In spite of Mal’s dire predictions, the distant blacksail ship turns out to be more of an annoyance than a threat. Over the course of the day it slips in and out of sight, though Mal does his best to keep The Ship Without A Name flying at optimal speeds.

Somewhere in the mid afternoon, Gunny gives up on their urgent watch of the distant stern horizon. Mal doesn’t stop checking every few minutes, at least for as long as Alice is willing to stay on the deck to watch. It’s as windy as the day before, so it’s not exactly easy to have a conversation. Unfortunately, this leaves Alice with little to occupy her time. Maybe if she goes back down to the cabin she can go back to digging around in Mal’s things in search of something to read. Not that there’s any guarantee she’ll find anything interesting, of course, but she’s bound to find something. Maybe, if she’s lucky, something boring enough she’ll be put to sleep. There’s certainly not anything useful she can do on the ship, and it kind of irritates her. She knows she’ll regret it if she asks for something to do.

When Alice gets down to the lower deck, she hears what she slowly recognizes as a muffled fiddle. She follows the sound to the cabin door, which she pushes open.

Inside, she finds Gunny with her back to the door, elegantly sawing away on such an instrument. Alice stands still watching her, quietly impressed.

When Gunny concludes her piece, Alice applauds. It certainly does the job of getting Gunny’s attention.

“Oh! Alice!” she says, sounding startled. She looks around the room, as if confirming she is in fact in the cabin. “I’m sorry, I forgot this was — I forgot you where staying in here,” she says. It sounds sheepish, almost embarrassed, though she certainly isn’t blushing as violently as Alice would be in the same situation. In fact, Alice herself is feeling a bit embarrassed. And foolish, for not making her presence known earlier.

“Your playing is lovely,” Alice says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard any good music. Thank you for playing.”

Gunny shrugs. “I have the thing,” she says, gesturing with the instrument a little self-consciously. “I may as well use it. But I’ll go back to the hold, I don’t want to—“

“No, no, please stay,” Alice says. “I mean, unless you don’t want the audience. I was just gonna be going through Mal’s things.”

Gunny raises her eyebrows, not sure whether to take Alice seriously. “I don’t mind the audience,” she says. “As long as you don’t mind the worse bits of my playing.”

Alice grins. “Anything to pass the time. Do you know Lament for a Sailor’s Wife?”

Gunny is on watch and Alice is up on the deck of the ship when they see their first indication of land. It’s far off in the distance, and even though she has Gunny point it out to her, Alice has trouble recognizing the distant discoloration of the horizon as something they might actually want to investigate. However, having their destination in sight is certainly exciting, and it slowly becomes more so as they approach the makeshift airship dock erected on an island that barely looks more substantial than a sandbar.

Thankfully, they reduce their speed significantly for the docking procedure. Alice gets to stand next to Mal without her goggles on and she can even talk to him in a reasonable voice and expect him to hear her — and her to hear his answers.

“This is such a tiny island,” Alice says, even though it’s not a very insightful comment. She just can’t help looking at it and wondering if they maybe went the wrong way.

“We’re still pretty high,” Mal says. “But it’s not large, no. All we need is fresh water, though. And we’ve been promised there’s plenty.”

“Ooo, do you think there are pools? I would love a soak.”

“Well, I don’t know if there are any, but if you find one, can I watch?”

Alice elbows him. “You’re being crude,” she says.

“And you’re trying not to laugh,” he says, grinning. “I can see it, so don’t try to deny it. I know you like it.”

She rolls her eyes, but Mal is too caught up in docking the ship to notice. Gunny hops over the railing with a rope over her shoulder and onto the dock they’ve approached. She disappears out of sight for a moment, and then briefly reappears.

“We’re tied!” she shouts. “I’m going to get the hose.”

“Aye,” Mal calls back, and Alice glances over at him.

“What hose?” she asks. He points towards the complicated structure that their hanging dock is anchored to. Alice looks a little closer, and she sees that it’s more than just a tall wooden scaffold — there’s some kind of pipe protected in the center. On closer inspection, it even has round metal hatches of varying sizes.

Then Gunny comes into view, tugging a heavy canvas pipe. She lines it up with one of the hatches, locking it in place. “We’re on!” she calls back towards the Nameless. “I’m going to explore!”

“I’ll go tell Den,” Mal says, and then disappears below deck. Alice looks out over the sandy little island. There isn’t much to see, just a scattering of palm trees, some sandy beaches, and a few inviting pools. Clearly the latter are what Gunny intend to investigate.

Mal returns with a bag slung over his shoulder. “Ready to take a look around?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Alice says, then nods towards his bag. “What’s that for?”

“Just in case we do find a pool or two. I figured it was better to be prepared.”

Alice grins. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Mal gestures towards the dock. “Ladies first,” he says.

