“I’m bored,” Indi proclaimed maybe half an hour later. “What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told?”

Amanda thought for a moment. “Hmm. ‘It’ll be okay.’”

Indi frowned as she thought about that. “That’s darker than I was expecting.”

Amanda gave her an apologetic smile.

“Is it still a lie if you thought it would be okay at the time?” Indi asked.

Amanda’s smile widened but Indi noticed her eyes looked sad. The wrinkles at her eyes remained uncrinkled. “It is if I didn’t, hence the lie.”

“Oh.” Indi bit her lip.

“What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told?” Amanda asked.

Indi leaned her head back in thought. After a couple of seconds she sat up straight again. “Nothing that quite compares to your one.”

Amanda smiled softly, more genuinely this time, and rested her chin on top of her good knee. Her eyes seemed to dance in the light of the fire, almost as if they were on fire themselves. Her stomach growled indicating it was probably around dinner time.

Amanda was happy to sit and rest her eyes. She listened as Indi got to her feet and paced up and down the beach a few times. Then it went quiet and stayed that way for a little too long. Amanda opened her eyes wondering what Indi was up to now.

She was standing at the edge of the water with her shoes off and seemed to be pondering wading out further.

“I wouldn’t,” Amanda warned. “It probably drops off quite sharply. You don’t want to spend the night wet.”

Indi shrugged, “It’s not that cold though.” Still, she stayed where she was, peering out into the water as if trying to see where the bottom was. Most vampires had pretty good night vision. Indi, however, took after her witch father, in day or night she was as blind as a bat without echolocation. She took off her glasses as if it might help but as expected it just made things worse. It was impossible to tell how deep the water was just by looking at it. She considered a swim but Amanda was right, while it was warm now it probably wouldn’t be once she was soaked and getting dry would be difficult. She was only just starting to dry off after her last brief dip at the edge. Plus that dragon was down there somewhere. She returned to the beach and sat back down next to Amanda.

“Ask me a question,” Indi said after about 5 seconds of silence.

“What?”

“Ask me a question, anything.”

“Mmm.” Amanda considered it. She tilted her head to one side.

Indi watched her expectantly.

“I don’t know... why did you study programming?”

“Because I’m good at it,” Indi replied so fast it was like she was answering questions on a quiz show. “Dad was a genius, what else was I going to do? Why did you not study programming?”

Amanda laughed. “Because I ran off to sea and fell in love with a pirate. Well, smuggler, but pirate sounds fancier.” She bit her lip and gave a grin.

“I bet real pirates wouldn’t be quite as nice,” Indi pondered.

Amanda shrugged. “They’re not all bad, I’ve met a few, some are quite nice.” She tilted her head to the side again in thought, “and others not so much.” She finished that thought with a slight shudder.

“Even though they steal people’s stuff?” Indi asked, “I thought pirates were quite brutal.”

“Oh some are,” Amanda agreed, “but for others it’s just their way of life, survival of the fittest. They don’t hurt anyone if they don’t have to, they only take what they need, sometimes they even help. They’re just anarchists of the sea.”

“I’m rather fond of society,” Indi replied in a contemplative tone.

Amanda smiled. “I will admit, those sorts of pirates are not the majority though.”

“You made it sound like they were,” Indi teased.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Amanda grinned. “I might be a little biased.”

Indi laughed then asked, “Sirius doesn’t steal stuff though does he?”

Amanda hesitated then replied, “Not directly.”

“But he ships it?” Indi pushed a little further.

Amanda nodded. “He has a ‘no questions asked’ policy, well almost, he has some limits, mostly around living things as well as a couple of specific items.”

“What sort of specific items?”

“Certain magical items. We got accidentally landed with a cursed object once, it wasn’t fun. That and things with difficult storage requirements. Plus hazardous chemicals, blood,” Amanda gave a quick sideways glance at Indi, “body parts, well that one depends on who’s shipping it. There’s a list, it’s kind of been built up over the years for various specific reasons.”

“He doesn’t ship blood?”

Amanda shook her head. “It kind of goes with the no body parts rule, but also it’s political.”

Indi frowned.

Seeing she was confused Amanda elaborated. “Certain groups aren’t so fond of blood-shippers, they like to go after known smugglers of it and sink their ships.”

“Because they don’t like vampires,” Indi finished, eyes downcast.

Amanda gave a nod, then a shrug, and added, “some also just want to sell it on the black market. Then there’s also the vampirates.”

