Eh, felt like posting something. I wrote this at an airport a few days ago, after listening to a totally unrelated song.

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The first airship to take off from Thoth was the Commander II. It was thirty-two feet long, with eight massive sails that billowed in the afternoon air and a hull constructed entirely from jarwood, grown in the Emperor’s own forests. It was captained by master sailer Forrest Gulch. Commander II took off from Thoth with a crew of six men, including Forrest Gulch, and another twenty men as passengers.
“I will not have a woman on the Commander II,” said Forrest Gulch. His arms were crossed over his muscled chest and his short red hair flickered about the edges of his dark green cap. “They are bad luck. An airship is no different.”
So the Commander II took its maiden voyage on the 17th day of the 98th year of the Blust lineage, with no women. On the ground in Thoth, a girl with gray hair stood in a cornfield and watched as it soared overhead. Men had conquered the skies, as they had conquered the land and the seas, and the girl with gray hair witnessed that conquest.
The girl with gray hair went to school in a black stone castle with two red flags on both sides of the front gate. There she learned about history and politics and the new science that men with glasses called Aerodynamics. She did not think it would matter, but she went on learning, because the Commander II was in the sky and she was not. The great airship landed only hours after takeoff, but that was only one of its flights, and other airships were being built. When the girl with gray hair did not have school she could stand on top of a hill and see the Killraven being built in the next village.
One day her mother took her to see the Killraven close-up. It was almost sixty feet long and had twelve sails, with bright red lining. The figurehead was an enormous black bird, beak opened angrily, with a look of supreme malice in its eyes. The girl with gray hair did not like the Killraven.
“It is not the Commander II,” she said to her mother.
Meanwhile great things were happening in politics, and Thoth went to war against the neighboring country of Thrall. The Commander II was a great vessel, but it could do nothing against Thrall. The Killraven could. Once again the girl with gray hair stood in a cornfield and watched as an airship flew overhead. The Killraven flew over Thoth and entered Thrall and dropped soldiers and bricks and great black spheres which burst into fire when they landed. One night there was a loud, and very long, scream. The girl with gray hair did not sleep that night.
The Emperor went to see Forrest Gulch on the 40th day of the 99th year. He wanted Forrest Gulch to take the Killraven from a man named Tangel Finn and lead the war against Thrall. He said that a fleet of smaller airships was being built, which would aid in the fighting.
“I accept,” said Forrest Gulch.
Tangel Finn was fired and disappeared from war and politics, and Forrest Gulch left the Commander II to go to war. There were no women on the Killraven, only great big men with angry eyes. The father of the girl with gray hair was drafted by the soldiers of the Emperor and did not come back for a long time. Before he could come back, other soldiers came. They needed the black castle where the girl went to school, so more soldiers could train in it. The girl said goodbye to her friends, went home, and told her mother what had happened.
The girl and her mother left their village in search of another school, one that was not so close to Thrall and the war effort. They walked slowly through the cornfields as the fleet of smaller airships that the Emperor had promised flew through the air to the aid of Forrest Gulch. Their sails were made of a strange new kind of silk made by men with glasses, and the ships were sailed by three men each. Forrest Gulch would have no women in any of the other airships either.
The girl and her mother settled in a village with eight streets. At the end of the eighth street was the Commander II. It had been tethered to the ground by strong ropes since the beginning of the war against Thrall, and was looked after by a tall young man with green eyes. On her second day in the village, the girl with gray hair came to see the green-eyed man and the Commander II. She did not understand why the first airship was there on the ground, unused.
“It waits for Forrest Gulch,” said the green-eyed man. “The master of the Commander II is away in war and it will not fly until he comes back.”
“But nobody is using it,” said the girl with gray hair. “Why can’t it be flown? Can’t you fly it?”
“I could,” said the green-eyed man. “But it waits for Forrest Gulch.”
The girl with gray hair went to school in a very proper building made of white plaster and giggling children. She learned about song and dance and Aerodynamics. When she graduated she sang a song called “Reach for the Sky”. Then she stayed in the town with the Commander II in it. A group of traveling singers came through the town and she did not join them.
The war against Thrall went on, and Thoth had the upper hand. Thrall could not protect itself from the black spheres that were dropped from the Killraven and the smaller airships. They fought Thoth on the land, and on the seas. They almost lost. Then one day the girl with gray hair picked up a newspaper and looked at the headline. She took it to the green-eyed man. “Look,” she said. “Forrest Gulch is dead. The Killraven was hit by a catapult.”
The green-eyed man nodded. “There is no war here,” he said to her. “Thrall is far away. Come.”
The green-eyed man had many friends and together they ran the Commander II as it flew upwards into the vast sky. The girl with gray hair stood onboard and looked around her at the clouds. She looked up at the sun, and went to the ship’s edge and saw the land far below. She did not say anything. The green-eyed man and his friends saw her as she moved about the ship and continued to do the work of keeping the ship in the air.
After that, she flew many times. She did not know whom the green-eyed man worked for, or who he was, but nobody stopped her from flying. She grew to understand that nobody else still cared about the Commander II. Thoth was in the grips of war with Thrall, and Forrest Gulch was no longer leading the airships. So she flew as often as she could, and never said a word while in the air. The green-eyed man was sure she used to talk. The air took the place of her words.
One day in the last year of the Blust lineage, the Commander II was no longer there. The green-eyed man pointed to a group of workers carrying some of the old jarwood away on carts and mules. “Thrall has won the war,” said the green-eyed man. “They say that there will be no more airships. They fear what the Commander II could do against them. You will not be able to fly anymore.”
The girl with gray hair waited until he and all the workers had gone. She looked where the Commander II had once been tethered. She looked up, and down. Then she stretched her arms out into the air and flew.