Alice looks at the platform of the dock, which is a good ten feet below the level of the deck, and a good thirty feet above the sand. “I’m not exactly sure how—”

Mal sighs, and then passes in front of her to go through an obvious cut in the railing. “There’s netting here that you can use as a ladder,” he explains. A moment later, he drops out of sight, and then Alice hears his weight settle on the dock. “It’s not far at all, and I’ll be here to catch you if you fall.”

Trying not to think about how much she might enjoy that, Alice carefully picks her way down side of the ship. Fortunately she doesn’t fall, and the pair of them easily find their way down to the dirt of the island.

Alice decides it feels distinctly odd, standing on a bit of land that she can tell isn’t moving. She doesn’t mind the stillness — likes it, even — but there’s a moment there, with her feet firmly planted in the soil of an island she didn’t know existed five days ago, that is nothing less than everything she ever wanted.

And, sure, it never would have happened if she hadn’t embarked on her quest to find her father. After all, who gave them directions? But she can’t help thinking that the whole quest was a detour, a distraction, when there were other things she really should have been looking for.

“You coming?” Mal asks. He looks back at her with a frown until she grins back at him.

“Of course! Gunny’s gotta be around here somewhere, right?”

It doesn’t take long for them to find Gunny camped out protectively next to the pools, which are supported with sandstone blocks. There are four different terraced layers tool the pools, the upper levels given dedicated places to spill into the lower ones. All the pools are full at the moment, but there’s a wide-mouthed faucet over the uppermost pool that likely leads back to the water tower the Nameless is now connected to.

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When Gunny sees the newcomers arrive, she glares at Mal. “I found them first,” she says.

“I haven’t even said anything yet!” Mal protests. “If you had let me, I would’ve said Ladies first. Here.” He tosses Alice the bag of supplies he brought with him. “One of you ladies come and get me when you’re all clean and shiny, hmm?”

He turns on his heel and is gone before either Gunny or Alice can protest — not that either of them particularly want to. They’re more than happy to strip down and slide into the cool, refreshing water.

Gunny is rather a bit more efficient about the process than Alice is. Alice has barely gone through all of the things Mal packed — soap, yes, but also a comb, and a few towels — when Gunny is climbing out. “Is half an hour long enough?” Gunny asks, grabbing one of the towels and using it to start mopping at her hair.

“Hmm?” Alice asks. She glances up at Gunny, and then quickly away, embarrassed by the other woman’s nakedness.

“Before I tell Mal he can get here. Is half an hour long enough, or should I tell him to wait longer?”

I really should be done by then, Alice thinks, even though she knows getting herself out in time is going to be a struggle, to say the least. The water is just so relaxing and pleasant…

“Half an hour should be fine,” she says.

“Right,” Gunny says. “See you.”

And with that she is off, leaving Alice alone once more. She gets on with the more productive side of bathing and eventually she’s got just a few minutes left, by her reckoning, so she leans back and truly relaxes for the last few moments. In a minute she’ll get up. In a minute she’ll get up, because Mal is coming soon, but for now, she can close her eyes and lean her head back in the water and—

“Alice?”

She startles upright — and then realizes that standing all the way upright here only keeps the water up to her waist. So she quickly crosses her arms — and pretends the water is opaque enough to be any kind of effective cover.

“What are you doing here?” she demands, trying to fight against the blush that’s creeping over her features.

“I thought you’d be — done, by now. Gunny said you needed half an hour, but I gave you a bit more than that, just in case…”

I didn’t fall asleep, did I? Alice wonders. “Well, I’m not. Could you, like, close your eyes or something? So I can get out?”

“Why?”

“Mal,” Alice says exasperatedly. “Please?”

“Oh, fine,” he mutters. Then, he actually does one better — he turns around, too. Alice keeps an eye on him for a bit, just long enough to determine whether he’s entirely faking it and will turn around the instant she makes a splash — but he doesn’t move, so she hauls herself out of the water.

She’s only just gotten her pants on when Mal finally seems to grow impatient. “Aren’t you out yet?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, looking to button her pants. “But I’m not—” She looks up, expecting to see Mal’s back, but she’s instead making eye contact with him. “—dressed,” she finishes lamely.

“I — um — right,” Mal says, shaking his head roughly. He seems to forget what’s going on for a moment, and then he turns around so his back is to her again. In a rush, she pulls her blouse over her head.

“You can turn around now,” she calls out to Mal.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. Only then does he turn around. She’s patting her hair dry the best she can with a towel that’s still fairly damp. It’s not the best thing for the job, and it shows.

When she looks over at Mal, she’s surprised to see that he’s blushing, too. Not nearly as much as she is — she’s not sure if anyone can blush as much as she has been, recently — but there’s a tinge to his cheeks and a look in his eye that’s keeping him from exactly meeting hers.

