Altheas first Portal - Soujel Aircity: Althea's arrival

Prompt #1 - Soujel Aircity

Avangard’s population lives solely in fleets of airships that sail the planet’s skies. The largest of these ships is the informal capital, Soujel. The ship is decked in ornate golds and reds, and is visible from an incredible distance thanks to the constant display of lights on its hull. These ships are designed to drift high above the clouds. The skies above the airship cities are always crystal clear. Draw or write your character arriving on an airship. The submission must include your character and a red and gold airship.

 

Altheas last memory of the prior day was of a woman who recently moved into her small town, who had invited her for tea. 

It hadn’t struck her as weird that the woman had seeked her out - she was known for being there to listen to everyone’s problems and lending a helping hand if she could, so she just assumed the woman needed help with the move or a job or talking about the reason she had to move or something along those lines.
She did not even wonder about the almost completely empty house she entered, save for a few cardboard boxes standing around. After all, unpacking was hard and moving furniture often took time.
The woman, who had introduced herself as Margaret, was a tall, middle-aged lady with pretty old-fashioned clothes - even for her age - and grey eyes that seemed to look directly into her soul. 
Althea was rarely intimidated, but the look the old lady gave her when she first examined her, definitely made her shrink a little. But the stern look quickly turned into a warm smile and Margaret ushered her into the house and in the living room, that seemed a lot more done than the rest of the house. 
It had a little table and some comfy chairs around it and Althea could hear a tea kettle brewing a few rooms over.
Margaret motioned for Althea to sit down and make herself at home and told her, she’d be right back, she’d just get the tea kettle off the stove and some cups. The white haired woman nodded and took a seat in one of the chairs, while calmly waiting for Margaret to return.
They made some small talk while they waited for the tea to calm down and when Althea took the first sip, she thought, she could see a grin on the older woman’s face for a second or two. 

And now Althea had awoken in a completely unfamiliar place, in the dark, with loud whirring sounds in the background. What had happened in the last hours? How many hours had she been out of consciousness anyway? Had it been a day? Two? Maybe weeks? 
Completely confused and overwhelmed, she scrambled to her feet, after checking for any injuries - luckily none. She even had her clothes and her beloved belt, which also was a protection talisman - maybe the reason she was unharmed and seemingly untouched, at least concerning her belongings. 
She squinted her eyes a little and slowly started to be able to discern her surroundings a tiny bit more - enough, to see that she was in a small, wooden room. And this room seemed to move a little from side to side. Was she on a ship maybe? But wouldn’t she hear the waves crashing outside then? And what did those mechanical sounds mean she kept hearing? 
Carefully she inched closer to what she hoped was a door - she couldn’t quite make it out in this dim light, but it seemed like there was a handle glittering in the dark, reflecting off the little light coming into the room.

Just a few moments before she could reach for the handle, the door got opened and she had to shut her eyes from the blinding light that entered the room, stumbling a few steps back inside.
“Oh! You’re awake! I just wanted to come and check on you!”, said a friendly, female voice. It was not the voice of Margaret luckily, it was a different voice.
Reluctantly Althea opened her eyes again and tried to let her eyes get used to the light. 
“Yeah… uhm… where am I? What … happened?”, she asked slowly, before quickly shutting her mouth again. Was it even safe to ask this? But before she could retract her question, the woman already replied.
“My, we fished you out of the air, dearie! You fell straight onto our ship - lucky that Peter caught you, otherwise you might’ve broken a few bones or worse!”, she said with a heavy dialect. 
“Out of … the air? What are you talking about?”, Althea wanted to know with a confused tone in her voice. What did that mean - out of the air? At least her guess that this might be a cabin inside of a ship seemed to have been correct, even though she couldn’t hear or feel the water that supposedly had to surround them, at all, which was weird, considering her elemental powers were water based.
“Yeah, we think you fell out of a badly placed portal. We got a lot of travellers coming to our ships through magical portals!”, the woman explained, before her face fell. “Oh my! Where are my manners! I completely forgot to introduce myself! I’m Annie and Peter is my husband, who found you and brought you down here. Sorry for the crude room, we don’t have much. But you must be hungry, why don’t you come into the kitchen with me?”, Annie asked warmly and Althea nodded, although a bit hesitant and her head still spinning from all the new informations. 
A portal, huh? Was this Margaret’s doing? And if yes, had she intended to drop her off here? Or had maybe the belt protected her from worse outcomes? Where even was she?
Whatever the case, her growling stomach and dry throat reminded Althea that there were more important things first to be dealt with.

After a hearty meal and some unpoisoned water - this time, Althea did check with her water powers before drinking it though, just to be safe - Annie led her out onto the deck, to show her around. 
“Welcome to Soujel Aircity.”, Annie smiled, gesturing at everything that lay before them.
And now Althea realised, why she couldn’t feel the water surrounding them. There was no water. This was not a normal ship, either. It was an airship.
She had only heard about those in tales and stories from travellers or in books and never seen one in real life and now she suddenly woke up on one without any idea why.
At first, she felt fear. But soon, her curiosity gained the better of her and she stepped close to a railing she saw a few meters away, to look into the sky and down below, but there were only clouds to be seen, no ground. How high up were they?
It seemed to be a whole airship fleet, all covered in reds and golds, each of them looking a little differently. Now she also knew, what the mechanical whirring was - it came from the airships themselves, as well as from different mechanical constructs that populated the city like pets or servants.
“Careful, or you’ll fall off the railing, dearie!”, Annie warned her from behind and made her snap back into the present. 
“I’m sorry, I just … I didn’t realise you were talking about an airship all the time! I thought you meant a regular ship!”, Althea replied almost breathless, still admiring what lay before her.
“Regular? For you, maybe. For us, those airships are the only ships we know! Ain’t no ocean here in sight except an ocean of clouds!”, Annie laughed amused.
And with that, she showed me around and I excitedly took in my new surroundings. The shining gold metal was stunning and the sails and walls were coloured in different, rich shades of red, which made me gain a new liking for the colour. 
It all would make such cool tattoo motives!
Even though she wanted to find a way home, she’d definitely stop to explore this lovely airship city a bit longer.