Judith detested that she had to first go warn someone every time she meddled with the wind or weather. Let the weather do what it wanted, everyone accepted it as beyond their control; let her be in the vicinity and suddenly every little dip in pressure was her fault. Of course, in this case it was her fault, but the point stood.

The ship speed slacked off, something she did not necessarily wish to happen when they were this close to a quarry, but she didn't plan to be long at it. She needed to fine-tune for a heading, and being slapped upside the face with a gust every fifteen heartbeats was a distraction.

So the wind shut down, and Judith moved up to the aft-deck to track. It would help to get an estimation on where the other ship was, and at least she could reassure Spider that her father was still alive--which he was, praise the gods; you could never be absolutely certain of these things until you looked. But there was some small niggling burr coming between her and the other ship, and her jaw locked, bearing down on the interference until she sorted out what it was. Her face was so still, her mind so completely elsewhere, that she looked for all the world as if she had fallen asleep standing up.

Elaine hesitated a moment before walking up to the woman. "Um, Judith?" she asked. "Judith, are you there?"

Judith's eyes opened and focused on Elaine for a second longer than it took for the rest of her to come back. When she finally took a step back and blinked a few times, the rest of her fell into place. "Our pirate friends are headin' for a shipping line," she said brightly. "I think we can get 'em before they make a hit. They're just a little piece of nothin', but some of Lorrain's merchants ain't as well-armed as the Empire's."

Elaine looked relied. "And Spider's Pa?" she asked. "Is he still all right?"

"Oh, he's fine," she said, relegating the matter instantly to a secondary objective. "Gryphon can take care of himself if he can keep his temper damped so's no one wants to beat the shit outter him."

Elaine nodded. "Good. Um. Two things. One, and I already told the Ceallaigh we still have about this, Star caught Spider sleepwalking."

Judith blinked again, this time in surprise. "She all right? I thought I hadn't seen much of that girl today."

"I haven't seen her," Elaine answered. "She got all spooked on Star and threatened to tell you she'd caught us fooling around, so he's scared to tell you himself, but frankly, the fact that she's threatening him means whatever's going on with her is worse than being caught fooling around. And really." She added. "I'd rather not get into a game of pot-kettle with her over who's seen whom do what."

"Chances are she were countin' on Bram not makin' that leap of logic," she said. "She just wanted to scare the bright blue hell out of him. Any idea what she might be tryin' to hide?"

"No clue," Elaine answered, shrugging. "He said she was down belowdecks, and...she had a bump on her head? Like a read ugly black and blue? Which, knowing Spider, just meats a hard breeze hit her? But...I don't know, I was thinking maybe she was having nightmares about all the shit that happened when she was on the ship before and she doesn't want Andre coddling her...but...that's easy enough t to explain to any of the rest of us, you know?"