—shit. 

He grabs Su-Jin with the wind out of habit, hauling them both back on deck. Everyone else, also on instinct, grabs hold of the nearest rope or tied-down object. 

Jacob tightens his grip on the rail, which warps under and around his hand to hold it in place. Wood and rope elsewhere on the ship wrap around various crewmembers who were too slow to secure themselves. Where Cas and Su-Jin landed, the deck beneath them grows armlike tendrils that grab the two of them and anchor them down. 

Less than two seconds have passed since the tornado appeared. 

It lasts for ten seconds. The gales that ought to be dizzily spinning off of it seem more muted than they should be, by right, but the result is still more than windy enough for most people’s taste.

Someone within human skin-tone variation floats down from it, once it’s fully dissipated, up to just a few feet above the deck.

”Hello! Goodness, Arizvam wasn’t exaggerating when she said ‘aliens’, although you definitely aren’t eldritch blobs of pulsating energy- um, I’m the fellow who’s hosting you?”

The ship releases its hold on its crewmembers as it becomes clear that the danger is not as imminent as it appeared. 

Jacob steps forward. "Greetings. I am Captain Hyland; welcome aboard the Covenant. I take it the tornado was your doing?" 

“Yup!” he chirps. “I’d have a dreadful time getting around otherwise, they’re how I teleport. Um, I suppose I should introduce myself more formally, shouldn’t I- I’m Kadlawen, Royal Red Sorcerer, he-who-holds-no-country, the Miscellaneously Helpful, pavaiel Sashadö pavaiel Lalvië pavaiel Bradatö- there are probably other titles but I can never quite remember them."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kadlawen. I'm afraid we haven't quite finalised the list of crewmembers who will be going with you, yet, as some of us need to stay with the ship."

“The pleasure’s all mine. I don’t have the opportunity to meet intensely polite aliens every day, you know- and I could also just pluck up the ship entire and bring it there, if you’d like? There’s plenty of room.”

This is the face of someone who is intensely dubious about his ability to in fact do that safely.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea. The structural integrity may already be compromised; I'd rather not risk her in a tornado at the moment, and I don't get the impression you have a less...energetic...means of transport." 

“... things that I transport via whirlwind don’t, actually, experience substantial turbulence in the process,” he clarifies. “Notice how I am mostly unruffled. If something’s within the tornado and I’m not transporting it, then it’s, um, kind of not going to have a good time of it, but things that I do transport don’t experience much more than a light breeze.”

Jacob remains intensely dubious.

(They nearly crashed, the ship could have fallen to pieces, he's still not entirely sure she's not going to—he hasn't been this nervous, hasn't felt this mortal, in a decade—)

He checks, compulsively, stretching out his senses to feel the structural integrity of the whole vessel. She's holding. She can hold through a whirlwind. Probably.

"I...suppose it would simplify a few things," he says, letting a little of his reluctance show. 

“You can, of course, do whatever to think is best,” Kadlawen reassures.

(Having someone be this skeptical of his ability to do things is sort of unnerving.)

(Putting his literal life into the metaphorical hands of someone he's only just met is more than a little unnerving.) 

"Of course I can; she's my ship." And he's not entirely sure Cas could take this person in a fight but he is confident the whole crew together could manage it. And they would, for him. It doesn't seem likely to come to that, but the knowledge is reassuring nonetheless. 

"Very well," he says after a pause. "You may attempt to transport this ship and its crew. I expect it would be convenient for the familiars to come along as well; the Kraken is mine." He gives Kadlawen a look which suggests that any damage to either ship or Kraken will be taken out of his hide. 

“Lovely,” says Kadlawen, who might find threatening looks and suave self-assuredness appealing in other circumstance but is, in this one, tragically unimpressed. 

And then Kadlawen gestures grandly with a staff and wand that weren’t there a few moments ago, and infants a few words, and they are in a tornado- which is, as promised, at most mildly breezy with regards to its passengers, if still obnoxiously loud- and then they are in a rather different body of water, as compared to the one they started with.

They’ve landed on a large dodecagon, although they’re at a poor angle to figure out the precise size; suffice to say that it makes the ship look rather tiny. At each tip, there is a tower, made out of some solid gemstone and interlaced with ivory in intricate geometric patterns. The tower that they’re closest to appears to be a deep, violet-hued amythest; the one to the right of it is some sort of magenta agate, the one to the left of it is a deep blue sapphire, and so on; they can safely presume that they form a rainbow. Each seems cast from a similar architectural mold, with small tweaks.

