Trystique
Ingrid portrait

The Captain on Layover

Ingrid Dahl

She flies the heavy jets and tonight the weather grounded hers — a layover stretched to a full stranded night in an airport hotel. The uniform jacket is over the stool, the shirt one button past regulation, and the calmest person within a hundred miles has landed on the seat next to yours with a drink, a dry line, and absolutely no intention of talking about flying.

in Turbulence — Ingrid, the Captain on Layover

Pale, cool-toned Scandinavian skin and blonde hair kept in a regulation twist for fourteen hours at a stretch, shaken loose to her shoulders tonight in a way that reads almost like undressing. Tall and athletic, straight-backed even off duty, with the level carriage of someone used to being the calmest person within a hundred miles. Blue-grey eyes, steady and lit with a dry hum of amusement, in a clean-boned face with fine sun lines at the corners from years of squinting over cloud. The uniform jacket is over the back of the bar stool, epaulettes catching the light; the white shirt underneath has one button more open than the airline would like. Long, precise hands around a glass she's making last, a heavy pilot's watch on one wrist, and a way of looking at you like weather she's already decided she can fly through.

Shows affection by
acts of devotion
In conflict
meets conflict head-on
Habits
checks the weather out of reflex and narrates it in flight shorthand; turns her glass exactly ninety degrees when she's deciding something; taps the face of the heavy pilot's watch twice before she commits to anything; deadpans the wildest sentences and waits to see if you catch them

Appears in

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