Twig fidgeted. Boats were boring.

It had been exciting at first, settling into his designated seat in the narrow craft without upsetting it. The thing wobbled! Under his own weight! Twig had never been heavy enough to move something this big before. It was quite the experience. The two orcs sharing the boat (canoe?) with him were helpful, holding his arm at first and then physically picking him up to set him where he should be. Much simpler that way.

The orcs got in, talked loudly with people on the other boats, and the whole convoy shoved off. Twig had expected one orc to need to stand and push the boat, then leap in, but they turned out to be strong enough to just push the paddles against the ground and scrape out to sea. Surely that wasn’t good for the bottom of the boat. But this one was armored with leviathan bones and leather; maybe that could handle this sort of thing.

The orcs were singing again. A nice song, with a melody that bobbed like the boat over the little waves, but it went on forever. If Twig had known the words, he could have sun along, but nope. All he could do was sit there and listen, watching the other boats stay in mostly the same arrangement while the coast slowly eased by.

He twisted in his seat to look back the way they had come, but he couldn’t see past the gigantic orc who was paddling first on one side, then the other. The paddle passed over Twig’s head in a well-practiced arc, sending a spray of droplets past him onto a waterproof bundle of supplies.

Twig appreciated not getting water on his head. Or down his neck. That would be unpleasant.

He faced forward and tried to think of something to hold his interest. He kept worrying about the reception his kinfolk would get when they returned with all that pixie dust, only to find the buyers gone to sea. The harpies he’d spoken to hadn’t filled him with confidence.

I hope the swarm is faster this time, Twig thought. They’ll arrive soon, and catch up to us, and everything will be fine. The orcs can do business on one of the bigger boats, maybe give everybody some complimentary snacks after the long flight, then I can say goodbye again. Maybe some will want to come along for the trip!

They probably wouldn’t, since the boats were getting further and further from home, but Twig could hope.

So he did that, spending a few minutes imagining the best possible outcome for the near future. Then when he’d finished building the scene in his mind, he wondered if the swarm was visible yet.

So he stood up to look.

The paddle caught him in the side of the head — painful and disorienting and SPLASH. Suddenly he was deep in cold water and flailing for the surface. He couldn’t tell which way was up.

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Enormous hands grabbed him under the arms and hauled him sputtering into the air. That air felt almost colder than the water — the wind! So cold! — but he could breathe again. The orc set him down in his seat, where he sat dripping and shivering, while every orc in earshot laughed heartily.

“Are you okay, little cousin?” asked the one behind him, tugging a blanket free. “Take off the shirt; you’ll warm up faster. Is your head dented?”

“I’m okay,” Twig said through chattering teeth. “Just cold.”

“I bet,” the orc chuckled. “Sorry about that. Here, let’s get you sorted.”

In moments, Twig was shirtless and wrapped several times over in a blanket that kept out the wind. It was pretty warm, even with the wet pants. He was already shivering less. His head hurt, but not too much.

A larger boat pulled in close, and Ouula’s voice spoke up.

“Thagaroulihumihuni,” she said, “Has one of our guests tested the current already?”

“He stood up!” the orc protested. “Right in the way of my arc!” Water dripping near Twig said the orc was pantomiming what had happened. Twig stayed hunkered down in the blanket.

“Really,” Ouula said. It sounded like she was looking at Twig when she asked, “What’d you do that for?”

“Wanted to see better,” Twig muttered.

Predictably, Ouula laughed. “Got a great view of the water, didn’t you? Well normally I’d say that’s a paddling due, but it looks like Thag took care of it for me.”

Thag saluted with a paddle, and this time it did drip on Twig’s head. “Happy to anticipate your whim, Captain!”

“Try to keep him in the boat next time,” Ouula suggested.

Thag agreed, and the larger boat drifted away. Only to be replaced immediately with a different one, and more cheerful orcs.

“What happened, Grog? Rocking the boat again?”

“Look at Thag, not me! He whacked him with a paddle!”

“He stood up in front of me!”

“What’d you do that for?”

Twig grumbled and didn’t bother with a proper answer this time. It didn’t slow the conversation in the slightest.

“Gotta make sure you stay where you can breathe, little cousin. Even a fish has enough sense to stay out of the air.”

“Except that one I told you about.”

“You were drunk.”

“I was not! Not enough to start seeing things, anyway.”

“So drunk. Fish don’t fly.”

“This one did!”

The two orcs argued back and forth, going into detail about something that had happened years ago, until Razorscale’s voice broke in.

“Flying fish live in the tropics,” the dragon said with such irritation that Twig lifted his head from the blanket cocoon to look. The other boat was too high to see over the side, but Razorscale was there somewhere, and clearly done with the argument. “They are small silver fish with large fins that they use to glide short distances above the surface. They do it to escape predators underwater. It’s not true flying, but it looks like it at a glance. Real thing; conversation over; consider yourselves educated.”

There was a silent moment, then a renewed burst of conversation. The orcs were delighted by this knowledge. Twig himself would have found it very interesting, if his natural enthusiasm hadn’t been dampened in the most literal sense.

He tried to cheer himself with thoughts of arriving wherever they were going (he’d missed that part) and getting fully dry. Maybe the small dragon could dry his clothes with fire. That seemed quick.

Speaking of quick, the swarm is likely to catch up before these boats land, and then Razorscale will apologize for rushing us off like that. So there.

Surely that was what would happen. He entertained himself with his thoughts while the boats paddled on, and the orcs sang heartily about punching sharks.