"It's not so different from the sea," says a voice downwind from Victor and Makka, "but I've certainly never seen anything like the view. Nor had the chance to touch the sky."

She is pink-cheeked and nowhere near as bundled against the cold as Victor is as she steps back from her precarious position leaning over the ship's railing, half hanging from the side as she's watched the bow slice through the clouds and let wind and moisture whip her face. Human, dark-haired, fair-skinned and freckled—and younger than Victor by a few years, by the looks of the two of them—the strangest things about the girl are her short-cropped hair, the bundle of fur wrapped around her neck and shoulders, and the piercing, mismatched blue and green eyes she's turned in his direction.

"It smells different, too, I suppose." She studies Victor first, then the wolf between his arms. "And I can't jump off to bathe in the sea. But this is the first ship I've ever seen in the air. Maybe it's different on other ones."