The Maple Seed Flies - Auto Gyro Design Quest

The next day you are shown to your workshop. It is a squat little building at one end of the construction yard complex, separated from the office and yard by warehouses. It is isolating, but it suits you nonetheless. With trucks and carts constantly rumbling through the main yard and people running back and forth between offices, this might be the only place where you could find some peace and quiet.

The workshop is split into three rooms; the first two are an office just large enough for a desk you're unlikely to ever use and a water closet. The last is a spacious, light-bathed room filled with drafting boards, workbenches, and a large central space perfect for building your aircraft. The doors at one end of this room, closed now but clearly able to swing wide, hint at a not-so-distant future when you roll something beautiful through them. It is bare, but enough to be getting on with. This will certainly suffice. You set to work.

- - -

A steam whistle pierces through several hours of accumulated concentration and it's only when you check your watch that your stomach rumbles. It clicks open easily. Huh, lunchtime. You should find something to eat.

Walking across the yard is an experience in and of itself. There aren't many men left hanging around with barely a handful finding a place in the shade to eat their lunches. None of them will meet your eye when you look their way. Is it the way that you're dressed? You've certainly been modest - a longer skirt, a smart shirt, and your hair is tied into a neat bun. You have read enough about the culture of chaste and demure women in Akitsukini to know that your normal attire isn't going to fit in, but isn't this enough?

Then again, what could you do? It wasn't your job to enlighten the ignorant workmen.

Your plan was to head to the main office, hoping to find a canteen (or directions to one, at the very least). Instead, you almost ran headlong into the diminutive, robe-wearing translator who had been at your meeting with your new boss. Today he(?) appeared less androgynous and ultimately feminine.

"Oh, Baroness. I'm sorry." He bows low, a few loose hairs falling into his face.

"No, please, my fault. Are you in a hurry, um…" You realise you don't know his name.

"Tomomi."

"Thank you, Tomomi. I'm trying to find some lunch, do you have any recommendations?"

They look at you askance, frowning. Have you said something wrong? You were just trying to be polite.

"There are food carts on most streets. Do you need help ordering?"

You smile, patting the pocketbook of language notes in your breast pocket. It has a whole section on food and restaurant etiquette prepared for just such a moment as this.

"No, I'll manage well enough. Good day."

There is something about Tomomi that puts you off. Fortunately, he looked relieved as you turned away and made for the gate. One less thing to worry about in this weird little country.

It only takes a few minutes to find a nearby stall with a few stools and an arrangement that seems to function as a tiny ad-hoc kitchen. You shrug internally. Frankly, the sooner that you can eat and get back to the office, the happier you will be. You don't particularly care what the food tastes like. A few minutes later you are walking back to your office a few hundred yen lighter, clutching a small wooden box.

The food is… unusual. You have read a little on Akitsukini cuisine and had heard incredible things about seafood and rice dishes. You come from the country of Paella after all. There is only so much you can do with the main ingredients and (so long as they are not poisonous) you cannot do much wrong, or so you thought. Not that the little box contains anything untoward, no, the rice balls filled with preserved fish and mound of pickled vegetables are delicious. But it does nothing to remind you of home and certainly is not what you had hoped for. It tasted good enough to finish and soon you are full with nothing but an empty wooden box and an overwhelming urge to take just the briefest nap before continuing your vital work.

You could swear you only closed your eyes for a minute. You could, but you know without looking that you'd be lying. The door swinging open with a crash is a pretty good alarm though, you have to admit.

"Oh! I thought the office was empty I… ma'am?"

Ah. It appears your diminutive staff has arrived.

Who makes up your staff? Choose three:
[ ] Kiku Inoue, secretary. A shy woman who is barely out of her teens and has been sent from the main office to handle any paperwork issues. Reduces stress per routine.
[ ] Ichiro Abe, engine fitter. A rough and ready maintenance worker who is somehow always covered in grease of one kind or another. Improved access to engines.
[ ] Takehiro Saito, joiner. An older man who has worked with his hands his entire life. The world is changing but wood doesn't. Adds 1 free optimization per routine.
[ ] Shigeru Takenaka, materials engineer. A nerdy glasses wearer recently out of university in Tokei. Improved access to design materials.
[ ] Michi Kawaguchi, a non-binary negotiator. They are airy and distant and the Baroness hasn't worked out Akitsukini gender yet. Better contract opportunities.
[ ] Hiroki Ono, an army veteran and pilot. Has hands-on experience with modern planes and you'll never be short a test pilot.

CW: Just a lil bit of Enbyphobia to put a downer on your day

"Come in, come in." You motion for them to enter properly, rubbing the light crust of siesta from your eyes. After a brief pause, you realise your mistake, "Ah… Come in."

You pull your little translation guide from a drawer, opening it as the three file in. You're going to have to improve fast if you're going to lead a team, but the book will be a boon for now.

"Ah, um. Welcome, friends. I am Clara de la Cierva and you will be working for me. Introduce yourselves."

None speak immediately. The youngest of them, a tiny woman wearing an approximation of western office attire with a few touches of what can only be local fashion, has her eyes firmly fixed on the floor. The other standout is a middle-aged man in work overalls who exudes a smell of engine oil even from across the room. Has he already been working this morning or is it ingrained so deep in his skin that it never comes out?

