tune. Or would they try to be more comfortable, more friendly? She didn't need friends; she needed to get where she was going and not have to deal with the wail of children and engines or the despicable chug chug chug that persisted day and night.
But this day brought a new wave of distaste for this particular mode of travel as a scream cut through the rhythm of nosy cabin mates playing a game of cards and the engine as their accompanying orchestra. A scream, of all things. Not loud enough to hear the desperation or shock, but loud enough to give pause. And then it was a flurry of hurried bodies climbing over one another in a cramped space to see what the commotion was about. It was as if the entirety of the boat had stopped to see what new attraction they could shown on their long ride.
Nev, though, had stayed behind. Exhaustion hung beneath her eyes as she contemplated using the disturbance as a good chance to get some sleep. Someone in the cabin snored - it wasn't her; how would she know otherwise? - and another was a rough sleeper. The creak of their bunk would keep the normally easy sleeper awake in the night. So much for that. They would only return and pester her with details she would undoubtedly want to know. It was that pesky little habit of hers, this nosiness. The only thing she shared with her cabin mates quite seriously. A sigh left her as she sat up, shoving her feet in her boots as she walked in the direction where all the chatter seemed to come from.
No peace tonight.
"What happened?"
"She looks like she's seen a ghost!"
"Is she alright?"
The murmur of conversation continued as she pushed through the crowd to get to the front, finding a human woman quivering on the wood of the second floor deck. The door to a cabin - hers, the galdor assumed - remained open to all to see. The view was a mess, a scattering of items that Nev didn't pay much attention to on display. But most prominent was the pooling blood beneath the body in the center of it all.
"Oh."
Certainly no peace tonight.