“So. Uh. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says quickly. “There’s still soap and stuff. There’s only one towel, though. Gunny took two.”

“That’s why I packed two for her,” Mal says. “Well, I suppose it’s my turn now. So, unless you want to stay…”

The idea sounds both mildly tempting and terribly dangerous. This time, the danger weighs out. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I think I’m going to have to pass this time. I’m sure Gunny is already coming up with stories.”

“Right. Yes. Of course. Gunny.”

Alice nods. Then, she quickly turns on her heel and positively flees. She’s all the way back up on the dock before she’s even thought about how weird their interaction was — and what a fool she feels like now for simply running away from what could have been a good opportunity.

No, Alice, you’ll know a real opportunity when you see one, she tells herself. She can only hope that’s true. She’s made up her mind about what she wants, true, but not when — there’s still something she’s waiting for. Which is fine, of course, but it also means that she wants to scream, sometimes. Especially after interactions like this.

“You look mad,” Gunny observes.

Alice looks up from her position below the Nameless and sees Gunny leaning over the rail, staring down at Alice thoughtfully. Alice shrugs.

“I don’t know if mad is exactly the right word…”

“Well, do you have a better one?”

“Frustrated?”

“And that’s substantially different?”

“Yes. At least in context. He’d have to do something to make me mad.”

Gunny grins. “Trouble with Mal?”

Alice narrows her eyes. “What do you care?”

“He’s my captain, of course I care,” Gunny says shortly. “At least, I care about what he thinks. That’s why I’ve already had a chat with him. The question is whether I care what you think.”

Alice can’t decide whether this is supposed to be insulting. She errs on the side of not. “Do you care?” she asks.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Gunny says. “But maybe let’s stop discussing it out in the open?”

This only makes Alice terribly more curious what Gunny has to say. “Alright, then,” she says. “Where did you want to go to talk?”

Before answering, Gunny drops through the open hatch. Alice follows her down and then to a secluded corner where she’s hung her hammock. The boilers must be close by, because Alice can not only hear them, but she’s also pleasantly warm.

Gunny breaks the comforting image by making a statement that is somewhere between an accusation and a question. “Mal said you were a — Pierson.”

Alice makes a face. “Gods, no,” she says quickly. “I can see how he’d think that, but it’s not true.”

“Then why would he think that?” Gunny asks. Alice gives her a sidelong look. She can’t tell if Gunny’s actually interested, or just fishing for information. The thing is, if she’s fishing for information, she’s likely to be unpleasantly surprised. Alice really doesn’t have much of that, and anyway Gunny is going about trying to find out who she is in the strangest way Alice has seen. At least, it isn’t doing much of anything to determine any of the relevant parts of who she is, not that Alice can see.

“‘Cause my mom married a Piers,” Alice says. “He’s not my father, though.”

“Fahrn is.”

Alice wonders, briefly, how much Mal has told Gunny. Then she realizes it’s not her place to judge him for telling his shipmate. Clearly these are developments that are relevant to both of them… even if Alice doesn’t particularly appreciate being talked about behind her back. In particular she’s starting to wonder how much Mal offered, and how much Gunny wheedled out of him. She finds herself far more likely to forgive him for things brought out in the latter case.

“Yeah,” Alice says. “Fahrn is my father, Piers is my step-father. Any more questions?”

“If he married your mother, wouldn’t that automatically make you a Pierson?”

“No,” Alice says firmly. As a matter of fact, she’d kept her mother’s maiden name, Moore, but she wasn’t about to tell Gunny that, or why keeping it had been so important to her. “They weren’t married ’til I was eight. Before that Ma and I lived by ourselves. Ma’s a portrait artist.”

Gunny gives her a funny look. Alice has a feeling that even if she knew the emotion behind it, it wouldn’t make it any clearer. “And she made enough at that to get by?”

Alice doesn’t really know how to answer that question. It sounds vaguely loaded, even if it weren’t that problematic of a topic. Frankly, Alice can’t remember whether they were hungry. The few things she can remember of her life before Piers walked into it are afternoons in the park eating sandwiches and feeding the crusty ends to the ducks. And her mother’s studio being more than half the tiny flat they’d lived in. And sometimes, when men came for their portraits, Helene would send Alice to the park alone…

“We made do,” Alice says. “Then Piers walked into our life — all the Piers did.”

“So they really are all called Piers, then?” Gunny asks.

“Oh, they’re not called Piers,” Alice says. “That would be far too confusing. They’re just all named Piers.”

“Because that’s less confusing?”

“It is when they all go by their middle names instead.”

Gunny nods. “Fair point.” Then she spends a moment just looking at Alice before speaking again. “Listen, do you think you could help me out? I’d like to refill our water, but working with the pipes is really a two person job."

Alice only takes an instant to consider it. “Yeah, alright,” she says, and helps Gunny to prepare them for the next leg of their journey.