The last of them is the only one in traditional clothes, and is also the first to speak.

"Thank you, ma'am. I am honoured to introduce Mr. Ichiro Abe," a gesture to the man, "Miss Kiku Inoue," another to the left, "and I am Michi Kawaguchi."

"Good to meet you. Do any of you speak Albian? Hesperian?"

"No, ma'am. Though there's someone at the main office-"

"Tomomi, yes. I'll manage." You look over the assembled trio, considering the strange turn your life has taken, and how equally strange it must be for these three to be dragged from their usual roles to be the lackeys of a foreigner. You had better make a good first impression, in the name of shared circumstances.

"Mr. Abe, could you wait for me in the main room, I'll be out in a short while."

He nods and gives the slightest of bows before leaving wordlessly. Whether he's quiet or uncomfortable, you'll soon find out. But first, some reassuring words to the other two. You've read enough about Akitsukini to know that they're not as developed in the balance between the sexes as back home. If that's the case, then you girls are going to have to stick together and make sure the men know their place.

"Things are difficult between men and women here. I want you to be certain that I will protect women at all times. If there are any problems, come and see me. Okay?"

Whatever response you had expected, it hadn't been two simultaneous winces. Your attempt at reassurance was now being met by looks of intense awkwardness and discomfort, and you couldn't help but feel a little the fool.

"What?" You ask, possibly more sharply than you intend.

After a length pause, Michi chooses to speak up in response, "I'm sure Miss Inoue appreciates you saying so, Ma'am."

"What about you?"

"I- I would hate to overstep my position as your subordinate. Ma'am."

"I don't speak enough of this damn language for… modesty. Speak." You can feel anger, unwarranted and unbidden, rising in your chest. It's not anger at either of these people, though their inability to speak clearly is not helping. It's the language barrier that is truly frustrating.

"I'm not a woman."

"...What!"

"I'm going to get Tomomi"

- - -

"So, you see, in Akitsukini there are people who are neither male nor female. We occupy a third sex, though it's not something that can easily be described in Albian. The words don't exist, or if they do I don't know them."

Tomomi and Michi are now seated across from your desk, making the tiny office seem even smaller than before. Kiku has been dismissed for the day with distress and instructions to return in the morning. You have a glass of some sort of local spirit in front of you that tastes enough like Hesperian rum to be soothing. Goodness knows you were needing it.

"A third sex, okay… wait, we?" you reply in Albian. At least you're fluent in this one.

"I'm also a non-binary person. There are a few of us who work for Mr. Asano."

You have so many questions. So many. Fortunately, a sense of decorum and the vaguest modicum of respect for other people prevents you from making any… awkward and utterly inappropriate inquiries about genitals or childhood. Instead, you play the ignorant foreigner who is willing to learn. It's barely an act, after all.

"Okay. You're not men or women. You're something else. But look, if I don't use he or she, what do I say?"

"In Albian, we use they and them. In Akitsukini it's more complicated but… This one would refer to oneself using formal language so as to establish one's identity and place in a conversation. Did you follow that?"

"Wait, that's the formal degendered voice, I- Oh, I see. I read about it, but I had presumed it was a hangover from your noble and religious castes."

"That's... not entirely wrong? People like us were more culturally present in those areas back then, so there's a certain association that remains."

"I see." You rub your forehead with the heel of your hand and sigh, "I apologise, Tomomi and Michi, to both of you. You have been very patient with me despite my ignorance."

As much as you still aren't entirely grasping the concept, that was hardly an excuse not to be polite. As strange as it felt, referring to Tomomi and Michi with "they" and "them" in the future would be easy enough. When in Tiberia, after all...

- - -

After that deeply awkward conversation, Tomomi became something of an unofficial attachment to the team - as your language skills improved they offered less advice and translation and more on cultural matters. Fortunately for that time all of you were focused intently on work; You and Ichiro on assembly, directing the various workmen who came and went, Michi on drafting orders and negotiating for better prices, and Miss Inoue… seemed to always be where she was needed, waiting quietly with notepaper, an order form, or some other documentation. The team started to come together as the aircraft did, forming a whole in the centre of the workroom.

It is a replica of the C.5, as requested, but with a handful of improvements and changes. A local engine (By a technicality. It is a locally made replica of a Europan design, similar to the Hesperian model in the original C.5) is installed and much of the frame comes from a retired observation plane. But the tail, the rotating wing, and the landing frame are all hand-tooled by you and your team.

It is not quite the same aircraft. It is paler, the wood is more flexible, and the cabling is perhaps a little lower grade. But it is otherwise a brand new C.5, identical to its sister, which you hope is still intact in Gabriella and her husband's barn back in Turia.

There's a test flight scheduled for the weekend. Now you've just got to decide who's going to fly the thing.

Who is going to fly the autogyro?
[ ] I will. No one else has the experience in an aircraft like this.
[ ] Talk to Mr. Asano. He's the boss, he gets to choose.
[ ] Ask the team. Someone here must have a contact.