“How do they know?”

“Hmm?”

“How do they know which ships are carrying it.”

“People of the sea get to know who carries what when you cross enough times, and what your ship, or ships, look like. People gossip. Some goods just aren’t worth shipping. Some waters it’s illegal too, or very highly taxed.”

“Little Rock has a good blood supply though right? Sly never seems to have much trouble,” Indi observed, with reference to her older brother, who unlike Indi didn’t abstain from the more intelligent sources of blood.

Amanda tilted her head to the side in a yes no kind of way. “Most of the time. Sometimes there’s shortages, we’re certainly better than some other places.”

“Even though people don’t really seem to like vampires in Little Rock?”

Amanda grimaced, “I’d say it’s more a vocal minority here. You’re comparing the town to Marblewood though, and Marblewood is a touch more sophisticated. As long as they’ve got their comforts they don’t really care about the rest of the world.”

“You’re saying they’re nicer because they don’t care?” Indi asked, a little offended given she’d grown up there.

“Well, more polite, it’s typical rich person behaviour,” Amanda shrugged.

“I don’t think ...” Indi started to say something with indignation.

Amanda raised an eyebrow.

Indi closed her mouth again, realising that the conversation was starting to get political and a little too personal and that maybe at the bottom of a hole in a cave wasn’t the best place to have these kinds of discussions.

Seeing Indi’s frown Amanda conceded a little. “I don’t mean to lump you in that group, it’s just, you know, Marblewood is kind of a town of recluses.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that though,” Indi replied still frowning.

“I just mean they don’t really leave their bubble. Don’t interact or help out the rest of the world when they have the means too. You left though, you came to Little Rock.”

“I thought most of our blood supply came from donations in Marblewood?”

Amanda shrugged and hesitantly nodded. “A portion of it, it’s hardly...”

Indi interrupted. “Then they’re helping right? And anyway people should be allowed to just enjoy their lives if they want to, as long as they’re not doing any harm.”

“Well...” Amanda started to disagree but this time she was the one who stopped herself. “Maybe we should talk about something else?”

Indi nodded, although she was still frowning. She sat quieter for longer than she had since they’d been in the cave until eventually Amanda suggested another game of something.

Inspired by the piles of different coloured pebbles beneath them Indi suggested a few makeshift games of Go. They played until Indi’s focus shifted away from the earlier conversation.

Amanda lost five games in a row, having never played before. Eventually she leaned back against the wall. “Okay that’s enough losing for one day, I might try and get some sleep.”

Indi leaned back against the wall as well, a sad look returning to her face. “I’m still hungry, I wish the cheese had fallen down with me.”

Amanda rifled though her pack and fished out two muesli bars. She handed one to Indi. “You have that one, we’ll split the other for breakfast.”

“That’s all you have?” Indi asked, violet eyes wide with worry behind her glasses.

Amanda nodded. “It’s fine, Cat and Kass will probably get back tomorrow sometime then they can chuck us down some food before hauling us out.”

In reality it could possibly be another night but Amanda didn’t want to worry Indi too much. She knew honesty was better but she figured she’d take the risk. There actually was a good chance they would be back tomorrow, enough that it was worth betting on.

"Shouldn't we save them?"

Amanda shook her head. "General rule of survival is to eat and drink when you're hungry. To many people have died of dehydration in the desert with water still left in their drink bottles, just because they were trying to conserve it for as long as they could."

Indi eyed to water near them. She was glad they had that at least.

Amanda noticed where she was looking. "We'll be fine. The body can go a good week without food. It's blood sugar crashes I'm more worried about, especially given what you normally eat."

Indi took the muesli bar, unwrapped it, then hesitated with it half way to her mouth. “You don’t want half of this one?”

Amanda shook her head. “I’m fine.” She watched Indi nibble away at the muesli bar as if wanting to make it last as long as possible. “So, what would you have done if you hadn’t studied programming?” Amanda asked returning to their earlier conversation.

Indi paused between bites. “I don’t know, maybe be a chef.” An ironic smile flashed across her face. “What about you?”

“Probably the same thing I do now, just with a different guy. Or maybe I’d have met Sirius eventually anyway. It’s hard to see things having gone any other way than the way they have done.”

Indi nodded. She glanced down at the last bite of muesli bar. She turned and held it out to Amanda but Amanda declined her offer once again.

They sat in silence for awhile, and tried to get some sleep.