Airships Over Aranor 2

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Conall Morgan Reynolds is indeed his name, and his to charge is the good ship Farran. It is a small ship, built by the efforts of its original crew, and it takes the kind of sensitive, expensive, private, and often dangerous charters that a larger, company-owned ship would not be suitable for. But at the moment the ship is not carrying anything or anyone important; the threat is for an entirely unique reason all its own. It seems you are good at guessing, and not a moment too soon. One of his crew members needs to relay some important information, after all.

"Conall, I fear that the Farran's maneuverability is far outstripped by our pursuer, much less her breath. Furthermore, if something important catches I shall have to leave this post to someone less able than I in order to prevent it from spreading." He manages to spit all of this out in hardly any time at all, and without looking away from the complicated apparatus of levers and switches and wheels that he is sitting in front of. The interlocutor looks short because he is sitting down, but don't be fooled--he actually is kind of short. The helmsman (or pilot, if you would prefer) is not a human like Conall, but a Blue Tail Neshobe.

I'm going to pause a moment to explain what those three words mean. First of all, "Neshobe" is the Neshoban word for "wolf", and at one time a very, very long time ago they were large, humanoid, sentient wolves. In the present they more resemble humans of a more canine skeletal structure with the tail and ears of a wolf; and are capable of shifting to a human-wolf hybrid form that is informally referred to as a "werewolf" form. The Neshoba are unique among Aranor's kinds in that their kind counts within itself six further hereditary separations, each of which has its own unique traits and magic. Neshoba in general use magic in the form of discrete spells, each of which does a particular thing and nothing else; often this is more dynamic, powerful or complex than another race's magic would be able to directly do. The six divisions are most easily distinguished by a color and an element; the Blue Tail usually have a blue fur and eye coloration, and always have spells of the water element. I won't go into too much detail until it is important, but suffice to say that of the six kinds of Neshoba, Blue Tail are the ones that look and act the most "human" and least "animal"; they also have a reputation for the best education systems, least violent conflicts among themselves, and being smart in general.

This particular Blue Tail has slightly darker spots against lighter blue fur; the hair on his head is short and of the former color, his eyes are of the latter. He doesn't look much older than Conall, but that is deceptive: Neshoba are among the elves and a few other races of Aranor which do not have a particular life expectancy based upon age. They are known as the "immortal races": While they are just as easy to kill as anyone else, they live a very long time when not killed, and after reaching adulthood their bodies rarely show signs of further aging. But all these detailed descriptions are really belying the momentum of the crisis at hand; who do I think I am, Tolkien?
The matter at hand is fairly simple. The Farran is being chased by a dragon. A fire-breathing dragon is chasing an airship whose frame is mostly wood. And as far as anyone can tell, it is angry. However, Conall has a reliable source to discover the source of that anger. He turns to what looks like a big black panther curled up in one corner of the bridge, head turned up to watch everyone else. "Do you have anything?"

The cat, in fact a Fylenis, turns its head up toward the captain, and a masculine voice enters his head directly, without passing through the air as sound. Lots. What do you want to know?
"The obvious. Who it is, what he wants with us, why."
Her name is Arizan. She wants to kill us because she thinks we've been hired to kill her.
"We are couriers, not assassins! Why would anyone even think that?"

It seems that Choneiji Raoclem told her something ambiguous. An audible groan can be heard from almost everyone in the room, except the large cat and the pilot. "Choneiji" is a title, not a name, and translates very roughly to "prophet". There are only seven in the world, and there have never been more than seven. Raoclem has a reputation for using his knowledge to cause trouble for everyone he meets, and then laughing at the results. The exact wording could just as easily make us responsible for saving her, or involve a complete accident.

Conall can choose one of two routes here. The giant cat in the room, Fylenis as their kind is called, is capable of telepathy and able to negotiate with the dragon outside. If he can talk her down, the problem will be solved. However, if her first reaction to the possibility of someone's involvement in her death is to try to burn their ship down, she might not actually be all that reasonable. Other than that, there is a woman with wings on the bridge who would be able to fly out and fight the dragon. Killing is unlikely--dragons are much larger than other people--but you might be able to deter or delay or injure her enough to escape. Doing both at the same time is impossible; and doing either one first will make the other less effective. The Fylenis can create an illusory ship and mask the fighter's presence, but if Arizan is tipped off to a Fylenis' presence on the ship (a very rare advantage for any airship crew) she can simply make a gigantic cone of fire instead of trying to be precise. And trying to talk to someone who you just got through fighting is far from likely to succeed.
(Of course, we could just completely ignore this crisis by being someone else entirely. Aranor probably has thousands of other interesting people on it at the moment. The result would of course be a woefully sporadic narrative, but it wouldn't be on me.)

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From: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?42524-Airships-Over-Aranor-Prose