[My Final Heaven]

Elcid could only sigh. He knew what he should be doing which was to grab this pompous blow hard and hurl him off the ship but he was still injured from the scrap in the bar and the insuing brawl and didn't really feel like agrivating the wounds.

'Look, all this running around and shouting death threats ain't gonna do you any good on my ship. I thought we'd had this discussion already. Repeat after me, 'Elcid, I can't find Anei, have you seen her?' not, 'I'm going to bloody kill you'. There's a whole bloody ship load a difference between those two, whatchacallem, phrases. Now you saw me leave Anei in my quarters yourself, if she's not there now, I haven't had a thing to do with it. She's got a mind of her bloody own, so she does.'

Elcid said all of this as casually as he could, being as he was angry enough to tear Artois' head clear off his shoulders and as he said it he walked towards his cabin and pushed open the door to see for himself that Anei wasn't there.

'Blimey she really did bugger off.' Elcid read the note over, his lips moving to make the words as he did so. He wasn't a quick reader. He passed the note to Artois as an explination. 'See that? Don't you go bloody accusing me of every damn. How the hell did you survive as a soldier or a sailor if you can't use your own two bloody eyes?! She must have shimmied down out the back windows or the man at the plank would have come and told me she was going out, unless... Those things on her back, are they just for show or can she use 'em?'

Elcid's eyes went to the mainmast crow's nest, the highest point on the ship.

'If they ain't just for show, then we'll just have to hope she know's what she's doing. She might have told us a bit more in her note though.'