<div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c4/a2/eb/c4a2eb3622a5fd5f4149b8e094a22fa3.jpg)</div><strong>Name: </strong>Danae Vine-Lott<br/><strong>Location: </strong>The Charlotte, Saloon<br/><strong>Wearing: </strong>White cotton jodhpurs, loose grey muslin riding shirt with collar open and sleeves rolled up, barefoot<br/><strong>Content: </strong>Moongazing<br/><strong>Tagging: </strong>Open<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The bay windows let in a gust of saline sea air only slightly less muggy than the stifling heat in the saloon.  She had resolved to give her evening away to distraction – perhaps wiling away the little hours chatting to Garsenda or flirting with the lithe dancer sprawled out on the grand piano.  Yet the open air called to her – a siren song. Danae hauled herself up from her armchair and a startled Garsenda had to gather up her shift to avoid scandalising the saloon’s patrons.  A fresh gust seasoned with sea-spray and she immediately felt like stepping out.  She was unaccustomed to being confined in quarters for too long, and the horizon now opened up before her was a draw too powerful to resist.<br/>“Witchcraft is no trivial thing, Madame, it is a blight on the land, and a blot on the soul,” she told Camille.  A surge of suspicion overcame her.<br/><br/>The moon – all was governed by the phases of the moon, and the dark Sabbaths that took place in pale silver light and bloodstained granite altars – was an ominous sign.  Here there were ladies of standing who openly confessed to consorting with mystics and sorceresses.  The ship was corrupt, and yet a magnetic force seemed to draw her above-deck.  She felt its irresistible force.  So she hauled herself up above behind Aloisa and clinging Eloise and felt the rough-scrubbed surface of the decking underneath her feet, rimed with salt-spray.  The mists were dense and dancing, the light behind them sickly and wan.  Was it a moon?  A witching moon, even? If so, she could scarcely make it out.<br/><br/>To Aloisa, she said, “Do you sense something?”  She asked as though she were speaking to a fellow veteran.  There was something in the woman’s deportment that communicated competence; one well equipped for any eventuality.<br/><br/>The noblewoman Jacqueline’s comment resonated with her, “I fear that those who take to the sea all too soon forget that the waters and the mists harbour secrets deeper than those on dry land.  But the voyage would doubtless be a little more bearable if you were to make due concessions to the weather. No fellow officer would ever see me in this sorry state of dress!”  The rolling waves were like ink and she could scarcely make out the subtle line where the horizon blended into featureless waters.<br/><br/>Danae went over to the edge of the polished hardwood balustrade and peered into the mist, “Lady Rodes-Taving,” she said at length, “for so long as I can remember my sleep has been fitful and the heat and the heavy air have scarcely helped.  I have,” she paused and pondered her words, “an anodyne for that.  It brings sleep swiftly.”<em>And fever-dreams, too</em>.  Between the nocturnal visitations the opium brought about and insomnia, she had thus far chosen the latter. Still, it was perturbing that another passenger had felt the same restlessness, as though something stalked the night and the ancestral fear it carried with it impelled all to wakefulness.