Captain's Log- Gathering the Crew

My mechanical navigatrix and I arrived at Chez Norton in record time-- a trip halfway 'round the world never flew by so quickly! Of course, this time there were no stops... still, airship travel has proven to be a boon. The most troublesome aspect of this particular trip was the pigeons that kept cluttering up the outside deck. One found a way inside, and it was an exhausting day chasing it back out and cleaning up after the leavings.

The door was answered by a well-dressed lady, clearly not a maid, and I informed her that I had been regularly writing her brother, and inquired if he was in. She gave me a most inscrutable smile and led me into the parlor, where a young girl, also well-dressed, was at tea.

You can imagine my momentary surprise, when said young girl introduced herself as the younger Miss Norton, and explained to me that the lady who led me in was in fact the 'brother' I had come to visit.

The younger Miss Norton's age is impossible to pin down by merely looking at her. She is at one moment a woman and the next a child. Popular literature often likes to portray the chronically ill as angelic, as if to somehow elevate their suffering, and it had until now been my experience that they rarely were. Sick people were just that-- sick. Wan. In pain. I wonder if the younger Miss Norton has herself had any influence on popular literature, for she is little and ethereal, and within mere moments I honestly did feel as though she could be my own little sister.

Sphinx (I doubt she would take kindly to being called 'the elder Miss Norton'...) spoke with me at length about the voyage, and seemed quite eager. It seems medical science has not been progressing to the Norton sisters' satisfaction in their corner of civilisation, and she was very interested in taking her sister abroad to look for different cures. They had already experimented with some eastern medicine, and found it helpful (such the benefit of the influence of the Orient on the western coast here).

Having been at one time or another suspected of every ailment known to man, the younger Miss Norton was something of an expert on medical care, and gladly volunteered to act as a sort of ship's nurse on our voyage. Sphinx, I learned, is a magnificent cook as well as an admirable artist when it comes to sketching down the natural world.

It was not the full complement I had originally hoped for, but having an automaton at the helm meant we did not need a full human crew, and could fly all night as well as day. And, the sisters Norton brought with them two more valued crew members-- Oscar and Conan. Oscar is a large, grey longhair, and Conan is smaller, white and orange, with folded ears. Sphinx has doted on them from kittenhood, and would not leave them behind, but all I could think was that I finally had a means of banishing those pigeons!

The lot of us set out to observe some strange caverns not too far off from here.

Captain Burton Wilder
The Brass Unicorn