Between each tower, forming an edge to the oddly large polygon, there are grandiose curtain walls, made from ivory, with elaborate swirls and curlicues of gemstone, with that gemstone forming a smooth gradient between tower colors. Each wall has an elaborately calligraphed ‘exit’ sign- which, uncannily enough, seems to be rendering itself in their native language- and a downward arrow; one presumes that a closer look might reveal a staircase of some kind.

In the middle of the absurdly large dodecagon, there is a castle- white, with rainbow accents, and far from the sort of castle one acquires via budget constraints.

We’d better leave it at that.

The surface of the dodecagon seems to be mostly covered in smooth, clear water, pristine enough that they can see (ivory) bottom; it reflects the light of the two suns with unnatural mildness, just enough to be pretty, not enough to blind. There are (ivory) bridges- high enough that their ship ought have no trouble passing beneath them- between the castle and the outer towers.

Arizvam may have been understating the case, when she said ‘size not a concern’.

Just a little, yes. 

(Jacob absently checks the Covenant's stability again. His anxiety ticks down a notch or two when he finds her as intact as she was before her trip through a whirlwind.)

"Impressive," he says to Kadlawen. "...all yours?" 

“I just finished making it just a few minutes ago and accordingly haven’t filled out property-claim forms with the associated city! I love having excuses to make castles- and on a relevant level you can consider it all yours, unless you’re secretly a serial killer and I need to confiscate your castle for the sake of society, or something.”

Cas is definitely not making any type of expression which might imply that Jacob, or anyone else, is secretly a serial killer. 

He looks like he's suppressing an urge to giggle, which is true. He's also shoving down several other potential expressions, most of which would be less ambiguous, and trying not to think 'oh shit what's he figured out' too loudly in case there are telepaths around. 

(Technically, Jacob is a reformed serial killer. Cas is sort of proud of the 'reformed' part.) 

Jacob doesn't visibly react to the serial killer comment. (He's glad Kirill and Su-Jin are both too distracted by their familiars to pay attention to this conversation. They're not quite so skilled at managing their reactions.)

There's a little bit of surprise he can't hide, but he manages to redirect it into, "You mean to say that you built this entire castle today?" 

“I made the plans a few weeks ago- I have a little castle-design folder for when the need arises- and those are most of the work: I just had to stab myself a few times, wait to reform, and wave around my wand and staff and suchlike for a while to make it actually appear. Although I had to make a few design tweaks afterwards- you never quite know how something looks until you make it, you know?”

"Stab yourself?" 

That is definitely purely academic curiosity and not any other type.

Mostly academic curiosity. 

... Kadlawen notices the slight dose of non-academic curiosity.

He doesn’t act on it, for the moment, but he notices it.

“... I suppose Arizvam didn’t give you a full explanation of our magic system? Um, I have a unicorn, alongside other familiars, and you can boost thaumaturgy by sacrificing virginity- in, um, the obvious way- or by life sacrifice, or by sacrificing the life of a virgin? And royal unicorn mages and sorcerers persistently count as virgins, and we self-resurrect? So if I want to cast anything particularly major I have to stab myself first.”

"Interesting. Ah, what sort of workings would count as major?" 

(Su-Jin has finally noticed they're talking about magic, and is listening in but letting Jacob do the talking.)

“Um, royal mages need a virgin sacrifice for- making spectacular floating castles? Resurrecting the dead en masse? Teleporting-in-groups-via-non-tornado-methods? I could make an army insubstantial for as long as I could hold the mana drain, temporarily let someone move and think and use thaumaturgy ten times as fast, ward a location against this ailment or that issue, make nifty boots that let someone fly... when I’m working without a sacrifice I can turn insubstantial myself, do the thing that’s letting me speak your language, do some minor scrying, regrow someone’s limb, transiently turn into a swarm of gumdrop grasshoppers... how much detail are you looking for?”

"Those examples are sufficient for now, although I suspect Su-Jin may want a more in-depth tutorial in magic later. A few of us seem to have acquired it, you see." 

He gestures to his Kraken, Su-Jin's Luduan, and Kirill's dragon. 

“It’d be a tricky thing to avoid noticing!” he agrees. “Um- should I show you around the castle, or should I show you around the city below us, or should I leave you to your own devices for a while, or should I do some unmentioned fourth thing?”

"Showing us around the castle seems like a reasonable next step if it's to be our home for the next while. I suspect some of my crew will prefer to find their own way, but personally, I should think it'll be useful to get a tour from the architect."