Quote:
Originally Posted by
lemon 
Close-ish was good enough for Alice, so after taking a look at his calculations, she headed for the owlery. "The place where they send them from should have a window, right?" Or open space.. something. She gave the sextant a couple of good swings on their way to the post place, brandishing it like the execution equipment it was and clinging tightly to her other materials with her free hand. These things, they were awesome.
Would Flamsteed maybe let her keep one? For celestial purposes and stuff, no whacking. Obviously.
There was still no way other than the pointer stars that she could recall for Polaris finding, so she looked for them in the bowl of the Big Dipper again, soon arriving in the vicinity of the North Star a second time. "There." Up there. In the sky. She saw it.
"You're dead scary with that thing, you know?" Mo scooted out of her reach while Alice was brandishing her sextant as a weapon. He had no interest in unusual shaped bruises, and that was the direction he was heading while Alice was clearly imagining hurting people. Sometimes her mind, fascinating as it was, scared him.
He inched into the opening, trying very hard not to step on owl droppings or those pellets with mouse skeletons in them. It was difficult to get close enough to the opening to see the sky, let alone Polaris, but Mo finally managed to catch the tail end of Draco. He followed Draco up with each step, and there at the end, the last star was in line between Ursa Major and Polaris.
"It isn't
hard to find, is it? Do you think there's anyone left who can't do it?"