The ship touched down and the whole of her shuddered once as the weight came to rest, the great wings folding in one after another until the roar dropped back to a hum.
Alfred walked him as far as the head of the bridge and not a step past it.
"Right. Off with you, before I change my mind and keep you for ballast." He jerked his chin at the ground. "Some of us have a home to get back to that isn't a heap of black rock stuffed with relatives who'd sell one another for firewood."
"You have a ship and a bad back," Trafalgar said. "That's not a home. That's a hospice with wings."
"It's got better company than yours." Alfred's mouth twitched. "Go on. Your women are freezing out there waiting on you, and if one of them catches a chill standing about, I'm the one you'll pin it on."
"I'd find a way, yes." Trafalgar stepped onto the bridge. "Try not to fly into a mountain going home, old man. I've grown attached to the ship."
"Not the pilot?"
"The ship, I said."
